A single tear welled up in Rikushi's right eye.
It slid down his cheek--glowing orange and red--then evaporated before it could fall.
Hot versus Cold.
Bright Light against Cold Shadows.
Rikushi versus Blaidd.
They moved--no... detonated--into each other.
Blaidd snapped his fingers, and ice erupted around Rikushi's legs.
But the heat Rikushi unleashed flared in an instant, cracking, melting, and evaporating the frost with explosive force.
These were no longer warriors.
They had become the very forces of nature they wielded.
Not gods. But Creators, of the very element they possessed.
Blaidd lunged with his prismatic frost blade--Rikushi countered with a wide arc from Sunbearer. The clash bent light and sound around them.
But Blaidd's blade sizzled, melting at the edge as the heat overwhelmed its structure. He stepped back, brows furrowed.
"I need more power," he muttered.
He closed his eyes.
Inside his mind--within that black, sacred space--the woman in heels stood in the shadows of the light once more.
"But it'll consume you," she said gently.
"I don't care anymore," Blaidd growled as he clenched his fists. "I can't lose this battle. I NEED to win."
Her footsteps echoed softly as she approached from behind, then slowly wrapped her arms around his chest.
"All you had to do," she whispered, "was call out my name. I've always been your source of power."
Blaidd's eyes widen as his hands loosen up, letting out a soft yet shocked "...Mysha."
The world around Blaidd imploded.
A freezing tornado howled into existence, spiraling around him like a cocoon made of wind and shards of time.
2,000 years of training--of pain, sacrifice, and loss--poured into his body like a flood returning to its riverbed.
His eyes opened again--this time, prismatic.
His crown glowed like a dying star frozen mid-death.
His ice wings shifted into iridescent blades of refracted crystal and cold, pulsing with infinite light.
"I am King Frostwalker," he roared, his voice layered like thunder cracking across frozen lakes and ice glaciers.
"The last of the Frostwalker bloodline. The original creators of Ice Magic."
Across from him, Rikushi smiled.
His pendant pulsed, and the rune flared--so bright it was like watching a second sun being born.
Flames circled Rikushi's body and merged into his skin. His wings burst alight, covered in streams of molten gold and ember. The heat shimmered and danced in every direction.
His sword shifted again--no longer merely flame, but prismatic fire, refracting every spectrum of heat and power.
Rikushi's eyes opened--now prismatic like Blaidd's. Two radiant stars locked in mortal opposition.
"You seem cold... Let me help you, and warm you up." Rikushi said calmly.
"Heat cannot exist without Cold," Blaidd replied.
"Heat is only the absence of Cold. So let me fix you... and take away your warmth--with my frost."
The arena trembled.
They both launched forward.
The clash of the Creators had begun.
Blaidd's ice trailed behind him, freezing the sand and turning it blackened and dead.
Rikushi's heat scorched the earth, melting the sand into glass.
As they charged, they both began to chant--voices low, rhythmic, holy.
Blaidd:
"As the final call, I command you, Bifrost--consume the last of my foe's heat.
Encase them in ice for eternity."
Rikushi:
"Since the start of creation, you have yearned for the universe to feel your power.
So revert this foe back to nothingness, my Radiance."
Their blades met.
But this time, they didn't clash.
They broke reality.
A crack shot through the air, visible like a shatter in glass with colors inverting.
Sound vanished, yells silenced, reality broke.
And then-
A brilliant explosion of heat and cold, of light and shadow, ruptured the sky above the arena.
In a single frame, the battlefield was still.
Two figures stood in the sandy-smoke.
Their weapons all dull and colorless.
Their auras dispersed and powers spent.
Two titans, two creators--reduced to mere souls, neither victorious... neither defeated.
Just spent.
As the winds blew across scorched glass and frozen shadow, the crowd was dead quiet.
Rikushi and Blaidd looked at each other, both covered in blood, tattered clothing, steam and frost alike escaping from the surface of their skin.
Their comrades across the arena, no where in reach to assist.
Rikushi gripped onto the skeleton of Sunbearer, as all that was left was a vessel that once held the heat of a sun, but now it was reduced to nothing but an old Relic. The power was completely used up and it resorted back into what it was before being 'awoken'.
Blaidd's greatsword, which had melted into dented steel, like the time whilst frozen had destroyed it, hung in his hand like it would break if it dropped.
The gods watching from above smiled as they find their old counterparts, old gods reforged anew.
In the NTG Lounge, everyone looks at the television screen in disbelief, like they just witnessed the 'Big Bang' recreation. Hoshina looked at the screen with her hand over her mouth as tears started to fall from her crimson eyes.
Rikushi took one small step forward but instantly fell to one knee, dropping the Sunbearer to the ground.
Blaidd, seeing an opening, attempted to slide his right foot forward but collapsed from the weight of his own body, dropping his weapon which broke in half upon impact with the ground.
The announcer, noticing their powerless bodies, starts to announce Blaidd and Rikushi's end.
Blaidd and Rikushi, both bloodied and spent, looked into each other's eyes, mere feet from each other as the announcer goes on.
"And with that, it looks like Rikushi and Blaidd are finis-"
"NOT YET!" The two yell in unison, using the last of their energy to shout.
They both grunt and clench their jaws and fists as they both rise up, with their bones cracking and limbs trembling.
Rikushi growls, "I can still..."
"... fight" Blaidd finishes.
They both slowly move one foot after the other, getting closer and closer to each other with each step.
Team FLAMMA rises from their seats in their lounge, with Brant already outside at the side of the arena, leaning over the guardrails in anticipation. But it seems he wasn't alone, nearly every participant from the Arena Games were against the guard rails, like it was the last line of defense from a flood of beings pouring onto the Arena.
Their comrades, spent from the fights, watched from afar, portraying a temporary truce so they can witness the winner in the most intense brawl of the century... no... millennium.
Valentine and Glonk, both tired from the fight from their wounds and spent stamina, widen their eyes as they run forward with everything they got, going past their limit.
"WATCH OUT!!!" Glonk and Valentine yell together.
"BEHIND YOU!!"
Rikushi and Blaidd, whom finally reached each other, bump their heads against each other, which both full back their fists to lunge, but before they could, a large shadow appears above them.
"There you are."
A hand swipes across their sides, throwing them far backwards.
As they hit the ground, they roll, dirtying their clothes with sand mixed with blood.
Loud footsteps are heard closing in as Rikushi opens one eye, a large being was walking towards him.
Blaidd, laying near Rikushi with one eye open gasps out, "The... Pillar-Bearer-"
The large being interrupts Blaidd "Tavrokh", it's the last name you'll hear before I kill you.
Brant grips the guardrail and attempts to jump down into the Arena but Solira stops him, holding onto him from behind and yelling for him to not. "Don't go! You'll die out there Branty!"
"I have to go!" Brant yells back. "Or else they'll die!"
Brant shakes her free and jumps down onto the Arena, running towards them.
Tavrokh drops his gigantic body to one knee, creating a small crater around his knee, as he picks up Rikushi by his hair, and dragging him up.
Tavrokh then throws Rikushi across the sand, which then he grabs his large blade on his back, it was a giant greatsword, with a blade bigger than Rikushi.
Tavrokh slams it forward but right before impact, Brant in his Pyrelux form is trembling with his sword in hand, as he holds his sword against the blade of Tavrokh.
"Move." Tavrokh says as he pushes harder against Brant.
Brant, calls out "I will protect you, with my life" as Rikushi's name is molded into Brant's black blade, which gives Brant a small sliver of strength, but it was just enough to push back Tavrokh for a small moment.
Tavrokh, disgusted by the mortal in front of him, shuns Brant in front of the Arena. "You are punished for 1000 years, for daring to go against a Creator. Now move, before I kill you."
Brant yells out "Make me!"
Tavrokh quickly jabs forward, which Brant barely parried in time.
Rikushi, laying on the ground with broken ribs and a breath that barely escapes his body as he starts to succumb to his injuries.
Brant, who stands with determination despite the difference in power, stands by Rikushi's side, making sure Tavrokh doesn't reach him.
Tavrokh, who is enraged out the current outcome, leaps into the air and drives his greatsword down, driving it right into Brant, but Brant realizes that if he moves, Rikushi will get hit instead, so Brant stands his ground, and puts up his sword to block and accepts his demise as he knows he won't be able to block Tavrokh's strike.
Tavrokh lands, creating a large smoke cloud as wind is thrown around.