Rain hammered against the ruins, rivers of ash and blood carving trenches through the broken stone. Lightning split the sky again and again, each flash catching us mid-strike — my blade blazing with Starlight, his drenched in writhing Umbrális.
Steel screamed against steel. Sparks burst, swallowed by rain before they could fall.
He moved with terrifying precision, his blade cloaked in shadows that seemed alive, striking from angles that defied sense. Pure Sword Technique: Phantom Step. In an instant, he vanished from my sight — only for the edge of his sword to appear at my throat.
I caught it just in time, Starlight blazing. Radiant God Style: Luminous Veil! My blade deflected the cut, the clash detonating a shockwave that hurled water into the air like a wall.
We traded strikes in a blur. Leaf Splitter. Butterfly Slash. Rising Moon. Sparks filled the storm like fireflies, each clash echoing like thunder. His shadow split into two, three, four blades — Umbrális Veil Slash — each strike forcing me back step by step.
I roared, driving him off with a blazing arc. Inferno God Style: Crescent Fang! My blade carved fire through the rain, light splitting the storm itself.
But his darkness swallowed it whole.
"Where are my parents?!" I screamed, my voice tearing through the thunder. Every ounce of rage, grief, and desperation cracked the sky alongside it. My blade came down like judgment, shaking the battlefield.
He smirked. And with a single snap, the storm twisted.
Three bodies fell at my feet.
"Kaori…" Her name left me broken. My eyes dragged to the other two, my chest seizing."Mother… Father…"
Their skin clung to their bones, hollow eyes gazing lifelessly upward, lips unmoving. Alive — but only just.
My sword wavered. The storm swallowed my strength."What… what do you want from me?"
He pressed his blade against mine, Umbális hissing, shadows spilling across the earth. His voice was calm, but beneath it burned madness.
"You command Starlight. You can turn back time itself. You don't just save people, Hoshikawa - you undo fate." His weight crushed me to my knees, his shadows choking out the light.
Lightning shattered the heavens, and once more our blades collided — Starlight against Umbális, brilliance against abyss.
Lightning split the sky above us, illuminating his eyes - eyes that burned with a single, merciless desire.
"I ask for nothing more than this," he whispered, his lips curling into something between a plea and a curse. "Rewind time. Bring back my daughter."
The storm itself screamed around us.The world trembled.
The words tore through me, deeper than steel, deeper than pain. Behind me — my family, broken, dying. Before me — the abyss of his madness, dragging me into his grief.
The storm fell away. For a heartbeat, I was somewhere else.
A rooftop, the night sky alive with stars. Kaori's silent shadow, bending over me, watching me study. My mother's voice as she becomes me to come for lunch from afar. My father's steady hand rested on my shoulder. The stars had seemed eternal then — each one burning with promise, each one whispering of futures untouched.
"If I could grasp even one star," I'd once said, hand raised to the heavens, "I'd make sure it never fades. No matter what."
How naïve.
Because now I knew. Stars burn out. Promises crumble. Futures die.
This wasn't a duel.
It was a chain.
A demand.
A curse etched into the storm itself.
That night, in the rain, everything began to collapse.
The clash of blades.
The scream for family.
The demand that would tear my world apart.
And so it began — with lightning, with steel, with despair.