The silence after the clone's scream wasn't just silence. It was wrong.
No one moved. Even the binary flames burning in the Corps commander's hands sputtered low, as if hesitant to continue existing.
Kaosu's jaw hung open, threads of red energy twitching uselessly off his fingers.
"That's… impossible," he whispered. His voice cracked raw, stripped of arrogance. "You can't just—You can't interact with chaos better yet—you can't delete it."
He was muttering to no one and everyone at once. His own disbelief was the only shield between him and what he had just witnessed.
"These clones… they are pure chaotic energy," his voice wavered, uncertain. He swallowed hard, his thoughts dragging out the name he never spoke without strength behind it.
"Like my father…"
He took another step back, head shaking. "That clone… that wasn't a trick or a shadow. It was pure chaotic energy. Something only my old man himself can radiate. The son of Karma… undone in one touch."
For the first time in his life, Kaosu's grin vanished. His chest froze, his stomach dropped. For the first time, Kaosu felt an emotion he didn't even recognize.
It was… fear.
He leapt backward, boots skidding, moving to Yamiya's side. His chaotic aura actually dimmed as if retreating. Nyxus raised an eyebrow mid-snack.
He staggered back, feet slipping against the fractured stone. His bravado broke entirely as he leapt toward the rear lines, retreating toward Yamiya and Nyxus. "Aoikishi!" he shouted, panic blistering his voice like a disease. "Where the hell is Aoikishi?!"
Yamiya didn't answer, her stylus frozen above her notebook. Nyxus didn't chew. Both simply watched in still horror.
Raiyo followed Kaosu a breath slower, blade still at his side but his face pale. His grinding teeth gave him away; he hated retreat, despised it. But he had no choice.
Across the rubble, the pale man finally spoke fully for the first time.
The words dragged out of a throat that sounded half-broken, his raspy tone flaking like sandpaper on rust.
"Don't worry," Veydras rasped, his voice flat, inevitable. "I'll make this quick."
The world blurred.
Before anyone could blink, he was gone — not blurred, not teleported. Phased. Appearing instantly before Nyxus, hand outstretched, five pale fingers reaching for his forehead.
Nyxus blinked twice, halfway through lifting another bun. "...I don't like where this is going."
The hand was just inches from erasing him when
Clang.
A rod of polished steel pinned Veydras' wrist mid-air. it cracked like salvation through the courtyard. The rod was straight, impossibly steady, unmoving even as Veydras' glitching fingers twitched.
"Aoikishi"! Yamiya whispered. Relief broke in her voice like glass.
"You're strong," Aoikishi said, pushing lightly against Veydras' impossibly dangerous wrist like it was an ordinary nuisance. "But strength is raw noise until it's refined. I can hone your skill further. I can make your danger precise."
The ACT squad turned as one, disbelief and relief shaking together in their expressions.
Aoikishi's eyes glimmered faintly as he leaned closer, tone arced like an invitation. "Join us. Don't waste what you are. Let me guide you."
For a moment, Veydras didn't move. His pale face twitched—then broke slowly into something like a smirk.
His raspy voice answered, aggressively, more venom than air. "Do you really think you can fix me?"
He leaned closer into Aoikishi's rod, eyes glassy with the kind of hopeless fury no rhetoric could mend. "Some things are better left broken. And I… I am proof."
Without hesitation, his hand slid forward, reaching directly for Aoikishi's head.
"No!" Yamiya gasped.
Kaosu's body jolted, panic overtaking fire. But nobody could move fast enough.
The fingers landed. Pinky first. Then thumb. Then the rest. Palm pressing flat against Aoikishi's
skull. The sound it made—static chewing into silence—burned into every ACT member's ears.
Yamiya's face went white. Her stylus clattered noisily to the stone. "No…" she whispered.
Raiyo's chest heaved, the memory of his broken sword twisting agony into his voice. "Don't—"
Kaosu staggered back another step, fists shaking as his breath tore out jagged. For the first time since being born of chaos, his arrogance was gone entirely. His voice cracked uneven.
"A-Aoikishi…"
Nyxus, for once, dropped his half-eaten bun, the crumbs scattering at his feet. "Shit…"
Raiyo's jaw clenched. He wanted to move, but something about the contact… that hand was
final.
Team ACT froze. All their rivalry, all their banter, shattered. They stared helplessly at the man who had led them, protected them, taught them stability. At the one they all, secretly and stubbornly, loved.
Veydras' eyes dropped, expression twisted. It wasn't joy. Not even malice. It was sadness, hollow and bitter, as though even he didn't want this.
They all thought the same thought at once.
He's gone…
Then something impossible happened…
Aoikishi lifted his head.
No wounds. No glitch fractures. Just calm blue eyes staring unbroken into Veydras'. In fact he smiled.
"Hmm," Aoikishi said casually. "You've got good grip strength. But you didn't notice, did you?"
Veydras froze, hand still pressed flat. For the first time, his rasp faltered.
Aoikishi reached up, calmly peeled Veydras' palm off his head, and dropped the rod back into place like he hadn't been touched at all.
Turning to Team ACT, his tone sharpened so every word cut the silence.
"Listen up. His hands destabilize whatever they connect to. First whatever he touches loses sync with existence, looses sync from existence then finally it's erased from the system itself."
The team shivered. Kaosu clenched his jaw. Yamiya nearly dropped her stylus.
"But his mastery isn't perfect. That's why I'm breathing," Aoikishi said firmly. His faint smile returned. "He brushed all of you earlier. And you're still standing. Why?"
Yamiya stiffened. "…The base."
"You wonder why our HQ was built glitched, unstable, unbearable to live in." His lips curled faintly into something like a smile. "I built it that way… so you would learn to stabilize yourselves. Without even realizing it, every day you've trained. Every stumble, every endless corridor, every floor repeating out of sync — was me forging your stability."
Nyxus raised a finger mid-crunch. "…So you're telling me all the times I got lost in that infinite bathroom loop… was training?"
Aoikishi smirked faintly. "Exactly."
"Still would've killed me without a snack," Nyxus muttered.
Kaosu's eyes widened, his grip trembling. "So you're saying… I've already touched this guy's death-hands… and I'm still alive?"
Aoikishi nodded. "Correct. But don't underestimate him. You lived because of instability training. Without that… one touch could spell the true end."
Veydras stood silent during all of this, unreadable expression hovering between sadness and irritation.
Kaosu froze, realization dawning. "…So when he brushed me…"
"…You survived," Aoikishi said firmly, pulling himself onto both legs again, rod snapping back into his grip. "Not by luck. By conditioning."
"You can fight him without being erased. But only if you remain stable. Lose yourself, even for a second… and you'll be gone." The plaza was cracked beyond repair, chunks of fractured stone phasing out of sight like rejected memories. Veydras stood still, palms shaking faintly, his breath shallow.
Veydras smirked, though it came out more as a grimace. His rasp caught in his throat. "You see it, don't you?" Even my own existence tries to reject me."
The stone beneath his heel fizzled, pixelating into static, before collapsing to nothing. He staggered, catching himself with jagged breath.
Kaosu grit his teeth, aura flaring again. "Then I'll finish you here"
Raiyo angled his blade across Kaosu's chest, blocking him. His voice was low, sharp. "Look closer. He's not fighting us anymore. He's fighting reality itself."
All of ACT stood frozen in tension except Yamiya, who whispered under her breath, voice raw:
"…I know that look."
Nyxus, still idly chewing, raised an eyebrow. "What look?"
Her eyes sharpened, reflecting the pale figure swaying ahead of them. "Like reality… doesn't want you here. Like your every breath is a negotiation with existence. Like you've already been deleted… but something glitched and left you behind."
Her tone shook, but not with fear. More with recognition. "He's like me." "It's like you are lost brother I never new about.
The others turned, startled, but Yamiya didn't flinch. For the first time since her dimension's collapse, she saw herself in someone else — a survivor who shouldn't be.
Veydras's flickering eyes met hers for the briefest instant. No smirk. No threat. Just a silence strung between them. Veydras simply said one phrase, for that one phrase was more descriptive than thousands of words. "We are Axiom voids," Veydra whispered.
He raised his hands slowly as cracks deepened beneath him. "Aokishi, make no mistake broken things don't heal. They spread. And next time you see me, you'll know exactly what I mean."
The void beneath him widened. And like sand collapsing into water, he phased through the absence, flickering out piece by piece until nothing remained but fractured stone.
Kaosu exhaled, jaw clenching. "The hell was that? I'm not—I'm not supposed to fear anyone."
Raiyo inspected his fractured hilt, grim. "No… he'll return. Stronger."
Nyxus bent, pulling a charred roll from rubble, brushing rock dust off. He took a bite, crumbs falling down his hoodie. "…Guess he's our recurring nightmare."
But Yamiya didn't respond. Her eyes remained fixed on the hole where Veydras had vanished, her grip tight on her notebook. Because for once… she wasn't sure if they had faced an enemy. Or just another her.