The sky above Neo-Tokyo-3 split into a lattice of impossible colors. Every hue hummed with a frequency that only gods could hear. Between those trembling seams, two silhouettes faced each other—one wrapped in quiet shadow, the other haloed by the pale flame of transcendence.
Kyuroto Mitsuyo stood unmoving, black coat brushing against the rippling air. In his right hand, the Kage-no-Tsurugi—the Shadow Blade—whispered. Its edge refracted probability itself, bending threads of possibility around him like orbiting satellites.
Across the fragmented plaza, Mathro Liyuri raised his dagger, a short weapon of mirrored steel that bled light instead of reflection. With that single gesture, Authority : Transcend unfurled. Concepts of distance, space, and consequence ceased to exist within its radius.
> "You've hidden long enough, Whisper of Infinity," Mathro said. His voice overlapped in infinite harmonics, each tone speaking to a different reality.
"Hiding is an illusion," Kyuroto replied softly. "I simply waited until the universe could bear our presence."
A silence thicker than time followed. Then they moved.
The first clash didn't produce sound. It erased it.
The katana cut forward, tracing a curve through ten-dimensional strata; the dagger rose to intercept, splitting through definitions of "before" and "after." When edge met edge, the concept of impact inverted—universes folded into infinitesimal points, then blossomed outward as newborn spirals of light.
Mathro slid back a step. Kyuroto's blade hummed, threads spiraling from the tip like luminous silk. Every strand carried a worldline, each flicker a possible victory already calculated.
> "Your threads cannot bind what transcends," Mathro intoned, driving his dagger downward.
"Then I'll weave transcendence itself," Kyuroto answered.
He drew a second cut—so fast that causality lagged behind. The ground became a mirror of shattered moments; buildings reversed collapse, then disintegrated again as if unable to decide their fate. Their speeds outstripped comprehension: beyond measurable, beyond hyperdimensional, existing only as the memory of motion.
For an instant, Kyuroto's blade touched Mathro's chest. Reality screamed.
Then both were gone—appearing thousands of planes higher, where form had no meaning.
They exchanged another thousand unseen strikes. Each parry rewrote physics; each dodge defined new laws of resistance. Mathro's Authority : Transcend radiated like a star consuming its own light. Kyuroto's Threads of Infinity coiled tighter, converting every lost advantage into potential.
At last they halted, facing one another amid the drifting debris of collapsed cosmologies. Neither bore a wound.
> "You calculate everything," Mathro said, voice almost admiring.
"Only to understand what can't be calculated," Kyuroto replied.
Their eyes locked—two infinities staring into their reflections.
The wind of re-emerging time swept through the ruins. Both weapons lowered by a fraction, an acknowledgment that the real battle had not yet begun.
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