The Rift screamed.
Not with sound, but with pressure — a tearing force that rattled glass, bent steel, and shook the marrow in Ethan's bones. It gaped above the city like a wound carved into the sky, bleeding crimson light across the earth. The titans clawed from within, shadows twisting, their limbs battering against the veil of reality.
Ethan knelt in the wreckage, fire sputtering along his arms. The Stone seared against his chest, its hunger clawing deeper. His breaths came ragged, every exhale scattering sparks.
Half the Rift was closed. Half still bled.
And every second it remained open, more shadows slipped through.
The cloaked figure crouched beside him, shard blazing like a shard of starfire. "You can still finish this," they said, their voice layered with urgency and warning. "But you must choose now. Vessel—or flame."
Ethan's vision swam. The choice rang hollow. Either way, he was nothing but fuel.
He dragged his gaze upward. Soldiers and cultists alike lay scattered across the streets below, broken or burning. Helicopters wheeled in the sky, their searchlights useless against the wound that dwarfed them. The titanic beast that had slipped through roared, its cry toppling buildings like toys.
The world was ending.
And still the whispers came.
Let go. Give in. You cannot resist. You are too small.
The Stone's voice slipped beneath them, softer, coaxing: Become mine. Live forever. Burn them all.
Ethan's fire trembled, black at the edges. His skin blistered, his veins glowing crimson. He could feel himself unraveling.
He pressed a hand against his chest, teeth gritted. "If I close it, I die. If I give in, the world dies. What kind of choice is that?"
The cloaked figure's hood tilted, faceless and implacable. "The only kind that matters."
---
The Rift convulsed.
Crimson lightning lashed outward, striking the city in molten arcs. Towers split. Bridges shattered. Firestorms ignited across the skyline. Screams carried on the wind, fading into static beneath the wound's roar.
And then—
Something vast pressed forward. Not a titan this time. Not one of the shadow's many limbs. But the villain itself.
The infinite.
Its faceless head pushed through the wound, vast as mountains, blotting the sky. Its presence crushed Ethan to the ground, fire sputtering, lungs seizing. His bones screamed under the weight of it.
When it spoke, the world shook.
"You defy me again."
Ethan spat blood, trembling. "I'll keep defying you."
The voice rumbled like thunder. "You are nothing. A boy with fire borrowed. When you burn, the fire returns to me."
The Rift widened further, crimson veins crawling across the clouds like cracks in glass. The villain's shadow poured downward, suffocating, filling streets and lungs.
The cloaked figure staggered, their shard dimming. "If it steps through fully, all is lost."
Ethan clutched the Stone, breath ragged. "Then I'll stop it."
His fire surged again, but wild, uncontrolled. The Stone burned so fiercely he thought his ribs might shatter. He screamed, flames pouring upward, striking against the villain's form.
The infinite shadow didn't even flinch.
It leaned lower, its faceless void staring into him. "Burn, child. Break. Become mine."
Chains of red light snapped into existence, coiling around Ethan's arms and legs, binding him to the ground. He gasped, his fire sputtering against them. They burned colder than ice, draining the strength from his body.
He fell forward, chained, choking.
---
The cloaked figure staggered to his side, their shard blazing. They pressed it against one of the chains. Light seared, and the chain cracked.
Ethan gasped, looking at them. "Why—why help me? You said you were what I'll become."
The figure's voice flickered, layered with pain. "Because even what you will become… remembers hope."
For a flicker of a moment, Ethan saw them not as faceless shadow, but as himself—older, hollow-eyed, consumed by fire. His future self. The one who had failed.
And still, even that broken echo knelt beside him, helping him fight.
Ethan's throat burned. "If I'm going to die, then I won't die chained."
His fire flared. With a scream, he tore against the chains, the Stone blazing white-hot. Links shattered, fragments dissolving into sparks.
The villain's voice thundered. "Defiance again. Always defiance. Futile."
The Rift split wider. Entire city blocks collapsed into fire. The titanic beast roared again, joined by others pressing against the veil.
Ethan staggered upright, flames devouring his body, his eyes glowing crimson. "If it's futile, then why are you afraid of me?"
The shadow faltered. For the first time, the infinite recoiled.
---
The Stone pulsed, no longer whispering of surrender but of rage, of fire unbound. Ethan felt its hunger roaring through him, begging to be unleashed. To burn the villain. To burn everything.
He could let it. He could end this now, in one consuming blaze.
But he remembered the figure's words: The fire is not only destruction. It can close as well as burn.
He raised both hands, fire spiraling between them, no longer wild but shaped. Not a weapon. A seal.
The villain shrieked, a sound that fractured the air.
Ethan screamed, thrusting the fire upward. It struck the Rift, searing across its edges. The wound convulsed, shrinking. The titans writhed, their claws slipping back into the void.
The villain roared, pushing harder. The Rift bent both ways, fire against shadow, seal against hunger. The city trembled with the clash.
Ethan's body burned, every vein alight, skin cracking. Blood ran down his face, boiling before it fell. His knees shook.
The Stone whispered one last time, not command but truth: To seal is to burn. To burn is to end.
He looked at the cloaked figure—his broken future—kneeling beside him, their shard dimming. He knew then what his fate was.
There was no survival. Only choice.
---
The villain's voice thundered, vast and final: "Bow, child. Become vessel. Or be ash."
Ethan lifted his head, eyes blazing red. His voice cracked, but it carried:
"I am neither."
He threw everything into the fire.
The Stone erupted, a star exploding in his chest. Flames poured upward, consuming the Rift, devouring its edges, sealing them shut. The titans shrieked, their forms dissolving. The villain roared, its faceless void twisting in rage.
The Rift convulsed, shrinking, collapsing inward. Crimson light bled away.
And in the last instant, the villain's voice echoed, not with fury but with promise:
"You will burn forever. And when you do… I will wait."
Then the Rift snapped shut.
---
Silence.
The sky was dark again. The scar gone. The titans vanished.
The city lay in ruins, fires smoldering, survivors screaming in the distance. Soldiers and cultists alike had fled or fallen silent.
At the heart of the wreckage, Ethan knelt, smoke rising from his body. The Stone lay cracked against his chest, its light fading. His fire flickered weakly, then died.
The cloaked figure knelt beside him, their shard dark. They reached out, faceless, as if to touch him.
"You chose flame," they whispered.
Ethan's lips cracked into the smallest, faintest smile. "I chose… me."
His body collapsed into ash.
The wind carried it upward.
And as the city watched, the ashes rose into the sky, scattering, coalescing into a faint red constellation where the wound had been.
A scar. A memory. A boy who had defied infinity.