The world felt wrong.
Not broken.
Not shaking.
Just… wrong.
Akira stood in the center of the shattered void-platform, motionless. The remnants of Miyuki's fading essence still lingered like drifting ash. The silence after her erasure felt heavier than any disaster he had ever faced. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed.
Even the void wind refused to touch him.
His head was lowered, his shadow stretched unnaturally behind him — long, thin, trembling like something alive.
Ryozen watched from several steps away, his eyes hard with grief and fear.
Ren, half-consumed by Oblivion, stared in eerie fascination.
And from far above, perched on the fractured edge of the domain like a spectator at the theater, Varek leaned against a broken shard of crystal, smiling faintly.
Akira didn't speak.
Didn't cry.
Didn't breathe.
The sword Yamitsurugi hung loosely in his hand, black dust drifting from its edge.
A single tear finally slid down from Akira's eye.
It fell…
hit the ground…
And the world broke.
Akira screamed.
But the scream was not human.
It was layered — Akira's voice mixed with another, deeper one… something ancient, something wounded, something enraged enough to burn through creation.
The void cracked under his feet.
Ryozen stepped forward instantly. "Akira—!"
But his voice couldn't reach him.
Because fragments — actual shadow fragments left dormant in the void — sensed the scream.
They rose.
Thin black shards drifted in the air like feathers made of dusk… then spiraled violently around Akira. Hundreds of them. Each one pulsing with its own faint consciousness, drawn to his pain like predators scenting blood.
The fragments screamed, too — whispering, begging, laughing, crying — a storm of broken voices.
Akira's breath hitched.
Then the fragments impaled into him one by one.
Not hurting him — merging.
Ryozen froze, eyes widening. "NO—!"
But it was too late.
Each fragment sank into Akira's chest, shoulders, arms, spine — vanishing beneath the skin as if being absorbed. His veins turned black instantly, spreading like liquid lightning under his flesh.
Akira dropped to his knees, hands gripping the ground as shadows roared around him.
A massive black fog erupted outward, swallowing him completely.
Ren staggered back despite his corrupted form. "T-That energy… is that—"
Varek smiled wider, whispering proudly:
> "That is the child Masahiro feared most… awakened exactly the way I wanted."
Ryozen gritted his teeth and summoned the Wheel of Samsara behind him. "You bastard… you planned this!"
Varek didn't answer. He simply watched, relaxed, arms crossed, as the fog thickened like the breath of a god rising.
The fog spiraled upward into a towering pillar, swirling with broken memories, screams, and shadows. The ground trembled under its weight.
Then—
Everything stopped.
The fog collapsed inward instantly, shrinking into a tight sphere of darkness—
—and then exploded in silence.
Akira stood in the center.
His hair drifted weightlessly, streaked with black mist.
His eyes — both of them — glowed with full obsidian rings.
His aura was colder than death, sharper than voidsteel.
And Yamitsurugi…
Its form was perfect.
Not cracked.
Not trembling.
Just pure, stable, obsidian-edge perfection.
No silver.
No light.
Only darkness sharpened into a blade.
Akira lifted his head slowly, the void trembling around him.
Ryozen whispered, horrified and awed:
"…He's not just awakened. He's ascended."
Akira finally spoke.
His voice was low, controlled, emotionless:
> "Where… is Varek?"
Varek laughed softly from the upper ledge. "Down here, kid."
Akira turned slightly — no rage in his face, but a terrifying coldness, as if every emotion had frozen into stone.
He stepped forward.
And the void bent with each footstep.
Ren instinctively moved back. Even Oblivion's fragments within him recoiled in fear.
Ryozen clenched his jaw. "Kid… control yourself. You're slipping."
Akira didn't look at him.
> "He made me kill my own mother."
A ripple of power rolled across the plane — enough to make the floating platforms tremble.
Ryozen's weapon appeared instantly. "If you let the rage take over completely, you'll become—"
Akira's gaze flickered toward him — just for a moment.
> "I know."
And for that single moment, Ryozen saw it:
Masahiro's eyes.
Masahiro's pain.
Masahiro's fury.
Masahiro's reincarnation standing in front of him, fully awakened.
But Akira didn't break.
Didn't collapse.
Didn't lose himself.
He turned back to Varek, aura gathering like a storm of knives.
> "Varek… I'm going to erase you."
The smile on Varek's lips sharpened.
He pushed off the crystal ledge and dropped lightly to the ground.
"Good," he said softly.
"I was waiting for this version of you."
He raised one finger.
The chains behind him rattled — thousands of souls screaming in agony within the void-tree.
Varek whispered:
> "Let's see if you're worth breaking."
The void roared.
The ground cracked.
Akira stepped forward, Yamitsurugi lowering into a killing stance—
And the entire dimension shook as their auras collided for the first time.
The war of the Second Shadow and Masahiro's successor…
had officially begun.