Smoke scattered across the arena as Ann burst out of it with ninja agility, sliding across the ground and unleashing another volley of shurikens toward Kravos.
But Kravos was still singing:
🎵 "Oh, ninja… how beautiful you are when you fight!" 🎵
Ann circled him like a flame's shadow, attacking and dodging. Yet he slipped away with inhuman grace. Bending, twisting, crawling backward like a deranged dancer. The shurikens struck the ground around him, sending sparks flying.
Ann gritted her teeth and muttered in anger,
"What is this creature…?"
Kravos suddenly pulled out a black guitar from inside his coat. It looked old and worn. His thin fingers slid across the strings, first came a faint hum, then a jagged, broken melody. As he dodged Ann's attacks, the guitar's chords rang out in a strange dissonance, with half music and half agony.
Ann shouted furiously as she charged again:
"Stop singing and fight me like a man! Is hiding behind a lousy tune all you can do?!"
Kravos's fingers froze for a moment. Her words pierced something untouched for years. But he kept playing, until she cut him again with her voice:
"I wonder how your parents ever tolerated that noise!"
Kravos gasped, caught off guard. A single tear slipped from his left eye before he even noticed. Ann froze, watching the mad performer fall silent.
Kravos clenched his teeth, his face trembling as if he were fighting himself more than her. Then he lifted the guitar again and struck the strings violently. The sound that came out was hoarse, distorted—every note screaming what his voice had long been denied to say.
His voice burst out alongside the music—no rhythm, no pattern, just raw emotion tearing through his throat:
🎵 "You strangled my voice when I was a child… you hated me because I sang…!" 🎵
🎵 "And now… now I'll never be silent again, even if my voice burns with my final note!" 🎵
The words bled out of him, each one shaking his body. His tears mixed with sweat, but Ann couldn't make sense of the chaos before her.
She laughed mockingly, stepping lightly behind a stone pillar.
"Is this a fight or a pity concert? Sing all you want, lunatic, it won't save you from me!"
But Kravos didn't stop. He sang as if the guitar was the only thing keeping him alive, as if Ann was no longer his enemy, just a witness to his collapse.
Ann shouted sharply, charging again:
"Stop singing and be a man for once!"
Her words struck him like a blade to the chest. Kravos froze, his eyes widening. His voice faltered, and his fingers trembling on the strings. He slowly sank to his knees. The song continued, but it was no longer a battle song.
His voice cracked, broken by uneven gasps:
🎵 "I sang for my mother to smile… she slapped me." 🎵
🎵 "I sang for my father to hear me… he threw me." 🎵
🎵 "Even my voice… even my voice wasn't mine to keep!" 🎵
Ann lowered her weapon. The sharpness in her eyes softened, replaced by confusion and something like pity.
'Is this man… actually crying?'
She stepped closer cautiously. Half of her still alert, the other half overcome by a quiet, unfamiliar curiosity.
'He's not defending himself. He won't even look up… why he keeps singing while crying? Has he lost his mind? Or is singing the only way he survives?'
She came close more. Her fingers gripped one shuriken tightly, as if she's reminding herself it was still a fight. She raised an eyebrow and spoke in a low, careful tone, part curiosity, part disbelief:
"Why are you crying while you sing? What do you think you're doing?"
Kravos lifted his head slowly. His eyes were wet, but something burned inside them. His voice came out hoarse, trembling between every word:
🎵 "I sing… because if I stop… I'll hear the screaming in my head." 🎵
Ann froze. She no longer knew if the man in front of her was an opponent or an open wound in human form.
"That's your reason? Because you're afraid of silence?"
Kravos let out a faint broken laugh, then said:
🎵 "Afraid? No… I left fear behind the day they cast me out. There's nothing left to fear… except myself." 🎵
Ann watched him quietly for a moment, then exhaled slowly, trying to take it all in at once. Her voice turned calm, steady:
"Kravos… you don't need someone to fight you. You need someone to listen. I'm here."
He looked up, and a strange smile crossed his face… a blend of pain and gratitude. His voice came out faint, almost a whisper:
🎵 "Finally… someone understood the melody." 🎵
Ann extended her hand toward him, a silent invitation to rise. Her tone was firm but carried a subtle warmth:
"Get up, Kravos. The fight isn't over yet."
He looked at her, torn between disbelief and gratitude, as if he's stunned that his enemy would give him time to stand. After a moment, he braced his hands on the ground, his arms trembling as he pushed himself up. The guitar still hung from his shoulder.
He laughed weakly, his broken voice tinged with melancholy:
🎵 "You want me to fight? Fine… let's turn pain into one last song." 🎵
Ann raised an eyebrow, answering with a slight smirk, a mix of caution and challenge:
"That's what I wanted from the start… a real fight, not a sad performance."
Kravos bowed slightly, closing his eyes. His fingers brushed the strings again, and a sharp fast rhythm burst forth, each note slicing through the air like a command to his battered body.
When his body responded, he began to move again, twisting and gliding with eerie grace. But this time, his eyes were different. No longer the hollow gaze of a madman, but the fierce resolve of a man turning pain into weaponry.
Ann grinned, tightening her stance:
"Then show me the melody you've been hiding."
Kravos's eyes gleamed as if he's ready to reveal everything buried inside. The guitar's notes filled the arena once more, each sound carrying a weight words could never express.
🎵 "When I was born… no one clapped. No one waited for me." 🎵
He sang hoarsely as he leapt forward, spinning midair, striking at Ann with a sudden kick. She blocked it barely in time, but the song never stopped. It was as if the past itself was guiding him.
In his mind, the battlefield disappeared. There was only a small house in a poor village. A thin boy stood in the corner, holding a broken wooden guitar, his trembling voice echoing through the silence.
Behind him, a father buried in papers. A mother staring out the window, never turning to look.
🎵 "I sang for them… but they never listened." 🎵
In the present, his strikes came faster. His arm spun fluidly as he dodged Ann's blades, twisting back into balance. His breath grew heavier, his tears mixing with sweat.
🎵 "They said music doesn't feed the hunger… they said dreams are for children." 🎵
The boy reappeared in his memory…
That morning, his father had split the guitar in two, then threw it at the door, and said coldly:
"Go on, sing for the streets if you think your voice matters."
In the present, his voice cracked but didn't stop:
🎵 "So I sang to the wind, to the walls, to the soaked streets… I sang until my own voice believed I was still alive." 🎵
Ann was evading his attacks, she noticed the change in his tone. The song was no longer mockery or madness, it was confession. His eyes were no longer strange; they belonged to a man who sang because it was the only way he knew how to live.
Then his movements slowed. For a brief moment, he stopped. The final string trembled under his fingertips.
He whispered softly:
🎵 "If someone had listened back then… I wouldn't be here, singing just to die." 🎵
Ann looked at him with a raised dagger, but her heart no longer saw an enemy. What stood before her was not a fighter. It was an echo of a man who'd been denied even the right to speak.