Neither Guy nor Loki declared a truce.
There was no agreement, no exchanged nod, and no formal acknowledgment that their duel had been suspended. One moment they had been preparing to tear through each other's defenses; the next, Feldway had reached for Loki's soul and made himself the only target that mattered.
They simply moved.
To anyone watching from a distance, the combination should have failed immediately. Guy's fighting style was built upon overwhelming pressure, flawless execution, and the certainty that anything placed before Tenma could be broken. Loki fought by changing the nature of the problem before his opponent finished solving it. One imposed order through force. The other survived by making order unreliable.
Yet their opposition had taught them more about each other than ordinary cooperation ever could.
Guy knew which of Loki's movements were distractions and which concealed an actual killing strike. Loki recognized the subtle shift in Guy's shoulders that preceded a change of direction. Their recent duel had stripped away every polite assumption, leaving both men with an instinctive understanding of how the other thought when death stood within reach.
Guy attacked first.
The ground exploded beneath his boots as he crossed the valley in a crimson blur. Tenma swept toward Feldway, carrying a compressed wave of power aimed not at the First Angel's body, but at the point where his presence had anchored itself to the Cardinal World.
Feldway remained motionless.
White-gold lines formed before him, assembling into several interlocking spatial barriers. Each layer was positioned to disperse Guy's impact, redirect the remaining force into empty space, and trap the broadsword inside a sealed geometric field.
The construction was nearly perfect.
Nearly.
A yellow banana peel appeared beneath Feldway's left foot.
It possessed no aura, no meaningful mass, and no reason to exist in the middle of the Barren Lands.
Feldway's heel touched it.
His foot slipped half an inch.
The spatial formation shifted with him. One line joined its neighboring layer at the wrong angle, creating a flaw so small that no ordinary fighter could have recognized it before the barrier corrected itself.
Guy saw it.
"Good opening, Loki!"
Tenma changed direction in the middle of the swing and struck the imperfect seam.
The outer barrier shattered.
Crimson force drove through the remaining layers before Feldway could repair their alignment. His white-and-gold robes snapped beneath the impact as he was forced backward through the air, the hem of his garment tearing for the first time since his arrival.
"Don't make a habit of praising me," Loki called as he moved along Feldway's flank. "I'm not your subordinate."
"You could have fooled me."
"You wish."
Feldway stabilized himself. The banana peel attempted to crawl away.
A thread of white light erased it.
"Insolent creatures," the First Angel said.
Loki raised both hands.
He did not attempt to crush Feldway directly. Instead, he placed dozens of small gravitational distortions around the angel's body. Each pulled in a different direction, placing pressure on wrists, shoulders, wings, and knees. Individually, none was powerful enough to harm Feldway. Together, they disrupted the perfect symmetry required for his celestial formations.
Feldway's light expanded.
The gravitational fields began collapsing beneath an authority that demanded the surrounding world return to an ordered state.
Guy did not allow him the necessary moment.
He arrived directly in front of Feldway and drove Tenma downward. Feldway blocked with one hand, catching the flat of the broadsword against his palm.
The collision erased the ground beneath them.
A circular section of the valley vanished into dust, leaving Guy and Feldway suspended above a widening crater. White-gold light pressed against crimson force, each refusing to yield.
Loki appeared behind Feldway.
Hades gathered around his fingers in thin black-violet threads. They reached toward the spiritual connections holding Feldway's borrowed body together, searching for gaps between vessel, authority, and the consciousness directing both.
Feldway formed a shield behind himself without turning.
The tendrils struck it and spread across the holy surface like black cracks.
Guy increased the pressure from the front.
Feldway's attention divided.
That was all Loki needed.
"Your right shoulder is dropping."
Feldway ignored the warning, correctly assuming it was meant to distract him.
Loki placed a gravitational sink beneath his left knee.
The angel's body dipped.
Guy twisted Tenma free and drove his elbow toward Feldway's jaw. The First Angel turned just enough to avoid a direct hit, but the blow grazed his cheek and sent a burst of crimson force through the white-gold light surrounding his head.
A dark mark appeared along his skin.
Feldway's pale eyes sharpened.
"You combine nonsense with crude force and mistake the result for skill."
Guy grinned. "It worked."
"That's usually how skill is measured," Loki added.
Feldway thrust one hand outward.
A field of white-gold authority spread through the valley. It was not an ordinary barrier. The space inside it began settling into a single, unchangeable arrangement. Loose stones froze in the air. Guy's coat stopped moving. The flickering light around Loki's fingers became rigid, unable to advance or withdraw.
The First Angel was forcing the battlefield into perfect stillness.
No movement.
No contradiction.
No room for Farce to establish a new conclusion.
Loki's eyes flashed violet and gold.
"Oh, wonderful. He brought perfect order to a comedy fight."
Farce reached into the celestial field.
Loki did not deny Feldway's demand that the surrounding space become fixed and brittle. He accepted it, exaggerated it, and assigned the result a more ridiculous form.
The white-gold field changed texture.
Its immaculate surface became rough, golden, and uneven.
Guy stared at the space surrounding his arm.
"Is this food?"
"Peanut brittle," Loki replied.
"That is idiotic."
"Hit it."
Guy's fist moved.
The frozen domain shattered.
Golden fragments exploded through the valley with a deafening crack. They struck the ruined ground, bounced twice, and broke into smaller pieces that smelled faintly of caramel.
Feldway's expression tightened.
Guy burst through the falling fragments and drove a kick into the First Angel's ribs. Feldway blocked with his forearm, but the force still pushed him several yards across the sky.
Loki met him at the end of the retreat.
A forged hammer appeared in Loki's hand, its head far larger than his body. Feldway raised a barrier to stop the obvious attack.
Loki released the hammer before swinging it.
The weapon dissolved.
Guy emerged from the shadow it had concealed and brought Tenma down against Feldway's exposed side.
The First Angel twisted away, avoiding a clean cut, but the blade tore through one sleeve and carved a shallow line across the vessel's shoulder.
White-gold blood rose from the wound in glowing droplets.
Feldway stared at it.
Guy and Loki landed opposite him.
Their methods should have interfered with one another, but they continued trading the lead without hesitation. Guy forced Feldway into direct exchanges where there was no time to build complex authority. Loki altered the field whenever Feldway attempted to regain control. When Loki opened an impossible angle, Guy filled it with violence. When Guy drew Feldway's full attention, Loki attacked the structure beneath the defense.
They argued through the entire assault.
"Stop pushing him toward the gate," Loki snapped as he folded space around a barrage of light spears.
"I'm pushing him toward my sword."
"Your sword is pointing toward the gate."
"Then move the gate."
"It's attached to Heaven."
Loki redirected three light spears through a painted tunnel that had not existed a moment earlier. They emerged behind Feldway and struck his own barrier, forcing him to reinforce it from both directions.
Guy stepped through the opening and punched him across the face.
Feldway's head snapped sideways.
The First Angel answered with a white-gold blade formed around his forearm. Guy caught it against Tenma, but a second blade extended from Feldway's opposite hand and drove toward his ribs.
Loki opened a small doorway beside the weapon.
The blade entered the door and emerged above Feldway's head.
He dismissed it before it could strike him.
Outside the ruined barriers, the observers watched the exchange with growing disbelief.
"They did not plan any of this," Leon said.
His eyes followed the overlapping bursts of crimson, maroon, and white-gold light, though even he struggled to track every movement.
Testarossa's smile carried pride and concern in equal measure. "They do not need a plan. Each spent the duel learning exactly how the other responds under pressure."
"They understand one another through attempted murder," Luminous said. "How touching."
Noir chuckled quietly.
"Feldway assumed conflict meant division. He saw Guy and Loki attacking each other and concluded they could not turn upon the same enemy."
His red-and-gold eyes followed Guy's blade as Loki shifted Feldway into its path.
"Primordial rivalry does not remove kinship. Sometimes it sharpens it."
Velzard remained still, her gaze fixed upon Feldway rather than the brothers. "Do not celebrate yet."
Testarossa glanced toward her.
"He has been forced backward," Velzard continued. "He has been wounded, his recall failed, and he is beginning to understand that taking Loki will require more than authority and an order."
Milim's expression tightened.
"He's angry."
Inside the valley, Feldway spread both hands.
White-gold power erupted from his body.
The wave struck Guy and Loki together. Guy crossed Tenma before himself and was driven through the air. Loki formed several overlapping defenses, but they shattered one after another, hurling him across the glassed ground.
Both landed hundreds of feet away.
For the first time since the battle began, silence returned.
Feldway floated above the central crater.
His robes were torn across one shoulder and along the waist. A dark bruise marked his jaw, while the shallow cut from Tenma continued releasing pale light.
The detached certainty had vanished from his eyes.
What remained was fury.
Not the wild rage of an injured fighter, but the offense of a servant who believed sacred order itself had been mocked.
"Enough."
The single word flattened the air.
Above the battlefield, the heavenly gate began to change.
Its pillars softened into rivers of white-gold light. Geometric patterns flowed outward from the structure and spread across the broken sky. The remaining fragments of Guy and Loki's barriers were consumed, not shattered, as Heaven's authority replaced every layer with its own design.
The scorched valley disappeared.
A featureless expanse of white marble formed beneath their feet. Golden lines crossed the new ground in flawless patterns, extending toward an artificial horizon. The sky became a vast field of sterile light, without cloud, sun, or shadow.
Guy rose and rested Tenma against his shoulder.
Loki stepped beside him.
Feldway remained at the center of the transformed domain.
Three pairs of white-gold wings unfolded from his back.
Their light carried a pressure far greater than anything he had displayed before. The marble beneath him cracked despite the authority demanding perfection, while the celestial space trembled around the full presence of the First Angel.
Feldway's diplomatic restraint was gone.
"You have rejected Heaven's mercy," he declared.
Loki glanced around the immaculate domain. "This is mercy?"
Guy smiled coldly. "He seems confused."
Feldway raised one hand, and countless celestial weapons began forming behind him.
"Then this land will become the grave of every demon who stands between me and the Star King's return."
Loki's aura rose again.
Guy lowered Tenma into a fighting stance.
---
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