Ryan and Envy clashed in a furious, yet futile, exchange. Ryan pressed the attack with everything he had—swift slashes, feints, and lunges powered by crimson energy. But every move was met with a perfect, mirror-image counter. Envy flowed around him, a shadowy echo that parried, dodged, and mirrored every strike with infuriating ease.
What is this? Ryan thought, his frustration mounting. I'm fighting my own reflection! Everything I do, he does. How can I possibly win?
Envy disengaged, its form shimmering with desperate, covetous energy. Ryan leaped backward, avoiding a sudden, copied lunge, but the strain was wearing him down. He was breathing heavily, and the deep gash on his back throbbed with a sickening pain.
He looked at the figure shrouded in ragged black cloth, a stark contrast to the other Sins who had at least shown their faces. "Envy," Ryan said, panting. "Why do you cover yourself completely? The others wore clothes, but you hide everything."
"Ryan," Envy began, its shrill voice softening into something strangely familiar. "Do you remember when we were kids? That son of the village leader you hated? The one who was so smug, so good-looking, and all the girls flocked to him?"
A memory, long buried, surfaced. Ryan's defensive stance lowered a fraction. "Yes."
"One winter day," Envy continued, a hint of a smile in its voice, "when a whole group of those girls was watching him show off... we dumped a bucket of ice-cold water right over his head. He never saw us coming."
Ryan couldn't help it—a small, genuine smile touched his lips. "He caught a cold and didn't leave his house all winter."
A shared, echoing laugh broke the tension in the tower. For a moment, they weren't combatants; they were just two boys remembering a perfect prank.
"And then Mom found out what I did—no," Ryan corrected himself, the memory sharpening, "we did—and I had to clean the horse stalls for a month as punishment."
"But it was worth it," Envy said, its shrouded head nodding.
"Yes," Ryan agreed quietly. "It was." The fight had evaporated, replaced by an eerie, nostalgic camaraderie. "Envy... how do you know that? How do you remember my childhood?"
"Because all seven of us are your feelings, Ryan," Envy explained, its voice losing its edge. "We are always with you. We know your desires, your memories, your deepest shames... and your greatest joys."
Ryan took a deep breath, making a decision that felt both dangerous and right. "Then from now on, I will not fight you as an enemy, but as a part of myself. I accept you."
The moment the words left his mouth, the fragile peace shattered.
A violent black aura exploded from Envy, covering its legs in dark energy. Perfect copies of Ryan's soul-forged claws materialized on its hands. With a speed that surpassed their earlier fight, Envy lunged—a betrayal fueled by twisted affection.
Ryan didn't move. He stood his ground.
Envy's replicated blade sank deep into Ryan's shoulder. Ryan grunted in pain but didn't fall. Instead, his free hand shot up and locked around Envy's wrist.
"You can only copy attacks you've seen before," Ryan gasped, understanding dawning through the agony.
Envy's eyes widened within the shadows of its hood. "You fell for it because I hadn't used this one yet!" it shrieked, trying to pull back. "Yes, you're right! But I have all your other moves now, Ryan! And you can't use that trick again!"
"Don't need to," Ryan growled.
"Soul Bomb!"
The explosive red energy didn't shoot outward. It ignited on Ryan, a controlled immolation that engulfed them both. The ragged cloth covering Envy caught fire instantly, burning away to reveal the figure beneath. Envy screamed and tore itself away, leaping back as the flames licked at its now-exposed form.
Ryan saw it clearly now. The body beneath was not a monster, but a sickly, emaciated figure, covered in self-inflicted wounds and scars of perpetual dissatisfaction.
"So this is why you cover yourself," Ryan said, his voice heavy with pity.
Envy stood revealed, burned and bleeding, a portrait of miserable, consuming desire. "I see... so you are joining all your soul powers together now," it whimpered, its voice full of that same, wretched want. "This... this is why I crave you, Ryan!"
Black energy surged around Envy in a final, desperate wave. Ryan responded by summoning everything he had learned. Wind swirled around his legs, granting him impossible speed. The red power of Wrath blazed in his claws, and the relentless, gnawing hunger of Gluttony turned his eyes feral.
His blades grew, morphing into something new. They clashed in the center of the tower—a storm of Darkness against a hurricane of fused Red Soul.
Ryan's attack coalesced not into a bomb or a blade, but into the form of a gigantic, snarling wolf made of pure crimson soul energy. The Soul Wolf howled and charged, meeting Envy's darkness head-on.
The collision was catastrophic. The darkness was shredded, scattered by the wolf's furious assault. The blast threw Envy across the chamber, where it crumpled against the far wall, broken and defeated. Ryan stood panting, every ounce of his energy spent.
Envy looked up with weak, pleading eyes. "Ryan... kill me. End it."
Slowly, Ryan walked over. He didn't raise a weapon. He knelt down.
"Envy," he whispered, his voice thick with shared pain. "Everyone I have ever loved is dead. Everything I ever wanted was burned to ash. But you... you have always been with me. You don't hate me half as much as I have hated myself."
He did the unthinkable. He pulled the broken, wretched Sin into an embrace.
"I accept you. As you are."
Envy stiffened, then began to tremble. "You fool!" it sobbed, pounding a weak fist against Ryan's back. "I wanted to kill you! I wanted to be you! What are you doing?!"
But even as it cried out, a soft, dark light—devoid of malice, full of a longing finally understood—detached from Envy and flowed into Ryan's chest. The deep wound on Ryan's shoulder knit itself closed. His exhaustion eased.
The wall of the tower behind them shimmered and dissolved, revealing a spiraling staircase leading upward.
Envy was gone, not slain, but accepted. The path to the next Sin, and the next trial, was now open.