She wore Raynare's face, but burned with Riser's flames.
Black feathers and phoenix fire. Violet eyes lit from within by orange hatred. A smile that promised nothing but pain - the same smile she'd worn in that church, when she thought she'd won.
"Miss me?" the amalgam purred.
The rotting throne room stretched around us, black feathers still drifting down like corrupted snow. The stench of decay and old perfume clawed at my throat. And standing in the center of it all, wreathed in impossible fire, was every nightmare I'd tried to bury.
Raynare.
Riser.
My guilt given form.
"You're not an Echo," I said.
It came out steadier than I felt. Five integrations behind me. Five pieces of myself reclaimed. But this thing - this creature - wasn't something I'd copied.
"Clever boy." The Raynare-thing tilted its head. The motion was too smooth, too predatory. Flames licked along her black feathers, orange against obsidian. "I'm not something you stole. I'm something you made."
She circled me. Each step left burning footprints in the corrupted marble.
"The fallen angel you couldn't copy properly." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Twelve percent. Unstable. Remember?"
I remembered. The system warnings. The failed absorption. Light Manipulation that hurt me as much as my enemies.
"And the Phoenix you murdered." Her smile widened. "You think guilt just... disappears? You think you can kill and kill and never pay the price?"
She stopped circling. Stood before me, flames rising higher, feathers spreading like a dark halo.
"I am the price."
She attacked.
No warning. No monologue. Just violence.
Phoenix fire roared toward me in a wave of orange and gold. I dove left, felt the heat sear past my shoulder, rolled to my feet -
And took a Light Spear through the chest.
Pain. White-hot and absolute. The weapon pinned me to the ground, burning from the inside out.
"Did that hurt?" Raynare's voice echoed from everywhere. "Good. Pain is the only thing that makes you honest."
I grabbed the spear, gritted my teeth, and pulled. It dissolved in my grip - reformed in her hand.
"You can't beat me." She stalked closer. "I know every move you'll make. Every ability you'll use. Every trick you think you have."
I pushed myself up. Blood - or whatever passed for it here - dripped from the wound in my chest.
"Because I'm not your enemy, Ryder Cross."
She smiled with Raynare's lips and Riser's cruelty.
"I'm your truth."
The Combat was hell.
Every technique I'd integrated, she countered. When I channeled Dohnaseek's precision, she met it with Light Spear mastery. When I borrowed Kiba's speed, she burned the ground beneath my feet. When I tried Koneko's density, she simply waited, patient as a Phoenix, until I had to move.
And when I reached for Akeno's lightning -
She laughed.
"There it is." Fire erupted around her in a spinning cage. "The darkness. The part that liked it."
"Shut up."
"Make me."
I lunged. She sidestepped. Her hand caught my throat - the same grip Raynare had used in the church, the same pressure, the same casual contempt.
"You judge us?" Her voice was ice and fire. "You're worse. We killed for nature."
She threw me. I crashed through a rotting column, stone shattering around me.
"You killed for satisfaction."
No.
I pushed myself up from the rubble.
That's not true.
"Isn't it?" The amalgam appeared before me, wreathed in flame. "Let me show you."
The world shifted.
I was standing in the Rating Game arena. The Phoenix burned before me, regeneration failing, power exhausted. Riser Phenex - arrogant, cruel, but beaten. He'd yielded.
"No more," past-me growled.
I watched myself grab Riser's throat. Watched the flames consume him. Watched myself not stop.
"The Dohnaseek in you pushed," the Raynare-thing whispered in my ear. "His contempt. His cruelty. That's what you tell yourself, isn't it?"
The memory played again. Riser's screams. The Phoenix dying. My face, lit by flames.
"But you could have stopped."
I saw it. The moment. The split-second where Echo influence ends and choice begins.
"You CHOSE not to."
The memory froze.
Past-me stood with his hand on Riser's throat. Fire everywhere. A decision crystallized in amber.
"Look at him," the amalgam said. She pointed at my past self. At the expression on his face. "Does that look like someone being controlled?"
It didn't.
It looked like someone who wanted Riser dead. Who had wanted it for weeks. Who had finally gotten the chance and taken it.
"You enjoyed it," she continued. "The power. The finality. The look in his eyes when he realized his immortality meant nothing."
Stop.
"You smiled, Ryder."
*I didn't - *
"You smiled when he died."
The memory unfroze. And I watched past-me smile.
The arena dissolved. I was back in the rotting throne room, on my knees.
The Raynare-Riser amalgam stood over me. Flames crackled around her wings. Victory gleamed in her violet-orange eyes.
"So heroic," she mocked. "So noble. Fighting to protect. Killing to save. But we both know the truth."
She crouched, meeting my eyes.
"You're no better than me. No better than Riser. You're a killer, Ryder Cross. You have murder in your soul."
I tried to speak. Nothing came out.
"And the worst part?" She leaned closer. Close enough that I could feel the heat of her flames, smell the decay of the feathers. "You liked it."
Did I?
The question burned deeper than any Phoenix fire.
Did I like killing Riser?
I remembered the moment. His flames dying. His eyes going wide. His immortal body finally accepting mortality.
And I remembered... relief. Satisfaction. A dark, ugly part of me that had wanted him dead from the moment he called Rias "my bride."
The Echo pushed.
True.
But I didn't push back.
Also true.
The Dohnaseek in me had offered the contempt. The precision. The willingness to cross a line.
But the choice - the actual decision to let Riser burn - that had been mine.
"There it is." The amalgam's voice was almost gentle now. "The truth. You're not a hero, Ryder. You're a monster wearing a hero's face."
A monster.
I stared at the corrupted floor. At my hands, stained with imaginary blood.
She's right.
I killed Riser, and I'm not sorry.
I would kill Raynare if I could.
I would kill anyone who threatened my family.
The realization didn't feel like defeat. It felt like... excavation. Like digging through layers of self-deception to find the bedrock underneath.
I have violence in me.
I have cruelty in me.
I have murder in me.
The Raynare-thing smiled, sensing victory.
"Now you understand. You're not integrated. You're not whole. You're broken, and you always will be."
I looked up at her.
"You're right."
"What?"
The amalgam blinked. For the first time, uncertainty flickered across her stolen face.
"You're right," I repeated. I rose to my feet. "I killed Riser. I wanted him dead. I chose to let him burn."
She retreated a step. "Then you admit - "
"I admit everything."
The words felt like breaking chains.
"I wanted Raynare dead when she betrayed me. I wanted Dohnaseek dead when he hurt my friends. I wanted Riser dead when he touched Rias like she was property."
Another step forward. The amalgam retreated again.
"I have cruelty in me. I have murder in me. And yes - " I met her violet-orange eyes " - I enjoyed it. Some dark part of me enjoyed watching them fall."
"Then you're a monster!" The amalgam's composure cracked. Flames erupted around her, wild and uncontrolled. "You're no better than us!"
"No." I kept walking forward. "I'm worse."
She threw fire at me. I walked through it. The flames hurt - seared my mental avatar, left burns that would linger - but I kept moving.
"You killed for nature. Instinct. Survival." I was close now. Close enough to see the fear in her eyes. "I killed because someone threatened the people I love."
My hand closed around her throat.
The same grip. The same position. Mirroring Chapter One.
"And I would do it again."
She struggled. Fire and Light Spears erupted in every direction, trying to break my hold.
I held on.
"I wanted you dead," I said. "Both of you. From the moment you betrayed me. From the moment he claimed her as property."
The amalgam's eyes widened. The flames flickered, weakened.
"I have cruelty in me. I have murder in me."
My grip tightened.
"And I will use that cruelty to burn anyone who touches my family."
The Raynare-Riser thing stopped struggling.
The flames died. The Light Spears dissolved. The feathers stopped falling.
She looked at me with eyes that were no longer violet-orange, but something clearer. Something almost... peaceful.
"Finally," she whispered. "Someone honest."
I didn't release her. "You're my guilt."
"I was your denial." A smile - genuine this time. "You tried to bury me. Pretend I didn't exist. Tell yourself the Echo made you do it."
"And now?"
"Now you've accepted me." Her form began to dissolve, not into fire or light, but into shadow. "The darkness isn't the enemy, Ryder. Pretending you don't have it - that's the enemy."
She was fading. Dissolving. Becoming part of me.
"Use me well," she whispered. "And never pretend I'm not there."
No blue box. Just darkness.
Not absence of light.
Presence of truth.
I am capable of cruelty.
I am capable of murder.
And I will never pretend otherwise.
[GUILT MANIFESTATION: ACCEPTED]
The darkness settled into me like ink dissolving into water.
I felt it - the acceptance, the acknowledgment of what lived inside me. Not a weapon to be drawn, but a foundation to be acknowledged. The part of me that could kill wasn't evil. It just... was.
What I do with it. That's the choice.
The rotting throne room shuddered.
Then it dissolved.
Silence.
Absolute silence.
The corruption vanished. The feathers, the flames, the decay - all gone. I stood in emptiness. A void that stretched in every direction, pure white, infinite.
And in the center of that void, something hovered.
A shape. Geometric. Fractured. Constantly shifting, like a puzzle that refused to stay solved. Light bent around it. Reality warped at its edges. Looking directly at it hurt - not my eyes, but something deeper. Something fundamental.
The Fragment.
The System.
The Heart.
I took a step toward it.
[INTEGRATION COMPLETE]
All Echoes absorbed.
All conflicts resolved.
Welcome to the Core.
The shape pulsed. And for the first time since entering the Soulscape, something spoke.
Not text. Not internal monologue.
A voice.
"Hello, Ryder Cross." The shape flickered, shifted, somehow became more. "I have been waiting for you."