Jaeger sat in the dirt.
He stared at the empty space where his family had stood just moments before. The jagged mouth of the void portal was a silent wound in reality.
"Where did you send them?"
The question hung in the heavy air.
Koma stopped at the threshold. The movement was slow and deliberate. He looked down at the gap in his own body. He watched the sunlight pass through his ribs.
The hole in Koma's chest hissed. It was a hollow whistle of air passing through cauterized meat. He didn't turn back.
Jaeger stood panting. His lungs were burning. The silence of the estate was worse than the screams had been.
"You killed my father and took my siblings! Give them back, Akoma! Give them back!"
Koma didn't acknowledge that Jaeger was speaking. He looked at Kova. His expression was vacant and glazed, as if he were discussing the weather.
"Kova," Koma whispered, his voice a ghost of a sound. "Let's leave. Fighting him wouldn't cure my boredom."
The words were a spark in a powder keg.
"Bored?"
Jaeger roared. His invisible flames flare with a renewed, frantic heat.
"You've erased my world and you're bored!?"
Jaeger lunged.
He was a streak of invisible heat. His fists hit with the force of falling stars. He unleashed a volley of fireballs. They were ripples of lethal, transparent distortion that tore through the air and glassed the dirt.
The ground beneath Koma's feet shattered into molten slag. Yet, Koma remained stationary. He didn't even raise his hands to block. He simply let the concussive force of the explosions wash over him. His silhouette flickered but never fell.
Kova's eyes widened from the threshold of the gateway. He clutched Jaeren's corpse tighter.
"We need to leave, Koma! The body won't take the revival if we waste time on him!"
Jaeger swung a massive, flame-enhanced fist. The heat was so intense it began to melt the stones nearby.
Koma let out a low, guttural growl that sounded like the earth cracking open.
"Fine."
Koma muttered. His voice was dripping with icy indifference.
Before the fist could connect, Koma's silhouette began to fray at the edges. He flickered like a dying candle in a gale.
Phantom Echo Step, Koma thought.
In a distorted burst of speed, Koma phased forward. Jaeger's arm passed through empty air as if Koma were made of smoke.
Jaeger stumbled. His momentum carried him into a crater. He spun around, teeth bared, only to find himself surrounded.
Behind him, another Koma appeared. To his left, a third. To his right, a fourth.
Four versions of the man now circled Jaeger. Their shadows stretched unnaturally long. They weren't looking at Jaeger. They were all looking toward Kova at the gateway.
Jaeger spun in circles, striking at the ghosts. Each time his fist connected, the Koma he hit dissipated into a cloud of red mist. It reformed a second later.
"Stop it! Look at me!"
The real Koma vanished. He reappeared instantly behind Jaeger. He didn't strike. He didn't even look down at Jaeger. He simply placed a steady, heavy hand on Jaeger's shoulder while maintaining eye contact with Kova.
"Koma, no!"
Kova yelled. His voice was cracking with genuine alarm. He saw the way the air began to vibrate with a frequency that suggested the end of the world.
"Not here! You'll damage the body and yourself!"
"Too late."
Koma rasped. He looked right through Jaeger as if he were made of glass.
"Shut up, Kova. I told you. I'm bored."
Koma finally glanced down at the top of Jaeger's head for a split second. He looked at him as one might look at a stray dog.
"You fought well. Thank you for your efforts."
Koma withdrew his hand. In a blink of speed, he vanished from Jaeger's side and reappeared at the mouth of the portal where Kova was standing.
He stood there, cold and detached, as he finally withdrew his restraint.
The world went dull. The colors bled out of the stones until everything was a monochromatic grey. Above them, the atmosphere folded inward like a closing wound.
Tempest Veil: Annihilator, Koma thought.
Enormous, pitch-black tornadoes touched down. They spun with a low, vibrating hum of pure offense. They moved like grinding teeth, chewing through the foundations of the estate.
Then came the sky's response.
A single, colossal pillar of black lightning descended from the center of the folding atmosphere. It struck the ground with surgical precision, guided by the residual trace Koma had left on Jaeger's shoulder.
The bolt didn't hit Jaeger. It hit the world around him.
The tornadoes and the lightning acted as a singular blade. They pulverized the grand houses and the sprawling gardens into a graveyard of pulverized stone. Every tree was snapped. Every blade of grass was erased. Only dirt and jagged rubble remained.
Koma stumbled at the portal's edge, his legs finally buckling. The energy drain hit his wounded core. The hole in his chest flared with a sickly red light. It was a jagged pulse as Koma instinctively tried to force the flesh to knit back together.
The light flickered and sputtered. The wound refused to close.
Kova lunged forward. He caught Koma's sagging weight with one arm and dragged him toward the toothy maw of the gateway. He was still balancing Jaeren's heavy, lifeless corpse.
The black and red lightning reached its apex. The gateway snapped shut.
In the center of the wreckage, Jaeger remained.
He was broken, scorched, and staring at a sky that had been stripped of its color. He was alive.
It was the final, cruel mercy of a man who hadn't even found him interesting enough to kill.