The spire was dead quiet.
No more fire. No more shouting.
Just a heartbeat... and Kairo walking.
His wings unfurled behind him, each step echoing across the cathedral-like throne room. The very air was thick with pressure. The kind that made your chest feel too small for your lungs.
On the black stone throne sat Yami who was calm, regal and dangerous.
Yami: "You've come to fight the sun... and yet all I see is a candle."
Kairo stopped mid-step, raising his eyes slowly. His voice was low but steady.
Kairo: "And yet you sit alone. Afraid of the flame you lit."
A pause.
Yami (smiling faintly): "Bravery looks so much like foolishness from up here."
Kairo's executioner ignited with light. His Seraphim form activated in a slow burst–not rushed, not explosive—but clean, glowing and righteous.
Kairo (softly): "I don't need to look up. I just need to strike true."
They vanished. A sonic boom followed as the fight had just begun.
Meanwhile in the forest, Zarok's monstrous body towered over the others. His face was warped. Horns cracked from his skull. Claws like daggers. Eyes filled with murder.
Kenshiro and Dakota were both bleeding hard. They could barely stay standing.
Zarok (growling): "You can't win. Why keep fighting?"
Kenshiro (coughing blood): "Because if I stop... someone else has to take the hit. And I won't let that happen."
Dakota would eye over to Kenshiro, nodding for a moment as he decided to use his energy to sprint towards Zarok, unaware that he is simply not moving, despite grinning viciously.
Kenshiro's eyes widened as he decided to catch up to Dakota, shoving him out of the way—as his body burned with his own fists glowing with mana. He managed to punch straight into Zarok's face, stunning the beast. He kept going. Punch. After punch. Until Kenshiro was caught off guard by Zarok as his hand would go through his stomach, impaling his gut in an instant.
Kenshiro's pupils would fade from his eyes, vomiting out serious amounts of blood in the process.
Zarok: "Why don't you just die."
Kenshiro glanced at Dakota for a moment, as he gave him a faint smile in the process.
Dakota (on the verge of tears): "K-Kenshiro...NO!!"
One final blow was echoed with a grotesque gory sound as Zarok drove his claw straight through Kenshiro's chest.
Time slowed.
Kenshiro's eyes dimmed... and his body dropped.
Dakota screamed. The moment Kenshiro fell, something inside him snapped.
The wind stirred.
Leaves burst from the ground and swirled violently around him, forming a cyclone. His body crackled with speed magic, but now fused with raw nature. His feet hovered an inch off the ground.
His eyes glowed green and gold.
Zarok (laughing): "What now? Going to Cry...? Going to beg for your life...?"
Dakota (quietly): "No..."
Dakota (yelling): "I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!!!!"
He vanished. In the blink of an eye, Zarok was hit across the field by a dozen leaf-infused strikes. Each hit faster than the last.
One second. Fifty hits. Blades of wind and foliage cutting deeper every time.
Zarok tried to scream but Dakota's final strike, a palm to the heart wrapped in green fire, ended him.
Dust settled for a moment, the air stilled for a moment until Zarok's eyes blanked once he vomited out blood as his body collapsed on the battlefield, dead.
Dakota stepped towards Kenshiro's body for a moment, as he noticed that it laid still.
Dakota (kneeling): "Rest easy, bro... I got the last hit for you."
We would shift back to the other part of the forest as we see Evangeline and Nyoka bloodied and battered, ready to end it.
Blood soaked the ruins of what was once a forestry battlefield.
Evangeline limped, one leg slashed, her staff cracked in half.
Nyoka circled her like a predator, blade dripping with her blood.
Nyoka: "You were always weaker. Always pretending to be better."
Evangeline: "No. I just... didn't fall like you."
She charged. Evangeline closed her eyes. Felt the blade pierce her side–
But Evangeline gritted her teeth. Grabbed her arm. Pulled her in.
Evangeline (growling): "And I won't fall now."
Evangeline drove the broken staff into her throat. She gasped, eyes wide. She pulled it out and drove it again—this time through his chest.
They both collapsed.
Her vision faded. But her heart kept beating.
Evangeline (weakly): "...You lose."
We would shift over to the front part of the forest where we see an uninjured Akihiro stepping towards a beaten Lucia.
Lucia stood up slowly as she looked battered. Her mana was low. Blood began to drip from her lip.
Lucia (tired): "You could kill me now."
Akihiro held his blade up. Then paused as this felt pretty similar to their first showdown in the past.
Akihiro (quietly): "I could. But I'd be killing someone who is currently weakened."
They stood in silence. A burning tree fell nearby.
Lucia: "So what now?"
Akihiro: "We survive. We finish this war. Then we settle this fight elsewhere."
She nodded.
A truce. Fragile but real.
We shift back to Kairo and Yami inside of the cathedral-like throne room for a moment.
The tower itself began to shake from every blow that Kairo and Yami were dishing out at each other.
Kairo struck from above, as light was exploding in trails behind his blade. Yami parried with black spears and beams of shadow.
Yami: "You think you're special? You're just the last fool left standing."
Kairo: "Maybe. But that's one more than you."
Kairo charged. Yami countered, firing a beam that split the ground. Kairo blocked with both hands, light shielding the room.
They clashed in the center causing an explosion to burst through the spire's top, visible across the entire battlefield.
Kairo stood tall, wings blazing as his Seraphim Form roared with light like a second sun. Each breath he took burned the air. His grip on the katana was unshakable.
Across from him, Yami still sat.
Unbothered. Unmoving.
Yami (calm): "Beautiful form. Truly."
Kairo stepped forward–faster than a blink, blade aiming for Yami's neck.
Yami (still seated): "But pointless."
With a motion so subtle it barely existed, Yami lifted a finger.
A shock rippled through the room.
Kairo froze in mid-air, his wings cracked at the base. Light shattered like glass.
In the next second, His seraphim form broke apart like falling feathers.
Kairo hit the ground hard, coughing blood.
Kairo (Gasping): "W-What the hell—"
Yami (now standing): "Your form is built on light. And I... control the dark."
The throne cracked behind Yami as his true presence leaked outward. Reality pulsed. Kairo forced himself to one knee, jaw clenched.
This fight had just changed.
Arisu, far from the tower, felt it first – a stillness in her chest.
Arisu (softly): "...Kenshiro?"
She stopped mid-flight. Tears welled up but didn't fall. She blinked hard and kept moving.
Evelyn found his body laying on the ground. She stared at it in silence, trembling.
Evelyn (quiet): "You stupid, reckless idiot."
Then she roared as she screamed her grief into the battlefield, striking down every shadow near her.
Tsukasa, frozen mid-battle, stared at the horizon with clenched fists.
Tsukasa: "Another one... We keep losing people. And for what?"
Koji (behind him): "For each other. That's all we have left."
We would shift back inside the Tower as Kairo was struggling to get up.
Dakota stepped over the final steps, breathing heavy for a moment, his hands still stained from Zarok's blood. Kairo was already hurt.
Dakota (wide-eyed): "Bro... he dropped you like that one Red Spacelord from Red Space Overlords."
Kairo (smirking through the blood): "Don't worry, unlike that show you mentioned I can get back up."
Dakota stepped forward, his aura glowing green and gold, crackling with static.
Yami (bored): "Another one?"
Dakota (snarky): "One of your buddies took my friend. That was your last flex."
In the depths beneath the throne, a metallic pad began to crack open. Steam hissed.
Inside of it laid a figure. Humanoid. Genderless. Beautiful and horrifying.
Its body was smooth like marble, but stitched with dark veins. Wings of both bone and gold. Half its face was covered in a porcelain plate.
It stepped out.
Didn't speak. Didn't blink.
But the pressure it gave off–
–made everyone above the ground pause.
Yami (smiling): "Finally. My perfect creation wakes."
Kairo (horrified): "What... is that?"
Yami: "It has no name. It has no soul. It only has purpose."
Meanwhile, in the mortal world...
The city was still burning. Skyscrapers were demolished and collapsed. Shadows began to warp into grotesque twisted beasts, devouring cars and buildings in their path. People screamed in alleyways.
Rebecca, with Paul and Alan, fought through downtown Evergreen with scavenged weapons.
Paul (panicking): "We're literally Eighteen.. I don't even have a girlfriend yet... I WANT MY MOMMY.. WHY ARE WE EVEN DOING THIS.."
Alan (scared): "I was only trying to skip out of math class, man."
Rebecca (smacking a shadow with a trash can lid): "Shut up and swing like our lives depend on it."
Above them, three individuals arrived — survivors from a different unit.
???: "Get them out. Now."
Rebecca (blinking): "Wait. Who Are—?"
Rebecca was quickly cut off
???: "No time. If we don't hold this street, you're all dead."
We would shift back to the broken tower arch, as we see Kairo and Dakota equally tired.
Dakota and Kairo both turned tiredly as two figures stepped towards them.
Lucia: "This is worse than I excepted."
Akihiro (nodding): "You still sure about this truce?"
Akihiro poked Lucia's face for a moment, taunting her playfully.
Lucia simply swatted his hand off of her.
Lucia (glancing at Kairo): "We finish this war. Then we settle ours."
Yami's eyes narrowed.
Yami: "So many guests. So little threat."
The Kami V2 creature walked toward the center of the throne room. Its eyes glowed. No pupils. No soul. But as it moved—it began mimicking Kairo's aura.
Kairo (staggering) "It's copying me..."
Then it mimicked Dakota's mana signature.
Dakota (shaking): "No. No way..."
Yami (soft): "It is every piece of you... without weakness."
The sky cracked open above the spire as a storm formed—black lightning tearing through the clouds.
Kairo stood, blood running down the side of his mouth. His Seraphim form wouldn't activate. His executioner—cracked in half. Dakota, Lucia, and Akihiro were all down, panting, barely able to move. Kami V2 (Caeliriel) hovered silently in the background, absorbing more of their energy.
Yami stepped forward, unscathed.
Yami (calm): "It ends here. This is where your story dies."
Kairo's knees hit the floor.
Everyone watched. But no one could move.
Then–
Kairo breathed in.
The world seemed to pause.
He closed his eyes. His air shifted.
Kairo (whispering): "No... not yet."
A heartbeat.
Then–light exploded from his body. Not golden. Not divine. But white-hot and burning, tinged with shades of deep obsidian.
His shattered wings regrew – longer, sharper, almost blade-like. His aura snapped the stone beneath him. His cracked executioner reformed into a floating weapon of raw light.
His new form didn't look holy.
It looked wrathful. Broken. Pure.
And yet somehow... still angelic.
Yami (shaken): "...Impossible. That form... it doesn't exist."
Kairo opened his eyes, glowing with searing white fire.
Kairo (calm, cold): "It does now."
"Aetherion."
The Fallen Grave. The Last Light Before Annihilation.
Everyone from Dakota to Arisu, from Lucia to Koji, looked up as Kairo rose into the air, wings outstretched, casting a massive shadow beneath him.
Even "Kami V2" (Caeliriel) paused... unsure.
Even Yami... took a step back.
Kairo (quietly): "Overtaking a god means nothing... If I have to stop being human to do it."
He vanished.
A blinding streak of light crashed into Yami's chest, cracking his armor for the first time.
TO BE CONTINUED...
...
(Teaser for Overtake the Self Proclaimed God Arc)
The city is in ruins.
The tower is falling.
And Kami V2 is no longer listening to its creator.
The War had changed.
Now... it's not about saving the world.
It's about reclaiming it.
(NEW ARC COMING SOON...)