April 27th, 2026. Daytime.
To think that what would arrive with the rising sun would be that horrifying scenery. August bore witness to it, gazing as far as he could with this limited excuse of Eternal Sight. Further into the distance, over the cityscape, the mushroom cloud reigned supreme. And beyond the smoke's or hinting dark gray shade, there towered that disturbing Giant, shaded wholly white.
The Reaper's head shook. Jumping from the rooftop, he casually landed against the grassy land. Circling the house, he now stood at the mountain's verge. Wind blowing through his white strands to send a chilly breeze against his face, he sighed.
'To think that the old man's legacy would lead to this conflict. I wish we could've fought fairly under different circumstances but it looks like that's unattainable for us. Unfortunately, Alex, I always have the upper hand. This is where your justice ends.'
August tightened the cape around his neck and threw the black hood over his head. The tiniest snowy strands dangling over his temples, the Reaper looked off into the disturbing distance. Implanting his feet into the ground so far the dirt ground grew holes where his feet stood, he hissed; expressing steam. Seconds later, he'd vanished, abandoning where he formerly stood.
While the Reaper coursed through the air, the Judge charged ahead, trampling the ground below him. Footsteps sink into the grassy plain, rendering nature's protruding spikes to ashes. The continuous rumbling of his consistent sprinting sent chills down the Reaper's spine, soaring through the sky. Clenching his teeth shut, he threw his arm behind him. Crawling up his limb from his cuticles' tips, a black tendril hardened clatched; hardening against his skin. Aiming his shoulder ahead, Alex stood millimeters away from shoulder-bashing the Reaper's flailing frame; rendering him to ashes. Just before he could collapse into charred bones, August shot a black rope to his shoulder and pulled himself closer.
Landing onto the Goliath's shoulder, his knees bent immediately after and he backflipped into the air. Now turned upside down in mid-air, the world turned slow for August as everything occurred gradually for his advanced Sight. Alex's eyes trained on his brother's hooded figure behind the Giant form, he looked over his shoulder to spot his falling frame. Bending his fingers inward, forming a clenched fist, Alex started slowly turning. Crashing his knuckles into the ground where August was destined to land, the Reaper abruptly vanished seconds before. The Judge already started the motion; there was no stopping it. That being said, his fist crashed into the grassy ground, unleashing a fiery shockwave that burnt away all surrounding trees.
'Shit!' Al cursed under his breath aloud.
Turning his head around, he spotted the Reaper bathing in the sunlight exposed from the shrouding clouds. Cape flailing uncontrollably behind him, August skid across the air like an Angel. However, the advantage of not having wings meant he could keep himself hidden for quite some time. Green lightning surrounded his body as he danced heavenly along with the air until he turned to a blur as he curled his body into a ball and zoomed downward.
'I was always better than you at fighting, remember?!'
August crashed through the Giant's impenetrable head. Grabbing Alex by his chest, he threw himself out the opposite way he entered. Momentarily hovering in mid-air with his long-haired brother in his hand, the Reaper threw the Judge along the path he came sprinting from. Following his ragdoll-like movement, he was forced into, thrown across the ground, and eventually landing onto his chest… he groaned.
"Did you seriously think you could beat me with that thing? You're still too slow for someone like me, ESPECIALLY inside the Giant," August teased, atop Al's disintegrating Goliath.
"I know," Alex snarled, looking up from the ground and then wiping away blood staining his lip.
August's eyes widened. Immediately, his body turned in tandem with his head, not to mention his palm instinctively raising. Originating from atop the mountain, a pink beam of energy came swirling out someone's palm and onto his body. Eventually, after some of his fingers' tips had been charred off, the projectile assault stopped. The Reaper raised his head, looking to his steaming palm, he chuckled.
"Hana, too, huh? I suppose I have no allies then. Not even Azazel..?"
August's voice was loud enough for Alex to hear and despite that, the Judge remained silent.
Silence. Even the Master, so far in the distance atop that mountain, knew this wasn't the time to act. All she could do was mourn. Not for anyone's death, but for the fall of the orderly Requiem Empire, allying the Judge and the Reaper against a common enemy: Obliteration. For them to have such differing opinions, something had to have changed. But what? Then again, to ask a question with such an obvious answer would accentuate her cluelessness.
'Ben, I know you weren't the best person. Even still, I cherished you. Knowing and teaching you excited me for the first time in a thousand years. That being said, I wish you were here. Your unnatural presence… being the Chosen One, you must've had some control over them, however subconsciously. I wish you were still here so I didn't have to fight in this useless conflict,' thought Hana from beside August's house.
"I see. How the mighty have fallen," the Reaper commented, staring at his palm.
Alex choked back the tears. Stepping forward, he unraveled the Judge and yanked it from both ends. Tying it around his tan-skinned fingers, white lightning bolts sparking all around the length, Amara stared ahead.
"This isn't over yet," claimed the Requiem Judge, affixed into a battle-ready stance.
The Requiem Reaper looked down on his former student with lifeless eyes. Then, he scoffed and looked away. Upon saying, "I suppose you're right," he'd already landed.
Neither of them wished to waste any more time. The Reaper leaped forward, however seemingly vanishing to whoever viewed with naked human eyes. Alex's pupils darted rapidly, confined within the eyeball. Dodging a punch appearing from nowhere, the Unlimited barrier reflected kinetic energy toward the Reaper. Eyes widening in surprise, Shattered Limit was slammed by an invisible blast, effectively slapping August away.
After the blast, his back hit the diminishing Giant. Shaking his head for the dizziness to fade, he immediately turned back and rolled away from the incoming punch. Alex's knuckles ingrained into the Giant's steaming flesh, his head turned, and his other arm raised, blocking a slash from August's tendril blade.
'That damn Unlimited…' snarled the Reaper.
Waving his arm back like he was commencing a backhand, Alex telekinetically slapped August away. After being thrown through the forest, he eventually crashed into a boulder. Snapping the rock in two upon the impact, he was thrown upside down and unintentionally landed behind the cracked boulder.
'Even Shattered Limit is unable to withstand the Unlimited's reflection. That technique really is something, huh?'
August cleaned the blood dripping from his nostrils and stood up. Wiping the dust from his clothed arms, the Reaper sped forward, bouncing from tree to tree as he ended up at where Alex stood; waiting. His knuckles hovering millimeters away from Alex's face, suddenly, the Reaper vanished. The Judge looked up, and jumped aside, watching as August's feet dove into the ground, forming a crater beneath his soles. Smoke enveloped the area, leaving Alex blind as he searched around with his whip entangling his fingers. That was when he started flailing his arms, seemingly wildly. The end of the whip stuck out the smoke cloud, crackling with Requiem energy's white lightning.
Hana, some distance away, noticed this. The Master took one last glance over her shoulder before sprinting away, vanishing into the grassy shrubbery.
Meanwhile, the Judge constantly expanded his whip's range, slashing at every possible corner of the blinding smoke cloud. That was until the Reaper reappeared from behind his former student, his hood slipping off to reveal his flowing white strands as he went to grab at Alex's arm. Looking over his shoulder again, the Judge's Unlimited automatically reappeared—but the effort was for naught.
August spontaneously remembered his battle against Naraku. The Blessed Emperor was so weak he didn't even have to utilize that special technique he unlocked amidst the Destructive Advent's warring battlefield. But this wasn't Naraku. He trained. And because of that, he had no choice. For him to achieve victory, he had to do this! Carefully placing his palm along with Alex's finger, pushing himself up, charging a punch. The Requiem Reaper invoked that unrivaled power.
Living Technique Dissolution: Deactivation.
'This sensation…' Alex sleepily thought.
He was punched in the face and consequently, was launched away. Steam expressing from his exhausted knuckles, August exhaled. But he didn't have time to rest. Instead of assuming Alex to land somewhere else, he sped ahead and intercepted his landing. Unbeknownst to August, he'd already landed and now prepped a counterattack. But it was interrupted. Sooner before he could finish the counter, Alex was met with another of August's incoming punches. His raised arm blocked the blow, absorbing the bone-breaking pressure sinking into his flesh, and then throwing it right back at the Reaper.
'What?! But the Unlimited was deactivated. Wait, could it be that… despite me having the ability, I'm unable to use it because my soul doesn't reside within an organic body?!'
Launched back into the air, the Reaper flailed around, technically immobilized. Taking advantage of this, Alex snapped his whip and sliced away his enemy's right arm. Watching it fly away, the whip's length grasped August's leg and drove him into the ground. Having completed so many hits in a row, Alex was sure of it.
"I can tell you're weaker than before. That technique you used when you touched my arm is 'Living Technique: Eternal'. I guess you didn't account for your soul being contained within an inorganic form, huh? It only made me tired. And honestly, I'm always fucking tired," the Judge spoke, marching closer to the Reaper's laid-out body.
But once he got close enough, he'd realized his brother had vanished.
His features remained paralyzed in shock even after the sound of whisking air flew into his ears. Directing another punch to Alex's skull from behind, his knuckles sunk into his bone tissue. Afterward, blood-splattered out his holes and the left-hand side of Alex's face was unfortunately obliterated.
The punch launched Alex aside, but not before August disappeared a second time. Feet above the ground, perfectly angling his leg, he reappeared. Thanks to the Reaper's punch, Al would go flying into the right-hand side of the forest. Just before he could rustle around the leaves and destroy the trees' trunks, August intercepted his trajectory and kicked his opponent's face.
Hit into the opposite direction, Alex's mind varied between different levels of consciousness. In the real world, while everything was quickly moving, August was running alongside his flying, unmoving body.
'Please don't die, Alex. If you do…'
The Reaper leaped into the air, throwing his fist behind him. Hovering above his punched pupil soaring across the grassy plain surrounded by trees, his fist stabbed into Alex's face and slammed his body into the ground. Needless to say, after effectively landing three hits in a row against the Requiem Judge and now standing over his battered body, the Reaper looked at his brother's face. What met him surpassed his expectations. A bloody face beaten beyond repair, features scrambled; barely resembling a human's face. August noticed his bruised knuckles and then choked up.
'I'd never be able to forgive myself.'
Shuffling his arms underneath his body, he escaped the entrapping forest. On the straight road carved free of grass, pointing to the mountain, August marched. While holding his brother's bloody body in his arms, walking to find a proper resting place, a tear dropped from August's left eye.
"Shit. I should've known it would've ended up like this…" he whispered.
Still holding his body, August ducked and effectively dodged two slashes aimed at his head. Knees bent pointed to the ground, the two assaulters landed, branding their respective weapons. Katie held the misty Blackened Blade against her shoulder while the Crow aimed his mechanical claws head. Wiping away stray tears from his eyes, dropping his sibling's body, August prepared to fight. Raising his fists with an unwavering expression, he aimed his arm ahead; awaiting what lay ahead.
"You always were more of a hero than any other one of us…"
To Be Continued.