Ayaka's hand tightened around her blade at the sight of this new atrocity.
Even as darkness surged and the fractured sky bore witness to an ancient, unholy rebirth, she rose.
The horror before her might have worn the remnants of her brother's face, but her resolve ignited with crystalline clarity.
"I won't give up on you," she whispered to herself, eyes reflecting both sorrow and defiance.
Then, with a burst of speed that shattered the stone beneath her, she launched toward the abomination.
The clash began again.
Ayaka's blade met a wall of shadow. The impact sent her flying across the air, but she caught herself mid-spin, wings of frost flaring open to brake her fall. She dove again, blades dancing, leaving spirals of frigid elegance behind every strike. But the creature—Ayato—was an unrelenting force. Its wings blocked her advance with each beat, its hands conjuring rifts of screaming light and gravity that bent the air around them.
Ayaka fought on, her movements a storm of memory and will.
She struck with grace, each attack a plea. Each dodge a prayer. Even as bruises bloomed along her arms, even as the ice began to melt from her wings from the sheer intensity of corrupted heat, she did not falter.
"You're still in there," she cried, parrying a blow that cracked the air itself. "I know you are!"
The monster laughed, a triplicate sound that echoed like a cruel choir.
"Naïve," the rage-mask hissed.
"Admirable," the calm mask said, almost kindly.
"Delicious," the mad one cooed.
Ayaka was flung backward by a cyclone of cursed wind, but she flipped midair and came down hard, skidding across a broken bridge of frozen memory. She stood again.
Her body ached. Her spirit quivered. But her heart—her heart burned bright.
"I will not stop," she whispered. "Even if I have to strike a thousand times, even if it costs me everything—Ayato, I will reach you."
And once more, she charged into the storm.
Their clash began anew.
Ayaka's blade danced with refined desperation. Every strike was a memory, every parry a plea. She weaved between colossal swipes of the abomination's claws, ducked beneath blasts of void-light, countered with elegant arcs that froze even the air.
But Ayato's new form was beyond mortal comprehension.
His wings conjured maelstroms with a single beat, sending her tumbling through phantom gardens and shattered reflections of their past. His three faces spoke in unison, their voices a constant barrage:
"You fight for a ghost." "You cling to sentiment." "You will be forgotten."
Ayaka struck back with a storm of frost-tipped needles, slicing through illusions and shadows alike. One needle pierced the calm mask's eye. The mask cracked. The creature recoiled—for just a moment.
It was enough.
Ayaka surged forward, blade glowing with ancestral light. She spun, unleashing a crescent wave of glacial energy that struck the beast's chest. The impact shook the void, sending ripples through memory and space. The smile-mask cracked next.
Ayato roared, his fury unbound.
Dark chains of corrupted tradition burst from his back and lashed out. One caught Ayaka mid-flight and hurled her into a wall of frozen time. She cried out, pain blooming in her ribs, her vision doubling.
"You can't win," the rage-mask growled, cracking further. "Even if you break this body... there is nothing left of him to save."
Ayaka coughed, blood staining her lips, but she rose.
"You're wrong," she said, voice hoarse but resolute. "I saw it. When I spoke his name. When I reminded him of what we were. He faltered. He's still in there. Hiding. Hurting. And I will not abandon him."
She lifted her blade once more, its frost now glowing with a soft inner light. It pulsed with every step she took forward, a rhythm matched by the beating of her heart.
"We were taught to protect the people. To carry our family's will with honor. But it was you who taught me the meaning behind that duty. You taught me that presence is more than power. It is love. And I will wield that love until the end."
She lunged again.
Their battle became a storm of extremes. Light against dark. Memory against oblivion. Each clash tore through dimensions—through childhood laughter, through the corridors of their estate, through the night he took up his sword to protect her.
Ayaka fought with every memory, every shared breath, every unspoken word. Her blade was no longer just a weapon, but a bridge—a cry through time.
Ayaka spun between the attacks, frost trailing in her wake. She leapt from shattered platform to platform, each step marked by bursts of crystalline light. Her strikes were no longer aimed at defeating the monster before her—but at the soul buried within.
"I will not stop!" she shouted, voice raw. "Even if I have to strike a thousand times, even if my body breaks—I will fight you until I reach him!"
Ayato unleashed a barrage of shadow lances. Ayaka wove through them, each movement fueled by the rhythm of memory. Her blade met his claw, and the collision cracked another mask.
The calm mask split down the center.
Ayaka pressed forward.
They collided again and again. The void screamed. The air fractured. And yet, neither side relented. The battle became endless, a frozen moment stretched across eternity.
Ayaka's ice met Ayato's flame. Her grace met his wrath. Her sorrow met his fury.
But there was no end.
Only the storm.
Only the fight.
Only the hope that somewhere inside that terrible form, her brother still waited to be saved.
A sudden blow—a monstrous claw wrapped in swirling shadow—caught Ayaka in the chest mid-flight. She gasped as her ribs cracked beneath the impact. Her wings crumpled and she spiraled down, smashing into a ruined platform of broken stone and lingering memory.
She lay sprawled, she yelled out in agony, her limbs shaking. Frost flickered weakly around her as her blade slipped from her grasp.
Above her, the abomination descended, wings eclipsing the fractured sky. The three masks loomed over her—rage, calm, joy—all twisted into grotesque parodies of expression.
"You are naive," sneered the rage-mask. "Thinking love can mend the irreparable."
"You are wasting away," murmured the calm-mask, its cracked eye weeping darkness. "Dragging yourself toward an end that holds no meaning."
"You are alone," the madness-mask chimed in, voice high and mocking. "No one is listening. Not even him."
Ayaka groaned, pushing herself to her knees, blood dripping from her chin. The wind howled with malevolence, pressing her down, but she fought against it.
"You're wrong," she hissed. "Every word you speak is a lie... born from pain... born from fear."
The masks fell silent for a moment, watching her with unreadable eyes.
Ayaka reached for her blade, fingers trembling.
"I am not alone," she whispered, rising to her feet. Her voice grew stronger. "He is still there. Beneath the masks. Beneath the rage. Beneath the ruin."
A pulse of energy bloomed from her chest—an aura of pure, unyielding hope. It pushed back against the dark winds. Her frost began to glow again, brighter than before.
The beast flinched.
Ayaka's wings reformed, ethereal and crystalline, shimmering like moonlight on untouched snow.
"If you're the embodiment of his despair," she said, raising her blade, "then let this be the shape of my hope."
She soared upward once more, leaving a trail of radiant frost in her wake. Her cry echoed through the void—a vow to fight not against her brother, but for him.
The battle had not ended.
Ayaka was never going to give up.