Scene: Masked Dancer
The void prison trembled as the merged devil brothers lunged – their "Resurrection Form" a grotesque mockery of Nero's true power. Nero flowed through their strikes like smoke, mask still secured.
"LIAR!" they shrieked, claws shredding dimensional fabric. "No new teachers exist in Priest Academy records!"
Nero's palm ignited with primordial blue. "Primordial Fist."
Space screamed. The chimera shattered like glass, bones scattering across the void as Nero's cage swallowed them. "All that shouting," he mused, brushing ash from his robe, "and not a single scratch on me."
He turned – and froze.
Ayumi stood in the crumbling dimension, moonlight glinting off her raised blade. Her voice was a razor wrapped in silk: "Show me the face I murdered, Nero Almik."
Scene: Fractured Hour
Nero's escape spell flared – Ayumi's interference warped its trajectory. The dimensional walls thickened. Trapped for one hour.
"What did they do to you?" Her eyes locked on his left horn – a jagged obsidian curve. "What bargain made you this... demon?"
Nero levitated above her, bleeding palm already knitting closed. "Says the princess who sold her soul for a throne."
Scene: The Weight of Kings
Ayumi's next strike dissolved against paper-thin starlight. Desperate, she slashed her palm – royal blood sizzled on the void-stones. "By my lineage, I SUMMON YUGAMI! GOD OF CONQUEST!"
A being of molten armor and solar flames materialized... then crashed to its knees, crown scraping stone before Nero.
"PRIMORDIAL SOVEREIGN..." Yugami trembled, voice echoing with millennia of dread. "THIS REALM IS YOURS TO UNMAKE."
Nero stepped over the prostrate deity. "Your parlor tricks bore me, Ayumi. We ceased being friends the moment your dagger pierced my heart."
Scene: Anatomy of Pain (Enhanced Monologue)
As the dimensional gate opened, Ayumi screamed: "WHY LET ME LIVE?!"
Nero paused, back turned:
"You ask if I feel pain?
I was born in slums where rats gnawed frostbitten toes.
I watched my mother stitch noble gowns till her eyes bled.
I carried her (sister) corpse through rain after your father's 'tax collectors' broke her ribs.
I trusted you with my last ember of hope...
...only for you to ignite it in my chest as you twisted the blade."
His final words hung like execution bells:
"You didn't make me a monster, Princess.
You just proved the world always was one."
// EPILOGUE //
Yugami rose shakily as Nero vanished. "That being could extinguish suns. Yet he spared you... Why?"
Ayumi had no answer – only the ghost of blue flames dancing in the rain, and the crushing weight of a truth she could no longer deny:
She hadn't killed a traitor that night.
She'd murdered the boy who loved her.