Sora turned toward the sound, pulled by an invisible thread. Her lifeless eyes trembled, then focused.
Through the thinning smoke, a silhouette materialized where nothing should have endured; A silhouette. Heart-stopping, familiar.
Her lips parted, breathing a soundless shape into the heat. "...Null-san?"
The smoke peeled away in lazy spirals. Ash drifted down like dark snow, framing a boy. Standing.
Her breath caught painfully.
He stood in the crater's heart. Dual swords remained loose in his grip. His clothes were singed, soot marring his collar and jaw, with fresh bruises darkening his arms. Yet he was alive. impossibly alive.
Sora could only stare, her mind refusing to process what her eyes conveyed. The despair that had hollowed out her chest shattered, replaced by an overwhelming sensation her body struggled to contain. She pressed her palms to her mouth, desperately catching a trembling gasp as tears spilled from her sky-blue eyes.
'He's alive. He's alive. He's alive.'
Through the blurred prism of her vision, she took in his condition, terrified that blinking might cause him to vanish.
Mired in soot. Bruised. But unbroken. What a relief!!
Consequently, for the briefest, strangest heartbeat, something flickered at the periphery of her vision.
His hair. That long, lustrous dark white silk. For a microsecond, the pale strands appeared pitch-black. Not shadowed by smoke, but a deep, abyssal black, like living darkness cascading down his shoulders.
Sora blinked in confusion.
'Impossible…' She blinked again, clearing away the residual moisture.
White. His hair remained dark white.
'Of course.' Her mind must be simply fracturing under the weight of the emotional trauma. There was no conceivable reality where he could be an {Inversed Extreme}.
She scolded herself to dispel the absurdity, especially now, when the terrifying depth of her attachment to him had just been laid bare.
------------------------------
Null sheathed his blades. He stepped through the debris as though the ruined crater were a cobblestone path, closing the chasm between them that had felt like an eternity of separation.
Stopping directly before her, he was close enough for her to hear his steady cadence of his breathing. Close enough to prove he was flesh, blood, and reality.
A familiar, mischievous curve tugged at his mouth. "...Sora-san, you look as though you've seen a ghost. I didn't know a minute absence on my part could cause you this much devastation."
Her breath hitched in embarrassment.
Before she could fashion a response, his warm fingers gently cupped her cheeks.
Sora stiffened. His thumbs brushed away her tear tracks. "You were even weeping," his dark white eyes gleamed strangely. "For me."
"I—I was merely—" The denial died in an unconvincing quiver as a fierce crimson flush rushed to her cheeks.
Null leaned closer, his tone took on a infuriating cadence "That didn't possess the detached concern of the sora-san i know. That looked entirely personal."
Sora's fingers knotted into her skirt, trapped beneath a gaze that crumbled her defenses.
"If you continue to look at me with those eyes," he whispered, his thumbs still resting against her warm skin, "I might begin to misinterpret the gesture."
"Scoundrel," she murmured, veering her gaze away in a sullen pout.
Null let out a low chuckle. 'Cute.'
A jagged, feral snarl boomed, raw with disbelief. "HOW… ARE YOU STILL Alive?!"
Mor'gan thrust a clawed finger at null. "I saw my pyre lances pierced through. The very ground was converted into a smelting furnace! You should be reduced to cinder!"
Null idly brushed soot from his sleeve, rolled his shoulder once, a small wince acknowledging the bruises. He looked at the demon with mild, detached curiosity. "Good question."
"Do not mock me, boy!"
"I'm not."
"I traced their trajectory," Null replied. "The asylum weakened, quite unfortunate. Therefore, I simply repositioned myself to where the fire wasn't going to be."
Mor'gan almost spat blood. "There were no blind spots! That was a saturation bombardment!"
Null's expression remained untroubled. "Then I occupied the single space where the strikes failed to land."
"You are speaking falsehoods, boy" Mor'gan growled coldly.
Null gave an indifferent shrug, "If so, then I must conclude I am merely fortunate."
Behind him, Sora observed in silence. As she studied Null's unwavering stance. An unbidden thought took root in her mind: Mor'gan's disbelief didn't feel entirely unreasonable.
...
A harsh, grating laugh tore from Mor'gan's throat. The shock vanished, replaced by a toxic, predatory malice in his molten-gold eyes.
"No matter. Miracles, luck, tricks… it changes nothing."
"I will murder you myself. And this time, I will ensure your girlfriend watches every slice."
The final syllable had scarcely left his lips when he moved.
The ground imploded as his massive silhouette blurred forward, his greatsword dragging a trail of incandescent hellfire.
Sora felt the strike before her eyes could track it. The spike of killing intent turned the very air into a vice.
Her reflexes took over. She stepped directly in front of Null, her right hand incarnated a torrent of radiant light.
"Null-san—remain behind me. Do not move."
The condensed radiance flared around her like a mantle just as Mor'gan's blade descended.
CLANG—!!!
Sora's heels dug into the fractured ground as she absorbed the force. Her arms trembled. But she did not yield a single step.
Mor'gan's grin widened into a display of fangs. "Yes! Let us see how long your devotion can protect him!"
BOOM.
A second impact fractured the condensed aegis, splitting its surface with pale light.
BOOM.
A third sent deep, luminous fissures racing through her defense.
"I will ensure you both taste the deepest pits of despair before i kill you!"
Mid-swing, his blade altered its trajectory, cleaving horizontally toward the vulnerable point behind her. Aiming for Null.
Sora pivoted immediately, intercepting the blow with a concentrated burst of blinding radiance. The explosion threw her backward, her heels tearing through the scorched earth. Yet before her momentum diminished, she forced herself back into position. An unyielding protection in front of Null.
Mor'gan's eyes blazed with savage ecstasy as he raised the greatsword high once more. "That's it. Break yourself trying to save him."