The air inside the Colosseum of Judgment didn't just hang heavy; it screamed.
The moment Saber and Resonance Kaine drew their weapons, the atmosphere shifted. It wasn't the heat of fire or the chill of ice—it was a low, thrumming pressure that vibrated in the teeth of every spectator in the stands. This was a battle of Sound, a clash of invisible forces that threatened to tear the very foundations of the arena apart.
Saber stood ten paces from the man who had raised him, the man whose "death" had forced a young, unprepared boy onto a throne he wasn't ready for.
"You call me a hypocrite," Kaine said, his voice amplified without magic, resonating directly in Saber’s chest. He held his jagged blade loosely, the metal shivering with a constant, low-frequency hum. "But you are the one who abandoned his people to play hero with outsiders."
"I abandoned nothing!" Saber roared.
He didn't wait. Saber lunged, the Saber of Reverberation gleaming. He moved with the speed of a desperate king, closing the gap instantly. He slashed horizontally, a strike meant to decapitate.
Kaine didn't dodge. He simply raised his jagged sword.
CLANG.
The impact didn't ring out like steel on steel. It sounded like a cathedral bell being struck by a meteor. A shockwave of pure sound erupted from the point of impact, shattering the obsidian tiles beneath their feet in a twenty-meter radius.
Saber gritted his teeth, pushing his blade against Kaine’s. "I mourned you! For twenty years!"
Kaine’s expression remained stony. "Grief is a weakness I discarded long ago."
The jagged blade in Kaine’s hand suddenly whined—a high-pitched screech. The vibration traveled down Saber’s sword, bypassing his hilt and shooting straight into his arms.
"Gah!" Saber gasped, his muscles spasming involuntarily. The vibration felt like it was boiling the marrow in his bones.
Kaine flicked his wrist. The force of the vibration threw Saber backward. As Saber skidded across the broken floor, Kaine took a single step forward and swung his blade at the empty air.
"Sonic Sever."
The air distorted. A vacuum blade of compressed sound tore across the arena.
Saber reacted on instinct. He slammed his heels into the ground, dropping his sword to his side and raising his hands, thumbs and index fingers touching to form a circle.
"Unlimited Reflection."
The invisible blade slammed into Saber’s barrier. BOOM.
The attack rebounded instantly, shooting back toward Kaine with equal velocity. Kaine didn't blink. He watched his own attack returning to him, and he hummed—a low, dissonant tone from the back of his throat.
The returning sonic blade hit the frequency of Kaine’s hum and... dissolved. It didn't explode; it simply fell apart, the sound waves canceling each other out into harmless silence.
Saber’s eyes widened. "Impossible."
"You rely on reflecting power," Kaine said, walking forward through the dust. "But sound is not a projectile, Saber. It is a wave. And if you know the frequency of the wave, you can dismantle it before it ever touches you. This is the True Resonance I sought."
Kaine vanished.
He didn't teleport. He moved with a burst of sonic propulsion, appearing instantly behind Saber.
"You are stagnant, boy."
Kaine kicked Saber in the spine. The impact wasn't just physical; Kaine infused the kick with a vibration that traveled through Saber’s vertebrae, rattling his skull.
Saber screamed, his vision blurring white as he tumbled forward. He tried to roll to his feet, grabbing the hilt of his Saber of Reverberation, but his balance was gone. His inner ear was under attack. The world spun violently.
"Get up," Kaine commanded, his voice sounding like it was coming from inside Saber’s own head.
Saber staggered up, vomiting bile onto the black stone. He wiped his mouth, his eyes burning with rage. "I... am not... done."
He swung his sword, activating the ability of the blade. "Echo Imprint: Release!"
During the earlier clash, his blade had absorbed the vibration of Kaine’s parry. Now, Saber released it. A massive pulse of kinetic sound erupted from the tip of his sword, a point-blank shotgun blast of noise aimed at Kaine’s chest.
It was a perfect counter.
But Kaine simply caught the blast with his bare hand.
His palm vibrated at a counter-frequency so precise that the skin on his hand didn't even tear. He crushed the sound wave in his grip, the energy dissipating with a sad whimper.
"Is that it?" Kaine asked, his voice dripping with disappointment. "Is this the power you used to rule my Kingdom? No wonder the Council stepped in. You are weak, Saber."
Kaine moved again, this time on the offensive. It was a massacre.
He struck Saber’s left shoulder with the flat of his jagged blade. CRACK. Saber’s pauldron shattered, and the bone underneath fractured from the resonance.
He struck Saber’s right knee. Saber buckled, falling to the ground.
Kaine spun, delivering a backhand with the hilt of his sword that connected with Saber’s jaw. Saber spun through the air, crashing into the arena wall with enough force to leave a crater.
In the stands, the crowd roared, hungry for blood. High above, on the Council platform, The Judge watched his son being dismantled without a flicker of emotion on his smooth face.
Saber peeled himself off the wall, blood streaming from his nose and ears. His equilibrium was shattered. He could barely hear the crowd anymore—just a high-pitched ringing that drowned out everything else.
"You..." Saber wheezed, raising his sword with a trembling hand. "You joined... the very people... who made you run."
Kaine stopped ten feet away. He stuck his jagged sword into the ground. The metal groaned as it pierced the obsidian.
"I joined them," Kaine said, his voice calm, "because I realized that to destroy a mountain, you do not hit it with a hammer. You find its resonant frequency, and you let it tear itself apart from the inside."
Kaine spread his arms.
"I am close to the Council now. I am their champion. And when I have learned the frequency of The Judge's soul... I will shatter him."
Kaine’s eyes narrowed, looking at the battered form of his former student.
"But you, Saber... you are just noise. Static. Interference."
Kaine pulled his sword from the ground. The blade began to glow with a dark, violet energy—the frequency of destruction.
"Resonant Disaster: Heart-Stopper."
Kaine swung the sword. He didn't aim at Saber. He struck the ground.
The entire arena floor liquified. Not from heat, but from vibration. The solid stone turned into a rippling ocean of black shrapnel. The vibration traveled through the floor, moving toward Saber like a subterranean torpedo.
Saber tried to jump, but his legs were numb from the earlier nerve damage.
The vibration hit him.
It didn't cut him. It moved through him. Saber’s eyes bulged. He felt his heart stutter, his lungs seize, his very cells vibrating out of sync with one another. It was agony beyond description—the feeling of being unmade from the inside out.
Saber collapsed, clutching his chest, gasping for air that wouldn't enter his lungs. He coughed, and a spray of blood painted the ground red.
Kaine walked over slowly, the tip of his jagged blade dragging against the stone, creating a screeching sound that grated on the nerves of everyone watching.
"I expected a King," Kaine said, looking down at the writhing Saber. "I found a child."
Kaine raised his boot and stomped on Saber’s hand—the hand holding the Saber of Reverberation.
CRUNCH.
Saber cried out, his grip loosening. Kaine kicked the weapon away. It skittered across the arena, coming to a stop far out of reach.
"You have no weapon," Kaine said, leveling the tip of his jagged sword at Saber’s throat. "You have no balance. You have no breath."
Saber looked up, his vision swimming in a sea of red and black. He looked at the man he had idolized, the man he had mourned. He saw no mercy in Kaine’s eyes. Only a cold, mathematical calculation.
"Yield," Kaine said. "Or I will find the frequency that bursts your brain, and I will play it until you are nothing but a memory."
Saber’s fingers clawed at the black stone. He tried to speak, but only a gurgle of blood came out. The vibration in his chest was getting worse, a building pressure that threatened to explode his heart.
He was beaten. Thoroughly. brutally.
But as Saber stared at the boots of his former mentor, his eyes drifted past Kaine, toward the tunnel where Captain Daichi stood, gripping the railing, his face a mask of fury. He looked up at where Seraphina sat.
I am fighting for the Five Universes, Saber thought, his consciousness flickering. I am fighting for freedom.
Kaine raised his sword higher, preparing the final frequency. The hum of the blade grew to a deafening shriek.
"Goodbye, little prince."
Saber’s eyes snapped open. A single, defiant spark ignited in the depths of his pain.
He didn't reach for his sword. He didn't try to stand.
Slowly, agonizingly, Saber moved his broken, bloodied hands. He brought his thumbs and index fingers together.
The Circle.
Kaine paused, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing his face. "You still try to reflect? In this state? Against a frequency you cannot block?"
Saber didn't speak. He couldn't. But his eyes locked onto Kaine’s, and for the first time in the fight, Kaine felt a hesitation.
Because Saber wasn't aiming the circle at Kaine.
He was aiming it at himself.
The blade descended. The air screamed.16Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfGXP2Xyyzh
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