Time wasn't moving. Or at least, not the way it should.
Ryouhei felt every second stretch endlessly, as if the inner clock of the world had shattered. The battlefield had turned into something abstract—no center, no defined edge. Reality had become a fraying canvas, painted with the colors of the impossible.
Sera stood beside him, panting. A streak of blood ran down her forearm, but she didn't seem to notice. Her eyes, brighter than ever, searched desperately for the enemy's next move.
"He's falling apart," she murmured, staring at the Shadowless Man. "Do you see it?"
Ryouhei nodded. Yes, he saw it.
The Shadowless Man was no longer a solid figure. His body was collapsing into fragments of possibility, as though his very existence was being rewritten in real time. Each step he took wasn't just one—but several, each projecting a different version of himself: one crying, one screaming, one completely still… and all of them stared at Ryouhei.
"You're thinking of using it," Sera said quietly.
He didn't answer, but his eyes gave him away. The "Eclipse of Three Moons." The ability he had never fully understood. The one that fed on impossible decisions.
The world trembled.
One of the versions of the Shadowless Man lunged at him with a spear of darkness. Ryouhei dodged by instinct, but the blade grazed his arm. The pain wasn't physical—it was an echo: visions of a future where he killed Sera, of a ruined world under his rule, of himself… alone.
"Enough!" Ryouhei shouted, raising one hand to the sky.
And then he activated it.
The eclipse descended.
Three black moons emerged above the battlefield, and with them, time ceased to exist.
Ryouhei was cast out of himself. His consciousness drifted between worlds. He saw timelines unlived, discarded paths, choices never made. And among them all, always… always a shadow. His. Or worse—one belonging to the Shadowless Man.
Because maybe they weren't different.
Maybe they were reflections.
"What are you so afraid of?" asked a version of himself, eyes hollow.
"Becoming him," he answered.
"You already are. You're just stalling."
Sera's scream pulled him back to the fight.
He returned to his body just in time to block another strike. The Shadowless Man had changed. No longer fragmented—he was now a single figure, more defined… more human.
Ryouhei understood.
He had seen part of his truth. And now, the Shadowless Man was beginning to see his.
"Sera…" he rasped. "I can't kill him. Not yet."
She didn't ask why. She simply held his hand tighter.
The eclipse still loomed above.
And even though the battle raged