Aeon stepped into the beam.
The world disappeared.
Not with sound, but with stillness. No light. No dark. Only unbeing. A hollow pause, like a breath before a scream.
And then—
It opened.
He stood on shattered ground, floating in a void where memory and space bled together.
Skies twisted above — swirling with colorless clouds, lightning crackling in glyphs instead of arcs. The floor beneath him was not stone, but fragments of past worlds — rusted steel, broken marble, scorched feathers.
In the center of it all stood the Shadow.
It had taken a shape now.
His.
Not a mimicry — a reflection. Dressed in robes of starlight torn by ash, with Aeon's own face, but twisted. Hollow eyes. A grin that didn't belong.
"I was waiting," it said.
Its voice echoed with all the things Aeon had silenced: rage, fear, sorrow, love.
"I know," Aeon replied, stepping forward.
"You thought you could bury me," the Shadow murmured. "You thought divinity would protect you."
"I thought I had no choice."
The Shadow struck first.
No movement — just pressure.
A wave of force crashed through Aeon's chest, hurling him back into a monument of shattered masks. They clattered to the ground — each one bearing a different face from his past.
Elira. Nivi. The little girl from Cindermoor.
Aeon's breath hitched.
He rose.
The Shadow laughed. "Even now, you hesitate."
Aeon called his power.
Not divine.
Not complete.
But rising.
Energy coiled around his arms — silver and violet, shifting with emotional resonance. His blade appeared, forged from threads of soul and truth, humming as if aware of the fight to come.
"I severed you once," Aeon said, taking his stance. "This time, I'll understand you."
"And then what?" the Shadow whispered. "Will you carry me? Will you live with what I am?"
They clashed.
Light against unlight. Will against wound.
Aeon's strikes carved through illusions — and the battlefield shifted with every blow.
One moment, they stood in the ruins of the world Aeon left behind — cities scorched by war, skies split by fire.
The next, they fought in a mirrored cathedral, its ceiling painted with a thousand scenes of loss.
Each swing of the Shadow's blade wasn't meant to kill — it was meant to remind.
"You left her," it hissed, slicing through a vision of Nivi smiling by a hearth.
"You forgot him," it shouted, plunging Aeon into the memory of a friend's betrayal.
"You said you were god — but you were a coward."
Aeon faltered.
And for a heartbeat, the Shadow pressed a hand to his chest.
"Do you feel it now?" it whispered. "The weight you gave to me?"
Aeon shuddered.
But he didn't fall.
"I do," he whispered.
His hand gripped the blade tighter.
"And I'm not afraid of it anymore."
In the physical world above, the ritual ring cracked.
From the fractures, something bled through.
Shapes.
Corrupted spirits.
Faces twisted in grief and rage.
Edward raised his arms. "We've got a problem—"
Greed snarled. "Finally."
Alphonse stood tall. "They're not just monsters. They're… pieces of something."
"They're echoes," Edward realized.
And all three prepared for battle.
———
Inside the void, Aeon's blade lit the darkness.
The Shadow screamed.
And the second round began.