Chapter 42
The silence was deafening.
From the shadows of a fractured sky, she stepped forward — the first Nihil Daughter. Her form flickered like a broken reflection: too tall, too narrow, draped in black silk that fluttered in no wind. Her face… had none. Just an outline of where a face should be, like the void wore a mask of skin.
In her hand: a blade forged from nothingness — not darkness, not steel — but true absence.
Nezutsu stood, white fire flickering across his arms like divine veins awakening.
Kaelith whispered, stepping slightly in front of him.
"That's not a soldier. That's an executioner. If she's here, the Court fears what you saw."
The Nihil Daughter spoke, voice like frost crawling across ancient bone.
"Flame-bearer. Ashless One. You have trespassed on the dream of the Unnamed. You have touched the Third Name."
She raised the nothing-blade.
"The price is erasure."
Duel of Impossible Powers
Kaelith moved first, hurling a storm of mirror shards from her sleeves — they flashed with spell-etched symbols and surged forward like a swarm of light.
But the Nihil Daughter didn't dodge.
She simply stepped sideways… into her own shadow. The attack passed through empty air.
"She slipped into a silencefold," Kaelith gasped. "She's untouchable when she's not completely real."
"So how do I hit what isn't real?"
"You don't," Kaelith said grimly, drawing her crescent-blade. "You disrupt the dream that makes her real enough to kill you."
The Daughter emerged behind Kaelith.
Her nothing-blade whistled downward—
CLANG!
Nezutsu blocked it.
With his bare hand.
Not because he caught it — but because the fire melted through reality where it would have struck.
Both Kaelith and the Daughter recoiled.
"That fire… it undoes the undoing," Kaelith whispered. "Your flame is raw Will. It's not creation. It's… refusal. It denies being denied."
Nezutsu breathed deep.
The white flame expanded — his hair floating, eyes glowing, skin crackling with glyphs that hadn't been there before.
The Nihil Daughter lunged.
Their fight shattered trees, bent light, broke logic itself.
She stepped out of shadows, and he bent fire through truth. Each attack erased part of the world — and each defense re-formed it in flame.
"You should not exist," the Daughter hissed, pieces of her form cracking.
"Then you'll have a hard time killing me," Nezutsu spat back.
He drew a circle of white fire in the air — a glyph older than history — and whispered:
"Asharan Yurei-Tar."
The Third Name.
Just one syllable of it.
And the forest wept starlight.
Flashback Memory: A Tear in the Dreamglass
Suddenly, both combatants were ripped into a shared vision — drawn into the Dreamglass they didn't know still watched.
A field.
A child.
Burning.
But this time, Nezutsu heard the voice whispering to the boy:
"They will never love you. Not as you are."
"Burn," said the voice.
"Burn until they have no choice but to kneel."
Nezutsu turned.
The voice wasn't from the boy.
It was from the void. The same presence within the Nihil Daughter.
The same force behind the Hollow Court.
"They're not trying to erase you," Kaelith realized.
"They're trying to claim you."
Back in Reality
Nezutsu's flame surged.
But now — it wasn't pure. A line of black fire curled up from the base of his spine, threaded with whispers.
"Use it," said the void-voice. "Let go of your fear. Burn everything."
For a moment, Nezutsu almost did.
But then…
Kaelith touched his shoulder.
"You're not a weapon. You're a choice."
He exhaled.
The black fire died.
And in its place came something new: Violet and White interwoven.
Not rage. Not surrender.
But balance.
He turned to the Nihil Daughter.
"You don't get to decide what I become."
And he stepped forward.
This time, the Daughter tried to vanish — but the fire didn't let her. It anchored her in place.
Nezutsu reached out — placed his palm on her faceless head.
"Dream ends here."
She screamed — but no sound came.
And then, she unraveled into ash.
Subplot: The Mirror Archive Moves
Far away, a woman stood atop a silver tower that had no entrance.
Her eyes were mirrors.
And she watched the battlefield unfold from a pool of frozen time.
"He resisted the voice," she murmured.
Behind her, a hundred scrolls floated — all of them written with one name:
Nezutsu.
But each scroll had a different future.
Some showed him as savior. Others as tyrant. Some... as a god.
The woman touched one scroll — and it burned into mist.
"The path just shifted. Again."
She turned to her assistant, a boy with ink instead of blood.
"Send the Prism Watchers. If the Hollow Court fails... we must begin the Trial of Flame and Mind."
: A Soul Unlocked
As Nezutsu collapsed, heart pounding, Kaelith caught him again.
"You held back," she whispered.
"I didn't want to lose myself," he breathed.
"You didn't," she said softly, brushing his hair aside. "You found yourself."
He smiled faintly.
But in his palm, where the black brand had been, a new mark appeared:
A symbol of balance — fire and silence entwined.
It pulsed once.
And deep in the earth, something ancient… stirred.
[TO BE CONTINUED…]