The Sovereign-V2: C56: Persistent Vermin

The Sovereign-V2: C56: Persistent Vermin

Kuro heard the crack in Shiro’s voice, the despair threatening to drown him. He felt it resonate in the static roaring in his own skull, in the hungry pull of the corruption towards the mountain’s core. He saw his monstrous shadow swell on the floor, edges deepening, mocking him.
FEED US.
But beneath the consuming pain and the encroaching void, a cold ember of the Defiance Variable sparked, forged in the crypts crucible. Not hope. Resignation. Understanding.
With a groan that tore from his chest, Kuro dragged himself closer to Shiro, ignoring the fresh wave of agony the movement cost him. His good hand, trembling violently, clamped onto Shiro’s shoulder, not gently, but with desperate, grounding force. The touch sent a jolt through Shiro, pulling his gaze from the abyss of his own doubt to Kuro’s pain racked face.
"No,"
Kuro rasped, the static layering his voice like grinding ice, but beneath it was a terrifying certainty. Blood and void ichor crusted his jaw.
"We’re not… strong enough to
stop
him."
He met Shiro’s despairing eyes, his storm grey gaze holding a bleak, flint hard truth.
"Never fucking were."
The admission hung in the air, heavier than the mountain above. It wasn't surrender. It was a brutal recalibration. Akuma watched, star pupils flaring with mild interest, a predator savouring the prey’s internal struggle.
"But maybe…"
Kuro choked, the effort of speech immense against the cold fire chewing deeper. He tightened his grip on Shiro’s shoulder, a lifeline against the void’s pull.
"…we can
stall
the bastard."
The words landed like a hammer blow.
Stall.
Not win. Not save. Just… delay. Buy moments. Heartbeats. For what? For Ryota, bleeding out nearby? For a miracle as impossible as thawing the void itself? The goal shrunk from salvation to simple, brutal persistence. From defiance to distraction.
Akuma chuckled, the sound like glaciers shearing.
"Stalling the inevitable? How quaint. Like grains of sand trying to hold back the tide."
He took a step towards Haruto, the void energy around his gauntlet intensifying.
"Your struggles are meaningless noise, fuel for the mountain's dream. Watch now, as I extinguish another borrowed light."
Shiro looked from Kuro’s grim, pain etched face to Akuma’s towering form turning towards Haruto. The image of Aki flickered again, not broken, but
waiting
. Trapped. Time. They needed
time
. Even if it was just seconds. Even if it cost them everything.
A spark, not of hope, but of desperate purpose, ignited in Shiro’s gut, battling the numbness spreading from his wound and his wrists. He met Kuro’s gaze. A silent understanding passed between them, forged in shared agony and the ashes of their grand defiance. The fight wasn’t about victory anymore. It was about attrition. About being the most irritating, persistent grains of sand in Akuma’s cosmic boot.
Shiro rolled, a movement that tore a cry from his throat as phantom ice daggers twisted in his wrists. He didn't try to stand. He scooped up a chunk of shattered black ice fallen from a weeping pillar. Not a weapon. A projectile. He hurled it, not at Akuma’s head, but at the Plaza floor
behind
the Void Knight’s advancing foot.
"NOW!"
he croaked.
Simultaneously, Kuro
shoved
himself forward, not rising, but sliding on his knees across the slick floor. He didn't aim for Akuma. He aimed for the Void Knight’s
shadow
, his corrupted arm held low. He didn't try to unleash the unstable power; he focused on the
cold
radiating from it, the invasive chill that resonated with the Plaza’s hunger. He
pushed
that sensation outwards, not as an attack, but as a localized wave of intense, distracting cold, a psychic shiver across Akuma’s void touched senses.
The ice shard shattered harmlessly on the yielding floor behind Akuma. The wave of cold from Kuro was a gnat’s buzz against a hurricane. But Akuma hesitated. A fraction of a second. His step faltered. The star pupils flickered minutely towards the source of the insignificant distractions.
It was enough. Haruto, seizing the microsecond of diverted attention, flowed sideways with lethal grace, his Polaris dagger flashing in a defensive arc as Yumi Isamu’s spectral void blade sliced the air where he’d been standing.
Akuma’s head snapped back towards the twins. Not with fury, but with a flicker of genuine annoyance.
"Persistent vermin,"
the void voice grated. He raised his gauntleted hand, not towards Haruto, but towards Shiro and Kuro. Void energy coalesced, a swirling orb of absolute negation forming above his palm.
"Time to sweep the floor."
Shiro braced, the icy daggers in his wrists screaming. Kuro gritted his teeth, the corruption flaring blue white as he prepared to meet the blast, knowing it would likely unmask him. They wouldn't stop it. They couldn't win. But for one more heartbeat, for one more ragged gasp, they were still
in the way
. The feast was delayed. They were the grit in the machine, the blood on the blade, the defiant, broken sparks refusing to be extinguished
just yet
. The cost was written in their agony, the next breath bought with screams yet to come.
The orb of absolute negation swirling above Akuma’s gauntlet pulsed, a localized black hole sucking the jaundiced light from the Plaza. Shiro braced, the icy daggers in his wrists twisting as he tried to summon a futile helix of amber light, knowing it would shatter. Kuro, teeth gritted against the glacial fire chewing towards his heart, tensed his good leg, ready to throw his corrupted body as a final, frozen barrier. The air crackled with impending annihilation, thick with ozone and the metallic tang of their despair. Akuma’s star pupils held only cosmic indifference, the executioner raising the blade.
Then, the world fucking
exploded
, not with void energy, but with searing Polaris light and the shriek of tortured frost.
"AKUMAAAAA!"
The roar wasn't sound; it was a force of nature, a collapsing glacier given voice. It slammed into the Plaza, vibrating the yielding floor and rattling the weeping pillars. A blinding lance of white hot starlight, erratic but ferocious, slammed into the void orb from the side.
SIZLEEEEE!
The negation energy recoiled, writhing like a wounded serpent, its formation disrupted. Simultaneously, a blur of obsidian and frost forged steel crashed into Akuma's flank.
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Ryota.
He moved like a landslide, powerful, inevitable, but visibly broken. Blood, dark and steaming, poured freely from the horrific wound in his side where Volrag’s blade had been, soaking his furs and pooling briefly before the hungry floor gulped it down. His face was a mask of blood, ice, and agony, his Polaris eyes blazing with a light that flickered violently, like a guttering star in its death throes. Starbreaker, the massive double bladed axe, trailed searing light, but its arc was slower, less controlled than before, betraying the ruin within. He didn't aim for a killing blow; it was a battering ram charge, fuelled by sheer, desperate will.
CRUNCHHHHH!
The axe head, wreathed in dying Polaris fury, smashed into Akuma's void black pauldron. Frost spiderwebbed across the obsidian plate, void ichor spurted, and Akuma, caught off guard by the suicidal ferocity of the attack, staggered sideways a single, heavy step.
Shiro gasped, the breath freezing in his lungs. Not with fear, but with a surge of raw, disbelieving relief so potent it momentarily eclipsed the agony in his wrists.
Ryota.
The Old Star, battered, bleeding out, but
here
. Beside him, Kuro choked out a sound that was half sob, half snarl of feral gratitude. He didn’t have words; the static roared too loudly, the cold fire chewed too deep. But his storm grey eye locked onto Ryota’s battered form, a desperate anchor in the devouring dark.
Akuma recovered instantly, a low growl like grinding neutron stars vibrating the air. He turned his star pupils on Ryota, cosmic indifference replaced by sharp, predatory annoyance.
"The crumbling monument returns,"
the void voice grated.
"Dragging your entrails behind you. How… irritably persistent."
He raised his gauntlet, void energy coalescing, aiming now at the staggering Commander.
Before the energy could lash out, another figure flowed into the fray with lethal silence.
Haruto Isamu.
His arrival wasn't heralded by a roar, but by a sudden, intense drop in temperature near Akuma’s other flank. His Polaris dagger was a needle of contained stellar fury, aimed not at Akuma’s vitals, but with surgical precision at the vulnerable seam behind the Void Knight’s knee, the same flaw Kuro had tried to exploit moments before. Haruto’s face was a mask of analytical ice, but his obsidian eyes burned with a cold, focused fury directed solely at the task: protect the twin stars, disrupt the enemy.
Akuma was forced to pivot, diverting the void blast intended for Ryota to intercept Haruto’s strike.
SCHZORTT!
Void energy met Polaris light in a shower of frozen sparks and searing vapor. Haruto disengaged fluidly, the jarring force sending tremors up his arm, flash freezing the synovial fluid in his elbow. He didn’t flinch. His gaze flickered to Ryota, a micro assessment: critical damage, fading light, unsustainable aggression. Then to the twins: Shiro disarmed, writhing in silent agony, Kuro barely conscious, corruption visibly spreading. The tactical matrix reformed instantly.
"Veyne! Disrupt his grounding!"
Haruto’s voice was a whip crack of command, devoid of warmth, heavy with urgency.
"Twins! Distal stimuli! Now!"
He didn’t explain; he expected obedience forged in the crucible of the Sky Hearth crypt. He lunged again, not to kill, but to harry, his dagger a silver blur forcing Akuma to constantly adjust his defence, preventing him from focusing his devastating void power.
Ryota didn’t question. He understood the language of the desperate fight. Gritting his teeth against the white hot inferno in his gut, he hefted Starbreaker. Its light was dimmer now, faltering, but he channelled the last dregs of his Polaris fury not into a strike, but into a massive, two handed downward slam onto the fleshy Plaza floor directly in front of Akuma.
CRACKKKKK!
The yielding surface buckled violently, sending a shockwave of rippling force through the organic stone. Black ichor geysered from ruptured vesicles. Akuma, mid pivot to track Haruto, stumbled as the ground lurched beneath his feet, his void energy sputtering.
Shiro and Kuro reacted on instinct, driven by pain and Haruto’s command.
Distal stimuli.
Distractions. Shiro, ignoring the grinding shriek threatening to shatter his wrists, scooped another chunk of ice. He didn’t throw it
at
Akuma; he hurled it high, aiming for the pulsing, diseased rune embedded in the ceiling directly above the Void Knight. It shattered harmlessly against the stone, but the spray of frozen fragments rained down. Kuro, summoning agony as a weapon, focused the invasive cold radiating from his corrupted arm. He didn’t try to attack Akuma; he pushed the sensation of
absolute zero
towards the Void Knight’s void touched senses, a psychic shiver of disruptive cold across his focus.
It was chaos. Haruto darting in and out like a frozen wasp, precise strikes forcing constant parries. Ryota staggering but unleashing ground shaking impacts that destabilized the footing. Shiro hurling debris with trembling, agonized arms. Kuro projecting waves of soul numbing cold. None of it could
hurt
Akuma significantly. But together, it was a whirlwind of irritating, persistent defiance. Akuma snarled, a sound of genuine frustration now. His void blasts became less focused, swatting at the distractions. He was the storm, but they were the relentless grit in its eye.
"ENOUGH!"
Akuma bellowed, the word a physical force that slammed Haruto back a step and made Ryota stagger. Void energy exploded outwards from him in a concussive ring.
WHUMPHHHH!
Shiro was thrown backwards, crying out as he landed hard on his damaged wrists. Kuro crumpled, the backlash sending the invasive cold fire chewing deeper, a white hot brand against his heart. Ryota braced, Starbreaker digging into the floor, blood streaming down his leg. Haruto skidded, his boots leaving steaming trails on the icy flesh.
They formed a ragged semicircle around the Void Knight, Ryota leaning heavily on his axe, breath pluming in ragged gasps, his light guttering dangerously low; Haruto poised, dagger ready, face impassive but veins standing out on his neck from strain; Shiro pushing himself up on elbows, wrists screaming, face pale with agony; Kuro on his knees, head bowed, corrupted arm pulsing with sickly light, static roaring in his skull. Battered. Bleeding. Barely standing. But together. Forcing the executioner to acknowledge the persistent grit.
Akuma straightened, void energy swirling around him like an angry nebula. The star pupils blazed with cold, infinite fury.
"Pathetic Vermin,"
he hissed, the word dripping with cosmic disdain.
"You sting. You irritate. You buy heartbeats with your own blood. But Ryo cares not for the struggles of ants before the boot descends."
He raised both gauntleted hands, void energy coalescing into twin orbs of devouring darkness, larger, more potent than before.
"Time to sweep the floor fucking CLEAN."
As the titanic power gathered, poised to unleash annihilation upon the battered quartet, a deeper shadow stirred.
High on a ledge formed by a grotesque, weeping statue, untouched by the Plaza’s jaundiced light or the combat’s fury,
Corvin
stood. He hadn't materialized; he simply
was
, a natural extension of the darkness clinging to the stone. His hood was drawn, his face invisible, but his posture was one of absolute stillness, of observation. His ring pulsed with a low, resonant
thrum
, a counterpoint to the Plaza’s hungry groan and the building void energy below. He didn't move to intervene. He didn't signal. He simply
watched
.
His presence wasn't seen by the fighters locked in their desperate struggle below. But it was
felt
. A subtle shift in the oppressive atmosphere, a deepening of the shadows just beyond the periphery of Akuma’s gathering power. A silent, enigmatic observer at the brink of annihilation. Was he assessing the rebellion’s last stand? Measuring their worth for Nyxara? Or waiting for the precise moment to reveal which side his hidden dagger would strike? His allegiance remained shrouded, a chilling ambiguity hanging heavier than the void orbs gathering in Akuma’s hands. The cavalry had arrived, battered and broken. The hidden player watched. And the mountain’s heart beat on, hungry and patient, beneath the feet of the doomed.

V2: C56: Persistent Vermin