The Elder's breath stilled when Rei's eyes burned red and black lines carved across his flesh. The body he faced was no longer the boy. It was something else...something ancient.
"No… impossible," the Elder whispered, his voice breaking for the first time in centuries. "That presence… it cannot be."
Raga tilted his head, the grin slow, venomous, inevitable. His voice crawled through the chamber like final judgment.
"You feel it, don't you? The weight pressing into your marrow. That is not fear. That is recognition. You know me. You always have."
The Elder's hands shook, then tightened into fists. Two blades slid from his palms, silver steel gleaming with temporal light.
"You are death," he spat, forcing strength back into his words. "But time does not bow to death. Time devours everything...even you."
Raga chuckled, low, steady, like earth groaning before collapse.
"Then show me, little clock. Show me how you think to outlast what waits at the end of every tick."
The Elder blurred. Chrono Dominion split the chamber, reality folding, every strike of his blades arriving seconds before his hands moved. The air bent, shattered, rewound. Rei's body was sliced a dozen times in an instant, red lines blooming across his chest.
Raga looked down at the wounds… and laughed.
"Ah. You cut me." His voice coiled, delighted, dreadful. "But what meaning has a cut to one who cannot die?"
He vanished.
The Elder gasped...too late. Raga's thumb pressed into his spine.
"You cannot see death coming."
BOOM.
The Elder's body exploded forward, hurled through stone, through buildings, through the Sanctuary itself. The ground cratered, the sky cracked with the impact.
The Elder staggered to his knees, coughing blood, only to whirl as his instincts screamed. Raga was already behind him again, fingers curled around his throat. He slammed the Elder into the ruins, stone mountains folding like paper.
"Rewind it. Try," Raga whispered against his ear. "But know this… time cannot rewind what is already dead."
The Elder roared, veins bulging, and Chrono Dominion surged. The battlefield unraveled, stone rising whole again, Raga's strike undone, wounds vanishing from his body. He darted forward, twin blades flashing faster than light, carving through Raga's chest and skull.
For a heartbeat… death bled.
The Elder snarled, pressing forward. "You see? Time erases even death!"
Raga's head snapped back into place with a sickening crack. His body sealed before the blood hit the ground. He smiled through the crimson.
"Erase me a thousand times. I will still be here when your hours run dry."
He caught both blades in his bare hands. Metal screamed, sparks showered. He pushed forward, unrelenting, until the Elder was forced back, knees digging trenches through stone.
The Elder howled, forcing time to freeze, locking the world in stasis.
"Chrono Dominion: Absolute Halt!"
The battlefield froze. Dust hung in the air. Fire bent still. Raga stood unmoving.
And then his lips curved.
The Elder's eyes widened.
Raga moved in frozen time.
"No," the Elder whispered. "That's not possible…"
Raga's fingers slipped past his blades and gripped his chest.
"Do you not understand?" His voice was slow, deliberate, and suffocating. "Time bends only for the living. But I am death. And death is outside your little clock."
The Elder screamed and rewound, trying to erase the moment, but Raga followed into every loop, every reversal, always there, always smiling.
The Elder swung wildly, swords clashing, tearing holes in reality itself. Each strike shook the heavens, ripping thunder through the air. Raga answered every blow with fists that shattered stone, every touch crumbling the Elder's flesh into ruin.
And still the Elder fought. His blades carved into Raga's flesh, slowing him, staggering him, forcing blood from his mouth. He fought like time itself, endless, relentless, desperate not to yield.
But death does not yield.
Raga seized him by the jaw and slammed him into the earth. The world split open. Veins of red light pulsed across the ground, heat rising like hell itself was cracking through.
Raga raised his head, crimson eyes burning. His voice was not loud, but it carried like a decree.
" Hell's Gate."
The ground roared. From the fissures, clawed hands tore free, monsters of shadow and bone dragging themselves into reality. The sky blackened, stars drowned in the abyss, the battlefield collapsing into pure nightmare.
The Elder staggered, blades shaking, horror finally clawing into his eyes.
"This… this is not possible…"
Raga stepped forward, bare hands dripping with ruin. His smile was patient, terrifying, final.
"It is not only possible. It is inevitable."
He leaned close, his words a whisper that felt like a grave sealing shut.
"Tick, tock. Your time is over."
The Elder's jaw clenched. And then...he screamed, his body blazing with temporal fire. Both blades crossed in front of him, glowing with the very essence of time itself.
"Chrono Dominion: Eternal Collapse!"
The world shattered. Time itself folded inward, crushing everything into a single frozen instant. Raga's demons disintegrated into dust. The ruins rebuilt, then broke again, then rebuilt, caught in an infinite collapse. And for the first time, Raga's body was driven back, forced a step, then another. His grin faltered into something sharper, darker.
The Elder's face twisted in agony. His body cracked under the weight of his own power, veins bursting, blood streaming from his eyes. But for a moment...he had Raga locked.
He roared through clenched teeth. "Even death… must move through time!"
Raga looked down at the cracks forming along his arm, then back at the Elder. And slowly, impossibly, he began to laugh.
"You've wounded me," he admitted, voice heavy as tombstone. "You have my respect. For a heartbeat, little clock, you forced death to stagger."
The Elder screamed again, forcing every last shred of himself into the collapsing vortex. The battlefield howled, lightning tearing through the void.
And then Raga tore through it.
His body ignited, shadows peeling off like a storm unchained. He ripped the blades apart with his bare hands, the collapse shattering as if it had never been. His grin returned, monstrous and final.
"Do not mistake a stumble… for victory."
He lifted the Elder by the throat, demons howling around them, the black sky screaming.
"You have delayed death. But you cannot deny it."