Two nights until the Black Sun.
The horizon bled orange as Rei stood alone at the edge of a dried riverbed. Dust clung to his boots, his breath cut rough through his throat. His blade rested against the rocks, but today was not its day.
Today was his.
His body still remembered every strike, every crack, every time it gave out when he needed it most. God Enso lived inside him like a storm, but his body had always been the cage too thin to contain it. Rage had carried him through battles, fury had fueled his steps, but fury broke him just as much as it saved him.
He pressed his palms into the ground, forcing his thoughts to steady.
If I'm going to carry this power, I need a body that won't collapse under it.
His hands closed around a boulder. The rock refused him at first, heavier than breath, heavier than bone. His muscles screamed, veins burning against his skin. He roared through clenched teeth and dragged it up until his arms shook and sweat streamed from his forehead. His back arched, his knees threatened to buckle, but he held it, held it because the Elders would not wait for a weakling.
He hurled the stone aside. It shattered across the riverbed in a storm of dust.
His fists followed next. Again and again, he drove them into the earth, into jagged rock, into the stone until his knuckles split and blood marked the ground. Each strike sent shocks through his arms, each pulse of pain teaching his body that weakness was no longer allowed.
By noon, his hands were torn raw, his shoulders shredded with ache. He wrapped his fingers around another stone and pressed, bending the weight against his chest until he collapsed under it. He pushed himself up again, and again, and again, until his arms felt like rusted steel about to break.
But he did not stop.
When his body refused to stand, he crawled. When it refused to crawl, he dragged himself through dirt, rocks biting into his ribs. He climbed cliffs with shredded palms, the stone cutting his flesh open. He tied dead branches across his back for weight until his spine screamed with every step. His breath came out in bursts of fire, his chest a furnace that threatened to tear itself apart.
Still, he didn't stop.
When the sun dipped low, Rei crossed his legs in the dirt. His breaths came ragged, his chest rising and falling like a drumbeat of war. He closed his eyes, blood drying on his fists. The chaos in his chest wanted to flare, God Enso fragments snapping like broken lightning. But this time, he didn't let rage take them.
He forced them quiet.
He thought of every scream, every loss, every shadow that haunted him, but instead of clinging to them, he let them drift, passing like clouds torn across the sky.
For the first time, his mind cleared.
The fragments pulsed steady, softer, calmer. Not gone, never gone, but not wild. Not devouring him. They sat inside him like embers waiting for breath.
Night fell. Rei did not sleep. He couldn't. His eyes burned red with exhaustion, his body screamed for rest, but he sat awake, unmoving, his fists pressed to his knees. The moon watched him, pale and patient.
"This body won't break," he whispered through split lips. "Not now. Not before the Black Sun."
Raga didn't answer. He hadn't since the void. But Rei didn't care.
He stood, fists tight, blood and dust clinging to his skin. His body ached like it had been ripped apart and rebuilt all in the same day. But for the first time in weeks, he didn't feel fragile.
He looked at the moon above him.
"One day left," he said to it. "One day to master this. Then I'll face them. All of them."