The world held its breath as Hayuni stepped forward, her bare feet leaving blossoms of blue fire in the cracked earth. Nine spectral tails fanned out behind her like a war banner woven from moonlight and memory.
"Little dragon," she whispered, and the pet name was a blade between Payune's ribs, "you always chased my shadow. Let's see if you can catch me now."
Her first move wasn't an attack—it was an invitation.
Hayuni's fingers danced, weaving strands of foxfire into:
A perfect replica of their childhood shrine
The crumbling bridge where they'd first sparred as girls
The nursery where everything went wrong
The illusions detonated one after another, each memory bursting into razor-sharp fragments. Payune raised Dragonrend—
—and froze as a ghostly hand gripped her wrist.
"Remember this?" whispered the memory Hayuni, age twelve, holding a wooden practice sword. "You cried when I disarmed you."
The real Hayuni's knee met her gut with the force of a falling star.
Payune hit the ground rolling, tasting blood and burnt sugar. Her dragon spirit uncoiled along her spine, scales erupting across her skin as she:
Sank fingers into the earth (pulling up a sword of molten stone)
Exhaled (a conflagration that turned falling debris to ash)
Charged (not at Hayuni, but at her own reflection in a floating foxfire mirror)
The genius of the move:
The mirror showed Payune's deepest fear (being left behind)
Shattering it released the trapped emotion as physical force
The backlash hit Hayuni like a tidal wave of broken promises
Hayuni's counter was elegant brutality:
She caught a shard of the broken mirror
Sliced open her own palm
Let blood drip onto the First Blade's fragments scattered across the battlefield
"Kitsune-no-Yume," she breathed, and the blood became:
A thousand needle-foxes
Each carrying a stolen memory
Burrowing into Payune's scales like parasites
The great fox spirit materialized in a whirl of blue flame, its:
Eyes (showing every time Hayuni lied to protect her)
Teeth (filed sharp on half-truths)
Tails (writing sealing formulae in the air with blood-ink)
Opposing it, Payune's dragon shed its mortal guise, revealing:
Horns (carved with war-history)
Claws (that had shaped kingdoms)
Breath (that smelled of lightning and betrayal)
When the spirits clashed:
The sky ripped open like a poorly stitched wound
Gravity stuttered, leaving rocks floating midair
The Eclipse moaned in ecstatic pain
Hayuni's Masterstroke:
She bit her own tongue, spitting blood onto the First Blade's hilt—
—and the battlefield remembered its true form:
The Imperial Nursery.
Now the sisters fought across:
Shattered cribs that wept black milk
Walls papered with their childhood drawings (burning at the edges)
A ceiling that showed both past and future simultaneously
Payune's dragonfang gauntlet connected with Hayuni's jaw—
—and for one terrible moment, they shared visions:
Hayuni, age six, standing over Payune's crib with a knife.
"She has to be strong enough," whispers their mother's voice.
The Dragonlord weeping as he nods approval.
The revelation cost Payune dearly. Hayuni's counterattack:
A tail-whip that shattered three ribs
A foxfire kiss that burned away half her memories of spring
A whisper: "Now you see why I had to break you."
But Payune dug deeper, unleashing:
"Ryūjin's Final Lesson"
She grabbed Hayuni's wrist
Sank teeth into her own arm
Let their mixed blood rewrite the ritual
The effect:
Their spirits tangled, fox and dragon merging
The nursery reassembled itself around them
The Eclipse screamed as its hold fractured
In the eye of the storm, the sisters collapsed together, their:
Hair turned white from spiritual overload
Weapons reduced to smoking husks
Bodies outlined in gold and blue like living stained glass
Hayuni touched Payune's cheek, leaving a smudge of ash.
"The fox was never mine," she confessed. "It was mother's jailor."
Payune understood at last:
The dragon spirit wasn't a gift—it was a guard
Their entire war was a prison break
The Eclipse wasn't consuming them—they were consuming it
As the realization hit, the ground beneath them split open, revealing:
The Crib.
The True Crib.
And from its depths came a sound they'd spent lifetimes forgetting—
—a baby's cry.