The cathedral screamed.
Stone cracked. Pillars buckled. Stained glass—centuries old, depicting saints and martyrs—exploded outward in a rain of colored light.
Maestro Quiet moved through the destruction like a storm given form.
Darkness and chaos coiled around his hands. Not shadows. Not absence of light. Something deeper. Older. The frequency of endings made manifest.
Vaen stood at the center of it. Untouched. Calm. A golden barrier flickering around him like a second skin.
"You're wasting energy," he said. Clinical. Detached. "I've prepared for this. For years. Decades. You cannot—"
Maestro Quiet struck again.
The barrier cracked.
Vaen's eyes widened. Just slightly. "Ah."
"I don't care about your preparations." Quiet's voice was gravel and broken glass. Years of rage compressed into syllables. "I don't care about your plans. I only care that you *burn*."
He attacked.
Not with strategy. Not with discipline. Just rage compressed into violence. Every strike carrying the weight of three hundred deaths. Every blow screaming Eleanor's name. Roslyn's laughter. The baker's smile. The blacksmith's hammer. The flower woman's kindness.
*All of them.*
*Gone.*
The throne room collapsed around them. Roof caving. Walls crumbling. Golden fixtures and religious iconography—symbols of faith perverted into control—reduced to rubble.
They fell through floors. Crashed through levels. The cathedral—monument to Church authority, symbol of oppression—coming apart like paper in a storm.
Vaen's barrier held. Barely. Cracks spreading like spiderwebs across golden light.
"You're strong," he admitted. Voice strained now. Blood running from his nose. "Stronger than expected. But strength without purpose is just destruction."
"Good." Maestro Quiet's darkness exploded outward. Reality bent. Space warped. "Let's destroy *everything*."
The fight spilled into the streets.
Cathedral square. Once beautiful. Markets where children played. Fountains where lovers met. People living lives that didn't involve bleeding out on broken stone.
Now it was a warzone.
Maestro Quiet's chaos resonance tore through reality itself. Space warped. Time stuttered. Physics became suggestions he ignored with contempt.
Vaen countered with stolen frequency. Years of absorbed resonance channeled through a body he'd modified beyond humanity. Golden light that could reshape matter. Constructs that bent the world to his will.
They clashed.
And the city shook.
Buildings trembled. Stone cracked. The ground itself seemed to hold its breath.
Maestro Quiet pressed forward.
Every strike was for them.
*Eleanor.*
A flash. Not thought. Just feeling.
Her smile. Morning light through their window. The way she touched his face when darkness made him rage. "Come back to me," she'd whisper. Gentle. Patient. Believing in him when he couldn't believe in himself.
And he would. Always.
Roslyn.
Laughter. Small hands in his. Teaching her to bake bread in their small kitchen. The pride in her eyes when she made her first loaf. "Papa, look! I did it!" Seven years old. Perfect. *His*.
His village.
Faces. Friends. People he'd known his whole life. The baker's apprentice who gave extra bread to hungry children. The blacksmith who repaired tools for free when times were hard. The woman who sold flowers and always had kind words.
Children playing in streets that would become graves.
Dead.
All of them.
Dead.
And the man who ordered it—who stood there and *watched* them burn—stood before him now. Breathing. Living. *Unrepentant*.
Maestro Quiet's rage wasn't hot. It was *cold*. Absolute. The kind of fury that didn't scream. Just *erased*.
He attacked.
Faster. Harder. Reality bending around strikes that should've killed gods.
Vaen's barrier cracked. Again. And again. Golden light flickering. Failing.
"You're—" Vaen staggered. Blood running from his nose, his ears. "—actually hurting me."
"Good."
Maestro Quiet's darkness wrapped around Vaen's throat. Chaos resonance eating through defenses like acid. Corruption spreading like infection.
Vaen gasped. Eyes wide. For the first time in decades, *fear* flickered across his face.
Real fear.
Mortal fear.
He released everything.
Every drop of stolen resonance. Every fragment of absorbed frequency. Every modification he'd made to transcend mortality. Years of power. Decades of preparation.
*All of it.*
Golden light exploded.
Not an attack. A *detonation*. A desperate man's final gambit.
The street disintegrated. Buildings for blocks around simply *ceased*. Reduced to dust and memory. The shockwave carved a crater through the district.
Maestro Quiet and Vaen both flew back. Hit rubble. Stone. Each other. Coughed blood.
The shockwave rolled outward. Dust. Smoke. Destruction.
Silence settled.
Then Maestro Quiet stood.
Bleeding. Broken. Half his body burned. Darkness flickering weakly around his hands like dying embers.
But *standing*.
Vaen climbed to his knees. Gasping. Wheezing. His barrier was gone. His stolen power spent. The golden light that had made him *more* than human—*better* than human—faded from his eyes.
He was just a man now. Mortal. Vulnerable. Aging.
Afraid.
"How—" He coughed. Blood on his lips, his teeth. "How are you still—"
"Because I have nothing left to lose." Maestro Quiet stepped forward. Slow. Inevitable. Each step a declaration. "You took everything. My family. My faith. My *world*. All I have now is this. You. Dying."
He raised his hand.
Darkness coalesced. Not a weapon anymore. Just *absence*. Pure ending made manifest. The frequency of finality.
Vaen tried to stand. Couldn't. His legs wouldn't support him. Tried to defend. Had nothing left. All his preparations. All his power. All his transcendence.
Gone.
Spent.
Worthless.
"Wait—" His voice cracked. Not commanding anymore. Not calm. Not clinical. Just... human. Scared. "We can—we can negotiate—I have resources—knowledge—"
"No."
The word was final. Absolute. The period at the end of a sentence written in blood.
Maestro Quiet's hand descended.
The killing blow.
Final.
Inevitable.
*Deserved.*
Then—
*CRACK.*
Black metal. Between them. Blocking the strike.
Maestro Quiet froze. Stared.
He knew that weapon. Had seen it across battlefields. Felt its resonance shaking the city during the war. Had heard the stories.
"No." Maestro Quiet's voice shook. Not with fear. With *rage*. Pure. Undiluted. "No. You don't get to stop this. Not now. Not after everything. NOT AFTER EVERYTHING I'VE LOST!"
The staff didn't move. Didn't answer. Didn't apologize.
Just... *was*.
Blocking him. Denying him. Stealing his revenge at the moment of triumph.
Maestro Quiet pulled back. Tried to strike around it.
The staff moved. Blocked again. Impossibly fast. Impossibly precise.
"*NO!*"
He attacked. Over and over and over. Darkness and chaos and grief compressed into violence. Striking from every angle. Every direction. Trying to find a gap. A weakness. *Anything*.
The staff blocked everything.
Not fighting back. Not attacking. Just... stopping him.
Denying him the only thing he had left.
Behind him, Vaen crawled away. Slow. Pathetic. Broken but alive. Saved by intervention he didn't deserve.
Maestro Quiet collapsed to his knees.
Not from exhaustion. From *despair*.
The kind that hollowed you out. Left you empty. Made death seem merciful.
"Why?" He looked at the staff. At the weapon that had stolen his purpose. His voice cracked. Raw. Broken. "Why save *him*? After everything he's done. After everything he's *taken*. Why?"
The staff hummed.
No answer. No explanation. No justification.
Just presence.
And Maestro Quiet—broken, bleeding, grief embodied—understood:
Someone had thrown this. Someone had chosen mercy for a monster.
He reached out. Touched the black metal. Felt the divine resonance thrumming through it. Warm. Alive. Certain.
Then slowly, he turned.
Looked toward the direction the staff had come from. Through smoke. Through dust. Through tears he couldn't stop.
And saw a figure.
Standing on a rooftop three buildings away. Silhouetted against the burning sky. Against smoke and ash and the dying light of a city tearing itself apart.
Too far to see clearly. Too obscured by distance and destruction to identify.
But the staff was theirs.
And they had stolen everything.
The figure didn't move. Didn't speak. Didn't defend themselves.
Just stood there. Watching.
The staff vanished from Maestro Quiet's vicinity. Simply faded like mist.
Returning to its master.
And Maestro Quiet remained. Kneeling in rubble. Victory stolen. Purpose gone. Revenge denied by someone he couldn't even see clearly.
He stared at that distant silhouette.
Unable to look away.
Unable to understand.
Unable to accept what had just been taken from him.
Behind him, Vaen disappeared into shadows. Alive. Broken. But alive.
And Maestro Quiet knelt there in the ruins.
Staring.
Just... staring.
At the figure who had stolen his revenge.