Ghost of Sparta Kratos (snarling):
"You think you're redeemed? You think Atreus will ever look at you and not see blood?
You are nothing but a butcher… who traded one pantheon for another."
(Kratos's jaw tightened until his teeth creaked. His eyes flicked downward—to the lifeless hands of his wife and daughter—and pain knifed through his chest.)
(He raised the axe an inch, but hesitation froze his arm mid-motion. His knuckles whitened around the grip.)
Kratos (pleading, as though to himself):
"…I have paid for my past. I have… tried to be better."
(The Ghost of Sparta lunged forward, voice a venomous roar.)
Ghost of Sparta Kratos:
"Lies!
You will always be the Ghost of Sparta.
And your son—your precious boy—will carry your sins on his shoulders… just as you carried the ashes of your family!"
(Kratos staggered back a step, eyes wide, the flame of old guilt blazing in his chest. His breathing quickened. For a heartbeat, he looked small—lost.)
(Then, slowly, his brow furrowed. A spark of defiance flickered in the depths of his eye. His voice came out low, rumbling like distant thunder.)
Kratos:
"…Perhaps.
But I am not you…
Not anymore."
(He lifted the axe fully now, shoulders squaring as the embers of determination burned away the shadows creeping over his mind.)
(The Ghost of Sparta bared his teeth, chains whipping around his arms in a shriek of steel. With a roar, the two Kratoses charged each other—The axe and Blades of Chaos crashing together in a spray of sparks as past and present collided.)
(Steel clashed in a storm of sparks. The two Kratoses slammed together amidst flickering flames and swirling ash. Chains screeched across steel as the younger Ghost of Sparta lashed the Blades of Chaos with feral fury, striking like a serpent again and again.)
(Kratos grunted under each blow, staggering backward. Every strike felt as though his own hatred was hammering him into the ground. His arms shook, muscles burning, memories screaming in his skull.)
(The Ghost of Sparta roared and swung the Blades downward in a vicious arc. Kratos barely blocked it, his Leviathan Axe trembling under the impact. His feet skidded across scorched stone.)
(He fell to one knee, sweat and blood dripping into the crimson pools beneath him. Above him, the Ghost of Sparta loomed, twin blades raised high for the final blow.)
(But through the roar of flames… another voice echoed in his mind. Soft. Familiar. Steady as the roots of Yggdrasil itself.)
Atreus (echoing):
"Father… you are not that man anymore.
You taught me that our past shapes us—but does not rule us.
You told me… we choose who we are."
Kratos (to himself, almost whispering): "son..."
(Kratos's fingers flexed around the axe haft. A spark ignited in his single remaining eye—a spark of defiance that had once toppled Olympus itself.)
(Slowly, he rose. Ash fell from his shoulders like snow. His voice was a low growl, trembling with emotion yet unbreakable as stone.)
Kratos (hoarse, resolute):
"…We choose who we are."
(Shadows of the gods surged around him—Zeus crackling with lightning, Ares swinging his crimson spear, Poseidon's trident slicing through the air, Baldur laughing cold and cruel. Each struck with the fury of death itself.)
Kratos (gritting his teeth, voice low):
"…I am not who I was. I will not fall again."
(He swung the Leviathan Axe in a wide arc, shattering Baldur's spectral form into mist. Chains of the Blades of Chaos whipped through Poseidon's trident, tearing the shadow apart. Lightning from Zeus's echoing form fizzled and died as Kratos blocked and countered with precise strikes. Ares lunged again and again, but Kratos met each blow with fury honed by loss, training, and survival. Each god's shadow dissipated into nothingness—then returned, relentless as the tide. Yet Kratos did not falter.)
(Finally, with a roar that shook the ashes from the sky, he slammed the Leviathan Axe into the ground. A shockwave rippled outward, scattering the remaining shadows of the gods like dust in the wind. Silence fell. The battlefield cleared, leaving only the Ghost of Sparta standing, snarling, the final test of his will.)
(The Ghost of Sparta lunged forward—but Kratos twisted with savage precision. He deflected the blade with the axe's haft, seized the chain in his fist, and yanked his younger self off balance.)
(With a snarl, Kratos plunged the Blade of Chaos straight into the phantom's chest. Ash billowed outward in a swirling cloud as the younger Kratos gasped soundlessly, eyes wide in shock.)
(Kratos leaned in close, voice low and trembling.)
Kratos (breathing hard):
"You are no longer my nightmare… nor myself.
Maybe I lost many…
But I will not let you do it again.
Not now. Not ever."
(The phantom staggered, cracks of golden light racing through its ashen skin. The Ghost of Sparta dissolved into drifting dust. Chains clattered to the ground like dead serpents. The world around Kratos fractured into shards of darkness—and then fell away like broken glass, revealing a field of starlight and silence beyond.)
(Kratos stood alone, chest heaving, staring at the space where his past self had vanished. For a moment, a single tear traced a path down his cheek. Then he turned—and stepped back toward the light.)
Kratos (softly, almost a whisper):
"Atreus… my son… thank you."