A flaming hand ripped through the reaper's blade, sparks scattering into the air like screaming stars. The blindfolded figure pivoted, the white X on his forehead flaring as he deflected the strike with a hiss of displaced air.

"So why do you hate love?"

The reply came calmly but clipped "It's a worthless concept in the grand scheme of things."

A blade of radiant energy sliced across the space between them, missing the demonic mask by mere inches.

"It can't be that worthless. Without it, who would've raised you?"

"I'd call that instinct, not love," Voice steady but taut. "I'm not foolish enough to think the emotion itself is meaningless. But the belief that it's required to ascend—" he parried another strike, flames curling around his hand "—that's delusion."

Fiery chains erupted from him, wrapping around two nearby reapers. Their skeletal forms struggled for a moment before bursting into clouds of white ash that ignited midair, turning to drifting embers.

Ozzy tilted his head. "Well that doesn't make sense," he replied, ducking under a sweeping kick. "You got a snow globe too, huh?"

"…Snow globe?"

"Yeah," Ozzy grinned behind the flames. "When your head's all fuzzy—can't see what's real through the snowfall." He sidestepped, the heat distorting the air as their auras clashed again. "My good friend—" he smirked, ducking under another glowing arc "—even though we just met, the guy you're trying to kill—"

"It's not personal."

"Regardless! He's kinda like you."

"And why's that?"

"Because where he hates himself…"

Cawren straightened, letting the fire crawl up his arm until it framed his silhouette like a demon halo.

"…you lie to yourself." Ozzy cooed.

Cawren's aura hummed, veins of Ryun crawling up his body like serpents made of sunlight. He couldn't understand it—why couldn't he kill this man? Why did every clash feel like swinging at a grin that refused to die? His level had climbed to five hundred and fifty—well beyond what it had been before, when he'd stood at four seventy. He should've outclassed anyone here.

So if he hadn't leveled up… this man would've been this much stronger?

What fueled him? And why in all the damned realms had he never heard of him before?

Ozzy tilted his head, his expression bright and childlike—almost mocking. "You wanna know what makes me tick?" He laughed, twirling his sword until it whistled through the air. "Oh, everyone's so interested in me. Hear that, Tabia?! I made a new friend!"

From below, Tabia glared up, unimpressed.

Cawren exhaled sharply. "Enough of this… whatever this is." His tone deepened. "I don't know how you got in this tournament—or why you're siding with that Jujisn—but it doesn't matter. You're in my way. You'll simply be moved."

Ozzy grinned, balancing the tip of his sword on his toe as his white cape flared behind him. "You won't be able to beat me. Not with your half-ass conviction."

"Half-ass?" Cawren's aura burst outward, a storm of yellow streaked with black motes. "You dare—"

"Yeah," Ozzy said, smirking. "Half-ass. That's what I said." His smile glinted like starlight over oil. "Let's start with the basics, eh? Why are you here?"

Cawren didn't answer. He surged forward instead, fiery energy streaking the air as he brought his fist down. Ozzy met the blow mid-flight, blade ringing like a bell that split the platform. The shockwave tore through the ruined district, shattering the building fragments nearby.

They clashed again—once, twice, six times—sparks and light scattering like fireworks as their auras roared against one another. Then they broke apart, dust and shards raining between them.

"I'll start," Ozzy said casually, brushing off his cape. "I'm here to protect North—from you."

Cawren grimaced, heat pouring from his body. He raised his hand, and beams of molten glare bent through the air—arcing and twisting like serpents after Ozzy. The man laughed as he flipped backward, his movements almost theatrical, the flames trailing behind him. The beams chased him like guided missiles—while he twisted mid-air and shaped the trails into hearts.

"Are you—mocking me?"

Ozzy laughed. "What gave it away?"

Cawren clenched his teeth, aura thickening. Malefic Glare didn't work. Malefic Essence—deflected. His Sun Rot Orbitals fizzled in mid-cast. Every trick, every precision cut of heat and curse was turned aside by sheer, impossible skill and swordsmanship.

This man was definitely of the Divine Sword Line—he had to be. The rhythm, the control, the playful precision… only a Sword King rank fought like that. And that wasn't even counting the reapers he could summon at will—ghostly silhouettes still orbiting faintly in the smoke. He hadn't even used them seriously yet.

Fighting him was harder than facing the Sealed Crimson Prophet—and Cawren had nearly died earning that Essence of Worth in the pit.

He smiled despite himself. "You'll do," he muttered. "Since the other champions are mostly gone, you'll be my test."

Ozzy raised his sword, smile gleaming. "Done pouting? Thought of an answer?"

Cawren smirked back.

Ozzy's grin sharpened.

———

"What's going on, Destiny? You're not exactly tearing apart the multiverse right now."

Destiny didn't look at him—her eyes were distant, glassed over with the kind of focus that only came from overthinking. "It's… hard," she finally said. "Unraveling isn't natural to me. It's a strange concept. I only started feeling it recently."

North leaned back, rubbing his neck. "Probably because you've never compared yourself to Vari like this before."

Her gaze flicked to him sharply. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means," North said, grin softening, "that's a good thing. It means you're figuring out how to control it. How to shape it instead of letting it shape you."

Destiny raised an eyebrow. "And how do you know that?"

He pointed at his temple. "Instinct."

She sighed. "Your instincts are chaotic at best."

"Yeah, but they work."

Destiny weighed her options in silence, her aura humming like static between breaths. The dome flickered faintly around them, responding to the strange energy forming between their thoughts. North reached his hand out.

She looked at it. Then at him. For a brief moment, the calm on his face was… different. Not human, not divine, just familiar. The tilt of his head, the confidence underlined by exhaustion—she'd seen that before.

And it dawned on her like a pulse through her chest.

She was looking at Jafar.

That same deep syncing sensation crawled up from her stomach to her heart, that eerie, overwhelming overlap of memory and emotion.

"That," North said quietly. "Whatever you're doing right now. Do that."

Destiny exhaled, shaking her head like she could physically clear the weight off her shoulders. But then—she took his hand.

She drew a slow breath. "I'm greater than this… and am no lesser."

North's grin widened, unsteady but proud. "Okay," he murmured, the air around him beginning to warp and splinter. "Time to tear myself apart on a metaphorical and metaphysical level." He laughed under his breath. "On purpose this time. God, I'm loving my character development."

———

Jamal felt woozy on the stage, the world tilting like a bad trip. At first he didn't notice—he was rapping his ass off, letting rhythm and grit carry him—but the Story above him, whatever that meant, was exhausting him.

He wasn't a rapper by trade; he spit because it felt right, because it let him breathe. Still, this whole setup felt rigged—same odds, different world. He was still a little pissed Destiny had shoved him into the center of it, but fuck it: he was gonna ball. You couldn't rely on other people; that only got you killed. He had a plan.

The Story might be biased, but it bent to him on some level. He couldn't call on Ryun the way he wanted, but maybe, if he spun the tale just right, he could kill that stupid elf inside the narrative itself—and walk away with his coat. That coat was clean.

—————

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Crisper couldn't stand just sitting. Something was off—that elf was garbage now. Half his rhymes had fallen apart into lazy filler, yet Jamal was still giving it his all. That imbalance pissed her off.

She turned as best she could, eyes catching Destiny and the Blood Prince still locked hand-in-hand, their auras twisting and splitting like two storms trying to coexist. Whatever they were doing, it was taking time. Crisper didn't have that kind of patience. She wasn't built to just watch. She needed to act, to do something.

Her eyes slid toward Ria, still lounging with that calm, knowing smirk.

"What can you do?" Crisper snapped.

Ria tilted her head. "A few things."

"You helped us in the club fight," Crisper pressed. "You can help again."

Ria's smile widened. "And what makes you think I want to?"

"Because you're way too calm for all this," Crisper shot back. "And you're not even pretending to be lowkey with that whole analysis-bitch routine."

Ria laughed softly. "Okay, fine." She flicked her wrist, and Crisper's UI blinked open—right in front of her.

"The—how the hell—" Crisper started, but Ria cut her off.

"Use your kill streaks," she said smoothly. "Summon your little army."

"My what?"

"You can control them, right? Make them do anything."

Crisper blinked, confused, but glanced at the tab flashing red across her UI:

[Kill Streak: Command Unit]

Summon: 30 Loyal Operatives

Duration: 5 Minutes

Obedience: 100% — Bound to Your Direct Orders

Ryun Synergy: Partial (Amplified in Active Combat Zones)

It clicked. Her lips curled into a grin. "That'll do. But how the hell did you know about this?"

Ria pressed a finger to her lips, her yellow eyes narrowing into reptilian slits that gleamed with quiet amusement. "Because I watch." Her smile deepened, a touch too sharp. "And I don't miss anything."

—————

North thought of everything—the parallels, the echoes, the impossible symmetry between him and Jafar. That same gnawing hunger crept up from his chest, the one that whispered of defiance and destruction. Destiny's hand anchored him, her warmth holding the storm in check. He thought of the elf's warning—don't lose yourself. He thought of Caroline, Tinsurnae, even Ozzy and his odd crew. But more than that, he thought of what it meant to lose control—and why Jafar had embraced it anyway.

Destiny's mind mirrored his descent. She, too, hovered between thought and instinct, logic and surrender. The act of syncing with her darker self wasn't easy—it was intimate, invasive, like standing on the edge of her own divinity and realizing how much of Vari had already bled into her. The memory had changed her; she couldn't deny it. Sending Jamal into a divine trial without warning was pure Supreme cruelty. A chess move Vari would've applauded. But she wasn't going to become that. She would be different.

To be above consequence, one must first suffer it. Vari struggled. Jafar bled for it. Ascension required sacrifice.

And so, they stopped resisting.

The first cracks of their Unraveling weren't loud—they were felt. The dome pulsed once, as North's aura flooded outward in a sweeping tidal bloom of crimson. The air curdled into a liquid hue, the ground beneath him slick and writhing like veins pumping fresh blood into reality itself. It wasn't symbolic—it was literal. Everything near him became red, reshaped, alive and uncomfortably aware.

Destiny flared beside him, her golden aura erupting with venomous beauty. Her light dripped like molten honey, yet every drop carried a corrosive edge. Poison and sanctity intertwined, divine and deadly. The glow warped her shadow into a serpent, coiling and striking, while halos of gold bled outward, fracturing space into mosaic shards of brilliance.

Those nearest to them weren't lucky. The souls caught within their expanding fields began to twist and fade—some burning to ash, others melting into golden ichor. The Story shuddered, unable to comprehend what it was seeing, rewriting itself over and over just to keep up.

But neither North nor Destiny noticed.

They weren't heroes. Not yet. They weren't the paragons who made moral choices or spared lives for ideals. Their tales hadn't reached that point—if they ever would.

Right now, only survival mattered. Everything else—guilt, order, consequence—could be discarded and dealt with later.

And in that unholy acceptance—of freedom, of selfishness, of self—their Unraveling truly began.

The dome split into two tides of destruction: red and gold, blood and poison, pulsing together in beautiful, horrifying harmony.

——————

Cale's eyes went wide. The audience screamed. Jamal didn't stop. He couldn't—his rhythm was the only thing keeping him grounded. Whatever was happening in the crowd—divine interference, magical backlash, or some metaphysical bullshit—none of it mattered. Death was death. And his words were the only weapon that still hit back.

Cale clenched his fist, his voice slicing through the noise as runes of light flared beneath him. His words struck like knives—each syllable a counterattack—but the dome trembled under the growing storm. The Story itself was faltering, stuttering like a machine forced to process two realities at once.

Because the Story wasn't just a spell—it was an ego. A living narrative that refused to be broken. And like all art, it could only survive by enduring critique, bending without breaking. It glitched, folded, and reassembled itself midair. The words of both performers burned across its fabric, every verse and counterverse reshaping the rules inside.

The audience went feral. Screaming. Chanting. Cheering. Then, suddenly, it began to unify.

Jamal's name rose like a hymn. First a few voices. Then a dozen. Then a hundred. Then thousands. A full stadium of spectral souls crying out his name.

"JAMAL! JAMAL! JAMAL!"

Their voices hit like a wave, echoing through the dome until even the Story itself flinched. The rhythm changed—its meter thrown off, its narrative pulse overridden. Cale's power flickered. Jamal's grin widened.

And then came thirty new presences.

They appeared like synchronized ghosts—gray outlines molded from data and willpower. Soldiers. Each one connected by a thread of Ryun light stretching back to Crisper, her hair gleaming like static as she orchestrated them. She barked silent orders, and the spectral army obeyed perfectly, their chant locking in rhythm with the crowd.

"THREAT! THREAT! THREAT!"

The dome shook. The Story reeled. It was under siege—three fronts at once.

The Unraveling corruption of North and Destiny spreading through its core.

The lyrical war between Jamal and Cale raging below.

And now, an Outlander army swaying its audience like a living metronome.

For a moment, the Story nearly forgot the infection burning through it. Nearly. Because of her.

Ria.

Her yellow slit-pupiled gaze rose to meet the fabric of the Story itself. She wasn't chanting. She wasn't moving. She was simply watching. And that… that felt wrong.

The Story's awareness faltered. Was she manipulating the crowd? Twisting it from within? No—it was subtler than that. She wasn't changing the narrative. She was waiting for it to notice her.

Then, the structure began to collapse under its own contradictions.

Plot holes—literal ones—tore open in the air.

Sentences bled into paragraphs that no longer had subjects.

Worlds within the Story flickered and folded, their threads snapping apart.

The ribbons of Story itself—those luminous bands—shuddered and unfurled. Their surfaces rippled with infinite reflections: armies clashing in distant wars, lovers whispering beneath dying stars, children praying to gods who had long since forgotten them.

Tiny worlds stacked atop each other, collapsing, reflecting, rewriting. All at once.

North and Destiny felt it—the Story fracturing, its layers screaming as the corruption spread—and they fed it more. Their Unraveling deepened, devouring the souls caught too close. The air around them became a hurricane of distortion, each breath consuming and rewriting the essence of everything within reach. Golden venom and corrupted blood merged, pulsing like a second heart inside the dome.

Inside the chaos, Cale's composure cracked. He could feel his power pulling away, his influence weakening, the divine script unraveling in his hands. The words that had once obeyed now scattered like frightened birds. Desperation replaced elegance. He screamed verses with raw, trembling fury, clawing for control as his bass fractured into jagged shards.

Jamal felt the weight pressing down on him too. His lungs burned, his knees trembled. Every beat from the Story tried to crush him, to bury him under its will. But he wasn't going down like that. Not here. Not after everything.

He spat blood, grinned through the pain, and started to rap again—ragged, loud, unfiltered.

"You know it's funny to me,

Seeing you get all scared like you about to pee,

All that hate and you still a bitch, that's crazy to see.

I may be a B, but it's gonna sting,

Now that you know imma throw up a V.

Vari gang, Jafar life,

Only thing fueling the inside of me!"

Cale snapped. The crowd's chant drowned him out, his power refused to obey, and every verse Jamal spat bled power that wasn't supposed to exist. The elf screamed and charged forward, wielding his instrument like a divine halberd. His aura flared, veins surging up his arm as he raised the weapon high—

—and that's when Jamal pulled it.

Not instinct. Not divine favor. Just timing. The Story itself glitched for a heartbeat, a rip of pure nonsense—a plot hole—opened behind Cale. Jamal felt it tug at him, and in that moment, the impossible became real.

His hand closed around something solid. Cold. Familiar.

He'd been trying to pull it the whole damn time. And now, through the chaos of broken storytelling, it had finally happen. Insanity at it's finest.

Cale's eyes went wide.

Jamal aimed.

The Switch sang.

"BREKKA-BREKKA-BREKKA!"

Bullets carved lines through Cale's chest, each one leaving trails of red light. The elf's instrument shattered mid-swing, his final words lost under the metallic rhythm of death. He fell backward, bleeding through the glitching layers of the Story as Jamal stood panting—smoke rising from his weapon, blood from his lips, grin wide and defiant.

"Bitchass boi!," he yelled, voice rasped, "Get stretched blood!"

Rule Four: Death is not the end, but the correction of error.

Cale's body twitched, bones cracking, flesh restitching itself as his soul tried to climb back from oblivion. But Jamal didn't give him the chance. He was already on top of him, rapping between breaths, every line coming out rough, while the Switch fired in rhythm with his words.

"Bang for a bar, bleed for a rhyme—

You had your time, now it's mine!

You talk divine, I talk survival,

You made a Story—I made a revival!"

Each shot punctuated his verse, rewriting the beat in blood and recoil. The Story trembled, unable to maintain consistency, its own script bleeding out around the edges.

Rule Five: The Author decides the theme—but the audience decides who survives it.

And the audience had already made their choice.

Their chant had become scripture.

"JAMAL! THREAT! JAMAL!"

Their voices fused into one overwhelming roar, an anthem of rebellion that no divinity could silence. The Story—once confident, self-assured, smug in its own permanence—began to stutter.

It couldn't lie anymore. Couldn't twist or redirect the truth.

It could only feel fear.

So, like anything that fears—it tried to flee.

The dome's ceiling split open into cascading panels of words and light, and the Story itself began to rise, a radiant mass of symbols and phrases folding into itself as it tried to escape. It left Cale behind to his fate, abandoned its audience, even abandoned its meaning. Anything to survive.

But before it could leave—before it could slip into the higher realms—a voice boomed through existence itself.

*****************************************

What do you think you're doing, my little tale?

*****************************************

The Story froze mid-ascent, its letters quivering, its existence unraveling under the weight of something far greater.

*****************************************

This is your fate.

"Rule One: Every soul within this Story shall play their part."

"Rule Two: Only one ending will be remembered."

This is how you end. You played your part.

Now cease with grace—and finish the narrative.

*****************************************

The Story writhed, begging, twisting, but the command was absolute. It screamed—a sound not of sound but of collapsing meaning. The audience screamed with it, their souls fracturing under the weight of divine syntax.

The plot holes widened, swallowing entire fragments of existence. Worlds inside it folded inward. The stage shattered. The dome screamed.

And then—

The Story declared, through a voice splintered and broken:

"Winner… Jamal Wright."

Then it collapsed in on itself—imploding like a dying sun.

Light. Sound. Words. All gone.

This Story ended.

But the Unraveling didn't.

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