Present Day - Waterfall Area

  Back in the present, Varkas unleashed his shrine technique. A shrine appeared right behind him, and vein-like roadmaps materialized across the ground connecting each of the fighters together.

  "Endeavor," Varkas said calmly.

  All of the fighters were now attached to one another through pulsing crimson veins that spread across the rocky terrain like a blood-red web.

  "What is this feeling?" Rei said to himself, his hand pressed against his chest as unfamiliar sensations flooded through him. "I can feel Varkas and Raiden's heartbeat individually along with my own... this is bad."

  Raiden covered himself in a lightning cloak, the electricity crackling around his frame like protective armor. "Enshroudment," he said. The technique was a clan ability learned and taught by the Fujiwara—though it couldn't protect the user from a shrine technique completely, it could often limit the damage to help the sorcerer survive.

  "You Fujiwara and your techniques will not protect you from me," Varkas said coldly, his massive frame towering over them both. This was all the more reason for Varkas to hold such strong disdain for Raiden and Rei. Those two were the epitome of being blessed by lineage, and this was his way to showcase that hard work and suffering could overcome any privilege of birth.

  Varkas began punching himself in the face repeatedly, each blow resonating through the vein network. The damage transferred to both Rei and Raiden while simultaneously increasing Varkas's strength through his Berserk concept. Since every sorcerer was connected by Varkas's shrine, this was his way of attacking others while making himself stronger. Each blow he inflicted on himself hurt Rei and Raiden beyond measure, each strike heavier than the last, causing both physical and mental damage with nothing they could do to limit it.

  Blood began spilling from Raiden's mouth as he fell to his knees, his body wracked by pain that wasn't his own. Varkas walked toward him slowly, savoring the sight of the proud Fujiwara heir brought low.

  "No matter how much you think you've suffered," Varkas said as he picked up Raiden by his head with one massive hand, "it's only a drop in the ocean of my suffering."

  Rei gathered himself to his feet and began running toward Raiden and Varkas, ignoring the waves of transferred pain that crashed through his body with each of Varkas's self-inflicted blows. His determination to protect his friend overrode everything else.

  "Let him go, Varkas!" Rei yelled as he charged forward. "This is between me and you!"

  "Choose your words carefully, Vessel!" Varkas responded, dropping Raiden and launching a devastating blow directly to Raiden's stomach. The impact sent Raiden flying backward, smashing through several trees before collapsing outside of Varkas's shrine range, blood pooling beneath his still form.

  Raiden's eyes lost their focus, his consciousness slipping away as darkness crept in at the edges of his vision. "Is this my end?" he thought weakly. "A disappointment to not only myself, but to my family. Mother, I am sorry."

  Rei stumbled as the shared damage from Varkas's punch to Raiden coursed through the vein network, the transferred impact hitting him like a sledgehammer to the gut. He used Hikito's gravity manipulation to lessen his fall as the collateral damage knocked him backward. Upon getting back to his feet and clutching his stomach, he felt his body begin to heat up—the same sensation Varkas had experienced when his concept first awakened, but somehow more intense.

  Inside Rei's mind, both Leonis and Hikito's voices began filling his head with urgent demands.

  "Young master, what the hell are you doing?" Leonis shouted, his scarred face twisted with frustration. "Finish this now or more will suffer!"

  "You're not as gifted as you think you are, little brother," Hikito responded with cold arrogance. "Let me take over and I'll finish this quickly."

  But Rei stared at Raiden's motionless form in the distance, and the reality of the situation hit him like a physical blow. His friend—someone who had stood by him, fought alongside him, trusted him—was lying there barely alive. Now that Raiden was out of the fight, he was alone with the bane of his existence.

  The crushing weight of isolation, so familiar from his early days at the Academy, threatened to overwhelm him. But this time, something different stirred in his chest. Not the empty apathy he once knew, but a fierce determination born from genuine care for another person.

  "You make me sick, Vessel," Varkas said as he approached Rei with predatory confidence. He grabbed Rei by the head, lifting him off the ground as the vein connecting them pulsed faster. Varkas could feel the heat radiating from Rei's body, similar to what he had experienced during his own concept awakening.

  "Those dead eyes of yours piss me off," Varkas continued, his voice filled with disgust. "What happened to that vigor you had in our first fight?!"

  He began punching Rei in the stomach repeatedly, each blow sending shockwaves of pain through both their bodies via the shrine connection. But instead of the mutual damage he expected, Varkas noticed something strange—while Rei absorbed the physical punishment, the transferred pain seemed to be fueling something else entirely.

  "Fight back!" Varkas demanded, his frustration growing. "Entertain me! Show me your strength!"

  That was when something fundamental opened within Rei. The heat that had been building in his chest suddenly erupted throughout his entire body, and his lifeless black eyes began to change. Spirals appeared within his irises, slowly rotating as if drawing in everything around them.

  "What tricks are you pulling now, clown?" Varkas growled, noticing the change but not understanding its significance.

  But the vein network connecting them began to pulse with new energy—not Varkas's crimson rage, but something far deeper and more ancient. A pure white light that seemed to emanate from the very core of Rei's being.

  Rei, still being held by Varkas, spoke with the same cold apathy that had once defined him, but now it carried a weight that made the air itself feel heavy. "Let's see if you can handle my suffering."

  His spiraling eyes locked onto Varkas's face, and suddenly the giant felt something he had never experienced before. Through their connection, Varkas began to sense it—not just physical pain, but layers upon layers of emotional anguish compressed into the core of Rei's existence. The isolation of being truly alone, the weight of housing entities that wanted to use him, the constant fear of hurting those he cared about. All of it flowed through the shrine's connection like poison in reverse.

  For the first time in his violent existence, Varkas—who had built his entire philosophy around the supremacy of his own suffering—felt something that made him deeply uneasy.

  Rei kicked the side of Varkas with movements that seemed to flow like water, the impact releasing him from the giant's grip. The heat emanating from his body was now so intense that the air around him shimmered like a mirage.

  Varkas retaliated immediately with a brutal punch aimed at Rei's face, his fist moving with enough force to shatter stone. He smiled in anticipation of the impact, expecting to see his opponent crumble.

  Instead, his punch connected but caused no visible damage. Rei remained motionless, his spiraling eyes never leaving Varkas's face while debris from the sheer force of the missed energy blew backward from behind him.

  "This punch," Rei thought to himself with clinical detachment, his emotions retreating into the cold void he once knew so well. "I felt nothing. My emotions... I am feeling nothing again. But my body is burning."

  Without warning, Rei's fist shot forward and connected with Varkas's stomach. The movement was fluid, precise, seemingly effortless.

  "I can see everything," Rei said to himself as his spiraling eyes processed information on a level beyond normal human perception. "His muscles, his organs, even the outline of his existence."

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  The punch appeared to do nothing to Varkas initially. His massive frame barely moved from the impact, and for a moment the giant allowed himself to think he had been overreacting.

  "Maybe I'm overthinking this," Varkas thought. "That punch was weaker than anything he's thrown at me before."

  But then a delayed sensation hit him like a tidal wave. A burning hot feeling that seemed to originate from his very core, spreading outward through every fiber of his being. It wasn't physical pain—it was something far more fundamental. A nauseating wrongness that made his soul feel exposed and vulnerable.

  Within Rei's mindscape, Hikito watched the exchange with growing unease. "It's as if he touched his soul..." he whispered, his usual arrogance replaced by genuine concern. "Just what is this boy turning into?"

  Varkas stumbled backward, his massive frame trembling as the sensation continued to build. He had experienced every form of physical torture imaginable, but this was different. This attacked something deeper than flesh and bone.

  Rei looked around the battlefield with his spiraling eyes, and suddenly he could see things that had always been hidden from normal sight. The essence of life itself became visible—glowing outlines that revealed the true nature of everything around him.

  "My eyes can see it all," he said to himself with the same cold analysis. "The souls of everything around me. The birds, the trees, and even the enemy who is in front of me."

  He turned his gaze toward where Raiden lay among the scattered debris, blood pooling beneath his broken form. Even from this distance, he could see a faint but flickering glow emanating from his friend's critically injured body.

  "It's faint, but I can see his soul is still fighting for survival," Rei said quietly, his voice carrying across the battlefield. The glow was weak, unstable—Raiden needed immediate medical attention. "Hang in there."

  With that, he began walking toward Varkas with measured steps, each footfall creating small cracks in the stone beneath his feet from the sheer intensity of energy radiating from his body.

  Varkas launched another desperate punch, but this time Rei didn't even attempt to block it physically. Instead, his hand moved to intercept the attack on a different level entirely—not targeting Varkas's fist, but reaching for something deeper.

  The moment Rei's fingers made contact, Varkas screamed. Not from physical pain, but from the indescribable sensation of having his very essence touched by something alien and powerful. It was as if someone had reached into his chest and grabbed his heart, but the violation ran deeper than any physical organ.

  "What the hell are you doing to me?!" Varkas roared, but his voice carried a note of genuine fear for the first time.

  Rei's expression remained coldly analytical as he studied his opponent. "It's as if I could mold or absorb your soul right now," he said with clinical fascination. "This heat, this resonance... I can feel everything that makes you who you are."

  At that moment, Varkas's shrine technique simply disappeared. The vein network connecting them dissolved into nothing as his mana reserves, already strained by maintaining the technique, were further disrupted by whatever Rei was doing to his fundamental essence.

  "If a shrine technique is the accumulation of one's concept and one's soul," Rei said with the same cold analysis, his spiraling eyes never leaving Varkas's face, "it is no wonder that attacking the soul directly would cause your technique to disband."

  Although Varkas's physical body remained large and imposing, the outline of his soul—visible only to Rei's transformed vision—was weakening by the minute. Whatever made him fundamentally who he was seemed to be draining away like water through a broken dam.

  "You freak!" Varkas gasped, blood beginning to flow from his mouth as his soul sustained damage that had no physical equivalent. "If you're going to kill me, do it already! I don't need a lesson from a clown!"

  Rei's response was swift and final. His fist connected with Varkas's face, but the impact went beyond mere physical force. The punch drove straight through the giant's spiritual essence, sending him crashing face-first into the rocky ground with devastating finality.

  Varkas lay there motionless, his massive frame still breathing but his consciousness completely gone. The man who had built his entire identity around enduring and growing from suffering had been defeated by something he couldn't comprehend—an attack on his very soul.

  But learning the lesson from their first encounter, Rei knew he had to finish this completely. He couldn't allow Varkas to escape again, to regenerate and return stronger. He raised his hand for what should have been the final blow.

  That was when his spiraling eyes suddenly stopped.

  The heat that had been building throughout his entire body reached a critical mass, and all of that accumulated energy had nowhere to go. Rei began spitting up blood as his own concept turned against him, the strain of using such a fundamental power without proper training or understanding overwhelming his system.

  "Dammit, not now!" he thought desperately as he fell to his knees beside Varkas's motionless form.

  Varkas's laughter filled the air, though his body remained unable to move. "A new concept realized is unrefined, you clown," he said with bitter satisfaction despite his defeat. "You can see souls, you can touch them, but you don't know how to control it. The strain will kill you before you can kill me."

  He turned his head slightly to look at Rei with bloodshot eyes. "Show me your resolve is stronger than mine, Vessel!"

  Although both fighters were now unable to move properly, Varkas knew he had one advantage—he was used to operating through severe pain and near-death experiences. His entire life had been built around surviving what should have been fatal situations. If anyone could recover first, it would be him.

  Inside Rei's mind, Leonis appeared with his scarred face twisted in urgent concern. "Tapping into the soul is a dangerous game, Young Master!" he said, his red eyes burning with intense worry. "It was hard enough for your mother's concept, Queen Majesty, but you have multiple souls within you! Hurry up and heal yourself before Varkas recovers!"

  Rei tried to focus on his healing abilities, but he had burned through a significant amount of mana tapping into his true concept. His body felt drained in a way that went beyond simple exhaustion—it was as if he had pushed his very essence beyond its natural limits.

  Meanwhile, Varkas began the slow process of getting to his feet. Each movement was agony, his soul still damaged from Rei's attacks, but he forced himself upward through sheer stubborn will. His laughter grew stronger with each attempt.

  "You had me," he said with grudging respect as he struggled to stand. "For a moment there, you actually had me. But this is the difference between us, Vessel. I've been dancing with death my entire life. You just learned the steps."

  Just as Varkas managed to get one foot under him, preparing to drag himself toward the vulnerable Rei and claim his victory for Akuma, lightning appeared in a blinding flash.

  But this wasn't the blue-white electricity of Raiden's clan techniques. This was something far more intense—red and black lightning that crackled with barely contained violence. The bolt struck Varkas through the stomach with surgical precision, the electrical energy searing through his already weakened form.

  "Fujiwara..." Varkas gasped, looking up to see a figure he hadn't expected.

  Standing at the edge of the battlefield was not Raiden, but someone whose lightning burned with colors that marked him as exceptional even among the elite clan. His crimson-orange electrical aura pulsed with power that made the air itself tremble.

  "Enough," Rai said coldly.

  Without ceremony, he drove his lightning-enhanced fist deeper into Varkas's wound, then began a systematic assault that left no room for the giant's famous durability. Each strike carried electrical energy that bypassed physical defenses and attacked the nervous system directly.

  Varkas, already weakened by his battle with Rei and the damage to his soul, could barely put up any resistance. The man who had survived countless battles against heroes, who had built his entire identity around growing stronger through pain, was systematically dismantled by someone who fought with the cold efficiency of absolute superiority.

  As the final lightning strike pierced through his chest, Varkas felt his consciousness beginning to fade. The familiar heat of his Berserk concept was nowhere to be found—his soul too damaged to fuel his body's growth anymore.

  So this is how it ends, he thought, remembering Akuma's words from that first meeting in the sewers. "When you face someone stronger, you'll either grow beyond your limits or die trying. That's the only honest way to live."

  But there was no growth left in him. No rage to transform into strength. Just the cold recognition that maybe... maybe he had been wrong about everything.

  The blessed boy with his soul-touching power. The Fujiwara heir with his perfect lightning. They weren't just lucky. His vision blurred as blood filled his lungs. Maybe lineage does matter. Maybe I was fighting a war I could never win.

  His final thought, as darkness claimed him, was not of anger or resentment, but of something that felt almost like understanding. I failed you, Akuma. I wasn't strong enough to overcome death this time.

  The man who had spent his entire life believing that suffering made him superior died realizing that some advantages couldn't be earned through pain alone.

  "I am sick to even call you my brother," Rai said to Raiden's distant form without even glancing in that direction. His voice carried the same contempt it had held during their clan's sacred combat. "All of this could have been avoided if you weren't so weak."

  He turned to Rei, though his eyes never actually focused on him. "Clean yourself up and call the Academy officials," he commanded with the authority of someone accustomed to being obeyed.

  As Rai began moving toward the Academy, leaving Varkas's lifeless form behind, his thoughts were already calculating the political advantages of this victory. "This boy," he thought, remembering how Rei had managed to significantly weaken Varkas before his arrival, "tapped into something to bring down one of the Seven Deadly. Interesting."

  "No matter," he continued, his lightning-enhanced speed carrying him away from the battlefield. "The Fujiwara will be here to claim victory in a brilliant show of force for Japan. Let them see what true strength looks like."

  Behind him, Rei knelt in the rocky clearing, his body still trembling from the aftereffects of using his newfound power. Varkas was dead, the immediate threat was over, but something felt wrong about the victory.

  This should have felt like triumph. He had protected his friend, discovered his true abilities, and helped eliminate one of the Seven Deadly. But instead of satisfaction or relief, all he felt was a growing emptiness.

  The same cold apathy that had once defined him was creeping back in, and Rei realized with growing horror that his concept—this ability to see and manipulate souls—came with a price. To use it effectively, he had to retreat into the emotionless void he had worked so hard to escape.

  He looked at his hands, still faintly glowing with residual energy, and wondered if saving his friends was worth losing the humanity he had fought so hard to develop.

  The victory was theirs, but Rei had never felt more alone.