Jack hauled himself to his feet. The others were doing the same around him. His very bones felt jarred from the fall.
There was no sign of the islet or the ocean or the Light or the Darkness. In fact, there was nothing to suggest that this still was Chthonia. Instead, they were somewhere on a great, ethereal grey plain, stretching into infinity on all sides. They were standing or floating—one of the two—on some sort of misty, vaporous surface, yet the space above and below them was a mass of churning fog and dim, fleeting shadows.
The sky, if it could still be called that, was dominated by the golden sphere, shining supremely like a sun. Directly below, presumably where the islet had been, a colossal cloud-composed Star with seven tendril-like points was partly submerged on their level. It was toward this that the fog and shadows above and below were drawn at an incredible speed, vanishing into the Star’s core as if they had no substance of their own. The Star itself, however, seemed entirely unaffected, turning languidly on its axis as its points adjusted like the arms of a three-dimensional clock.
Their force was scattered. Individuals and clusters of figures, shadowy and indistinct at this distance, were similarly regrouping in a wide circle around the Star. All had been thrown from the island by the bolt. They now seemed less like an army than a dispersed group of bugs, dwarfed by the titanic scene around them.
Inari had leaped to his feet next to Jack, a hand reaching instinctively for the hilt of his katana.
Despite everything, Jack had to take a moment to marvel over the transformation the fox had undergone. He was well built and samurai-like, clad in a hefty white breastplate, shoulder guards, gauntlets, and thigh and shin guards. Though he was certainly humanoid, Jack could see traces of the vulpine features in the shape of his head and markings around his eyes. The same fox head symbol that had been engraved on the Chthonian pillar was emblazoned on his armor.
“Is that the Risa Star?” he asked, pointing at the grey mass ahead of them. Inari nodded. “I wouldn’t have thought the Shards would have come together to make that . . .”
Inari now spoke with his mouth, yet there was still an echo of the mental communication that Jack had come to associate with the fox. “What you held was the tip of the iceberg, the slightest physical manifestation of the Shards’ true essence. Even this”—he gestured at the pointed mass—“doesn’t come close. It is still accumulating energy.”
“So what’s going on?”
The samurai surveyed the orb, the Star, and their surroundings with a grim expression. “The universe is ending. Light and Darkness are collapsing back into the Sage. He’s becoming the universe, expanding to fill it out in His totality as it shrinks around Him. Soon there will be nothing left but Him; everything will be Him. When that orb combines with the Star, that will be it.”
“Can we stop it?”
“As unlikely as it seems,” Lucy said, “we didn’t come completely unprepared.”
Jack turned.
Lucy, Alex, and Ruth were behind them, as were the six other spirits, each glowing with his or her respective color.
“We have Light and Darkness with us,” Alex continued. “If we have any chance to stop this, it’s now.”
The elf spirit, formerly the whale, stepped forward. “Inari, it was you who led us last time. You are the finest warrior of us all. Will you lead us again—united—this time?”
“The Darkness is with you,” Lucifer pronounced, spreading his arms and wings. “We will stand with you and the Light until the very end.”
“Which might not be too long now,” Ruth muttered.
Alex elbowed her in the ribs.
Inari surveyed them. All were defiant. He turned to Jack. “And you? You’re the one who has lost out the most and, most directly, from my actions.” He sank onto one knee, head bowed. “I ask for your forgiveness.”
Jack was taken aback. He looked at the others, but none of them seemed to be surprised.
Ruth caught his eye and nodded toward Inari as if to urge him on.
“I think you’ve got the wrong idea here,” Jack began slowly, addressing Inari at his knee level. “You’re acting as though you’ve ruined my life or something. The last few months, the last year . . . it’s been terrifying at points, sure, and I’ve definitely been battered around more than ever before, but it’s been the best time I’ve ever had. I wouldn’t have swapped it for anything. You don’t owe me anything. I owe you.”
He placed a hand on the samurai’s shoulder, and Inari looked up. “Right now, even if we fail, even if this is the end, there’s nowhere I’d rather be.”
Inari raised himself to his full height and took Jack by the hand. His eyes were glistening. Then, nodding, he turned to face the orb and the Star. His voice rose across the plain so that even the farthest disparate figures could be seen to react.
“I challenge You to single combat.”
The reply emanated from the orb in a booming roar, louder and more exultant than Jack had ever heard the Sage before.
“INSOLENTS. I HAVE RAISED YOU ABOVE YOUR FELLOWS WITH THE HONOR OF WITNESSING THE END OF YOUR REALITY, AND YOU THANK ME BY CHALLENGING ME?”
“If you have become as mighty as You say, surely a battle with a mere fox would be nothing. Or do You remain as weak as that grey husk You were without Your precious Star?”
The orb was engulfed in flame as the Sage’s incensed reply burst forth. “I AM THE STAR! IT AND I ARE ONE ENTITY. IT WAS WRENCHED FROM ME TO CREATE YOUR SORDID WORLD, AND NOW IT HAS RETURNED.”
“Prove it,” Inari replied, his voice, though calm, rising to a rivaling crescendo. “You haven’t laid Your hands on it for the entire history of our worlds. Prove that You still know how to use it.”
The Sage’s reply was a booming growl. “VERY WELL. YOU WILL MEET YOUR DESTRUCTION EARLY, AND YOUR COMPANIONS IN THEIR LAST MOMENTS WILL SEE THEIR PATRON WARRIOR OBLITERATED BEFORE THEM.”
There was an immense rumbling. Slowly, like a huge and grotesque jellyfish, the Star began to rise above the surface of the plain. Clouds swirled around it, gathering together into a colossal entity. The orb sank and split, dividing into two blazing spheres of golden flame. A titanic figure was emerging before them—limbs of cloud, eyes of flame, the Star hovered at His core like a pulsating heart. Lightning extended from His arm, and a broadsword of pure energy materialized in His grasp.
With a flourish, Inari drew his katana and raised it above his head. The blade shone, a white crescent against the grey surroundings. At the same moment, the six other spirits burst into light, dissolving into blazes of crimson, sapphire, emerald, amber, gold, and indigo. The lights sprung from the ground and, circling rapidly, converged on the blade. Rainbow light flushed over Inari, and he began to grow, in an instant reaching the gigantic height of the Sage.
The two titans faced each other. Then, with a rumble, their blades struck, and their struggle began.
Every contact was like a thunderclap, every blow like an earthquake. Jack was captivated by the clash above him, the battle for their existence played out in gigantic proportions; he felt like an insect, subject to forces entirely beyond his control. He had seen Sardâr duel with both Iago and the Emperor and had been stunned then, but nothing could have readied him for this. Inari was the most impressive warrior he had ever seen, blocking, parrying, and striking with incredible speed and accuracy. He would have decimated any lesser enemy in seconds, but this was an adversary like no other. The Sage’s movements were slower but carried with them a brutal, unfettered force that kept Inari in constant defense.
But their environment was changing. The clouds above and below, which until so recently had been ultrafast surging masses, were slowing, the pull of the Star apparently diminished. The plain was warping around them, the shadows slipping by becoming more distinct. Jack caught sight of a tree, an outcrop of rock, the remnants of a house, as they flitted by.
“I think it’s working!” he shouted over the cacophony. “I think it’s all slowing down!”
“It’s not slow enough, though,” Alex replied at full volume, stumbling as a mountainside passed beneath him. “Everything’s still collapsing.” He pointed down at the shadows. “These are fragments of the universe. They’re all being dragged—”
His words were drowned by an almighty blow. The Sage had knocked Inari’s katana from his grip and now kicked him in the stomach. The samurai fell, sending tremors across the land and sky, and despair washed over the onlookers.
The Sage towered above, triumphant, His golden eyes searing upon them.
“YOU ARE FINISHED. THIS IS YOUR END. THE END FOR EVERYTHING YOU HOLD DEAR.”
The broadsword drew back into the sky, blade downward, ready to strike. It fell.
It came to a jerking halt.
A thin chain of rainbow light had clamped around the Sage’s wrist, shackling His movement. The twin suns rotated, uncomprehending, following the path of the chain, arcing down to its point of origin—Jack’s outstretched arms.
With a roar of rage, the Sage ripped His arm free, swiveling to strike again, but another chain shot out of the air and caught His arm. Then another, and another, and a hundred more—tiny threads of Light and Darkness that twined around His arms, legs, neck, torso, ankles, and wrists. Sinews of energy spun from the air in every direction, every miniscule figure across the plain holding and pulling. To Jack’s left, Ruth had fired one of amber; to his right, Lucy and Alex were struggling at the end of golden and indigo ones, respectively.
“All together!” Jack roared and found his cry taken up all across the grey plateau.
With an almighty crunch that sent a wave of cloud across the plain, the Sage was pulled to His knees. His broadsword clattered and fissured the ground beside Him, fizzling out into nothingness.
Then Inari, katana in hand, rose above the giant shackled by the multitude. Light and Darkness spun in equal measure from his blade as he spoke the final words.
“The end—Your end.”
And he plunged the blade into the Star.