Agony became Leon’s world for just a moment as Artorias’ blade cleanly sliced through the metal of his cuirass, cut through the Skyflax padding beneath, slid between his ribs, and impaled one of Leon’s lungs. It was such a painful and debilitating strike that Leon could do nothing more than go limp with a pathetic squeak, being held aloft only by Artorias’ blade.

But the pain that Leon felt was only partially physical. In fact, for all the pain that this vision of Artorias had just inflicted upon Leon with his blade, the agony of it being Leon’s father was what truly knocked Leon down.

Artorias smirked at Leon and slid the blade out from Leon’s chest, letting the younger man fall to his knees and wheeze for breath as air rushed through the hole the blade had made and into his chest cavity.

Leon laid there, barely able to do anything more than press his hand against his chest where blood was pouring out and stare at his father looming above him, blade in hand, a twisted smile upon his face.

“That,” Artorias quietly said, “was for letting the man who murdered me continue breathing.”

His voice, strong and filled with life—and filled with hate—struck such terror and sorrow within Leon that he couldn’t even bring himself to struggle.

It had been more than four years since Artorias had been murdered. More than four years since Leon had heard his voice with his own ears. More than four years since Leon had to bury him in their ruined home in the Northern Vales. More than four years since Leon had sworn to get vengeance.

Less than three months since he’d gone back on that oath and spared Justin Isynos’ life, for the sake of Valeria.

Leon couldn’t move. Shame, pain—both emotional and physical—and terror immobilized him. His vision blurred as his eyes began to water in shock and sorrow. He couldn’t even bring himself to close his eyes as he waited for the death blow to fall. He knew his father, it would be swift and decisive.

But Artorias just stood above Leon, grinning with his blade raised in the air. The deathblow didn’t come, and after a few tense seconds, Artorias’ arm began to lower. A few seconds later, Artorias took a couple steps back and growled, “Is this all you can muster, boy? Four years of gaining experience in the south, and all you can managed to do is kneel there like a used whore, sputtering and wheezing, waiting to be finished off?”

Leon sputtered, but the pain in his chest was awful. Every breath he took was ragged and labored and getting worse with every passing second as his adrenaline stopped blocking the pain. He could barely inhale enough to take a comfortable breath, let alone verbally respond.

“Well, I suppose like a used whore, you’re going to have learn to live with not being finished,” Artorias said with a wry, almost mad grin. “Get up. Face me as the man you’ve become. Show me what you can do. Show me that you deserve to bear the legacy of our family. Show me that it wasn’t a mistake to die for you.”

Artorias sat back down on his stool and stared at Leon, a manic look in his eye that finally began to cut through the layers of shock and pain that had completely overwhelmed Leon’s mind. And as he regained clarity, Leon finally registered the fact that Xaphan and Nestor were screaming into his mind from his soul realm.

[GET UP AND FIGHT!] Xaphan was roaring. [THIS IS NO TIME TO BE KNEELING! FIGHT! OR YOU WILL BE KILLED!]

[It’s not real!] Nestor was shouting, his voice far more muted than Xaphan’s, though no less desperate. If Leon died, then he would soon follow as Leon’s soul realm collapsed, after all. [Get up and face this phantom, Leon! It’s just a construct born from your memories! Face it and defeat it!]

[OR SUMMON ME AND LET ME HANDLE IT!] Xaphan boomed, his crackling voice sounding like a conflagration that had already consumed an ancient forest.

[No!] Nestor shouted back. [You must face this alone, Leon! Nothing but you and that construct! Nothing but your power against it!]

Leon took a deep, painful breath as he forced himself to calm down. He wasn’t going to die just yet. This wasn’t real. This was just some kind of an illusion.

An illusion that stuck a copy of his family’s blade into his chest, so not an intangible projection, but it was in some sense, fake, nonetheless.

Leon began to channel his magic as his visceral fear began to slowly be replaced with a deep anger at this violation. This temple had conjured forth his father, and that was not something that Leon could abide. His heart began to race even faster than it already was as another wave of adrenaline shook him.

With a grimace and a lot of ignored pain, Leon conjured a healing spell and used all the strength he could muster to press it against the bloody hole in his armor. He was vaguely aware of just how powerful that strike had to have been to penetrate his armor, so recently repaired and re-enchanted, but he felt almost nothing for the metal that he had put so much of his time into re-enchanting. All of his emotional bandwidth was being taken up by the sight of Artorias sitting on his stool, watching Leon try to heal himself with the same shit-eating grin that this damned temple had forced him to wear.

The healing spell activated, and Leon felt the hole in his lung close. With another ragged breath, he forced it to inflate with air, pushing all of the air that filled his chest cavity out through his still-profusely-bleeding wound with a ragged hiss, and held that breath. After a few more moments, his natural healing ability and his healing spell had managed to seal up the wound, but it was only a thick scab, he’d need more a few more healing spells to fix himself completely.

But he hadn’t the time or the patience for that. For now, he was back in fighting condition.

Leon took one last full breath, enjoying as much as he could being able to do so with comparatively little pain as what he was just suffering. This temple had managed to stun him with this move, but he wasn’t going to let it have the last laugh. It hadn’t finished him off when it could, and Leon would make it pay.

Leon stood, his head pounding with pain and fury, his eyes locked on Artorias the entire time. And he drew his sword, the real sword, the weapon that had been passed down through the Raime family for countless generations, since long before the founding of the House.

For just a moment, for the briefest of intervals of time, an almost imperceptibly small flame began to crawl and spread across the blade’s edge, black in color and dreadful in power, but Leon didn’t notice it. Less than a second later, a torrent of silver-blue lightning covered the blade, making the blade seem like it was made out of cascading lightning rather than Adamant.

Leon raised his weapon, pointing it at the image of his father, and said, “Whatever you are, whatever intelligence thought it wise to bring you into being, will regret bringing you back like this.”

Artorias’ smile didn’t budge an inch.

“We’ll see, little lion,” he whispered, and in barely enough time for Leon to blink, he was upon the younger man, his blade already up and falling toward Leon’s head in a vicious slash.

With all the speed of his lightning magic, Leon was able to raise his blade in time to block, but the force behind Artorias’ blow was immense, and Leon had to use both hands to hold the phantom back.

Taking advantage of that opening, Artorias slammed his off-hand into Leon’s armor, causing the Magmic Steel to crumple around the impact point like thin foil. Leon was thrown back like he weighed no more than a sack of potatoes, and all air was driven from his lungs.

“Not good enough,” Artorias chided instead of immediately closing and taking advantage of that opening he’d made.

Leon gasped for breath as he got back in the primary stance of his family’s fighting style. He didn’t respond to Artorias, and like he had so many times during his childhood, he charged at his father.

He couldn’t even begin to count the number of times a scenario like this had played out in the past. He had been around no one but his father for months at a time during the first sixteen years of his life, and in that time, Artorias had never once slacked off on teaching Leon how to fight. However, since there were no other people around who could act as Leon’s sparring partner, that meant that Leon and Artorias had sparred with each other a thousand times at the very least. Leon estimated the number at much more than that.

And not once had he ever won a fight against his father. Artorias had always been too fast, too strong, too experienced. Every move that Leon made he could see through. Every strike could be blocked or dodged. And Artorias always had, or at least for as long as Leon could remember, the lightning magic of the Thunderbird boosting his speed and power. For all that Artorias had taught Leon, it had never ever once been a contest between them, the gulf of ability too much for Leon to overcome with barely first-tier strength.

This time would have to be different. From what Leon could feel, this projection of Artorias was on the same level as his father had been, at least from his own retrospective estimations; the projection felt like a late-seventh-tier. That meant the projection had much more magic to draw from, at least in theory, but on a moment-to-moment basis, their power was about equal. If Leon had any hope of living through this, he had to do something he’d never done before—defeat his father—and do so as quickly as he possibly could, before that difference in available power could be felt.

When Leon lunged forward, his blade was aimed directly at Artorias’ throat. This illusion of his father wasn’t wearing any armor, so Leon wanted an immediate killing blow.

He wasn’t surprised in the least when Artorias’ blade moved so quickly to deflect his thrust that it practically appeared out of thin air. Leon was thrown momentarily off balance, and Artorias followed up by lunging forward for another strike from his fist, this time aimed at Leon’s helmet. But Leon knew it was coming and twisted enough for Artorias’ fist to glance off his armored face. Leon then used what little momentum was transferred to him to spin around and slash at Artorias’ calf. Artorias lifted his leg, letting Leon’s sword, still blazing with lighting magic, to pass harmlessly beneath him.

Before Artorias could follow up with a riposte, Leon took a step back to right his footing and gain some poise, while Artorias did likewise.

“Now that’s more like it,” Artorias said, his tone appreciative but cold. “Not quite what I was hoping for, but better than what you displayed upon your arrival. Come on, little lion, show me how much you’ve grown.

[Leon…] Xaphan whispered into Leon’s mind, his voice dripping with white-hot fury and a powerful need for violence. [Let me out. I will rend this thing to pieces. I will incinerate it until nothing remains. Let me out.]

Leon ignored the demon’s request. This temple had conjured Artorias from his mind, he couldn’t imagine what it might pull from Xaphan, assuming it could. Probably something like Amon, if Leon’s guess was accurate. Whatever the case, Leon didn’t want help for this fight. He was irate, he wanted to sink his teeth into this heretical illusion and rip it apart for daring to wear the face of his father. He wanted to sink his claws in and tear, he wanted to savor the feeling of tendons snapping off the bone, he wanted to revel in the bloody rending of flesh, he wanted…

He wanted many things, but most of all, he just wanted to win. He wanted to beat this illusion. To lose against such a thing, to allow such a profane thing to exist, was beyond the pale for Leon. No one, no thing, could ever impersonate his father like this. He wouldn’t allow it.

Leon prepared to lunge again, but this time, he pulled his helmet back into his soul realm. Whatever else it was, this illusion still wore the face of his father, and Leon wanted to look Artorias in the eye once more, even if it was in this situation.

“There you are, little lion,” Artorias said as Leon revealed his face. “You’re looking good, I have to say.”

The illusion raised his blade once more, and Leon made his move. Lightning exploded out of his legs, sending him soaring at Artorias at a speed too great for mortal eyes to perceive. An equal amount of lightning blazed in his sword, ready to explode out into whatever Leon hit with it.

Artorias blocked Leon’s opening strike, and a small explosion of lightning from Leon’s blade sent them both flying back a few feet. Very little made it through the blade into Artorias’ hands, but Leon wasn’t deterred. He struck again and again, and though Artorias blocked every time, Leon had effectively seized the initiative that Artorias had abandoned.

He pushed and pushed against Artorias’ defenses, not letting up even for a moment, constantly on the attack, not letting the illusion make even a single move other than to defend itself. Leon fought with tremendous ferocity, the impact of every blocked strike and resulting bright flash of lightning sending a wave of rage coursing through his mind. That rage empowered every swing, and steadily, Leon forced Artorias back. Already, he’d lasted longer than he ever had in any fight he’d ever had with his father, but given how much stronger he’d become since then, that was only expected.

Finally, with one deadly swing of his sword, Leon sent Artorias’ fake blade flying through the air, and he gave the illusory Artorias a harsh body slam that sent him crashing to the hardwood floor. Leon then stepped in, his blade raised, his power overflowing so much that his form was practically lost in the countless arcs of lightning that passed between his body and blade.

Artorias groaned in pain, and in that moment, with his blade raised, ready to fall down and cleave this illusion’s head clean off, Leon hesitated.

It was only for such a fleeting moment that anyone else would’ve missed it. If anyone else were his opponent, it wouldn’t have mattered.

But he was fighting Artorias, or something that had approximated his appearance. Rage only carried Leon so far, and in that moment, he couldn’t end things without thought. He couldn’t bring his blade down upon his own father’s head, not when he’d buried Artorias personally. Not when he’d cut open his father’s chest and planted a Heartwood seed within his heart. Not when he’d practically betrayed Artorias’ memory by making peace with Justin.

Artorias rose with shocking speed, his blade somehow back in his hand, and he slammed the pommel into the bottom of Leon’s chin with enough force to throw Leon’s head back with a sickening crack. Leon remained on his feet, but only for a moment, for Artorias then followed up with another strike, a slash across Leon’s chest that cut through his armor like a hot knife through warm butter.

Leon fell to the ground, his cuirass landing on either side of him, now nothing more than a pair of light weights attached to his body by a few untouched leather straps. Nearly all of the silver bands within his cuirass had been sliced into pieces, breaking nearly all of his enchantments. And Artorias loomed over him once more, the cocky smile that was so unlike him back on his face.

“I remember teaching you to never hesitate…” he said. He then ripped Leon’s blade from his hands and flicked it across the floor with the end of his own.

“You did,” Leon replied as he raised his right arm. Artorias smiled and raised his sword once more, clearly not intending to let Leon fire another blast of lightning at him.

But he was too slow. Leon didn’t use lightning, he used one of his ‘trick’ weapons, a silver band that he’d inscribed with an enchantment to form a sharp, hellishly thin blade of condensed air, and, with little more than a thought, fired it at Artorias.

He didn’t need to conjure lightning mana to do this, he didn’t need to condense or channel any fancy magic, and as a result, even by the standards of his lightning magic, the wind blade was launched with extreme swiftness.

Artorias blocked it, but he was thrown back a few feet, giving Leon enough room to pull his cuirass back into his soul realm and stand. He ignored the pain in his chest from the thin cut that Artorias had left—the illusion’s blade had broken Leon’s skin in that last attack, leading to a little bit of pain and bleeding, but it was a minor injury at best. Leon was far more wounded by his own self-recriminations from hesitating at the last moment, right when he’d won. The illusion was right, Artorias had taught him many times to never hesitate, for victory, even when in the palm of his hand, would never truly be his until it had been achieved.

Leon was reminded of Artorias’ favorite story, that of a legendary hero who sought immortality. The hero, after many trials and tribulations, eventually found a flower that would grant eternal life to whomever ate it, but the hero doubted what he’d heard and hesitated, and to punish that hesitation, a snake snatched the flower from his hand and ate it in front of him, leaving the hero with nothing to show for his efforts.

Even in his mindless rage, Leon had been unable to kill this illusion because it wore the face of his father. But now, he’d thought about it, and his heart had been steeled. Leon conjured a lightning bolt that glowed silver-blue with such intensity that it completely drowned out the two lights that had sprung into existence when this massive fighting space first formed. At the same time, Artorias had recovered and lunged forward, this time clearly aiming for Leon’s heart—the illusion seemed to be done toying with Leon, and was now moving for a killing blow.

A killing blow which never came. With an emotional roar, filled with fury, frustration, and resignation, Leon’s lightning bolt left his hand with no time to spare, exploding across Artorias’ face with all the force that Leon’s considerable rage and humiliation had packed it with, the tip of Artorias’ blade mere inches away from Leon’s chest, now only covered with the Skyflax cloth gambeson he wore beneath his Magmic Steel armor. Sparks and arcs of lightning filled the room, and Artorias’ figure was completely lost in the bright explosion. Thunder nearly deafened Leon, and the brightness of the lightning blinded him to the point that he had to shut his eyes tight. Either he’d thrown far more lightning than he’d intended, or Artorias’ body had exploded into more of the stuff—Leon honestly couldn’t tell.

But it couldn’t last forever, and after a few intense seconds, the lightning died down, leaving nothing behind. Not a corpse, not a singed piece of cloth, not even a scorch mark on the ground. Once the last spark faded into the wind, it was as if Artorias had never been there at all.

Leon breathed deeply, the shock of everything that had just happened in the past couple of minutes crashing down upon him all at once. He forced himself to remain standing just long enough to scan his surroundings, to note that the room was rapidly returning to normal as the ceiling descended and the walls closed in, but once it became clear it was just returning to normal and wasn’t going to box him in, Leon fell to his knees, his eyes shining with unshed tears, his breathing hard and rapid, his limbs still shaking with anger and adrenaline, utterly exhausted, both emotionally and physically.