Chapter 5 : The Last King

A Black Hole and a Sun fought.

Only one screamed, making his Will known to the Universe, imploring it to let him use once again the power he was born with.

The other did not scream, nor did he breathe. He did not ask the Universe to let him make his Will known, instead, he forced it to, he made it bow down to him.

Two opposites clashed, uncaring of their surroundings. The once awe-inspiring lair of the followers of Tovernus was now nothing more than a wreckage, its greatness an echo lost to the past. The only thing still standing the eluding machine of flesh.

The Light sizzled the skin of the Black Hole, leaving red, horrid marks on his body.

The Void enlaced bits of the Sun's flesh, unveiling red, hot as magma, translucent blood.

"Why are you here, Tezcatlipoca?" The Black Hole asked in-between two blinding clashes. "You're not respecting your end of the oath. Leave now and never come back." His voice was more poised compared to when the Sun taunted him, now only despise could be seen in his eyes, all other feelings gone.

"Don't you hate it when you leave a job unfinished?" He chuckled to himself, then returned to his serious, cold, unforgiving countenance. "I'm here to finish my job."

The fighting resumed.

The Void god pounced at the Sun god's throat, nails of Void elongating from his fingertips. The Sun god responded by summoning a radiating shield from which tiny solar eruptions could be seen. The nails stopped mid-way through the shield, leaving a trail of round black holes the size of an eye each behind.

"I advise you stop alienating me. I am more than capable of putting an end to your miserable life."

The Black Hole snickered, "as if. Do that and he'll kill you sorry ass. Just leave already, and don't come back." He spitted the end of his sentence, a cold warning capable of making shiver anyone listening.

"Now you've grown some fangs, I see. But I have something more interesting to offer: I stay and you leave my sight as of right now." A mischievious smile spread through the lips of the monstrosity.

The Void god stopped in his track for a second, looked at him like he were an idiot, and said with a sliver of doubt, "you don't think you can kill me with this body, right?" As he said those words, tips of Tezca's flesh continued to disintegrate into ashes. "Or are you that far gone?"

Tezca stopped moving, instead opting to recall his shield and summoning a light armor covering most of his body. "Interesting. I suppose I was wrong to think you would be interested in knowing the whereabouts of the siblings."

This time a look of incredulity phased through the Black Hole's face. Then anger. Dark, abyssal flames overtook the Void god.

"Where?" the god finally growled.

A sumptuous house, strangely spared from the chaos, stood in the middle of a raging tempest of White and Dark. Few trees embellished the garden, trying to reach the sky with their twisted bodies finishing by rose petals reminiscent of the dawn.

Inside the house were two siblings; an old, famished-looking lady with long white hair in a bun and her face ravaged by the atrocities of time. Alongside her was a young man probably in his thirties with short dark hair, a long beard covering his lower jaw, sides, and also a mustache touching his beard. While the sister sat on the floor with her eyes closed, her expression one of ease, the brother was up in front of a mirror, a look of concentration as he held a strong blade.

"He's coming," the sister simply said, not opening her eyes, instead letting a small smile cover her mouth.

The brother cut the sides of his beard for an answer. "I know, what do you want to do?"

"We let fate do its work."

The brother put down the blade, looked at himself in the mirror for a second, and seemed satisfied with the small twirling mustache he was left with. "Arent you're curious to see how it all ends?"

She sighed, letting exasperation and pain escape her now frail body. "Aren't you tired? We've wandered this world for countless centuries, we were born more than a millenia ago, and yet everything remains the same. History is but a loop," she paused for a second, thinking about the past. "But you had the opportunity to change things back then, you could have broken the cycle. If only you did not respect that stupid oath. Sadly no one can change the past..." She looked at her brother. He was still up, now looking down at her with this sereine expression of his. "I've always wondered, was it worth it? You wanted control over humanity so much you were ready to lessen it to a mere city, remnant of a beautiful past, one we've lived in." She pronounced each word carefully, trying not to mesh things up in her mind. She might have attained immortality, but contrarily to her brother's, hers was imperfect, and with time inexorably came oblivion, yet she remembered enough to know the importance of what she had to say. "Was it worth it, to bargain hope and happiness for ashes and a crown? Answer me, brother."

The young man looked at her disapprovingly, shaking his head. "You still haven't changed, you and your life lessons. That is why we lost the artifact, all your attention goes to what you're about to say, not what you should do." He looked down at her, pondering some unknown dilemma, then after a while sat down facing her. "To answer your question, I regret nothing. It appears you're in the delusion I betrayed humanity over my own desires, however that is not right. Never was I in the side of humanity, nor did I join the side of the Gods. I simply tried my best to achieve what was once our goal, and I succeeded."

Before the sister could gather her thoughts to answer, someone knocked at the door. "He has arrived," the sister calmly muttered to herself.

A tense silence loomed inside the room the time of a second, then the door burst open.

"How rude of you not to answer! And you didn't even care to pay me a visit in all those years, as if our friendship meant nothing!" an outraged voice shouted, yet there was nothing where the voice had come from, as if the void itself spoke.

"Not answering, huh," the voice said, all emotions gone. This time its body unveiling itself to the naked eye; he was a tall individual, closing to two meters and a half, his head hunched in an impossible angle and swerving lines of Void painted his body. "Well I don't care. I didn't come here to reminisce about the good ol' days, see. No, I came here because of how you disappeared from my life after you gave me that bitter gift." He walked over to them, enlacing both of them with his abnormally long arms tainted of Void. "And I'd like to return it to you guys, 'cause I really hate it."

This time, the sister opened her eyes, looking straight at the Void god. "We accept our fate. It is only right for us to reap what we sow."

Hearing this, a cold, full of hatred, unforgiving expression replaced the fake smile that clung to the god's lips he had when arriving. "Now what are you saying? Won't fight one last time? Not even for old time's sake?" he then looked at the man. "You trimmed your beard huh, it reminds me of when you still were second in command. I fucking hate it."

"You know as well as me you were the true second-in-command. You were captain's favorite," the man calmly said, a little smirk on his face.

"I damn hope so. Anyway, as I said, I'm not here to reminisce about the past. So, won't you fight? You were ready to do even the most despicacble things if it meant you could live a little longer, and look at you, you're as old as me! Even a little older, since you must have had what, thirty years to brag when I was just born? Am I correct?" to that the man nodded in the affirmative. "Ahaha, you old bastard and you dirty tricks, so you're really not gonna fight?" the shaved man only smirked more for an answer. "A fucking pity, that's what it is. I'd have loved to see you die like shit trying to best me. But oh well, on given horse one does not look at the teeth, is that how the saying goes?"

He coated both his hands with a glove of Void and put them right in front of the siblings' heads. "So long, Montezio," and after one last goodbye, touched their heads with his hands.

In a sumptuous house in District S, one glancing at the house could marvel about the imposing trees and their rose petals reminiscent of a past no one had lived where humanity was the master of earth. Inside that house lay the corpses of two siblings, only their heads missing.

The fingers of Montezio twitched.