Sayhas slashed downwards before Bandit could say something else. He bent down following the swing and twisted Soulthirst in his hands to make the blade arc over his back. Something smashed into the blade. Sayhas’ awkward angle made it impossible to fully defend against the blow, but he didn’t need to.

A dense ball of red haze shot out of Soulthirst, pushing Bandit back. The pressure on Soulthirst went away. Bandit stumbled, arms flailing by his sides. Sayhas stabbed forwards and Dismantled the scythe into a spear. Suddenly, a purple portal opened up. The spear fell into the portal with no resistance. Sayhas' momentum pushed himself forwards, into the portal.

He heard a change in the portals Discord and he pulled back. The portal closed, snapping his spear which was still halfway inside. A second too late and that'd be his head.

“Forgot how fast you were,” Bandit grunted while slouching over himself.

“Not fast enough," Sayhas replied, heaving.

He summoned Soulthirst again. After being Dismissed, it had lost all its charges. He swung at Bandit’s face. A portal snapped open, transporting the blade elsewhere. Bandit grinned. Sayhas felt the portal begin to close on Soulthirst. Eat. The edges of the portal shattered, swallowed into Soulthirst’s insatiable void

Soulthirst reformed as the portal shattered into light. The tip of its blade coagulated a mere hand away from Bandit. Bandit caught the scythe with his purple blade. He furrowed his eyebrows, his grin quickly vanishing. Sayhas pressed down with Soulthirst as a portal opened up behind. Right behind his head. Sayhas ducked and rolled left, dropping Soulthirst and summoning it back.

He blasted Bandit with a stream of lighting from his bracelet. Bandit opened another portal behind Sayhas, delivering the stream back towards him.

Soulthirst ate it, humming appreciatively.

Portals opened around Sayahs. Cinders. He jumped back right as the ground was showered with blades. Soulthirst ate the portals in a big gulp. Blades above, Sayhas swore, literally. Bandit raised his free hand and shot out five whips of flame. They snapped in the air, flickering against Selphis’ light.

What’s he going for? He knows that I can just eat it.

“Who cares, let me eat.”

Behind the whips, Bandit threw a row of black projectiles. Tiny portals opened up underneath the blades he had shot earlier.

He’s trying to overwhelm me.

Sayhas stabbed Soulthirst into the ground and fell into Partial Resonance. There was a huge popping as Soulthirst ate everything. The whips were gone. The portals vanished, shearing off the tips of blades; they fell harmlessly to the ground. It wasn’t just the Weavings that Soulthirst affected.

Everything fell towards Soulthirst: The trees, the air, even Sayhas, nothing was free from the greedy scythes hunger.

Threat nullified. Wait. The projectiles were still there. They aren’t Weavings. Curious, Sayhas couldn’t hear them. Sayhas switched Soulthirst between his hands as summoned a large blue-tinted glass shield. The projectiles—daggers—hit the shield, digging into it. Sayhas tossed the shield away, dismissing it.

He swung Soulthirst in the air at Bandit's general direction. The scythe spat all its charges at Bandit. The beams took arcing trajectories so Bandit couldn’t just block it all at once.

Multiple small portals appeared around Bandit, swallowing the beams. “Enough.” A large portal appeared behind Bandit, parallel to the ground. Innumerable brown sacks fell out. Bandit held the purple blade in front of his face, close enough to kiss the flat of it. He whispered something to it. “Tell your scythe to eat this, Reaper," Bandit said, Discord rising like the tide.

A portal opened beneath Sayhas, he jumped back. Suddenly, a dome of human-sized portals surrounded Sayhas. There were small gaps, the size of fists between the portals. Through the gaps, Sayhas could barely see Bandit. The dome was so large that Sayhas could lie down—head to toe—five times and just barely touch both ends.

Sayhas fell into Partial Resonance again, preparing to eat the portals all at once. Then, things started to shoot out of the portal. Not aspects, not arrows, not anything sharp. But rocks. Big rocks that could knock Sayhas out like a vial of lunarwing green.

Frantically, Sayhas batted the rocks away with Soulthirst. The scythes metal wouldn’t be fazed by the rocks. There was an easy fix though. Sayhas summoned the large glass shield and wrapped it around his body. The rocks bounced off harmlessly.

Perfect. Sayhas prepared to eat the portals. A black spear shot through the shield, shattering it like a hammer through ice cubes. "Cinders." Sayhas smacked it to the side with Soulthirst. He had no shield that could block something of that magnitude and be big enough to cover his entire body.

Suddenly, brown stuff clouded his vision. Sand? Another spear popped through the portal, Sayhas barely dodged it. It was an aspect, so Sayhas could hear it, but the portals made a lot of ambient sound. It was incredibly difficult to hear things when surrounded by the portals.

Despite his poor vision, Sayhas was still able to block most of the rocks with Soulthirst. Until another pouch exploded on his scythe. He started coughing and more rocks began to hit him. He managed to protect his neck and head, but he wasn’t sure how long he’d last. Sayhas summoned his white scythe and shot out a shockwave of lighting the moment it was completely formed. Bolts streaked out of its blade on every angle. Bandit was throwing the rocks they had to be connected.

Sayhas was wrong.

The lightning bolts shot back towards him. Soulthirst ate it and spat it out, through a crack in the portals, in a direction that was hopefully near Bandit. Without even paying attention, Sayhas knew that it would either miss or be blocked. Bandit wasn’t sloppy enough to be caught by something like that.

Sayhas had to something. Tentatively, he felt at the faint bond between him and Maaier Speal. But he couldn’t, he had a promise. And breaking it would be among the worst ideas he could have.

Sayhas’ grip tightened on the white scythe

Time for number two I guess.

He reached for the white scythes Discord and brought his own closer. For a moment, Sayahs felt disconnected from his body. As the two Discords drew closer, raucous melodies rang in Sayhas’ ears. Finally, they reached a point where the pain disappeared. Sayhas forced more Discord into it and the melody grew stronger, gentler, and so much more beautiful.

Then, it grew silent, and something happened. In the corner of Sayhas’ mind; a distant alcove he didn’t know he had. Something settled in like it was always meant to be there.

A burst of lightning shot out of the white scythe, in every direction. Oddly enough, none of it was shot back through the portals. Each bolt had managed to filter through the small crack between them. Lucky.

Hello my second Resonance, Sayhas thought inwardly.

“Greetings. My name is Traveller. Where are we going today?”

That was a welcome change to Soulthirst. Stories said that Resonances had very distinct personalities and were fueled by some carnal desire for chaos. That’s why those with too many Resonances go crazy,

“To kill I hope,” Traveller said.

Ah, there's the chaos.

“I can hear you, you know. I’m not chaotic. I’m very predictable. I was made for travelling; it just so happens that I prefer to travel into people, accompanied with multiple forks of lightning.” Traveller hummed gleefully. “Thank the King that I was made to kill.”

I’ve never heard an Aspect swear before.

“You haven't had that big of a sample size. Trust me, we learn. Now shall we get on with the bloody business? I am here for a reason.”

Scythes technically aren’t made for killi—

“So what, you’re going to put me in the ground and start tilling? Please don’t jest.”

You didn’t strike me as being so...difficult.

“I’ve never stricken you and you should hope I never have to. That being said, by difficult, I’m sure you meant witty and charming. To which I assure you, I can do both while still killing things. Speaking of which, why isn’t their blood on my blade.” An urge to slaughter everything filled his head. Sayahs pushed those thoughts away.

“Hi, I’m Soulthirst, do you have anything to drink?”

Sayhas tuned them out. A difficult task since they were conversing inside his head. He looked around and noticed that there was a lighting barrier surrounding him. The barrier flung rocks away.

“I hate doing that, it's stagnant.” Traveller chimed in.

Sayhas tugged on the barriers with a mental prod through Traveller and it unravelled. He continued deflecting the rocks and pouches with Soulthirst. The area around Traveller trembled with Discord. With a thought, Sayahs could form sparks. But Traveller’s influence didn’t stop there. It continued upwards, past the portals, towards the treetops in the distance. He focused a spot high above Bandit. Sparks flared to life, rubbing against each other. They grew larger, feasting on each other.

“Clever,” Traveller remarked, sounding almost impressed.

Jagged, white, bolts of lightning crashed down onto Bandit

There was no evidence of it landing though. When the light cleared from his eyes, Sayhas could see a large portal above Bandit

“Now, think. I’m called Traveller for a reason.”

Sayhas recreated the lighting barrier. Traveller groaned. He tugged on the edges and broke it. The barrier fell apart into shards. Then, he pushed outwards with Traveller, squeezing out even more Discord to push the shards. The result was an expanding barrier that pushed all the rocks away. For a moment, the dome was devoid of projectiles; the expanding barrier pushed them all back. He called more lighting above Bandit and threw Soulthirst towards him at the same time.

Soulthirst ate one of the portals—just as the rocks began to shoot through the portals again—that made the dome and continued on its path. Sayhas called on more lightning near Bandit, this time from all angles. Bandit surrounded himself with portals the length of his forearm.

Soulthirst hit one of the portals, eating it. There was now a chink in Bandits defence. Lighting crashed onto Bandit. Sayhas released Resonance. He’d prefer to be the sole inhabitant of his brain.

Bandit flew backwards, landing hard into the dirt. Unfortunately, he was still alive. Sayhas summoned Soulthirst and since Bandit was blasted way, there was no one to shoot things through the portals. He fell into Partial Resonance and ate the portals. He ran towards Bandit and kicked him in the chin as he tried to get up.

Bandit stabbed his blade into the floor as a crutch. A portal opened beneath the blade. Sayhas sidestepped as the blade flew past his neck from a portal the appeared behind Sayhas. He shot a bolt of lightning through the portal with Traveller—lightning could only form on the tip while Sayhas was in Attunement. The bolt slammed into Bandit’s chest.

He fell to his knees

Another portal opened up and Sayhas dodged the blade again. He shot a bolt again. Right as he did so, a portal opened up and Sayhas’ own lighting pierced his right thigh. Sayhas fell to the ground. A large portal opened in front of Sayhas. He didn’t take any chances and ate it with Soulthirst.

Bandit stabbed Sayhas in the shoulder. Sayahs felt his eyes widen. He couldn’t hear the blade. The portal was too loud, it distracted him. No.

The daggers weren't aspects. They were real. The portal was just a distraction. Another dagger stabbed forward from Bandit’s other hand. This time, there was no way Bandit would miss. Sayhas caught the dagger with his hand, letting it stab through his palm. His teeth clenched from the pain. This was nothing.

Sayhas grabbed Bandit’s arm and let out waves of lighting from his bracelet. This was similar to what he did to Falem and Lucia but it had about ten times is the Discord. The current back flowed into Sayhas.

Bandit didn’t faint.

Sayhas reached inward and fell into Resonance with Traveller.

“You could have done that a lot better.”

He ignored it, calling lighting from above. At the same time, Sayhas pushed lighting through his bracelet; the metal grew unbearably hot. He hoped that his bracelet would somehow counteract and balance Traveller. Otherwise, they’d both die.

The lighting struck with blinding white. Sayhas’ entire arm began to burn. He pushed harder with the bracelet until it broke, cracking horizontally and shattering. Sayhas fell backwards blasted away and landed roughly on his behind. For a moment, he was sure that he died.

Sayhas slowly sat up, reaching for his thighs to pull himself to a more stable position. That had to be the end

It wasn't, Bandit was still alive. Bandit was lying facedown on the ground, blooding pooling under him. He tried to push himself up but his arms betrayed him. He fell back down, coughing out blood. “You monster,” he groaned, twisting his head to look at Sayhas. His pale skin was dripping with blood. His purple hair dyed a crispy black. Mizu would have complained about the smell. “I thought it was just your bracelet. Pretty sure I—” Bandit fell into a coughing fit. “—I balanced it out. But the lightning came,” he coughed again. “You bastard didn’t think you’d have the guts.”

Sayhas didn’t reply. Bandit twisted as if trying to wriggle his way to a sitting position. Sayhas picked up a dagger, one that and it had used. Sure enough, it was a normal one. Not a trace of Discord in it.

"That's the chink in your armour, remember that." Bandit tried to get up again. Sayhas prepared to strike with the dagger. “Don’t bother Sayhas, my organs are melted. No thanks to you.” He fell back down, cursed and sighed. Sayhas saw tears in his eyes; he was probably hallucinating. The lighting had messed up his vision. Probably not permanently, but it was damn inconvenient. “You think we could have been friends—" he coughed out more blood. It was gooey this time. “If circumstances had been different?” He tried to sit up again.

“Don’t bother Kled. You’ll shorten your life.” Sayhas felt at his Bandits Discord, it was barely there, i=unduklating fainty like a dead man's heartbeat.

“Don’t have much of that left anyway.”

“We were friends. Circumstances just drove us away.” Sayhas relaxed a little bit and looked up at the stars. “If one of us was just a little bit less prideful. If we—no, if just one of us were more mature. Then maybe, maybe we’d… we’d have made it.”

“All leads down to that one disagreement.”

“Yeah,” Sayhas shook his head bitterly.

“We didn't even care about the argument. Do you remember what it was about?” Kled had given up on sitting and instead angled his face to the side to talk comfortably.

Sayhas rubbed his forehead, “Wasn’t about that. Wasn’t even about winning.”

“It was about proving each other wrong.”

They sat in silence. Listening to the faint rustling of the wind as Selphis drifted past the horizon. In the distance, a herd of deer were running. He wondered if Bandit could hear them, Kled always liked wildlife. The night deepened when the moon left, Sayhas could barely see in front of himself now.

Crap, this can't be the end.