Yuri could only stare, frozen in disbelief, as the flags of the sigil he once saw with Ayato fluttered eerily above Mydei's summoned weapons. The gravity of it all pressed on his chest like a crushing weight. His knees felt weak. Mydei—this godlike figure, a friend he could not remember, yet felt so intimately tied to—was declaring war on the world for him.
Before Yuri could even process it, a sudden blast of energy tore through the white void, and Firefly had already launched herself forward, her SAM suit gleaming with energy and defiance. "I won't let you take Yuri! No matter what!"
She moved with precision, jets from her suit igniting as she rocketed toward Mydei, fists glowing with kinetic charge. Mydei barely shifted, raising a single hand. One of the sigil-marked weapons—a spear—shot toward Firefly at high speed.
CLANG!
The spear clashed against Firefly's braced arms, sending a shockwave through the void. Sparks scattered like stardust. With a fluid spin, Firefly deflected the weapon and closed the distance.
"You're fast," Mydei muttered, his voice calm, unimpressed. "But you're still just a worm."
"Call me whatever you want," Firefly retorted, twisting mid-air and striking out with a punch aimed at his temple.
Mydei caught her fist effortlessly, the force of the blow cracking the air around them. He drove his palm into her abdomen, hurling her backwards. Firefly hit the ground hard, kicking up dust in the otherwise pristine landscape.
"Firefly!!" Yuri called out, taking a step forward.
"Stay back!" Firefly shouted as she flipped upright, systems adjusting to the hit. "He's not someone you can reason with anymore!"
Mydei tilted his head. "Not reason? No. But perhaps he can remember."
With a flick of his hand, another weapon launched itself toward Yuri.
"YURI!"
Firefly launched herself in front of him, intercepting the blade just in time. The two forces collided again, sending both tumbling back. Firefly landed in a crouch, breathing heavy, suit humming as it recalibrated.
"Persistent insect," Mydei sneered. His voice had deepened, distorted by some unseen power. More weapons rose from the pools of darkness around him. Swords, halberds, axes—each marked with the sigil. The void behind him twisted into a battlefield of forgotten memories.
But Firefly stood tall.
"You say you were Yuri's friend... Then why would you force this on him?!"
Mydei's golden eyes shimmered. "Because he left me. Because he forgot me. And now... I will erase everything that stole him away."
With a roar, Mydei surged forward. Firefly met him head-on.
Fist clashed with blade. Lightning cracked in the whiteness of the dreamscape. Explosions rippled through the void as Firefly activated every system in her suit to keep up with Mydei's inhuman strength and speed. Her armor sparked, her limbs groaned, but she didn't yield.
The ground trembled with each strike. Mydei swung a colossal axe downward, cracking the dreamscape floor, but Firefly somersaulted backward, unleashing a barrage of plasma shots from her gauntlets. Mydei spun his arm, summoning a wide circular shield that absorbed the impact.
He dashed forward again, appearing behind her in a blink.
"You rely too much on that suit. Without it, you're nothing."
"I don't need it to care!"
She elbowed him in the face, followed by a series of rapid kicks that pushed him back. She unleashed a charged pulse from her chest core, sending a shockwave of white-hot energy into Mydei's chest. He grunted, sliding across the cracked ground.
"Tch... impressive," Mydei muttered, brushing dust from his shoulder. His distorted smile returned. "Then try this."
He raised both hands as twin greatswords rose from behind him, shrouded in dark flame. They launched at Firefly like homing missiles, spinning violently.
Firefly dodged one, but the second grazed her shoulder, sending sparks and blood flying. She gritted her teeth, grabbed the blade with her bare hand despite the pain, and flung it back toward Mydei.
Mydei simply caught it.
"Still standing?"
"You wish I'd fall."
Firefly launched forward again, but this time, Mydei met her with renewed fury. He unleashed a flurry of weapon strikes, changing forms with each swing—a scythe, a glaive, a chained sickle. Firefly was pushed onto the defensive, her visor flashing warning signs, but her focus never wavered.
She slammed her fist into the ground, activating a seismic burst that created a crater and staggered Mydei. She then propelled herself up with her jet boosters and crashed down like a meteor.
The impact blasted a massive shockwave across the dreamscape, shaking the foundations of the white void. Mydei was pushed back for the first time, his expression twisting with frustration.
But he wasn't done.
He threw his hand to the side and conjured a whirling storm of daggers. They circled around him before shooting out in all directions, each one humming with arcane energy. Firefly created a rotating barrier of hard-light to deflect them, but a few slipped through, grazing her side and thigh.
She grit her teeth and charged, fists glowing with renewed force. As they clashed again, their movements became blurs—shockwaves rippled with every strike, like thunder caught in a bottle.
Mydei shifted into a dual-blade stance, his strikes now faster, more precise, aiming at her vitals. Firefly countered with grapples and parries, driving her knee into his ribs, flipping over his shoulder, slamming him headfirst into the ground.
He caught himself mid-fall and twisted, launching a jagged chain from his wrist that wrapped around Firefly's arm. He yanked her toward him, slamming a knee into her gut before tossing her into a phantom obelisk rising from the ground.
She crashed through it but flipped out of the wreckage, suit sputtering sparks. She panted, blood trailing from her lips.
"You're... tougher than I expected," she said.
Mydei laughed, low and bitter. "You still don't understand. I'm holding back. For him."
He turned his burning gaze toward Yuri.
"But I'm starting to wonder why."
Firefly launched herself again, interrupting his line of sight. She tackled him with a shoulder slam, sent him skidding backwards, and followed up with a chain of blows that left echoes hanging in the air.
Mydei let loose a guttural roar, punching the ground so hard it sent out a quake. The terrain split beneath their feet. Pillars of memory and broken dreams rose up like towers around them.
They fought across those heights, leaping from one to the next—each blow rattling the stone. Firefly caught Mydei's sword-arm, redirected it into a rising uppercut, then grabbed his shoulder and launched him down into the void.
But he stopped mid-air, wings of darkness flaring, and he surged back with a terrifying howl. Their collision above the battlefield shattered several of the memory spires in one go, raining debris below.
Yuri watched, heart pounding. Memories kept flickering behind his eyes—flashes of that same sigil, of a battlefield of ash, of standing back to back with someone... with Mydei.
"I was... your friend?"
He clenched his fists.
"But if that's true... then why does it feel like you're trying to destroy everything I care about now?"
Mydei's gaze flickered toward him mid-battle. "Because what you care about... made you weak. And I need you to be strong again. Like before."
Firefly roared as she slammed her palms together, generating a concussive pulse that knocked Mydei back for a brief moment.
"Then you never knew Yuri at all," she growled.
Mydei snarled. "I knew everything about him! I fought with him, bled with him, conquered with him!
Mydei's power erupted further as he flew out to Firefly and continued his rampant assault upon her.
Firefly stepped back slightly. Even her suit trembled.
But she didn't run.
She raised her fists. "Try me."
And the fight resumed, even more violent than before. Firefly wove through the onslaught of Mydei's arsenal, using every ounce of her suit's power, every tactic she'd learned, every ounce of will she could muster.
Yuri could only stand and watch. Yuri was torn between fear, sorrow, and not knowing what truly was even happening at this point.
The past was catching up to him.
And soon, he'd have to choose.
Between who he was... and who he was now...
"I...Do I even...what...?"
Yuri asked himself.