Ausra entered the church.

She slowly walked inside, taking a few seconds to observe the surroundings. It wasn’t a large church, but it felt spacious and comfortable. There was no light inside, only the moonlight that crept inside through the many windows around, outlining the decorations on them.

In the middle, in front of the altar, was Oskar. In the standard Nachtvessel uniform, with the standard Nacht instructions in his head. Once Ausra looked at him, she no longer saw Oskar, she saw an empty pile of meat and bones that held Oskar’s name and power, but not his soul. She saw him stare at her, with nothingness in his eyes.

“Oskar...?”

Ausra took a step closer, for a moment, before she managed to recollect herself, all that was on her mind was to rush at him and embrace him dearly, and have all those conversations she wanted to have. But she thankfully stopped herself.

Oskar’s own presence flared up a little. He summoned his weapon and prepared to take a stance. Ausra, on the other hand, still just stood there. Reinforced, of course, but she still stood there.

“Don’t you...remember me?” She asked quietly, but just loud enough for Oskar to hear and process the information. But even if the information was processed properly, there would have been no use.

“I’m the girl that loves you, Oskar.” Ausra said.

And in response, Oskar fired a pair of electrifying arrows at her...

Ausra dashed back, but one of the arrows met her head on, with enough force to pierce right through her stomach and electrify her insides. She squirmed in pain, trying to focus, but Oskar at that point was already up close. He swung his weapon at her, and at the last second, Ausra managed to block, but the impact was strong enough to knock her back. Now outside the church, Ausra quickly got up and tried to focus, before noticing a pair of surprisingly large flying slashes heading her way. She quickly dashed to the side, the slashes ended up destroying the building behind her.

Ausra kept opening up the distance, unintentionally allowing Oskar to fight at his ideal range. Oskar kept shooting arrows after arrows at her, having no regard for the terrain around him. The most terrifying feature of his was that some of the arrows were reaching their target.

“This can’t be...”

Ausra, already having been pierced with three such arrows, the other two hitting her arm and leg, tried to focus and regenerate. Her eyes were glued on Oskar, who she expected to keep fighting at a distance. Once she took a breather, Oskar charged in, leaping towards the building Ausra was next to and hitting her hard with an overhand.

Ausra fell back and tried to swing back, but her hand-to-hand proficiency felt altered, almost debuffed. She couldn’t keep up with Oskar, whose electricity both hurt and at times immobilized her. She took a few punches to the gut and face and tried to counterattack with her own explosive punches - but Oskar saw through that, kicking her away and sending a slash strong enough to rip her hand off.

“This is...”

“There’s no way this is happening to me...”

Courtesy of Nacht being implanted in Oskar’s brain, he could now fight with absolutely no restrictions and great mastery over his abilities.

Oskar charged in to finish her off, and almost succeeded. He grabbed her by her clothes and slammed her into the ground, cracking the asphalt upon impact. He attempted to shove his hand into her throat and finish her off, but Ausra quickly detonated a piece of rubble that fell on top of her and knocked Oksar away. She followed it up with an explosive high kick that sent him back.

Oskar landed and, without even thinking for a millisecond, closed the distance again. Ausra summoned her shortsword and Oskar summoned his dual blade, and they clashed against one another. Since they were both average at best at swordplay, their encounters were somewhat awkward. In a sudden move, Ausra, feinting a powerful slashing attack, unsummoned her weapon and struck Oskar with an explosive uppercut. Once in the air, she kicked a pebble at him that wielded enough explosive force to throw him into a nearby building. Once he was inside, Ausra approached the building’s wall and touched it.

“There’s no way...”

“You’re letting something like that take you away from me!!!”

In one go, the building’s walls violently exploded. As the fireball calmed down, Oskar’s hopeless and lifeless eyes could be seen beneath the black smoke. With one motion, she pulled Ausra towards her at high speeds and prepared to kill her with one shot. Ausra, somewhat paralyzed by the electric currents that grasped her at a distance, chose the only correct solution to evade the killing blow. Upon contact with Oskar, she caused a strong enough explosion to knock him away. To be fair, not much else she could do, her whole shtick was making things explode.

Facing off in the half-burning rubble of the destroyed building, Oskar wasted no time in closing the distance again, and Ausra realized that she couldn’t quite keep up with his voltage.

“I...I need a moment. I need to breathe.”

“I need to regenerate. I need to-”

She took a moment to look into Oskar’s eyes. Quickly, the memory of them sitting on a couch and holding hands came back to her mind, with their promise. Quickly, the feeling of being held by him at night came back to her once Oskar grabbed her and shoved her into the half-broken concrete ground.

“Just...stop...”

Instead of the usual high fives they gave each other back in the day, he electrocuted her. And she remembered all those times during training that he’d hit her, they were, of course, controlled and limited strikes. But there, in the battlefield, Oskar was beating her to death. He targeted her guts first, opening up a bunch of wounds and leaving nasty scars. He hit her in the chest, breaking most of her ribs and scarring her lungs. The damage was dangerous and kept on piling up.

“I told you...”

But finally, the memories were dispersed, and she saw the reality. With his fist clenched, Oskar was ready to take her life. Her mind was finally clear enough to fight back. With a massive detonation, the remnants of the building were thrown across the district, and Oskar was knocked away. She knew he’d instantly come back, he’d try to assault her again, as fast as possible, that those were his instructions. She wanted to keep looking him in the eyes and daydreaming, hoping that it’ll all be alright, but it was hard to do when he was trying to kill her. And she realized that just this line of thinking served against her own apparently determined and focused approach to this fight. And it made her so hateful...

“Instead of my alcoholic dad dying in a ditch, or instead of my mom being put to sleep in a psych ward, it’s him that suffers. He’s the one who might not live.”

“I hate you.”

Ausra stood back up, and her regeneration seemed to be on point now. Her eyes sparked with a dark essence. She anticipated Oskar’s attack at any moment, but even Oskar chose to take a breather and patch up his wounds.

For the first time in the fight, Ausra was the one who wanted to go on a relentless offensive. With her rage apparent, she quickly closed the distance and swung at Oskar - it didn’t matter if the punches missed, the explosions would still hurt him. She threw dozens of such strikes, and Oskar constantly tried backing away, but even he started to recognize how threatening Ausra’s hand-to-hand prowess was.

She outstruck him with her sheer firepower, and her usual fighting style of tossing explosives at the enemy at a range was changed to that of a close quarters combatant devoid of hesitation to push forwards. She got especially close to him with a jab, but to Oskar’s surprise, it wasn’t imbued with any explosive power. She ducked beneath Oskar’s hook and delivered a nasty gut punch to him, with enough explosive force to rip his stomach open.

The only issue was that the explosions caused knockback. While this was an upside, she couldn’t shower Oskar with dozens of explosions at once since he’d simply be knocked away. She summoned her sword and began tossing slashes at him, who, in response, sent slashes back. And the slashes clashed against one another, the two engaged in a long-range melee battle of sorts. Amidst the clashes, Ausra kicked a pebble in Oskar’s direction and detonated it. Oskar took a moment to take that information in, and Ausra managed to blitz him.

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Using an explosion to propel herself, she cut the distance between them to nothing faster than Oskar could react. Oskar grabbed her and attempted to get her off of him, while that latter was beating him to a pulp with punches to the guts and chest. He dragged her to the side and attempted to wrestle her into the ground, but Ausra prevented it by throwing an oblique kick and breaking Oskar’s leg.

“He can’t move. Now’s my chance! I’ll knock him out for good-”

She felt something sharp pierce her from behind. It felt cold, and it entered her body pretty fast. It was a sharp piece of pipe that was exposed from destroying the building. Ausra, unable to continue her offense due to the iron poking her lung, quickly jumped back. She caused a large explosion to act as cover while she heals, but Oskar didn’t even need to see her to hurt her.

“What?!”

She felt the piece of iron start travelling inside of her lungs and rip it apart. Not only was it extremely dangerous, but it also risked killing her altogether. Ausra blew up a part of her body to get it out. Now she definitely needed a breather.

Oskar, recognizing his advantage, quickly dashed in and attempted to slash her body open with his weapon, but Ausra was further away than he expected. He had to dash in again, which gave Ausra enough time to react and prepare a countermeasure. Once he got closer, Ausra detonated the ground and launched both of them upwards. Oskar, whose attack was thrown off, needed a few seconds to adjust. Ausra instantly kicked him downwards, into the asphalt where he made a rather painful landing. Once Ausra landed herself, she realized that she needed more time.

And Oskar, standing up, simply faced off against her.

“What the hell is he doing?”

Ausra felt two things approaching her. While she was busy overthinking, she failed to notice two cars rushing at her from both sides, sandwiching her in between. Now that his trap was complete, Oskar unleashed a powerful flying slash.

In a wake of despair, Ausra exploded both vehicles and got herself unpinned. But the issue was the slash. She summoned her weapon in her mouth - biting on the handle, and moving her head - generating a less powerful slash to greet the incoming force. It didn’t counter it completely, but it was strong enough to render it non-lethal...but still pretty painful.

Now, with a deep scar on her body, Ausra had to carefully consider what her gameplan would be. Oskar rushed at her again. She expected it already. He tried to punch and kick her as much as he could with his electrifying fists and feet, nothing that was new. Ausra countered them with explosions, and they went at it for a while - traversing the street, breaking into buildings and destroying them altogether, both of them eager to land a decisive blow.

Eventually, however, during one of Oskar’s predictable advances, he painted his attack with a color of surprise. Instead of going for an overhand, he stepped to the side, making sure both of his arms were extended. Ausra interpreted that as him summoning his weapon. She knew she needed a moment to manifest and fire an arrow, so she rushed in. She was confident until she saw Oskar clasp his hands.

A lightning bolt cracked and hit Ausra in the jaw. Had Ausra attacked at a slightly different angle, it would have hit her in the head, and the outcome of the battle might have been decided there and then. With her jaw completely gone, and some parts behind it heavily damaged, Ausra had no choice but to propel herself backwards with an explosion. Oskar tried to close the distance again, but Ausra simply caused a detonation strong enough to knock him back.

Thankfully, while Oskar was thinking about ways of overcoming this stalemate, Ausra could focus on recovering her almost grave injury. Her breath was heavy and the ground beneath her was decorated with a tint of blood red.

“He can’t get close to me, and I can’t get close to him without risking this. He probably concealed this trick until he was guaranteed to get a killshot, which he almost pulled off...”

“My immunity against all explosions lets me repel him with ease. He won’t risk getting close to me.”

“I won’t be able to get close to him due to his paralyzing punches.”

“So what’s the solution here?”

“Is he just going to keep lobbing projectiles at me? That won’t work. He won’t be able to overwhelm me with arrows or slashes as easily. And it’s not like I can deal good damage to him at a range either.”

“Oskar, remember? Back then, when Hayk trained us, he told us that if we were to fight, the nature of our abilities would cause our fight to end in a stalemate.”

“Where no one hurts the other.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Oskar. Because I love you and I can’t forgive myself if I do something irreversible to you. And you, on the other hand...you’re not Oskar. You don’t want to hurt me because it’ll hurt you.”

Almost as if Oskar heard those words and did so as an act of disapproval, he summoned his weapon and fired a pair of arrows at her. She dodged them with relative ease. He unsummoned his weapon and closed his eyes for a second.

“Whoever you are...” Ausra thought, preparing to attack. “You’re not Oskar. I’ll force you to give him back to me.”

At that moment, an incredible spike in Oskar’s soul presence was recorded. His hands became engulfed in electricity, and his appearance became that of...

“ ✦ Divine Acclamation. ✦ ”

“ ✦ Howling Thunderstorm. ✦ ”

Ausra jumped back in surprise. She had seen first hand what Oskar’s capabilities were when he was in this form. She knew that if she wanted to see him again, she needed to overcome the very strength she idolized.

Oskar wasted no time. He summoned a large electric bident and chucked it at Ausra, who dodged it just in time. It pierced through the many buildings behind her, ending up a few blocks further. It was the same type of weapon that killed Alpha.

“No...”

“When he did this, he looked different. He looked like an actual hero.”

“If I told him this, he would probably deny it. But he showed his truest feelings when he fought off that mech.”

“That is why...”

“You’re not him.”

Two more bidents were thrown at her, and she dodged them and went in to close the distance. When she got up close, however, Oskar extended his arms again. She recognized that attack too, and instantly propelled herself into the air.

A large electromagnetic beam was fired off from Oskar’s hands. It effectively pulverized the buildings in front of him, and as he saw Ausra escape, he quickly raised his arms to try and catch her. Ausra, at the same time, constantly propelled herself from one position to another using explosions in the air.

“He’s way too focused on the attack. He won’t notice.”

In the middle of such dodges, Ausra quickly summoned his weapon and launched a powerful flying slash at Oskar. Before the slash landed, Oskar finally managed to hit the target. For just a moment, the beam was able to touch Ausra - and it completely severed her feet. And just as the beam was about to devour the rest of her body, the flying slash cut off his hand and deactivated it.

Ausra plummeted on the ground, taking a few seconds to heal her lost body parts.

“Yeah, there’s no way that I can beat him like this.”

“Hey, think about it. After I’m done with this fight, you’ll be saved, okay? After that, you’ll have acquired so much combat experience, and the same is probably true for me. I already changed my fighting style.”

“All that will happen is I’ll need to knock you out. But I can do that if I put my heart into it.”

Oskar rushed at her, but something stopped him. Something explosive, something strong enough to not only stop him, but also destroy a chunk of his stomach and explode in a violent and colorful fashion. An explosion that wasn’t just there to stay, it was there to linger.

Ausra stood back up, with newfound resolve in her eyes. And her presence was almost as high as Oskar’s at that moment.

“ ✦ Divine Acclamation. ✦ ”

“We’ll fight on an equal footing.”

“Remember back then, you were always stronger than me? But that’s because you were Oskar. Whoever it is inside of you right now is not stronger than me.”

“I remember asking Sakuto what a divine acclamation felt like.”

“He was the first one in our little group to unlock it, he was the best person to ask that question. He said that he felt like all of the hatred in his body was accumulated in his mouth. All that was left to do was to just spew it out.”

“I asked Ichika the same question, she said that when she unlocked it, she felt a warm embrace. She said that for the first time, all of the hatred in her body wasn’t aimed at her. She could trust herself not to hurt herself, and she was able to spew all that hatred out towards her enemy.”

“I asked Oskar what he felt, and he said the same. He said that he hated the fact that we were getting killed because of his weakness and inability to fight back. He said that all of his hatred accumulated in his hands, and all that was left to do was to act.”

“But when I unlocked it for the first time, I felt something different. I felt the desire to help. I wanted to knock some sense into Ichika...out of love. I wanted to protect Oskar out of love.”

“And now, I’ll do the same. I’ll open my divine acclamation not through hatred, but through love.”

“I’m gonna save you.”

“ ✦ Chain Detonation ✦ ”