The black-and-white halo revolved behind Arata Kurogane's head.
Nine black stars moved in perfect silence, their radiance barely visible against the darkness of space. Half of his hair remained black, while the other half had turned white. His crimson eyes were fixed upon Kitakim, who stood several paces away with his own white halo shining behind him.
Neither man moved. Yet beneath their stillness, two fundamentally different interpretations of existence were colliding.
Kitakim wielded the Constellation Circuit, a power that allowed him to draw upon the structures of the heavens and express their properties through his own existence. Through his Circuit Embodiment, he could manipulate celestial arrangements, impose his authority upon space, and turn the energy of stars into weapons capable of destroying entire worlds.
Arata's Soul Circuit was different. It was not restricted to one natural phenomenon, one concept, or one established law. Its foundation was imagination and logic.
The user could conceptualize something, understand its underlying principles, and make it real. The concept did not necessarily need to exist in the current world. It could be theoretical, hypothetical, or something that had never occurred naturally, provided the user could construct a meaningful understanding of it and believe in the possibility they were imagining.
The Soul Circuit could bridge the distance between theory and reality but that was only one part of its nature. Logic explained how something could work. Imagination supplied the possibility. Belief gave the imagined result a foundation. Intent, however, could bypass the entire process.
The Soul Circuit did not merely respond to what its user imagined. It responded to what the user meant. A thought could become a possibility. A decision could become an event and a word, when spoken with sufficient intent, could be imposed upon reality itself.
That was the apparent contradiction at the heart of the Soul Circuit. It relied on logic to construct possibilities, yet it could also manifest outcomes that had no conventional logical path to their realization. It was both a system of reasoning and an authority capable of exceeding the conclusions of reason.
The explanation lay within the Great Circuit. The Great Circuit contained infinite possibilities. Every conceivable outcome existed within its immeasurable expanse, alongside possibilities that no living mind had ever considered.
The Soul Circuit could select one of those possibilities and bring it into reality and if none of the existing possibilities suited its user's intent, it could create a new one. That was how the Soul Circuit connected to the Great Circuit Sequence.
It was not simply a powerful ability that happened to draw energy from a greater source. It was a means of interacting with the possibilities contained within that source, choosing which ones would become real and, under the right conditions, establishing possibilities that had never existed before.
Arata understood this better than anyone currently living on Kael'Ar.
But the Soul Circuit was not the only circuit capable of interacting with the Great Circuit in an extraordinary way. Every circuit possessed its own relationship with that infinite source.
Some expressed natural phenomena. Others embodied concepts, principles, or laws that governed particular aspects of existence. Their abilities could appear similar on the surface while operating according to entirely different foundations.
Consider Jessica. Her circuit, Nemesis, was associated with the god of retribution, cosmic balance, and vengeance. Yet its purpose was not to indulge personal hatred.
Nemesis functioned more like an impartial cosmic accountant, ensuring that arrogance, unchecked vanity, and undeserved good fortune did not escape their consequences. It punished hubris and restored the scales when an individual had gained too much through the suffering or exploitation of others.
Jessica did not need to despise someone to become their judge. Her circuit determined what was due.
The distinction had been made clear during her Circuit Mark trial against Betelgeuse. That confrontation was not simply a contest between two people trying to overpower one another. It was an encounter with the principle that Nemesis represented, a test of whether its judgment could be carried out when the opponent's own power and arrogance threatened to overwhelm the situation.
Other circuits interacted with the Great Circuit in different ways.
Some expressed a law. Some embodied an idea. Some connected their users to forces that existed before the current world had taken shape and some, like the Soul Circuit, could reach into the realm of possibility itself.
The Great Circuit was the source. The circuits were different ways of touching it and the differences between those connections were far more complex than most people could understand.
Unfortunately for Kitakim, the man standing before him had begun to understand his circuit and Arata Kurogane was not the sort of person who stopped thinking once he had discovered something interesting. He was the sort of person who wanted to know what else it could do.
Kitakim raised both hands. Two enormous stars appeared in the darkness.
The first was Sirius, its brilliance illuminating the space around it. The second was a colossal manifestation of Orion, surrounded by a field of celestial energy that distorted the surrounding region. They were not merely projectiles.
Each star carried the authority of the Constellation Circuit, its energy concentrated into a form Kitakim could direct with precision. He thrust his hands forward. The stars hurtled toward Arata. Arata raised his right palm. Before either star could reach him, Kitakim closed his fist.
"Explode." Both stars detonated.
A blinding flash swallowed the surrounding space as their energy expanded toward Arata from opposite directions. The explosion was instantaneous, designed to overwhelm any attempt to react after the stars had reached their target.
But Arata remained motionless. "Reverse." One word. The explosion stopped. Then it began to retreat.
The expanding light contracted toward its point of origin. The force that had been released returned to the stars, reversing the result Kitakim had imposed upon them. Their detonations were undone, their energy restored, and their original forms reassembled before Arata's raised hand.
Kitakim's eyes narrowed. Arata closed his fingers. The two gigantic stars shrank.
Their immense bodies contracted until they were small enough to rest within his palm, their radiance reduced to two brilliant spheres of concentrated stellar energy. Arata examined them with genuine interest.
"Sirius and Orion," he murmured. "Not bad." He raised his hand toward Kitakim. "Now, let's try something else." His crimson eyes brightened. "Thermonuclear Supernovae." Arata imagined a white dwarf.
Not an ordinary star, but the dead, condensed remnant of a sun-like star that had exhausted its nuclear fuel and shed its outer layers. A stellar corpse compressed into a dense object, possessing an extraordinary gravitational pull and the potential for a violent transformation under the right conditions.
He imagined it in a binary system, accompanied by a star from which it could draw matter.
He imagined the white dwarf accumulating that material until it approached the Chandrasekhar limit, approximately 1.44 times the mass of the Sun. He imagined the pressure within its core increasing. The temperature rising, carbon fusion igniting and the reaction escaping control.
In the span of seconds, the entire star would detonate, releasing enough energy to destroy itself completely, leaving no stellar core behind.
Arata understood the theory. He understood the conditions.
And through the Soul Circuit, he made the theoretical process real. The two miniature stars in his palm changed. Their light became white. Then, without warning, they exploded. Kitakim barely had time to react.
The thermonuclear supernovae erupted at point-blank range, their combined force consuming the space between the two combatants. The explosion was so immediate that there was no meaningful interval in which Kitakim could escape its reach.
He crossed his arms before his body.
"Star Barrier!"
Stellar energy erupted around him, forming multiple layers of celestial protection. The barriers overlapped, drawing upon the power of the Constellation Circuit to withstand the explosion's heat and force. The first layer disappeared. Then the second. The third shattered almost immediately. Kitakim's arms were exposed to the full intensity of the blast. The heat burned them black.
His body was hurled backward, and the stellar barrier around him began to collapse beneath the pressure. Yet he continued pouring power into the remaining layers, reinforcing them with every fragment of energy he could gather.
The explosion expanded across the surrounding region. Space itself seemed to bend beneath its force.
Then, at last, the stellar barriers held long enough for Kitakim to survive the worst of the detonation. The light gradually faded. Kitakim emerged from the dissipating explosion, his arms severely burned and his breathing heavier than before.
He stared at Arata. The latter was still standing in the same position. His right hand remained raised. His expression was one of mild curiosity.
"Interesting," Arata said. "You managed to survive that."
Kitakim gritted his teeth.
"He used my own stars to create that attack." The realization was almost more disturbing than the explosion itself.
Arata had not simply reversed his technique. He had reduced the stars to manageable sizes, reconstructed their energy, and then used the resulting objects as the foundation for an entirely different phenomenon. The Constellation Circuit had supplied the stars. The Soul Circuit had rewritten what happened to them.
Kitakim's gaze hardened. He could not afford to let Arata continue experimenting.
"Hydra Constellation!" He vanished. Arata looked upward.
Kitakim had appeared above him, his right foot raised high in the air. The nine stars behind his head shone with renewed brilliance, and the white halo rotated as though aligning itself with a pattern written across the heavens.
Kitakim looked down at his opponent. "Serpent Bearer." Behind him, eighteen enormous planetary bodies appeared.
They aligned themselves into the shape of a colossal serpent, each planet forming part of its body. Their movements followed one another in a continuous sequence, giving the impression of a celestial creature extending through space.
Kitakim swung his right foot downward. The serpent moved.
Eighteen planets surged toward Arata, their combined momentum guided by the Constellation Circuit. They curved through the surrounding space like a living creature, their trajectory bending around obstacles as they converged upon their target.
Arata stood his ground. The serpent struck.
The impact drove him downward, smashing through the planet beneath him and sending him deep into the shattered crust. The planetary formation followed, its enormous mouth opening as the eighteen bodies converged upon the point where Arata had disappeared.
Then the planets began to break apart. One after another, they collided and shattered, their combined energy consuming the remaining landscape. The serpent's mouth closed.
The final planetary body disintegrated. For a moment, the entire region was swallowed by the destruction. Then Kitakim sensed something strange. Arata's presence had vanished. Not weakened or concealed. Gone.
Kitakim's expression tightened as he searched the surrounding space. He could no longer feel the Soul Circuit. He could not locate Arata through the Constellation Circuit, nor could he identify a distortion that might reveal where his opponent had moved.
It was as though Arata had ceased to exist.
Then Kitakim felt himself being pulled upward. Before he could react, his body shot through space. A blow struck him from the side. The impact redirected his trajectory toward Kael'Ar. Another strike landed before he could recover. Then another.
Kitakim was thrown through the darkness, unable to establish a stable position long enough to counterattack. He tried to locate the source of the blows. Nothing. He tried to anticipate the next attack.
But it was too late. Every time he attempted to orient himself, another impact sent him in a different direction. The planet rushed toward him. Kitakim's eyes widened as he realized where the attacks were taking him.
Kael'Ar.
He was about to collide with the remains of the world but before his body reached the surface, Arata appeared below him. He stood on the ground, looking down at the point where Kitakim would land. His hands rested at his sides. His expression was calm. Kitakim had only a fraction of a second to react. He struck the planet.
The impact destroyed what remained of the surrounding land, tearing through the fractured crust and sending enormous pieces of the surface into space. For a moment, the battlefield became a cloud of debris. Then Kitakim rose from the destruction. His body trembled.
Blood ran from his mouth. Yet the white halo behind his head continued to shine. He had endured the attack but he had lost control of the exchange and Arata was still standing before him. Arata raised his right hand.
Kitakim felt the surrounding space tighten.
The pressure was different from the attacks he had endured so far. It wasn't merely force pressing against his body. Something was attempting to impose a conclusion upon his existence, reducing the number of actions available to him with every passing instant.
Kitakim's eyes hardened.
"God's Will."
White light erupted across the planet.
The broken surface beneath them shone as though millions of stars had descended upon its ruins. Kitakim's white hair lifted in the expanding radiance, and the nine stars behind his head brightened until their individual forms became almost indistinguishable.
His Circuit Embodiment had reached its highest expression.
For an instant, Kitakim seemed less like a man wielding the Constellation Circuit and more like the constellations themselves had assumed a human form. His will extended through the celestial patterns surrounding him. The stars responded.
The remaining fragments of Kael'Ar trembled, and the shattered planet's pieces were drawn into a vast field of spatial distortion. A barrier formed around the debris, containing the fragments that had been scattered into space. Only a small portion of the planet remained beneath the two combatants. Kitakim lifted his head. The halo behind him changed.
A tenth star appeared. It shone brighter than the other nine, its light spreading across the surrounding darkness. The pressure of his God's Will intensified. Then he waved his hand toward Arata. The force that followed was immense.
The last remaining landmass beneath them split apart, and the surrounding atmosphere was swept away by the pressure. The fragments of the planet drifted inside the spatial barrier, while the two combatants remained suspended above what had once been an entire world.
Kitakim immediately dashed forward. His right fist drew back.
He intended to strike before Arata could use another technique but Arata looked at him and spoke. "Kneel." The word was quiet. It did not need to be louder. Arata's intent entered reality. Kitakim's right knee slammed into the ground.
The remaining surface cracked beneath him, and his body lurched forward as an invisible authority forced him down. His eyes widened. He tried to rise.
His muscles tightened, and the power of God's Will surged through his body. He managed to lift his knee several inches from the ground. Then an immense force drove it back down. The impact shattered the surface beneath him. Kitakim gritted his teeth and tried again.
His body trembled under the strain, but the result remained the same. Every attempt to stand was met by an authority that seemed to dictate the outcome before he could complete the movement. He was not simply being restrained. Reality itself had been instructed that he must kneel.
And Arata's intent was enforcing that instruction.
The black-and-white halo revolved behind Arata's head as he approached. He stopped in front of Kitakim and looked down at him. "You are strong, Kitakim." Kitakim's expression changed. Arata continued in the same calm voice. "Not many people will hear that, especially from me."
Blood escaped Kitakim's mouth as he coughed. The white light surrounding his body flickered, and the tenth star behind his head began to dim.
His Circuit Embodiment was failing.
God's Will could elevate a circuit to its highest expression, but it could not guarantee victory against an opponent whose authority operated on a different level. Kitakim had brought the Constellation Circuit to its peak, yet he had been unable to overcome the Soul Circuit's ability to impose its intent upon reality. The white halo fractured. The stars disappeared one after another.
Kitakim's white hair gradually returned to its original color, and the pressure surrounding his body subsided. His Circuit Embodiment vanished. He remained kneeling before Arata. For a while, neither man spoke.
The remnants of Kael'Ar drifted around them, suspended within the barrier that contained the shattered pieces of the planet. Then Kitakim raised his head. "Before you finish me off, let me ask you something." Arata looked at him.
"If you had joined us when we asked, all of this could have been avoided. You would have been free to do whatever you wanted. We weren't asking you to become our servant." Kitakim paused, breathing carefully. "So why wage war instead?" Arata regarded him for several seconds. Then he answered.
"I don't enjoy being under anyone." There was no hesitation in his voice. "I have no interest in joining a group simply because its members believe their power gives them the right to decide what everyone else should do."
He lowered his gaze slightly. "And your purpose for this war was selfishness. Fear inherited from the older generation of the First Circuit era." Kitakim remained silent.
Arata continued. "During the First Circuit War, the Soul Circuit disappeared after Evion died. Its disappearance became part of your history, and eventually, that history became something you were afraid to repeat."
His crimson eyes narrowed. "You looked at the possibility of the Soul Circuit returning and decided that the safest option was to eliminate its user before that possibility could become a threat."
Arata shook his head. "History wasn't repeating itself. You were simply too afraid to admit it."
He glanced toward the broken world around them. "Every decision I made changed that history. Everyone who fought this war on my behalf survived." His expression remained composed. "That alone should tell you something."
For several seconds, Kitakim stared at him. Then he laughed. It was a weak laugh, interrupted by another cough, but there was no longer any anger in it. "I see..." He lowered his head. "I understand." His gaze returned to Arata. "But circuits will never die. Someday, my circuit will appear in existence again."
Arata nodded. "Yes." Kitakim seemed surprised by the straightforward answer. Arata looked at him without changing his expression. "But you won't die with fear. Isn't that right?" Kitakim's eyes widened.
For the first time since the battle began, his expression became genuinely peaceful. Then he smiled. "No. It was fear that led to this in the first place, wasn't it?" Arata did not answer. There was little left to say.
Kitakim had made his choices, and those choices had brought him here. Whatever judgment awaited him, it would not change the fact that he had been a product of the same history he had tried to escape. Arata turned his head toward the distant stars. "You did show me something interesting, though." Kitakim looked up. Arata's expression grew thoughtful.
"After today, I may not be able to remain a background character." He paused. "Not on this planet, of course." His eyes followed the scattered celestial debris. "I'll pursue the Great Circuit in the shadows." For years, he had wanted to remain unnoticed.
He had preferred observing events to becoming their center, allowing others to occupy the roles that history seemed determined to assign them but the Soul Circuit had brought him into conflict with powers that could no longer ignore his existence. The Great Circuit contained infinite possibilities. And Arata had only begun to understand what that meant.
He could not continue pretending that his actions would never draw attention but he could choose how he proceeded. He would not become a ruler simply because he possessed the power to rule. He would not allow the world to dictate the role he had to play.
If he pursued the Great Circuit, he would do so on his own terms. Quietly, deliberately and without asking anyone's permission. Arata turned back toward Kitakim. He raised his hand. The next movement would end the battle.
"Please, hold your hand." A voice came from behind him.
Arata paused. He glanced over his shoulder. A young woman stood a short distance away, suspended above the broken terrain as though the destruction surrounding her had no bearing on her presence.
She was tall, standing at approximately five feet eleven inches, with long white hair that fell past her shoulders. Her golden eyes held an unusual clarity, and her posture was composed despite the immense power that had just swept through the battlefield.
She regarded Arata with quiet interest. "My name is Sirius Augustus Vos."
Arata studied her. He recognized the nature of her power almost immediately. The Pen of Creation Circuit. His gaze sharpened slightly. "So you're the user of the Pen of Creation." Sirius tilted her head.
"And you are the famous Soul Circuit user." Arata's expression changed. It was subtle, but the disgust was unmistakable. "Famous?" He looked away from her. "How unpleasant." Sirius blinked.
Then the corner of her mouth lifted slightly, as though she had discovered something unexpected about the man standing before her. Arata turned his attention back to Kitakim. "I have business with him. He has to die." Sirius followed his gaze. "I know." She began walking toward them. "He won't live."
Arata watched her approach, uncertain of what she intended to do. He could sense that she was not attempting to interfere with his decision, nor was she trying to protect Kitakim from the consequences of his actions.
There was something else behind her arrival. Something connected to the history of the Constellation Circuit. Sirius stopped beside Arata and looked down at the kneeling man. "Kitakim." He raised his head. For a moment, the three of them remained silent.
Then Sirius sighed. "I told you to forget about the past and write your own history." Her golden eyes carried a trace of sadness. "But you didn't listen. You still came here to wage war." Kitakim lowered his gaze. Sirius continued.
"You could have chosen something else. You could have taken the power you inherited and used it to create a future that didn't resemble the one you feared." She paused. "Instead, you allowed the mistakes of the previous generation to determine your decisions. Now everyone that died..their blood is on your hands."
Kitakim said nothing. There was no excuse left that he could offer her. Sirius raised her right hand. "Perhaps the next person who inherits the Constellation Circuit will know better."
She extended her index finger. Then she wrote a single word in the air.
Death. The letters shone with a pure white radiance. For an instant, they hung between the two of them. Then the word became real. White light enveloped Kitakim's body.
He did not scream or struggle. His form simply began to dissolve, breaking apart into countless particles that disappeared into the radiance. Within seconds, the First Circuit Being who had challenged Arata Kurogane was gone. There was no body left behind. No lingering presence.
Only the fading light of the Pen of Creation. Sirius lowered her hand. Arata watched the empty space where Kitakim had knelt. Then he looked at her. For a brief moment, their eyes met. Something passed between them.
It was not a familiar memory, nor was it an ordinary recognition between two people who possessed extraordinary powers. It felt deeper than that. An inexplicable sense of connection.
A bond that seemed to have existed long before either of them had arrived at this moment. Neither understood it. Neither could explain it. Yet both felt it with absolute certainty. Sirius's golden eyes lingered on Arata.
Arata looked away first. He had no intention of investigating an unfamiliar feeling in the middle of a battlefield. There were more pressing matters to attend to. He raised his hand and waved it across the ruined world. The Soul Circuit responded. Reality changed.
The shattered fragments of Kael'Ar began returning to their proper positions. The oceans flowed back into their basins, the continents reconnected, and the broken mountains rose from the ground as though time itself had been reversed.
The destruction across the planet disappeared. The atmosphere stabilized. The stars that had been destroyed during the battle were restored to the sky, and the distant celestial bodies returned to their original places.
Buildings reappeared across the world.
Forests spread across the land, their trees standing once more beneath the open sky. Animals returned to their habitats, and the entrances to dungeons reformed in their original locations. The world was made anew. It was not merely an illusion placed over the destruction. The planet had genuinely been restored, its structure reconstructed through the authority of the Soul Circuit.
Within moments, Kael'Ar looked as though the battle had never occurred. The mountains stood. The oceans were calm. The cities remained intact. And the world continued to exist. Only one thing had not returned to its original state.
The civilians remained asleep within the separate dimension Arata had created for their protection. He had deliberately left them there. Until he was certain that the danger had passed, he would not allow them to return to a world where another conflict might threaten their lives.
Arata lowered his hand. The black-and-white halo behind his head slowly faded. His hair returned to its original black, and the crimson glow in his eyes subsided. He looked toward Sirius. She was still watching him. For a moment, neither spoke. Then Arata turned away.
"Well, Sirius Augustus Vos..." He glanced toward the distant horizon. "This has become considerably more troublesome than I expected." Sirius smiled faintly. "And yet, I suspect you're already thinking about what comes next." Arata stopped. He did not turn around. "...Unfortunately." Far above them, the stars shone peacefully over the restored world.
The war had ended, Kitakim was dead and the history of the First Circuit Beings had reached a turning point but Arata Kurogane had finally discovered something that mattered more to him than remaining unnoticed.
The Great Circuit. Infinite possibilities….and somewhere within that infinity, answers to questions that even the oldest beings in existence had been forbidden to ask.
Arata had no intention of abandoning that pursuit.
He would follow it into the shadows, beyond the boundaries of his world, and toward the source from which every circuit had emerged. Whatever awaited him there, he would discover it himself. After all, he had never been particularly fond of accepting someone else's version of reality.