The excruciating pain in Amon's skull brought him lower to the liquid floor, his small body trembling as he clutched his head. He grimaced, his stitched lips pulling back in agony as the images of the corridor flashed relentlessly behind his eyes.
"Those memories aren't a part of me!" Amon spat, his voice raspy and broken against the dark expanse. "Those memories were never a part of me!"
As if on cue, the Black Water near Amon began to churn. A small section of the dark liquid rose upward, taking shape, struggling to form a coherent figure before settling into the partial, fluid outline of Juvia. The construct was incomplete. its water-bound features wavering like a reflection in a disturbed pond. Farther across the plane, Albion dragged himself up from the dark floor.
Veins bulged along his neck and temples, visible beneath his skin. The radiant glow in his eyes burned with blinding intensity, and fresh tears cut clear paths through the blood on his face. The white cloth bound around his waist, the only remaining garment covering his lower half, hung loose as he stood tall.
"No, you're wrong, Amon!" he shouted, his voice echoing across the silent sea. "It's not that easy! You can't just erase her from who you are... from your soul! She was the only part of us that we ever chose!"
Across Albion's chest, the massive cross-shaped slash that Amon had cut into his flesh was nearly gone. The shredded skin and muscle were knitting together, closing seamlessly without leaving a scar.
He remained completely unaware of it, his focus completely locked on Amon. But Amon noticed. His three red eyes narrowed in confusion. Albion had explained his bodily regeneration earlier.
It required a continuous output of magical energy. Yet Albion was spent. His magical power was running on empty, yet his flesh was mending at an impossible speed.
Before Amon could speak his confusion, another sharp, claw-like scratching sensation tore through his head, forcing him to grind his teeth together to keep from screaming.
""Look at her!" Albion yelled, his face contorted in a grimace of grief and fury. "Can't you feel her memories? Are they not crying out?!"
With those words, the pressure in Amon's head surged to a terrifying degree. The memories flooded in with overwhelming vividness, not as distant observations, but as a lived experience. He saw the walls of the corridor. He smelled the cool air. He heard Juvia's voice and saw her smile as she and Sheila stood beside him. It played like a movie inside his mind.
'How can this be?' he thought frantically, 'Albion was the one in the corridor. I wasn't there! I wasn't talking with Juvia or that girl! Why are his memories inside my head?'
Unaware of the internal storm tearing Amon apart, Albion took another heavy step forward.
"Look at them! Your true friends! The only people who accepted you... who accepted us in this entire stupid guild!" Albion's jaw set hard, his teeth grinding in pain and rage. "You can't just erase them from who you are! We are the ones who chose to open our heart toward them! And they were the ones who accepted not only me... but you, too!"
Amon sat speechless, the fluid form of Juvia continuing to shift softly in the air beside him. The high-pitched buzzing in his skull reached a deafening roar.
"No..." Amon forced out."No, no, no... No! You can't change who I am! You can't change what I am!"
He pushed himself up off his knees, glaring at Albion with malice.
"I am the king!" Amon screamed, dark veins bulging along his neck. "I stand alone! I rely on no one! I keep moving forward! I exist to wipe out every single soul around me! The pain I felt earlier is what keeps me alive! My hatred for this world is the only thing that drives me! Your pathetic compassion will never reach my hatred! It will never trample my anger at this world for rejecting me!"
Albion stood his ground. He clenched his fists so tightly that the muscles in his forearms locked into hard cables. Beneath his feet, a puddle of his own spilled blood lay on the dark floor.
A complex, suffocating wave of emotion washed over him. Frustration at his own weakness despite everything he had suffered, a desperate need to reach the one standing before him, and above all, a cold, burning anger at both Amon and himself.
"If you turn your back on someone who cares about you..." Albion said, his voice dropping into a quiet, lethal tone, "...if you turn your back on someone you cared for, then you embody our mother a lot more than you think."
"You aren't just carrying out her will," he continued. "You're becoming her. And if you turn your back on a bond that we made... then you don't deserve to be me. You don't deserve to be the king. And you never will."
A vicious, bloodthirsty rage flared in Amon's eyes. He stared across the distance at Albion, his body shaking violently. Deep within his chest, a strange, suffocating sensation swelled, a sudden, terrifying urge to cry. He didn't even understand what crying was, or why his chest felt so heavy.
He wanted to be the king. He wanted to prove that his hatred was general, that his wrath could crush Albion's soft, fragile compassion. He wanted to destroy Albion, end this mental nightmare, and step out into the real world to carve out his own fate.
Before either of them could take another step, two simultaneous, thunderous blasts tore through the silence of the realm.
The double shockwave hit like physical artillery, rupturing near Amon and Albion at the exact same instant. The impact blew both of them off their feet, hurling their bruised bodies across the dark space before smashing them down into the liquid floor.
A massive wave of Black Water crested over them, submerging them completely.
Seconds later, both boys broke the surface, coughing violently and wetly as dark water dripped from their hair and faces.
Drenched and disoriented, they pushed themselves up onto hands and knees. Amon's body thrashed with pain, his ribs clicked painfully with every shallow breath, his jaw throbbed from Albion's earlier strikes, and the torn sleeve on his arm hung soaked, blood still seeping from the injury.
Albion fared no better. Though his chest wound had closed, the total exhaustion of his magic left his limbs heavy as lead. He struggled just to keep his balance on the trembling floor.
"I'm sorry... my king."
The voice echoed from the dark mist near Amon, weak, rasping, and deeply familiar.
A second later, another voice drifted out from the darkness near Albion:
"Albion... I failed you."
Both boys turned their heads in the direction of the calls.
Through the clearing mist, the massive, towering shape of Yang, the white dragon, appeared near Amon. On the opposite side, the dark, colossal form of Reiga, the black dragon, collapsed near Albion.
"Yang...?" Amon muttered, his three eyes widening in shock.
"Reiga...?" Albion whispered, his breath catching in his throat.
Deep bite marks, severe gashes, and heavy, dark blood coated the massive scales of both dragons. As the two boys watched, sections of their colossal bodies began to turn translucent, dissolving into brilliant motes of light that drifted upward into the pitch-black sky.
Ignoring the brutal agony in their limbs, Amon and Albion began to drag themselves forward across the Black Water, slowly and painfully walking toward their fading dragons.