The sky over the battlefield dimmed unnaturally. The wind seemed to hold its breath as a colossal figure descended from the looming flagship above. Every step he took made the floating rock beneath tremble, as if the land itself recognized the weight of the man who now touched it.
Borarah had arrived.
His armor, jagged and obsidian-black, reflected the chaos around him in twisted fragments. Each movement of his body radiated pressure, an invisible storm that threatened to collapse everything around it.
Federation soldiers froze. Even the savage Scalpers hesitated, watching their master step into the fire with a calm that didn't need words.
Kaizu stood at the heart of the crumbling platform, his blades coated in plasma and blood. Though his armor bore the scars of relentless combat, his posture remained straight. Defiant. When he saw the familiar figure emerge through the smoke and ruin, he let out a low breath, more amused than alarmed.
"There you are," Kaizu said,
lifting his weapons with both hands, his voice carrying across the field like a flare in the dark.
"I was starting to think you'd grown afraid of dying again."
The words hung between them like a challenge carved into stone. Borarah didn't reply, not yet. His crimson gaze locked with Kaizu's, and the tension in the air thickened until the battlefield itself seemed to fall quiet.
This wasn't just another fight. It was history returning for its next chapter.
But the moment shattered as the rock beneath them split open, deep fissures racing outward like lightning cracks. The ground didn't erupt from a weapon but from the arrival of something else.
Dust shot into the air. Soldiers staggered. Even Kaizu braced himself, adjusting his footing. Through the haze, a blur moved faster than the eye could follow.
Without warning, a figure lunged at Kaizu with impossible speed. The General twisted, barely parrying the strike with his Weaponoids. The impact sent a burst of heat across the stone. Whoever the attacker was, they moved like fractured light sharper than metal, more precise than machinery.
Kaizu backstepped, eyes narrowing. His lips barely moved when he whispered the name.
"Rakanta."
The word meant nothing to the rest of the Federation forces. Nothing to the Scalpers. Even Borarah raised an eyebrow not in fear, but in intrigue.
The stranger stood at the edge of the cracked platform, unarmed. His hands alone had blocked star forged blades. He was slender, wrapped in a dark cloak with edges torn by wind and fire. His eyes glowed faintly not red, not gold, but something cold, something ancient. And they didn't burn with vengeance. They didn't even reflect hatred.
They simply... wanted.
Another attack came, and Kaizu parried it with a clean spin, metal hissing against bone hard skin. Every move Rakanta made was calculated, inhumanly clean. He didn't waste a step. He didn't pause to breathe. He struck again and again like a ghost trying to shatter the world.
Kaizu narrowed his stance, sweat sliding down his jawline. For the first time in years, his legendary reflexes felt tested.
Borarah observed for a moment longer before stepping forward. He was never one to wait while others played war. He adjusted the grip on his burning sword and gave a low, amused chuckle.
"Two against one?" he said, voice smooth with sarcasm.
And with that, he surged into the fight. All at once, the air exploded with movement. Three warriors collided Kaizu, Rakanta, and Borarah, each driven by forces deeper than duty or vengeance. The cracked battlefield trembled with each clash. Sparks lit the sky like dying stars as steel and strength met ancient fury.
Kaizu held his own, barely. Rakanta's relentless precision left no room for error, while Borarah's brutal strength made every blow feel like a landslide. Still, the Federation's legend refused to fall. His Weaponoids screamed through the air, slicing through afterimages and blood soaked momentum. He parried, ducked, countered relentless in his defense of everything the Second Universe still had left.
And then, breaking through the roaring silence of war, another presence landed behind Kaizu.
It was clean, precise, and sharp,a calm force cutting through the chaos.
Commander Skye landed at his flank,
her boots planting deep into the fractured stone. Her armor was scraped and battered, her left shoulder bleeding where plasma had burned through the metal. But she stood tall, her rifle in one hand, her energy blade drawn in the other.
Kaizu glanced at her and gave the smallest nod.
"You're late."
Skye smirked, blood dripping from her brow.
"I like to make an entrance."
Without another word, she leapt into the fight. Her blade met Rakanta's spinning elbow mid strike, buying Kaizu a second to breathe. She moved with the elegance of a veteran, her feet light, her strikes firm. And unlike the others, she had fought through hell to get here. She was the only commander of the frontline battalions available right now. And she wasn't ready to die today.
Kaizu and Skye moved together like a dance rehearsed over decades. Blades crossed. Sparks flew. Borarah's grin widened, thrilled by the challenge. Rakanta said nothing, but his eyes flickered with interest. For the first time, he seemed... entertained.
But still, it wasn't enough to shake the dread that was beginning to form in the minds of every Federation soldier watching.
And far below them, in the skies surrounding the Source Planet... something else had begun to stir.
Something that had been waiting, watching.
Something that remembered the prophecy better than any of them.