‘Hell’ was too small a word for the burning plain.

  The battlefield echoed with the cries of millions—men who fought dauntlessly, men who screamed in agony as they lost their limbs, and even the desperate pleas of souls begging for salvation.

  Men died by the thousands every hour, and no one was coming to save them.

  In the middle of it all stood a boy who had decided enough was enough.

  “Enough of this…” A solemn yet firm voice was heard from the north as a man, coated in crimson, sighed in one breath.

  His hands trembled in pain while he grasped the shaft of his long red scythe; the trail of blood ran down the snath, but his grip only tightened.

  “No more games now.”

  His voice carried a truth no one had dared speak aloud. His blue eyes shifted towards his front, to a demi-human clad in a gentleman's suit with his right hand meticulously wrapped around his own waist while his other hand hovered in front of his crow head as though he was triggering an attack. His voice got harsh and grating as a crow's caw, echoing through the air.

  “I shall decide the end, Zero.”

  “...no.” The boy, Zero, drew breath out while ruffling his light brown hair as he picked out a dark-coloured crystal-coated card, with an enigmatic creature on it, and placed it in front, as a dark grin slowly crept on his face.

  “It's time for the final act. Any last words?”

  “None.”

  In a swift motion, the crow-man raised his hand as a well-structured blue cane, which was almost half his size, materialised in his right arm.

  Gripping it tightly, he twirled the cane around his body and stood with his right leg forward with the tip of his cane against his right leg.

  “Do it then, Zero,” he uttered then within a heartbeat, he vanished just to materialise in front of the boy, roaring, “The end is definitely here, but yours, not mine!!”

  “I wonder.” Regardless of his warning, Zero stood still with his eyes closed.

  The area around them started altering as if entering a new dimension; the inferno changed to blue flames, and the roars of men and cries of the injured vanished with a sound of whistles reverberating throughout the whole battlefield.

  Time started freezing, the movements of the crow-man appeared in slow motion, and a coalescence of black and blue flame emerged from Zero and, within a second, surrounded him.

  “Wha—?!” Even in slow motion, Crow-man conceded his own sluggishness but was helpless to do anything, and was left motionless hanging in the air.

  “I’m…the Mystic Master…Zero.” In a reverberating voice, Zero remarked, and his blue eyes sank into complete black voids.

  The flames surrounding him surged skyward, nearly engulfing the entire darkened sky in a deep, ethereal blue.

  “Is this a…new crysto-card…?”

  The crow-man mumbled as he was left hanging in mid-air, and the flames licked toward him, hungry and close.

  Within the flames, Zero was seen, standing motionless with his eyes closed. However, after some seconds, his eyes flipped open as the blue pupil in his eyes disintegrated into small scintillas of black light, leaving his eyes completely black.

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  The card shattered into black fire that poured over him like oil. When the flames parted, he stood taller—skin bone-white, his head enlarging, reshaping itself into a pale semi-sphere. In seconds, it morphed into the contour of a Roman Colosseum, seven white gates forming around its structure.

  Suddenly, his scythe, which was looming beside him, integrated into seven ethereal colours of the rainbow and then shortly morphed into seven terrifying blades and made their way inside the gates of his head.

  “Hmmpphhh…” With a long exhale, Zero reopened his eyes while bending his arms in front of his face with his curled fingers brushing against his cold countenance.

  “Kneel,” he whispered, outstretching his hands, “Denigros. It’s time.”

  With that being said, he yanked a red blade from his head and swirled it around his torso, as a red intimidating fire surrounded the blade.

  “This is the only way to end this all…”

  As his gaze shifted towards the sky, a wistful smile plastered on his face as though he thought of someone closest to his heart, someone who he had lost due to this war, someone who was the key to his locked heart.

  A faint smile touched his lips, meant for someone already ash.

  “Wait for me, dear,” he said to no one.

  Then, pointing his blade at Denigros, he sneered, “You ready, man?”

  “You…” Denigros, who had somewhat regained control over his body, stood straight while sighing as though he had formulated the gist of Zero’s intention.

  A shadow of resignation passed through Denigros’s crow-like eyes.

  “Good, then.”

  Finally, giving in to Zero’s intention, Denigros clasped his cane tightly and roared at the top of his lungs, “Let's end everything here and forever!”

  “That's my line!”

  In a heartbeat, both figures emerged in mid-air as their weapons clashed with a red sparkle erupting from them, followed by the catastrophic shockwaves which re-altered their surroundings to the battlefield.

  “I must say, you've got quite the guts, Zero.”

  Denigros laughed in his grating voice as he hopped back with his cane swirling around his fingers.

  “For you to make such a decision…I guess I wasn't wrong about you, after all,” he added.

  “So be it, then.” Then, he tightened his grip, and Zero mirrored him, both figures suspended in the bruised sky as though even the gravity hesitated to intervene between them.

  A swirl of ash cut between them—and then they moved.

  A red arc.

  A blue streak.

  Two lights crossing fates one final time.

  BOOOOM—!!!

  Their clash ruptured the battlefield, upheaving dirt and shattered armour as a shockwave spiralled outward. Yet amidst the roar of clashing metal and distorted flames, their eyes met.

  And in that gaze…there was no hatred.

  No bloodlust.

  Just a quiet, unspoken recognition between two men who had walked through endless massacre to reach this single moment.

  A glimmer in their eyes—barely a breath long—yet enough to let memories ripple through them like scattered shards of glass.

  For one heartbeat they saw the same things:

  A girl’s hand slipping from theirs in the smoke.

  A promise neither had kept.

  Laughter that would never come again.

  A ruined battlefield.

  A lost name.

  An unfinished life.

  Zero felt it first—a faint strain against his chest, a pulse beneath his ribs, his Mystic Card’s essence trembling like a candle in harsh wind.

  A thin crack crawled across his skin, glowing with ominous silver light.

  Denigros’s card followed suit.

  The cane he wielded vibrated, the gemstone embedded in it flickering violently before a fracture traced its surface like a creeping scar.

  They both understood what came next.

  And neither stepped back.

  Zero exhaled deeply, whispering something only the dying sky could hear.

  “This is fine… it ends with us.”

  Denigros nodded once, a grim acceptance washing over his crow-like visage.

  “No regrets, I believe.”

  They moved; their final strike tore through the air—

  a collision so violent the world itself recoiled.

  CRRRRAAACK—!!!

  Their Mystic Cards shattered.

  Not into debris—but into blinding torrents of incandescent light bursting from their bodies, devouring flame, sound, and even the battlefield beneath them.

  A white radiance swallowed them whole—

  gently yet mercilessly—erasing the war, the ash, the screams…along with their very existence, leaving nothing but silence.

  And in that silence, their silhouettes dissolved together—

  not falling,

  not breaking,

  but simply… departing.

  Whether toward death, rebirth, or oblivion—no one lived long enough to know.

  ——

  Far away—in a place untouched by war or the weight of shattered cards—a newborn wailed.

  Replacing the roar of battlefields with the gentle hum of a quiet home.

  The mother, seeing her child, smiled faintly.

  “He's got such strong lungs…”

  The child finally opened his eyes—ordinary, human, soft as the morning sky.

  However, in a different corner of the world—far from fate’s watchful eye—

  Another child stirred.

  He did not cry.

  He merely blinked, his silence unsettling the midwife watching him.

  For a fleeting second, an eerie shimmer of blue fading to black passed through his gaze.

  Then dissolved into nothing.

  Two births.

  Two beginnings.

  Both significant…or perhaps neither.

  The world, unaware of its missing legends,

  turned onward.