The Night’s Sun

The last thing the city gave Eterna before the world became nothing but sky was the asphalt exploding beneath her feet.

The wind came later. She had already left the sound barrier far behind.

Her fist met the flat of the sword. Sarinta intercepted it at the last instant, solid behind steel veined with embers. The impact ran through both their arms, and they climbed together between the buildings toward the horizon, scoring the air with twin arcs of lightning and fire.

The collision held them locked for an instant. Then the pent-up force broke their contact, and they ricocheted apart.

From that point on, no human eye could follow their flight. One golden streak and one red stitched spirals above the rooftops in paths broad enough to embrace entire city blocks. Every meeting opened a flash; the boom arrived late, chasing them without ever catching up. Eterna, however, saw every movement: Sarinta’s shoulder announcing the cut, fire racing through the sword’s veins, the smile widening whenever steel met her fists.

The few times stray bolts from their exchanges grazed Sarinta, they left shallow cuts. Every one closed before the next scratch landed.

Eterna’s body sang. There was no better word. All her life, she had trained to the limit, always until she was too tired to breathe. Now every muscle was tuned to its own note. At last, she could play the whole song.

The blade of fire came in an arc. Eterna crossed her forearms; the cut became a collision and stopped them in midair between two buildings. The released energy hurled them in opposite directions.

Eterna struck a rooftop, her boots gouging twin trenches through the concrete while the armor shrieked beneath the heat.

She came out of the slide laughing.

Everything was too clear. Her senses had sharpened to that rare point reached only before something capable of killing her. It had been a long time since Eterna had felt threatened.

Sarinta landed crouched on the tower opposite, three points of contact, sword behind her body and concrete cracking beneath her claws. Before each woman, a trail still hung in the sky—red on one side, gold on the other—and dissolved into the night.

For a moment, neither moved.

The avenue burned below. Smoke rose between the towers, and heat made the air ripple over the gulf separating them.

Eterna wiped the remaining blood from her mouth and lifted already-smiling eyes.

Sarinta threw back her head and laughed as well. The sound rolled between the towers and over the burning district.

When the laughter passed, both stood on opposite edges. The demon straightened without hurry, kept her blade low, and measured Eterna from head to toe like one assessing an equal across a table.

“You are strong. I acknowledge you as a warrior.”

The mockery vanished from her voice.

Sarinta pointed her chin at Eterna’s empty hands.

“Go on. Summon your weapon. I will wait.”

Eterna closed her hand, and golden lightning crackled as though answering for her.

“Weapon? This is all I’ve got.”

She raised her fists, opening and closing her hands more than once as she tested the tendons.

“I see.”

The sword of fire dissolved into the air. Sparks spiraled upward and vanished, leaving Sarinta empty-handed.

“Then this is unnecessary.”

Eterna raised her chin, surprised.

“What a stupid thing to worry about. You’re gonna regret that.”

Something new appeared on Sarinta’s face: anticipation.

“Don’t worry. This is a feast after a long famine. I intend to savor it slowly.”

Sarinta opened her arms toward the burning city.

“Powerful demons cannot fight one another. The weak offer no pleasure. It has been a long time since I had a true battle.”

Her gaze recovered its usual arrogance.

“Besides, you exceeded my expectations, yet you remain weak before me. To use my sword against you in a true battle would insult my honor.”

Having faced enough demons to recognize patterns, Eterna knew something about that night did not feel right.

For an instant, hunger gave way to duty; she spoke as an agent of the Division.

“What do you want? What’s your objective?”

Her eyes swept the surrounding ruin and returned to Sarinta.

“This kind of coordinated attack doesn’t fit your kind.”

“What a pointless question.”

Sarinta shrugged. It was plain that she genuinely did not care about the answer.

“Strategies, motives, the ancient war… It is all nonsense.”

She looked at her hand and closed it into a tight fist.

“There is only one thing I seek: battle against the strong. The supreme feast. Beyond that, nothing matters.”

A feverish gleam kindled in the yellow of her sclerae.

“Human, Angel, beast… It makes no difference.”

She raised her head and looked to the other building once more.

“Do you not agree, Sparky?”

And in that moment, Eterna did agree.

“Didn’t answer my question, but I like that idea.”

She continued as she stretched her arms.

“It’s simple. Easy to understand. Doesn’t matter what you’re plotting or how many of you there are.”

She finished stretching and clenched her fists. Her voice cooled into a calm that would have frightened anyone who knew her.

“All I have to do is kill every one of you. Case closed.”

The smile returned at once, handing Sarinta’s mockery back in full, with interest.

“I accept your challenge, Hornhead. Fight without your sword. Just don’t make excuses after you lose.”

Golden lightning wrapped Eterna’s arms as she raised her guard.

“Now let’s talk with our fists.”

“Insolent little brat.”

Sarinta was laughing as she said it.

“You are the challenger, Sparky.”

Eterna’s arrogance delighted the demon—her smile was almost grateful.

Eterna let lightning climb beneath her skin until the entire rooftop hummed.

She launched.

There was no crossing between the rooftops.

There was here—and then the space behind Sarinta. Eterna appeared with fist clenched, driving at the demon’s ribs with the full weight of her launch.

The measuring phase was over. That blow could end a fight.

Instead of ribs, her fist found an open palm. Sarinta had turned into the attack and was already waiting to receive it.

“Fast,” Sarinta said. “But not fast enough.”

The palm blossomed.

An eruption was born at point-blank range. Lava compressed between palm and fist exploded outward, hurling Eterna across the block; her armor boiled, and the skin beneath it screamed.

She’s strong. Reacts way too fast. Catching her by surprise won’t be easy.

The thought came as she was dragged through the air.

Sarinta pursued; Eterna recovered and reentered the exchange while still airborne. She abandoned the broad movements.

She began pressing with speed. An opening would have to appear: lightning-coated punch, spinning kick, elbow, knee. Again. Faster. Every attack arrived from a different angle. Sarinta parried them all with her gauntlets, forearms intercepting each strike with a master’s precision.

Eterna kept up the pressure—until Sarinta vanished from before her.

The voice came from behind.

“Impressive. Truly.”

One of Sarinta’s hands closed beside her waist, and flame appeared.

“But you are still human.”

The fist came.

The world somersaulted.

Eterna went through a wall. Plaster, brick, and beam came apart around her shoulders, all reduced to the same jumble. She landed on her back in the rubble of someone’s living room, debris in her lap and dying electric arcs leaking from her armor.

She remained sitting half a second longer than necessary.

Staring at the ceiling. Warm blood running into her ear.

This was it.

The nameless, faceless fight she had chased since she was young—the one she had never found in missions that ended too quickly. This weight. This pressure. This burned air. This moment.

The sheer size of her own happiness almost frightened her.

“Give up,” Sarinta called from outside, through the smoke. “You fought well. This is your end.”

Eterna rose, heart euphoric and mind cold:

I still haven’t landed a real hit. And her recovery is way too fast: those few cuts have already closed.

I can’t keep fighting with direct charges like this. At this rate, the damage will pile up on my side, not hers. I need to create an opening and land one clean.

She walked through the rubble to the street. At the corner, a steel pole held up a No Parking sign.

It’ll have to do.

She brought her fingers together like a blade, coated the edge of her hand in lightning, and sheared through the pole’s base with one cut. The steel leaned a beat late. Before it could fall, Eterna pivoted through her hips and kicked it like a free kick.

The improvised spear shot straight along the ground, the sign fixed to its far end like the fletching of a giant arrow.

“Pathetic.” Sarinta did not even raise her hands. “You think a trick like that—”

Eterna was already moving.

She launched with enough violence to tear the street’s remaining windows from their frames. Shards were still falling when she overtook her own pole and appeared before Sarinta before the sentence could end.

“Wha—”

Punches.

The barrage came too fast for a careless defense, too brilliant to see in full. Too many fists filled the air—two, five, ten—forcing Sarinta to close her guard and see nothing but the blows.

“You are fast, but those little punches will never bring me down!”

Eterna kept up the pressure, her thoughts striking in the exact rhythm of her fists:

No! Not yet!

She kept pressing without leaving room for a change. Time compressed, and one millisecond lasted forever.

Just a little more! Keep attacking until the very last millisecond!

At the final instant, she slipped out of line.

The pole arrived along the path Eterna had drawn. The barrage had never been the attack; it was the magician’s hand holding Sarinta’s eyes in the wrong place. Steel pierced the demon’s left shoulder, tore her off the ground, and carried her down the avenue.

“Grrr! What a stupid trick! You little—”

Eterna caught her in midair.

“Gotcha.”

She seized the embedded steel and poured the storm through it. The pole burned white; Sarinta convulsed around the shaft. Using the sign for support, Eterna jumped, landed atop it, and rode her own spear standing up, hair whipping in the turbulence.

With a violence opposite to all the grace she had just displayed, Eterna drove a lightning-shod kick into Sarinta’s temple.

The demon’s trajectory snapped to the left.

She tore through the marble facade of a hotel. Its sign burst letter by letter over her before she vanished into the lobby.

When the cloud settled, a pile of rubble remained. From its center, the pole still rose straight upward.

Like a flagpole.

Eterna landed lightly in the street and let out a long breath.

“I'm sure she felt that one.”

The entire pile exploded.

“I will kill you!”

Sarinta emerged crouched while the remaining molten metal ran from her shoulder and hissed across the marble. Yellow eyes swept the ruin, the smoke, the corners.

“Where are you?”

Only then did she raise her face.

Eterna waited suspended across the street.

High above, she held two bundles of high-voltage cable torn from the span between poles. Though severed, the block’s lights remained on. The current passed through her body without harm and returned to the grid, as though she offered less resistance than copper and aluminum.

“I’m not done yet.”

Lightning ran from her to the wires and from the wires back to her.

“Now this is something special!”

Then she pulled.

The current reversed. The city’s energy rushed to a single point, and everything went dark: windows, streetlights, signs. Even her. For one second, there was only pitch black, as though she had swallowed the light of the world.

And from the darkness, it roared back.

A yellow explosion relit the world. Within it, a lion of lightning raised a mane of arcs and drove its paws into the asphalt. The energy was too ferocious to hold its shape: the creature came apart and redrew itself with every crack, remade a thousand times each second.

For miles around, Eterna was the center of gravity. Discharges as thick as utility poles escaped her and tore through concrete, earth, and sky.

Below, Sarinta lifted her face. Admiration and shock filled her expression.

“By all the hells… Can a human really go this far?”

“Let's go.”

“Imperial Lightning — Supernova”

Eterna vanished.

A blink—and the air closed over the point she had left. She fell upon the city like a comet. Behind her, the golden lion brought a lightning storm like the wrath of heaven.

Sarinta did not retreat a single step.

She planted her feet in the debris, widened her stance, and offered her entire body to the impact.

“Yes! Splendid!”

Fire climbed her from the ground to her horns.

“Then let us see which of us is stronger, brat!”

Flames leapt from her outstretched arms and met the comet in midair.

“It is time for the FEAST!”

The attacks collided. The infernal torrent bit into the electricity, and the two mingled.

At impact, a gigantic column of fire and lightning rose—a pillar of two energies linking street to cloud. At its base, a white sphere began to swell, growing and sweeping away everything around it. Destruction reached its peak: entire blocks evaporated, and the night lit from the ground upward.

First, only the hum remained. Then the rest returned: fire crackling, smoke rising, dust settling.

Then Sarinta walked out of the smoke—first only silhouette, horns, and hair; then whole, wounded but far, far from dead. The hole in her shoulder was already stitching itself shut with threads of new flesh, and scratches scored her yellowish skin.

And she was laughing.

“Not bad. Really not bad, Sparky.”

She struck her chest.

“Can you keep going? Or was that all you've got?”

Across the devastated earth left by the attack, Eterna dragged air in with deep breaths. Her back was slightly bent, and golden wisps still escaped her armor. She had just released energy equivalent to a bomb. Across from her, the demon cracked her neck.

Only a few scratches after all that? She’s a fucking monster!

She could not stop smiling.

The answer escaped before the guilt could catch it:

“Worst part is, I’m getting fired up too.”

She straightened. One smile reflected the other.

“You crazy demon. That’s obvious!”

Eterna’s breathing had not yet returned to normal, but she began to walk.

Sarinta came to meet her.

They did not run. They crossed at a slow walk over ground scraped to the bone, embers rising from the burned earth. The distance shortened; neither looked away.

From somewhere in the city, the muffled bass of music arrived in pulses felt more than heard.

It was midway through that crossing that the intrusive thought Eterna wanted to lock away surfaced, clear and dangerous:

Damn it. Nothing else matters to me right now. Not the city, not the orders, not the future. I just don’t want this to end yet.

Eterna knew why she tried to lock it away: she knew she was ignoring something she must not ignore.

Even so, she ignored it.

“Let’s fight. Let’s fight until one of us is dust!”

She continued forward at the same pace.

“Well said!” Sarinta answered in euphoria.

Flames climbed beyond the rooftops still standing, a column visible from the sea.

“Let us fight then, little brat.”

They stopped a finger’s width apart.

Close enough to feel the smallest muscular contraction. Red on one side, gold on the other; sparks crossed the gap between their faces. Satisfaction marked both expressions, and the air between them felt like a spring compressed to its limit, ready to burst with violence at any moment.

Neither retreated. Neither blinked.

Without warning, they took their fighting stances.

Eterna drew her right leg back, cast her left arm forward, and sank her stance, closing her guard. Then she shouted. The cry tore the aura from her body; golden flashes climbed her arms.

Sarinta did the same: set her own stance, claws biting the ground as fire answered.

Like a starting signal, a nearby piece of concrete that had recently been a column—but now hung from a single bent length of rebar—gave way and fell.

It shattered.

And the two charged one another.

They struck each other with a brutality that would have dismantled any other body, never ceasing to drive into one another within the tiny imaginary ring they had created.

Lightning against fire. Fire against lightning. Elbows, knees, foreheads; the ground beneath them sinking in concentric rings with every exchange.

Eterna fired a kick at head height. Sarinta blocked with her forearm, seized the leg, and hurled her away.

Mid-arc, Eterna arrested her flight. Her eyes searched the field.

Where, where—

Sarinta came from above.

Her interlaced hands formed a sledgehammer. The demon descended with the full weight of the dive, struck Eterna cleanly, and drove her into the ground. Smoke rose from the impact point as though a red-hot nail had been hammered there.

Sarinta gave her no rest.

Eterna sought none. She rose as fast as she had fallen, flying through her own smoke, and the two collided in the sky once more.

A heavier exchange followed. Eterna struck Sarinta’s stomach, felt metal yield, and saw saliva fly. Sarinta returned the blow to her ribs; Eterna’s eyes went white for an instant.

Both felt it. These were fight-ending blows.

But they did not stop.

Sarinta charged her aura and opened her arms. The blast came out as a wall of flame, too broad to circle around.

Eterna dipped beneath it. Her chin grazed the foot of the fire wave, the ends of her hair hissed, and she emerged from the burning wake with a hook of golden lightning—leg, hip, shoulder, her whole body behind the blow.

Sarinta blocked at the final instant.

But the block came crooked. Her forearm yielded half a handspan, and her guard opened for the first time.

Half a handspan was all Eterna needed.

She was already inside. Her right fist waited at her waist; the advance through the air closed the space Sarinta would use to turn. The blow rose through the opening and reached the tip of her chin.

The demon’s head snapped back.

Eterna’s body linked the next movement before thought. She spun on her axis and dropped her heel in a straight line onto the head. Sarinta was driven through the air and tried to halt her momentum—ten yards, twenty—until her feet sank into the slab where she landed.

Sarinta stopped. She touched the corner of her mouth with a clawed thumb and studied the dark blood at its tip.

She laughed—a short, hungry laugh. The arc of fire behind her head took on another hue.

They launched again. After that, Eterna would never be able to recount the blows in order.

The sky was painted with trails again. They lost and found each other over a rooftop water tank. Eterna kicked the reservoir into the next blast; thousands of droplets carried her electricity, but the fire turned them to steam. Then only fists remained.

The exchange climbed higher with them.

She was living the best moment of her life.

She was, and Eterna knew it even as it happened—but the accounting happened too, silent and merciless. Every exchange cost her twice what it cost Sarinta. Her fists throbbed inside the gauntlets. Her left forearm was numb from wrist to elbow. The lightning that until then had left her like thunder now came in little arcs, an engine sputtering at the end of its fuel.

The human body is honest. It does everything asked of it—and charges for everything it does.

And the bill came due.

It came slowly, treacherously: the kick left a tenth of a second late; her guard rose heavy, as though air had become water. Her body answered commands at ever-widening intervals. Across from her, Sarinta began to dodge, block, and counter with ease. Two, four, six strikes landed in succession.

Sarinta had not grown stronger. It was the fatigue of prolonged combat at the limit, draining Eterna’s reserves like an unstoppable hemorrhage. Sarinta noticed.

The demon withdrew, gained altitude, and lowered her fists.

“You fought well. But your body is already beyond its limit. That you still stand is admirable.”

Eterna opened her mouth to disagree.

“Speak for yourself. I’m not fin—”

The blood came without warning. It rose through her throat mid-sentence, and Eterna spat red onto her own raised fist. Her vision blurred; the world split in two.

“W-What…?”

She did not fall from the sky. She could still fly—or she was paralyzed there. But her entire body had become lead, and the demon’s voice reached her without a trace of mockery:

“You weren’t the one… Even so, you were magnificent. It has been centuries since I surrendered myself to battle like this, thinking of nothing else. In respect, I will grant you an end worthy of it.”

Sarinta unleashed her full aura.

The arc of fire behind her head became an incandescent sun, and the heat raised trembling columns through the air. Within the blaze, the demon no longer smiled. She regarded Eterna with the solemnity owed to a rite.

“Hellfire — Crimson Funeral”

There was no ceremony. After wanting to prolong every instant of the fight, Sarinta chose to end it with almost cruel speed. Yet within that haste was a bizarre form of empathy.

After so visceral a battle, she knew Eterna’s soul as warriors sometimes know one another: without needing to say a thing. She knew Eterna would not stop even after her own body abandoned her, reduced to a condition unworthy of a warrior.

She would not allow that image to stain the fierce purity of their battle.

Even so, Eterna tried to react. She called the lightning and began to raise her guard, but by the time her arms finally moved, it was already too late.

The flaming fist struck her from above with all the fury of the inferno it carried. Eterna plummeted like a projectile, leaving Sarinta suspended in the sky above her, farther and farther away.

Then came the second impact.

The golden lioness tore through the asphalt in an explosion of stone and concrete. The ground collapsed beneath her into a colossal crater. The fire did not spread in a circle: it ripped through the earth in four directions and opened a crimson cross. Cracks glowed around the crater as though the city had been marked with a burning headstone.

For an instant, all that existed was red.

Eterna vanished at the center of that funeral of fire, swallowed by smoke, rubble, and the darkness of the abyss.