Leon’s powers start to twist around me, like a snake coiling around its next victim. Everywhere the light moves, the dark purple haze dissipates.
My smile doesn’t waver. “No, Leon, I’m not yours, and I never will be.” I pause to take a ragged inhale as the power inside me screams for release. “Even if I have to kill us both to ensure it.”
“I love you, Sin,”I whisper in my mind.
Then I let go.
“Vivi, no!” Someone screams.
But it’s too late.
The blast hits Leon first. His Destroyer powers surge forward to meet it, but the blue light is obliterated the moment they make contact.
There’s no time for him to understand what’s happening before my power tears into him.
His life flickers out.
But I don’t stop.
A blinding explosion ripples out from him, annihilating everything in its wake, as I force the energy into every last one of his atoms.
I splinter their bonds and unravel every last fragment of his existence, until there’s nothing left of him to destroy.
A sphere of crackling purple surrounds me and Sin’s spirit, enveloping his lifeless body as well, as I let the world around us burn.
I don’t draw back my power until I’m certain that Leon is truly and completely gone.
As the light fades, I take in the clearing, which has been reduced to a desolate wasteland. Nothing remains of Leon or Need, not even a pile of ashes.
Sin and I stand on a single island of lichen and moss, in a crater of blackened stone. The damage stretches onfor the entirety of the battleground, but stops at the ocean and tree lines.
Somehow, the blast was contained.
“Let me go, you creepy bastard!” Arianna screeches, and I spin to see Hades holding Arianna in a bear hug.
“Ungrateful brat,” he growls as he releases her.
Arianna runs to me and throws herself into my arms. “I’m so glad you aren’t dead! Everyone started apparating away, but I couldn’t leave you. And then you said you might die and–”
“You’re welcome, by the way, both of you,” Hades grumbles as he saunters over to us. He nods to the tree line. “I contained as much of the blast as I could, despite having to containher,” he sneers the word with a disgusted look at Arianna. “What kind of idiot runstowardsa blast? Do you have zero sense of self-preservation?” The final sentence comes out as an accusation.
“I willneverleave her,” Arianna snaps, untangling from me to glare at the god.
“You almost died,” he growls low.
She shrugs.
Hades’ eye twitches.
Something that feels like hope lights up inside me as I turn to Hades. “You’re the God of the Dead.”
Hades’ hard look fades as he slowly shakes his head at me, already knowing where this is going.
Tears fall from my eyes as I point to Sin’s body. “Bring him back.”
He doesn’t look at Sin’s corpse, and instead nods to Sin’s spirit, still waiting at my side. “I won’t do that, Vivian. It’s against the laws of the universe and wouldcome with dire consequences. You’re a Reaper, you know there must be death.”
The world wavers as my vision blurs.
