Sunday could not believe that someone could still move in time that had already been brought to a halt.
Much less launch a counterattack.
If anyone had told him that before, he would have thought they were dreaming.
But now he was inside a dream, and something that should have been impossible even in a dream was happening right in front of him.
As Hoshigaki Sora shouted, a tremendous force surged through the weapon held by the Three Stages of ORDER.
Its body staggered back two steps, then finally crashed into the villa behind it.
Bricks collapsed. Dust burst into the air. Sunday sat amid the wreckage of the ruined house, staring in shock.
The power of the Third Cycle had already completely dissipated, and yet what had just happened still felt utterly unreal to him.
Was this still the reality he understood?
Was this still ORDER's dream?
And it was no wonder he thought so. On his own turf, the Three Stages of ORDER had actually been driven back by a variable.
Forget him—not even anyone else would believe it if word got out.
Within ORDER's dream, all of his powers were significantly enhanced.
Though he was still only an incomplete philosophical fetus, he was absolutely not some nobody who could be sent flying by any random cat or dog.
And yet with a single punch from Sora, not only had he been blasted back several meters, even the steel pipe he used as a weapon had visibly caved in.
Because he was linked to this creation of ORDER, he could sense everything it felt. And because of that, the dent in the steel pipe stood out in his perception like a fluorescent glow in the dead of night.
That pipe had originally been perfectly straight, perfectly smooth.
But now it had warped.
Even the power of ORDER could not smooth out that distortion in an instant.
One could imagine just how severe the damage was.
That punch had not merely deformed the weapon—it had even interfered with the ORDER power flowing through it.
It was simply unbelievable.
"Hoshigaki Sora... what exactly are you?"
Sunday controlled the Three Stages of ORDER as it climbed back up from the collapsed building.
He looked at Sora, his tone grave.
By now, the threat Sora posed in his mind had risen to the highest possible level.
What kind of being could stand against ORDER?
Was it the Xianzhou Alliance? But the Alliance had never announced any general who looked like him.
Was it the IPC? But Sunday did not sense the slightest trace of PRESERVATION on Sora.
Nor was it NIHILITY. The power of NIHILITY clung like maggots to a corpse—once it appeared, anyone would know at once...
Even after ruling out one AEON after another, Sunday still could not arrive at an answer.
That was why he wanted to ask where this variable named Sora truly came from.
"Heh. What's the point of talking about that now?"
"All I need to do is beat the one standing against me."
Faced with Sunday's question, Sora endured the pain in his right arm and raised the Flame Saber.
The injury was severe—very severe. Sora could already feel the bones sitting out of place.
It was probably not just dislocated.
It was likely broken too.
That was bad. To recover from an injury like this, Sora would need at least... a few days in the sun.
This was not a wound to the flesh. After all, what had entered Penacony was not the body, but the soul carrying one's memories.
So healing an injury to the soul took longer than healing the body.
It would take several days of sunlight before it was more or less mended.
That alone showed just how serious Sora's injury was.
It would take several days of sun just to recover the damage to his soul.
And right now, every second was priceless.
Every day Sora delayed was another day for the enemy's power to grow.
How could he afford to lie in the sun now?
He had to seize this chance and defeat Sunday before he fully came into his own!
Sunday could sense Sora's resolve too.
Yes. There was no point in caring now about origins, factions, or anything else of the sort.
Now that they stood on opposite sides, all that remained was to crush the other with everything they had.
"Then let us return to life's most primitive ritual, and decide whose words are true!"
Sunday tossed aside the staff, whose ORDER power no longer flowed cleanly through it, clenched both fists, and charged at Sora.
This was the most primitive ritual by which life decided victory or defeat.
They would trade fists and decide the outcome by force!
At this moment, neither man needed to care about manners, nor about the powers standing behind them.
The only reason they were still here was for the simplest of all things—
Victory.
Sunday's fists howled with force, every blow heavy enough to crush mountains.
Each punch came down on Sora with the weight of ten thousand strikes.
But Sora was no pushover either.
Relying on his combat experience, he moved like a flood dragon gliding through water, slipping past Sunday's shrieking, wind-laced punches with remarkable ease.
Each fist smashed craters into the ground.
One could easily imagine that if one of those blows landed on a human body, it would turn them instantly into pulp.
And yet the moment the fists lifted away, the pits restored themselves, as though no battle had ever taken place here at all.
Even so, as the clash continued, one could gradually see that Sunday had begun to gain the upper hand.
Even he himself found that surprising.
In their earlier exchanges, Sunday had already felt Sora's combat instincts—so sharp they had practically become second nature.
Even when the two of them had barely come into contact before, Sora had still managed to read through the powers of those earlier Cycles on instinct alone and come up with answers on the spot.
In a direct confrontation like this, Sora should have been the one with the advantage.
So why was he the one being suppressed instead?
That question lingered in Sunday's mind.
But even though he still did not fully understand it, he had no intention of giving up such a rare chance.
Sunday knew himself clearly. During his upbringing, he had only briefly come into contact with and learned a few combat techniques.
Compared to Sora, that was like comparing a firefly to the moon.
The other man could very well find a single opening and reverse the entire battle in an instant.
The only reason Sunday could keep him pinned down was because of the body of the Three Stages of ORDER and the regenerative strength of ORDER's home field.
Without those two things, Sora would probably have pinned him to the ground and humiliated him countless times over.
Now that he had Sora on the back foot, if he did not keep pressing the attack, was he supposed to wait until Sora found a weakness?
So Sunday's suppression never let up from the moment the two made contact.
But why?
Why do you keep dodging?
Even while pressing his advantage, the question in Sunday's heart never stopped.
He could not understand why the guy who had been so cocky earlier, the same Hoshigaki Sora who had punched through his power, was now doing nothing but dodge.
"Show me the spirit you had just now!"
Sunday brought both fists together and smashed down at Sora again.
"Or was everything you said before just empty talk?!"
BOOM!
The two fists crashed into the ground, making everything around them cave inward.
Sora moved with agile precision, stepped around Sunday's attack, and seized the opening left by the follow-through.
"Whether it was empty talk or not, don't you know that yourself?"
Sora had waited a long time for this moment.
At last, the chance to counterattack had come.
Taking advantage of Sunday still being stuck in the recovery from that blow, Sora leaped upward.
The Flame Saber in his hand slashed straight toward the point where the Three Stages of ORDER's neck joined the body.
For anything humanoid, the head was generally the most vital part.
And the Three Stages of ORDER was practically just a bamboo pole from top to bottom, so the only place it could really be housing Sunday was there.
With injuries this severe, Sora could not afford to attack recklessly.
After waiting this long, he had finally found the best possible opening.
The Flame Saber carved a dazzling red arc through the sky.
Beneath that red light, there was nothing it could not cut and nothing it could not pierce.
The Three Stages of ORDER had already tasted that blade's sharpness once before.
And now Sunday was still stuck just as before, trapped in the recovery from a full-force strike, with no chance at all to defend.
This was the opening Sora had been waiting for.
"We'll settle it with this one blow."
A red gale fell from the sky, as if everything were about to meet its end beneath that flash of crimson.
Even Sunday's movements froze in place, as though he had abandoned resistance.
Was everything about to end here?
No.
Of course not.
"I have never abandoned my ideal, nor have I ever doubted your resolve."
Sunday's voice sank low.
"If you and I had met under normal circumstances, you might have understood just how much determination it took to make these choices..."
And precisely because of that, the dream of ORDER could not tolerate the slightest error.
THE FIRST CYCLE: LET THERE BE REALITY!
The Flame Saber fell from the sky, but it quickly passed straight through the Three Stages of ORDER's body.
It still held the pose from just before, both fists striking the ground.
As if it were kneeling there, repenting before someone unseen.
A sense of danger surged in Sora's heart.
In the next instant, the giant puppet spun a full three hundred and sixty degrees in a way no normal person could ever manage.
Reality and illusion switched places once again.
Under that rapid rotation, the joined fists whipped around with terrifying force.
This time, Sora could only raise the saber across his chest, barely managing to block Sunday's sneak attack.
But then—
Thump.
A muffled impact rang in Sora's ears, and a tremendous force traveled from the point of contact into his body.
His body flew backward uncontrollably until he jammed the saber into the ground, carving a furrow dozens of meters long before finally managing to stop.
Sunday's sneak attack had been exquisite. Sora had almost failed to react in time.
He had not expected ORDER's power to be usable again so quickly.
Luckily, his sense of danger had saved his life at the very last moment.
"But you have no real power to fight back now."
The massive body of the Three Stages of ORDER rose to its feet again.
It looked at Sora and declared with utter certainty, "In the end, this is all a variable like you can amount to."
Let me erase you completely.
Sunday raised both hands as though he were about to offer a final hymn to this man who had rebelled against god.
He wanted to thank Sora—to thank him for clearing away the hesitation in his heart and confirming the sinful road he alone would walk forward on.
THE SECOND CYCLE: LET THERE BE RECKONING!
Sunday spread both hands, and everything around them transformed under his power into chain after chain, all of them lashing toward Sora.
Sora had just started to dodge when he realized there were countless chains reaching toward him from every direction, even from the sky above.
They rushed in all at once, wrapping him so tightly there was not a single gap left.
He had lost all room to escape.
"Allow me to send you on your way..."
By the reckoning of judgment, I will send you into ORDER's cycle.
A variable...
in the end, is nothing more than another string of digits in ORDER's tally.
The Three Stages of ORDER rose into the air, intending to wipe Sora out completely.
But at that moment, Sunday suddenly felt something strange.
Sticky.
Warm.
Flowing slowly...
That sensation...
As though realizing something, Sunday abruptly dragged the chain-bound Sora before him.
And once he confirmed it, his expression changed to stunned disbelief.
"You... you..."
How are you bleeding?
That warm, sticky liquid flowing over him was blood, dripping from Sora's wound.
It flowed from the injury, spread along the chains, and dripped to the ground.
Drip. Drip.
Sunday could sense the power of ORDER, so naturally he could feel the touch of that blood as well.
But...
Blood should not appear in the dream of ORDER.
It should not even appear in Penacony's dreamscape.
Sunday knew very well how Penacony had come to be.
It was the Stellaron drawing in the planet's Memoria, creating a synesthetic dream.
Put simply, because of the Stellaron, everyone on this planet had their dreams linked together.
And that dream was real.
Which meant that if you died there, you would truly die in reality as well.
That was the truth behind Penacony's Stellaron disaster—death of the mind.
But after Gopher Wood arrived, he introduced the power of ORDER, turning spiritual death into a nightmare instead.
From that point on, if one died in Penacony's dream, the body in the real world would merely become listless for a while after suffering a nightmare.
It would no longer be fatal.
And the people within Penacony's dream were all made of Memoria.
So even if they died, they should only disperse into countless Memoria dream bubbles and vanish.
Much less bleed.
One could say that after being adopted by Gopher Wood, the only time Sunday had truly experienced the feel of blood—aside from what little of human nature he had seen—was in the memory of childhood, when his mother died before him and his sister while protecting them.
Even now, Sunday had never forgotten the warmth that had pooled in his palms.
That sticky sensation slipping through his fingers had come to symbolize the fading of life itself in his heart.
And now, after who knew how many years, Sunday was feeling that touch again.
He turned and looked back.
Only then did he notice the minute traces he had ignored until now.
Drop after drop of bright red blood stood out vividly across the dream, staining the ground he had restored.
Ordinarily, once he repaired the surroundings, that blood should have vanished, or returned to Sora's body.
But now it showed no sign whatsoever of being affected by ORDER. Like Sora himself, it remained there as something alien upon the field.
Drops. Smears. Patches.
By the time Sora had thrown that punch, the entire battlefield had somehow already been stained with that red.
Just now, Sunday had been so focused on how to eliminate Sora that he had overlooked those details.
But after feeling the blood flow across him, he could no longer ignore this thing that did not belong to ORDER.
"Why? Why are you bleeding?!"
Sunday stared at Sora, bound in chains and suspended in midair.
"Answer me!"
Faced with Sunday's demand, Sora only chuckled, utterly unconcerned.
"It's just a little blood. Look at you, making such a fuss."
Sora did not know what it signified.
But how could Sunday not know?
If blood could flow from his wounds, then the form standing here now was fundamentally different from Penacony's people.
When others were injured, it merely meant that the Memoria composing their bodies had been damaged. Even death amounted to nothing more than a nightmare.
But the ability to bleed meant this form was a true consciousness-body.
Why were those stowaway dreamdivers who entered Penacony's dream in such danger?
Wasn't it precisely because they stood too far outside Penacony's ORDER, and what entered the dream was usually their consciousness-body?
Any damage that consciousness-body suffered in the dream would be reflected directly onto the body in reality.
If the consciousness-body lost an arm or leg in the dream, one might wake to find one could no longer control that part of one's real body.
And if the consciousness-body died in the dream, then the mind in reality would die with it.
That was why dreamdivers were a prime target of Penacony's suppression—because they threatened to expose the truth behind ORDER's beautiful dream.
And yet today, Sunday had encountered a man who was using his consciousness-body to clash head-on with him, the Child of Order.
If that were the case, then everything earlier suddenly made sense.
Why had Sora fought differently later on than he had at the beginning?
Because when he was injured, the injury was real. It was not something that could be repaired simply by replenishing Memoria.
He had truly been staking everything he had to fight Sunday.
"You... are you not afraid of death?"
After a long silence, Sunday finally asked the question.
Why go this far?
Did he not understand that if he died in this state, then the body in reality would die as well?
But Sora's answer was simple.
"If I were afraid of dying, I wouldn't be standing in front of you."
Sora grinned and strained with both hands, wrenching the chains around him out of shape.
"And besides, you still can't kill me!"
With that, he heaved hard and snapped the chains binding his hands.
The two broken lengths carved arcs through the sky, but Sora did not take the chance to drop back to the ground.
Instead, he crossed his arms and flung them out with force. The chains moved like extensions of his own limbs, looping directly around the neck of the Three Stages of ORDER.
The reason the Three Stages of ORDER could ignore Sora's attacks was because Sora himself did not belong within ORDER's framework.
But these chains had been created by Sunday's reckoning.
So even if Sunday turned himself intangible, the chains could still touch the puppet of ORDER.
Faced with Sora's attack, Sunday did not resist.
He only looked at the man before him, and doubt rose in his heart.
Why are you trying so hard?
"Are you doing this for Robin?"
Even with the neck of the puppet of ORDER already bound by chains, Sunday's voice remained perfectly unhindered.
He could not understand Sora's actions.
Was this guy doing all this just to show off in front of his sister?
But Robin was in the safest place right now. She could not see anything Sora was doing.
No matter how cool he looked, how hard he fought, how desperately he pushed himself, no one would know and no one would see it.
So what was he doing all this for?
"Why does there have to be some grand reason?"
Sora hauled on the chains with both hands, and the puppet of ORDER let out a trembling metallic wail.
Kakakakaka—!
"I just want people to be able to feel happier when they dream... and freer..."
Several gears burst from the puppet's joints.
Sunday could feel his control over the Three Stages of ORDER dropping at an incredible rate.
"...I just want to hear music that's actually worth listening to!"
With that roar, the massive puppet's head was ripped clean off its body by the two chains.
Clang-clatter.
The world around Sunday spun wildly.
There was no question that once the head had been torn off, it had not landed smoothly. It had bounced and tumbled.
And inside it, Sunday remained expressionless, silent, turning over Sora's words in his mind.
He could have wiped Sora out with a single move just now.
But instead, he had done nothing.
Just as he had said before, the Hoshigaki Sora before him now was genuine consciousness.
If Sunday truly crushed him, then Sora's consciousness would suffer devastating damage.
He was not a Memoria entity. If he died, he would really die.
And that death would be permanent—the kind no next cycle could ever bring back.
If the cycle Gopher Wood had spoken of no longer applied, then Sunday would have to weigh things more carefully.
Sora was Robin's friend. If Sora vanished in the next cycle, then could a beautiful dream where Robin lost her friend still really be called a beautiful dream?
That doubt left the world around Sunday spinning, and even after Sora dragged him free, he still had no answer.
Not until a heavy punch landed squarely on his beautiful face and jolted him back to himself.
He realized that at some point, Sora had already shed that dragon-like shell, revealing the face beneath—stained with blood from his injuries.
"Life is never fragile..."
A life might pass through setbacks, hardship, separation, pain...
But people could still rise again. Life could still claw its way free from all of it.
Life would always seek a path forward into tomorrow.
And so Sora raised his fist once more.
"...so don't you dare look down on life!"
Sunday could see that the arm throwing that punch had already bent into an irregular shape.
He found it hard to imagine what kind of pain one would suffer swinging a mangled arm like that.
Any sensible person would let it rest.
And yet the man before him had not let that injured arm rest even for a moment.
Why?
The same question rose in Sunday's heart again.
He always wanted a reason for every action, a rule, an order behind it.
But he still could not understand the logic behind Sora's actions.
And then, when the punch landed on his face again—when that beautiful face gained another smear of blood and dust—
Sunday suddenly understood.
There was no reason.
It was simply because the right hand came more naturally.
Otherwise the guy's face would not have twisted into such a pig-liver color from the pain.
Heh. Interesting.
"But this still isn't enough. What you've shown me is still not enough!"
Sunday wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.
His once immaculate clothes had been stained with blood and were no longer neat or orderly.
But he did not care in the slightest.
He only stood up again and looked at Sora.
"Words alone still cannot prove all that you claim."
Sunday spread his hands. His face was somewhat swollen now, but his expression remained as calm as ever.
"If you truly can point living beings toward a path forward, then show me through your actions—tear down the paradise I have built!"
Otherwise, no matter how much you say, it is all empty talk in the end.
"You can do it, can't you? You should be able to, shouldn't you? Then come at me!"
Show me your power, and destroy the paradise I have made.
Only then can you prove the truth of your words!
Sora looked at Sunday and began winding the chains around his injured right arm, loop after loop.
He meant to use them to brace the wounded arm and add a little more combat strength.
Though the pain made the corners of Sora's mouth twitch, he still stood here.
If you won't back down, then I'll go all the way with you.
Sunday looked at Sora. He was still smiling, but his eyes had turned serious.
The paradise was his life's wish. To destroy it would be no different from destroying the meaning of his existence.
And so, naturally, he would act with the intent to kill Sora.
The tension between them rose once more.
It felt as though the two of them were about to collide in a true final clash.
But at that very moment, a voice that should not have been here reached them from the side.
"You two... stop fighting..."
The voice trembled slightly, but both men on the battlefield recognized it at once.
Their eyes turned toward the ruined villa at the edge of the battlefield.
There, amid the wreckage, stood Robin in her white dress.
Her words eased some of the tension between them, if only for a moment.
"Robin? Why are you here?"
Sunday was stunned.
Should his little sister not have been in the safest place, smiling as she read the magazines she liked best?
"Well, looks like you're okay."
Compared to Sunday's shock, Sora only smiled when he saw that Robin was safe.
Robin said nothing. In silence, she walked over to the two of them.
She first lifted her head to look at Sunday, taking in his swollen face and the dirtied, disordered state of his clothes.
Then she stepped forward and straightened them for him.
The moment Sunday saw that, he immediately shot Sora a provocative look.
See that? That's my sister.
On the battlefield, the first person she worries about will always be her brother.
But what Sunday had not expected was that after smoothing out his clothes, Robin said, "Brother, you're the Family's representative now. Your clothes can't be in a mess."
Then she turned and walked straight toward Sora.
Sunday instinctively reached out to stop her.
But Robin slipped past his grasp with ease.
His hand froze there in midair.
Robin walked up to Sora, saw the blood on him, and saw the chains wrapped around his right arm.
Her eyes reddened slightly as she reached up to touch his face.
"I'm sorry."
"Hey, what're you apologizing to me for? You know how tough I am better than anyone."
"Exactly. Exactly. Even though this kid's using a consciousness-body, he tanked attacks from the Three Stages of ORDER and only came out with a few light injuries. That's not something just anyone can do."
Sunday chimed in from not far away.
Unfortunately, Robin paid him no attention at all.
She simply took Sora's hand and began leading him away.
The sudden move made Sunday call after them in surprise. "Robin, where are you going?"
Out here, she could easily be assimilated by ORDER. She should have stayed hidden safely in that room.
"I'm going to put medicine on him. I'm going to treat his injuries."
"But—"
"There is no but, Brother..."
Robin spoke without turning around.
"This is the path I choose for myself. You cannot point the way forward for me."
After saying that, she led Sora away into the distance.
Only Sunday remained where he was, with the headless Three Stages of ORDER behind him seeming to mirror his current state.
The north wind blew bleak and cold, and no one else was around.
Not until a black crow descended from nearby and landed on his shoulder.
"It's all right. When the next cycle comes, she'll forget all of this."
Sunday did not answer.
He only looked toward the place where they had disappeared and said nothing.
Gopher Wood said no more. It could sense that the workings of ORDER had not slipped out of place in the slightest.
Presumably, for Sunday, this was only a trivial matter.
More than that, it was curious why someone who had entered the dream through The Reverie in Penacony could bleed.
This was a place where HARMONY and ORDER coexisted, not the domain of stowaway dreamdivers.
And yet Hoshigaki Sora, this special existence, had appeared here. That was impossible to ignore.
It flapped its wings and landed beside the blood scattered across the ground.
...
Robin led Sora away from the battlefield.
She found a safe place and told him to undo the chains wrapped around his arm.
But when she saw the arm beneath—twisted into a shape it should never have taken—she fell silent.
She stayed silent for a long time, not knowing what to do.
After all, who would have expected someone to be injured in a dream, much less this badly?
Across Penacony's thousands of years, there were probably barely a few cases like this.
"Don't worry. For an injury like this, a few days in the sun will do the trick."
The more lightly Sora said it, the quieter Robin became.
Only after a good while did she finally ask, with a complicated expression,
"Did you know about my brother's problem all along?"
---
T/N: hmm i wonder if sora was gonna go to an even STRONGER form, but held back since he was near where Robin was... he's so thoughtful... oughhhh im cu-