Through Our Fingers

The cellar rang with steel.

Solon’s claymore came down like a thunderbolt, sparks scattering as Lykos caught it on the haft of his spear. The floor cracked beneath their boots, pressure splitting stone.

“I thought you were meant for more than fighting for vermin.” Solon sneered, shoving forward.

Lykos twisted, sliding the blade off and snapping his spear’s butt across Solon’s jaw. The blow cracked like a whip, forcing him back a step.

“And I thought you were somebody to look up to. Guess that was the biggest mistake of my life.” Lykos spat.

“Fighting for the crown was the biggest honor you could have been given.”

“You are a puppet with no free will. Your words matter little to me, Solon!”

Solon lunged again, claymore sweeping in a deadly arc. Lykos ducked low, spinning his spear like a storm—tip flashing, shaft rattling against steel. The two clashed again and again, each impact booming like a drumbeat.

Solon thrust. Lykos sidestepped, blade grazing his shoulder. He ignored it, twisting his spear to hook Solon’s leg, yanking hard. Solon staggered but recovered instantly, kicking Lykos square in the chest. The impact launched him into a barrel, splinters exploding around him.

Lykos coughed blood, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His veins still glowed with the elixir’s fire. “You’ll need more than that.”

Solon raised his blade, voice a snarl. “And you’ll need more than borrowed strength.”

They collided again. Solon’s claymore swept in brutal arcs, smashing stone pillars apart. Lykos spun around them, his spear darting like a serpent, thrusts aimed for joints and gaps. One strike pierced Solon’s thigh—blood spurted, but Solon didn’t falter. He seized the spear’s shaft with his gauntleted hand and dragged Lykos forward, driving a knee into his ribs.

Lykos gasped but slammed his forehead into Solon’s nose, breaking free. The two staggered apart, panting and glaring.

“You fight like an animal,” Solon growled, spitting blood.

“Better than fighting like a house dog.” Lykos shot back, twirling his spear into guard.

They lunged again. Spear and sword blurred into streaks of silver and black. The cellar walls quaked, dust raining from the ceiling. Sparks showered with every clash.

“You know how many years I waited to humiliate you, boy?” Solon grinned, his stony demeanor breaking for the first time, “When you stormed out on me that day, I knew that wouldn’t be the last time I saw you.”

“And I knew that the next time I saw you, we wouldn’t stop until one of us was dead.” Lykos spat blood, “If only you stopped to think how all those people in the sick ward felt—“

“I couldn’t care less.” Solon attacked once more.

“So you’ve forgotten!” Lykos sidestepped and jutted his spear forward.

“Never. But I don’t let outcomes sway me. I just follows orders.”

Finally, Solon overpowered the spear, bringing his claymore down in a crushing blow. Lykos raised his weapon—too slow. The blade sheared through, snapping the spear’s shaft in half.

Lykos dropped to one knee, chest heaving. Solon towered above him, sword raised for the kill.

“And now I will follow another one. I will end you here, as I promised to the king.”

The elixir’s glow blazed hotter in Lykos’ veins. He clenched his jaw, raised the broken half of his spear—then did the unthinkable.

“Screw you and your king!”

As Solon swung down, Lykos thrust his arm into the path of the blade. Steel carved through flesh, blood spraying in a crimson arc. His left arm severed at the elbow.

“What—“

But the sacrifice gave him the opening.

With his other hand, he drove the jagged spearhead forward, straight into Solon’s chest. The point punched through armor, bone, and heart.

Solon’s claymore slipped from his fingers, clattering to the stone. He stood impaled, blood dripping down the spear’s shaft. His eyes met Lykos’—and for the first time, they weren’t cold. They were quiet. Respectful.

“Huh …Not too bad for a deserter,” he muttered, voice fading.

Lykos gritted his teeth, blood pouring down his side. He leaned close, whispering through ragged breath.

“Not too bad… for a puppet.”

With one final shove, he ripped the spear free.

Solon staggered, then fell, his body hitting the floor with a crash. The cellar went still.

Lykos stood alone, trembling, blood pooling at his feet—half a spear in his grip, one arm gone, but victorious. He slid down the wall at his back, his head tilted back. Then a smile bloomed on his face. A smile of relief. A smile that cleansed, that quelled the countless voices that swirled in his head since that day.

And when one particular was silenced, Lykos felt a weight lift from his shoulders.

“You can rest… Setala…”

╒ 🗝 ╛

The chamber pulsed with the relic’s glow, its rhythm beating in their bones.

Rokuro’s gauntlet sparked. Kagi’s keyblade hummed.

Draven’s mask gleamed, unreadable.

“You masked bastard!” Rokuro gritted his teeth, “What’s your goal? What the hell are you doing here poisoning the people?!”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Lock?” Draven’s voice rumbled lowly.

“Tch—“ Rokuro clicked his tongue.

“Roku.” Kagi turned to the king, who brandished the ominous magical staff.

“Draven, cease the chatter!” The king barked, “The outsiders must perish.”

Like a power hungry dictator, the ruler of Crystalor clutched his staff tighter.

“That is the reason I armed you, your majesty.” Draven simply replied.

The king’s smile gleamed beneath the magic.

“Die, invaders!” The King shrieked, as he raised the staff crowned with a crystal shard. A torrent of red light erupted, lashing across the chamber.

“Move!” Kagi blinked aside, dragging Rokuro by the sleeve. The blast scorched the floor where they’d stood, stone boiling, crystal fracturing into molten shards.

The King laughed—a wild, frenzied sound. “Power… at last, power befitting a god!” Another wave burst forth, a hurricane of fire and crystal shards, tearing at pillars and walls.

Rokuro ducked behind a shattered column. “Tch—he’s just spamming magic!”

“The staff Draven gave him…” Kagi’s eyes narrowed, “it’s powerful. But the king is not a fighter. He can’t use it properly.”

She turned to look at him.

“We can beat him.”

Rokuro caught the glint in her eye. She was sure.

Kagi was his Key. The person who understood him the best. The person made for him.

Yet in all the times he ever looked at her… he had never felt so sure before. For her. For them. It was like everything they had been through had amounted to this moment.

The trust they had built… both of them felt it.

It was unwavering. Like the two of them, after all those trials and tribulations, were finally on the same page.

For an instant, a thin, glowing seam stretched between them. Like a string pulled taut, weaving them together.

Rokuro blinked at it. “The hell is that…?”

Kagi looked at it, almost as if in a trance. Then she snapped out of it.

“I’ll explain later,” she said, a faint smile on her lips, “Just trust that it’s a good sign.”

Rokuro nodded, “Fine. Now let’s take down that fraud.”

The Lock and Key stepped out of cover and surged forward.

Rokuro’s gauntlet glowed, every punch releasing rippling bursts of force that shattered the walls the King’s staff materialized. Kagi darted through each opening he made, her blade carving precise cuts that severed the staff’s stray beams before they could hit her.

“Impossible!” the King roared, staggering as his defense fell apart. “This power is mine—!”

“Yours, my ass!” Rokuro roared back. He slammed his gauntlet into the floor, sending a quake through the chamber. The King stumbled—just as Kagi blurred behind him, her blade tracing a crescent of violet light.

Together, their strikes landed—gauntlet from the front, keyblade from the back.

Kagi kept him looking at her, just like they did in Ashvale, as Rokuro waited for the moment to strike. And he found it.

“What about… this?!”

He aimed his gauntlet, shooting forward a beam that crashed onto the king like a wave with a deafening crack.

The staff snapped in half. Energy backlashed in a flare, hurling the King across the floor. He slumped, unmoving.

For a heartbeat—silence.

Then—slow, deliberate clapping.

Draven stepped forward, mask gleaming.

“Well done. Better than I expected.”

The countless rings on his fingers glowed, spinning streaks of magic into motion, glyphs shifting like orbiting planets.

Rokuro grit his teeth. “Finally getting off the sidelines, huh?”

Kagi’s voice was steady, but her grip on her blade tightened. “Be careful. That’s Worldkey magic.”

Draven raised one hand. The rings aligned—

—and a torrent of gravitational force slammed down.

“Shit—!” Rokuro buckled, knees grinding against stone as if a mountain had dropped on his shoulders.

Kagi blinked aside, appearing behind Draven—her blade cutting down.

But one ring spun back, intercepting her strike with a shield of warped light. It erupted, knocking Kagi back. Draven barely turned his head. “Predictable.”

Rokuro roared, shoving upward through the weight. His gauntlet flashed, releasing a shockwave that cracked the floor. He hurled a punch—Draven swayed aside, catching it on a spinning ring of magic in the air. The force detonated against the barrier, sending shockwaves that shattered nearby pillars.

“You fight like children.” Draven’s voice was calm, mocking.

“Yeah?” Rokuro growled, dragging his fist back. “Then try keeping up with us.”

The Lock and Key moved in sync unlike ever before without need of a single word.

Kagi darted in, her blade releasing crescent waves of violet energy. Rokuro followed with a leap, gauntlet glowing as he slammed down in sync. The two attacks converged—

—but Draven twisted, his rings expanding into a storm of blades. The clash lit the chamber, hurling Rokuro and Kagi in opposite directions.

They hit the ground hard.

Draven strode forward, unwavering.

“Again.”

And again they rose.

“Roku.”

“Got it.”

All it took was a single shared glance between the two of them.

“That ain’t nearly enough to beat us, you masked bastard!” Rokuro dashed forward.

Every strike was harsher, every deflection by Draven more casual.

“Roku, now!”

“Take this, you freak!”

Until one desperate gauntlet blast in particular, that Draven barely deflected in time.

Rokuro’s orb veered off course. slamming into the crystallised relic powering the kingdom of Crystalor.

CRACK.

The crystalline prison fissured, glowing dangerously.

Draven’s head snapped toward it. His mask tilted—the faintest edge of irritation in his voice. “…Careless.”

The relic pulsed, walls trembling.

“This place won’t hold,” he muttered, raising a hand. His rings spun faster, glyphs spiraling into a vortex. With a tear of sound and light, the air itself split open. Draven pushed his arm through the crack in the fabric of reality, as if forcefully tearing it open. An unstable portal materialized, shimmering with colors from beyond the realm.

“What in the blue hell is he doing now?!”

“It’s a… portal!” Kagi’s voice rose in surprise, “There must have been residue from another portal nearby! He’s channeling it! But only Key magic can—”

“Spare me the technicalities and let’s stop him!” Rokuro rose dashing after him.

“Your victory here means nothing.” Draven’s voice carried over as he descended into the void, “I’ve already accomplished my goal in this realm.”

Rokuro lunged, gauntlet blazing. “Oh no you don’t—!”

“See you in the next one… Lock.”

With that, the portal snapped shut. The backlash hurled Rokuro across the floor.

Kagi caught him before he hit the wall, as the both of them fell to the ground.

“Damn it—DAMN IT!” Rokuro roared, punching the ground, sparks bursting. “He slipped right through! He was so close! So damn close I could have just—”

“Roku, stop! You can’t do anything about it now!”

“Damn it all!” Rokuro punched the ground one last time. For a moment he thought he had it. Victory was in sight. Draven had overpowered them, sure, but… he was there. For the first time that unreachable goal was a mere stone’s throw away.

But Rokuro didn’t have the time to think about that.

The relic shrieked. Shards burst outward, spires of the castle fracturing. Rokuro froze, chest heaving. He met Kagi’s eyes.

“That looks… bad.”

“The relic is done for. The Glass Castle will soon come down too.”

“Weren’t we supposed to not destroy it?”

“Our orders were to stop it from working.”

The relic shrieked once more.

“Damn. We need to bolt.” Rokuro huffed, getting up, “We’ll apologize to the Aetheralyx later.”

Kagi nodded once. “And save Lykos before the whole place buries him.”

Together, they bolted down the stairwell, as the Glass Castle began to dissolve around them like a dying star.