The first strike came from neither of them.
It came from the crowd. Someone's terrified belief that "Arthur always attacks first" hit him like a physical blow, and his body moved without his permission. The claymore swung in a brutal arc toward Crownless, carrying the weight of a hundred expectations.
Crownless flowed away like water finding a new path. His Foundation was erosion, patience, the mercy of letting things fall apart naturally. He didn't block. He simply wasn't there when the blade arrived.
"Already dancing to their tune," Crownless observed, circling left. "How many of their beliefs are you carrying right now?"
"All of them," Arthur admitted, blood still running from his eyes. The claymore felt wrong in his hands. Too heavy. Too light. Too real. Too metaphorical. Three hundred people believed different things about his weapon, and he was trying to hold all their truths at once.
August pressed himself against a pillar, Lyka beside him. They should run. Every instinct screamed at them to get away from whatever was about to happen. But August couldn't look away. This wasn't the philosophical chess match he'd imagined. This was messier. More desperate.
Arthur swung again, and this time the blade carried the conviction of community seven: "His sword cuts through anything." For a moment, reality agreed. The air itself split along the blade's path, leaving a visible wound in space.
But Crownless was already moving, and his movement carried its own truth: "All things flow toward their natural end." He didn't dodge so much as continue existing in the direction he was always meant to go. The blade passed through where he'd been, where he was, where he would be, and touched nothing.
"You can't hit me," Crownless said gently. "Not because I'm faster. Because you're trying to be everyone's weapon at once."
Arthur's response was to slam the pommel of his sword into the ground. The resonance that erupted wasn't his. It was community twelve's absolute faith that "when Arthur plants his sword, the earth itself rises to defend." Stone erupted in jagged spears toward Crownless.
Who walked through them like they were rain.
"Geological processes take millennia," he said, his Foundation turning the stone attacks into powder. "You're trying to rush what should be patient."
"I don't have millennia," Arthur gasped out. More blood. The contradictions were tearing him apart. Half the crowd believed he was invincible. The other half was certain he was about to fall. Both truths were trying to happen simultaneously.
Crownless moved forward, not attacking, just… approaching. His presence was erosion given form. Where he stepped, the stone aged years in seconds. Where he breathed, the air itself grew tired.
"Let go," he said. "Stop trying to hold their beliefs. Stop trying to be their mirror. Just… rest."
"Can't," Arthur managed, raising the claymore again. "They need…"
"What? A symbol? A sacrifice? Someone to break himself proving that choice matters?" Crownless was close now. Too close. "You're not saving them, Arthur. You're just showing them a slower way to fall apart."
The next exchange happened fast. Arthur struck with the fury of community thirty (who believed he was vengeance incarnate). Crownless responded with the patience of centuries. The claymore met Crownless's bare hand, and for a moment both truths held.
Then the blade cracked.
Not all at once. First a hairline fracture where it met Crownless's palm. Then spreading, following the blade's length, finding every imperfection, every doubt, every contradiction Arthur was carrying.
"No," someone in the crowd whispered.
"His sword is unbreakable," another insisted.
"Everything breaks," a third countered.
The conflicting beliefs hit Arthur like hammers. The blade couldn't be both. It had to choose. And surrounded by three hundred different truths about what it was, what it meant, what it could do…
It shattered.
The pieces fell like rain, each one carrying a different belief about what Arthur's weapon meant. Some dissolved before hitting the ground. Others embedded themselves in stone. One piece just… stopped existing, edited out by someone's certainty that "this can't be happening."
Arthur stood there holding a broken hilt, and for a moment, just a moment, he looked exactly as exhausted as he was.
"There," Crownless said softly. "Now you can stop pretending you're armed with anything but other people's expectations."
That's when Arthur's prosthetic moved.
Not the weak twitching from before. This was different. Red sparks crawled along the dead servos like living things. The fingers flexed. The elbow bent. The whole arm suddenly hummed with purpose.
"What…" Crownless started.
"Community nineteen," Arthur said, his voice strange. "They believe I lost my arm but never my reach. Community forty believes the prosthetic is just hiding my real strength. Community sixty-seven…" He flexed the prosthetic fingers, red sparks intensifying. "They think I let you cut it off because I was holding back too much power."
The prosthetic wasn't just working. It was working better than it ever had when properly powered. Because it wasn't running on technology anymore. It was running on pure resonance. On three hundred different myths about why Arthur Solvain was unstoppable.
"You're going to tear yourself apart," Crownless warned, but there was something new in his voice. Not fear. Sadness. "Using their beliefs like this, channeling contradictions through your own body…"
"Probably," Arthur agreed.
Then he moved.
Not like before, weighed down by trying to be everyone's protector at once. This was focused. He'd stopped trying to reconcile the contradictions. Instead, he was just… letting them happen. All of them. At once.
His flesh hand grabbed for Crownless's throat (community eight's belief that "he goes for the kill"). His prosthetic swept low (community fifteen's certainty that "he always attacks where you don't expect"). His stance shifted through three different martial schools in a single heartbeat, each one somebody's truth about how Arthur Solvain fought.
Crownless flowed away, but it was harder now. Arthur wasn't trying to hit him with a single truth. He was attacking with dozens simultaneously, each one requiring a different defense.
"Stop," Crownless said, and his Foundation pulsed. Decay, patience, the mercy of endings. Everything around them began to age. The stone floor crumbled. The air itself grew thin and tired. Even the blood on Arthur's face dried and flaked away.
"Can't," Arthur replied, pressing forward through the erosion. His body was aging too, but community ninety believed "Arthur endures everything" and community twelve was certain "time means nothing to him" and between those contradictions he kept moving.
They collided in the center of the courtyard. Not with weapons or techniques, but with pure Foundation. Crownless's patient erosion against Arthur's cacophony of reflected beliefs. Where they met, reality just… gave up. Started showing multiple versions of what was happening:
Arthur's prosthetic punching through Crownless's chest.
Crownless's hand gently touching Arthur's forehead.
Both of them standing apart, having never moved.
Both of them already dead on the ground.
All of it true. None of it true.
"This is what you wanted?" Arthur gasped out, his prosthetic sparking violently. "To see what I become without restraint?"
"I wanted you to stop suffering," Crownless replied, his form flickering between states. "To accept that some weights can't be carried."
"And I wanted you to remember why we carry them anyway."
August watched (when he could bear to look) as the fight became less about physical combat and more about… existence. About whose truth would survive the collision. Crownless's merciful decay or Arthur's beautiful, terrible insistence on reflecting everyone else's hope.
The prosthetic was burning now. Not with fire, but with pure resonance. Too many beliefs channeled through failing servos. It moved like liquid metal, like prayer, like every story anyone had ever told about Arthur's missing arm.
"Let go," Crownless said again, his erosion intensifying. "Let me take the weight. Let them find their own way without your broken reflection."
"They are finding their own way," Arthur insisted. His flesh hand found Crownless's shoulder. Not attacking. Just… holding. "By choosing what they believe about me. About you. About what's worth fighting for."
"Philosophy," Crownless said, but his voice was fond. "Always philosophy with you."
"Always erosion with you," Arthur countered.
They stood there, locked together, as reality continued to malfunction around them. The crowd watched their protector and his brother try to unmake each other with incompatible compassions.
Then Arthur's prosthetic did something impossible.
It reached through Crownless's erosion field. Not by resisting it, but by accepting it. Community two hundred believed "Arthur's arm was taken but never truly lost." That belief, filtered through Arthur's resonance, let the prosthetic exist in the space between was and wasn't.
Red sparks crawled up Crownless's form where the prosthetic touched him.
"What are you doing?" Crownless demanded.
"Reflecting," Arthur said simply. "You believe in erosion. In letting go. In the mercy of endings." The sparks intensified. "But you also believe in me. In what we were. In what we could have been. The contradiction is killing you as much as it's killing me."
Crownless tried to pull away, but the prosthetic held firm. Not with strength, but with the weight of shared history.
"You can't," Crownless said. "I don't have doubts. My Foundation is perfect. Patient. Inevitable."
"Then why did you give them until sunset?" Arthur asked. "Why warn me about the collection companies? Why fix my prosthetic's coupling mid-fight?" Blood ran from his nose, his ears, the corners of his mouth. But he kept talking. "You're not here to kill me, Kytorus. You're here to convince me. And that need to convince? That's doubt."
The sparks from the prosthetic weren't attacking Crownless. They were just… showing him his own reflection. All the beliefs he carried about what Arthur could have been. Should have been. Still might be.
"Stop," Crownless said, but his perfect composure was cracking.
"I can't," Arthur said. "I can only reflect. And right now, I'm reflecting you."
August watched Crownless's face cycle through expressions he probably hadn't worn in years. Anger. Grief. Something that might have been hope.
"You impossible bastard," Crownless breathed. "You're using my own belief in you against me."
"I'm using your belief in us," Arthur corrected. "In the brothers we were. The council we served. The family we…" He stopped, coughed blood. "The family we failed."
"We didn't fail them. We tried to save them."
"By cutting each other apart?"
Silence. Even the crowd had stopped breathing.
"Let go," Arthur said, and this time he was the one asking. "Stop trying to erode everything into your perfect ending. Stop pretending you don't miss what we were."
"I can't," Crownless said, and his voice broke. "If I stop believing in erosion, if I let myself want things to last…" He looked at the crowd. "They'll keep suffering. Keep hoping. Keep breaking themselves against a world that doesn't want them."
"Maybe," Arthur agreed. "Or maybe they'll find something worth the breaking."
The prosthetic sparked one last time, a violent burst of red that made both of them stagger apart. When August's vision cleared, they were standing ten feet apart, both breathing hard, both looking more human than they had since the fight began.
Arthur's prosthetic was dead again. Worse than dead: melted, twisted, barely hanging from his shoulder. But Crownless…
Crownless was crying.
Not dramatically. Just… tears, running down a face that had forgotten it could produce them.
"I hate you," he said quietly. "For making me remember. For making me feel this again."
"I know," Arthur said. "I hate me too."
They stood there, breathing hard, the violence suspended but not ended. August could feel it in the air: this wasn't over. Couldn't be over. Not with collection companies still moving toward settlements.
"The system is automated now," Crownless said, wiping blood from his mouth. "Even if I wanted to stop it…"
"You don't want to stop it," Arthur said.
"No. I don't."
Crownless straightened, and his Foundation pulsed again. Weaker than before, but still patient. Still inevitable. The tears on his face were already drying, his moment of humanity fading back into purpose.
"They need this," he said. "Integration isn't cruelty, Arthur. It's mercy. It's giving them a future that doesn't end in extinction."
"Kytorus," Arthur said, and there was something different in his voice. Not anger. Not philosophy. Just… weight. "Please."
The single word hung between them.
Crownless went very still.
"What?"
"Choose something else," Arthur said. His working hand tightened on the broken sword hilt. "Any else. Walk away. Let them scatter. Give them time. Something."
"You know I can't do that."
"You can. You're choosing not to."
Crownless's expression hardened again, the moment of vulnerability sealing over like scar tissue. "Because I'm right. Because watching them die slowly isn't kindness. Because…"
He moved. Not toward Arthur, but toward the crowd. His Foundation expanded, erosion spreading from his footsteps. Where he walked, Forsaken began to feel it: the peace of letting go. The mercy of surrender. The comfort of not having to fight anymore.
"Stop," Arthur said.
"I'm saving them," Crownless replied, not looking back. "From themselves. From you. From the illusion that resistance means anything."
Arthur's prosthetic was dead weight. His sword was broken. He was bleeding from everywhere that mattered. But he moved anyway, intercepting Crownless before he could reach the crowd.
"I can't let you," Arthur said.
"Then stop me," Crownless invited. "If you can."
What happened next was barely visible. Crownless flowed around Arthur's guard, erosion following his movement. Arthur's flesh began to age where Crownless touched him. Skin cracking. Muscles weakening. The weight of years compressed into seconds.
But Arthur didn't pull away. Instead, he stepped closer. Into the erosion. Through it.
"What are you…"
Arthur's working hand found Crownless's chest. Not striking. Just… pressing. Flat palm against his sternum, like he was feeling for a heartbeat.
"I'm sorry," Arthur said.
Then he resonated.
Not with the crowd's beliefs this time. Not with anyone else's truth. For just a moment, Arthur found something that might have been his own conviction. Small. Quiet. Almost nothing.
The belief that some things shouldn't be eroded.
It wasn't much. Wasn't a real Foundation. But it was enough.
The resonance entered Crownless at the exact frequency of his own erosion. But inverted. Reflected. Turned back on itself. Where Crownless's power said "all things fade," Arthur's resonance whispered "not yet."
Crownless's eyes went wide. His erosion field flickered, caught between its own truth and its opposite. In that space between certainties, Arthur's hand pushed deeper. Not through flesh. Through the concept of Crownless himself.
"You clever bastard," Crownless managed. "Using my own Foundation as a weapon."
"I learned from the best," Arthur said.
Blood ran from Crownless's mouth. Not from physical damage, but from something deeper. The contradiction of existence itself being eroded and preserved simultaneously. He was coming apart at a level that had nothing to do with meat and bone.
"The collection companies," Crownless said, his form starting to flicker. "Still coming. Still automated. This changes… nothing."
"It changes everything," Arthur corrected. "They'll face it as themselves. Not as your project."
"They'll die."
"Maybe. But they'll die choosing."
Crownless laughed, but it was more air than sound. "Still so certain… that choice matters."
"No," Arthur said. "Just certain that erosion isn't the only answer."
Crownless was fading now. Not dramatically. Just… less. Like a sketch being gently erased. His hand found Arthur's wrist, but there was no strength in it.
"Take care of them," he said. "Since you insist on trying."
"I will."
"Liar." But there was something almost fond in it. "You'll just break yourself trying to be what they need."
"Probably," Arthur agreed.
"Worth it?"
Arthur didn't answer. Just held his hand steady as Crownless continued to fade. The erosion Foundation, turned against itself, was unmaking its own user. Not violently. Patiently. Like Crownless would have wanted.
"Tell me," Crownless said, barely a whisper now. "Did you ever… actually believe in anything? Or were you always empty?"
Arthur was quiet for a long moment.
"I believed in us," he said finally. "Once."
Something that might have been a smile crossed what was left of Crownless's face.
"Sentiment," he said. "Always… sentiment with you."
Then he was gone. Not dead in any traditional sense. Just… eroded. Returned to the nothing he'd spent so long trying to give everyone else.
Arthur stood there, hand extended toward empty air, carrying the weight of another necessary ending.
The crowd was silent. August realized he'd stopped breathing again. Lyka had her hand on her weapon but hadn't drawn it, caught between intervention and understanding this had to happen.
"The collection companies," someone finally said. "They're still coming."
"I know," Arthur said. He turned to face them, and August saw the cost written in every line of his body. The fight with Crownless had taken more than just blood. "But now you get to decide what to do about it. Without anyone's philosophy making that choice for you."
"What do we do?" another voice called out.
Arthur's smile was exhausted and real. "Whatever you think is right. And live with it."
the sun touched the horizon. Somewhere beyond the walls, collection companies were moving with automated precision toward their targets. Three hundred Forsaken faced the reality of choice without protection.
And Arthur, having killed another piece of his past to give them that choice, waited to see what they'd do with it.