Strands On Strands

--Dani's Perspective--

I was stuck in awe watching Sky fight. My eyes were focused up in the air as I began to understand what was happening.

Even to all of us standing around the dome, being able to see the entire battlefield... it was clear as day that Sky was losing. Even so, getting in his way would only bring more misfortune... so we have to stay here and just watch...

"This is unreal... how can he use our abilities so well?" Shike asked, staring up at the dome while the abilities shot off.

"He is Sky Asterio... it's the one thing I wanted to avoid, pulling him back from four hundred years ago... the one thing I knew I couldn't let happen..." Illya said. Tears started to well up in her eyes and she started to cover her face while hiding from everybody.

"We can't even do anything... I mean, what are we supposed to do? We gave him the weapons he needed, but it's Cole... how is he supposed to win against a person that can heal such an unlimited amount of damage?" Charlie asked next, looking around at everybody.

"He's still not using his last trick... he's waiting for something," I blurted out. Sky had previously shared with me a secret that has long since been lost in my memory. A secret that baffled me the first time I heard it, not because it was ridiculous... but because it could work.

"He has another trick? That bastard... what does he have left?!" Lia yelled out. She almost seemed excited to find out what Sky had in store.

"Wait a minute... Dani, Illya, Sky said he was losing some of his lifespan when he used our abilities... is he losing it now?!" Shike called out. It was almost like he tried screaming to Sky who was stuck at the top of the dome.

As soon as Shike suggested it, I got a glimpse of Sky manipulating gravity around him, and using Providence's spikes with gelatinous liquid all over them. It occurred to me that Sky was pulling more and more out of The First Trial...

Tears welled up in my eyes as well, finally understanding that Sky never planned to make it out of this fight alive.

The simple answer is... he can't kill Cole. He can infinitely regenerate, I knew that much... but he was purposefully killing himself, ruining his lifespan so Cole couldn't use Sky's body for any reason he saw fit. I turned to look at Illya, and she confirmed my theory with a slight nod of her head while staring up.

"WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING! ALEXIA! GET US THROUGH THIS DOME!" I screamed out to her. I tried to pry my fingers in between the strands of the dome, but like the strongest invisible barrier, they wouldn't go through.

"Dani... I'm not the one holding up the dome. It's Sky, he's the one who reinforced the dome," Alexia told me. I looked back at her in dismay, watching as the wind blew one last time before Cole and Sky hit the ground.

They hit the ground so hard that in the flurry of attacks I couldn't process, the entire field, along with a part of the ground near us, sunk into the ground about ten feet. The two looked at each other again, coming to a standstill and staring each other down.

Carl and I had our eyes pointed forward as we realized that Sky summoned Red's Spear made out of strands on the Isle, the same one that killed the wolves that hurt Domin. He was summoning weapons that we've all used before...

Next came Carl's weapon, slamming into Cole, and throwing him high up into the air. The power he was managing between the summoned weapons was insane... a power that not even I could match in The Goddess of Wrath form.

The two broke the sound barrier, shattering our eardrums and even pushing the unsuspecting people back as the next hit occurred. I stood my ground, reinforcing everybody I could to the ground with strands. When the air cleared, I looked back up through the dome, watching Sky's body be wrapped in black strands that tightened, forming weird tattoos around his body and searing patterns into his skin.

He screamed out, making a declaration of something I couldn't quite understand... and the fight began again.

Cole slashed down at Sky, but instead of dodging the hit, Sky's body turned into a blur, his left hand was raised, and it cracked Cole's spine. I saw the skin, esophagus, and hair fly out from his neck as it exploded into a flurry of pink innards. Cole turned what was left of his head to Sky, and a large icicle shot out, impaling what was left of his head, and splitting it in half.

Sky threw one of his black sabers up into the air, kicked Cole's body in the center, and jumped in the air, deflected the black saber to the head once more, and disintegrated it at the very end of the icicle.

Sky hit the ground, dodging hits from The Retriever and the giant mace head from Cole. He swerved his body backward and forward, left and right. Sky was an untouchable target for Cole as he hastily swung everywhere while regenerating his head. Umbra put her hand on my shoulder, leaning her head in close to me.

"Do you see that...? In his eyes? Sky has The Eye of Providence... but it's the Evolved Version..." Umbra mentioned it to me. I peered into his eye with my own, activating it at the slight mention from Umbra.

The two eyes connected when I peered into Sky, and from a large picture painted with strands that only I could see... I saw it.

The souls of so many people... Sky's parents, Xian, Talion, Orion, Ullr, Domin, Red, Mitra, Myth... they were all sitting beside him, watching the fight continue and whispering something into his ear as they followed his body.