Time had twisted for Ultraviolet Tower's lobby.

The roof had been utterly destroyed with Time Crash's advent, chunks of steel and concrete flying off in every direction -- and then freezing in time mid-explosion, leaving the Tower looking like a blooming flower. Clouds of dust rewound and accelerated, trapped in looping seconds, sounds like a skipping record echoing throughout the ravaged room. Pebbles danced across the floor. Not even light had escaped the worst effects -- solid illusions of the room as it had been, like lenses to another world, flickered in and out of existence.

Time Crash's effects did not wear off quickly. This place would be an anomaly for years to come.

But still… the Shepherdess did not relax. Her shoulders did not slacken. Her pink eyes did not soften. She just continued to stand there, ready, staring into the unreal destruction she had caused.

For this enemy… she wouldn't feel at ease until she saw the corpse.

The smoke stirred.

There!

A few minutes earlier…

"Speaking of Time Crash," Niain said casually as he walked down the hallway. "If it comes down to it, I'll need you to die for me, okay?"

The shadow called Smith crawled silently across the ground for a few moments, mutely following in his master's wake. Even before he'd been physically restrained to this small area, this had been the shape of Smith's existence for nearly a century. He followed the commands of his creator and fulfilled them dutifully. That was his purpose in this malformed world.

This most terminal request was no exception, but even so…

"My lord," Smith ventured. "I will gladly do so, but how will this benefit you…?"

Niain continued speaking without pause. "The Shepherdess' Time Crash unleashes a number of temporal effects onto the target area. Pausing, fast-forwarding, reversing, skipping -- forwards and backwards -- but not all of those are necessarily lethal, right? If I were to get hit by a pocket of fast-forwarding that let me match her speed, it could even be beneficial, couldn't it? But she's no gambler. She wouldn't risk that."

Smith mused on it for a moment. "So Time Crash is not truly indiscriminate?"

Niain snapped his fingers, still facing forward as he walked. "Exactly. You're so smart, haha. Time Crash is set up so the negative effects of the temporal shredding are guaranteed to strike the Shepherdess' enemy. So there must be criteria within the ability that determines who the Shepherdess' enemy is. A list of conditions or something, right? Anyway, the specifics don't matter."

The King of Darkstar smiled. All throughout Smith's existence, that smile had not changed. It held more permanence and meaning than the sun or the moon to Smith.

When Smith had been created, a globule of black slime in the palm of a child, the boy had smiled.

When Smith had watched Niain be locked away, charged with the maintenance of the mission in his absence, the man had smiled.

And now, as Smith was finally presented with the gallows, Niain still smiled.

No doubt this man would smile until he died -- and may that day never come. Smith's reason for being was to protect that smile until the end of time. His life was cheap currency compared to that cause.

"When the time comes," Niain finally spared his shadow a glance. "You'll use the Crown -- and make sure that you exceed the target priority of anyone else in the area. You'll take the brunt of Time Crash, and I'll survive. Understand?"

Smith smiled.

"Yes, my lord."

And even as the hands of time dug into him, and stretched him out and turned him to dust and froze him and did it all again and again, Smith kept smiling. What bliss it was to die for another!

Live, he thought. My Niain. Oh, my Niain. My joy.

Now…

In a game of cat and mouse, the winner was the one who could deceive and delude their opponent the most. The person who could trick the world into taking on a certain shape was the one who would stand atop everything. Therefore, in this bloody battle they had waged throughout Ultraviolet Tower…

Niain burst from the smog.

"It's my win, Ruri!" he cackled. "Die! Angra Mainyu!"

He hadn't expected these exact circumstances, but the preparations he'd made for Time Crash had borne fruit all the same. He'd managed to escape from the Shepherdess' final trump card, and he'd only needed to sacrifice Smith in the process. His mad, vicious laughter boomed across the room as he launched himself at his enemy.

It wasn't as if he'd been able to escape unscathed, though. Smith's death had bought Niain the precious seconds he'd needed to acclimate to the effects of the Rope and break free -- but he'd still needed to tear the bound parts of his body away in order to escape fast enough. Great chunks of flesh were missing from Niain's form, exposing gruesome cross-sections of black blood and grey meat and red bone.

But it was all worth it. All worth it, for this moment now. The black orb was in Niain's hand. The Shepherdess was right in front of him, caught off-guard by his survival.

Eyes bulging from their sockets, teeth bleeding black as he grinned, Niain swung his arm --

Chronodissonance.

-- and, with contemptuous ease, the Shepherdess stepped past him and tore his heart from his chest.

At least, she thought it was his heart. The disgusting thing was jet-black, covered in thorn-like spines, but it pulsed in a steady rhythm that made her think of a heartbeat. She wrinkled her nose in distaste as she crushed it in her hand, feeling the ink spill between her fingers.

If it was a heart, it wasn't nearly as vital for Niain as it would be for a normal human. Having missed her with his first attack, the King of Darkstar turned on his heel to swing Angra Mainyu at her again…

Chronodissonance.

…but it was just as useless this time.

In order to survive Time Crash, Niain had clearly used a strategy that involved sacrificing Smith. His shadow had returned to normal, after all. He'd turned his sword into a flimsy shield, and now his hands were empty.

She no longer had anything to fear from this creature.

"Angra Mainyu!"

Chronodissonance.

"Angra… Mainyu…!"

Chronodissonance.

"A-Angra… M… Mai…"

Chronodissonance.

The Shepherdess flickered in and out of sight with flashes of pink Aether. With each flash, she appeared on the other side of Niain. With each flash, she plucked another organ from his body. Spleen, kidney, lungs, liver… or at least their equivalents. Over the course of a few seconds, she gathered quite the pile of viscera in her hands -- and, with Niain watching, she tipped them out onto the floor and let them splatter into mere filth.

"You…" Niain gasped, now able to do little more than stagger towards her, diminished to the absolute like an empty trash bag. "Y-You… An…"

She was tired of hearing this man talk. A hundred years tired.

Chronodissonance.

Appearing directly behind Niain, she plunged a hand into his back -- and, squeezing tightly, she felt his spine crack before her grip. This finally seemed to get the reaction the Shepherdess had been yearning for. An agonized howl poured from Niain's throat as the Shepherdess withdrew her hand, taking half of Niain's back with it.

That had been the finishing blow -- all else was epilogue.

Niain collapsed to his knees, slumping against the rubble behind him. For a moment, he tried feebly to rise to his feet again, but the Shepherdess would not permit that. All it took was a swipe of her foot and Niain's left leg sailed off into the distance, cleanly severed. The last of his fight went with it.

Even then though, with black foam coating his lips, he chuckled.

"Damn…" he smiled bitterly. "Damnit… ha - haha -- nngh!" A coughing fit took its toll on him, his voice even more of a rasp once he took back control of it. "To think… right at the finish line… after all of that… ah, damnit… damn it all…"

The Shepherdess looked down at him impassively. "You've lost," she said simply.

Niain nodded, just fractionally. "And you've won…" he admitted weakly. "The battle… not the war…"

She snorted. "You really think Darkstar has a chance without you?"

"Ha… ha…" Niain chuckled faintly. "You're so arrogant, Ruri… don't… don't underestimate humans… even like this… my will… will live on…"

His eyes did not close. Even as his breathing trailed off, replaced by a death-rattle, those black eyes just continued to stare off into the distance. Pitch-black, as if consumed by the light of a distant black star.

And that damn grin… even with his face a total mess, that gleaming white grin seemed untouched.

Slowly, as if careful not to wake him up, the Shepherdess squatted down -- bringing herself to eye-level with Niain's corpse. She scanned it up and down, her pink eyes careful not to miss any details. A tell, a slip-up, a loose thread, anything to say that this was not a dead body.

She found none -- and yet still…

Not buying it.

She lashed out with her fist, faster than lightning -- and the impact of her jab blew the top of Niain's head off. Everything above that pearly grin was sprayed across the wall behind him. The Shepherdess sniffed.

Still not good enough.

Another punch destroyed his jaw, too. The man called Niain finally stopped smiling. The headless corpse slipped down to the floor, dislodged from its resting place by the posthumous violence.

The Shepherdess stood back up, glaring down at the cadaver. It was funny. She'd thought she'd only be convinced of Niain's death once she had the body in front of her, but now that it was here, she realized…

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…she'd only feel at ease once it was gone.

Chronodissonance.

Niain really had turned himself into a monster. He didn't even rot properly anymore. His crimson bones turned to sludge within his flesh, oozing from the stump of his neck like toothpaste. His skin sizzled as it expanded and loosened, spreading across the floor like a second cloak. Even as the Shepherdess increased the flow of time -- more, more, even more -- all that accomplished was reducing the body of Niain entirely to a deep dark puddle on the ground.

Releasing her ability, the Shepherdess sniffed.

There.

The madman had spoken true about one thing, though, right at the end. Just because Niain was dead didn't mean their secret war was over. The Shepherdess had no doubt this man had made preparations in the event of his death. Plans, tricks, traps. 'My will will live on' indeed.

She turned her head towards the shattered wall of Ultraviolet Tower, looking out onto the smoking skyline of Serendipity. There was still much to be done today. The Shepherdess took a deep breath, preparing herself, putting the pieces of the game's next round together in her head.

The remnants of Darkstar. Niain and Smith had been dealt with, but all sorts of collaborators were lurking in the shadows of this world still. Rhodes was only a step above an automatic -- not a concern without his master -- but McCoy was the next most adept after Darkstar's leader. No doubt there were other members the Shepherdess wasn't yet aware of, too.

Then there was the UAP. Given the events of the day, she had no doubt that tomorrow would bring the reignition of the war between the UAP and the Supremacy. Given her position, it was her duty to stack the deck for Azez's dream as much as possible. There wouldn't be a better time to assassinate Nebulae and faction leaders than now.

That line of thinking brought her to the most important matter at hand… the Supreme.

Until now, she'd been willing to let Dragan Hadrien run wild. He hadn't even been the wildest Supreme the Supremacy had ever had, or the most troublesome. Renée's numerous suicide attempts, Cariot's secret campaign of vengeance against Halcyon, Henri's unholy appetites… almighty power breeded almighty eccentricity. So long as those quirks didn't threaten the Supremacy as a whole, the Shepherdess was happy to permit them.

But Dragan Hadrien… it was almost as if he was acting with the exact opposite mission from her. Whereas she sought to preserve and protect the Supremacy, it was like Dragan Hadrien was intentionally trying to run it into the ground. Given his background, it wouldn't be too far-fetched. The man who'd taught him, Zachariah Esmeralda, had been another idiotic idealist.

If the crown had been placed upon an unworthy head, it was her job to remove both -- and all Dragan Hadrien had to do was die.

The Shepherdess took the first step forward --

"Haha."

-- and a sharp pain burst through her.

Slowly, blood already starting to ooze from the corners of her mouth, the Shepherdess looked down. A pale fist was protruding from her chest, dripping red, having demolished her heart in a single sudden blow from behind. If she was anyone else, she surely would have died instantly… but that wasn't what sent chills running down her spine.

No. She knew this hand. She knew this hand. Impossible. She knew this pitch-black Aether.

The Shepherdess felt her attacker lean in and rest his chin on her shoulder from behind.

"Ruri…" he purred, the malicious glee crackling in his voice. "Oh, Ruri… what a sad and pathetic life you had~."

Slowly, twitching from the pain, the Shepherdess turned her head to look at him. Niain's wide grin was the death-mask of a skull. Niain's eyes were narrowed in sheer ecstasy. It made sense. This was a moment he'd waited nearly a hundred years for. His joy couldn't be contained…

…nor could the Shepherdess' horror.

"H-How…?!" she forced out, blood spraying from her lips as he held her in place with his fist.

"You fought so hard for a thousand years," Niain giggled, ignoring her question. "And then a single moment of carelessness makes it all meaningless! Right at the finish line! After all of that! Haha! Hahahahahaha!"

"How?!" the Shepherdess gritted her teeth, pushing through the unimaginable pain.

She tried to whirl around, to counterattack, but Niain simply twisted the limb impaling her -- and that extra drop of agony was enough to push her over the threshold and down onto her knees. Niain squatted down to follow her, the two of them hunched over at the edge of the world, looking at the burning city beyond.

This time, though, he answered her question.

"Ahura Mazda allows me to create anything I can understand," he whispered into her ear, his breath freezing. "Did you think I was beyond my own understanding?"

He'd… created himself? But that was….

"Absurd?" Niain finished her thought with relish. "Yes, it is, isn't it? And yet it's an absurd world we… haha, I live in, Ruri. I won't pretend it's easy for me to create a copy of myself. There are conditions to it… but I don't feel like explaining them to you."

Now that the Shepherdess looked, right out of the corner of her eye, she could see that this indeed wasn't the same person she'd been fighting.

Niain's body bore not a single wound or bruise or scuff from their long battle. There wasn't a single drop of blood, black or red, on him. Even his dark cloak, usually ragged and torn, looked brand new.

It wasn't that she'd failed to kill Niain. She'd killed Niain, all right -- she just hadn't realized there was another Niain waiting in the wings.

"As Smith was being destroyed by your Time Crash," Niain explained with relish, rubbing it in. "I broke free of the Rope and used Ahura Mazda straight away. The old me attacked you wildly as a distraction, while the new me slipped into the shadows… and waited."

No. That was impossible. That was bullshit. The Shepherdess gritted her teeth in frustration. Using Niburu should have drained Niain's reserves entirely! Only… right after, he'd used Angra Mainyu, hadn't he? He'd erased that woman's head, and then reabsorbed some of his own creation. Had that given him just enough fuel to pull this off? Seriously?!

Blood boiled in her veins. There was something wrong with the world if this bastard was granted so much luck.

Pink Aether still crackled around the Shepherdess' body, Chronodissonance stretching out her expiration as much as possible… but it was inevitable now. Niain had infused the lethal wound with his Aether in the same instant he'd dealt it. Chronodissonance wouldn't be able to rewind it away.

So… this was it, then…?

"You're insane," the Shepherdess whispered.

"Oh?" Niain raised an eyebrow. "How immature, Ruri. Just because someone was able to get one over on you, you go and say that they're crazy? A thousand years of living and you're still such a child? Isn't it sad? Isn't it sad, Ruuuriii?!"

In the face of this long-awaited victory, he'd abandoned his usual serene manners entirely -- his every facial movement twisted with exaggerated smugness as he luxuriated in the Shepherdess' demise.

"To throw away your own life like that…" she muttered, ignoring his taunts. "Like it was nothing… that's what makes you crazy…"

"Don't go thinking that one you killed was the original me," Niain chuckled. "There's been a looong chain of perfect copies throughout the years. Anyway… so long as some version of me achieves my goal, it's fine. I'm happy to pass on the baton and settle for the fun life I've had up to that point. It's not a big deal."

He leaned in closer, rubbing his cheek against hers, grinning giddily like a kid in a candy store.

"That's the meaning of self-sacrifice, Ruriii…" he moaned. "Haven't you ever heard of it? I bet you saw it back in the Thousand Revolutions. I bet you saw plenty of it. So many people must have died back then. Hahaha… all your friends are dead, Ruri, they're all dead, and you're gonna die too, and it was all for nothing, Ruri~. Are you gonna cry? Hey, hey, are you gonna cry?!"

The Shepherdess took in a deep breath.

"The thing is…" she smirked with crimson lips. "... I'm crazy, too."

Pink Aether flashed.

Immediately, the glee dropped from Niain's face, his expression returning to a focused intensity. He was done playing with his food. He went to pull his fist free, to stand up and deal the final blow…

…but the Shepherdess of the Supremacy wasn't about to allow that.

Chronodissonance paused flesh, the Shepherdess tensed muscle -- and, for just a few moments, her dying body became a trap to keep Niain in place. He tugged and pulled, trying to tear his arm free from her, but to no avail. The Shepherdess looked back at her enemy over her shoulder -- and now it was her turn to smile, a mad grin stretching across her face from cheek to cheek.

"I've got a little fuel left in the tank, too," she hissed.

Niain looked back at her, eyes wide, his face a mask of precious terror for a moment.

"No," he whispered.

The Shepherdess' pink eyes flicked up. Niain's black eyes followed them.

"No!" he roared. "No, no!"

Another clock was weaving itself into existence above them. This Time Crash wasn't nearly as grand as the one the Shepherdess had prepared before -- in her current state, the biggest attack she could muster would barely cover the space the two of them occupied, but it would serve. So long as she could keep Niain stuck here -- right in the path of her final Time Crash -- she was satisfied.

"Stop!" Niain screamed in fury and fear, pulling his arm with all his strength. "Stop it!"

From the way he was panicking, it looked like there wasn't a third Niain running around. The flustered King of Darkstar conjured Angra Mainyu with his free hand, clearly intending to erase his trapped limb and free himself that way, but the Shepherdess lashed out with her own hand and caught Niain's arm in mid-air, holding it in place.

"You used all your fuel, right?" she laughed in his face. "So if I keep this here, you can't do anything!"

As the two of them struggled against each other, locked in their last bloody dance, the Shepherdess continued to grin wildly at the rare fear she could see in Niain's eyes. It seemed she was something of a sick puppy herself.

3…

2…

1…

Time Cra --

White.

For a split second, the Shepherdess' vision was filled with white -- and the shock came a moment later, a tremendous impact like she'd been struck by a car. The frenzied and feebled concentration she'd managed to muster shattered in an instant… and the clock above her head shattered with it. Time Crash dissipated one second before midnight.

Niain had escaped.

For the second time, the Shepherdess looked down without comprehension, searching for the source of a wound that had doomed her… that had doomed everything. It wasn't a fist this time. Niain hadn't even done anything. By all means, he had been trapped. By all means, he had been exterminated.

Instead, buried deep in the Shepherdess' collar, a pale golden arrow sparked with orange Aether. Both she and Niain looked at in mute confusion. Had someone else interfered with their fight? What was this?

Slowly, her eyes widened. A strangled cry leaked from her mouth. She remembered.

Rex… Restorossi…!

The final form of Omni-Gungnir was a sight to behold.

The bow was the size of Rex's body, its structure smooth and seamless like it had been poured into being. What truly drew the eye, however, was the arrow: a construct of golden light, as if sculpted from the sun itself. Rex pulled the black string back, wincing as the light drew close to his face.

The Shepherdess skidded to a halt on the floor before him, caution on her face. "The Bow of Promised Vengeance…" she muttered.

It fires at the moment of greatest despair, and it lands in the moment of greatest despair.

Oh, the Shepherdess realized, cold horror blending with white-hot pain. Back then… I didn't block it.

Omni-Gungnir's final attack worked on a delay. That shining arrow had crawled into her Aether like a virus and waited there, lurking at the back of her own mind, waiting for the perfect moment. The moment at which its impact would bring about the greatest despair for her… just as Rex Restorossi had foretold.

The arrow had chosen that moment well.

As the arrow vanished, and blood poured forth, and Niain laughed, and unconsciousness claimed her… the Shepherdess felt true despair.

Despair that surpassed a thousand years.

By the time she woke, evening had already become night.

By the time she woke, it was all already over.

By the time she woke, she understood that she had lost… completely and utterly.

Her arms were spread out, impaled and held in place by slick black spears. Her left leg had been torn away, and her right dangled precariously over the abyss. Dark nails and spikes pierced her body in a dozen places, the implements carefully applied to ensure none would kill her… immediately. The shredded remnants of her Shepherdess ensemble hung limply over her form.

And she could feel… things, moving under her skin, making sure she was able to watch all of this.

A chunk of concrete was her station now, one of the many pieces of Ultraviolet Tower's roof that had been frozen after the Time Crash. Niain had crucified her against its surface, positioning her so that she had a front-row seat of the night's festivities. She had no idea where he'd gone himself… perhaps he'd lost all interest in her at this point.

She was nothing but a monument now, after all.

Before her very eyes, they were bringing down the Sheshanaga. Planetary defense vessels were carving apart the frozen vessel, moving away great chunks of stone like taking pieces of a pizza. With what Nebula One had done to it, the Sheshanaga was nothing but a prop, easily disassembled.

Niain's meaning was clear. He was showing her the future. The stagnant statue of the Supremacy, falling apart and being reduced to nothing. A fate that had become inevitable with his victory over her.

She had failed.

She had failed.

After a thousand years, she had failed.

"Ruri… will you make it last… this Supremacy of mine?"

At the very least, the Shepherdess was able to keep her dignity…

…but that was only because the crash of thunder drowned out her anguished screams.