When magi collide, a planet dies.

They clash head on, a black and white typhoon screaming through the heart of the empire — there are four, and then there are two, and then he is gone.

"I'm sorry."

"Huh?"

"You leave me with no other choice."

"What's going on? What have you done to my borg?"

"Once this spell is done, you're never coming back."

"What? Wait! Hakuryuuuuuuuuuu-"

The victor lays down his staff. He won and his best friend is gone and he just killed a person. If this is what it takes to be a magi, Aladdin thinks, he's nothing but a failure.

Forgive me, he whispers to the rapidly darkening sky, and hopes the rukh will grant them a second chance.

A lone figure drifts through the emptiness of space — dark, blank, and lost. And probably cold, if his nerves weren't too numb to discern the sensation.

Is this the end? Am I dead?

His last memory is of hurtling at dizzying speeds through never-ending space as a stronger force overwhelms him, crushing his borg and suffocating his last conscious thoughts, all the while casting him farther, father away from Earth, from Hakuryuu.

Hakuryuu—

Hakuryuu's not here.

This is the price of defeat.

Hakuryuu, it seems you're on your own.

Somewhere,a battle wages, and he has no doubts on the outcome. He knows, just utterly knows, who will win.

I couldn't have picked a better king candidate...

The magi smirks. Hakuryuu isn't stupid. Hakuryuu won't let go.

So he does.

Eyelids close. Oblivion. Well, almost. A cocoon-shaped borg tumbles forward, drifting aimlessly on waves of ether. Up. Down. Up. Down. Braid swooshing, fading out.

Silence.

His head hurts. Spiky tips brush down and hang limp on solid gray below. Land. His feet touch down on terra firma, and it's never felt this good.

Where am I?

Desolation fans out in every direction, ending in and returning to nothingness. This trance-like conglomeration of nightmares and shadows can only be one place.

The land of the dead.

TBC