The gentle kisses of an enraged sibling; a pinch less bitter than I recall, but maybe that was just me misremembering.

I'd expected him to try and show off, seeing as it was the only thing he was good at when pumped full of centuries old fury, but I hadn't been prepared for how slow he was. Tearing a page before me, he'd jabbed with enough force to shatter the sound barrier, but compared to the once mighty god who'd once laid waste to the nothingness before the realm of consciousness and matter, it stood a far cry from omnipotent glory.

Of course, such pure unfettered divinity had been sacrificed just trying to create life in the first place, and while big brother wouldn't dare imagine it, we shared more with the mortals than he'd like to admit. This, in turn and considering my vessel merged with my core perfectly, allowed me to capture his fist in a gentle clasp, almost like a love tap to snap the surrounding air around us with clicks shattering the few panes of glass mounted to their televised displays, which themselves stood for the audience, of which there were none.

"Not bad~" I admitted, tossing him back a sparse way and - accidentally, I assure you - tearing down the northmost wall. Spying the opening beyond his impromptu bedding, I made a note to play with far more restraint, lest we leave this admittedly awe inspiring stadium a smoldering ruin. "You've held up remarkably well all this time. But let me ask you this: have you grown comfortable in her skin, or is the taste of me too potent? I know you preferred your followers... pure~"

He answered with an arrow of light - formidable, albeit pesky stuff that simmered for far too long. But in this new body, whose essence possessed a natural link to both of the root aspects of this world, I merely swatted it aside, only to cringe a little upon hearing the wreckage to the stands above. Casting a wayward, almost self-berating peep, I spied a few chairs falling back to the arena - or what was left of them, anyways.

Clearly, big brother wasn't so intent on order as he always liked to believe; the teasing chaos his attempted assaults evoked were hardly befitting the natural pre planned order he so promised.

"I can deal with her failings just fine," he whispered, growing in volume as blinding white creeped from the cracks and crevices of his embodiment's skin. "As before, your shadows lose their bite the longer they are exposed to my radiance."

"Or, and let this merely stand as a thought, but maybe you've just grown so corrupted in your defiled state that the light once waging its war for your unity has all but admitted subservience to my infection."

Scoffing, he took a couple of steps to free himself from the rubble, dusting his battered body and sighing.

"Corrupted? Maybe once. But infected?" Chuckles jingled in tune with the turning light, waves of invisible heat distorting the space not just around him, but myself as well. "You overinflate your ego, brother. What ailment has ever stood in contest to a god?"

Battles between mortals involved physical conflict. Baseless simple animals pining for survival, ripping and tearing at each other's bodies for the sake of winning sustenance from the opponent's deceased flesh. Humans and Faunus, far more intellectually driven, thus fought over ideals and land, claiming one for the other over a sea of their fallen offspring; more than willing to inflict mental and physical suffering under the pretense that all is justified by their underdeveloped morals in the event of war.

Conflict between gods went much differently, for while the head-butting of swine may define less powerful creatures and their opposing needs, to witness the gods' disagreement in any way was to watch a hurricane compete with the tremors of shifting plates.

Every step hence echoed vows of heartfelt agony between both the mortal and spiritual worlds, who themselves often overlapped depending on where my brother or I desired them to be. The clicks and clacks of dual-present movements disturbing and waking the dead, as well as upsetting the peaceful separation between both realms. I watched with intrigue; one eye seeing the subtle twists of the wind around him in the arena, and my other eye spying the dark colors interrupting and casting aside the lingering souls of the afterlife, whose only crime was sleeping too close to where the forgotten deity marched.

Making his choice, he dashed through the stagnant body of little white bulbs who themselves cried out unintelligible distress at being rudely cast away. Letting my essence commit fully to the afterlife, I began to fully appreciate how brazen he'd become over the course of his delusions. Never before would he pull our brawls inside one of his carefully curated experiments, disrupting all order and using the dead to hide his approach.

But gods glow brighter than mortal souls, and with the apprehension of the overabundant forgotten and waiting, all I did to predict his attack was watch the sea of frightful sprites scurry and sway. I couldn't help it when my face stretched into a smile, teeth baring while I leaned back, avoiding the very Human swinging-kick he tried.

Within vessels, we could not transform, and thus our brawl would be seen through by Human tactics, and not the draconic clashes we were so used to.

I'd given him two chances to try his hand, and feeling that was more than acceptable, I then took the reins. Drawing into my grasp the crux of our bond to this field before my chest, I shattered our forceful connection to the spiritual realm, crushing our presence within it in my palm and leaving us standing atop Remnant again, right where we initially left off. Dropping the remainders of our link beyond this plane, I dusted the wayward magic off of my hands, flicking the ethereal ashes from my fingers with a grin.

"Let's try to keep this problem to ourselves, shall we?" I suggested, feeling the seething scowl strung my way just waiting to pierce my vessel's heart. "Mortal souls will merely distract us from the real fun."

"Like this?" His fingers dug deep into my neck, tearing down my back and disrupting my focus. Before I'd even had the chance to register the familiar pain, I'd been cast off, with my face dislodged much of the seating over the trip. I heard him call out from below, the same volume as always, because a god's voice always reaches its listener. "I figured you might revel in the destruction of Remnant's flipside. It would appear I'm not the only one to undergo change."

"You're right," I replied, pulling myself from the broken mash of seats and spitting out a bit of fuzz from the cushioning, circling back on him just as swift and holding his mortal heart within my hand, feeling his prison's ribs digging into my wrist; he was not the only one able to rend the space between us instantaneously. "I have changed, but unlike you, I've done so of my own decree. I did not require entombment to see my benefits reaped."

Lurching back, he blatantly ignored the strands of arteries and veins flopping from the gaping hole beside his sternum, as well as the half-torn breast held in place solely by the rotten cloth his host had been wearing before his capture. So much time being soaked in the gaol of my making left everything that Ruby Rose once wore entirely colorless and dark, to the point one would question if she adorned wet tar, bastardizing her image more than he already was.

Still holding the unbeating heart, I crushed it between my fingers, absorbing the tainted matter into me, and revitalizing some of the minor wounds my brother's assault had strewn across my back. He, on the other hand, did nothing to fill the gaping hole, not even bothering to call back in the strips hanging limply and drooling slime. Even so, and while his blood echoes sentiments of me, the spirit underneath illuminated his skin, saturating his body's brittle appearance.

"Benefits?" he muttered, a crusty brow lifted along with his tone. "You consider this beneficial? We, once pure divinity and justice, now stand contaminated with frailty not our own. I, infected with destructive desires, and you, cast into progressive love. We've had our purposes flipped, little brother, and yet you see it as a boon?"

He really had fallen off the deep end. I couldn't stop myself from laughing. What a pathetic sight. This was the one thing I'd always adhered to? This was supposedly the one being in existence to understand true justice and light? Amidst this comedy, it finally clicked to me, for the first time in my endless life, how misinformed we had been.

Were we the proprietors of life in this realm? Perhaps, but with every creature shaped and granted a soul, we had inadvertently sacrificed a slice of our original perfection. Maybe, once upon a time, he would have been right, but after many years disconnected from a world, one filled with millions of our scattered shards, we stood as husks. Everything was us, but we were no longer them. We are the origins of life, but we are not wholly ourselves, and thus are no longer the voice of purity and purpose we once were.

We stand as intruders into the life of our abandoned child; one who has long since outgrown her need and desire for us.

"Is this not what you wanted, brother?" I gloated, flinging my arms out to accentuate the world as a whole; propping it up and awarding it the recognition it deserved silently as my brother fumed. "Did you not seek to walk amongst our creations once more?" Letting them drop, I fell into a far more sour, but honest mood. "Or is the lack of praise directed upon your ever shimmer too salty for you?"

His eyes narrowed, but he slid into a less furious stature. I readied my defenses again, only to stumble within as he began to smile, almost remorsefully.

"I understand it now..." His eyes sharpened again, and the magic surrounding him wilted. But in its place of overtly thundering flames, the power surrounding him gained a new, sinister edge. Crackles of the chaos I'd once wielded danced across his skin, and his own light dulled to make way. "But your jealousy will not carry far. It will simmer, and you'll be forced to face the truth of your decision head-on."

The accompanying flare confirmed it: he was trying to incorporate my infectious power, that which soaked the vessel of Ruby Rose, into his own. I'd applaud him for it... had it not been the harbinger of his insanity.

"Jealousy?" I murmured, not even bothering to grant him a smidge of doubt or dignity. "You believe I've done all of this... out of jealousy?"

"I realize your fury." Each step plopped plainly across the stonework of the arena, bare feet having lost their covering leaving puddles of black blood from their pulsing ivory wounds. "I'd ordered your children away, whilst keeping my own." He reached up for me, placing his hand over my awestruck cheek, ignoring my shock as he apologized. "I'm sorry. I only did so because I knew our newest creation would fear them. Humans can never understand creatures whose only purpose is to destroy. I never meant to push you aside. I admit, looking back on it now, I should have directed some your way; then, perhaps... you wouldn't feel so alone."

His eyes lost some of their light, and his smile appeared outright authentic. So much honesty; so much self reflection. Both eyes lit up, widening with his smile as I tore my knuckles across his face, grounding him anew into a spread mess across the field. I couldn't contain it anymore; this nonsense had to stop, and I would be the one to make it happen.

"You self-centered, egotistical sack of shit!" The part of me that was Vermillion Rose, the part of me that was Ruby Rose: they were speaking now, through and with me as I poured everything into myself, frightening off the clouds above with my umbrage. "After all of this, years of containment and torture, that's what you get out of it?!"

His eyes rolled back to me, and I saw within him the same hatred I carried; unlike him, though, I was not finished speaking. He stood, his own aura dismantling the ground around him, leaving him partially airborne. Such untempered power would quickly eviscerate his host, meaning he had little time to fight. That was fine with me, because even if Remnant cast him out, I would follow him back to the realm beyond mortality, beyond destiny and time, and continue beating his failings into his incandescent skull until he finally understood why I had done everything up until now.

"That is what I hate about you! That right there: your inability to pull your own head out of your ass! How much can one man suck himself off?!"

I caught his blow this time, holding his shaking fist in my palm, and grabbing the leg he attempted to catch me with. With both my hands occupied, he drove his free fist into my cheek, but I just as easily swiveled my face right back around to pierce directly into his own maddened eyes.

"You call yourself a god, but I see only a loser who can't handle things not going his way."

With a burst of shadows I blasted him away, and he stared me down, finally set to unleash the full extent of his weakened powers. He called forth from the earth below, wriggling vines and tendrils of roots, but they wilted under my touch. He summoned storms of lightning, wildfires, hurricanes, and tremors all centered in this one spot of land of which I stood, but what is this destructive chaos to a being whose body is already such? I am death, darkness, and decay; these ailments are chunks of me, and all he did was return them to my whole, while leaving Amity Arena a smoldering mess.

I suppose I couldn't blame him. Before he'd only fought with my antithesis: his light. But as mortals, and especially my shell, pure life could not blunt our glow.

One crucial gambit he tossed during this solitary minute of war was to dash back towards me. I did nothing to stop him as he plunged towards my own heart; plagiarizing prick. He did not rip it out, but instead focused, and I could feel him pulling the light from my silver eyes. He believed that by doing this he'd empower himself. This got another chuckle from me, and so I let him do as he pleased. He retched back, prize running through his being and no doubt attempting to assimilate the light with his own.

What he had to discover the hard way was that this light he'd stolen far differed from what he had hoped to steal.

Coughing and shaking, spitting out wads of ink and facing more fissures in his shell, big brother struggled to maintain the rogue magic. In our absence, light and darkness had changed, evolved to fit Remnant's desires and needs. We could not fully mix with it, which was why having my vessel so ingrained with this world's darkness in that of his birth and life, as well as my own primal power in that of the seals, was so necessary.

This created a bridge between Vermillion powers and mine, allowing them to cross and mingle amongst one another, a bridge my brother did not have.

His body rejected the light, and I felt it rush back to me. Letting my eyes glow just to taunt him, I approached via a sassy stroll. His rage, now weathered from the bout of mixed control and a clear loss on his end, stared defiantly my way.

"I only wanted-"

"No," I spat, cutting him off. He grimaced, but shut his trap, allowing me to unfold. "This isn't about what you want. Heck, it isn't even about what I want anymore. Can't you tell by now? All of this, everything that's transpired and befallen this realm, the endless destruction and recreation of Remnant's people, history, and memories: all of it is your doing."

"I did not make the wish," he mumbled low, losing determination by the second.

"No, but you made the relics to enact it," I countered, adding on with, "All without my input, by the way."

"They were man's redemption!" His spittle didn't help his case. "Salem-"

"Salem nothing," I shut down quickly. "She came to us, weeping and grieving over her deceased love. If you didn't want to break the cycle, you could have just had me kill her. Or, better yet, you could have done so yourself. You could have offered her guaranteed passage into the afterlife to be with her love." It was such a simple fix, but not the one he took. "But no. You just had to teach her one of your stupid lessons. You made the woman immortal. You were the one to determine Humanity a failure after she used that undeath against us to deceive the other mortals. You were the one to create the relics. And most conniving of all: You were the one to revive Ozma, cursing him as well to carry out your dirty work in getting the world ready for some supposed redemption."

I let the words sit, allowing him a moment to reflect before topping it all off.

"You have always been, and continue to be, the source of Remnant's problems. There is no order here, only the chaos you create and pin on others."

He knew I was right; I could see it in his eyes, and the grimace he took up. After some time in this uneasy stalemate, he stood, facing me again, but ultimately unwavering. His anger had vanished, but the determination to take back control remained as strong as ever.

"I'm not giving up. You may end up being right, but I've come too far to throw it all away on moral grounds."

"Then you still want to fight?" I asked, and he nodded. With this, I put on a more... reserved grin. "Okay then, we shall settle this once and for all. But if we are going to fight for Remnant, then we shall do so as mortals, just like the ones Remnant employs."

"That is acceptable." His agreement was the signal I needed, and looking up into the sky towards the shattered moon, I reached for it.

"Then we'll face off where we first entered into this realm, in our old base of operations; our original home."

Squeezing my energy around it, the moon moved. The massive, mountainous chunks that floated around one another from where we'd cast off from this plane - the marking I left behind upon our departure - slowly fell inwards, crushing in on one another. With this soundless symphony of destruction, as the vibrations had nothing to travel through in space, clouds of dust instead visualized the chaotic collision. By the end, and when the dust had fallen back onto the surface of its home, the moon stood bright and full in the sky anew.

I felt it quickly, as did every Grimm atop Remnant's surface: the awestruck terror and unease felt between all watching mortals who'd witnessed and thus spread news of the cosmic adjustment. Wordlessly I whistled a single command throughout all those Grimm listening and considering their march towards those frightful mortals: stay your hands and ignore this tidal wave of fear. Being so connected to Remnant ensured total cooperation from all, and thus the Grimm would obeyed my command until the fear of the new moon disappeared, at which they would hunt on ordinary fear as they always have.

Moving my outstretched hand down and behind me, I summoned a portal to our once cozy little space: the spiritual flipside within the center of the moon, located at the point of our entry. A flat of motionless water, apparently overseen by clear blue skies, illuminated in clear daylight even though no sun presented itself within. Letting my arm drop completely, I returned focus to my brother.

"Come on then: let's finish this."

He nodded, following me inside, and once within the gateway vanished, leaving us to stand apart in the ankle-deep liquid. Within my hand I summoned the sword I'd forged for my son, although free of any real power now. My brother across held onto his own: a replica of the Sword Of Destruction from the looks of it. For this duel we lacked our godly powers, as did our weapons. Our fight would be one between Remant's warriors; fitting for those seeking it as their prize.

"Shall we begin?" I asked, getting a nod from him as we took our stances.

"Lets."

And with that, we dashed for one another; the final conflict now in motion.


Author's note

This god fight, ironically, wasn't all that extreme.

Sorry, I'd comment more, but I have a major headache right as I'm editing this, so I'll leave it here. About one or two chapters to go, along with the epilogue, and the story will be over.

Until then.