Misunderstood Hero: My Family Are All Villains

***

White fire collided with golden Rukh.

The two attacks met in the center of the sky.

What came after was beyond catastrophic.

The impact was so great that for a moment, there was no sound as the world itself could not keep up with what had just happened.

Only after what felt like an eternity did sound arrive. A sound that the ears of the weak could not fathom.

It resonated through the very fabric of Devil’s Maw.

The ground shook for unfathomable miles.

The Ten Seas churned in their entirety.

The mountains collapsed.

And then...

"..."

"..."

"..."

There was silence again.

The clouds around the two Angels had disappeared, vaporized by the heat and scattered by the force of the clash.

The sky was fully clear and empty, save for the two figures hanging in the void.

Malik had a... hole in his side.

The flesh was scorched, the edges cauterized by the heat of Mata’s attack.

His blood did not flow; it could not. It simply steamed and evaporated.

Mata’s white armor had been destroyed.

It was entirely gone, replaced by a long, deep slash running from her shoulder to her hip.

Her skin was visible beneath, pale and bloody.

The attack should have killed her.

Somehow, it had not.

Perhaps her armor was a Holy Relic as well.

In any case, neither Angel had fallen. They simply stared at each other across the sky.

Eventually, Mata smiled... gently.

"Divine Kingdom, Noblesse Oblige."

The world shifted.

***

A realm of Rukh swallowed them both.

An arena materialized as the new world.

Its walls stretched upward into infinity, its floor reflecting the sky above like a still pond.

This was Mata’s Divine Kingdom.

Noblesse Oblige.

A realm custom-made for duels, honed through countless battles. Here, she gained more than a simple increase in strength.

She was Divine Law.

Her wounds stopped bleeding.

The gash across her chest closed, the flesh knitting together without leaving a scar.

At the same time, her wings became... brighter, pressing her presence down on the Angel trapped in her domain.

"You’ve already lost."

Her words were a statement of fact.

Because, well, she disappeared.

And no, she wasn’t hidden.

Mata simply ceased to exist on the arena.

Malik understood by instinct what had happened.

She had become one with the Rukh, now being everywhere and nowhere at once.

Every particle of light was her, and every ripple on the arena floor was her breath.

She could attack him from any direction, at any time, and he could do nothing about it.

The first attack came from above.

A lance of Rukh materialized directly above Malik’s head, falling towards him instantly.

In that same ’instant,’ he threw himself sideways, trying to dodge the attack.

But, even then, the weapon grazed his shoulder, tearing through his robes and the flesh beneath.

Blood sprayed across the golden floor.

Without pause, the second attack came from below.

The floor itself erupted beneath his feet, spikes of crystallized Rukh shooting upward.

Malik twisted in midair, avoiding the first three, but the fourth caught him in the calf.

He stumbled his landing, caught himself, and kept moving.

The third attack came from... within.

Yes, ’within’ his very body.

He felt it before he saw it.

Pressure was building inside his chest, trying to tear its way out of his ribs.

Malik had never thought this possible, and yet that didn’t stop him from reacting in time.

This was simply Mata manifesting her Rukh inside him.

A skill that was far from simple.

It likely required great focus.

He could not let her focus.

And so, he closed his eyes and focused entirely on his Devil’s Footsteps. His speed.

Using the white fire in his Ember’s Touch, he poured everything he had into the Rune.

Every scrap of power from the Soul Glyph and every ounce of Will he possessed.

The pressure in his chest grew.

Malik could feel Mata’s Rukh coiling around his heart, threatening to utterly destroy him from the inside out.

’No hypocrite will kill me.’

Then he stepped forward and... disappeared.

Indeed, Malik was nowhere to be seen.

Of course, it wasn’t like Mata, but close enough.

His hoofprints remained, trailing behind him as he ran.

Each brand of white fire hissed against the light, refusing to be extinguished.

He was moving too fast, existing in the spaces between moments, chasing a woman who had become one with the Rukh itself.

Before he realized it, the pressure in his chest faded. Mata could not maintain her attack if she could not find him, or at least focus on him, proving his thoughts true.

The arena became a storm.

Hoofprints appeared across the floor in patterns that defied logic. Trailing forward, then twisting backward, then doubling over themselves.

It was a spider’s web.

Malik was running, searching, trying to reach Mata’s Will wherever it was. Even with him in that state, she attacked him from every conceivable direction.

Lances fell like rain.

The floor erupted in waves.

The air itself crystallized into blades that sliced through the space where he should have been.

But he was not there.

Malik was always a moment ahead, a step to the left, a breath away from certain death.

His hoofprints told the story.

Mata grew frustrated.

He could feel it in the way her attacks became wilder and less precise, perhaps trying to overwhelm him and get a lucky strike rather than hunt him down accurately.

She was not used to opponents who could evade her in her own domain.

Most Angels, when trapped in Noblesse Oblige, simply accepted their fate.

They stood their ground, fought honorably, and died.

Malik was not ’most Angels.’

He ran.

He ran until the hoofprints covered every surface of the arena, both the floor and walls.

His white fire burned brighter with each step, feeding on the Rukh that surrounded him, growing stronger as Mata grew weaker.

She could not understand what was happening.

Her Divine Kingdom was supposed to be absolute.

Within these walls, she was untouchable.

Invincible!

The queen of a realm that answered only to her.

But Malik didn’t seem interested in her attacks.

He was fighting the arena itself.

And he was winning.

The hoofprints began to move in unison.

They no longer seemed to move in random patterns—they flowed together, forming lines that converged on a single point in the arena.

Mata realized what was happening a moment too late.

In all this time, Malik wasn’t only dodging her attacks while searching for her Will, he was also mapping her kingdom.

Every trail of white fire was a piece of a puzzle that was finally coming together.

Since she was one with Rukh, her body couldn’t exactly be found. But her Soul, namely her Will, held weight in that Rukh.

And he found exactly that.

Mata could not hide from him anymore.

The hoofprints had converged to a stop.

Malik appeared in the center of the arena, his hands clutching his white sword.

The blade wasn’t burning as it once did, his fire still focused on his Devil’s Footsteps.

Still, despite that, and despite his wounds that wept blood, it had to be enough.

This was Malik’s all.

He was going to defend his home.

Outside, those watching witnessed a new light.

Their reverence erupted, calling out to him.

Devil’s Maw’s Fate hung in the balance.

A Fate that they reached out for.

Someone’s clenched fists...

Someone’s raised hands...

Someone’s prayer...

It had reached their Sultan.

And their Sultan had reached his enemy.

The sword was stabbed through Mata’s back.

It emerged from her chest, the tip pointed towards the sky.

She was raised up on it, her arms falling limp and her once beautiful wings flickering.

Her mouth hung open, spitting out blood.

"How..."

Mata still couldn’t understand how this had happened.

"T-This... it doesn’t..."

Her voice was small now, human.

"Tell me."

The Angel had fallen.

"You became one with the Rukh."

Malik replied in a whisper.

"But your Rukh still had to flow according to your Will. I just followed the current."

Mata’s lips twitched.

"Clever."

It might have been a smile.

"S-Still... besting me without even activating..."

Her words died out as she entered a coughing fit, but Malik had easily understood what she tried to say.

Mata thought that he won without activating his Divine Kingdom.

No, she was completely wrong.

He had activated it since the very beginning.

After all, his system and Soul Glyphs were just that.

His Divine Kingdom, Archive of Fate.

And speaking of, Malik’s minute finally ended.

The Devil’s Footsteps faded.

The strength in his arms began to wane.

The white sword in Mata’s back flickered, threatening to dissipate.

Yet before it could, he activated his third Soul Glyph.

A single use, not a peak.

"Scorpion’s Sting."

His white sword turned black.

The flame took on a devouring quality.

It became terrifyingly similar to the void.

Yes, it no longer burned.

The fire ate.

Spreading from the blade into Mata’s body, it began to consume her Rukh, flesh, and very existence.

And as a massive boost of might rocked through Malik’s body, filling him with strength, he sliced down.

The black blade tore through Mata’s body, cutting her in half.

Her Divine Kingdom shattered around them, the arena dissolving into Rukh, returning to the origin of all that was.

The pieces fell upwards, downwards, and sideways, scattering across Devil’s Maw.

There was nothing left.

Malik returned to the world, falling.

The empty sky spun fast around him.

He tried to control his descent, but his body no longer obeyed him. His wounds were too many and too deep.

Enough so that he couldn’t...

He couldn’t use his Soul Glyphs.

The wind loudly rushed past his ears.

’...did her attack damage my Soul as well?’

He looked up at the two Suns hanging above, indifferent to the battle that had just ended.

’Annoying till the end, Mata.’

Soft chuckles began to leave his mouth.

’Oh...’

Quiet at first, then louder and more twisted.

’Icarus.’

Him falling meant that he had indeed soared.