My Shard Bearer System - Elias's Legacy
Chapter 191: Crystals Locking Bind

Chapter 191: Crystals Locking Bind

Soul energy erupted in a dome, hot enough that air warped and snapped. Sound followed half a beat late: a bass crack that kicked grit into the void. Kikaru flung an arm up, the gold flare of Light snapping around her like a shield just in time to catch the first shards of blue heat.

She slid back on her knees, grit skidding beneath, hair whipping into her eyes as the shockwave clawed for distance, slamming into the far edge of the arena with a thunder‑wrung roar.

The Announcer glided closer, shoes making no sound on the glass‑smooth plane. A thin band of silver light coiled between his fingers—threads of soul‑glass drawn from the air where Elias’s shard had burst. Each strand shimmered like spun mercury, alive and whispering. He gathered them into a fist, compressing the glow until it hardened into a rough, walnut‑sized core: jagged, half‑formed, still pulsing with a muted blue.

"Even ruined, it’s a jewel," he said, turning the fragment beneath his lenses. "A little cracked, sure, but power rarely comes gift‑wrapped."

Kikaru forced her gaze up. The gold in her Ikona fluttered, weak sparks chasing one another across the orb’s surface. She tried to rise. Her legs refused. Her hands slid on the polished nothing, yielding no purchase. All she managed was a low breath that shook apart on her lips.

The Announcer crouched again, positioning the shard‑fragment above her cupped palms. Heat pulsed from it—too hot for flesh, yet he held it bare‑handed as if it were no more than a warm stone.

"Payment for surviving the clause," he announced. "One host falls, the remainder inherits what’s left on the board."

The fragment’s light bled over Kikaru’s skin, bathing her scraped knuckles in dull blue. She didn’t reach. She stared at the core, breath small, shoulders trembling as adrenaline bled into exhaustion.

"Take it," he urged, voice softening just enough to sound sincere. "He wasted his last beat to make sure you could."

Her gaze slid to Elias. His body had drifted farther into translucence; ribs showed through torn fabric like faint chalk lines. Dot pulsed near his collarbone, a stuttering ghost‑blue spark trying to anchor him and failing. The pool beneath had stopped spreading, dark stain fixed in the colorless floor.

"I don’t—" She swallowed, words scraping raw. "It isn’t mine."

"Ownership is a system formality," the Announcer said, shrugging off her protest. "Power moves to the living. The dead file no claims."

Kikaru felt the harness across her ribs tighten, copper filaments thrumming with residue from Elias’s detonation. The touch reminded her of every strike, every decision that brought them here. She lifted one trembling hand, more reflex than acceptance, and the shard flickered brighter, sensing the nearness of a new host.

The Announcer’s grin ticked wider. "Attagirl."

As her fingers closed‑but‑didn’t‑quite‑touch, gold curls of her own energy licked up her wrist, meeting the blue aura in a hesitant swirl—like two storms circling.

Behind the Announcer a torch guttered, throwing sparks into the void. The realm’s veins pulsed once, deep crimson, and a low harmonic tremor rolled underfoot—brief, but enough to raise gooseflesh along Kikaru’s arms.Thought for a couple of seconds

Her breath hitched once, sharp enough to hurt.

Elias lay still—mouth parted, blood drying at the corner, an echo of a grin frozen on lips already losing color. The faint blue corona that had clung to his shard was gone; in its place a dull translucence crept outward, bleaching pigment from his skin until his outline seemed to bleed into the ambient light.

Kikaru lowered a hand until her fingertips skimmed the center of his sternum. Nothing met her there—no pulse, no heat—only the uncanny slick of a body sliding out of phase. She curled her fingers back. Nails cut crescents into her palms, grounding sensation before the weight behind her eyes could break loose.

Why him?

She’d told him—begged, yelled—*Finish it*. End the tally with her life, not his. She was the one who had failed every measure her father set, the one who dragged this fight past reason. Yet he had flipped the ledger, traded futures without permission.

*There’s very few people I’d trust with her. You’re one of them.*

The memory scraped like gravel. Her jaw locked; the muscles there twitched.

A soft pulse of blue hovered to her right. Dot—half of her—flickered in and out, edges blurry where code met grief.

"He trusted you," the shard‑spirit said. Static laced each word, as though the sentence cost more energy than she had left. "He wanted... you to carry it forward."

The glow stuttered, bending inward. Kikaru tightened her fists until the tremor stopped. No answer rose—only a thick pressure at the back of her throat. She pressed both hands to the polished floor. It refused to give, to bend, to do anything but reflect her empty reach.

The Announcer’s shadow loomed again, but she kept her eyes on Elias, forcing each breath through teeth that threatened to crack. Somewhere inside the orb at her back, her own Ikona flared once—muted gold falling short of flame—waiting for a choice she had never wanted to make.

Elara Croft’s fingers gouged tiny crescents in the railing.

Below, Kikaru knelt in a pool of fading blue, clutching a man who was already more light than flesh. The picture burned Elara’s eyes, but she couldn’t look away. She felt every heartbeat inside her skull—thud, thud—louder than the torches or the distant hiss of cooling stone.

She wasn’t seeing the arena anymore.

She saw a patch of cracked sidewalk back in Volis Heights—two kids drawing hop‑scotch boxes with chalk scavenged from a construction site. Elias had knelt beside her then, grin wide, offering the last stub of blue so her sky could match his. She’d laughed too hard, tripped on a box, skinned her knee. He’d ripped his sleeve, tied it around the scrape, told her the badge made her look brave. The memory cut now—sharp, merciless.

I loved him.... I really did... she thought before slumping her head