[b]Sayanastia![/b]

Damn it. She was happy.

Her entrance had been perfect. Her opponent had been respectful. She had not found herself immediately overmatched, destroyed in moments by an interlocking sequence of relics, handmaiden curses and secret techniques. The fight was proceeding downright languidly compared to her battles with Heron, and she dispersed into that time like salt in water.

Take the first clash as an example - thoughts running in the long, languid seconds between pounces. Teeth, she had long ago learned, were ineffective as primary armaments against anything but the most overmatched opponents. And yet The End Dragon had come for her baring hers, looking to grapple, bite, and break. The correct response would have been to hate her to death, pouring so much raw contempt into her glare that the lesser being instantly ceased existing. The first time she'd fought the Hero of Ages that had been the only attack she had utilized; every few seconds obliterating one of the hero's companions. The only thing that had saved the worlds was the sheer number of friends Heron had bought to the battle. She had not left with any.

It was a simple thing to do, even now. Less than a technique, less than a spell, all it would take was a flicker of the feeling and then this whole situation would be over. The light of the Stars would go out, and the Dark Dragon would be alone.

But oh how delicious it is to, instead, hit her opponent in the jaw with her tail. To flow backwards, tail wrapping around that jarringly-shut muzzle, pulling tight and then flicking her opponent away like a gnat to smash dramatically into the side of the great tree. A technique she had once suffered from the Saffron Dragon, another of Heron's companions from a later age. An arrogant duelist who had thought that the techniques she had spent developing for single combat made her Sayanastia's peer. Look now, Saffron! I performed your vaunted technique without practice or preparation, to better effect than you ever managed! An elegant move, flawless from conception to execution, one to crush and humiliate The End Dragon. A small victory, one to revel in.

And one that took her one subtle step further away from the hatred that would end the fight.

Her next technique was elegant too - a whisper of cutting void that undid the force of The End Dragon's wings, sending her opponent plunging into stone and rock. It was something she had picked up from how her void toads caused miniature shockwaves to knock flies from the air, and wasn't it such a clever use of the mechanics of air pressure and entropy? And then it is time to use one of Heron's tricks - obliterating a conceptual distance set, meaning that when she raked her talons through the air cracking grooves shattered the exposed bones of The End Dragon. It was beautifully done. So beautifully done she let herself preen, and select yet another of her accumulated techniques to reveal, rather than use the move that everyone knew she had and meant nothing more than that she was still the Dark Dragon.

Her opponent's light screamed that she was lesser than she was. But look! She didn't know how to do this before! Or this! [i]Look [/i]at all the beautiful things she knows, the wisdom and power that age has granted her. And after I have shown you all of these techniques, then perhaps I will show you that I am also still the Dark Dragon on top of all of that, and obliterate your humiliated wreckage so that you never trouble me again. 

But... perhaps I don't even need to do that. Perhaps the humiliation is enough, and you will eventually learn that there is no benefit to rising against me. Perhaps when you fall, I will let you regain your strength. You can test mine as many times as necessary because I go to war knowing that, at the end of this diversion, I am still the Dark Dragon. And I can undo you simply by hating you. It would only take a second. I just need to... stop being happy first.

[Fight: 6]