On the mountains of Arequipa, far away from any discernable society, they fought.

Atop the frigid, snow-covered peaks of the Picchu Picchu volcano, in a familiar world of an unfamiliar universe, two vastly different figures clashed with each other for something far greater than fame or power. Nearing the sun's rise, and with only minutes to determine a clear winner, they both drew their divine weapons forward and began attacking desperately.

The colorful figure with wings that expanded far beyond his arms was a white-feathered Andean condor who called himself Hakan Kunturi. He donned a regal patchwork tunic with a crimson cape draped carefully over his back, free flowing and adorned in gold frills that glistened with every violent sidestep the condor made. On Hakan's head, contrasting his pink, vulture-like head and neck, he wore a headpiece of pure gold, a crown that he had been granted in a different world with the dying blessing of the sun god Inti. He bestowed it upon Hakan as His parting gift, along with one final wish to complete the mission His children could not: unite the universe and make it the sanctuary of the Fantastic Creators that it once was so long ago. This is what Hakan would achieve... but it wasn't what he was currently fighting for.

Instead, his opponent had targeted Hakan solely to destroy him, and nothing else. The condor knew this was all it cared about, and it only took seeing his rival to know as much: It was a mass of black smoke, a dark void of horrible emotions and perverse desires, taking the form of the condor himself. Ever since the day Hakan had left the universe he had destroyed with his thunderous cry, this entity was looming inside of his soul, simply waiting and eating at his guilt. With each universe traveled, the shadow fed itself more and more, until it finally took a shape of its own one day. All it ever wanted was to corrupt the condor, to turn him into the omnicidal conqueror that it believed Hakan was meant to be from the beginning. In short, it was the culmination of the condor's sadness, his solitude, his grief, now starving for power over every one of the cosmos, in a feeble attempt to prevent another universe of his kin from being exterminated by his hand.

Hakan knew this was wrong. If he let this shadow consume him, it would spell the end of not just the universe, but of every universe. And yet there was no way to truly stop it. It would keep following him until the end of time.

Unless he was determined to fight the void every chance it sought.

The shadow lunged forward, nearly knocking away the condor's holy staff as it growled with increasing agitation. "Ironic, is it not?" The shadow would proclaim, a hint of dark pride in its voice. "Your cry ended the world, simply because you didn't want a war. And yet here you stand now, fighting in a war you cannot run away from!" The figure's form extended its arms out, as if to provoke Hakan into attacking it, while it spoke this uncomfortable truth.

Hakan, however, kept his iron grip on the sacred Suntur Paukar that once belonged to his late father. "You neglect to understand, I see. I'm not here against my will, even if I dislike conflict," the condor started, pointing the golden scepter towards his morbid figure. "I understand now why that war was necessary, I simply was a fool to not understand it as such back then. It was to prevent spirits like yourself to run amok on our sacred lands..."

The figure's arms pulled back towards itself and nodded in agreement. "Heh, but see where that got you, poor sap. Also, I don't think I must tell you this, but--"

"Yes, I can sense it," Hakan interrupted. "You are simply dying to rub it in me. I've traveled through every possible combination of events and endings, and I have seen what you're capable of. Alas..." The condor regrettably lowered his staff and sighed as he confessed, "there exist multiple times I've yielded to you. And for as long as you and I continue to exist, that threat will remain in every dimension I travel to."

The negative space cackled quietly to itself. "Such flattery! You catch on quick. If only you were so forthright with your true sentiments as well..." The shadow slowly glided forward, prompting Hakan to grip his weapon tighter and ready for a strike, but his reflection simply inched forward without any nefarious intent, or at least none so far. "Perhaps you'd like for me to lay all of my feelings first? Would that make you more comfortable?"

Hakan glared at the blob of antagonistic desire and sneered, "I have no need to listen to the likes of you."

"Not even to negotiate a peace treaty of sorts?" The gloomy figure bickered back, the shape it took now deforming slowly as it completely circled around Hakan. "To tell you the truth, as we are the same, I also just hate the fact that we must battle each other. It gets so tiring, this endless power struggle! Surely you have seen that no matter what you try, every timeline of events leads to this exact result?"

Hakan growled as he held up the Suntur Paukar to his chest. He didn't reply, for he knew there was simply no winning against his shadow in a debate. "I do not have anything against you. In fact, I, too, long for a sort of peace amongst the universes. Don't you realize that I've simply been trying to provide you with the answer?"

Hakan could only scoff at this wild assumption. "And what might that entail? Are you to assimilate me, or perhaps erase me from this land, like all the others we've seen? Again, I am not going to--"

"None of this will happen." The shadow suddenly shifted to a more serious tone as it reformed itself into Hakan's image, now looking forward at the being it copied. "Aren't you the one that wanted to have both Fantastic Creators and the Saqra come to an agreement? Here is the opportunity. All you must do is listen to me. To yourself, if nothing else."

Hakan kept his menacing glare on his shadow and held his weapon close to his chest, but very slowly nodded and let his body stop tensing up. "...fine. What is your desire?"

The black void now stood completely still and backed away for just one step. "Alright... I am sure by now that you know your mission, right? You must travel across dimensions until you find a time in which both the Creators and the Saqra have perished but have also left behind Their Creator's Rods. With these you fuse them together to create an all-powerful staff that is capable of rewinding time, yes?"

"...correct." Hakan warily answered. "I was told that much by Inti in His final message. What are you suggesting?" The condor raised one eyebrow while keeping the golden axe near his body in case his shadow attempted anything.

"Well," the shadow began, "that isn't entirely true. I know, that's rich coming from me, but I promise this is the truth. If the Creator's Rods cannot be found in the land, then the divine weapons They wielded can also work." The black form extended out his hand and showed Hakan the weapon he held, a seemingly corrupt replica of the Suntur Paukar that Hakan was holding. "This weapon isn't apt for fusion, otherwise I would have initiated the ritual the moment we ended up crossing paths. You must instead find a real weapon once held by Supay, though His Creator's Rod is recommended."

Hakan looked down at the shadowy axe. It was completely covered in a thin layer of grey clouds, and the staff itself seemed to be made of a pitch-black material, possibly obsidian. The shadow continued his talk. "Their weapons can also work because of the sole fact that they, too, were manufactured by Inti. You will get the exact same result as you would by combining the Rods: a holy weapon capable of reversing the flow of time and allowing you to stop this fighting for good."

"...and you know this, how?" Hakan asked after a small silence. The condor was still rather skeptical at this plan, especially coming from the supposed enemy. The shadow seemed to notice this distrust and retracted its weapon again.

"It is because I was told by another Inti, also on the brink of death," Hakan's reflection confessed. "After our last bout, I had fled to another timeline where the Inti there was about to expire. He had confused me for you, and told me the same thing as you, with one key difference: He told me about the weapons that He had forged. He had said that they can also work with this ritual so long as one of each side was obtained." The shadow then approached again, no weapon in hand, and looked at Hakan into his eyes. "You have Wiraqocha's weapon... so that means all you need to do is look for a dimension where Supay is gone, yet his divine instruments remain intact. And I happen to know such a timeline."

Hakan, upon hearing this, widened his eyes. If what it was saying was true, then could that mean... "And... You’re certain that this will still work? If I do the ritual with his Creator's Rod there, it'll still be the same thing?"

"Absolutely," the void spoke, almost being sincere with his words. "I can take you there right now, if you wish. Perhaps the faster the better." The shadow then reached out one hand over to Hakan, an open invitation to agree. "Please just trust me this one time. I would like nothing more than to at least help you, and perhaps then we can call this whole thing a stalemate."

The condor couldn't believe it. This was possibly the opportunity he had been waiting for all this time. Hakan's mission would at last come to an end, and he could finally fix the past so that the multitude of universes spread across the blanket of space would end up safe from harm. His only gripe was that all this had come from his own rival's mouth, and Hakan couldn't risk that thing lying to get its way. As Hakan closed his eyes to think about this, perhaps, he thought, there may have been some truth to its sayings. There really was only one way to find out...

Except that Hakan already knew it was lying.

The condor opened his eyes, filled with rage, and flung his Suntur Paukar forward. With one brutal slash, it forced back the shadow while it was vulnerable, causing the void to yelp in pain. "Hm, if only you knew I could see right through your dirty tricks," Hakan spoke back with a cold voice. He then leaped high in the air, raising his axe up. The morning sun had finally risen, and the axe, now infused with its warmth, began to glow a bright yellow while Hakan hovered in the air for a few seconds. After this, the condor would immediately shoot down to his shadow's location, thrusting the axe forward at breakneck speeds towards the ground... and it landed with one resounding crack of the earth, sending Hakan's shadow flying off the rocky cliff they fought upon.

After the dust settled, all that Hakan could see was his rival, still holding its form, struggling to get up from the ground after this assault. It writhed and groaned heavily, attempting and failing various times to get up. The condor stepped forward to approach him, a smile on his face.

"You're right. The ritual would have worked with the divine weapons anyway," sneered Hakan once he was close enough. "Especially that one you hold in your hand. I would recognize that staff anywhere, yet you thought I wouldn't notice. It belonged to Supay, made as a counter to Wiraqocha's holy axe I hold. Where you got it from matters not. You simply needed an excuse to fuse that with my weapon while I wasn't looking."

The void groaned and squawked in pain, now lying face up on the ground as it looked up to Hakan with a crude and twisted smile. "Aahh... always the forward thinker... you monster. It seems no matter what I do... I'll always come up short to you."

And as the sun rose to mark the beginning of another day, Hakan watched as the shadow that used his figure began to disintegrate with the light. All throughout the exchange, though, it would weakly cackle more.

"You cannot kill me in a way that truly matters," it taunted, and Hakan was very aware of this. "I will always be right there, even if I fail... a million times..."

The sun finally peered out from behind the mountains, and the last of Hakan's dark reflection eroded away, being left to blow away with the wind, until he would meet it again. The condor could only look down where it once was, somewhat mourning its "passing" but aware that it would come back, like all the other times before. But this somber exchange would not last long, for once Hakan raised his head once more and turned around to face the city again...

He could see nature's beauty in the flesh. A likely seven kilometers beneath him laid a grassy patch of purple flowers adorning the cliff face. Twenty more beyond that laid the city of Arequipa, which in this reality was likely inhabited by living beings of an unknown origin. The various buildings lined up in a scattered position, but from this distance, it seemed like an oasis of steel in the middle of the desert. Seven more kilometers beyond the city once again harbored nothing but a road up, possibly to the capital. And the sky, clear of any clouds, transformed its early orange hues into a bright azure plain.

Hakan could only smile at the sight. He must leave this dimension soon, but in this awesome moment, he whispered to himself.

"Ah, yes... I see it now..."