Alexander's fist drove into the figure's ribs. Obsidian manifested mid-strike - Wait, no. Still nothing. Still just flesh and bone and desperate hope that volume would compensate for lack of power.
The figure's counter came fast - shadow-palm to sternum that made his heart skip. He twisted away, threw an elbow that connected with the hood. His other hand grabbed shadow-cloth, yanked down while his knee came up.
Impact. The figure's head snapped back.
Alexander pressed forward. Left hook. Right cross. Uppercut that should've lifted the figure off its feet. Each strike landing with force proving this thing could be hurt.
The figure caught his wrist mid-punch.
And Alexander's obsidian armor manifested around the figure's hand.
He froze. Stared at black crystalline plates forming along shadow-flesh, spreading from knuckles to forearm with geometric precision he recognized because it was his. Exactly his. Down to the slight imperfection where training had reset the pattern wrong.
"You've got to be kidding."
The figure's other hand came up, and fire erupted from its palm. Actual flames carrying heat that made frost evaporate. His fire. His exact fire.
The figure released his wrist, stepped back. Both hands wreathed in obsidian and flame. It tilted its hood - mockery without words.
Then it attacked.
Obsidian-enhanced fist toward his jaw. Alexander ducked, barely. The figure followed with spinning kick, leg coated in his armor. He blocked with forearm - flesh against obsidian - pain exploding to shoulder.
Fire came next. Gout of flame forcing Alexander to roll sideways, frost melting, ground turning to mud. He came up in crouch, saw the figure advancing with his fighting style, his techniques, his powers turned against him.
Shadow-palm wreathed in fire struck where his head had been. Alexander weaved, threw desperate jab the figure caught with obsidian gauntlet. It twisted his arm, leveraged him off-balance, drove knee into his cracked ribs.
Air left his lungs in a rush tasting like copper and defeat. He staggered back, trying for distance, but the figure was already there. Relentless. Using his speed, his timing, his understanding of how to press advantage.
This wasn't a fight anymore. This was survival.
Obsidian fist to temple. Vision went white. He stumbled, barely kept feet, raised arms in desperate guard. The figure's flame-wreathed strike crashed through defense, scorched cloth and skin, made him cry out despite training that taught silent pain.
He backed up. One step. Two. The figure matched pace for pace, not giving him space to recover, to think, to do anything except try not to die.
Fire and obsidian came in combinations he'd drilled a thousand times. Combinations Johann had helped perfect, that his master had refined. Now they were dismantling him piece by piece.
Block the obsidian - pain through forearm. Duck the fire - hair singed, skin blistering. Dodge the kick - not fast enough, obsidian shin catching thigh with force that made his leg buckle.
Alexander hit the ground. Again. Third time? Fourth? Lost count. Blood ran from mouth, nose, the cut above his eye. Ribs screamed. Shoulder definitely dislocated. Leg might be fractured.
But he pushed up. Because that's what you did. Fall down seven times, stand up eight. Keep moving forward even when forward meant toward death.
The figure stood over him, obsidian and flame making it look like twisted version of himself. What he might have become if power mattered more than philosophy.
It raised one hand - his hand, his obsidian, his fire - preparing for finishing blow that would be poetic in cruelty. Killed by his own abilities.
Alexander's hand shot out, grabbed the figure's wrist. Not to block. Not to defend. Just to hold on, to refuse to let this thing kill him at arm's length.
The figure's hood tilted. Confusion at why prey would grab the predator.
Then Alexander felt it.
A pull. Deep in his chest, in the space behind his ribs where something more fundamental than organs resided. Not his heart. Not his lungs. Something else. The gap between physical and metaphysical, between flesh and whatever made flesh worth inhabiting.
His soul.
The core of self that powers drew from. The thing that made his obsidian his, his fire his - not because he'd mastered techniques, but because they resonated with who he was.
And right now, with hand wrapped around shadow-flesh wearing his obsidian, with fire that should be his burning inches from his face, Alexander felt that resonance.
Like tuning fork struck near its twin. Like harmonics overlapping. Recognition so deep it bypassed thought.
The obsidian on the figure's hand flickered. Just for a heartbeat.
It wasn't the figure's obsidian. It was his. Copied, stolen, worn like mask, but fundamentally still connected to source. Still tied to the soul that had birthed it.
The figure tried to pull away. Alexander held on, despite fire scorching his palm, despite shadow-fingers tightening around his throat, despite every instinct screaming to let go.
Because in that moment of contact, Alexander understood something crucial.
The figure had copied his abilities. But abilities weren't just techniques. They were extensions of self, tethered to the soul that wielded them.
And you couldn't copy a soul.
The obsidian flickered again. Stronger. The fire dimmed fractionally. Alexander felt the pull intensify, like his power trying to return home, trying to flow back to source it had been torn from.
His hand was burning. Shadow-fingers crushing his windpipe. Vision dimmed at edges, darkness creeping in. But he didn't let go.
The resonance built. His soul calling to fragments of itself. Power recognizing its master despite theft, despite impossibility.
The figure's hood jerked back. For the first time, Alexander heard something from it. Not words. Just sound. Noise that might have been surprise or pain or realization that copying technique wasn't the same as claiming ownership. The obsidian on its hand cracked.
Not from outside force. From inside. From tension of being pulled in two directions - toward the figure wearing it, and toward Alexander whose soul had forged it.
His vision was going dark. Oxygen deprivation making thoughts fuzzy, making it hard to remember why he was holding on. But somewhere beneath the darkness, beneath the pain, beneath the desperate need for air - he felt it.
His power. Close. So close. Just out of reach but present in a way it hadn't been since the shadow coated the field. The resonance sang through his bones like recognition, like homecoming, like the moment before everything changed.