Across time, across space, two people fought the same person.

Their movements were in a disturbing sync, the lives they lived differed greatly. Somehow, through this, they were closer than any individuals alive.

There was little spectacle, ruthless efficiency behind every blow ready to put this threat to rest, but the thing both failed to account for was simple, to take caution against a cornered animal.

In a last ditch effort to turn the tide, the opponent released something from the clenched fist that had been a constant since the very beginning of the confrontation, something minor, overlooked.

Their respective worlds would pay dearly for this error. The sky itself seemed to vibrate at a dangerous frequency as the spherical device glowed a pale red, reflecting over the wasteland that had become their battlefield.

The one who released this devastating weapon was the first to perish, simply being near its radius enough to disintegrate nearby life, as if smited by existence itself for the consequences soon to follow.

And follow they did.

The vessel sphere seemed to give out under whatever it was containing, liquefied as the dull grey was pulled taut omnidirectionally as if under a marionette's strings, vague intent as it formed into a hypnotic spiral that pulled the nearby air into it's stormy center. 

The separated victors found it impossible to breathe as their bodies were punished by the vicinity that unraveled reality as a whole, a terrible screech of pulverized metal skittered through the terrain, a sonic wave that went on for kilometers on end, upheaving trees and stirring volcanoes.

The dull grey turned red as it devoured the proximity, almost assimilating it into the fold as their eyes tore from the vortex into their surroundings, noticing a perpetual bubble that dared any to test its strength.

A shield, to keep things out and trap those within.

Both were certain they were alone as they turned their sight back to the front where that whirlpool of air should have been, but found their assumption untrue.

An event unlike any other had occurred. Finally, the circumstances that led to it had all played their hand.

Their first realization was the easiest. a face too familiar to be any other.

Their own.

The same person in DNA, entirely different in life, had their paths truly changed them so?

Even then, their first instinct was to escape, wordlessly going through the motion of finding weak points. They would work together eventually, should there be no other choice.

Simply because they were the same, they did not imbue either with a level of trust, because their paths may not have been the same, their suspicion towards the other certainly was.

Their silent truce proved futile, not even their combined effort could find something to work with, so they soon found themselves indulging their curiosity.

With combat, of course.

Both had respective movesets that seemed to almost completely cancel out the other, no amount of diversifying or thinking outside the box, even digging into the fundamentals could break this endless fight turned slugfest that left them too tired to even slit the other's throat.

Weapons lay all around as the soil soaked in the blood, the wounds from which had healed at a surprisingly fast rate, for a normal human anyway.

Reluctantly, boredom drove them both to words instead of violence, the differences widening even further as they spoke their turns.

Taking that to the core of their person, however, it has changed that divide that plagued these paradoxically influenced people.

Both had always struggled for one thing, a need for acceptance. Fighting tooth and nail to be human, to follow a standard someone had aspired them to live up to, becoming the light that had shone on their bleak worlds that lacked the star to illuminate the way.

In this ideal they believed, but only one had their star live long enough to show them that way, the other having lost their star, cradling that hope as it bled on the asphalt, ignored by ongoers that had gone numb to turning corners only to find corpses whose faces they recognized.

One saved others because they believed in it, the other did it out of obligation.

That and hope to find salvation through saving.

Neither killed, but one did not pull their punches as much as the other.

Both had become the star they eventually lost, but behind the light one radiated lay a grief that had been left too long to fester, and it ate the light they offered to that world.

Spurned to find it again, one would face the same opponent the other would. This meeting, born from a paradoxical motivation, had led these two to cross paths through space-time itself.

That grief lay itself bare to someone who could understand, weakness was the last thing on the grieving one's mind as the years poured out into this bubble that trapped them here. 

This no longer felt like such a curse after all. 

The one that had moved on had shed the leftovers of that sorrow, focusing on helping their counterpart. Blood spilled, then smiles reigned, a scene that could earn these two the title of insanity if witnessed by outsiders. 

The frustration, the anger, the acceptance as both laid their lives bare for the other to listen. It seems the one who had their path illuminated held more sorrow than expected, but it is only fair, only human.

The thought of knowing neither was alone had gone quite a way to making things worth it, albeit in a twisted sense. Time flew by as the bubble seemed to weaken, a corrective effect on their respective worlds seemed to be closing the bridge that allowed this meeting to happen at all. They wouldn't know that though.

The feeling of goodbye was on the cards soon was what this duo knew though, so they wrapped it up as best they could, giving wisdom and advice the other had not known or filling in blanks. Any advantage is welcome. One more similarity among the differences.

The bubble pulsed sky blue from that pale red they grew accustomed to as it fizzled away, the process that sphere created being rewound. 

They walked to their respective sides calmly as the walls between realities were built back up.

Looking at each other with respect where there once was suspicion, raising their weapons to bid farewell instead of to harm, the portal appeared before them again as it vanished completely. 

Standing still as the compressed wind rushed to fill in the land it had been taken from with a howl unbound for all to hear, one that would become a legend. 

Standing in that wasteland, they were no longer the same as before. The illuminated one reinvigorated and the obligated one now at peace, having found the path that inspired them so long ago at last.

Rejuvenated from the experience, even knowing they would never meet again, they dared to hope there were more years ahead. They silently wished the other luck, as they rushed back to their lives, to be the light that banished the dark.

As for the legend, let's say they helped it along by bestowing upon it an appropriate name. The Roar of Time.