The toppled clock-tower still groaned as loose stones settled. From the rubble Suzu rose, slow, deliberate, shaking cracked bricks from her hair. The gale Daichi had hurled her with still whistled overhead, but the blood-mage seemed almost untouched, crimson wisps knitting scratches on her cheeks as she walked. Itsuki stepped forward on reflex, half-ready to help, half-terrified. She halted when Suzu’s heel scraped the pavement and the air around her thickened like clotting wine. Suzu’s eyes found her sister. Pain, and something far colder, flickered there. “You always were the one who could stand back up,” she rasped. “Tell me, little light, do you still believe every wound can be healed?” The words weren’t a battle-cry; they were an accusation weighted with years. Itsuki swallowed. “Suzu, please… we don’t have to do this.” A brittle laugh escaped Suzu. She lifted a hand; red filaments spider-webbed across the ground. “We did this the moment everyone decided I was a plague.” Images flashed through Itsuki’s mind, muddy roads of their village, children pulling away, mothers whispering warnings, Father’s hard eyes whenever Suzu’s power slipped. Old helplessness tightened her chest. Behind her, Rei pulled up short, assessing. Yoshinori caught Rei’s sleeve. “Wait,” he murmured. “Let them speak.” Suzu’s shoulders twitched, as though shrugging off invisible hands. “They feared the blood. Father tried to chain it, to make me safe. All he did was teach it to feed on fear.” She paced a half-circle, keeping distance yet never breaking eye-contact. “I thought running would help. Two years on the road, guild badges and empty hostels, lonely, but free. I told myself I’d come back once I proved I could control it.” Her voice softened, almost wistful. “A month ago I did return. You weren’t home. Mother cried when she saw me, Father did not. He said it would’ve been better if I’d stayed vanished forever… that you were ruining yourself trying to find me.” A tremor shook her scythe. “Something inside me snapped. The blood heard his words. It boiled, literally.” She tapped her temple; fresh rivulets seeped, then re-absorbed. “His eyes… ears… mouth. Mother beat at me, begging me to stop.” Suzu’s tone cracked like thin ice. “I ended it quickly, for both of them.” Gasps rippled behind Itsuki. Suzu continued, voice hollow. “The village screamed monster. Maybe they were right. I spared none of them. When dawn came, only silence remained.” Itsuki’s knees buckled. Tears spilled unchecked, her golden aura flickering charcoal gray. “You… killed them? All of them?” Her voice broke; grief, horror, and guilt spiraled together. Power skittered uncontrolled from her palms, everyone felt the temperature dip. Suzu met her gaze, eyes shining with a grief as raw as Itsuki’s. “Light and rot don’t share the same heart,” she whispered. “I ran again so you’d never have to see this, so the dark wouldn’t touch you too.” Itsuki pressed trembling hands to her chest, breath hitching as darkness lapped at her own spirit. A shadow crept through her golden glow, threatening to snuff it out. “No,” she breathed, but her voice broke, thin as cracked glass. The golden aura that had always wrapped her like morning sun twisted, dark veins of midnight streaking through it. It throbbed outward in ragged pulses, hot and savage, as if something feral inside her had scented blood and was clawing to get free. Sand scudded away from her feet; the air hissed where the wild energy met it, warping light into trembling shadows. For an instant her eyes burned amber-red, mirroring the corruption already devouring Suzu, before flickering back. One more heartbeat of grief, one more ounce of guilt, and that rising demon-heat would tear the light from her completely. Shunjiro sprinted the last few steps and dropped to his knees in front of Itsuki. Her aura still spat erratic tongues of black-gold fire, the sand hissing where it touched. Without hesitation he seized her hands, heat lanced up his arms, but he refused to let go. “Please, Itsuki!” His voice cut through the ringing in her ears like a bell. “Don’t let the fear take you! We are here with you, all of us!” The words, simple, raw, spoken with the whole weight of his faith, threaded into her like stitching. She blinked, and through the shimmer of unshed tears saw the circle that had formed: Yoshinori braced and sparking like a living lightning-rod; Aiko and Ryuji shoulder-to-shoulder, battered yet unbowed; Tetsuo half-crouched, stone plates creeping over his fists; even Daichi, wind whipping around him, holding a broken rib as he nodded grim encouragement. She breathed. Once, twice. The raven streaks in her light shuddered, then recoiled, peeling back toward her core. Not gone, but leashed. “I’m… I’m here,” she managed, squeezing Shunjiro’s hands. “Thank you.” Behind them, Suzu’s blood-scythe sang as it re-formed, crimson drops spiralling upward to the blade like iron filings to a magnet. The elder sister watched the scene with unreadable eyes, sorrow, envy, and fury mixing in equal measure. A dozen paces away Yoshinori gathered the others, voice pitched low but urgent. “We need a plan, now,” he snapped, mind racing through probabilities. “She can launch those blood pillars anywhere there’s moisture, we keep moving, don’t give her a stationary target.” Aiko nodded, wiping grit from her cheek. “And if she tries to spear another friend, I swap the target or the pillar, whichever’s easier.” Ryuji inhaled shakily, flexing his hardened forearms. “I’ll screen the front line, stone skin and brute force. Tetsuo, back me up?” “Thought you’d never ask,” Tetsuo rumbled, lips quirking despite the bruise blooming over his eye. Daichi straightened, wind spiralling at his feet. “I’ll shear off anything that flies too close. Buy you windows.” Above them, Rei hovered on a platform of telekinetic debris. She met Yoshinori’s gaze and dipped her chin, a silent pact of shared command. “Titans on overwatch,” she called. “The moment you create an opening, we hit together.” Suzu lifted her free hand and closed it into a fist. The blood in the shattered street answered, rippling toward her like a crimson tide. “Still you cling to them, little light,” she murmured, voice as soft as falling ash yet carrying across the square. “What will you do when they break beneath you?” Itsuki drew a shuddering breath and stepped forward, Shunjiro at her side. Tears still carved silver tracks down her cheeks, but her aura now glowed a steadier gold. “I’m going to save you, Suzu,” she whispered, promise and plea entwined. Shunjiro tightened his grip on her hand, turning so Suzu could see the fire in his eyes. “We won’t let the darkness win, Itsuki. We got this.”