Shunjiro lay unmoving in a widening pool of crimson. Itsuki knelt beside him, her fingers pressed desperately to the place where Suzu’s blade had carved through muscle and bone. She had nothing left to give, no light, no healing whisper of spirit. All she could do was sob, hot tears striking his tunic as the glow faded from his half-lidded eyes. “Come back… please come back,” she pleaded, but the steady pulse beneath her fingertips was gone. Somewhere behind her the clash of battle roared on. Tetsuo’s stone-shod fists meeting whipping streams of blood, Yoshinori’s lightning tearing crimson arcs through the smoky night, but the noise felt distant, muffled by the hollow ringing in her ears. First Mother and Father… the village… now you. Itsuki bowed until her forehead pressed against Shunjiro’s chest. “You always said to keep smiling,” she whispered, voice breaking. “But it’s too damn hard when someone this special… just stops.” Heavy footfalls crunched the rubble at her back. Ryuji, his torso bandaged in makeshift strips of Yuki’s ice-slick cloth, sank to one knee. Blood seeped at his ribs; every breath was a wince. “Itsuki,” he said softly, “let me see.” She shifted aside. Ryuji’s hardened fingers traced the wound and froze. Something rough and granular clung to the torn flesh, sand, but darker, almost metallic. A grain slid under his nail and moved, knitting the tissue like a living thread. “What in the-? Look!” he hissed. Itsuki blinked through her tears. The grains clustered, weaving the rent muscle together stitch by stitch. Panic flickered to wonder. “Aira!” The water-healer staggered over, face ashen, palms trembling with exhaustion. Still, she summoned the last trickle of azure light, sluicing clean water across the wound. The grains drank it, swelled, and spun faster until the gash drew closed with a soft hiss, leaving smooth, unscarred skin. Itsuki’s breath hitched. She pressed to Shunjiro’s neck again, nothing. Then, a tremor. A second pulse, faint but real. His chest rose once… twice… Shunjiro’s eyes snapped open, his startled eyes meeting her tear-blurred eyes. “What, what happened?” he rasped. “You… you healed yourself,” Itsuki stammered. “The cut is gone.” Emotion warred with relief in her voice. “I thought I lost you.” Shunjiro pushed up on an elbow; pain crackled through every limb, but he was whole. “No idea,” he muttered. “Sand?” He flexed sticky fingers and saw flecks of the dark grains scatter like tiny embers before dissolving into dust. Aira slumped back on her heels, awe and exhaustion mingling. “Whatever it is, it saved your life. I’m spent, can’t analyze it now.” Shunjiro turned and saw, beyond the broken colonnade, Yoshinori’s lightning and Tetsuo’s stone fists still battling Suzu’s blood storm. Sora’s fist flashed; Yuki’s ice shields shattered under crimson sickles. They were buying seconds, and paying dearly. Shunjiro tried to stand; his legs buckled. Itsuki caught him, wrapping an arm around his waist. She had no spirit left, yet her resolve burned bright. “We’ll get you to cover.” “No,” he wheezed, eyes locking on the fray. “They need everyone. Even if I’m crawling.” Ryuji forced a crooked grin despite the red blooming through his bandage. “Then we crawl together, boss.” He hauled Shunjiro’s other side over his shoulder. Itsuki wiped her cheeks, smudging dirt across her face. The grief was still there, parents, village, sister, but the tiny, impossible miracle beating beneath her hand steadied her heart. For now, hope outweighed despair. Behind them the red dome pulsed like a slow heartbeat. Ahead, Suzu’s laughter shredded the night. Suzu’s scythe swept in crimson arcs, painting the air with humming blades. Yoshinori skidded sideways on a surge of lightning, barely keeping ahead of the raking strikes; sparks flashed where blood met static. Sora darted opposite him, every punch met by a congealed shield that rippled then re-knit. Aiko swapped herself and Sora in rapid feints, trying to open an angle for Yuki’s freezing bursts, but nothing stuck, Suzu flowed like liquid malice, blocking, countering, laughing. Daichi rode a gust overhead and hurled compressed lances of wind. They splintered against a dome of coagulated blood, tiny victories evaporating in red mist. “She’s learning our timing!” he shouted down, voice raw. Tetsuo answered with a granite-skinned roar, hammering forward through the rubble, fists the size of boulders. “Then I’ll change the rhythm!” He slammed both palms into the earth, stone pillars erupting toward Suzu’s knees. Suzu’s eyes flicked, one heartbeat of appraisal, then her scythe snapped in a downward whip. A ribbon-thin crescent of blood shot outward. Everyone else saw it too late. The slash traced a perfect line across Tetsuo’s face, cheekbone to temple, so clean it seemed drawn by a razor of glass. A breath passed. Then blood geysered. Tetsuo’s pupil rolled white; the mountain of a man toppled like felled timber, thudding into the dust. Crimson flooded over stone-hardened skin, pooling beneath his motionless form. “Tetsuo!” Aiko’s scream cracked. All movement stalled. Sora froze mid-step; Yuki’s next wave of ice fizzled at her palms. Even Yoshinori’s lightning guttered, the crackle dying in stunned silence. Across the clearing, Ryuji, Itsuki and Aira had just half-dragged, half-carried Shunjiro into view. They arrived in time to witness the strike, the fall, the spreading red. Ryuji’s grip on Shunjiro tightened until knuckles blanched. “Not him too…” Aira’s breath hitched, eyes tearing despite exhaustion. She shifted, instinctively stepping forward before remembering she had nothing left to heal with. Itsuki’s reaction was a wordless sound, part sob, part growl. All the grief she’d dammed burst behind her eyes: parents dead, village slaughtered, Shunjiro nearly cleaved in half…and now Suzu had carved down the guild’s steadfast giant. Fury eclipsed fear; her aura flared, a quake of light trembling on the edge of unraveling. Suzu’s lips curved in a cruel crescent. She twirled the scythe once, blood droplets fanning like rubies. “One by one,” she whispered, voice carrying across the shattered courtyard. “Is the little light ready to watch the rest fall?” Yoshinori’s lightning roared back to life, arcs snapping off rubble as rage steadied his limbs. Sora set his stance beside him. Yuki inhaled through clenched teeth, ice blooming anew at her fingertips. Aiko blinked, tears drying into steel. Tetsuo still lay where he’d fallen, but his friends stood over him. And two dozen paces away, Shunjiro pushed off Ryuji’s shoulder, teeth gritted, eyes locked on Suzu with a fire that sand and blood could not quench. The battle was no longer about victory. It was about not letting another friend hit the ground. 5:55 am. A thunder-crack tore the morning wide open. Stone vibrated, loose timbers rattled, and every fighter, friend and foe, flinched as a pulse of raw force rippled overhead. All heads lifted. The red vault that had smothered the coast since nightfall shattered like stained glass struck by a hammer. Great fissures of pale light raced across its surface, then the barrier collapsed inward, folding on itself with a low boom that echoed out to sea. What remained drifted away as glowing cinders. For a heartbeat the heavens were empty, painfully blue. Then it began to rain. Scarlet drops spattered the broken streets, thick, metallic, unmistakable. Roof Tiles glistened dark; fires hissed out beneath the ruddy shower. In seconds every survivor stood soaked, garments clinging and crimson rivulets running down cracked masonry. The sky seemed to weep the very blood Suzu had spilled. Suzu’s shriek split the hush. “Who dares?!” Her voice, raw, frantic, reverberated off ruined walls. Eyes blazing, she whirled, searching the horizons as if expecting a titan to stride through the mist. Shock flickered across every exhausted face. “The barrier’s down,” Aiko breathed, wiping the red drizzle from her lashes. Resolve sparked behind the fatigue in her eyes. “This could be our chance to end this.” Yet doubt crept in with her next breath. But who could break something that strong? She glanced toward Yoshinori, Tetsuo’s prone form, even the distant edge of the square, wondering which unseen ally had answered their desperation. Shunjiro, still leaning on Ryuji, felt the pulse of freed spiritual pressure surge through him like fresh air after drowning. “Whoever it was,” he rasped, “they just leveled the field. We can’t waste it.” Yuki let the crimson rain pool in her palm, freezing into a shard of ruby ice. “Let’s make that chance count,” she said quietly, eyes sharpening. Daichi wiped his soaked fringe aside, wind coiling at his heels. “Barrier gone means reinforcements can arrive,” he muttered, half-hopeful, half-grim. “We only have to hold her until then, or finish it ourselves.” Across the rubble Suzu’s blood scythe flared brighter, fed by rage rather than confidence. The spell that had caged the coast was broken; the field of war had widened. Lightning crackled anew along Yoshinori’s arms, and Aiko’s gaze met his, an unspoken pact settling between them. Crimson rain hammered down, drumming a battle cadence on shattered stone. The endgame had begun. The blood-rain hissed against a new ripple of power. From the clearing smoke a lone silhouette emerged, boots crunching across shattered cobblestones. A long cloak snapped in the coastal wind; with every stride the stranger’s presence rolled ahead like distant thunder, bending the scarlet drizzle away from his shoulders. Guild members braced, exhausted nerves stretching to the breaking point. “Who are you?” Sora barked, planting himself between the figure and Aiko. Even drained, his stance readied to spring; his right fist clenched, the left already hardening. The newcomer halted at the fringe of the ruined plaza, lifted a gloved hand, and brushed his hood back. Silver-blue hair, wind-tossed yet unmistakable, framed a familiar, steely gaze. “K-Kaito…” Sora’s voice cracked, equal parts disbelief and relief. Every fighter still standing seemed to exhale at once. The Gilded Blade captain swept the scene in a heartbeat, Shunjiro blood-soaked but breathing, Yoshinori crackling with stray lightning, Tetsuo fallen, Suzu a vortex of crimson fury. His jaw tightened. “I left Radiance the second reports of the Shore Reaver reached headquarters,” Kaito said, tone clipped with urgency. “When I arrived the entire coast was sealed behind that blood barrier.” He lifted his sheathed katana, fresh crimson flecks still sizzling on the steel cap. “It took… persuasion to carve a breach.” Aiko half-laughed, half-sobbed. “Of course it did. You always break the impossible.” “Save the praise.” Kaito’s eyes never left Suzu, who regarded the newcomer with thin-lipped curiosity. “She’s still at full killing intent, and you’re running on fumes. One mistake more and we lose everything.” He stepped forward, aura flaring, a silver corona slicing the falling red droplets before they could touch him. “Suzu the butcher of West-Ridge, the blood witch who razed eight villages.” His voice carried across the ruined square, cold and formal. “Classified SSS threat. By authority of the Gilded Blades, I, Kaito, will take you into custody.” Suzu’s grin widened, the blood scythe swivelling to greet this new challenger. “Another hero to bleed dry,” she hissed. Behind Kaito, Aiko and the others steadied themselves, drawing what strength remained. Crimson rain continued to fall, but now it pattered against the unyielding ring of steel Kaito held at the ready, promising a final reckoning still to come. Suzu’s fury only grew as she saw Kaito’s arrival. “This changes nothing!” she screamed, her voice dripping with venom. “You will all perish!” Kaito stepped forward, his own spiritual energy flaring in response to Suzu’s growing intensity. His presence was like a calm before the storm, his eyes sharp and unwavering. “Not today, Suzu. This ends here.” Kaito, his senses sharp and his body ready for action, met Suzu’s gaze. He could see the flicker of fear behind her rage, the recognition that for the first time, she might actually be outmatched. The final battle was about to begin. And this time, they would win.