For a brief moment after Itsuki’s declaration, neither sister moved.
The ruined battlefield stretched around them beneath the crimson dome overhead. Every building that had once stood in this section of the Coastal Kingdom was gone. Rei’s ultimate attack and Suzu’s Blood Sickles had reduced the area to little more than flooded streets, broken stone, and scattered debris. Water drifted quietly through the destruction while everyone watching waited to see who would make the first move.
Suzu moved first.
The instant her foot touched the water, she disappeared.
Itsuki’s eyes widened.
A blood blade carved through the space where her head had been only a fraction of a second earlier. She twisted her body sideways, narrowly avoiding the strike as the blade continued past her and sliced through the flooded street behind her. Stone exploded upward. Water erupted into the air.
Suzu was already attacking again.
A second blade formed from her wrist.
Then a third.
Then a fourth.
The weapons shot toward Itsuki from every direction.
Itsuki spun her staff and released a burst of black energy. The projectiles shattered instantly, exploding into crimson mist before they could reach her. She stepped forward through the spray and swung her staff directly at Suzu’s shoulder.
Suzu blocked.
The collision created a shockwave that blasted water outward in every direction.
Daichi’s eyes widened.
Rei stared.
The impact alone had been stronger than anything they had witnessed during their own battle against the Blood Witch.
Itsuki pushed forward.
Suzu pushed back.
For a moment the two remained locked together.
Then Suzu smiled.
Blood exploded from beneath the floodwater.
Spears.
Dozens of them.
Itsuki leapt backward as crimson spikes erupted from the ground beneath her feet. Several still managed to strike her. One pierced her shoulder. Another cut across her side.
Pain exploded through her body.
Immediately golden healing energy flowed through her wounds.
The damage began closing.
Itsuki didn’t hesitate.
The battlefield vanished beneath a blur of movement.
Staff met blood blade.
Blade met staff.
Shockwaves rolled across the flooded streets while water exploded upward with every collision.
The speed alone made it difficult to follow.
To everyone watching, the fight looked impossible.
Itsuki wasn’t merely surviving.
She was keeping up.
A realization slowly settled over Daichi.
Itsuk’s speed was on a different level.
Another blast of black energy erupted from Itsuki’s staff.
Suzu crossed her arms.
Blood surged upward to defend her.
The beam punched through it.
The barrier shattered.
The attack continued forward and tore directly through Suzu’s shoulder.
Blood exploded outward.
The force sent Suzu skidding backward across the flooded street.
Suzu looked surprised.
Her eyes dropped toward her shoulder.
A chunk of flesh was simply gone. Normally the wound would have healed instantly, but nothing happened. It remained exactly as it was while blood dripped steadily into the floodwater below.
Suzu’s eyes narrowed.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
The wound should have healed.
Instead, it remained open.
Blood dripped steadily into the floodwater below.
Across the battlefield, Rei felt her stomach tighten.
She understood immediately.
Itsuki could kill her.
The realization sent a chill through everyone watching.
Itsuki didn’t allow Suzu time to think.
She attacked again.
Black energy erupted from her staff in rapid succession.
Beam after beam crossed the battlefield.
Suzu dodged.
The first narrowly missed.
The second tore through her side.
The third blasted through her thigh.
They refused to heal.
Suzu felt something she hadn’t felt in a very long time.
Danger.
The butterfly resting within Itsuki’s hair glowed softly.
Power continued flowing through her body.
More than before.
Itsuki could feel it.
The energy wasn’t hers.
She knew that.
She knew she would pay for it later.
She didn’t care.
Not if it brought Suzu back.
Their battle intensified.
Suzu suddenly thrust both hands outward.
The floodwater throughout the battlefield began to shake.
At first, Itsuki thought it was another blood construct.
Then the water turned red.
Every drop of blood scattered throughout the battlefield answered Suzu’s call. Blood from her own wounds, blood left behind by previous attacks, blood soaked into shattered stone, and blood mixed into the floodwater all rose together.
The entire battlefield transformed.
Crimson tides surged upward from every direction.
The waves towered overhead like walls.
Thirty feet.
Forty feet.
Fifty.
Daichi’s eyes widened.
The amount of blood was absurd.
It shouldn’t have been possible.
Yet Suzu stood at the center of it all, controlling the massive waves as though they were extensions of her own body.
Then the waves crashed forward.
The battlefield disappeared beneath a sea of crimson.
Each wave carried enough force to flatten what remained of an entire city block.
Itsuki immediately understood.
Dodging wasn’t an option.
There was nowhere to run.
Nowhere to hide.
Black energy erupted from her staff.
The beam shot forward like a spear of darkness.
It struck the center of the first wave.
For a brief moment, the blood resisted.
Then the wave split apart.
The beam carved through it from top to bottom, dividing the massive wall of blood clean down the middle. Thousands of gallons exploded outward on both sides of Itsuki, crashing back into the floodwater with enough force to shake the battlefield.
A second wave followed.
Then a third.
Then a fourth.
Suzu wasn’t stopping.
Itsuki planted her feet and fired again.
Beam after beam crossed the battlefield.
Each strike carved through another crimson tidal wave.
The scene looked impossible.
Massive walls of blood rose into the sky only to be cut apart moments later by streaks of black energy. Red and black collided continuously above the battlefield while blood rained down in every direction.
Rei stared in disbelief.
Daichi couldn’t look away.
The amount of power being thrown around had surpassed anything they had witnessed since arriving in the Coastal Kingdom.
By the time the final wave collapsed, the battlefield looked like it had been struck by a natural disaster.
Yet Itsuki remained standing.
And Suzu was already preparing her next attack.
Blood churned beneath the floodwater.
Then shapes began rising from it.
At first they looked human.
Then they kept growing.
Crimson bodies pulled themselves from the flooded streets one after another. Some resembled wolves with elongated limbs and rows of jagged teeth formed entirely from hardened blood. Others stood on two legs like twisted predators, their bodies covered in spikes that continuously shifted and reformed. One emerged larger than the rest, nearly twice the height of a man, its massive frame dripping blood back into the water below while dozens of glowing crimson eyes opened across its body.
The creatures didn’t hesitate.
The moment they fully formed, they charged.
The floodwater exploded beneath them as they rushed toward Itsuki from every direction.
Daichi’s eyes widened.
Even he could feel the pressure radiating from them.
These weren’t mindless constructs.
They moved with purpose.
With coordination.
Like a hunting pack.
One of the wolves reached Itsuki first. Its jaws opened wide enough to swallow her entire upper body before snapping shut.
A beam of black energy erupted from her staff.
The wolf vanished instantly.
There was no explosion.
No struggle.
The construct simply ceased to exist.
The beam continued forward, tearing through three more beasts before disappearing into the distance.
The remaining creatures attacked together.
Itsuki planted her staff against the flooded street.
Black energy exploded outward from her body.
The shockwave expanded across the battlefield in every direction.
Every blood beast caught within it shattered.
Some burst apart.
Others dissolved completely.
Several were simply erased as if they had never existed at all.
Within seconds, nothing remained.
Only crimson rain falling back into the floodwater.
For the first time, Suzu’s eyes narrowed.
These constructs had overwhelmed entire squads of adventurers before.
Itsuki had destroyed them in a single exchange.
Suzu suddenly raised one hand toward the crimson barrier overhead.
The blood covering the sky began to move.
At first, nobody understood what they were looking at.
Then the barrier started spiraling.
Thousands upon thousands of gallons of blood rotated above the battlefield, forming a massive vortex that stretched across the entire dome. The pressure alone caused the floodwater below to tremble.
Rei’s eyes widened.
Daichi slowly looked upward.
“What the hell…”
The vortex tightened, compressed, and condensed into a single point.
The sky groaned.
Then a spear emerged.
It dwarfed every attack she had used so far.
The weapon stretched hundreds of feet into the air, resembling a colossal crimson stake hanging above the battlefield. Veins of black corruption crawled along its surface while razor-sharp edges spiraled around its length.
Its tip pointed directly toward Itsuki.
The pressure radiating from it was overwhelming.
Even standing far away, Daichi could feel his instincts screaming at him to run.
Suzu lowered her hand.
The spear fell.
The world seemed to shake.
Air screamed around the descending weapon.
The floodwater below was pushed outward from the force alone, exposing portions of the ruined streets beneath.
Everything in its path began to break apart.
Stone shattered.
Debris exploded.
The attack descended like divine punishment.
Itsuki looked up.
For a brief moment, the spear filled her entire vision.
Then black energy erupted from her body.
The butterfly glowed brightly.
Itsuki stepped forward.
Her staff rose.
The moment the spear entered striking distance, she swung.
A crescent of black energy erupted from the tip of her staff travelling upward.
The attack looked tiny compared to the massive spear, almost insignificant at first glance.
Then they collided.
For one impossible second, everything stopped.
Then the spear split apart.
A crack raced through the center of the massive weapon from tip to base. The fracture spread instantly, dividing the colossal construct clean down the middle.
The entire spear exploded.
Blood erupted across the sky.
The shockwave that followed shook the battlefield hard enough to send waves rolling across the flooded streets.
Crimson rain poured from above.
Itsuki lowered her staff.
Across the battlefield, Daichi could only watch in stunned silence.
The attack Suzu had just unleashed would have annihilated most S-rank adventurers.
Itsuki had destroyed it with a single swing.
The butterfly continued glowing, and with every passing minute Itsuki became stronger, faster, and more dangerous. Suzu’s eyes kept returning to the ornament in her hair.
She didn’t understand what it was.
She only knew it was connected.
Then the whispers began.
At first they were distant.
Almost impossible to notice.
A faint thought drifting through the back of her mind.
They hated you.
Suzu ignored it.
The battle continued.
A blood blade carved across Itsuki’s stomach.
Healing energy immediately repaired the damage.
Itsuki countered with another beam.
The attack blasted through Suzu’s chest.
Still no healing.
Still no regeneration.
The whispers returned.
Louder this time.
They always hated you.
Suzu frowned.
The voice sounded familiar.
Like her own thoughts.
Like old memories.
Like pain.
Itsuki rushed forward and drove her staff directly into Suzu’s ribs.
Bone cracked.
Suzu staggered.
The voice continued.
She’ll leave too.
Just like everyone else.
Destroy it.
Destroy everything.
Suzu’s breathing became uneven.
The corruption surrounding her body thickened.
Black energy leaked from her skin.
Itsuki noticed immediately.
So did Shunjiro.
His stomach dropped.
The sight dragged memories from the Shadow Elf Dungeon to the surface.
Something terrible was happening.
Suzu vanished.
She reappeared directly behind Itsuki.
A blood blade descended toward her neck.
Itsuki spun and blocked at the last possible moment.
The collision shook the battlefield.
Water exploded outward.
For several seconds they remained locked together.
Face to face.
Eye to eye.
Then Suzu spoke.
“Itsuki…”
The word was barely audible.
Itsuki froze.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
For a split second she saw her sister again.
Not the Blood Witch.
Not the monster.
Suzu.
Then the corruption surged.
Black energy exploded from Suzu’s body.
The whispers became a roar.
They left you.
They hated you.
Destroy everything.
Destroy everything.
Destroy everything.
Suzu’s eyes widened.
Then slowly lost focus.
The hesitation, sadness, and conflict all vanished at once.
When she looked back at Itsuki, there was nothing left inside her gaze except pure, unrestrained violence.
Itsuki’s heart sank.
“Suzu…”
No response.
The Blood Witch raised her hand.
Blood erupted from every direction.
The floodwater itself seemed to come alive as massive crimson constructs emerged around her.
Dozens of them.
Hundreds.
Each one pointed directly toward Itsuki.
Itsuki tightened her grip around her staff.
Then something caught her eye.
The butterfly’s wings.
For the first time since the battle began, the darkness around them seemed thinner.
Fainter.
Almost transparent.
Only for a moment.
Only a tiny change.
But Itsuki noticed.
And she understood.
This power wasn’t infinite.
The realization settled heavily inside her chest.
Then she looked back toward Suzu.
Toward her sister.
Toward the monster standing where her sister should have been.
Itsuki lowered her stance.
Black energy gathered around her staff.
The butterfly glowed once more.
And the next phase of the battle began.
The moment Suzu’s gaze emptied, the battle changed.
Before, there had been emotion behind every movement. Rage, grief, resentment, hesitation, even the faintest trace of pain had shaped the way she fought. Her attacks had been brutal, but they had still belonged to a person. Now there was no person left guiding them. The Blood Witch moved like a weapon released from its sheath, silent and absolute, with nothing in her eyes except the need to destroy whatever stood before her.
Itsuki felt the difference immediately.
Suzu’s hand lowered.
The crimson constructs fired.
Hundreds of blood lances tore through the air at once, each one sharpened to a needle point and coated in a dark aura that made the space around them tremble. Itsuki planted her staff against the flooded street and released a wide pulse of black energy. The first wave of lances disintegrated before reaching her, but the second wave followed so quickly that several slipped through. One pierced her thigh. Another tore across her shoulder. A third carved through her side deep enough to make her breath hitch.
Golden healing energy moved through her body instantly.
The wounds began closing before her blood could fully spill into the water.
Itsuki gritted her teeth and pushed forward.
She could not stop.
Black energy gathered at the tip of her staff before firing in a concentrated beam. The attack ripped through the remaining lances and struck Suzu directly in the stomach, carving a clean hole through her body. Suzu’s body folded from the impact, but she did not cry out. She did not look down. She did not even appear to register the damage. Instead, blood erupted from the wound itself and hardened into jagged hooks that shot toward Itsuki while still connected to Suzu’s body.
Itsuki twisted away from the first hook and deflected the second with her staff, but the third caught her by the arm and dragged her forward.
Suzu was already there.
A blade of blood formed along her forearm and swept for Itsuki’s neck.
Itsuki ducked beneath it and drove her knee into Suzu’s ribs, then slammed her staff upward into her chin. Black energy burst from the point of impact, throwing Suzu backward and tearing away part of her jaw. The wound should have been fatal to most people. Even Suzu’s regeneration should have struggled for a moment.
But Suzu only landed on her feet.
Her head tilted slightly.
The torn flesh did not heal.
It simply remained open.
That somehow made her look less human.
Rei watched from where Daichi supported her, her exhausted eyes wide with disbelief. She had seen high-ranked adventurers fight before. She had fought beside the Titans for years. She understood what S-rank power looked like, how it moved, how it pressured the air and distorted a battlefield around itself. This was different. Itsuki was not fighting like someone climbing toward Suzu’s level. She was already there, standing inside that impossible realm as though some unseen force had dragged her beyond the limits she was supposed to have.
Daichi could barely speak.
The girl who had once stood behind others with a healer’s staff was now clashing head-on with the monster who had destroyed them.
Shunjiro watched with his stomach twisting tighter by the second.
Everyone else looked stunned.
He looked afraid.
He remembered the Shadow Elf Dungeon. Not perfectly. Not clearly. But he remembered enough. He remembered Itsuki waking after a week of sleep. He remembered the feeling that something impossible had happened and that nobody fully understood the cost. Now he was watching that same impossible power return, only stronger, darker, and far more terrifying than before.
Itsuki rushed forward again.
Suzu met her with a storm of blades.
Blood weapons formed and shattered around them in constant succession. Swords, sickles, spears, hooked claws, and curved knives all emerged from Suzu’s arms, shoulders, back, and even the floodwater at her feet. Itsuki spun her staff in both hands, deflecting what she could while blasting apart the rest. Each time one of Suzu’s attacks cut her, golden energy immediately sealed the wound. Each time one of Itsuki’s attacks landed, Suzu’s body failed to recover.
That difference began to matter.
A beam from Itsuki tore through Suzu’s left arm and severed it at the elbow. The arm fell into the floodwater with a splash, but no replacement formed. Suzu turned sharply, blood surging from her back into several tendrils that lashed toward Itsuki like living whips. Itsuki leapt over the first two, smashed the third aside with her staff, and fired downward while still in the air. The beam cut through the tendrils and blasted Suzu into the flooded street hard enough to split the stone beneath the water.
Suzu rose immediately.
The missing arm hung uselessly from the elbow down, blood dripping from the stump.
Still she advanced. Not slower, not carefully, and not even defensively. She simply came forward.
The voice inside her mind pressed harder.
They leave. They always leave. They fear you. They hate you. Destroy them before they turn away.
Suzu’s remaining hand clenched.
Blood throughout the battlefield answered.
The floodwater around Itsuki turned dark red all at once.
Itsuki felt the danger a moment too late.
The blood beneath her feet hardened.
It crawled up her legs like chains.
She tried to pull free, but the hardened blood tightened around her calves and thighs. Suzu moved in the same instant, crossing the distance between them with terrifying speed. A spear formed from her remaining arm and drove straight toward Itsuki’s chest.
Itsuki’s eyes widened.
Black energy exploded from her body.
The restraints shattered.
She turned the spear aside at the last second, but it still cut across her ribs and tore through her side. Pain flared white-hot through her body. Healing energy rushed to close the wound, but for the first time, the healing felt slightly slower.
Itsuki noticed.
So did Shunjiro.
The butterfly in her hair pulsed once and its glow flickered, subtle enough to be mistaken for light catching against its wings. Itsuki felt it anyway.
The energy feeding her body wavered.
Her grip tightened around her staff.
Suzu attacked again before Itsuki could recover fully. Blood erupted into a circular ring around them, then split into dozens of rotating blades that spun faster and faster until the air screamed around them. Itsuki fired a beam through the ring, shattering it, stepping inside Suzu’s guard.
Her staff slammed into Suzu’s chest.
The impact released a blast of black energy that blew Suzu backward and tore open her torso from collarbone to stomach.
The wound was horrific.
Suzu’s ribs showed beneath torn flesh.
Yet she landed upright and kept moving.
Itsuki’s stomach turned.
This was no longer her sister, nor even the broken woman who had asked if Itsuki hated her. It was something wearing Suzu’s face because there was still enough of Suzu left to move.
The realization nearly stole Itsuki’s breath.
Suzu raised her hand toward the sky.
Blood gathered above the battlefield again, but this time it did not form a spear. It spread outward into a massive web of crimson threads that stretched across the air like a net. Each thread vibrated with lethal pressure, thin enough to be nearly invisible and sharp enough to slice through stone.
Rei’s eyes widened.
“Move,” she whispered, though she had no strength to make the warning louder.
Itsuki moved.
The web descended.
The ruined battlefield was carved apart beneath it. Floodwater split into countless sections. Broken stone slid apart in clean lines. Debris that had survived every previous attack fell into pieces as the threads cut through everything they touched.
Itsuki fired upward.
The first beam erased a section of the web.
The second widened the gap.
The third opened just enough space for her to pass through.
She launched herself upward with spiritual energy reinforcing her legs and passed through the opening as the threads closed behind her. Several sliced across her back and arms, but she kept moving. Golden light flowed over the wounds. Black energy gathered at her staff.
Suzu looked up.
Itsuki descended.
The staff struck Suzu’s shoulder with a thunderous crack.
Black energy erupted from the blow and drove Suzu into the ground. The entire street cratered beneath them. Floodwater exploded upward and rained back down as mist. Suzu’s body bounced once against the shattered stone before Itsuki fired another beam point-blank into her chest.
The beam carried Suzu backward across the battlefield, dragging her through the floodwater and carving a trench through what remained of the street. It ended only when she slammed into a broken stone foundation at the far edge of the district.
For a moment, Suzu did not rise.
Itsuki landed unsteadily, breathing hard.
Her hands trembled around the staff.
The butterfly flickered again.
This time the edges of its wings became faint.
Transparent.
Itsuki felt cold spread through her chest.
She knew what that meant.
The power was fading.
Whatever had brought her this far was beginning to disappear.
She stared across the battlefield at Suzu’s broken body and tried to force herself to move, but her legs felt heavier than before. The healing energy inside her body continued working, but it no longer surged as freely. Every injury she had taken was still there beneath the surface, waiting for the borrowed strength to vanish.
Suzu’s fingers twitched.
Blood pulled her upward, not naturally and not like a person standing.
Her limbs jerked into place like a puppet being lifted by strings. One arm was missing below the elbow. Her torso remained torn open. Part of her jaw was still gone. Black corruption leaked from every wound in slow twisting streams.
Her eyes fixed on Itsuki.
There was no recognition, hesitation, or pain left in her eyes. Only hunger, violence, and the command to destroy.
The voice inside her mind became indistinguishable from thought itself.
Break her. Break the one who still loves you. Break the world that made you beg to be loved. Break everything until nothing can leave you again.
Suzu opened her mouth, but no words came out.
Instead, blood erupted.
It poured from the ground, from her wounds, from the floodwater, from every crimson remnant scattered across the battlefield. The blood gathered behind her in a colossal mass that twisted and folded into shape. Wings formed first, enormous and jagged. Then arms. Then a faceless head crowned with spikes. The construct towered behind Suzu like a blood-born giant, its body constantly shifting as if it could barely hold itself together.
Itsuki stared at it.
The butterfly in her hair flickered a third time.
Shunjiro saw it from across the battlefield.
His heart dropped.
“Itsuki,” he whispered.
The giant raised one arm as Suzu mirrored the motion perfectly.
The construct brought its fist down.
Itsuki fired.
A massive beam of black energy tore upward from her staff and struck the descending fist. The collision split the air. The fist began to unravel under the beam, but the force behind it continued pressing downward. Itsuki’s knees bent. The flooded street cracked beneath her feet.
She poured more energy into the attack.
The butterfly glowed brighter for one final moment.
The beam widened.
The giant’s arm shattered completely.
Itsuki drove forward through the falling blood and closed the distance between herself and Suzu. The giant tried to reform. Suzu tried to move. Itsuki was faster. She appeared in front of her sister and swung her staff with everything she had.
The strike connected with Suzu’s side.
Black energy exploded outward.
Suzu’s body folded around the impact and flew across the battlefield, crashing through the remains of the blood giant before slamming into the flooded street. The construct collapsed behind her, raining blood across the ruins.
Itsuki stood in the center of the crimson rain, breathing hard, staff lowered slightly.
Across from her, Suzu slowly rose again.
There was no expression, no words, and no trace of the sister Itsuki remembered.
The butterfly’s glow dimmed.
Itsuki felt the power inside her begin to slip away in small, terrifying pieces.