Aiko steadied her breathing, forcing the rising panic back down her throat. Across the scarred plaza Reina stalked forward, every foot-fall leaving spider-webs of black rot that crackled across the stone before crumbling to grey dust. The woman’s bare right hand glistened with the same corruption, veins pulsing like ink beneath ice. Keep your distance. One brush and I’m finished. Aiko’s gaze flicked from toppled walls to shattered carts, anything she could trade places with if Reina lunged. She flexed her fingers, ready for the familiar pulse of her Swap. Reina halted five paces away, purple hair drifting in the sickly breeze. “Pretty little trick you used earlier,” she murmured, eyes gleaming. “But tricks won’t save you twice.” With a languid sweep of her arm she sent a sheet of decay racing along the ground, stone tiles bleaching, powdering, dying. Swap! Aiko’s mind screamed the command, she locked onto a nearby boulder, willing the transfer, but Reina’s corruption moved faster than thought. The edge of the wave licked up, brushing her cheek. Agony blazed. Aiko’s vision flashed white as flesh withered under the feather-touch of rot. It felt as though fire ants tunneled beneath her skin while ice needles stabbed the raw nerve beneath. The Swap completed half a heartbeat later; her body blinked away, re-materialising beside the boulder, but the damage was done. She gasped, stumbling to one knee. Her left hand flew to her face, meeting a landscape that no longer felt her own, rough, brittle, pitted. When her fingertips came away they were dusted with flakes the colour of charcoal. Reina’s smile widened, satisfied. “First lesson,” she purred, “rot is always quicker than fear.” Aiko forced herself upright, chest heaving. Tears stung her right eye; the scorched left rim would never tear again. She tasted copper, realised she’d bitten through her lip. Not now, Aiko. Don’t freeze. Pain is later. Fight is now. She swallowed the scream clawing up her throat and pivoted behind a broken pillar. With her good eye she tracked Reina’s measured approach, beads of black decay spreading with every step like ink in water. The chill in the air bit deeper, echoing the dead patch on her cheek. Aiko drew three throwing knives. In a blur she flung them, Swapped each blade mid-flight for chunks of jagged masonry. Stone appeared an arm’s length from Reina’s chest; she twisted aside, the blocks exploding against the plaza, but a shard grazed her shoulder, ripping cloak and skin alike. Reina hissed, more annoyed than hurt. “Second lesson,” she said, voice a low promise, “pain is patient. Yours has only begun.” Aiko’s knees trembled, yet she steadied her stance, hiding the tremor of shock coursing through her limbs. Face burning, heartbeat hammering, she kept her gaze locked on her enemy. You scarred me, fine. I’ll make sure you remember the girl you tried to break. Somewhere in the back of her mind a future self already recoiled at mirrors, already woke screaming from dreams of spreading blackness, but Aiko stuffed that thought into a box of steel. Right now, she was still fighting, and one mistake would be the last. She wiped flecks of blood from her chin, spat once, and raised her hands again. “Come on then,” she rasped, voice raw but unbroken. “Round two.” Yuki and Sora fanned out across the broken street, the damp morning air still flecked with crimson rain. Renjiro twirled his hell-scythe in loose, lazy circles, each revolution left a faint after-image of shadowy crimson, as though the blade itself remembered every soul it had claimed. Sora lunged first, fists wrapped in raw spirit. He struck with a flurry, jabs, knees, a spinning back-kick that would have felled a lesser fighter. Renjiro barely tilted his head. The kick sailed past. “Too slow.” Renjiro’s voice was a silk-smooth drawl. He flicked the scythe’s haft; the flat of the blade slapped Sora’s ribs, hurling him sideways like a doll. Sora skidded across gravel, coughing, but sprang back up, teeth bared. “Second hit’s mine,” he growled, ready to trigger his adaptation, only, deep down, he felt nothing lock in. The scythe’s aura was a gulf he couldn’t bridge. Can’t copy that… he’s way above me. Renjiro advanced with a single, elegant step. A crack of ice interrupted him. Yuki’s palm thrust forward, and a wall of translucent blue burst from the ground between Sora and the scythe. Renjiro’s slash met the barrier with a ringing, spider-web cracks racing through the frozen shield. A heartbeat later the ice shattered, but it bought Sora space to dive clear. “Stay sharp!” Yuki called, hoarfrost spiralling from her fingertips. Sora spat dust. “I had it!” “You were about to lose an arm and become corrupted,” she shot back, summoning twin lances of ice and hurling them in a cross pattern. Renjiro laughed, a low, pleasant sound completely at odds with the crimson aura swirling around him. He pivoted, the scythe carving an arc that shaved both lances into glittering powder. “Admirable timing,” he said, eyes gleaming beneath slicked-back hair. “But every rescue drains you a little more, Snowflake.” Yuki’s breath clouded in front of her. Frost crept over the ground, threading into an intricate sigil that pulsed beneath Renjiro’s boots. She snapped her fingers; icy spikes erupted upward. Renjiro vaulted, cloak flaring. Mid-air, his scythe dipped, one deliberate swipe severed three spikes and sent razor shards toward Sora. Sora darted sideways, deflecting what he could with forearms already bruised purple. Adapt, adapt! The shards still cut him; he was no closer to resistance. Yuki skidded to his flank, casting a sweeping crescent of sleet that chilled the shards into harmless snow. “Focus on openings, not brawling!” Sora nodded grimly. He juked left, feinted a right-hook, then drove a heel at Renjiro’s knee. The heel connected and did absolutely nothing. Renjiro’s leg didn’t budge. A backhand from the scythe’s shaft cracked Sora across the temple, sending him reeling. The hooked blade flashed toward his throat. “Not today!” Yuki shouted. She slammed both palms to the street; a geyser of ice surged up, locking around the scythe’s handle. Frost raced along the metal, trying to encase Renjiro’s hands. He merely exhaled. A pulse of dark spirit rippled down the haft and the ice exploded into white dust. “Your shield is impressive,” he mused, “but how many times can you save him?” Sora steadied himself, woozy. “As many as it takes,” he barked, though the wobble in his stance betrayed him. Renjiro’s grin widened. He flash-stepped, one instant he stood before them, the next he blurred behind Yuki, scythe already descending. Yuki spun, drawing a half-dome of ice. The blade bit a handspan from her face, held by a centimetre of crystal. Hairline cracks snaked through. Yuki’s brow beaded with sweat. Hold… The scythe pressed deeper, the corrupt aura bleeding through the barrier. Sora roared, launching himself with desperate speed. A looping punch hammered Renjiro’s shoulder. The strike jolted the assassin just enough for Yuki to shove him back with an ice-powered shove. She leapt away, breath ragged. Renjiro rolled his neck. “Courageous. Still futile.” They regrouped, backs to a half-crumbled wall. Sora’s chest heaved; Yuki’s arms trembled from over-channelled frost. Renjiro strolled forward, scarlet aura swirling. “Plan?” Sora muttered. “Buy time,” Yuki answered, conjuring another icy spear though her knuckles were already frost-burned. “Kaito needs free space to finish Tsubasa, and we need to stay alive until then.” Sora barked a shaky laugh. “Then let’s be the most annoying distractions in history.” Side by side they stepped out again, battered but unbroken, as Renjiro brandished his scythe for the next exchange, the duel far from over, the stakes higher than ever. Blood-red sunrise spilled across the rubble as the duel resumed. Sora and Yuki darted in opposite arcs, trying once more to catch Renjiro between fist and frost. Sora’s spinning heel clipped the assassin’s ribs; Yuki drove a fan of ice shards toward his legs. Renjiro’s response was a single, economical sweep. The hell-scythe traced a half-moon of black-crimson light. Metal whispered. Sora barely registered the cut, just a cool sting across his shoulder, and then he was behind Renjiro, stumbling two steps before stopping dead. “Sora-?” Yuki’s call cracked with alarm. A marble-silent moment hung in the air. Sora stared at the street, fingers flexing, blood beading scarlet against his tunic. The droplets steamed, turning the air a murky black. A pulse of sick energy rippled out from him; the hairs on Yuki’s arms stood on end. She felt it. Corruption. Sora’s shoulders began to shake. Not with pain, but with a low, rising snarl. His eyes lifted, once bright, now clouded violet. Veins spidered black across his skin. He opened his mouth and released a feral roar that rattled windows. Renjiro stepped back, resting the scythe across one shoulder, lips curling in satisfaction. “There we are. Let’s see your ‘adaptation’ now.” Sora whirled, pupils pinprick slits; friend and foe no longer mattered. He launched straight at Yuki, arms a blur. She threw up an ice barricade, he shattered it with one punch, shards spraying like glass. He learned the fracture-point already! Yuki skated away on a ribbon of frost, mind racing. Do I bind him? He’ll break free and adapt. Or should I deep freeze his body? That might kill him. I got it, knock-out shock. She veered toward a toppled supply wagon, Sora pounding after her, tearing splinters from the ground with every footfall. His speed was climbing, each blocked blow making him faster, stronger. Yuki’s breath plumed white. One chance. She slid behind the wagon, palms slamming to the cobbles. A glyph of ice sigils bloomed beneath Sora’s charging feet “Sleeping Winter Lotus.” Six overlapping petals of super-chilled vapor erupted, swirling upward in a hollow cone. Not lethal cold, but dense, anaesthetic frost. Sora barreled straight in. At the cone’s heart the temperature plunged; hoarfrost bloomed across his skin in spider-web fractals. He swung once, twice, slower each time. Muscles locked, eyelids leaden. He sagged to his knees, breath fogging. One final glazed punch hit the air harmlessly…and he toppled face-first into the frost, out cold. The lotus petals collapsed into drifting snow. Yuki knelt beside him, chest heaving. “Sorry, partner. Had to.” She pressed trembling fingers to his neck pulse, steady if sluggish. The black veins still writhed, but for now his rage-surge was muted. Across the square, Renjiro clapped slowly, mock applause echoing between broken walls. “Impressive improvisation, Snowflake. But I haven’t even had my fun yet.” Yuki rose, blue eyes hard as glacier ice. “Then come and try me.” Wind hissed over ruined stones as assassin and ice-mage squared off, Renjiro’s scythe dripping corruption, Yuki’s breath a plume of frosted steel, while the first true daylight spilled over the battleground and the struggle for their friends’ lives raged on. Clock-tower courtyard, 6:07 a.m. Kaito and Tsubasa circled one another across the fractured opening, katana and kunai glinting in the pink dawn. Here, the blood-rain had thinned to a mist; each droplet sizzled on steel before vanishing into steam. “Still hiding behind gates and shortcuts,” Kaito said, fingers tightening on his hilt. His tone was calm, almost conversational, but the muscles in his jaw told a different story. “Some things never change, Your Highness.” Tsubasa’s smile twitched wider. “Ah, so you’re keeping up the old honorific. I thought you’d forgotten I was once a prince.” He flicked his free hand and a coin-sized portal blossomed, swallowing the droplet that would have hit his cheek. “Though you always preferred ‘prince to a murderer,’ didn’t you?” A shadow crossed Kaito’s eyes. “You could have ruled the Kingdom of Altheron in comfort, yet you chose to become an assassin. Four times now I’ve been paid to bring you in, Your Highness, and four times your portals let you slip the noose. But this morning you’re not escaping.” Tsubasa twirled the kunai between gloved fingers, the metal catching sunrise. “ ‘Prince’? That title was a cage. I traded silk robes for a life where every breath is earned.” He flashed a wolfish grin. “And you, Kaito. Shall we see if the fifth hunt ends differently?” He stamped, and a door of swirling violet yawned beneath him. He vanished, reappearing an arm’s-length behind Kaito, thrust already in motion. But Kaito was faster. A burst of superspeed left only a heat-blur where he’d stood. He pivoted above Tsubasa’s shoulder, blade flashing down. Sparks spattered as kunai met katana again. Another portal blossomed to Tsubasa’s left; Kaito whirled through it, turning his opponent’s own gateway into a springboard. The air boomed as he appeared on the far side, striking low. Tsubasa parried, but too late. Steel kissed flesh. A shallow cut opened across his ribs, red staining the black and purple cloak. For a heartbeat they froze: Kaito balanced on one knee, blade extended; Tsubasa standing tall, a hand pressed to the spreading crimson. The portal-master exhaled a slow, ragged breath, then laughed, soft, genuine. “You drew blood,” he said, admiration dancing behind the amusement. “That hasn’t happened in… what, four years?” Kaito rose, expression granite-steady. “Since the siege of White-Moat. You escaped then. You won’t today.” Tsubasa flicked the blood from his fingers; it vanished into a flicker of violet light before it could hit the ground. “We’ll see. But, Kaito…” He inclined his head, half-bow, half-taunt. “…you’ve grown. Impressive.”