For one brief moment, hope felt possible.

Shunjiro saw Lars, Sora, and Yuki enter the battlefield from the side, their figures cutting through the red-lit floodwater as they rushed toward Illumina. Relief struck him so suddenly that it almost hurt. He had not realized how alone the four of them had felt until he saw Mars Guild coming back. They were wounded. They were exhausted. Their expressions carried the same grief and fury that hung over everyone still breathing inside the barrier. But they had returned.

Yoshinori noticed them a second later, lightning still flickering weakly around his fingers. His shoulders loosened for the first time since Suzu had reformed. “About time,” he called, though the exhaustion in his voice dulled the edge of the words.

Sora did not smile. “We were busy not dying.”

Tetsuo wiped blood from his chin and let out a rough laugh despite the state of his body. “You picked a great time to come back.”

Aiko’s gaze flicked toward Yuki and Lars, then toward Sora. The relief on her face lasted only a heartbeat before her attention snapped back to Suzu. “Don’t get comfortable. She’s not finished.”

Across the flooded street, Suzu slowly pushed herself upright from the collapsed wall Shunjiro had driven her into. The left side of her face was bruised and burned from the combined assault, and blood ran down from the wound Yoshinori had carved across her chest. The lightning had scorched her skin, and Shunjiro’s punch had clearly damaged her, but none of it seemed to matter the way it should have. Her body twitched once, then steadied. Blood seeped from beneath her cloak and crawled across her injuries, not healing them completely, but sealing enough of the damage to keep her moving.

Sora’s expression darkened. “She’s already recovering.”

Yuki lifted one hand as frost gathered around her fingers. “Then we don’t give her time.”

“No,” Yoshinori said, eyes narrowing. “We keep pressure from every angle. Aiko, move us when she commits. Yuki, stay back and slow anything she sends out. Lars, can you pull her blood attacks?”

“Only after she launches them,” Lars said, his grip tightening around his sword. “And I can’t protect everyone at once.”

“Then protect whoever is about to die,” Tetsuo muttered.

“That’s the plan,” Lars said.

Shunjiro glanced at them, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. Mars Guild being here did not make the situation safe. It did not change the fact that Suzu had survived everything thrown at her. But it meant they were no longer four fighters standing alone against a monster. For the first time, Illumina and Mars stood side by side, seven fifteen-year-old adventurers facing something that had brought veteran fighters to their knees.

Suzu moved first.

Blood exploded from beneath her cloak in the shape of long, jagged blades, slicing outward toward the group in a wide arc. Lars stepped forward and swung his sword. The moment the blades left Suzu’s body, the edge of his weapon hummed, and several of the crimson constructs jerked off course as if caught by an invisible hand. They curved toward him instead of Shunjiro and Aiko, and Lars twisted his blade downward, dragging the attacks into the flooded street. The water burst upward as the blood blades carved through it, missing him by inches.

“Don’t rely on that twice!” Lars shouted.

Aiko vanished from her position and reappeared beside Shunjiro, swapping him forward as he nodded his permission. He came out of the transfer already swinging, spiritual energy flaring violently around his fist. Suzu turned toward him, but before she could raise a barrier, ice spikes shot across the battlefield from behind the group. Yuki had both hands extended, her expression calm and focused as a storm of sharpened ice projectiles tore through the air.

The ice struck Suzu from the side, forcing her cloak to snap outward as several spikes shattered against hardened blood. Others pierced through gaps and buried themselves in her arm and shoulder. Suzu’s gaze shifted toward Yuki, and for the first time since Mars had arrived, her attention divided.

That was all Shunjiro needed.

He drove his fist into Suzu’s stomach. The impact bent her forward, spiritual energy bursting from his knuckles in an unstable wave. Tetsuo charged in from the opposite side, stone crawling up both arms until his fists looked like massive blocks of rock. He slammed one into Suzu’s ribs, and the sound of the strike echoed across the ruined district.

Suzu staggered.

Sora appeared in front of her before she could recover. “My turn.”

He punched her across the jaw with enough force to snap her head sideways. The blow was not as heavy as Shunjiro’s, but Sora did not pull back. He stepped in again, throwing a second punch toward her chest. Suzu caught his wrist, and a blood blade formed along her forearm before slicing across his side.

Sora grunted as blood sprayed from the wound, but he did not retreat.

Suzu’s crimson eyes focused on him.

The blood from his cut trembled.

Then stopped.

Suzu’s expression shifted slightly. It was not confusion in a human sense, not quite, but her empty gaze sharpened as if something had failed to obey.

Sora smiled through clenched teeth. “Yeah. That trick doesn’t work on me anymore.”

He slammed his forehead into her face.

The blow forced Suzu back half a step. Before she could retaliate, Aiko swapped Sora with Yoshinori. Lightning erupted where Sora had been, and Yoshinori drove a concentrated bolt directly into Suzu’s chest at close range. The strike blasted her backward across the floodwater, sending steam and red mist into the air.

For several seconds, they had her.

Yuki kept her distance, moving along the outer edge of the battlefield while sending wave after wave of ice across Suzu’s path. Spears erupted from the floodwater, forcing Suzu to step around them. Frozen chains formed from broken walls and snapped toward her limbs, not strong enough to restrain her for long, but strong enough to slow each movement. Every time Suzu tried to rush one of them, Yuki placed a wall of ice in her path, and though the blood blades tore through those walls almost immediately, each barrier stole a heartbeat from her.

And in a fight like this, a heartbeat was enough.

Lars used that time brutally. He swung his magnetic sword, and the battlefield answered. Broken weapons, shattered armor fragments, metal hinges, nails, chains, and scraps of ruined structures ripped free from the rubble and shot toward Suzu from every direction. She raised a blood barrier, but the metal storm crashed into it like a swarm of arrows. Most of the fragments bounced away or sank halfway into the hardened blood, but several punched through and tore shallow wounds across her body.

“Yuki!” Lars shouted.

Yuki understood immediately.

The moment the metal fragments embedded themselves in Suzu’s barrier, ice spread across them. Frost climbed along the shards and into the blood itself, freezing portions of the defense and making it brittle. Lars pulled again, and the metal fragments tore backward with pieces of frozen blood attached to them, ripping open gaps in Suzu’s shield.

Yoshinori raised both arms. “Move!”

Aiko reacted instantly, swapping Tetsuo away from Suzu’s front as lightning poured down from above. The strike fell through the opening Lars and Yuki had made, slamming into Suzu’s shoulder and driving her to one knee. Tetsuo reappeared at her side and brought a stone hammer down onto her back. The impact cracked the flooded street beneath her.

For a moment, Suzu was surrounded. Shunjiro in front. Tetsuo to her left. Sora closing in from the right. Yoshinori at midrange. Aiko behind them, eyes darting between every fighter. Lars moving along the flank, sword humming. Yuki farthest back, hands raised, frost circling around her like drifting mist.

They were hurting her.

But the longer the fight went on, the more that hope began to sour.

Suzu’s movements slowly changed.

At first, she had reacted like a beast cornered by too many attackers, lashing out at whatever came closest. But now her responses were becoming sharper. She stopped wasting blood on wide barriers and began using thin shields that appeared only where an attack would land. She stopped chasing after whoever retreated and instead shifted her body just enough to force the others to move closer. She let Tetsuo believe he had an opening, then stepped back so Shunjiro had to rush in to cover him. She allowed Sora to close distance, then angled a blood spike toward Yoshinori so Lars would have to pull it away. Each movement looked small. Each choice seemed instinctive.

The floodwater around Suzu froze in a spreading circle. Ice climbed up Suzu’s legs, locking her in place from the knees down. At the same time, Yuki formed a dozen long spears of ice overhead and sent them raining down with brutal precision. Suzu’s blood rose to meet them, cutting through most before they landed, but Yuki kept firing. Again and again, ice formed and launched, hammering Suzu from a distance while the temperature around the battlefield plummeted.

“Stay away from them,” Yuki said, her voice colder than the ice forming around her hands.

For several moments, she held Suzu back almost alone.

Every time Suzu tried to step forward, Yuki froze the water beneath her. Every time blood gathered around Suzu’s arms, Yuki pierced it with ice to disrupt the shape before it fully formed. Her barriers shattered whenever Suzu struck them, but each one delayed the next attack. The entire battlefield became a maze of ice walls, frozen spikes, and fractured crimson blades.

Yuki was not overpowering Suzu.

But she was slowing her.

And that was enough for the others to breathe.

The Blood Witch’s crimson eyes moved from one fighter to the next. Shunjiro. Yoshinori. Aiko. Tetsuo. Sora. Lars. Then Yuki, standing farther away with both hands raised.

The blood around Suzu stopped moving.

For one terrible moment, the battlefield went quiet.

Yoshinori’s eyes widened. “Something’s wrong.”

Sora looked at Suzu, then at the blood spreading beneath the floodwater. It was no longer gathering into blades or barriers. It was thinning, stretching outward in countless crescent shapes hidden beneath the surface. The water around them rippled in too many directions at once.

“She wanted us close,” Sora said.

Aiko’s face went pale. “Get back!”

Suzu raised both arms.

The floodwater turned crimson.

Then the world became blades.

Blood sickles erupted from Suzu in every direction at once, hundreds of crescent-shaped blades spinning outward with enough speed to shred the air. They sliced through floodwater, rubble, stone, and ice without slowing. The sound was horrific, a screaming storm of liquid metal and wet tearing force as the sickles expanded across the battlefield in a perfect circle.

Yuki was far enough away to avoid the first wave, and instinct saved her from the second. She threw herself backward as an ice wall burst up in front of her. The sickles carved through it instantly, reducing the wall to glittering fragments, but the barrier slowed them just enough for the blades to pass inches short of her body.

The others were not so lucky.

Shunjiro crossed his arms and poured spiritual energy into them, but several sickles slipped low and sliced across his thighs. More blades cut across his wrists, spraying blood into the water. He staggered but refused to fall.

Yoshinori tried to destroy the blades with lightning, but there were too many. He shattered three, then five, then another, before one curved past his guard and carved into his shoulder. His arm dropped, lightning sputtering out as pain tore through him.

Aiko swapped once, twice, three times in rapid succession, saving herself from attacks that would have cut her apart completely. But the storm was everywhere. A sickle caught her forearm. Another cut across her leg. A third slashed deep into her other thigh as she reappeared too close to the expanding wave. She cried out and collapsed into the floodwater, blood spreading around her arms and legs.

Tetsuo raised both arms as stone erupted from the ground around him, forming a thick barrier over his chest. The blood sickles shredded through it. The stone broke apart in layers, each one slowing the blades but not stopping them. One sickle punched through and slashed across his chest. Tetsuo’s eyes widened, and he stumbled backward before crashing to one knee.

Sora moved into the storm.

He did not dodge.

He did not retreat.

He threw himself directly between Suzu and the others as blood sickles carved across his body from every direction. One sliced his shoulder. Another cut across his ribs. More opened wounds along his arms, back, legs, and chest. Blood sprayed from him in violent bursts, but he stayed upright. His teeth clenched so hard his jaw shook as the blades continued tearing into him.

“Sora!” Yuki screamed.

Sora took another step forward.

The first wave cut him.

The second cut less.

The third struck something invisible.

A blood sickle screamed toward his neck and shattered against empty air inches from his skin.

Sora’s eyes sharpened.

More sickles hit him and broke against the invisible barrier forming around his body. The adaptation spread through him like a violent pulse, his spiritual energy reacting to the attack that had failed to kill him. The blood sickles continued flying, but now they sparked and splintered when they reached him, breaking against the unseen defense his body had created.

Suzu’s empty eyes locked onto him.

Sora smiled through the blood running down his face.

“My turn.”

He lunged.

The remaining sickles shattered against him as he closed the distance, each one breaking against the invisible barrier that now recognized their power. Suzu tried to raise a blood shield, but Yuki fired a spear of ice from across the battlefield, forcing the barrier to form too high. Yoshinori, despite the blood running down his arm, sent a bolt of lightning into the floodwater at Suzu’s feet, stunning her for the briefest instant. Aiko, shaking badly, lifted one hand and swapped a chunk of rubble into Suzu’s path, disrupting her stance just enough.

Sora reached her.

He drove his fist into Suzu’s face with everything he had.

The punch landed like a cannon shot.

Suzu’s head snapped backward as the force lifted her from the ground and sent her flying across the flooded ruins. She crashed through the remains of an ice wall, skipped once across the water, and slammed into a pile of broken stone hard enough to send cracks racing through the rubble.

For a moment, the blood sickles stopped.

Silence crashed down over the battlefield.

Sora stood at the center of the ruined street, covered in cuts, blood dripping from almost every part of his body. His breathing was ragged, and his legs trembled beneath him, but the invisible barrier around him flickered faintly as the last remnants of Suzu’s attack broke apart in the air around him.

Behind him, Shunjiro struggled to remain standing. Yoshinori clutched his bleeding shoulder. Aiko was down in the water, badly cut across her arms and legs, though her eyes remained open. Tetsuo knelt with one hand pressed against his chest, blood seeping between his fingers. Lars lay near the edge of the battlefield, his chest wound staining the water around him while Yuki stood farther back, untouched but horrified by what she had just witnessed.

They had survived.

Suzu’s fingers twitched against the broken stone.

The movement was small, barely noticeable beneath the crimson glow of the shrinking barrier, but everyone saw it. No one mistook it for weakness. Not anymore. Suzu had been crushed, burned, shocked, frozen, struck, and blown apart, yet she still continued moving as if pain had become meaningless to her. The rubble around her shifted as she slowly pushed herself up, strands of blood slipping from beneath her cloak and crawling across the shattered ground like living veins.

Sora stood in the center of the flooded street, covered in cuts from head to toe, his blood dripping steadily into the water beneath him. His punch had launched Suzu through stone and ice, and for a brief moment, it had forced the entire battlefield into silence. But now that silence was gone, replaced by the low, wet sound of blood moving through the floodwater.

“She’s getting up,” Aiko breathed.

Her voice was strained. She was still down on one knee, blood streaming from the cuts across her arms and legs. Every attempt to stand sent pain flashing across her face, but she forced herself upright anyway, using her dagger like a support. Her eyes stayed locked on Suzu, sharp despite the exhaustion overtaking her body.

Yoshinori’s hand tightened over his wounded shoulder. Lightning flickered weakly around his other arm, unstable from pain and fatigue. “Don’t let her recover.”

Shunjiro tried to step forward, but the cuts across his thighs screamed the moment he moved. His wrists burned where the blood had sliced into him, and his spiritual energy pulsed unevenly around his fists, stronger than it should have been but harder to control with every passing second. Still, he clenched his jaw and forced himself to move.

Sora glanced back at them, breathing hard. “I can handle the sickles now.”

Yuki’s voice cut in from farther back. “Only that attack.”

Sora’s eyes narrowed.

She stood near the outer edge of the fight, untouched by the blood sickles but pale from what she had just watched happen to everyone else. Frost gathered around her hands, and the floodwater near her feet had already begun freezing again. “Don’t assume that means she can’t cut you another way.”

Across the battlefield, Suzu rose fully.

Her cloak hung torn around her shoulders. Burn marks spread across her skin from Yoshinori’s lightning. The place Sora had struck her face was swollen and darkened, and several wounds still leaked blood down her body. But the blood beneath her feet moved faster now, circling her ankles before spreading outward in thin red lines. It did not form sickles this time. It did not gather into barriers. It simply moved, weaving through the floodwater in patterns too difficult to follow.

Yoshinori noticed the change immediately. “She’s changing tactics.”

Suzu vanished.

Not completely. Not through teleportation. She simply moved so suddenly that her body blurred through the red-lit rain of debris and steam. Sora reacted first, stepping into her path with both arms raised. Suzu struck him with a blood blade formed along her wrist. The attack hit the invisible barrier around his body and shattered before touching his skin.

Suzu did not pause.

Her other hand snapped forward, not with a blade, but with a blunt burst of blood that exploded against the ground at Sora’s feet. The impact did not cut him. It detonated beneath him, throwing floodwater and stone upward in a violent burst. Sora’s barrier resisted the cutting force that followed, but the blast still knocked him off balance, forcing him to slide back several feet.

Yoshinori fired lightning before Suzu could follow. The bolt ripped across the battlefield and slammed into her side, but she twisted with it, letting the attack scorch across her shoulder instead of striking her chest. At the same time, blood spears shot toward Yoshinori from beneath the water. Aiko lifted her hand and swapped him with a chunk of broken stone just before the spears reached him. The stone was shredded instantly, and Yoshinori reappeared several yards away, stumbling from the sudden movement and clutching his bleeding shoulder.

“Thanks,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Stop making it hard,” Aiko shot back, though her voice trembled from pain.

Tetsuo forced himself upright nearby, one hand still pressed against the deep slash across his chest. Stone crawled over his body in uneven patches, forming a crude layer of armor that cracked almost as soon as it hardened. He looked terrible. Blood ran down his torso, his breathing was heavy, and his legs shook beneath him. But his eyes were still focused on Suzu.

“I can still pin her,” he said.

Shunjiro turned toward him. “Tetsuo, your chest-”

“I said I can still pin her.”

There was no room to argue. Suzu was already moving again.

Yuki unleashed a storm of ice projectiles from the far side of the battlefield, keeping her distance as she fired spear after spear into Suzu’s path. The ice did not stop her, but it forced her to alter her steps. Each spear created a half-second delay. Each frozen patch beneath the water made Suzu shift direction. Yuki’s attacks shaped the battlefield, narrowing Suzu’s approach and giving the others just enough time to breathe.

Shunjiro used that opening. He rushed in low despite the pain in his thighs, spiritual energy bursting around his legs to force his body forward. Aiko saw him move and swapped him the final few feet, placing him beside Suzu before she could fully turn. Shunjiro threw a punch toward her ribs, but Suzu leaned back just enough that the blow only grazed her. Blood rose from the water behind him, forming a curved hook aimed at his spine.

Sora intercepted it.

The hook struck his shoulder and shattered against the invisible barrier, but Suzu immediately stepped past him and sent three thin whips of blood snapping toward Yoshinori, Aiko, and Tetsuo at once. Lars, still collapsed near the edge of the battlefield, saw the attacks launch and tried to lift his sword. The weapon trembled in his hand, the magnetic hum barely rising before his reopened chest wound forced him into a harsh cough. Blood spilled between his fingers, and the sword slipped back toward the water.

“Move!” Lars shouted, unable to do anything else.

Yoshinori destroyed one whip with lightning. Aiko swapped herself away from the second. Tetsuo raised stone from the ground and blocked the third, the impact carving deep through the barrier before the whip dissolved back into the floodwater.

Suzu’s head turned toward Lars for a fraction of a second.

Then toward Yuki.

Then toward Shunjiro.

Then toward Tetsuo.

Her eyes were still empty, but there was a sharper awareness behind them now. She was not thinking like a person. She was not planning with hatred or strategy in the way a human enemy might. But she was learning. Each failed attack taught her where they would move. Each defense revealed who could still react and who could not.

The fight became impossible to follow after that.

Suzu stopped committing to full attacks. Instead, she struck in pieces. A blade from one direction. A spike from another. A whip that vanished into the floodwater before reappearing behind someone else. The blood moved like it had been scattered across the entire battlefield, no longer bound to her hands alone. Shunjiro tried to rush her, but she forced him back with slashes. Yoshinori called lightning from above, but Suzu shifted just enough that the strike missed her center and tore apart the ground instead. Aiko kept swapping people out of danger, but every swap made her face pale further, and her injured legs buckled whenever she landed.

Tetsuo was the only one still trying to meet Suzu head-on.

He dragged stone from the flooded ground and formed a massive shield along his left arm. With his right, he shaped a jagged hammer and swung at every opening he could find. Most of his strikes missed. A few connected, crashing into Suzu’s shoulder, ribs, and back with enough force to make the street crack beneath her feet. Each hit should have mattered. Each hit should have slowed her. But Suzu’s blood only wrapped around the damaged areas and kept her moving.

“Tetsuo, fall back!” Yoshinori shouted.

Tetsuo ignored him and drove forward again. “If I fall back, she gets to you!”

“That’s not the point!”

“There isn’t a point anymore!”

His shout tore through the battlefield, raw and furious. Tetsuo swung his stone hammer again, forcing Suzu to raise a blood shield. The impact shattered both the shield and most of the hammer, sending shards of rock and blood scattering through the air. Shunjiro moved in from the side, aiming for the opening, but Suzu’s cloak snapped outward as multiple blood threads shot toward him. He twisted away from most of them, but one cut across his wrist again, causing his punch to falter.

Sora lunged past him and drove his fist toward Suzu’s face. She ducked, then formed a blood blade stronger than the earlier sickles and slashed across his chest. The attack cut him this time. Not deeply enough to stop him, but enough to prove Yuki had been right. Sora’s adaptation was not absolute if Suzu changed the output.

Sora grunted and stumbled.

Yuki immediately fired a line of ice spears to force Suzu back. “Sora!”

“I’m fine!” he snapped, though his hand pressed briefly against the new wound.

Suzu moved before anyone could reset.

She stepped into the center of them, and for one terrifying second, nobody knew who she was targeting. Her blood spread outward in multiple directions at once, forming half-made blades around Shunjiro, spikes near Yoshinori, threads near Aiko, and a whip curling low behind Tetsuo. Every fighter reacted to a different threat. Shunjiro raised his arms. Yoshinori prepared lightning. Aiko’s eyes darted between too many targets. Sora shifted toward Suzu’s front, ready to intercept whatever came next.

The attack did not come from the front.

A single blood whip snapped upward from the floodwater with no warning, so thin and fast that it was almost impossible to track until it was already moving. Tetsuo turned his head at the last possible second, but he was too slow.

The whip struck his face.

Blood sprayed into the air.

For half a breath, Tetsuo remained standing as if his body had not yet understood what had happened. His stone armor cracked around him, and the weapon in his hand crumbled apart piece by piece.

He made no sound.

No scream.

No cry of pain.

Nothing.

Then the strength left his legs.

“Tetsuo!” Shunjiro screamed.

Tetsuo collapsed into the floodwater.

The splash was small compared to everything else happening around them, but it struck Shunjiro harder than any explosion. Tetsuo’s body hit the water on its side and did not move. The red ripples spread outward around him, mixing with the floodwater as broken pieces of stone armor sank beneath the surface.

Shunjiro tried to run toward him.

Suzu was already there.

Blood surged up between them, forming a wall of blades that forced Shunjiro to stop or be cut apart. He punched through the first layer with a burst of unstable spiritual energy, but another rose behind it. Then another. Suzu advanced through the crimson barriers without looking back at Tetsuo, as if the boy she had just dropped no longer mattered because he was no longer standing.

“Move!” Shunjiro roared.

He threw himself forward again, but Suzu sent a blood whip snapping across his path. He barely raised his arms in time. The strike cut across both wrists and forced him back, pain tearing through him as his own blood sprayed into the water.

Aiko’s face had gone white. “Tetsuo…”

She tried to lift her hand.

Her fingers trembled.

For a moment, it looked like she might attempt to swap him away, but Suzu’s attacks were still spreading, still cutting, still forcing everyone to move. A cluster of blood spikes erupted near Aiko’s injured legs, and Yoshinori had to blast them apart with lightning before they impaled her where she stood.

“We can’t reach him!” Yoshinori shouted, horror breaking through his usually steady voice.

“Shut up!” Shunjiro snapped. “I’m getting him!”

He tried again.

Sora caught him before he could charge straight into Suzu’s next attack. “You’ll die!”

“Let go!”

Sora tightened his grip, blood running down his own arms as he dragged Shunjiro back just before a crescent blade tore through the space where his neck had been. “He’s down! If you rush in now, you’re next!”

Shunjiro’s eyes locked on the body lying in the flooded street. The water around Tetsuo continued to darken. His stone armor had crumbled away. One arm rested limp beside him, fingers half-submerged, unmoving. His face was turned just enough that Shunjiro could see blood covering the left side of it, but not enough to see whether he was breathing.

“Tetsuo,” Shunjiro whispered, the name barely leaving his mouth.

Suzu attacked again.

There was no pause. No mercy. No space to grieve. She moved through the chaos with terrifying speed, launching blood blades at Yoshinori, whips at Shunjiro, and spears toward Aiko. Yuki fired ice from the distance with everything she had, trying to slow Suzu’s advance, but every wall shattered seconds after forming. Sora stood between Suzu and the others as often as he could, taking the hits he believed he could survive and dodging the ones that felt different.

The battle continued around Tetsuo’s fallen body.

That was the worst part.

No one could reach him.

No one could check if his chest was still rising.

No one could call his name long enough to hear an answer.

They could only fight.

Shunjiro’s vision blurred as rage and terror mixed inside him, twisting his spiritual energy into something wild and unstable around his arms. He wanted to scream. He wanted to tear through Suzu and drag Tetsuo out of the water. He wanted to believe his friend was alive.

But Suzu stood between them, empty-eyed and relentless, and every step Shunjiro tried to take toward Tetsuo was met with another blade.

Above them, the crimson barrier pulsed.

The ruined kingdom shook beneath the weight of the battle.

And Tetsuo did not move.