The warehouse was a graveyard of broken concrete and unconscious men. Yuki and Seri were a blur of desperation and grit, fighting back-to-back in a circle of thorny vines.
Yuki was drowning. Every breath felt like inhaling shards of glass, his muscles twitching with involuntary tremors. He was being overwhelmed, his speed dropping as the exhaustion took hold. Beside him, Seri was a goddess of thorns, her green Ki pulsing with the erratic, violent rhythm of the drug in her system. She was taking hits meant for him, her regal face bruised, her focus split between the healers' light and the killers' vines.
Giyu stood by his throne, watching the struggle with the detached interest of a scientist. Beside him, the Prodigy stood frozen, his face twisted in a silent rage.
Fwish.
A tiny silver glint cut through the chaos.
Giyu didn't even see the movement—he felt the air pressure change. At the very last millisecond, he tilted his head.
THUD.
The Black Ice dagger—the weapon from the cabin—slammed into the brick wall inches from Giyu's ear, burying itself halfway to the hilt.
Giyu's ember eyes widened. He looked down at Yuki. The boy was still fighting, his fist buried in a mercenary's gut, but his gaze was locked on Giyu. It wasn't the gaze of a victim. It was the gaze of a predator.
"Huh?" Giyu whispered, a chill of genuine shock running down his spine. "You... you bastard. You're trying to kill me."
The Prodigy stared at the dagger in the wall, his breath hitching. They had underestimated the "Zero."
This will be harder than I thought. The Prodigy thought to himself.
Only four Kizo users remained standing. One, a massive brute, lunged at the staggering Seri. Yuki moved. He didn't have the Ki for armor. He didn't have the breath for a speech. He simply put every ounce of his remaining life force into his right fist.
BOOM.
The impact didn't just sound like a punch; it sounded like a cannon fire. A shockwave rippled through the air, and the Kizo user was launched backward, his body shattering through a reinforced brick wall before vanishing into the night.
Giyu's smile didn't return. Instead, a grim realization settled over him. He isn't just surviving. He's adapting. The more I break him, the stronger the pieces become.
Yuki's legs finally gave out. He collapsed to his knees, his body drenched in a mixture of sweat and deep crimson blood. He was on the verge of passing out, his vision fading to black.
"Yuki, get up." Kira chirped in his ear. "You have to get up."
"Kira? I can't see anything." Yuki's voice ragged and was barely even audible. "I need to catch my breath."
Seri stepped over him, her vines bristling like the quills of a porcupine. She was trembling, her Ki flickering, but she glared at Giyu with a look that promised death if he took one more step.
Suddenly, the heavy front doors were kicked off their hinges.
Derek and Mika stepped into the carnage. Derek stopped dead, his eyes sweeping over the thirty unconscious gunmen and the broken Kizo users scattered across the floor. He looked at Seri, glowing with toxic green light, and Yuki, kneeling in a pool of blood.
A slow, astonished smile spread across Derek's face. "I leave you guys alone for an hour..."
He remembered the Kyorin guards laughing at him, calling him a liar when he begged for help. He had come back with Mika, ready to save his friends, only to find they had already conquered a small army.
These two..." Derek whispered, looking at the devastation. "They're monsters."
He stepped forward, his eyes landing on Yuki. "Hey, Yuki. What happened to just scouting?"
Yuki didn't respond to Derek's joke. His head hung low, chin resting on his blood-stained chest. Derek's smile vanished instantly. He realized with a jolt of horror that Yuki wasn't just tired—he had passed out standing up.
"Mika! Get Luna out of here! Now!" Seri roared, her voice strained as she channeled the last of her drug-fueled Ki.
Mika, trembling with a fear that threatened to paralyze her, scooped up the half-conscious Luna. She didn't look back as she bolted for the exit. The remaining Kizo users snarled, turning to give chase, but Seri's thorns lashed out, pinning them to the floor.
The Prodigy moved like a red blur to intercept Mika, but a beam of concentrated light hammered into the floor inches from his feet.
"I'm your dance partner, Grey-hair," Derek snarled, his body glowing with solar radiance.
The two collided with a sound like a thunderclap. The shockwave of their battle shattered the remaining windows, and as they traded blows of light and kinetic force, the violence spilled out of the warehouse and onto the rain-slicked docks outside.
While the warehouse walls shook from Derek's explosive light outside, a deadlier silence fell within, Giyu watched Mika vanish into the night. He took a single step toward the door, his face a mask of bored annoyance, when a wall of vines blocked his path.
In a split second—faster than Seri's eyes could track—Giyu appeared directly in her guard. He didn't use a weapon. He simply drove his fist into her solar plexus.
CRACK.
The sound of Seri's ribs shattering echoed through the hollow warehouse. She didn't even have time to scream. She was launched backward like a ragdoll, vomiting a fountain of blood before slamming into the corrugated steel wall. Her vines withered and turned to dust instantly. She slumped to the floor, her heart nearly stopping. Only her passive Kizo healing kept her from crossing the threshold of death.
"S... Seri..." Yuki's eyes fluttered. His vision was a red, blurry mess, but he could see her broken form.
Giyu sighed, walking toward the unconscious girl. "A pity. You had spirit, Kyorin Princess. But spirit doesn't stop a Kinatarou."
He raised his heavy boot over her head, intending to crush her skull into the concrete. He brought it down with the force of a falling building.
BOOM.
The warehouse floor buckled. Dust and debris exploded into the air, obscuring everything. Giyu stood in the center of the crater, expecting to feel the crunch of bone.
Giyu stared into the settling dust, expecting to see the Kyorin Princess's skull crushed into the earth. Instead, his boot met only cold, shattered concrete. She was gone.
As the dust cleared, a figure in brilliant white silk stood ten feet away. She had long, unreal blue hair tied into twin ponytails and eyes that burned with the exact same freezing intensity as Yuki's.
She held the unconscious Seri gently in her arms. She walked over to the half-conscious Yuki and placed Seri beside him.
"Yukari..." Yuki whispered, his voice a ghost of a sound.
Yukari didn't smile. Veins bulged on her forehead and along her jawline. The "definition of beauty" had become a vision of pure, cold rage. She looked at the blood on Yuki's face—the blood she had promised to prevent years ago.
"I'll make him pay for this, Yuki," she said, her voice like grinding ice.
Giyu stood in the crater, his eyes narrowing. "Yukari? You dare interfere with your father's work? You were always the weak one."
Yukari didn't answer with words. She reached for the katana at her waist—a masterpiece of blue steel and Kinatarou craftsmanship. The family were descendants of the legendary samurai Kinatarou, and that blood-thirst for decapitation lived in her as much as it lived in Yuki.
She drew the blade. It hummed, a magnificent blue gleam reflecting in her fierce eyes. She pointed the tip directly at Giyu's throat.
"Arm yourself," she commanded, her voice cutting through the warehouse like a winter gale. "And prepare to be beheaded."