Akatsuke's memories of this prison were full of gaps.
He had spent most of his time in solitary confinement—and once he was finally released, he was murdered.
That left him with endless time to think.
About his failures.
His fear.
Himself.
All of it culminated in a single desire.
To live.
That will was so overwhelming that, as death approached at the hands of Rain and Galland, his soul responded.
At that moment, Akatsuke awakened his soul weapon.
"Akio, get him!"
Akatsuke wrapped his arms around Ken, locking them in place as tightly as he could. His grip trembled—but it held.
Akio reacted instantly, launching transparent spikes toward Ken's back.
"Gah—!"
Ken drove his knee straight into Akatsuke's solar plexus, the impact forcing the air from his lungs. But Ken didn't stop there. He twisted, swiping his arm toward the incoming spikes.
A violent gust of wind erupted from the motion as he spoke, his voice cold and commanding.
"Blow my foes away—wind barrier."
The wind distorted the air itself, altering the spikes' trajectories until they missed entirely.
Using the same momentum, Ken completed his turn. His fist crashed into Akatsuke's face, sending him flying backward.
"Wind blade."
Ken opened his clenched hand. A curved blade of compressed wind tore through the air.
Akatsuke raised his arms to guard—but the strike never reached him.
Akio had already placed a barrier between them. The wind slammed into it with a heavy thud, dispersing harmlessly.
"Akatsuke! Are you okay?!"
Akio landed beside him, his voice tight with worry.
"I'm fine," Akatsuke said, forcing himself upright. "Don't worry about me. Just stay focused."
Normally, he would've said that just to keep Akio in the fight.
This time, it was true.
*Bang!*
Ken fired.
The bullet tore through Akio's barrier just as it had before.
Blood stained Akatsuke's clothes as a gaping hole opened in his chest.
"One down," Ken said flatly.
Akatsuke collapsed.
Akio's eyes widened. Shock froze him in place—before transforming into something far more violent.
Pure and Unbridled Rage.
His eyes became bloodshot, and veins bulged out of his neck. His mouth opened as if to scream, but no sound came out.
Instead, a barrier formed.
This one was nothing like the last.
Jagged shards—like splintered glass—burst outward from Akio's body. Each shard gleamed with a different color, all aimed directly at Ken.
The previous barrier had already been dismissed.
Nothing was protecting Ken.
Ken leaped backward—
But something grabbed his leg.
"Hm?!"
Akatsuke stood beneath him, a smirk stretched across his bloodied face. With a sharp pull, he hurled Ken toward the waiting shards.
Akatsuke's soul weapon was his own body.
His will to survive had manifested as an unbreakable truth: his body would not accept death. As long as his soul remained intact, no wound could end him.
Light had poured from the hole in his chest as the damage erased itself. Flesh reknit. Bone restored. It was as though the wound had never existed.
Even the lightning Ken had once driven through his heart had failed to leave lingering damage.
This wasn't healing magic.
Just as death was inevitable for all life, Akatsuke surviving all attacks had become inevitable as well.
A rule etched into the world itself.
Akio didn't know any of that.
Seeing Akatsuke rise after being shot through the heart caused his barrier to waver—but his rage refused to subside.
The shards stretched outward.
A crimson shard brushed Ken's waistcoat.
Flames engulfed him immediately.
A white shard followed, slicing across his neck. Fire and flesh froze solid in an instant.
The ice cracked violently as Ken released his mana outward, imbuing it with wind. The frozen shell shattered as he propelled himself into the air.
The remaining shards were deflected as he ascended, wind holding him aloft.
Ken glanced down at his coat, patting out the remaining embers. His body was scorched, skin blistered—but his expression barely changed.
'Annoying.'
His gaze swept across the battlefield.
Two children were freezing the rocks around Ranni, chipping away at his earth snare. She was nearly free, but they still had a bit to go.
He could stop them easily from here.
He chose not to.
If she escaped, he could simply make another prison.
Instead, his attention shifted elsewhere.
*ZRACKKK!*
"What on earth…"
A beam of lightning slammed into Vesper's cheek.
'That girl again.'
Akari had used a spell similar to the one Ken himself had fired—but she had no catalyst.
'Did she… use her own body as the vessel?'
He dismissed the thought immediately.
No one would be stupid enough to attempt something that destructive.
Regardless, she posed a threat to him and to Vesper.
Ken raised his gun toward Akari, noting how close she'd come to piercing Vesper's scales—
—but before he shot, his focus snapped downward, sensing impending danger.
The shards he'd blown away hadn't vanished.
They persisted.
The barrier warped and convulsed, growing and shrinking as it advanced relentlessly toward him.
Akio clenched his fist, then dragged a hand across his neck, teeth grinding. Blood welled—but his hand did not stop.
He could see that Akatsuke was fine.
That didn't matter.
He couldn't calm down.
Because he'd failed again.
Not once.
Not twice.
Three times.
The first—when Akatsuke was murdered. Akio hadn't been there.
The second—when Ken landed two solid blows. He'd been powerless.
The third—when Ken pierced Akatsuke's heart.
His barrier hadn't been enough.
That was unforgivable.
The shards began to glow brighter, each becoming a blinding point of light.
They could not be stopped.
Nor destroyed.
Ken veered sharply aside, flying past them before landing hard.
Without hesitation, he unleashed a blast of wind toward Akio.
'That attack… my gun cannot penetrate it.'
Ken raised his gun.
'But the attacker, on the other hand—'
Before he could fire, his wrist was seized.
Akatsuke stood there, his grip ironclad. He'd waited for the exact moment Ken touched the ground again.
But before he could act, Ken grabbed the gun with his other hand and pressed the barrel against Akatsuke's arm, flooding it with electrified mana.
"Aaaargh!!"
Lightning tore through Akatsuke's body. It wouldn't kill him. It wouldn't leave lasting damage.
But the pain was unavoidable.
He fell to his knees, eyes rolling back.
"It… hurts…"
His body had already restored itself—but the agony lingered.
*Crackkk!*
His fist slammed into Ken's leg.
"You… should get a taste as well," Akatsuke said through clenched teeth. "Don't you think so?"
Ken gritted his teeth as his shin shattered completely.
He staggered—then forced wind magic into his leg, stabilizing it.
*Bang. Bang. Bang.*
Ken fired three shots into Akatsuke—one in the shoulder, one in the head, and one in the leg.
Light began shining from the wounds, but Akatsuke stood still.
'I see, he cannot move until he's healed to some extent.'
Before this information could be used, Ken noticed that Akio had already returned, his hands extended towards Ken. A singular shard shot out, but the color of it wasn't just one. It was a blend of different colors, coalescing into a murky shade of grey.
Ken shot the shard, but the lightning had no effect. Its advance could not be stopped.
Before he could step back, he felt a hand grab his broken shin.
"You… aren't getting away..!"
Akatsuke, light fading from his closed wounds, had finally recovered enough to move once more.
Sweat began to bead on Ken's forehead, the wind surrounding his leg beginning to run more rampant, shredding Akatsuke's hand. He then leaped back, narrowly avoiding the barrier Akio sent for him.
The barrier shard slammed into a nearby guard. What used to be its torso was now nothing. That shard had so many attributes that once they all came into contact with something, nothing but destruction was its result.
Luckily for Ken, this wasn't something that Akio could just use again.
Akio's eyes were bleeding, and his soul weapon deactivated itself.
While soul weapons didn't need mana to be used, or any special energy for that matter, they were taxing both mentally and physically. Using his soul weapon for an attack like that left Akio out of commission.
His eyes rolled back, and he slumped himself onto the ground. While he wasn't in any mortal danger, fighting was no longer an option for him.
"What a dangerous soul weapon…"
Ken stared at Akio, who had fallen unconscious, then at Akatsuke, who ran to check on his friend.
His words weren't necessarily targeted at anyone. He'd seen from the children's tournament how dangerous their soul weapons were.
If they had more experience… or even if they had simply fought him as a team, he knew that he could get overwhelmed quickly.
But since he was only fighting two at the moment, and one threw himself out of commission, he knew this was doable.
The only issue now was Akatsuke, who was seemingly immortal.
He was shot in the heart, head, leg, and shoulder, yet was still standing. He even felt safe enough to check on his friend mid-fight.
Ken watched the boy hold Akio's shoulders, checking to see if he was still alive.
While he had the chance, he then checked his own wounds. His skin was still burned, and his shin was shattered.
The burns were light enough to not hinder him; the only real wound he had was his leg.
He then tapped the side of his head, water leaking out. The ice he was covered in earlier had dulled his senses. Thankfully, his sense of pain had also been dulled.
His current condition was less than desired, but there wasn't much he could do about it.
He didn't have healing magic like Akari.
That kind of magic was extremely rare. It was almost exclusively used by priests, who practiced holy magic, and beings from the light, like Angels.
A child knowing how to use it was unprecedented.
That didn't mean he couldn't do anything about his wounds.
While the burns would heal with time, a simple coating of earth could stabilize his leg well enough to fight.
His fingers ran along his leg, soft mud flowing out and immediately hardening into a makeshift cast.
When he looked back up, he saw something that wasn't entirely unexpected.
When he was in the sky, looking down on everything that was happening, he saw Shinto and Sylvia breaking Ranni out of his prison.
Now the three had been surrounding Akio along with Akatsuke.
Once they had confirmed that he wouldn't die, they laid him down and faced Ken.
The scales over Sylvia's head once again tilted lower, towards her side.
Her mana capacity grew, her eyes shining brightly as she announced,
"We'll take it from here! Akatsuke, go help Akari!"
Her hand extended outward, a brilliant flame blazing outward as she began casting multiple fire spells.
"You'll dodge this one!"
She announced, the flames growing even more dangerously before merging together and racing towards their target.
The flames approached Ken, the heat reaching him well before the actual attack.
"You're correct."
Ken manipulated the ground to move his body away from the attack. It was a simple application of earth magic, but it allowed him to dodge Sylvia's spell without hurting his leg further.
While he had a feeling that this could be a trap, being burned once was enough for one day.
Sylvia cheerfully jumped in the air, the scales above her head tilting dangerously low towards the emerald orb's side.
"You really did it! Guess what?" she grinned. "My soul weapon gives me better rewards when I say my bets out loud!"
She flashed a peace sign, her mana growing outward and covering the children. Ranni, Shinto, Akio, Akatsuke, and herself were enveloped in Sylvia's mana. A green aura began to form around the group, her mana becoming so dense that it became visible.
Akio, still knocked out, began to heal. While he wouldn't be able to join the fight again, at least the four wouldn't need to worry about him.
Sylvia pointed at Ken, her mouth twisted into an ecstatic grin as she yelled,
"Now let's get a lil crazy!"
Akatsuke dashed off to reach Akari and Evvls.
Ranni. Sylvia and Shinto stared at Ken, Sylvia smiling and Ranni expressionless. Shinto looked a bit nervous, but with his soul weapon still active, he put on a confident front, saying,
"We're really about to do this, huh?"
Sylvia simply nudged him, her confident smile not faltering in the slightest.
Ken broke into a smile, chuckling as he slowly spoke.
"This stage really is amazing now, isn't it?"
Ken snapped his fingers.
A drone flew in as three metallic spheres dropped into his hand, blue light pulsing through their seams.
"It's time to get a bit more serious."
His jade eyes began to gleam an intense light. A roar—unbefitting of a snake—echoed nearby at the same moment.
With a gun in one hand, three spheres in another, and a makeshift cast on his leg, Ken resolved himself to gain control over this situation once more.