The Swordsmith Village did not sleep. It only pretended to.
Beneath the steady glow of forge fires and the rhythmic hammering of metal, tension coiled like a living thing. Karina sensed it the moment she stepped onto the upper ridge overlooking the village's inner ring. The air vibrated faintly, not with Gyokko's distortion alone, but with anticipation—an unstable convergence of fear, preparation, and something far more dangerous: expectation.
She stood still, cloak resting against her back, Arcane Breathing slowed to a measured cadence. Each inhalation mapped space, traced invisible lines through stone, heat, and shadow. The village had been reinforced since the initial contact. Patrols doubled. Hidden routes activated. Swordsmiths were evacuated in controlled waves deeper underground. The Corps was adapting.
Yet Gyokko was not a creature that tested defenses blindly. He observed. He learned. He dismantled.
Karina felt Mitsuri before she heard her. The Love Hashira approached without haste, her presence warm and unmistakable, like a steady flame rather than a spark. She stopped beside Karina, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched. Not accidentally.
"They've adjusted the perimeter," Mitsuri said quietly. "But I don't think he's aiming for the outer ring."
"No," Karina replied. Her gaze remained fixed on the valley beyond. "He will strike where confidence peaks. Where protection feels absolute."
Mitsuri hummed thoughtfully. "The central forge."
"Yes."
A pause settled between them. Not uncomfortable—calibrated. Since the skirmish, something had shifted in the way they occupied space together. Mitsuri no longer circled or hovered. She aligned. Karina, in turn, no longer resisted the alignment. She accounted for it.
A variable acknowledged became a constant.
"They're expecting you to lead the counter," Mitsuri said. "Some of the guards are nervous. You unsettle them."
Karina's expression did not change. "That is acceptable."
Mitsuri smiled faintly. "You really don't soften anything, do you?"
"There is no operational value in comfort."
"And yet," Mitsuri said, turning her head to look directly at Karina, "you stayed."
Karina met her gaze. The moment stretched—measured, controlled. "I was deployed here."
"That's not what I meant."
Karina did not answer. She did not need to. The implication hung between them, heavy but not burdensome. Mitsuri accepted the silence with grace, as she did most things.
A sharp tremor rippled through the ground.
Karina's head snapped up. Arcane Breathing reacted instantly, her senses expanding outward. The tremor was not seismic. It was spatial—a compression, subtle but deliberate. Gyokko was not attacking yet. He was folding reality, tightening it like a net.
"He's testing response time," Karina said. "Mapping reaction vectors."
Mitsuri's grip tightened on her blade. "Then we don't give him one."
They moved simultaneously.
The central forge was a cathedral of heat and sound, its massive chimneys breathing fire into the night sky. Swordsmiths had been cleared moments earlier, leaving only guards and a small number of elite slayers positioned along the beams and platforms. As Karina and Mitsuri entered, the distortion intensified.
Ceramic growths bloomed along the walls like diseased coral.
Gyokko's influence poured through them.
"Ahhh… such order," his voice crooned, echoing from every surface at once. "Such beautiful preparation. It would be a shame if it were… misaligned."
The first attack came without warning.
Space fractured above the forge floor, disgorging a mass of warped fish-like demons, their bodies twisted with porcelain scales and jagged fins. They fell like living shrapnel, shrieking as they struck stone.
Karina moved.
Arcane Breathing surged, not violently but decisively. Her blade traced a clean arc through the air.
First Form: Arcane – Mirage Blade.
Reality bent along the path of her strike. The nearest demons were severed before they understood they were under attack, their bodies splitting along impossible angles, blood evaporating in the forge's heat.
Mitsuri followed, her flexible blade snapping outward in a fluid spiral, decapitating two more creatures mid-leap. She laughed once—sharp, focused, exhilarated.
"Behind you!"
Karina had already turned. Another spatial rupture tore open near the ceiling, releasing a larger construct—this one armored, its core encased in thick porcelain plating. Its movements were erratic, distorted by Gyokko's manipulation.
Karina adjusted her stance. This was not a brute-force target.
She inhaled deeply.
Second Form: Arcane – Spatial Severance.
Her blade did not strike the demon directly. Instead, it cut through the space around it. The distortion holding the creature together collapsed, and the demon imploded, its form folding inward before vanishing in a burst of warped energy.
The forge shook.
Guards shouted, repositioning. More demons emerged—smaller, faster, designed to overwhelm rather than kill. Gyokko was escalating, layering pressure, forcing coordination.
Mitsuri moved closer to Karina, their backs aligning instinctively. Their fighting styles contrasted sharply—Karina precise and surgical, Mitsuri expansive and flowing—but together they created a seamless perimeter.
"You're anticipating him," Mitsuri said between strikes.
"He is becoming predictable," Karina replied. "Which is dangerous."
"For him?"
"For everyone."
Gyokko's laughter sharpened. "Oh, anomaly… you wound me. To be understood so quickly."
The forge's central pillar cracked.
A massive porcelain vase erupted from the floor, splitting open to reveal Gyokko's partial manifestation—his upper body emerging, eyes gleaming with malicious delight.
Mitsuri stiffened. "He's here."
"Partially," Karina corrected. "He is anchoring."
Gyokko's gaze fixed on her immediately, ignoring the others entirely. "You adapt too quickly. You resonate. And worse…" His many eyes flicked briefly to Mitsuri. "You connect."
The word carried weight.
Karina felt it—not as emotion, but as pressure. Gyokko was probing, not physically but conceptually, testing the boundary between her power and its emerging catalyst.
Mitsuri's breathing faltered for half a second.
Karina noticed.
That was unacceptable.
She stepped forward, placing herself deliberately between Gyokko and Mitsuri, her presence cold and absolute.
"You will not reference what you do not understand," Karina said.
Gyokko's grin widened. "But that is precisely why it is so delicious."
The forge lights flickered. Illusions bloomed—reflections of Karina and Mitsuri twisting, overlapping, merging and separating in grotesque parodies of intimacy and violence. The air thickened with sensory distortion.
Mitsuri gasped softly, her footing faltering as the illusion assaulted her perception.
Karina reacted instantly.
She reached out—not with her blade, but with her hand—and grasped Mitsuri's wrist.
The contact was firm. Intentional.
Grounding.
Mitsuri's eyes snapped back into focus, meeting Karina's. The distortion weakened, unable to fully take hold.
Arcane Breathing spiked.
Karina felt it—how proximity no longer disrupted her rhythm, but stabilized it. The variable had integrated.
Gyokko hissed. "So that is it. How inelegant."
Karina did not respond. She tightened her grip for a fraction of a second longer than necessary, ensuring Mitsuri was fully present.
Then she released her and stepped forward.
Third Form: Arcane – Optical Fracture.
The illusions shattered.
Reality snapped back into place with violent force. Gyokko's partial body recoiled, cracks racing across his porcelain shell.
Guards stared in stunned silence.
Mitsuri exhaled shakily, then smiled—small, sincere, unmistakably affected. "You didn't hesitate."
"Hesitation would have been inefficient," Karina replied.
Mitsuri's smile widened. "You really are terrible at lying to yourself."
Gyokko screamed, his form destabilizing. "Enough! This was not the purpose of this engagement."
The vase shattered, his presence dissolving into a swarm of fleeing distortions. The remaining demons collapsed without his anchor, their bodies crumbling into inert ceramic husks.
Silence fell over the forge, broken only by the crackle of fire.
Karina lowered her blade slowly, senses still expanded, scanning for residual threats. None remained.
The battle had lasted minutes.
The implications would last far longer.
Mitsuri stepped closer again, this time unguarded. Her voice dropped, private. "He went for me."
"Yes."
"And you responded… differently."
Karina considered her words carefully. "You were a point of attack. I neutralized it."
Mitsuri's eyes softened. "You didn't neutralize me."
"No," Karina said. "I preserved you."
The honesty of the statement settled heavily between them. Not emotional. Not romantic. But undeniably intimate.
Around them, the village began to move again—orders issued, damage assessed, whispers spreading. The foreign slayer had repelled an Upper Rank's direct probe. With the Love Hashira at her side.
Karina turned toward the exit. "This was a test. He has confirmed what he needed."
Mitsuri followed. "Which is?"
"That emotional proximity does not weaken me."
She paused, then added, quieter, "It strengthens me."
Mitsuri did not reply immediately. She simply reached out and gently laced her fingers with Karina's—brief, unhidden, and entirely deliberate—before letting go.
"Then we'll survive this," she said softly. "Together."
Karina did not correct her.
High above, unseen and furious, Gyokko retreated fully, his mind already reshaping strategy.
The anomaly had evolved.
And worse—
She was no longer alone.