Baku advanced without speeding up.
The tip of the pickaxe brushed the floor every few steps, just enough to produce a dry scrape against the concrete. He was not watching Hibiki alone. His eyes moved across the entire corridor: the cracks in the walls, the pipes secured to the ceiling, the metal plates in the floor, and the columns that had already taken impacts during the two fights that had happened there.
Any of them could return something to him.
Hibiki remained still at the opposite end.
The difference from the first few minutes was obvious. Before, Baku had entered the fight striking anything within reach. He had used walls to cut off movement, the floor to stabilize himself, and columns as points of impact. Now he kept the weapon close to his body and wasted nothing.
The wall on the left vibrated.
Baku did not look at it.
The strike came from there a moment later.
He twisted his torso and caught it with the handle of the pickaxe. The force traveled through both arms and moved him half a step, but his feet stayed planted.
Another vibration.
This time below him.
Baku jumped sideways before the floor returned the force it had stored. The tile burst where his leg had been.
Hibiki advanced with the movement.
Baku saw him.
He did not swing in a wide arc.
He closed the distance and drove his shoulder into Hibiki's chest.
Hibiki staggered backward.
Baku stayed close.
He struck with the lower end of the handle.
Abdomen.
A second hit to the side.
Hibiki raised an arm to block the third, but Baku changed direction midway through and drove an elbow across his face.
The remnant stumbled.
Baku could have thrown him into the wall.
He did not.
He grabbed the fabric near Hibiki's shoulder and pulled him closer.
A knee.
The air left Hibiki's body.
Baku let go.
He moved away before Hibiki could return the attack.
None of it had touched the environment.
Hibiki raised his eyes.
For the first time since the fight began, Baku had landed several strikes without feeding a single surface around them.
The pipe above them vibrated.
Baku heard it before the attack came.
He ducked.
A violent pressure tore through the air above his head and struck the opposite wall.
Baku straightened.
He had not touched that pipe.
Not during this fight.
Not since he had returned.
He looked up for a second.
Then toward the bodies scattered along the corridor.
He understood.
Not every strike around him belonged to him.
Hibiki had not begun preparing this place when Baku arrived.
He had been doing it long before that.
The next impact came from a column beside one of the bodies.
It was stronger than the others.
Baku managed to raise the pickaxe, but the force punched through his defense and broke his balance.
A second resonance came from the wall on the other side.
He had no time to anchor himself.
The force struck his side and threw him to the floor.
He rolled once.
His boot hit the weapon of one of the dead hunters.
Baku stopped.
It was a metal staff, broken near the middle.
He looked toward the wall that had just released the attack.
There was a deep mark in the concrete.
Its height matched roughly the path that staff would have taken.
Baku stood slowly.
Hibiki did not need to explain anything.
Those hunters had fought.
They had struck walls when they missed.
They had used the floor to stop charges.
They had blocked attacks against columns.
Every one of those movements had left something behind.
And now Hibiki was still using them.
The column on the right vibrated.
Baku moved aside.
The impact shot across the corridor.
The force was different.
More concentrated.
Baku looked toward another body.
A man still wore a reinforced glove on his right hand.
The knuckles were destroyed.
Baku looked back at Hibiki.
The remnant had started walking slowly between the charged surfaces.
He did not need to get closer.
Every step seemed to carry him toward another point from which he could trigger part of that enormous mechanism.
The rear wall answered.
Baku ducked.
The discharge passed over him.
The floor vibrated immediately afterward.
He did not avoid it completely.
The force struck beneath his foot and lifted him.
Baku landed on one shoulder.
Before he could get up, a third resonance came from a metal plate.
It hit him in the back.
The air left his lungs.
His body slid several meters.
Hibiki kept advancing.
There was nothing wasted in the way he fought.
Baku spat to the side.
A small dark stain appeared on the floor.
Blood.
He wiped his mouth with the back of one hand.
Then stood again.
Hibiki watched him for a few seconds.
"They still work."
Baku kept looking at the bodies.
He did not answer.
"The attacks," Hibiki continued. "The last ones they left behind."
Baku slowly raised the pickaxe.
Hibiki looked toward one of the dead hunters.
"They're still fighting."
The silence changed.
Baku drove the tip of the weapon into the floor.
Not to defend himself.
Only to rest it there for a moment.
"No."
Hibiki looked at him.
Baku raised his head.
"You're using them."
He ripped the pickaxe out of the concrete.
And advanced again.
Hibiki released two resonances at once.
One from the left.
Another from a pipe behind him.
Baku could not block both.
He shifted to the right to avoid the first and turned the weapon to catch the second.
Exactly what Hibiki wanted.
The plate beneath his foot vibrated.
Baku barely had time to look down.
The impact traveled up his leg.
His body lost its support.
Hibiki was in front of him before he had fully recovered his balance.
A strike to the face.
Baku turned with it and bled off part of the force.
The next hit landed against his abdomen.
He took it.
Closed his arm around Hibiki's.
The remnant tried to pull free.
Baku did not let him.
For one second, the fight stopped belonging to the corridor.
The walls did not matter.
The pipes did not matter.
Hibiki was too close.
Baku pulled him in.
The front of his mask smashed into Hibiki's nose.
Hibiki staggered, but Baku kept hold of him.
A short punch to the abdomen.
Another.
There was no room to load the strikes, so Baku used his entire body to generate force over only a few centimeters.
Hibiki blocked one.
The next landed beneath the ribs.
Baku rotated his wrist and struck with the back of the pickaxe.
The metal hit Hibiki in the temple.
His body tilted.
Baku grabbed him by the neck.
He could have slammed him into the floor.
He held back.
He only pushed enough to keep him inside his reach.
Knee to the torso.
Elbow.
Handle.
Hibiki tried to answer with a punch.
Baku deflected it.
Another short strike.
The remnant folded.
It was no longer an even exchange.
At that distance, Hibiki could barely create space.
Baku was stronger.
Faster than his size suggested.
And he knew exactly how to use both.
Hibiki tried to break away.
Baku closed him down again.
A vibration traveled through the wall behind them.
Baku heard it.
He could not keep going.
He released Hibiki and dropped to the side.
The wall released a massive force between them.
Hibiki had to move too.
Baku rolled and got up.
Hibiki landed several meters away.
A dark line was starting beneath his nose.
His breathing had changed.
He no longer looked as comfortable.
Baku moved his right shoulder.
It hurt.
The joint still worked, but the accumulated impacts were starting to take their toll.
Hibiki did not seem eager to come close again either.
They had both learned something.
For the next several minutes, the fight became slower.
Not less dangerous.
Baku stopped chasing.
He watched.
Waited.
Hibiki made a surface vibrate.
Baku reacted.
Sometimes the impact came immediately.
Sometimes it did not.
Once, a pipe vibrated and Baku prepared for the strike.
Nothing happened.
Three seconds later, the discharge came from a plate connected to the same metal system.
Baku took part of it on his arm.
He moved before the second.
He began watching not only which point vibrated, but where it was connected.
The pipes overhead formed networks.
The plates were linked through supports.
The columns shared the same concrete structure.
Hibiki was not moving impacts freely through open air.
He was making them travel through something.
Baku backed toward a section where a vertical pipe ran down to the floor.
Hibiki triggered a resonance.
Baku waited.
The metal trembled.
Before the impact arrived, Baku raised the pickaxe and struck the joint between two sections.
Not with force.
With precision.
The fastening piece broke.
The upper pipe dropped several centimeters and hung loose.
The resonance traveled through the metal.
Reached the broken point.
The detached section shook violently.
The impact died there.
Baku looked at the pipe.
Then at Hibiki.
The remnant's expression did not change.
But he had seen the same thing.
Baku started moving.
This time not toward him.
He went for another joint.
A short strike with the tip.
The bolt came free.
A plate partially separated from the wall.
Hibiki released another resonance.
The plate shook.
Nothing traveled into the main structure.
Baku was already at the next one.
He was not destroying the underground level.
He was dismantling it.
Small points.
Joints.
Supports.
Connections.
Each cut reduced the number of places Hibiki could attack from.
The remnant understood too quickly.
The wall behind Baku vibrated.
He turned.
But that was not the attack.
The column ahead answered first.
Baku raised his weapon.
The blow forced him backward.
Then the wall behind him released its impact.
Baku was caught between both.
He drove the pickaxe into the floor.
The first force came from the front.
He took it.
The second hit from behind.
The anchor stopped him from flying away, but his torso bent forward.
Sharp pain ran through his ribs.
Baku forced air out.
Hibiki gave him no time.
A third resonance came from the floor.
The pickaxe was still anchored.
Baku could not jump.
He ripped it free too late.
The discharge hit his legs.
He fell.
Hibiki appeared over him.
Baku blocked one strike with his forearm.
The second landed close to the shoulder that had already taken damage.
The arm responded more slowly.
Hibiki noticed.
He attacked the same side again.
Baku shifted his body and took it across the torso instead.
The pain in his ribs worsened.
His left hand caught Hibiki's wrist.
The pickaxe was too far away to use properly.
It did not matter.
Baku pulled the remnant down and drove his forehead into Hibiki's jaw.
Hibiki stumbled backward.
Baku rolled, recovered the weapon, and got up.
His breathing was heavier now.
Hibiki's face was marked.
Neither of them was untouched.
Baku started testing something else.
He found a column that had already released two impacts.
A deep crack from his own first strike still ran across its surface.
He approached.
Hibiki watched him.
Baku raised the pickaxe.
And tapped the column.
Nothing more.
A small hit.
Almost ridiculous compared with the ones before.
The metallic sound traveled through the concrete.
Baku kept walking.
Hibiki tilted his head slightly.
Nothing happened.
A minute later, the fight brought them near that same column again.
Hibiki raised one hand.
The structure vibrated.
Baku prepared himself.
The impact came.
It struck his shoulder.
Baku barely moved.
The force was minimal.
His eyes moved from the column to Hibiki.
The remnant had stopped for a fraction of a second.
Baku looked back at the mark.
That surface had received a much stronger hit before.
But what it had just returned was the most recent tap.
Not the old one.
Baku did not smile.
But something in his stance changed.
Hibiki attacked.
Baku retreated toward another wall.
Tapped it with the handle.
A small hit.
Then another.
A short strike with his knuckles.
He kept moving.
Hibiki began triggering resonances before Baku could continue.
The wall on the left released a brutal force.
Baku ducked.
The pipe above answered next.
He blocked it.
A column behind him released an older strike.
That one hit.
Baku flew backward.
Landed on his back.
The air left him.
Hibiki was spending what remained.
Baku sat up using the pickaxe for support.
He looked across the surfaces.
Some still held powerful attacks.
Others no longer did.
The difference was becoming visible.
Hibiki stopped waiting.
Vibrations began spreading across the corridor.
One.
Two.
Five.
Baku heard metal trembling above him.
Concrete under his boots.
Wall plates.
He no longer had time to identify every one.
The first impact came from behind.
Baku turned.
Blocked.
The second came from the side and struck his thigh.
His leg buckled for a moment.
The third came from above.
Baku drove the pickaxe down.
Anchored himself.
The force crushed him downward.
His knees bent.
A fourth impact came from the floor before he could free the weapon.
It traveled through his whole body.
Baku lost his grip.
Hibiki extended both hands.
The walls answered.
Not all at once.
In sequence.
The entire corridor began returning the previous battle.
A hit from the left.
Another from ahead.
Another from the ceiling.
Baku covered his face.
Retreated.
One caught his shoulder.
Another his side.
He blocked a third.
The next landed beneath the ribs.
Blood returned to his mouth.
He spat while moving.
He could not stay still.
The resonances did not follow a simple pattern.
Some had come from him.
Others belonged to the dead hunters.
Some were weak.
Others had enough force to break a wall.
Baku took one head-on.
The handle of the pickaxe slammed into his chest.
He staggered several steps.
To his right lay one of the bodies.
The hunter with the reinforced glove.
The nearby column began to vibrate.
Baku looked at the ruined hand.
The blow came.
Brutal.
Stronger than he expected.
Baku planted one foot behind him and raised the weapon.
The discharge pushed him.
His boots left two marks across the floor.
But he did not fall.
He looked at the dead man.
For a moment, the noise of the fight disappeared behind the sound of his own breathing.
It had been a good hit.
A really good one.
Hibiki raised a hand to activate another surface.
Baku looked back at him.
None of this truly belonged to Hibiki.
Not completely.
The remnant had turned the last efforts of the dead into ammunition.
And he was spending them one by one.
Baku tightened his grip on the pickaxe.
The next resonance came from the floor.
He jumped.
Another from the wall.
He twisted in the air.
The force grazed his back.
He landed on one knee.
Instead of rising immediately, he tapped the tile in front of him.
Softly.
Hibiki saw it.
Baku tapped another.
Softly again.
He moved toward the wall.
Tap.
Column.
Tap.
Hibiki triggered an old resonance before he could continue.
Baku caught it with the handle.
The strike opened a small cut near his brow beneath the mask.
He did not stop.
Another wall.
Another small impact.
Hibiki began to understand.
The remnant attacked physically.
He could not allow Baku to keep filling the battlefield with useless hits.
He closed the distance and threw a punch toward Baku's face.
Baku blocked with his forearm.
His shoulder protested.
Hibiki attacked the side.
Baku retreated.
Another hit.
Then another.
This time Hibiki was not trying to beat him in close combat.
Only to keep him away from the structures.
Baku understood.
He let him advance.
Blocked.
Retreated.
Blocked again.
Every step moved them farther from the area Baku had already altered.
Hibiki thought he was taking space back.
Baku waited.
When the remnant attacked again, Baku stepped inside.
Too close.
Caught the arm.
Hibiki tried to separate.
Baku struck his abdomen with the handle.
Once.
Twice.
The third was a knee.
Hibiki folded forward.
Baku moved behind him.
He did not throw him.
He drove an elbow into his back.
Hibiki lost his footing.
Baku used that second to tap the wall beside him.
A small hit.
Hibiki heard the sound.
He turned immediately.
Baku was already moving away.
The remnant triggered the wall on instinct.
A vibration.
A weak impact.
It barely moved Baku's coat.
Both of them froze for a moment.
Now it was obvious.
The crack in that wall showed that it had absorbed something far stronger during the fight.
But the previous echo was gone.
It had been replaced.
Baku had placed another one over it.
Small.
Useless.
Hibiki looked at the wall.
Then at Baku.
He explained nothing.
He turned toward another column and tapped it with the end of the handle.
Softly.
Hibiki advanced.
Baku moved.
Another tap against a pipe.
The remnant tried to stop him.
Baku dodged.
A small strike against a plate.
The terrain was beginning to change.
Not physically.
The cracks were still there.
So was the blood.
The bodies.
The marks left by older blows.
But some of the weapons Hibiki had been using no longer contained the same force.
The corridor was still loaded.
Only now, little by little, Baku was replacing the bullets.
Hibiki stopped chasing him.
He remained in the center of the corridor.
Baku stopped too.
Between them were several surfaces that still contained dangerous resonances.
But many others had already been altered.
One pipe was disconnected.
A plate no longer touched the main structure.
Two walls had taken new, smaller impacts.
A column too.
There was blood at the corner of Baku's mouth.
His right shoulder felt heavy.
Every deep breath hurt his ribs.
Hibiki was not in good condition either.
The area beneath one side of his ribs sank slightly with each breath. Blood ran beneath his nose, and a cut along his temple remained open from the strike with the handle.
For several seconds, neither attacked.
Hibiki looked around.
First the column.
Then the wall.
Then the disconnected pipe.
Baku followed his gaze.
Hibiki finally spoke.
"What did you do?"
Baku kept the pickaxe low.
He did not answer immediately.
Hibiki activated the column.
The structure vibrated.
The impact came.
Weak.
Baku did not even raise his weapon.
The force struck his chest and barely moved the fabric of his clothes.
Another wall.
Same result.
A small impact.
Hibiki stopped activating the surfaces.
Baku slowly raised the pickaxe.
"I get it now."
Nothing else.
Hibiki stared at him.
For the first time since appearing behind those doors, something changed in his expression.
Not fear.
Not yet.
But the certainty that the corridor no longer belonged entirely to him.
Baku took one step forward.
Hibiki lowered his arms.
Until then, he had fought like someone surrounded by invisible weapons.
Now he took a different stance.
Lower.
Prepared to receive him directly.
Baku kept advancing.
Between them, one final pipe vibrated.
One of the few that still held a powerful impact.
Neither looked away from the other.
Hibiki stepped forward too.