---
Luna had bitten her own knuckle hard enough to draw blood.
Akayoroi stood very still, eyes half hooded, antennae quivering.
Miryam's torn coat flapped around her knees in the faint wind, aura wrapped so tight around herself it was almost painful.
"She is going to fall," she whispered inwardly, forgetting to only think at Kai. "She is going to fall if he takes one more hit like that."
Ikea crouched in her tree, nails biting into bark.
"You are close," she murmured, though no one heard. "Do not you dare be clever in the wrong direction now, boy."
Vorak rolled his shoulders once.
"Last lesson," he said. "You are good at making dents, Lord Kai. But this is not a battle on a ramp. This is a ledger. At some point, one of us has to pay in full."
He drew in a breath.
Aura surged around him, not in a wild blaze, but in a dense, focused rush. The red shimmer that had haunted his spear now wrapped his fists, his forearms, his shoulders, like ghost armor.
The system screamed.
