Back on the battlefield itself, above the concrete road that runs along the river's calm edge, between the two bridges that divide the path into sections.
Restless, they wait: the five masks, the five aces—Rin, Talan, Zane, Daclan, and Shato.
They wait, until mist suddenly rises toward the sky, multiplying, spinning like a tornado and then a lifeless body is thrown from its whirling core.
My body.
Soaked in blood, unconscious, falling.
I land in Shato's steady arms. He pulls my cloak aside, eyes narrowing at the gaping, dripping wound. His rage shows even without a face to see it, his fist clenches, his breath hitches, his tongue hisses, and his gaze shoots upward. Toward the tornado. Toward the mist. Toward the second figure who leaps from it.
The boy.
He lands gracefully, dissolving the storm above their heads as if it had never been, and with a blank expression, turns back to his true task.
The policemen.
"He's still alive," his high voice cuts in, less arrogant than before.
"For now," he adds mockingly, avoiding eye contact as best he can.
Shato's eyes drop—toward the ground, toward the body, toward my body.
It isn't just anger boiling in him. Grief and guilt burn there too, spilling out of someone usually so calm.
Even though, in truth, it was my own recklessness that dragged me into this.
"Now you've gone too far …" he breathes, just loud enough for everyone to hear.
He turns on the spot, carrying my limp body toward the others.
They all look at me.
They all blame themselves.
They all seethe with rage, desperate to make the boy pay.
"I even held back, Shato," the stranger replies, not exactly diffusing the tension.
"Hah?! Still throwing out stupid comments, you bastard? I'll—" Talan roars, ready to fight, but Shato shoves him aside in passing, handing my unconscious body over to Daclan.
"What are you planning?" Daclan asks, though the answer is clear enough as Shato turns back with firm steps toward the boy.
"Hah … in that way, you two really are alike, don't you think?" Daclan sighs, watching his leader march off while holding me tight in his arms.
"What are you doing?" Rin's low voice cuts in, her hand gripping Shato's cloak.
"Buying you some time. Get Vio to safety," he orders flatly.
"What am I, his babysitter?" Talan protests.
"Sorry, Talan. That wasn't a request," Shato answers sharply.
"Tch … sometimes I really can't stand you," Talan spits, though he yields.
"You're not going to—" Rin starts, but Shato slips free of her grip.
"H-Hey!" she calls after him, but Zane steps in, laying a hand on their leader's shoulder.
"You sure you can win this?" he asks, voice steady, violet eyeholes glowing.
"Have I ever lost to an enemy?" Shato answers with a short laugh—cocky, almost as arrogant as the boy they face.
"Guess you had a clown for breakfast," Zane mutters dryly, pulling his hand back. "But don't forget—we're a team."
Shato simply flicks his hand through the air in acknowledgment, letting it fall again.
"Why'd you let him go? He's reckless—and in his state, he's not even half as strong as he used to be!" Rin immediately snaps at Zane.
"Tell him that, not me," Zane shrugs.
"But you let him go, didn't you?!" Rin presses, furious.
"And what exactly was he supposed to do?" Talan cuts in.
"Stop him! What else, you idiot?!" Rin fires back without hesitation.
"So our little girl thinks Shato can't judge the situation himself?!" Talan snarls, fists clenching as he charges toward her.
"That's not the same thing at all!" Rin shoots back, her hand sliding to the hilt of her blade.
Before it can erupt further, Zane steps between them, grabbing both their heads and shoving them down to the ground.
"Save your marital dispute for later!" he thunders, his voice silencing even the noise of the battlefield, before letting go and striding off toward the bridge with Daclan.
"MARITAL DISPUTE?!" Rin and Talan shout in unison, but he ignores them completely. All they can do is exchange one last murderous glare and follow at a distance, keeping well apart.
"So? Team meeting over?" the boy asks, eyes fixed on the steadily approaching Shato.
"There are lines you don't cross. And you've stepped well beyond one," Shato answers, stopping abruptly and raising his black-and-white mask toward the enemy.
"Hehe … so I really did make you angry this time," the boy says, still grinning, as if this were all just some game.
"It's admirable when children can recognize they've done wrong. Shows maturity," Shato replies with biting sarcasm, as Rin and the others reach the bridge behind him.
"Children, huh? Then tell me—what makes someone a child? Is it age? Or the mind? And at what point does one finally become an adult?"
The question comes out of nowhere. The way he scratches the back of his head, his eyes drifting toward the clouds—it's all so absurdly out of place.
"Depends who you ask. But if you want my opinion … I can tell you this much: you'll never cross that point!" Shato roars, louder than before, his left eye blazing white, his right eye burning black.
"What—because you want to finish me off here and now?" the boy asks, his gaze caught, almost entranced, by the shifting lights dancing around them.
"Far too much effort, for far too little gain. What I'm after … is your goal," Shato replies, his tone calm.
And suddenly—silence.
An ominous silence.
The boy doesn't react at all, as if struck mute, as if something had crushed him flat.
Even his grin—his mocking eyes—everything freezes at the weight of that single sentence.
"Seems I hit a nerve," Shato finally breaks the stillness.
"Not really. I'm just surprised you think you know what my goal even is," the boy answers.
"Trust me—I'd much rather not know," Shato replies.
"But what am I even saying at this point … You've already made your choice. I've tried enough times to talk sense into you. If you refuse to see reason and even go so far as to make the boy your target, then you've left me no choice, Ryuu."
"Ha … Haha … Ahahahaha, SHAAATOO!" the boy—this child named Ryuu—erupts, arms flung wide as though inviting him in.
"A Choice? It's far, far, far, FAR too late for that!"
His words are the signal, the black circles above their heads burst open, and the bloody remains of the policemen rain down.
At first, they fall in slow motion, long and soundless … then faster, shorter, louder, until they crash against the ground, heralding the beginning of battle in gruesome splendor.
Beneath Ryuu's feet, shadows churn. They pulse, rise, twist, gathering just before his face—
and then, in an instant, they erupt into black blades.
Too many to count.
And too fast.
In less than a heartbeat they're already upon Shato.
But the black in Shato's right eye flares—
and every last blade shatters against a pitch-dark barrier that surrounds him.
They fail, utterly.
But Ryuu is already moving. Already airborne. Already there, fist clenched, strike incoming.
And still, Shato's barrier does not vanish, it folds. Shifts.
Becomes a shield on his left arm, tall as his own body.
Ryuu's fist.
Shato's shield.
The two forces collide, cracks splitting the street beneath them, the river's calm waters thrown into waves.
For a heartbeat, their eyes lock.
Shato's mask—serious even through its blank face.
Ryuu's grin—wild, delighted—as his feet touch down.
He springs back, twisting through the air, retreating into a roll. Shato thinks it's a pause, until black hands shoot from the ground, wrapping tight around his feet.
Almost at the same time, two black spears lance upward, Ryuu catching them as he launches again at his trapped prey.
He strikes—full confidence.
Shato blocks—again, the shield.
The attack splinters, nothing seems to happen.
Nothing, except Ryuu's smile widening, and the shadows around Shato pulsing.
Suddenly, spikes erupt.
Thick as fists, surging from the dark, surrounding him on all sides.
Shato doesn't flinch. The shield shifts again, spreading, swelling into a full barrier that seals him in.
The spikes shatter against it.
The barrier tears apart.
And everything dissolves, as though it never existed.
Ryuu only hisses.
And behind the fading shadows, Shato's left eye ignites.
In white light.
So fierce it paints Ryuu's pale face in its glow, until it leaps to Shato's right arm, where a half-moon blade forms.
Radiant.
Encircling him.
And then slashing forward, straight at the boy.
At his unguarded stomach.
Shato strikes. Ryuu's eyes widen. The crescent connects, but only with a mass of trembling black sludge that appears before him, shivering like pitch-dark jelly.
Still, the crescent bites. Still, Ryuu is flung back, hurled in a straight line across the darkened street.
He should crash eventually, sink like a falling plane, but Shato is already moving. The ground cracks where he launches.
He catches Ryuu in midair, drives his fist into him, and sends him flying away from the river, toward the grassy slope.
Dust and torn grass explode upward, cloaking Ryuu's limp form in a rising cloud, while Shato lands steady, never taking his eyes from the fading outline of his foe.
"Hehe … now I'm actually starting to feel excited," Talan mutters from the bridge, leaning against the stone railing like a restless child.
"Is fighting the only thing rattling around in that empty head of yours?" Rin snaps, striding past Daclan, who gently lays my unconscious body down at the bridge's center.
"Still more than whatever's in your black hole," Talan shoots back, lifting his chin.
"With behavior like yours, it's no wonder the kid doesn't learn a damn thing," Zane cuts in—flat, but sharp, his words both insulting and instructive.
It hits. Hard. Rin starts to answer, but her mouth shuts again, her eyes turning aside, guilt weighing her down.
Talan, though—Talan doesn't let it slide.
His soft paw clamps around Zane's left hand, yanking him closer across the cold stones of the bridge.
"So this is all my fault again, huh?" Talan snarls, glaring down with bared fangs, his lips curling just enough to show the sharp points.
"You're even touchier than usual today, aren't you?" Zane counters, calm, unbothered, as if nothing in the world could shake him.
"You really wanna—" but before Talan can finish, Zane yanks his arm back.
The tiger stumbles, thrown off balance, while Zane only shifts a step to the side, sliding his foot out at the last second and Talan tumbles headfirst over the bridge rail.
He lands face-first in the grass.
For a moment he just lies there. Then he spits dirt from his mouth, pushes himself up, brushes off his cloak and ends up right back at the railing, leaning beside Zane as though nothing happened.
The others barely have time to blink at the sudden turn of events, before a high-pitched voice steals their attention again.
"Maaan! None of this makes any sense!" Ryuu complains loudly, bursting up from the slope in a spray of dust.
"Hm?" Shato mutters, studying the figure as the smoke thins.
"We were talking about one person, being dangerous. Every record, every note pointed to one single person. And that person was obviously you. So why the hell are there suddenly two of you?" the boy growls.
"Two? What, are you seeing things now …?" Shato replies.
"Hah? Oh no, not two like that. I'm talking about some girl I ran into a few days ago. She wrecked me. Totally wrecked me with her dumb cheat codes," Ryuu answers.
A silence hangs heavy, unpleasant, until Shato finally decides to break it.
"And that's my problem because …?" he asks, pointed, taunting.
"It isn't. I just thought maybe you knew her," Ryuu says, casually brushing sand from his hair with both hands.
"But judging by your reaction, I guess you—"
But Shato is already there.
Knee bent, blade drawn back, intent sharp as steel.
"Sigh …" Ryuu exhales, as if he had all the time in the world—long enough to cloak his left arm in black smoke and catch the tip of Shato's weapon in his palm.
Cracks split the slope, run all the way into the gray walls of the city as Ryuu stares down the white light, watching it eat slowly through his shadows.
"At least let me finish talking."
He whispers it, just as the first drops of blood begin to fall. And then:
His grin fades.
Gone in an instant, like someone flipped a switch.
He melts. No, he sinks, disappearing into the ground itself, merging with the shadows and leaving Shato stumbling forward into empty space.
In sync with this black, shadowy tendril, pushing just out of this very empty space and piercing through his stomach
For a moment, he seems shocked. But that moment doesn't prevail, as he jerks back, tearing free from the tendril and witnessing too many black spikes erupting from the mist, he just stood a second earlier.
He barely evades them, you could even call it luck. Although this luck probably runs out the moment he hears the boy's whispering behind him.
"Hmm … it really doesn't add up," Ryuu murmurs to himself, right fist slamming into his bleeding left palm as though struck by inspiration.
"Ooooh, of course! I'm just not up to date!" he shouts, even as Shato's blade presses against his throat.
Or rather against another quivering black mass that saves him again, a shield of shadow like unstable tar.
"I should've known why this fight felt so one-sided!" Ryuu continues, dissolving once more into mist.
The ground erupts.
Tendrils, spears, spines—rising from every direction, all aimed at Shato.
He blocks the first with his shield.
Spins north, carves the next with his white crescent.
It becomes a game—a brutal rhythm test.
Left, right. Street, grass.
West, east, north, south.
The gaps shrink. The attacks quicken.
Each block is tighter, narrower.
And Ryuu himself is nowhere—only his voice drifting, thoughtful, mocking.
"Hmm … yeah, that must be it. Guess I thought a few years wouldn't matter for someone like you."
Shato blocks one strike, shatters another—leans back—
and takes the hit.
"Guess time catches up with everyone after all. The old fall, the young rise."
Ryuu's words echo with the drip of blood from Shato's left shoulder.
Just a scrape, nothing compared to the hole in his gut. But it changes nothing.
The tendrils rise again, all around.
Shato lets the shield melt, flow back, sealing him inside a solid black barrier. The strikes crash against it, shattering like glass, vanishing as though they'd never existed.
Leaving only silence.
That same dreadful silence.
"You really have gotten weaker … Shaaaato!"
The silence breaks.
The words hiss in his ears.
Stone bursts beneath him.
Pain sears through his thoughts.
The pain of a fist.
Nothing earth-shattering.
Nothing catastrophic.
And yet—decisive.