The shards of the guillotine hit mud and hissed out.
For a second the storm forgot its script. Rain didn't so much fall as hang, each drop strung on the thinnest threads. Wind shuddered, undecided. Lightning tried a letter and changed its mind.
Raizen stood with both blades down, elbows loose, shoulders steady - close enough to stop the next bad idea with steel, far enough not to be a challenge. His breath fogged and tore in the sideways rain.
Across from him, Ichiro's gaze was winter over black water.
The man in the coat pushed up on one elbow. The white-green light in his chest guttered under wet cloth; every pulse dragged a shiver through the air. Mud pasted leaves to his ribs where the rock spear had split his coat. He coughed once, quiet and raw, and a thread of red traced from lip to chin, diluted to pink in the storm.
"Hold" Solomon answered, not raising his volume. The storm made room for his decision anyway. "Nobody fire."
