The infirmary smelled like clean salt and hot metal.
Seal-strips glowed faint on Rin's ribs and flank. A medic brand—Royal Aqua—stamped on the gauze and the vial rack beside his bed like a monopoly mark. Even asleep, Rin looked tense. Brow pinched. Fingers curled like he was still holding Yoru Oni.
A shadow moved at the foot of the cot.
A man, half-hidden by the curtain and the low infirmary light. Cloak pulled high. Voice low and venom-smooth, like he'd been rehearsing it for years.
"You Black Clan scum should've died with the rest of your mistakes."
Rin didn't stir.
The stranger's hand slid under his cloak and came back with a tachi—clean steel, old polish. He stared down at Rin like the world would be lighter if this bed was empty.
"My clan suffered under yours in the B.S," he whispered. "Even after most of you were wiped out, you still linger. Like rot you can't scrub out."
He lifted the blade, breath steady, righteous in his own head.
"I should do it now. Do everyone a favor. Just because you won a match… I will never recognize you."
Steel rose.
And from the doorway—
sluuurp.
Kai Xander leaned against the frame with one foot up, cup in hand, noodles dangling like a ridiculous threat. His gi was scuffed, bandages peeking under the collar. His eyes were tired.
But his voice was lazy-calm.
"I wouldn't do that… if you want to walk out of here still living."
The stranger froze mid-raise.
Kai slurped again like he had all day.
Then, mouth half-full, he pointed with his chopsticks.
"Who are—" sluuurp "—you?"
The stranger's head turned slowly. Annoyed.
"I didn't hear anything you just said, idiot monk."
Kai blinked, offended on principle. He hurried the noodles like it was a timed mission, cheeks puffed, trying to swallow dignity and broth at once.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and tried again, clearer.
"Who. Are. You."
No answer.
Kai pushed off the doorway and walked in, sandals quiet on tile. The stranger finally turned.
Kai caught the face for a second—just a second—
One eye was normal.
The other was pure black, like a hole punched through light.
Kai's stomach tightened.
"…Yeah," Kai muttered. "That's not—"
The stranger's shadow moved.
Not like a person shifting.
Like something spreading.
Blackness crawled outward from his feet, swallowing the floor, the bed legs, the glowing seal strips—eating the infirmary light in a fast, silent bloom.
In one blink—
Everything went dark.
Not "lights out."
Dark like the world got erased.
Kai stopped dead.
"Rin?" he snapped, reaching—but his hand hit nothing he could trust. No sound. No room noise. No distant arena roar. Even his own breathing felt muted, like it belonged to someone else.
"What the hell is this?"
He couldn't see the stranger.
Couldn't hear the stranger.
Couldn't even feel air move.
Kai's jaw clenched. Instinct took over.
He ripped his aura open.
Grey light burst off him—raw, stubborn, unpretty—filling the black like a lantern shoved into fog. The darkness shuddered around it. The floor vibrated under his stance.
The seal strips on Rin's bed flickered back into existence for a heartbeat—
Enough to see the cot.
Enough to see—
No blade.
No stranger.
Just the last ripple of a shadow collapsing into nothing.
Kai stood there, chest rising hard, grey aura still spilling off him in waves. He scanned the corners, pulse loud in his ears again as the infirmary sound returned all at once—medics shouting down the hall, bottles clinking, someone laughing far away.
He stared at Rin, still asleep.
"…Thank god," Kai breathed, voice low now. "My gut doesn't miss."
He looked at the doorway, then the ceiling, like the answer might be written there.
"Who the hell was that…?"
And why did he know Rin was here?
Back in the tunnel, Aria leaned on the rail, eyes locked on the swamp-screen.
She didn't notice Kai slip away.
She did notice he wasn't here now.
Aria squinted, then smirked to herself.
"Probably gotta take a piss," she muttered, amused. "You know guys."
She laughed under her breath and refocused as the swamp roared.
On the field, the water was still boiling from Timmy's bombardment.
Mud rained. Steam drifted low. The mantis silhouette held above the blast zone, twitching like it could taste victory.
But the water under it… started to change.
The swamp's brown-black murk bled into a strange clarity, like someone poured moonlight into the muck.
Timmy's grin faltered.
"…What's going on down there?" he called, trying to angle for a look. "Hey! You dead?"
He couldn't see under the surface.
He could only feel something tugging at his swarm—like the water itself was becoming claimed.
In the skybox, Laila Butters leaned forward, eyes bright.
A quiet smile.
"Okay, baby," she said, soft as a knife. "Show them what a queen can do."
William stood beside her, arms folded, watching with that calm pride he tried not to show too much.
Below, underwater—
Lila sank in silence.
No crowd.
No bugs.
Just the cold and the weight and her own heartbeat pounding in her ears.
Not like this.
Her thoughts came in short, sharp flashes.
I'm not losing.
Not after Rin… not after Kai…
I'm not just a healer.
Her chest burned. Her legs kicked once, instinct. Boots dragging through silt.
And then she stopped fighting the water.
She listened.
The swamp had a rhythm. Thick. Slow. Heavy.
And underneath that—
a current.
A living pull.
Lila opened her palms in the dark.
Grey aura spilled from her sternum, thin at first—then brighter.
It didn't flare.
It gathered.
The murk around her began to turn baby-blue, like dye unfurling through ink.
Her veins lit.
Her eyes—sapphire.
The water answered her like it had been waiting.
Spirit Bloom — First Stage: Aqua Nova.
The swamp didn't just clear.
It transformed.
Mud separated. Toxins peeled away. The water around her became luminous—clear blue rolling outward in a perfect sphere, pushing silt and insects back like a tide with a will.
Above the surface, Timmy's swarm stuttered.
His psychic threads pulsed—
Then trembled.
"What—" he laughed, but it came out wrong. "What is she doing?"
The water rose.
Not a splash.
A lift.
A column of clear blue surged up from the blast zone, parting the swamp like a curtain being drawn.
And in the middle of it—
Lila rose with it.
Hair floating, aura glowing, droplets orbiting her like tiny moons.
The water wrapped her body—not as armor—
as ceremony.
Fabric formed from pure water—layers folding into place with a shimmer and snap. A royal dress shaped itself in flowing blue-white, sleeves like waves, skirt like a tide caught mid-bloom. It looked impossible and real at the same time.
The entire Amphistad went quiet for half a second.
Then—
ROAR.
Even the President leaned forward behind the skybox glass, eyebrows lifted.
"Wow," Johnny Joah said, almost laughing. "That's Laila's daughter for you."
Lila stepped onto the surface like it was stone.
Effortless.
Boots barely denting the water now.
Her goofiness was gone.
No grin.
No jokes.
Just a calm, terrifying stillness—like the ocean deciding.
She looked across the swamp at Timmy White.
Voice steady.
"I hope you're ready," she said, "to bow down to a queen."