37

Kamo pushed back from the table, legs moving before conscious thought caught up. Fūregen's command echoed in his ears as he headed for the door, but his mentor's voice carried more words behind him.

"If he's here, the junior guard probably is too." Fūre's tone sharpened with realization. "Damnit, if Celaris was here they'll definitely leave if they see me."

Once again, Fūre was right. And his own presence would scatter their targets too. Like startled birds, destroying any chance of drawing them into the open, unless they'd been drawn in by his deviant abilities— that would be its own problem. But Nagitsu would soon be bleeding out on that obsidian floor, and every second meant another piece possibly being knocked off the game board.

Kamo's hand found the door handle, metal cold against his palm. 

The hallway stretched before him, emergency lighting casting harsh, somewhat large shadows on concrete walls. His footsteps quickened to a jog, then a run. .

Emergency lighting strobed across fractured glass as terrified guests scrambled toward the main exits. A man pushed past a stumbling socialite, his expensive shoes crunching over crystal shards. The wealthy elite who'd come to bet on blood now ran like frightened cattle.

"Move! Everyone out!" Security guards herded the panicking crowd, their voices sharp with urgency. Tables toppled as guests shoved past each other, silk gowns torn on overturned chairs, tailored suits stained with spilled wine and fear.

Kamo burst through the arena's entrance just as a figure emerged from a side hallway. The newcomer rolled his sleeves back to his elbows with deliberate precision, revealing brawny forearms. He pressed his palms against the polished obsidian floor, fingers splayed wide.

The ground trembled.

Massive slabs of tile erupted upward, sealing the secondary exits with grinding crashes. Stone bent and twisted like clay, blocking escape routes with walls of jagged obsidian. The man straightened slowly, earth still clinging to his fingertips.

"Secondary exits are sealed," he called to the remaining guards. "Funnel them through the main entrance only."

Civilians screamed as the blocked exits forced them into a single chokepoint. The evacuation became a desperate surge toward the one remaining way out, bodies pressed together in crushing panic.

Kamo's eyes darted between the new, somewhat short kynenn and the ongoing battle. Nagitsu circled Haruto like a wounded wolf, crimson seeping through his shirt. The remaining Team B members flanked from opposite sides, but their movements had grown sluggish, desperate.

Soft footsteps echoed behind Kamo. And he noticed Fūregen rounded the corner, his dark cloak brushing the wall as he moved with predatory grace. 

"Was wondering when you'd show your face," He said without turning. His fingers still touched the floor, sending hairline fractures through the obsidian. "Though I didn't expect the legendary Fūregen to lead this mess personally."

"I know you?" Fūre paused mid-step, his expression twisting into cold amusement. "Wait—did you just say legendary?"

He gave a short laugh. "Look, kid, I'm not here for you. Take me to someone in charge."

"Name's Takumi," the boy replied, finally squaring up to him. Dirt streaked his uniform, but his posture stayed loose.

"And sorry. No leaders tonight. Just us regular folk—cleaning up after your tantrum."

Kamo felt his mentor's fury like heat from a forge. The mission had rotted from the inside—no Celaris, no political leverage, just a slaughter with no meaning.

Closer to Kamo then Fūre was, Haruto stepped over another corpse, his pristine suit unmarked despite the carnage. Blood pooled around his feet as he surveyed the remaining masked figures. Nagitsu clutched his shoulder, breathing hard behind his raven mask. 

The evacuation continued its panicked rhythm—guests flooding through the main entrance while Takumi's earthen barriers held firm. Crystal chandeliers swayed overhead, their light casting fractured rainbows across blood and marble.

Haruto brushed an imaginary speck from his sleeve, his voice carrying across the arena with casual disdain.

"I knew you wouldn't be too strong." He gestured at the limping masked figures, the blood trails across luxury tile, a sobbing businessman cowering behind an overturned chair. "What kind of cowards attack the Foundations first?"

His tone held nothing more than genuine disappointment, as if their violence bored rather than challenged him. 

The last civilians cleared the main entrance, leaving only guards, rebels, and the stench of spilled blood. Emergency lights painted everything in harsh relief—a ballroom transformed into a battlefield, elegance shattered into violence and fear.

Nagitsu snarled behind his mask, lunging forward with desperate rage. Simultaneously, kamo returned to same low squat he'd fallen asleep in some months ago.

Haruto rolled his shoulders in a motion as languid as it was precise—every movement unhurried, perfectly economical. His lifeless, grey eyes swept over, regarding Kamo and Nagitsu with detached appraisal, like a scholar examining insects pinned beneath glass.

"Unless those two are a lot stronger than they look," he murmured, the words meant more for himself, laced with a faint, dismissive chuckle. The sound was a subtle poison in the charged air. "That won't take long."

Kamo held his crouch, muscles coiled like overwound springs. The shadow around his feet deepened, pooling like spilled ink. The world narrowed to the space between him and the silver-haired guard—a chasm of polished stone and shimmering, hostile intent. For now, Kamo's thoughts were focused and clinical.

Nagitsu surged forward impulsively, a raw burst of energy—exactly the kind of reckless show Kamo had come to expect from him. They only traded blows for maybe 5 seconds until Nagitsu stepped in, feinting left before driving a knee toward Haruto's ribs. The motion was a raw, artless explosion of energy. Haruto didn't so much dodge as simply shift his weight, a minimalist evasion that spoke of absolute confidence.

Haruto slipped forward into the arc, his left hand rising to catch the blow. He gripped Nagitsu's wrist as the knee sailed past his hip, pivoted on the ball of his foot, and swept Nagitsu's balance out from under him with a silent, circular twist. They spun—a dance that looked almost gentle—before Haruto's motion rippled outward.

His hand extended toward Nagitsu's chest, palm open. For a half-second, the air around his hand seemed to warp, to collapse inward, creating a pocket of dead space.

Then the vacuum became a vise.

A minuscule pressure slammed into Nagitsu, hitting him with the force of a battering ram. A wet, choked gasp escaped his mask as the impact folded him in half, lifting him from his feet and hurtling him into the arena floor. Obsidian splintered and cracked as his body hit the stone, the sound sharp and brutal in the sudden silence.