The rain was falling again.
Not at the center.
There, it still hung suspended — thin, motionless, as if it had been forgotten by time.
But around it, over the wall and the ruins of the western front, the water had returned to its natural course, running down fractured stones and abandoned armor.
Kaelir did not look away.
He stood facing the frozen wall in the distance.
Black hair, straight and disheveled, clung partially to his forehead because of the rain. Small cuts marked the line of his jaw and the side of his neck.
The outfit was torn in three places, dark fabric heavy with water.
Beneath pale skin, blue-gold fissures pulsed with irregular intensity — they did not shine steadily now.
They wavered.
Like fragments of sky that had burned too much to keep shining.
His gaze remained on the motionless center — but his attention stretched beyond it.
Rynne, Skýra, Iaso and Lys behind him.
Propped against a block of stone, unconscious.
He did not move.
But the fingers of his right hand flexed once.
Control.
Processing.
Something there had ended.
But he did not yet know what.
The air behind him warmed by one degree.
Subtle.
The presence came before the sound.
Brígida approached without haste.
The rain did not evaporate around her — it merely deviated slightly from its path.
The dark crimson of her garments absorbed the gray light of the rain.
The golden metallic leaves, even marked by battle, still carried the echo of ancient forges.
Slate-red hair fell heavy, like a contained flame under damp wind.
Her posture remained upright.
Imposing.
But there was weight there.
Kaelir spoke without fully turning.
His voice low. Controlled. There was no hurry in it — only calculation.
"I do not sense bloodlust in you."
A short pause.
His gaze remained on the frozen wall.
"Which suggests you did not come to conclude the massacre."
Only then did he turn enough.
His gaze lowered.
To the sphere.
To Brianna suspended inside it.
The fingers of his right hand moved half a centimeter.
Enough to touch the hilt of the dagger.
He did not draw it.
But the gesture was clear.
The air around them seemed to warm discreetly.
Brígida observed the movement.
Only then did she speak.
"The child."
The word carried no reproach.
No surprise.
Only understanding.
Amber eyes rested briefly on the translucent sphere.
"She is breathing."
Her voice was deep. Dense. Like ember beneath stone.
"What surrounds her is not a prison."
Pause.
"It is preservation."
The damp wind curved around her crimson garments.
"If I wished to harm her…"
Amber eyes intensified, but without aggression.
"…there would be no blade that reached her first."
She inclined her chin slightly.
"Caution keeps you alive."
Another pause, minimal.
"You do not need it with me."
The statement did not seek to convince him.
Only to inform him.
Kaelir's fingers remained on the hilt for one second longer.
Then they withdrew.
Not out of submission.
From completed assessment.
"Should I consider you an ally…"
Brief pause.
"…or merely a circumstantial convergence?"
Rain ran down broken stones.
Brígida did not rush.
"If I had come as an enemy…"
The vibration around her became almost imperceptibly denser.
"…I would not be choosing words now."
Silence.
Not challenge.
Not provocation.
Only unavoidable truth.
Kaelir did not answer immediately.
He simply observed.
Brígida then advanced a few steps toward the wall.
Slow.
Deliberate.
With each step, the air around her grew thinner.
The cold did not come as wind.
It came as absence.
As if something invisible were siphoning heat from matter itself.
The golden metallic leaves in her garments lost luster.
Subtle.
Noticeable.
She stopped.
Amber eyes analyzed the frozen surface at a distance.
"It would seem…"
Brief pause.
"…the wall has been sealed from within."
The sentence was not speculation.
It was recognition.
The cold advanced another invisible breath.
"Direct approach will result in total heat drainage."
The statement fell without dramatization.
Like a finalized calculation.
Kaelir nodded once.
"Yes."
Nothing more.
Sufficient agreement.
Brígida turned partially.
She raised the staff.
"Then we are left to await the outcome of the final confrontation."
There was no resignation in her voice.
There was strategy.
The staff touched the ground.
And the sound did not echo.
It was absorbed by the water spread across the ground.
The water around Rynne, Skýra, Iaso and Lys rose as if obeying a call too ancient to be heard.
It formed translucent spheres around each of them.
They floated.
Stable.
Preserved.
She then turned amber-gold eyes to Kaelir.
There was warmth there.
But also memory of eras he did not yet know.
"Do not lower your guard."
The pause that followed was not long.
It was necessary.
"There is movement to the north."
The air seemed to retract.
The rain, for an instant, sounded distant.
Kaelir did not turn his body.
Only the golden gaze shifted in the indicated direction.
Nothing visible.
Yet.
"If they cross this distance now…"
Her eyes remained fixed on the horizon.
"…there will be no confrontation."
Pause.
Brief. Irreversible.
"There will be extermination."
It was not prediction.
It was reading of outcome.
The word carried no emotion.
It was pure calculation.
The rain continued to fall beyond the suspended center.
Kaelir did not move his body.
But the wind to the south did not flow.
It wavered.
Small distortions crossed the air, as if invisible layers were overlapping out of alignment.
The golden eye closed for a brief instant.
Feeling.
Not explosion.
Not expansion.
Continuous pressure.
"They are still standing," he said, low.
Brígida felt it too.
Not energy.
But persistence.
South of the Eastern castle, the terrain no longer recognized its original shape.
Deep craters marked the extension of the field, some filled with dark water, others still smoking beneath the persistent rain.
The mud had been compacted into irregular plates, as if opposing forces had crushed it repeatedly until it yielded.
Fragments of stone were scattered dozens of meters from their points of origin.
There, the fight was not imminent.
It was prolonged.
At the center of that devastation —
Isabela and Azazel remained motionless.
The rain thickened.
Isabela advanced without warning.
Long step. Direct. Decisive.
There was no hesitation — only purpose.
The air between them distorted.
Azazel did not move.
She entered range.
Right fist fired in a straight line, blue energy compressed around her fists.
At the instant of impact—
Space exploded outward.
There was no flash nor thunder.
What expanded was something else — a dry, absolute repulsion.
The strike was repelled before touching the fabric.
Isabela was thrown two meters back, boots tearing through mud, water opening in an arc around her legs.
She spun in the recoil, absorbing with shoulder and hip.
She did not fall.
Before the force even died, she was advancing again.
Now on a diagonal.
Tactical reading.
If the straight line is denied, the angle forces a different response.
Second punch — lower, seeking center of mass.
The repulsion came again.
Denser.
The air closed like an invisible wall.
The impact generated blue sparks that spiraled upward and died under the rain.
She retreated only one step.
Anchored.
Force against force.
The ground beneath her feet cracked.
Azazel watched.
Motionless.
Third attack.
Without predictable line.
She entered tight, rotated her hip and launched a heavy lateral strike — entire body behind the impact, like one breaking walls.
The repulsion came late.
Her fist met resistance —
And passed through.
Not flesh.
Field.
The black fabric of his chest vibrated.
The air snapped dry.
Blue sparks rose between them, tearing space before vanishing.
Azazel slid half a step back.
Only half.
But it was movement.
The rain touched his shoulder — and, for one second, it was not diverted.
Isabela saw.
She advanced.
Short, brutal sequence — left, right, shoulder drive trying to collapse the space between them.
He tilted his head slightly.
The vector inverted.
It was not force against her — it was space being repositioned.
The wave hit her full.
This time it did not only push.
It separated.
Isabela was hurled backward, sliding five meters through mud before driving her feet down and stopping.
Heavy breathing.
Fists clenched.
Blue sparks still rose briefly from her knuckles before fading.
The air between them lost mobility.
Azazel remained upright.
The ground behind him displayed new fissures. Small. Undeniable.
He watched her.
Not with irritation.
With refined analysis.
Red eyes shifted briefly beyond her.
As if recalculating invisible variables.
"The time granted to this impasse has been sufficient."
A near sigh.
Not of fatigue.
Of inconvenience.
"To prolong it beyond this would allow inadequate interpretations."
He returned his gaze to her.
His expression did not change.
"I will not grant them that satisfaction."
Azazel rotated half a degree.
The rear foot fixed in the mud.
The hip lowered one level.
The right shoulder relaxed.
Iaijutsu.
There was no visible blade.
But the world around him stiffened like steel being aligned.
The field fell silent.
The rain seemed to hold its breath.
Isabela felt it before understanding.
Instinct screamed.
She left the line in the last fragment of available time.
The cut passed.
There was no flash.
There was only absence.
A strip of the world simply ceased to exist for an instant.
Behind her, the ground opened into a perfect furrow — stone, mud and water divided with surgical precision for dozens of meters.
The pressure came after.
Air returning violently to fill what had been separated.
Isabela landed turning.
Azazel concluded the gesture.
Without haste.
Without waste.
As if the result were natural.
Isabela saw the mark on the ground.
Saw his axis still aligned.
Her breath failed.
That was not merely power.
It was form.
It was mastery.
It was signature.
Her eyes opened one degree wider.
"…Battō."
It was not challenge.
It was recognition.
Her throat tightened.
"Formless Cut."
Rain fell between them.
Heavy.
Azazel did not react to the name of the technique.
But red eyes fixed on her with greater precision.
A calculated silence.
Then—
"Recognition does not alter the outcome."
There was no emotion in his voice.
Only statement.
One step forward.
The mud beneath his feet did not yield.
It was compressed.
The rain crossing the space between them lost velocity.
It did not stop.
But it fell misaligned.
As if the very axis of the world had been slightly tilted.
"And this time…"
Red gaze did not blink.
"…there will be no space for instinct."
The mud beneath Isabela's feet gave half a centimeter.
Not from weakness.
From pressure.
The world around them still existed.
But it was no longer intact.