What’s the meaning of battle? The question turns in Yun Shi’s palm like a cold stone, and she longs for a lantern in the fog to tell her why.

She used to fight only because the Clan Head’s chain sat on her neck; no right to resist, just rain on iron. Now she has a reason to run, yet her heart is a knotted rope she can’t cut.

Her power is vast, like a storm trapped in a jar, but outside a cruel battlefield it’s a blade rusting in its sheath.

Yunshi Bianqi stares at her own shadow and can’t read it; beyond fighting, what can she do? An empty room, cold tea, no answer.

But…

If this power can change anything, even as a tool, it’s worth the grindstone and the scars.

Right now there’s an enemy like a mountain in the road; how to fell it is the knot at the center of the web.

Yun Shi watches him with lake-still eyes, hoping for a crack in the ice, but the surface shows no flaw.

Sawagawa Moa gathers lightning like fireflies cupped in both hands, shapes it into a crackling orb, and hurls it; Elaine vaults aside, his fist rips trenches through the earth, a charging bull under a lowering sky.

Arcs slither under Moa’s feet like silver snakes; she rides the thunder, slips past the blow, yet fabric tears like leaves in a storm.

Yun Shi sees Moa panting, hears her breath like a bellows; her own brow knots, and plans flit like sparrows across her mind.

Elaine’s greatest gift is muscle reinforcement, a drumbeat strong enough to shake the ground, a hammer to smash the crust, near Yun Shi’s space-rending in weight; she shreds air like silk, he breaks matter like stone, two threads in the same loom that won’t quite touch.

The cleanest way is to slam him with a stronger tide, make his power swell and split like an overripe fruit; yet even joined, she and Moa are a stream to his mountain, 1+1=2 against his 1×n storm.

So it’s a cliff to climb without ropes; drop that plan, and all that’s left is hunting a flea on a tiger’s back, yet no weak seam glints in the light.

Her eyes are hawk-sharp when calm, catching leaf and ant, but now the wind is too loud and there’s nothing to see; that says Elaine’s strength is near absolute, with a flaw like a grain of sand in a sandstorm.

It’s thorny as briars; Yun Shi has no clean path, so she steps stone by stone across a black river.

If muscles are his fortress, then use a crooked key; flesh is still flesh, and steel bites meat like frost bites autumn grass—if she catches the opening.

Yun Shi thumbs rounds in her pistol, the click like sleet on tin, watches the ring of rubble, pins her gaze on the dance between Moa and Elaine, and pads forward like a cat.

Boom!

Thunder drops like a torn sky and scours the ground; shards spin like a flock of startled sparrows. Elaine shrugs weather like a cliff; cracks web from his soles, stones rise and orbit him like mute moons, then streak toward Moa like meteors.

Puh!

Moa’s big move leaves her in a lull, a tide pulling back before it breaks; the sudden volley thumps her gut, copper floods her tongue, and a red flower splashes on the dirt.

Elaine steps in, but a chill like an icicle touches his back; he turns, and a girl presses a smoking muzzle to his spine like a brand on winter bark.

The trigger snaps, brass shells clink like falling beads, smoke coils like a ghost, yet no blood blooms; Elaine stands unmarked, iron under rain.

“You think I’ll fear bullets, Night Phantom?” His voice is a bare branch scraping glass.

“Impossible…” The word leaves Yun Shi like a moth from the mouth, small against the night.

Hum.

In stories, humans flinch from bullets, even oak-strong men; but his muscle-forged hide is iron bark, and common sense is straw in a gale.

Energy pools in Elaine’s hand like thick ink; his punch sweeps, a scythe through wheat, but Yun Shi ducks, the wind of it combing her hair, and the strike that could shatter her skull bites air; she slides back, sight lines like taut strings, and fires, sparks pecking his skin like rain on stone.

The bullets are hail on granite; he eats them with his forearms. Yun Shi keeps shooting while drifting away like a heron stepping backwards in water; that distance is her only umbrella under his storm, because in close quarters she’ll drown.

“Smart, but…”

Boom!

He reads her plan like footprints in snow; he surges, his speed a wolf at full run, and his fist falls again, a hammer against a gong.

Vmmm.

Yun Shi snaps out her Light Blade, a blue-violet flare like a comet, and meets his arm; light scatters like fish in sunlit water, but even high heat can’t scorch his glacier skin.

She twists, torque dancing up her spine, the Light Blade turning like a windmill; she slashes for his torso, and the air blossoms with dazzling arcs, little craters popping in the dirt like boiling wells.

She pulls away and dives in again, blade and fist kissing with a thunderclap, the rumble rolling like a distant train.

“So strong…” Moa’s whisper trembles like a plucked string; she knows Yun Shi is a storm, but to see another storm meet it makes her chest tight.

Thud!

Elaine’s punch lands on Yun Shi like a falling beam; in a heartbeat’s lull, he pours on a flurry, kicks and blows, and Yun Shi’s mind rings like a struck bell in fog.

He’s strong… The thought crawls like a worm through apple flesh as blood splashes bright on the ground.

Old wounds hum like old wires, new bruises darken like bruised peaches; Moa’s outline blurs in her vision like a shape under rain.

A roar kicks gravel skyward; stones whirl like a flock of crows and veer toward Yun Shi.

“Yun Shi-chan!” Moa’s cry cracks like a reed flute in winter.

The shout snaps the thread; Yun Shi seizes herself back, sees the stones at arm’s length, lifts her Light Blade like lightning caught on a reed, and carves blue-violet paths through the chaos, a bloody road through gray hail.

She bears pain that gnaws like frost, bites her lip till salt runs, and whips the Light Blade toward Elaine; he smiles, teeth like cold porcelain, pours his all into his arm, and drives his punch at the light like a bull at a banner.

Suddenly the Light Blade skims past his fist like a swallow; no head-on collision, just a slip through the reeds, and in that blink Yun Shi opens her hand, calls the space-rending ability like a black seam tearing canvas.

A force that could wreck the room of sky itself surges, a tidal crack aimed at Elaine; he admits in his bones he’s using everything, because she’s a steel storm, but the hill still claims the high ground.

Energy that could rewrite the history of space slams into his guard; he answers with simple brutality, flooding himself with maximum Mystic Power like molten metal, and punching the rift until the land booms with missile-blast thunder.

“Hah… hah…” Yun Shi braces a knee, breath sawing like wind through broken shutters; that strike drained her river, and the banks show mud.

The truth is a hard stone: Elaine is a spearpoint of the Church, a name with weight in the Underworld, so it’s no surprise Yun Shi bleeds for every inch; if Mizuki faced him, it would be a flat crush, and Yun Shi stands here only because she can carry this iron.

“Hm?” Smoke thins like morning mist; Elaine’s clothes hang in rags, his face smeared black like charcoal, and he pants while staring at Yun Shi’s widened eyes.

“Surprised, Night Phantom? I tanked that. Tch, you almost knifed me in the dark.” His chuckle is gravel in a tin can.

“No way. Why…?” Her voice is a leaf crossing a river, thin and shaking.

“It’s fate, like snow written on the mountain. Heaven set your death in the ledger, Night Phantom!”

He’s on her before the echo fades, his fist dropping like a falling star; she flies, dust spraying like ash, and he’s there again, elbow a piledriver, then boots and knuckles, blows raining until he draws back, his temper a red thread frayed by her last strike.

“Cough…” Yun Shi tries to stand, but black clots roll from her mouth like burnt petals, and her mind wades through night water.

Elaine doesn’t spare the flower; he kicks her again, fists thudding like drums on hide.

“Stop!” Moa snaps, lightning flickers at her soles like quicksilver minnows, and she sprints, injuries buzzing like hornets she swats aside.

Yun Shi, being absolutely manhandled, can’t call power; her river is almost dry, and the only thing left is to take the rain.

What does battle mean? The question pecks her ribs like a crow; is battle only hit and be hit, wind against wind? Is she a blade in a world of hammers, doing nothing but shatter?

Why did she get so strong? She told herself it was for the Clan Head, training till her bones sang, only to fall into this pit; but that’s a veil she held up against the sun, and the real thought hides like a fox in a thicket…

“You’re a member of the Four Pupils Clan, so you must hold power,” a voice from winter corridors, cold as ceramic tiles.

“As one of the Clan Head’s line, you don’t lose to weaklings,” another voice, a whip crack in a silo.

“Hah, so this is all the blood of the Four Pupils Clan amounts to,” a sneer, a blade tapping crystal.

“Weakling,” a word like a stamp in wet clay.

“Don’t bully the young lady, or we’ll hunt you to the gate—scram,” a shield thrown up like an umbrella in sleet.

“Your life is decided; you’re Four Pupils Clan, and you’ll be married off sooner or later,” a door closing like iron.

“If no one helps you… then your brother will protect you, okay?” a hand reaching like spring sun over frost.

All of it floats up like fish in a thaw; memories she sealed in ice thaw and show their faces again.

She gained only after losing, a seed sprouting after a burn; so why did she walk onto the battlefield—revenge, self-proof, or just a coat against the wind?

She doesn’t know. The fog sits heavy; she really doesn’t know, and the river keeps moving.

Yunshi Bianqi or Four Pupils Yun Shi, they’re one person rowing without a star; fighting without a why, they drift to this shoal.

Maybe dying here is a quiet meadow; anyway…

No one’s coming, she thinks, because when hell yawned deepest, the family she trusted never came; only echoes watched.

Everyone lies, she sighs, a paper lantern collapsing in rain.

They promised to walk together, but feet stepped away first, and she was left counting footprints in mud.

Enough, she thinks, as the night folds its wings.

“Not a chance!” The shout rips like a banner, and lightning tears the sky, exploding dirt like a dragon’s breath; Elaine recoils to a safer ledge, and Moa dives in, scoops Yun Shi like a fallen swallow, and runs.

“Sawagawa Moa…” Yun Shi stares, her eyes a dark pool, confusion drifting like cattail fluff.

“Why did you save me? Don’t you know it’s dangerous?” Her voice is brittle glass under frost.

“Don’t talk nonsense, Yun Shi-chan—do you need a reason to save someone?” Moa’s reply is a bonfire against snow.

“But…”

“We’re friends, aren’t we? Saving a friend isn’t wrong—it’s normal, like rain on rice and sun on roofs!” Her grin sparks like lightning over water.

Only in that heartbeat did Yun Shi taste what friendship was—a warm lantern cut through night rain.

She’d had it long ago too, that clear spring of feeling—the purest current that runs between friends.

Moa set Yun Shi down and checked her wounds; worry pooled in her eyes like stormwater. Yun Shi could never mistake that gaze.

“Thank you…”

Sawagawa Moa meant it. She truly took Yun Shi as a comrade in hardship, a sister-in-arms—no doubt could touch that.

“No need~”

Clarity rose like dawn. She finally knew why she fought.

To protect.

To keep a friend somewhere safe, and to keep danger from a friend. So she’d step ahead, take the worst path, and catch the blade for everyone.

So simple. So sharp.

“The enemy… I’ve drained most of his energy. One clean hit—just one—will put him down.”

Yun Shi gave Moa the truth she’d carved from battle. She wanted Moa to turn the tide.

“But… I’m right at my limit. I can’t call lightning anymore…”

“What? Then… what do we do…”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m really done…”

The air felt wrong. Yun Shi was hurt, Moa was spent, and Elaine still stood. If he came now, the cliff gave way. They’d die.

How do we break this stalemate?

Analysis alone was straw against fire. Without strength, nothing moved. Yun Shi knew that too well.

So bitter. So close. And yet—

“Wait…”

A spark skittered through Yun Shi’s mind. A mad, bright possibility.

Common sense said no. But she remembered that time Mizuki was cornered. Back then, Mizuki had been helpless too. She didn’t even think as fast as Yun Shi. Yet she cut a road out of death.

Why? She seized the unknown in her Artifact Spirit and flipped the board.

It’s the First Vessel Soul, but in essence it’s still an Artifact Spirit like the Second Soul Artifact. If she used the power hiding inside, then…

The key was—how to wake it.

“Yun Shi?”

“…Fight with me.”

“Huh?”

“Together, we blow him away.”

Resolve steadied her gaze. Yun Shi’s eyes met Moa’s. The meaning was clear—she would gamble everything.

“Cough, what a drag…”

Elaine stepped from the smoke, hunting their silhouettes like a hawk over ash.

They’d tricked him, sure. But both women were running on fumes. Find them, and killing them was just a matter of time.

He felt sure of it. Right now, he could beat the two Witches of the Magic Institution.

“Hm?”

Across from him, a strange glow stirred like a star waking under water.

Yun Shi didn’t truly know how to rouse the Artifact Spirit. But faith filled her ribs like breath. She trusted it.

Sham had pressed this Artifact Spirit into her palm. She could choose to trust it completely.

How do I do it?

Relax. Leave it to me.

Really?

Mm. Believe me.

Yun Shi let the Artifact Spirit’s pulse spill through her. Inwardly, she traced the meaning of her fight, then locked it in place like a blade set to the whetstone.

She reached out, pressed her palm to Moa’s back, and shut her eyes.

She stood here to protect everything here. If she couldn’t defeat the foe herself, then—

Let someone else swing the strike.

Vmm!

Violet light flowed from Yun Shi’s hand like a river at dusk. Energy poured into Moa, warm as spring, gentle as rain. No wildness, only calm surge.

“What’s this?”

“Now. On my mark. Full power!”

Before Moa could shape the question, Yun Shi’s order hit like a drumbeat.

Elaine’s eyes flashed with surprise across the way. Moa knew there was one window. She opened her Mystic Power and let it roar.

Strange—her near-spent reserves refilled under the violet tide, then swelled past their brim.

She called lightning. It fell like a collapsing sky, and the power spiked in an instant—small orbs ballooned into suns.

Thunder rolled and rolled, a mountain breaking in the clouds. The bolts outstripped everything under her codename, Thunder Lady. The violence was breathtaking.

“What— Aaaaahhhh!”

Spears of wrath dropped and smashed into Elaine. His scream tore the night like cloth.

Moa didn’t stop. She kept feeding the storm, and the lightning grew fatter, harsher—a force to scour the heavens, now swelling enough to chew the very air.

Power amplification. That was the First Vessel Soul’s hidden gift. It blew Moa’s output up by folds, and repaid what had been wrung dry.

It was support, yes, but priceless. It dragged a despairing field back into light.

Yun Shi’s resolve woke the Artifact Spirit. Joined with Moa, she drove Elaine into defeat.

“Hah…”

Spent, Yun Shi dropped to the ground, limbs water, breath smoke.

Moa saw it through the shroud of thunder-smoke—a body on the ground, motionless, no breath of movement.

She knew. Elaine, a power of the Underworld, had truly died under that storm.

The enemy’s death meant victory. Yet what filled Yun Shi’s chest wasn’t joy. It was the hush of a survivor after the flood.