Panic echoed through the Dead Forest.
Yomi stumbled over tangled roots as she ran, her uneven breaths catching painfully in her throat. Branches clawed at her sleeves, leaves brushed across her face, and every deafening crash somewhere ahead made her flinch.
BOOM!
The ground shuddered beneath her feet.
She nearly lost her balance before forcing herself onward.
"Kairo..."
Her frightened eyes darted wildly through the trees.
"Kairo... where are you...?"
Another violent explosion rolled through the forest, followed by the cracking of ancient timber. Birds burst into the evening sky, fleeing whatever nightmare lay ahead.
She swallowed hard.
Please...
Please be alright...
The forest suddenly opened into a ruined clearing.
Her steps faltered.
"...!"
Then the world seemed to stop.
Her eyes swept across the devastated clearing…
…and stopped.
Kairo.
He lay motionless amidst the shattered earth, blood spreading silently beneath him.
Her heart seemed to skip a beat.
"…K-Kairo…?"
For a heartbeat...
Her mind refused to accept what she was seeing.
Then her heart lurched.
"KAIRO!"
She sprinted toward him, her voice breaking beneath the weight of terror.
"Kairo!"
She dropped to her knees beside him so suddenly they struck the ground with a painful thud.
"Kairo...!"
Her trembling hands slipped beneath his shoulders as she carefully lifted his head into her lap.
His face was streaked with blood.
His breathing...
There was none she could hear.
"Kairo..."
Her voice cracked.
"...Please..."
No response.
Tears welled in her eyes.
"...Please answer me..."
Nothing.
Her breathing became uneven.
With trembling hands, she lowered her ear against his chest.
For one terrifying second...
She heard nothing.
Then...
Thump...
A weak heartbeat.
Another.
Slow.
Faint.
But unmistakably there.
Yomi's eyes widened.
"...!"
She quickly lifted her head, relief flooding across her tearful face.
"You're alive..."
A shaky laugh escaped her before tears began streaming freely down her cheeks.
"There's still time..."
She gently brushed the blood-matted hair away from his forehead.
"...Don't worry."
Her voice remained unsteady.
"I'll get you somewhere safe."
"You'll be okay..."
"I promise."
BOOOOOOM!!
The world shook.
A thunderous impact erupted only a short distance away.
Yomi instinctively turned.
Several dozen meters from where she knelt, two figures burst through a curtain of dust.
One was hurled backward before twisting through the air and landing on his feet.
The other pursued immediately, crashing into him with another devastating blow.
Their collision shattered a massive boulder.
Stone fragments exploded in every direction.
Yomi's eyes widened.
"...!"
Her gaze locked onto one of them.
"...It's him."
Danzeki.
The boy who had taken Kairo away.
But the one fighting him...
She had never seen before.
The stranger stood his ground against Danzeki, exchanging blows as another heavy impact echoed through the clearing.
The sheer force of their battle tore apart the forest around them.
Trees splintered.
Dust filled the air.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The earth itself groaned beneath every exchange.
Yomi instinctively pulled Kairo a little closer.
"...This place..."
She looked around in growing panic.
"...isn't safe."
Another explosion echoed nearby.
Without allowing herself another moment to hesitate, she slid one of Kairo's arms carefully over her shoulders.
"...Come on..."
She planted one foot firmly against the ground.
"I'll get you out of here."
Her entire body strained beneath his weight.
He was far heavier than she'd expected.
Still...
She refused to let go.
With trembling legs and quiet determination, Yomi slowly began carrying Kairo away from the battlefield, praying she could reach safety before the next explosion reached them.
.......
The forest erupted beneath another devastating clash.
BOOOOOOM!!
Danzeki's fist collided with Toka's waiting palm.
A violent shockwave burst outward, flattening the surrounding grass and sending clouds of dust spiraling into the sky. Towering trees groaned beneath the pressure as fractured bark rained across the clearing.
The impact forced both boys apart.
Their feet carved deep trenches through the earth before they finally came to a stop.
Silence.
The dust drifted lazily between them.
Neither lowered their guard.
Danzeki's breathing remained steady, but the calmness that had once defined him was gone. His eyes burned with restrained fury.
Across from him...
Toka looked almost amused.
A small, cheeky smile crept onto his face.
"...You've lost your cool."
His voice carried lightly through the clearing.
"And just few minutes ago..."
"...I thought you were the coolest person I'd met since entering this survival test."
The words landed harder than any punch.
A vein twitched along Danzeki's temple.
"...Don't flatter yourself."
His voice remained cold.
"The fun's only just getting started."
Toka pushed.
"Oh... Don't worry."
He slowly exhaled.
"...I'm planning on ending this soon."
Then...
His posture changed.
"His finally making his move" Danzeki thought to himself.
Toka's front foot slid backward until only the very tip of his sandal whispered against the broken earth.
His hips lowered.
His weight melted completely into his rear leg.
Everything above his waist relaxed.
His shoulders fell.
His chest opened.
His guard disappeared.
It was...
Kyo-soku.
The Empty Stance of the Matsukaze Shihai.
To Danzeki...
It looked absurd.
He was exposing himself.
Leaving his entire upper body completely undefended.
But beneath Toka's skin...
An entirely different battle had begun.
The glowing crimson-and-emerald pathways flowing through his chest and lead arm suddenly dimmed.
Then—
They rushed backward.
Like a retreating tidal wave.
Every current of Seikon was violently siphoned through his veins, abandoning his upper body entirely before flooding into his rooted back leg.
The veins along his thigh and calf ignited.
Brighter.
Brighter.
Until they shone with a blinding brilliance.
The spiritual energy compressed tighter and tighter, coiling within his leg like a spring wound beyond its limit.
His upper body remained completely empty.
Completely relaxed.
Perfectly still.
The pressure surrounding him changed.
Not by increasing...
But by disappearing.
The air immediately before him grew unnaturally quiet.
The atmosphere collapsed inward.
Every trace of pressure vanished.
A perfect vacuum formed around the empty space he offered.
Danzeki frowned.
"Wha... What is he doing?"
Then...
Toka lifted his eyes.
They met Danzeki's.
A mischievous smile lingered across his face.
He said nothing.
He didn't need to.
His gaze alone mocked him.
Come.
Danzeki's jaw tightened.
"...Don't..."
The wind exploded around him.
"...You dare mock me..."
Hundreds of currents converged into his outstretched hand.
Each one compressed harder than the last.
Wind sword emerged.
Then another.
Another.
Within moments, an entire storm of hardened wind surrounded him.
"...You little freak!"
With a furious step—
He lunged.
Every sword screamed through the forest at once.
The first blade plunged toward Toka's heart.
The instant it entered the vacuum...
It collapsed.
The compressed air instantly decompressed.
Its structure failed.
The blade burst apart into nothing more than a harmless stream of mist before it could touch Toka's clothing.
One sword vanished.
Then another.
Then another.
Hundreds entered the empty space.
Hundreds dissolved.
The clearing became engulfed in swirling white mist.
Danzeki's eyes widened.
"...What?"
Then...
"...I see."
The barrage continued relentlessly.
Perfect.
The mist thickened with every collapsing blade until Toka disappeared completely from view.
Now.
Danzeki vanished into the haze.
His footsteps made no sound.
His breathing disappeared.
Even his Seikon became impossible to sense.
He circled silently through the white veil.
Searching.
Waiting.
Then—
There.
A silhouette.
Without hesitation, Danzeki burst out sideways from the mist.
A victorious smile spread across his face.
His wind-forged sword flashed toward Toka's exposed ribs.
"I... Got you."
But the instant his body crossed into the vacuum...
Everything changed.
His balance disappeared.
The atmosphere he'd relied upon no longer existed.
His momentum betrayed him.
Instead of striking cleanly...
His own speed dragged him helplessly deeper into Toka's space.
His torso opened completely.
His eyes widened.
"...?!"
At that exact moment...
Toka's left eye slowly opened.
Their gazes met.
The smile vanished from Danzeki's face.
In its place...
Pure shock.
He finally understood.
He hadn't found an opening.
He had been invited into one.
The stillness ended.
Toka drove his rear heel into the fractured earth.
The Seikon compressed inside his back leg exploded upward.
Like lightning unleashed from a storm cloud.
It screamed through his spine.
Flashed across his shoulder.
Surged down his lead arm in a single blinding instant.
There was no wind-up.
No wasted movement.
Only release.
His palm snapped forward.
The compressed air around it sharpened into an invisible crescent.
Silent.
Weightless.
Absolute.
"...Matsukaze Shihai..."
A single breath escaped his lips.
"...Fūjin."
His palm snapped forward.
The Wind Blade erupted at point-blank range.
It sliced cleanly through the mist before crashing into Danzeki's completely exposed chest.
SHIIIIING!!
The radiant glow around his hand condensed into a razor-thin crescent.
"GAAAHHHH!!"
Danzeki's scream tore through the forest as the invisible force erupted beneath his ribs, hurling him violently backward. His body ripped through the drifting mist before crashing across the clearing, smashing through shattered trees as dust and splintered bark exploded into the air.
The forest trembled.
Dust swallowed everything.
When the roar finally faded...
Only a gentle breeze remained.
As though the wind itself had chosen its true master.
..............
The forest echoed with the sound of collapsing timber.
CRAAAAASH!!
One towering tree after another gave way before finally crashing into the earth, their trunks splintering beneath the force that had sent Danzeki hurtling through them.
Dust drifted through the fading light.
Leaves floated lazily toward the ground.
Then...
Silence.
At the end of the trail of destruction lay Danzeki.
His body rested within a shallow crater carved into the forest floor.
His chest rose unevenly.
Every breath sounded painful.
"...Kh..."
A violent cough escaped him.
Blood spilled from his lips, staining the shattered earth beneath his chin.
His once-neat uniform had been ripped open across the chest.
There...
Burned into his skin... Was the unmistakable imprint of an open palm.
The mark glowed faintly before slowly fading away, as though the wind itself had left behind a final reminder of the strike.
Soft footsteps approached.
Crunch...
Crunch...
Crunch...
Toka emerged through the settling dust.
His hands remained tucked inside his pockets, his pace was unhurried.
Almost indifferent. He stopped beside the crater and quietly looked down.
For a long moment...
Neither of them spoke.
Danzeki struggled to lift his head.
His body refused to obey him.
His fingers twitched weakly against the dirt, "...How..."
His voice was barely a whisper.
Another cough.
More blood.
"...What..."
"...did you do to me...?"
Toka's gaze remained steady.
The evening breeze stirred gently between them.
"...What you experienced..."
"...was Fūjin." His calm gaze never leaving Danzeki.
"...One of the Hakushō Household's inherited secret arts."
A brief pause followed.
Danzeki closed his eyes for a moment.
"...I see..."
A faint smile touched his bloodstained lips.
"So..."
"...that's what defeated me."
His breathing remained heavy.
After a long silence... He forced his eyes open once more.
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth as his chest rose in uneven breaths.
"...But..." His trembling gaze locked onto Toka.
"...We're..."
"...we're both Stage Two Seikon users..."
His voice cracked.
"...So... why...?"
"...Why is the gap..."
"...between us..."
"...so great...?"
Toka remained silent for a few seconds.
Then...
"...Sharing the same stage..."
"...does not mean sharing the same understanding."
His eyes remained serene.
"...Power matures through the path one walks..."
"...the experiences one embraces..."
"...and the insight one cultivates."
His eyes returned to Danzeki.
"...In the end..."
"...that is what determines the outcome."
Silence.
The words lingered in the forest long after Toka had finished speaking.
Danzeki stared at him.
Slowly... His eyes drifted away, past Toka, past the broken trees.
Toward the evening sky peeking through the shattered canopy.
For the first time since entering the Survival test...
The certainty he had always carried quietly slipped away.
A tired smile appeared across his face.
"...So..."
"...there are still those..."
"...who stand above."
The realization settled over him without resistance.
No bitterness.
No wounded pride.
Only the quiet acknowledgment of a warrior who had seen a higher summit.
Toka regarded him for a brief moment.
Then...
Without another word... He turned.
His hands remained in his pockets as he quietly walked away through the silent forest.
The breeze followed after him, and before long... Only Danzeki remained beneath the open sky, listening to the whisper of the wind through the broken trees.