The chamber remained suffocatingly still. None of the five children dared to breathe too loud, their gazes fixed downward as the figure on the obsidian throne stared at them in silence. No one moved. No one blinked.
But within that perfect quiet, Sakura and Nikko were anything but calm.
Sakura's thoughts spiraled into panic.
'Oh my stars... my hair!:
She instinctively flicked a glance at her reflection in one of the polished marble tiles. Her perfectly arranged pink locks now looked like the aftermath of a storm. She scanned her kimono, creased, slightly torn at the hem, and peppered with dirt.
'All that work... gone!!'
Nikko, on the other hand, seethed for an entirely different reason.
'Just one more attack,' she thought, her fists clenching. 'JUST ONE!'
