The battle in the penthouse was unlike any I had ever fought. The Watcher-possessed Ishikawa was a terrifying opponent, combining the cold, calculating intelligence of a CEO with the raw, brutal power of an elite-class demon. He moved with a devastating, unnatural grace, the shards of his expensive Italian suit fluttering around him. He didn't use claws or fangs; he used the room itself as a weapon. With a gesture, a priceless marble statue would fly at my head. With a flick of his wrist, the reinforced glass of the windows would crack and splinter, sending shards flying like shrapnel.
I was on the defensive, a blur of motion as I dodged and weaved through the storm of weaponized luxury. This wasn't a fight I could win with brute force. My target wasn't the demon; it was the connection. I had to perform a spiritual surgery, cutting the Spinner King's thread from Ishikawa's soul without shattering the man in the process.
"Your power is fascinating," the Watcher boomed through Ishikawa's lips as it telekinetically hurled a heavy mahogany desk at me. I slid underneath it, the massive piece of furniture shattering against the wall behind me. "It is the power of purification, of cleansing. But how can you cleanse a soul that does not wish to be saved? He chose this power! He embraced it!"
To prove its point, it forced Ishikawa to speak in his own, terrified voice. "Please… don't… I need this… I'll be nothing without him…"
The psychic assault was relentless, a one-two punch of physical attack and psychological torment. The demon was trying to make me hesitate, to doubt my purpose. It wanted me to see Ishikawa not as a victim, but as a willing accomplice.
Meanwhile, a different battle raged in the server room below. Hachiro had discovered that the Data-Wraiths were vulnerable when they phased through the servers to draw power. "Yogawa! Now!" he'd yell, and at the precise moment a Wraith was semi-corporeal, Yogawa would unleash a binding spell, trapping it. Then, Hachiro, his fists glowing with a faint, self-developed aura of his own fighting spirit, would deliver a devastating punch, shattering the trapped demon's code. They were a clumsy but effective team, dismantling the Spinner King's digital fortress one server at a time.
Their success sent ripples up to the penthouse. The Watcher demon faltered for a second, its power flickering as its connection to the network was disrupted. That was the opening I needed. I stopped dodging and held my ground.
"You're wrong," I said, my voice clear and steady. "He isn't your puppet. He's your prison."
I focused, not on anger, but on the protective fire. The steady, unwavering flame of compassion. My daggers began to glow, not with an aggressive, burning light, but with a soft, warm, golden radiance, like the first light of dawn.
"I'm not here to kill you," I told the Watcher. "I'm here to set him free."
I charged. The demon roared and met me head-on. But this time, I didn't aim for its body. My glowing daggers moved in a precise, intricate pattern, not cutting, but tracing lines of golden light in the air around the possessed CEO. I was weaving a cage of my own-a cage of purification.
The Watcher thrashed, sensing the danger. It tried to force Ishikawa's body to flee, but the golden threads of my Phoenix fire held it fast. "What are you doing?!" it shrieked, the fusion of its voice and Ishikawa's starting to separate.
"Cutting the connection," I whispered. I plunged both daggers not into Ishikawa's chest, but into the shadowy form of the Watcher demon that was wrapped around him.
The effect was instantaneous and violent. The golden fire surged from my blades, not as a destructive force, but as a cleansing solvent. It targeted only the demonic energy, the corrupting thread that bound the Watcher to Ishikawa and, through him, to the Spinner King.
Ishikawa's body arched back, a terrible, inhuman scream tearing from his lungs as two beings were forcibly ripped apart. The Watcher was expelled from his body in a blast of shadow and crimson energy, a shrieking, writhing thing of pure malice, its form unstable and rapidly dissolving without a host.
"The Master will-!" it began to screech, but its words were cut short as my Phoenix fire consumed it, cleansing its very essence until nothing remained.
Kaito Ishikawa collapsed to the floor, unconscious, the crimson light gone from his eyes. He was just a man again. The air in the penthouse, once heavy and oppressive, was suddenly light and clear. The Spinner King's presence was gone.
My earpiece crackled. "Mizuki! We did it!" Hachiro's jubilant voice shouted. "The web… it's gone! The whole server room is clean!"
We had won. We had cut the thread. We had ripped out a key node in the Spinner King's network. But as I looked down at the unconscious form of Kaito Ishikawa, I didn't feel triumphant. Severing the connection had saved his soul, but it had also shattered his mind. He would awaken with no memory of his demonic pact, his global corporation now in chaos, his life, built on a lie, in ruins. We had saved him, but we had also destroyed him.
A deep, soul-shaking tremor suddenly ran through the entire building. Not a physical earthquake, but a spiritual one. A wave of pure, unadulterated rage that pulsed through the city's ley lines, originating from somewhere deep in the spirit world. It was a silent, psychic scream of fury.
The Spinner King. He had felt the loss of his node. He knew who we were. He knew what we could do.
"We have to go," Kizawa's urgent voice came over the comms. He and Erima had successfully managed the security forces and were on their way to rendezvous with us. "Something is coming. Something big."
We were no longer just a nuisance. We were no longer lab rats. We had drawn the eye of the spider. And now, we had to face its wrath.