The golden light of my 'Sacred Ground' flickers, and with it, my heart stutters. The barrier is a perfect, shimmering dome, but the wall of black fog pressing in from the outside is absolute. It is a living tomb, and the air is already tasting stale.
"He's waiting for us to suffocate," Yogawa repeats, his voice a low, angry tremor. He runs a hand through his hair, his grimoire snapping open. "Mizuki, your barrier is keeping the miasma out, but it's keeping fresh air out too. We are in a sealed bubble, and it's running out of oxygen. He is just going to watch us die."
"Heh. So he's a peeping tom and a bastard," Hachiro grunts, punching the inside of the golden barrier. His fist just sinks into the light, causing it to waver. "This sucks! I can't punch a wall of smoke! Let me at him!"
"Hachiro, stop!" Erima snaps, her own composure cracking. She places a hand on the barrier, her expression grim. "Every time it flickers, the pressure outside... it feels heavier. Colder. It's... it's draining. It feels like hopelessness."
"That's what it is," Kizawa says. He is standing at my side, his dual katanas held in a resting guard, his blue eyes fixed on the impenetrable darkness outside. "That's his power. The weight of entropy. The promise that all things end. He's not just a fog-monster. He is a walking embodiment of despair."
He turns his gaze to me. His expression is tight, but his eyes are clear. "What's the plan, Mizuki? You said he made a mistake."
I take a deep, shuddering breath. The air is thin. I can feel the 'Sacred Ground' straining. It is taking almost all my focus just to maintain its shape against the crushing, passive weight of the General. He is not even attacking. He is just existing.
"My grandfather told me," I say, my voice raspy. "The phoenix is not just about fire. Fire just destroys. The phoenix is about rebirth. And to be reborn, you have to... purify. You have to burn away the rot."
I look at them, my friends, my team, trapped in this failing bubble of my own light. "He thinks he locked us in here to die. He thinks this barrier is a shield." My hair begins to glow, the silver and gold strands lifting as if underwater. "He is wrong. This isn't a shield. It's a crucible."
Yogawa's eyes widen. "A... a crucible? What are you- Mizuki, you are not thinking of detonating it, are you? That barrier is the only thing keeping us alive! The moment it drops, that miasma will shred our souls!"
"I am not going to drop it," I say, a grim smile touching my lips. "I am not going to detonate it. I am going to compress it. And then, I am going to pierce it."
They stare at me. "Think about it," I explain, my mind racing. "He is made of fog and entropy. I am a phoenix, made of life and purifying light. What happens when you super-heat a sealed container?"
"It explodes," Kizawa murmurs, his eyes lighting with understanding.
"Exactly," I confirm. "But I am not aiming for a wide explosion. I am aiming for a single point. All this light," I gesture to the golden dome, "all this purifying energy... focused into one attack. A lance of pure, concentrated anti-darkness."
"That is... theoretically brilliant," Yogawa mutters, flipping through his grimoire at a frantic pace. "But the physics are insane! You can't just will a static barrier to do that! The moment you try to compress it, the external pressure from the General will shatter it like an egg!"
"Which is why I need all of you," I say, planting my feet. "This is not something I can do alone. He is a General, and we are just... us. But he made a mistake. He locked us in here together."
I turn to our resident grump. "Yogawa. I need you to reinforce the barrier. I cannot compress the energy and maintain its shape at the same time. I do not care how. Use your grimoRemember, find a containment spell, a binding rune, anything. I just need you to help me hold the dome together."
Yogawa's face is pale, but he nods, a bead of sweat tracing its way down his temple. "A containment field. I... I have a theory. It will hurt. A lot. But... I can try. Do not blame me if my magic smells like burnt ozone."
I turn to Erima. "Erima, I need your eyes. Kizawa is right-his body is a feint. But something anchors him here. A 'General' is not just smoke. He has a core, a heart, a source of his power. And when I am ready, I need you to pinpoint its exact location. I only get one shot."
Erima's whole demeanor shifts. The fear vanishes, replaced by the cold, calm focus of a master archer. She nocks an arrow, not to fire, but to focus. She closes her eyes. "I am already looking."
Finally, I look at my two powerhouses. "Kizawa. Hachiro. This is going to be the hard part. The moment I launch this attack, the barrier will be gone. There will be an opening. Kuro-Kiri will be stunned, and his fog will retract. You two... you get one shot. You have to be through that opening and on him before he can reform. No hesitation. No fear. You have to end it."
Hachiro cracks his knuckles, his grin wide and feral. "Finally! A target I can actually punch! I am going to hit him so hard his ancestors feel it!"
Kizawa just nods, his katanas flashing as he settles into a low, predatory stance. "We will be ready. Do not miss."
"I do not plan to," I breathe. "Okay," I say, clapping my hands together. "Let's start the oven."
I close my eyes and pull. The golden light of the 'Sacred Ground' ceases to be a gentle, passive aura. It roars to life. The dome begins to shrink, the ten-meter circle closing in on us. The light intensifies, shifting from a warm gold to a blinding, searing white-gold. The pressure is immense.
"Yogawa, now!" I scream through clenched teeth.
"On it!" he roars. He slams his grimoire onto the ground, and it falls open. Pages rip themselves out, swirling into the air as Yogawa chants in a language I do not understand. "Bind! Contain! Hold the firmament! Ignis-Manuscriptum: The Gaoler's Seal!" Blue, glowing runes-ancient, complex, and beautiful-fly from the swirling pages and plaster themselves against the inside of my shrinking golden dome. They act like magical tape, sizzling and smoking as they fight the external pressure.
"It is... holding!" Yogawa grunts, his arms shaking, his nose bleeding from the magical exertion. "But it is not happy! Hurry up, Mizuki! This is like trying to wallpaper the inside of an active volcano!"
The air inside our bubble is now superheated. We are all drenched in sweat. The light is so bright, I can barely see my friends, who are now just silhouettes in the glare. "Erima!" I shout. "Report!"
Erima is a statue. Her bow is level, her eyes closed. "He is... everywhere. The fog is him. No... wait. I see it. The fog... it all flows. It circulates. Like a weather system. It all originates from... and returns to... one point." Her eyes snap open, and they are glowing with a faint, silver light. "His chest. Exactly where Hachiro punched him. There is a stone. A black, pulsating... heart. It is his anchor. That is his core!"
"Good!" I pant. "Kizawa, Hachiro, get ready!" My hair is no longer just hair. It is a whipping corona of silver-gold filaments, pure, unadulterated energy. My red and black kimono is snapping in a wind that does not exist. I can feel the General on the other side. He knows.
"INSOLENT CHILD!" his voice bellows, shaking the very foundations of the steel mill. It is not a voice of quiet menace anymore. It is a roar of fury. "YOU THINK YOU CAN FIGHT THE DARK? THE DARK IS ALL THERE IS!"
The attack is not subtle. BOOM. A tendril of black fog, now solidified into a spike of pure obsidian, hammers against our shrinking dome. The barrier screams. Yogawa's runes flare, and one of them shatters. "He is attacking!" Yogawa screams, blood now pouring from his nose and ears. "He is pressing back! I... I cannot... hold it!"
BOOM. Another impact, harder this time. Cracks appear in the golden light. "Erima, target!" I scream, the power building in me to a point of agony. It feels like I am holding a star in my bare hands. "Locked! Dead center! He cannot move it in time!" she yells back.
"KIZAWA! HACHIRO! NOW!" I cross my daggers in front of my chest. I pull all of it. All the light of the 'Sacred Ground'. All the power of my bloodline. All the hope of my friends. The barrier vanishes, collapsing inward. All that light, all that heat, all that purifying energy compresses into a single, blinding point between my crossed daggers. The foundry is plunged into absolute darkness for one, terrifying millisecond. Then, I thrust forward. "PHOENIX LANCE!"
It is not an explosion. It is a release. A blindingly bright, white-gold beam of pure energy, no thicker than my arm, erupts from my daggers. It is not fire. It is anti-darkness. It is the concept of life and rebirth made manifest. It rips through the space where our barrier once stood. It vaporizes the attacking obsidian spike. It punches a perfect, searing hole through the churning wall of black fog. And it strikes Kuro-Kiri, General of the Black Fog, dead in the chest.
There is no sound. Only a soundless concussion of light that obliterates the dark. The General... roars. It is not the sound of a god. It is the raw, guttural scream of an animal in mortal agony. The fog... all of it... recoils violently. It snaps back towards the General as if being sucked into a vacuum, revealing the massive, rusted-out foundry once more. My 'Sacred Ground' is gone. The miasma is gone, purified and vaporized in that single, devastating blast. And in the center of the room, Kuro-Kiri is on one knee.
His black, smoky armor is shattered. A gaping, fist-sized hole is burning with residual golden light in the center of his chest. Where the 'heart-stone' that Erima saw once was, there is now only a smoking, cauterized void. He is not solid. He is still fog. But the fog is pouring out of him, unable to hold its shape, disintegrating into the air. He is dying.
"GO!" Kizawa roars, already in motion. He and Hachiro are two blurs, faster than I have ever seen them move. They cross the fifty meters between us in a single heartbeat, two predators on a mortally wounded foe.
"You... will... PAY!" Kuro-Kiri bellows. He knows he is finished. But with his last ounce of strength, he swings his massive no-dachi. He is not aiming at the two charging warriors. He is aiming at me. I am on my knees, my daggers clattering to the floor. My energy is gone. My body is empty. My hair is a dull, lifeless silver. I am completely, utterly defenseless.
The black sword is a blur of entropy, too fast for Erima to stop, too fast for Yogawa to block. "MIZUKI!" Kizawa's voice is a scream of pure, unadulterated panic. I look up, my eyes wide, my body unable to respond. I can only watch as the blade of pure despair descends to extinguish my light for good.