Dust drifted down in thin sheets from the fractured ceiling.
Sévon emerged from the broken wall, calm as ever. He dusted the splinters and powdered wood from his shoulders with slow, methodical movements.
He took a deep breath and held it for a moment. Then covered his mouth with one hand.
The room froze.
His other arm went back in a throwing motion, precise and balanced like a hunter preparing to cast a spear. The air was compressed.A thin lance of wind formed along his arm, compressed and sharpened to a killing point.The spirals on the surface of the wind spear danced with suppressed fury. He threw the wind spear. It shot towards Esyn's chest, splitting the floorboards in the process.
Esyn turned.
The wind spear went past her ribs but instead of avoiding the spear, she reached out and caught it with ease. The compressed wind trembled violently in her hand, shrieking against her fingers. For a moment, the entire room trembled with the strain.
She twisted her wrist and threw it back. The spear howled towards Sévon, moving faster than ever before. Kiichi's eyes grew wide in shock. Tasia moved, but Sévon merely brought his hands together.
Clap.
The wind spear fell from the air, disintegrating into harmless currents that spread through the room like the last gasp of life.Silence fell over the scene, and Sévon offered a faint smile.
"So you've put yourself in the open, Esyn."
Her face never changed.
"But I had told myself that you might be affiliated with the Puppeteers."he went on.
His eyes locked intently on his target.
"But I was wrong."
He never got the chance to finish his sentence.
A shrill whistle cut through the space between them.Athing shot out from the direction of Esyn, not wind, not Qi, but something else. A crimson-colored spear, liquid and solid at the same time, shot across the space in less than the beat of a heart.
The blood spear halted mere millimeters from Sévon's eye, one more inch and it would have plunged into his brain. A single drop of liquid fell down the sharp end of the spear. Sévon never blinked. Esyn tilted her head slightly.
"Oh? You were saying?"she said in a soft voice.
The blood-spear quivered mere inches from the eye of Sévon, which promptly disintegrated.
"Man… I almost died there."
His grin grew.
"Lucky me."
Tasia, meanwhile, had already taken her position. Her fingers arranged into a specific configuration, with four of the digits extended and the thumb tucked inward.
Her gaze fell upon Esyn.
"Shining Ice Blitz."
A cloud of miniature, whirling ice drills materialized around her, each one a focus of tightly wound ice points. They launched, the screeching whine of their passage through the air like a knife to the ears as Esyn let out a light breath.
"Pleasure."
A handful of the ice drills exploded in mid-air, deflected by an invisible wave of force. Yet, there was one that managed to slip past, slicing across her cheek as a thin line of red appeared.
Her hand went up to touch the wound.
Her gaze fell upon the blood on her fingertips, annoyance flashing across her face before her eyes landed upon Tasia.
The floor creaked as Esyn's foot hit the ground as she charged forward, but Sévon was already moving.
"Twin Sun Rush."
Two wind-formed duplicates had emerged from his body in opposite directions, transparent but dense, and their edges shimmered like the distortions of heat waves. They had homed in on Esyn in mid-charge.
Impact.
The duplicates struck simultaneously and with perfect synchronicity, colliding with her from both sides and sending her straight through the paper-paneled wall. The window disintegrated in flying pieces. Esyn was propelled out into the open air. Her hands came together as she was falling.
"Beauty."
The interior of the bedroom erupted. The floor, the walls, the ceiling beams—all split apart as torrents of blood spears shot out in all directions, flooding the interior with a wild crimson hue.
Kiichi did not even think to pause.
"Out!"
They leapt out through the blown-out window just as the bedroom erupted. Outside, Esme had already sensed this.
She looked up to see Esyn falling through the night air.
"...That must be the target."
A stray cherry blossom petal floated in the air, blown about by the agitated wind. Esme caught it between two fingers. On its surface, she drew a small, precise infinity symbol. It glowed faintly and she flicked it off.
The petal shot through the air at an unnatural speed straight at Esyn.
As mid-fall approached, a gentle breeze blew through Esyn's hair. She turned her head ever so slightly and felt something delicately thin and something that had a perfect shape to it. It was the cherry blossoms.
As the petal reached her, it fractured into a million pieces in an instant, turning into a storm of identical cherry blossom petals that created multiple copies of itself and will continue to duplicate until there are over a thousand razor-thin cherry blossoms surrounding her in all directions, creating an illusion of being encased in a bright, pale pink revolving ball of light. Esyn looked down and saw they looked beautiful.
"I can hardly believe I caught her in one second, but they took five minutes," she said with quiet pride.
Putting her hand on her hip, she declared, "I win, baby!"
The ball of blossoms started closing in around her. Then began drifting back towards the earth as the petals spiraled towards the center of the blossom. Esyn extended her hand to receive the blossoms. As they came into contact with her hand, the petals of the blossoms collapsed to nothing.
Esyn's smile was gone.
The spot where Esyn had been was empty.
Esme's fingers twitched.
"What?"
Esme looked at the sky, then back to where Esyn vanished, then looked behind her. For the briefest of seconds, she had a jolt of panic in her stomach. Then, Sévon appeared beside her softly and dust arose around his shoes.
"Did you get her?" he asked.
Esme remained silent.
She stared at the emptiness in the air where Esyn was supposed to be. Sévon saw that on her face, an understanding occurred between them immediately. He released a quiet exhale.
"It's okay," he said.