Only the final Fujimori holdouts refused to be part of it.
Scattered squads were still fighting across the field, hacking toward the duel ground to reach their clan's leader, and the war ate them one squad at a time.
"Lady Kaede! Hold on, we're com-" A lieutenant with a ruined arm led six samurai against the encirclement, and Scar's Elites took them alive out of sheer efficiency, shields cracking bones and pinning the survivors into the frost mid-sentence.
Behind them, a second squad fared worse, running into a wall of purple-eyed puppets wearing their own clan's armor, and they died on the blades of comrades who had fallen hours earlier.
Inside the ring, the duel was coming apart, and so was the woman at the center of it.
Kaede's arcs had lost their geometry.
Strikes that had carried perfect lines all battle long now swung wide and landed heavy, and the synergy between wielder and blade was developing holes.
They were both getting desperate.
