Kaede ran.
The swing that tore the rift open flowed straight into her first stride, and the chosen of the Fujimori shot toward the glowing wound in the world with every shred of speed her body could produce.
Half the ring had been waiting for exactly this.
Warriors broke from the crowd's inner edge before her lips finished uttering the spell, lunges collapsing toward her path from a dozen angles, and the fastest two were the women she had been dueling.
"You're running from our duel?!" Ayame's shocked shout rang across the field as she fired forward. "As clan leader?!"
Blossom dissolved into the void mid-leap. The dogkin wasn't about to let the criminal she sentenced so magnificently run away.
In the prisoner columns, the captured remnants of her clan watched their leader sprint for a hole in the world.
"Lady Kaede...?" The lieutenant with the ruined arm strained against the shield pinning her down, disbelief plain on her face.
"She's... running from a sacred duel?"
