[Shard Combat Protocols: Active.]
The air thickened.
The world narrowed.
Kikaru stood across from him, framed by the wavering torchlight.
Her stance was iron-tight — shoulders squared, legs planted, hands loose but ready at her sides. Her golden hair caught the light, forming a burning halo around her rigid frame, but there was no angel here. Only a blade sharpened to an edge that didn't waver.
Her one good eye — the other still swollen and bruised from Cube X's chaos — locked onto him without hesitation.
There was no visible rage.
No raw fury.
Only cold, relentless calculation.
She wasn't angry.
She wasn't emotional.
She was sealing off the part of herself that might have hesitated.
The golden orb Ikona — Light — hovered at her shoulder, its glow burning sharper with every second, radiating a silent, searing readiness that seemed to cut the distance between them.
Elias shifted his weight instinctively, gravel crunching under his boots.
