Sora approached the frozen Kibo, her smile still chillingly presented an artist admiring a failed sculpture. Her shoes crunched over the frosted ground, each step a statement of quiet judgment. Thin wisps of mana still shimmered faintly along her skin, like mist curling around a blade. Her breath came out soft and even, barely disturbed by the wild, unforgiving cold she had unleashed.
"You see, Kibo..." she murmured, her voice low and razor-sharp. "This is what happens when you cross someone who kills without hesitation. No long speeches. No flashy entrances. Just precision... and silence."
She leaned closer, her expression almost gentle, mockingly so, as her breath frosted against the glassy surface of the ice. Her tone dropped into a whisper, words meant for him alone.
"And for all that noise… you still lost. A new skill, and yet nothing has changed. Still beneath me. Still clinging to the bloodlust like it means something."
Her words hung like frost in the air — cold, quiet, cruel.
But then... something shifted.
Kibo's frozen expression began to twist, almost imperceptibly. A twitch at the corner of his mouth. A glimmer in his eyes, not fear. Not defeat.
A smile.
Small. Defiant. Dangerous.
Sora's breath caught. She straightened instinctively, her mana already pulsing around her fingertips. "No....Amazing" Her gaze locked with his, and in that instant she saw it, will. Unbroken. Waiting.
Then—
CRACK!
The ice prison shattered in an eruption of light and force, a sound like the heavens splintering. Mana exploded outward, not in fire or fury, but in the form of raw kinetic backlash. Shards tore through the air like glass-bladed daggers. Sora threw her arm up just in time, a reinforced veil of mana catching the worst of the blast — but not fast enough.
A silver streak tore through the mist.
Slash.
Her glasses split down the center, the delicate metal clinking as it hit the frozen ground in two neat pieces. Her eyes, unshielded now, glowed faintly — not with emotion, but with sharpening focus.
And in front of her, Kibo stood — battered, bleeding, grinning like a beast uncaged.
"You talk too much," he panted, one dagger raised, the other reversed in his grip. Blood streamed from his scalp; immediately, the injury healed, matting one side of his face with blood, but his stance was iron.
Sora's breath stilled for half a second. Then...
"...Hahaha."
It was a soft laugh. Icy. Thrilled. Beautiful in its terror.
And in the space between that laugh and the next breath, the fight resumed.
Their clash sent a ring of ice-shattered air spiraling out across the clearing. Mana howled between them as Sora summoned bladed constructs from the frozen moisture around them, shaping them with nothing but raw will and her attuned mana channels. The blades obeyed instantly, orbiting her in a precise, deadly pattern.
Kibo surged forward, not just fast intentionally. Every strike now bore not just speed, but adaptation. His Manatrack Vision locked onto the vibrations in her mana flow, anticipating which construct she would throw, where she would shift.
His dagger found her arm. Then her shoulder. Cuts formed like red flowers on snow, quick to bloom, quick to fade.
But Sora moved with terrifying grace. She no longer countered his movement — she unraveled it. Her instincts, honed in battlefields long before Kibo drew breath, read his pattern, then twisted it. A feint, a shoulder drop, a strike from her elbow encased in frost-hardened mana slammed into Kibo's ribs. Bone cracked.
He coughed, spat blood, grinned wider.
"That's it..." he rasped. "Fight me like you mean it..."
A whip of ice arced through the air. He ducked, sliding low beneath it, the edge nicking his back and painting a red trail across his spine. He leapt up in a spin, daggers flashing like twin stars, and carved a path across her chestplate. Mana splintered on contact, dispersing the worst of it — but not all.
Sora stumbled back half a step. Her breath caught.
Then her hand shot forward — not with a spell, but with brutal, trained force. A blade of compressed ice extended from her arm and slammed into Kibo's thigh.
He screamed, a sharp, choked sound.
Ignis was a storm in his skull.
"Yes! Let it in! Let pain become your ally! Bleed! Bleed like the weapon you were born to be!"
Kibo snarled. His leg gave under him, but he pivoted into the fall, turning it into a brutal roll, bouncing up again with blood flinging from his knives. He didn't care. Couldn't care.
"She bleeds. I bleed. But I'm still standing."
The cube around them cracked — not from the outside, but from the sheer mana saturation inside. Shining fissures veined the transparent walls, threatening collapse.
Outside, Syl clutched Lily tightly, shielding her from the cold wind that burst with every clash inside the cube.
"They're going to kill each other!" she cried.
Lily trembled. "I can't see him… is Kibo…"
"Still breathing," Bram cut in, voice taut. "But if this goes on…"
Inside, Kibo lunged again, this time using the blood pooling on the frost beneath him to slide low. He kicked upward with both feet, launching himself into Sora's guard. His daggers went wide — a feint. Instead, he slammed his forehead into hers.
A brutal, wet crack.
Sora reeled.
Then her hand moved. Too fast.
Ice flared at her heel.
She pivoted.
And her shoe crashed into Kibo's chest.
It wasn't just a kick. It was a mana-boosted pulse, powered by dense frostline pressure.
Kibo blasted backward like a meteor.
The cube shattered in his wake.
A sound like a world breaking rang through the trees.
He hit a tree trunk — hard — and dropped to the ground in a heap.
Frozen leaves fluttered down like feathers, slow and silent.
He coughed once.
Then again.
Then laughter, broken and bubbling from blood-filled lungs. "...Still not done," he rasped.
Bram stormed forward, his footsteps crunching the frost-hardened ground, face tight with fury and disbelief. "What were you thinking, Sora?! This isn't training! Not like this!"
Sora didn't turn. She watched Kibo's fallen form, her eyes glinting, the same cruel smile playing at the corners of her lips. Her breath plumed faintly in the cold air.
Kibo choked out a cough, red spattering beneath him. His body trembled. "That hit… that grip… she meant it."
Inside his skull, Ignis's voice lashed like a whip, mocking, but not without a grim note of approval.
"Brat… this is all you could muster? You really are pathetic. She barely touched you. And still—look at you. But… you made her fight. You landed something real. You made her acknowledge you. That's more than nothing."
Sora spoke, her voice flat, still watching Kibo like a fading ember. "Uncle Bram. Spare me the lecture. You already know how Granduncle trained me."
Her tone was so matter of fact, it was terrifying.
Bram faltered, the edge in his anger thinning. "...Even if Subaru broke you to shape you, it doesn't mean you have to do the same to another."
"And if I choose to?" Sora's cold smile deepened. "Did anyone die?"
Her words hung in the frozen air like a curse.
Bram opened his mouth, but Syl had already pulled Lily behind her, instinct guiding her away. The fear in both girls' eyes was unmistakable now. They hadn't just witnessed a spar, they'd witnessed something closer to a ritual execution.
Then Kibo laughed.
It was a sound that cracked through the tension — not joy, not pain, but something raw and feral. He pushed himself upright, staggering, one hand pressed to his ribs. Blood dripped down his chin. His grin was defiant, taunting, mad.
"Heheheh... hahah... Uncle Bram, don't scold her. Aunt Sora just wanted to teach me a lesson." He wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his hand, his eyes locking onto hers. "Which she obviously failed at."
"Brat," Ignis groaned in his mind, "you shouldn't have said that".
Sora's smile twitched. Her head tilted ever so slightly. Then she vanished.
Kibo didn't even register the movement until it was too late. He blinked, instinct screaming, Mana Vision trying to compensate, but her presence was already behind him, a flicker of condensed mana trailing her limbs like vapor.
Her leg came first, sheathed in ice-forged mana, not from her body, but conjured from the surrounding air like a summoned blade. He barely got his dagger up in time. The impact nearly shattered his forearm. His teeth ground together. A heartbeat later, her hand was on his throat.
He was slammed into the same tree again, harder this time, bark cracking behind his head. His vision blurred, the pain immediate and absolute.
One dagger slipped from his fingers.
Her grip was iron. Cold radiated from her palm, not frost, but mana pressure so dense it stifled his lungs. He clawed at her wrist, but she didn't even budge.
Sora's voice came like frost over a grave. "You really are what Granduncle says. You don't yield, even when you're outmatched. But tell me, Kibo... what will you do when you face someone worse than me?"
Kibo's hand, trembling, slipped behind her hip.
A surge of energy gathered in his palm. One last pulse. A gamble.
He stabbed.
The dagger sank into her side, past the ice-armor that failed to react in time. Her eyes widened. Kibo's voice, cracked and fading, broke the silence.
"...Does that answer your question?"
The blade twisted.
Sora didn't flinch. Instead, she chuckled. It wasn't amusing, it was dark, almost motherly in its cruelty. Then her grip tightened. Just slightly.
Kibo's back arched. His eyes rolled. He gasped, breath scraping from his lungs. His fingers slipped from the dagger. The wound in her side immediately froze over, sealing with a hiss of mana, trapping the blade inside her body like an insect in amber.
Bram arrived just as Kibo began to collapse. He grabbed Sora's wrist with both hands. "Let go of him, Sora! Now!"
She finally blinked. Her expression didn't change, she simply let go.
Kibo crumpled, coughing violently, drawing in great, broken gasps, clawing at the ground like a drowning man breaking the surface.
"Sora, what is wrong with you?!" Bram's voice cracked as his fury spilled out. "You can't treat children like this! He's not you! He's not Subaru's tool! He is not something to sharpen until it breaks!"
Across the frozen clearing, the tension fell like a dead weight.
But inside Kibo's mind, Ignis was still laughing.
"Weak... still weak... but maybe worth keeping alive a bit longer. Maybe."
Sora turned from them, sighing as if the whole ordeal had bored her. "I heard you, Uncle Bram."
She walked off. The frost didn't melt behind her steps.
"I won't do that again."
Lily and Syl, wide-eyed with panic, rushed forward the moment Sora turned away—but Kibo, barely able to breathe, blood bubbling in his throat, lifted a trembling hand to stop them.
"Hey... Aunt Sora," he rasped, coughing. "I'm not... done yet."
Sora froze mid-step.
A silence followed, dense, unnatural.
Then, slowly, she turned, her face calm. Her smile reappeared, slow and terrible, carved from frost.
Without a word, she lifted her hand.
The ground beneath Kibo cracked. Mana surged in unnatural pulses around her fingers, condensing along her forearm in intricate, frost-laced sigils. Massive ice spikes erupted upward in a heartbeat—razor-tipped constructs of frozen mana, piercing through Kibo's limbs and pinning him into the frozen earth.
He didn't scream. He gritted his teeth and endured it.
Lily shrieked, her voice slicing through the air. "KIBO!"
"KIBO, NO!" Syl cried, sprinting forward, light green mana flaring around her hands, radiating a desperate, trembling glow. Ben close behind, his small frame radiating concern.
Bram moved faster.
A sharp, echoing CRACK! tore through the clearing as his palm struck Sora's face, the sound snapping through the frigid air like lightning. Her head jerked sideways, but she didn't flinch. No surprise. No anger.
Just silence.
Bram's voice thundered, raw and furious. "What is wrong with you?! You could've killed him!"
She didn't answer. "Didn't need to." Her mind whispered something colder than any frost:
"He knew. He read the gaps. He saw it all... and still stayed. This one, this child, was daring to evolve under pressure."
"Just like Granduncle said."
Syl dropped to her knees beside Kibo. "You absolute idiot! You don't listen to anyone!"
But Kibo's eyes were glassy with pain and focus. "Don't even... think about freeing me."
Syl froze. The words landed like a warning bell.
Sora's eyes widened slightly.
She didn't speak. Didn't blink.
Then, without warning, she shoved Bram aside, not out of anger, but instinct. A violent, split-second recoil, as if something ancient inside her had screamed.
Bram staggered, shocked. "Sora…?"
Too late.
From within the ice spike, Kibo's body erupted in light.
A flare of raw, controlled mana burst outward in a pulse, invisible to most, but not to her. Not to someone trained under Subaru.
Steam hissed violently as the ice around Kibo fractured, not cracked from the outside, but undone from within. His energy twisted through the frozen prison like wildfire, unraveling the structure down to its essence. The air quivered. The earth beneath him buckled.
A low growl escaped his throat, something primal. Alive.
He rose through the mist, his shirt soaked in blood and ice-water, his ribs bruised, lips torn, and eyes... calm.
But only on the surface.
Behind that calm was madness. Behind that madness, control. And behind all of it—her name.
Aunt Sora.
His hand gripped the largest shard from the spike that had pinned him, wrenching it free with a wet, meaty sound. It was jagged, curved, glowing faintly with the mana he'd used to melt his way out. A makeshift blade—ugly, brutal, and perfect.
He moved.
A blur, a whisper of death.
Sora's hands were already weaving, instinct melding with mastery. Mana spiraled around her like a blizzard held on a leash, sigils forming in a breathless instant. One sword appeared in her hand. Another hovered, defensive, at her shoulder.
The impact came like thunder.
Kibo's ice-blade slammed against her conjured weapon, releasing a concussive clang that cracked the air. The clearing shook. Frost shattered. Their mana collided in a corona of force, throwing sparks of magic in every direction.
They were no longer training.
They were trying to break each other.
Sora twisted her body with surgical precision. Her other hand conjured a dagger of frost aimed at Kibo's temple.
But Kibo anticipated it—barely. He grabbed her sword's ice hilt with his bare palm, forcing it downward, even as the blade sliced deep into his flesh. His improvised blade scraped against her collarbone, a hair's breadth from cutting into her throat.
Her eyes narrowed. His widened.
Blood spilled between them.
Then, without warning—
Light-green mana burst between them, spiraling like a serpent in bloom.
"ENOUGH!"
Syl's voice cut through the storm like a whip.
From the ground, spectral vines exploded upward, not made of plant matter, but shaped from pure, disciplined energy, her mana. They lashed out, writhing like creatures with a will of their own, and wrapped around both combatants.
Kibo and Sora were slammed apart and then locked together frozen in a pose of mutual destruction.
Kibo's jagged blade hovered an inch from Sora's exposed neck.
Sora's conjured dagger hovered beside his temple, humming with lethal mana.
Their breaths rasped through the clearing, both trembling—not from fear, but from sheer exhaustion and adrenaline. Their blood mingled on the icy ground, painting it with the truth of their battle.
Their eyes met.
No words.
Only the sharp, unspoken violence in their gaze.
Outside the trap, the world stood still.
Even the wind forgot how to move.
Bram stared at the two monsters locked in Syl's vines, his mouth dry.
"You pushed him too far," his mind whispered. "Or maybe… maybe this is what he always was."
He swallowed hard, voice a ragged whisper:
"Subaru... you really do have a habit of creating monsters."