Yoru takes a stand, weaving his Shard of Shadow from the Mirage Realm, ready to go all out. He eyes the seventeen-year-old boy in front, his mind trying to compute the possibility of a move gone wrong on the whole chessboard. The pawn becomes the Queen. The King nearly falls. But the final gambit hasn't revealed itself yet. He needs to gauge the situation. What is the darkness behind that innocent face? How much power does Yuri hold? How many old spells does he possess?
But most importantly, far more urgent and crucial than anything in Yoru's map of war, how much does the boy know?
Seizing the Shard in the shape of a lightning bolt in his hand, Yoru starts his invocation. An intricate snowflake-shaped magic circle appears under his feet, from which his shielding magic is conjured. Building the layers of walls up, he points the Shard toward Yuri, who, despite the chaos and the fiasco, remains unfazed.
