The portal did not close.
It pulsed like a wound torn into the world, throbbing wider with every second. The Hollow crouched low, smoke steaming from its empty sockets, claws dragging furrows into the arena floor.
The villains fanned out behind it. Their eyes burned with hatred, teeth bared like wolves. Some ignited their Idols in jagged flares — fire licking at hands, stone cracking skin, wind whipping about like knives.
The cadets were surrounded.
---
It was chaos from the first scream.
One villain lunged, fists ablaze, targeting the nearest — Yumi. She shrieked and instinctively threw her threads, but they tangled around her own arms, yanking her to the ground.
The villain's blow would have crushed her skull.
Steel sang.
Hayato appeared in front of her, blade drawn in a single motion. Sparks showered as steel met flame. His stance was flawless, his eyes sharp and unflinching — the look of a man who had seen war before, and lived through it.
"Stay behind me!" he barked, kicking the villain back with a fluid strike. His tone wasn't the bark of an instructor anymore. It was the command of a battlefield veteran.
---
But the cadets couldn't stay calm.
Haruto blasted lightning wildly, arcs bouncing off walls and striking stone. One bolt nearly hit Renji, who ducked with a scream.
Ayaka's frost spread uncontrollably, coating the ground, making allies slip as much as enemies.
Tsubasa tried to take to the air, but a villain grabbed his ankle mid-flight and slammed him into the dirt.
Even Akihiro staggered, light sputtering. He raised a hand, radiant body glowing faintly — but when the Hollow shrieked again, his light faltered, golden aura dimming to a fragile flicker.
Mei screamed, "We're not ready for this!" and her Echo Step blurred her into five copies — but all five were trembling, scattered illusions that fooled no one.
The cadets were not a unit. They were terrified children flailing in the dark.
---
The Hollow finally stirred.
It did not run. It did not pounce.
It flickered. One moment crouched, the next standing before a random villain. Its claw passed not through flesh but through space — and the villain convulsed, spitting blood as if the air itself had struck him from the inside.
Yumi screamed and threw threads around the Hollow's limb. They tightened, straining, but the Hollow simply twitched. The threads unraveled, rotting mid-air as if eaten by nothing.
The cadets recoiled in horror. Their Idols — their very strengths — crumbling against this thing.
---
"FOCUS!" Hayato roared.
He was everywhere at once, his blade a flash of light. He intercepted three villains in a single motion, his steel severing a spear of stone, deflecting a whip of flame, cutting a rushing knee from the air.
Unlike the cadets, he wasted no movement. Every strike was precise. Every step controlled.
One cadet — Aoi — stumbled, nearly skewered by a villain's blade. Hayato slid past her, parried the strike, and knocked the enemy unconscious with the blunt of his hilt in a single sweep.
"You want to live?" he snarled at the cadets.
"Then STOP SCREAMING and MOVE AS ONE!"
His voice cut through the madness like thunder.
For a moment, just a heartbeat, the cadets remembered what they'd been trained for.
---
But it wasn't enough.
The villains pressed harder, drunk on the cadets' fear. Flames lit the rafters, shards of stone collapsed chunks of wall, screams echoed from every side.
The Hollow tilted its head, then lashed out again — this time at Haruto. His lightning struck it full-force, bright enough to blind. But the Hollow walked through the storm unscathed. Its claw nearly gutted him — until Ayaka shoved him aside, frost coating her own arms in defense.
The strike shattered her ice like glass. She cried out, blood spraying from her mouth.
"AYAKA!" Haruto screamed, dropping to her side.
The cadets faltered again, their fear redoubled.
Even Hayato's strikes grew heavier, slower. He could parry villains — but every time the Hollow moved, reality itself seemed to bend against him. His blade trembled in his grip, not from weakness but from the sheer weight of fighting that.
---
Renji screamed so loud the air shook, his Sonic Pulse rattling the bones of villains and cadets alike. Several collapsed, clutching their ears. But when the pulse faded, the Hollow was still standing, smoke steaming, tilting its head as though curious.
Reina tried to charge in, flames finally blazing — only for the Hollow to flick a claw. Her fire guttered instantly, snuffed like a candle. She staggered back, horrified, lips trembling.
Jin attempted to shield three cadets, fists raised, but a villain's stone spike tore across his side. He collapsed, blood pouring, gasping for breath.
The cadets saw their instructors bleed.
They saw their strongest falter.
And the terror became absolute.
---
The Hollow screeched once more, smoke gushing from its sockets. The villains cheered, rallying behind it.
Hayato planted himself before the cadets, blade raised though his arms shook. His teeth clenched, voice raw but steady:
"Listen to me. You do NOT break. Not here. Not tonight."
The Hollow crouched. Its claw rose.
And the arena shook as if the world itself was about to collapse.