Kaizen's right hand found the pressure point on the back of Cullen's right hand.
The grip weakened—the grip-controlling nerves paralyzed, the fingers losing their closing force.
Cullen's left hand held.
The elbow contact held with full grip, the ice spreading from the contact point into the elbow joint. Not surface level this time. Structural—the cold moving into the joint itself, the cartilage cooling, the joint stiffening under the encasement building from the inside.
Kaizen struck the left elbow pressure point on Cullen's left arm.
The left arm's grip weakened.
But the ice had already moved into Kaizen's elbow joint—the cold present in the structure rather than just the surface, deep enough that the nerve contraction couldn't crack it the way it had cracked the surface layers.
Kaizen felt the difference immediately. The elbow was stiff—not locked, but reduced in its range of motion, the joint working against resistance that hadn't been there before.
