We threw ourselves out of the way just in time. The white-hot wave missed us by mere inches, slamming into the earth where we had just been standing.
There was no explosion—just the terrifying hiss of instant vaporization. The raw heat effortlessly melted through the raked gravel, burned away the deep topsoil, and carved a massive trench straight down until the island's underground water layer bubbled to the surface.
We stared at the glowing, molten trench in sheer terror.
"That maniac..." Tsume stammered from the ground, his pale eyes shrinking in horror. "He would've incinerated us instantly."
The clan member flashed a sharp, jagged smile, his eyes practically vibrating with the manic thrill of the kill. "Oh, don't act so surprised," he sneered, his voice trembling with dark excitement. "I haven't even started to play—"
"Mirror Tide!"
A muffled, desperate shout echoed from across the alley. We all whipped our heads toward the swirling wind dome where the Yamata leader had Ayashi pinned.
Suddenly, the tattooed leader threw his head back and unleashed a blood-curdling scream of pure, absolute agony.
Through the translucent barrier, we watched in horror as the leader's massive, heavy frame began to violently shrink. Ayashi stared up at him with a dead, hollow expression, his hand clamped firmly against the man's chest. Within seconds, the leader's muscles completely atrophied, coughing blood onto Ayashi.
The moisture was forcefully ripped from his cells, leaving him looking like a desiccated, mummified corpse—his skin pulled painfully tight over his skeletal frame.
With the leader's Boru suddenly extinguished, the roaring wind dome warped, collapsed inward, and violently popped out of existence.
Ayashi roughly shoved the lifeless, skeletal body off of him. "Disgusting," Sensei said, trying to clean the blood off of him.
He rolled onto his hands and knees, violently coughing and gasping for the oxygen he had been denied for so long. Slowly, Sensei lifted his head, locking his dark, exhausted eyes onto the remaining fire-wielding clan member. It wasn't a look of anger; it was a dark, chilling stare that silently promised the thug he was next.
The fire user's manic grin instantly evaporated. He stared at the desiccated, mummified remains of his leader, his chest heaving. Then, forcing a twisted, trembling smile back onto his face, he let out a shaky laugh.
"I'll see you guys again sometime soon," he called out, his voice dripping with forced bravado. "We'll have way more fun next time."
In literally less than blink of an eye, the thug vanished. He aborted the fight instantly, disappearing past me, Ging, Saki, and Tsume and never being seen again.
The sheer velocity of his retreat rattled the wooden chochin lanterns and left a thick, billowing wake of kicked-up dust and gravel in his path.
As soon as the threat was gone, Ayashi's shoulders slumped. He closed his eyes for just a fraction of a second before completely collapsing face-first onto the cobblestone.
"Sensei!" I yelled, dropping my sword.
I broke into a dead sprint toward him, desperate to see how badly he was bleeding. Ging and Saki were instantly on my heels.
Behind us, Tsume remained entirely frozen. He didn't take a single step to help, his aristocratic worldview completely shattered as he stood trembling, unable to pull his eyes away from the horrific, lifeless husk of the Yamata leader.
"A-are we just gonna let that maniac go?" Tsume stammered, his voice cracking as he pointed a shaking finger at the settling dust trail. "Just let him roam around the island freely?!"
Saki briefly glanced over her shoulder at him. "Yes," she stated, her tone cool and unbothered. "Eventually, Sensei will deal with him."
Ging turned back and gave Tsume a supportive, enthusiastic thumbs-up, reinforcing Saki's confident reassurance.
Tsume scoffed, his face flushing red as he desperately tried to piece his arrogant facade back together. "I heard her the first time, four-eyes," he snapped at Ging, rolling his eyes. He aggressively crossed his arms over his chest and turned his back to us, stubbornly facing the other direction to hide how badly his hands were still shaking.
I fell to my knees beside Sensei and carefully rolled him over. A nasty purple bruise was already starting to form on his right cheekbone from where he had violently met the gravel. I braced myself for the worst, checking his chest for wounds—but then I paused.
His chest was rising and falling in a slow, rhythmic motion. A soft, familiar snoring sound fluttered from his lips.
I stared at him in disbelief, a breathless laugh escaping me as the adrenaline completely crashed. "He's... he's just sleeping," I told Saki, Ging, and Tsume, running a hand through my hair.
"Good," Saki replied smoothly, not looking surprised in the slightest. "He definitely needs the rest after the workout he just had."
Ging's eyes lit up behind his cracked glasses, his terror instantly replaced by fanboy excitement. "Did you guys see that?! Remember when he kicked that stone guy all the way into the—"
"Hey. Idiots."
The voice cut through the alleyway, tight, urgent, and completely devoid of its usual snark. It was Tsume.
He was staring down at the ground near the ashes of the thug's white fire, his pale eye blown wide with a new, distinct kind of panic. "You might want to come check this out... ASAP."
The three of us scrambled to our feet and ran over to him. Tsume didn't say another word; he just held his trembling hand out, pinching a small, partially scorched piece of thick, black cardstock.
"What is this?" I asked, a cold knot forming in my stomach as I looked from the card to his pale face.
"Just read it," Tsume whispered, his voice entirely hollow.
I gently took the card from his fingers. The text was embossed in a sleek, metallic silver font that glinted ominously in the lantern light. I read the words out loud, the chilling promise hanging heavy in the humid night air:
"We will cleanse the world. Tenebras Superamus."