Seizen's aura swelled.
Black-red.
Ugly.
Hungry.
The kind of pressure that made the broken base feel smaller just from standing in it.
Flowers bent at Darius's feet.
Smoke curled backward.
The ground started to groan.
He was about to bloom.
And behind Darius—
Musashi moved.
Just a shift.
Small.
But real.
His hand settled on the hilt of his still-sheathed blade.
His feet planted.
Aura rolled down his arm and into the sheath, into the steel sleeping inside it.
His eyes narrowed.
Don't think I'm just here to watch.
He inhaled once.
Slow.
Clean.
The world around him sharpened.
When I use Martial Muti to push my body to its maximum physical peak—
His thumb lifted the guard a hair.
The metal whispered.
—make my quick draw impossibly fast—
Aura thickened along the sheath.
Compressed.
Focused.
—then channel that same aura into the blade—
The air around the sword started bending.
Not visibly at first.
Just wrong.
Heavy.
Like the space near it had gotten thinner and denser at the same time.
—and layer Spatial Muti over it—compressing space and gravity into the cut—
His knees bent.
—you get—
His eyes locked on Seizen.
"Yamata no Orochi."
He drew.
The motion was almost too fast to see.
No giant flash.
No loud scream.
Just one clean impossible pull—
and then eight slashes were already flying.
Invisible at first.
Then visible only because the air around them folded wrong.
Eight compressed space-cuts tearing across the yard, bending the atmosphere as they moved, shredding smoke into warped ribbons.
Seizen's crimson eyes widened just a fraction.
Viatra caught it.
Slowed it.
Showed him the truth of it.
Eight kill-lines.
Not normal sword arcs.
Not wind cuts.
Space folded into murder.
He vanished.
One second he was there.
The next he was threading through the impossible, body shifting between invisible lanes of death with twitch-perfect precision.
The first slash missed his throat by a whisper and tore through a barracks tower behind him.
The whole structure split in half.
The second missed and carved a clean line through the supply yard, slicing stacked crates, steel, and stone like they were paper before detonating the ground beyond in a collapsing trench.
The third passed overhead and took the top off a watchpost.
The fourth clipped through a burning wall and the wall simply came apart.
The fifth gouged the drill ground so deep broken stone erupted in a geyser.
The sixth and seventh crossed in the distance and scissored a half-collapsed building into sections before the whole thing gave up and dropped.
The eighth vanished into the smoke—
then a second later something huge farther back split open with a delayed thunder-crack.
Musashi finished the draw low.
Calm.
Still.
Aura singing off the blade.
Darius actually grinned.
"Woahhh," he said, eyes wide for real now. "That's my favorite move from you, Mu."
Seizen landed out of the last dodge and turned his head.
Slowly.
Menacing.
His smile gone.
His crimson eyes burned straight through the smoke and locked onto Musashi.
"This stage is too big for you."
Darius's smile disappeared.
Instantly.
"Musashi," he snapped, voice sharper than it had been the whole fight, "don't look into his eyes—"
Too late.
Musashi was already looking.
Seizen's mouth moved once.
"Genmugan."
The battlefield vanished.
Musashi blinked—
and stood in Chun.
Not the burning base.
Not Jareoa.
Chun.
The sky was gray-white.
The air smelled like incense and cold stone.
He stood in a great ceremonial court of polished jade and old imperial architecture, banners hanging tall, every line too clean, too perfect. Rows of officials watched in silence. Soldiers stood in lacquered armor. His family was there.
All of them.
Faces he knew.
Faces that hurt to see.
And above them—
the Emperor.
Watching from the high seat.
Musashi looked down.
He was dressed in white.
Pure white.
Ceremonial.
Death clothes.
In front of him knelt a second blade.
His own hands moved without asking him.
They reached for it.
His mind hit a wall of confusion.
What…
His fingers wrapped the hilt anyway.
What is this?
His body knelt.
Slowly.
Perfectly.
Like it had done this before.
Around him, nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
The entire world had gone ritual-still.
Musashi's breathing shortened.
His heart started hammering.
He looked at the blade in his hands.
Looked at the white clothes.
Looked at the court.
At his family.
At the Emperor.
What's happening?
His body bowed.
Then sat upright.
The blade rose.
"No—"
He heard himself say it.
Soft.
Weak.
His own arms did not listen.
The point pressed to his stomach.
His eyes widened.
"No—"
The blade went in.
Deep.
Hot.
He gasped.
His hands dragged the steel sideways, opening his stomach in a wet ripping line.
Pain detonated through his whole body.
His vision blew white.
Blood spilled over the white robe.
Somewhere behind him, footsteps.
Then—
a flash.
The world cut black.
His head hit the floor.
And he was back.
Chun.
The court.
The white robe.
The blade in front of him.
Breathing hard.
Whole again.
Musashi stared down in horror.
What?
His hands moved.
No.
No no no—
They picked the blade up.
His body knelt.
His family watched.
The Emperor watched.
The world held him still.
"What is this?"
No answer.
The point touched his stomach.
He tried to let go.
Couldn't.
The blade sank in.
Pain.
Rip.
Heat.
Blood.
Footsteps.
Light.
Black.
Back again.
Chun.
White robe.
Blade.
His breath came faster now.
His mind slipping.
His body already moving.
What am I doing?
What is happening?
He looked around wildly.
His family did not blink.
The Emperor did not speak.
He looked down.
At the blade.
At his own trembling hands.
Then his body forced the weapon up again.
And Musashi, confused, horrified, and still not understanding why—
stabbed himself.