I felt Yashin moving inside the wreckage before I could see him.
Rain struck his hair and ran down his hunched back as he forced his way out of the engine casing.
Water shifted away from his shoulders with every movement, and I could sense those tiny changes in its flow even through the thick steam.
Still leaning against the steel column, I tried to close my left hand.
My fingers obeyed slowly, sharp pain running through them.
Rainwater kept entering the open wound in my chest, mixing with my blood and flowing through parts of my body that had been completely numb only moments earlier.
Tsukumo was watching me from the floor.
Yashin's black dagger was still driven through his forearm, pinning him firmly to the platform's steel plating.
"Got one more in you?" I asked, my voice hoarse.
He gave a short, breathless laugh.
"Get me out of here."
I moved away from the column, but my knee buckled on the first step. I planted my hand on the wet floor to keep from falling on top of him and felt the water pooled between the plates.
I shaped my element into a swift current and hurled it toward the wreckage.
The jet struck the engine casing and spun it around, clearing space around Yashin.
The warden raised his dagger and sliced through the water coming toward him. Both halves of the blast burst against the concrete counterweight right behind him.
I used those few seconds of distraction to crawl over to Tsukumo.
I pinned his wrist to the floor with my knee and gripped the weapon's hilt in my left hand.
When I pulled, the blade didn't budge.
Tsukumo arched his back, clenching his teeth to hold in a scream.
"Get it out of the floor first," he managed between gasps.
I wedged the toe of my boot beneath the dagger's guard and forced the hilt upward.
The steel scraped against the plating until the tip came free with a sharp snap.
With the blade no longer anchored, I pulled it straight out of Tsukumo's forearm. He screamed.
Blood gushed from the open wound, coating my fingers and spreading across the wet floor.
I threw the dagger hard behind us.
It slid down the sloping metal and disappeared into the gap between two broken plates.
"Come on."
I draped his less injured arm over my shoulder and helped him up.
Tsukumo planted the leg that still obeyed him; his other foot dragged across the floor, leaving a red trail behind it.
We managed to retreat to the column just as Yashin pushed through the engine wreckage.
The warden's dagger swept toward us in a horizontal cut at head height.
I shoved Tsukumo against the pillar and raised my left hand.
A current struck Yashin from the side, knocking his shoulder off course halfway through the swing. The black blade sank into the steel column, just inches from Tsukumo's face.
Before the warden could pull his weapon free, Tsukumo pinned Yashin's forearm against the pillar with his own elbow.
I stepped through the opening in his guard and drove my left palm straight into the warden's ribs.
Water gathered between my hand and his skin before bursting outward.
The impact tore Yashin away from the column and threw him backward onto the engine casing.
Tsukumo rushed in right behind me. As the warden tried to regain his balance among the twisted metal, he drove a heavy elbow into the side of his head.
The warden dropped to one knee, but he was already raising his dagger to slash open Tsukumo's belly.
I grabbed my friend's coat and yanked him backward with everything I had.
The blade sliced through the fabric.
Tsukumo collided with my chest as he stumbled back, and the wound tightened so violently that I had to spit before I could draw another breath.
Water mixed with blood ran down my chin.
He looked at the glowing blue lines pulsing along my arm.
"How long can you keep this up?" he asked.
"I don't know."
Tsukumo turned his eyes back to Yashin.
"Then let's make what little time we have count."
The warden stood between the broken concrete and the ruined engine, using his dagger as a cane.
His ruined leg bent at the wrong angle.
He drove the weapon's tip into the floor, dragged himself forward, and only then pulled the blade out of the metal.
Behind him, the shattered low wall left the crater's edge completely exposed.
He's not getting down there.
I opened my hand and drew in the water scattered across the platform. It came from the gaps between the plates, the red pools of blood, and the slanted beams above us.
The streams gathered in front of the opening at the edge and rose swiftly, forming a spinning cylinder of water between Yashin and the abyss.
The warden stopped.
The current spun hard, fed by the storm.
Near the top, part of the flow broke away and fell, but I pulled it back and closed the gap in midair, even though I was still learning how to keep it stable.
Yashin looked at the column of water, then at me.
"Another trick," he snarled.
He thrust his dagger through the current.
Water parted around the edge and closed again as soon as the blade passed.
I pulled the entire cylinder toward him.
The heavy mass of water struck Yashin's chest and shoved him back toward the center of the platform.
Tsukumo moved beside me at once, lowering his shoulder and keeping his elbow tucked against his body.
I knew that movement.
I drew the current away from the leg Yashin was trying to brace himself on, making room for Tsukumo to step in.
Tsukumo's elbow struck the warden's chin from below.
Yashin's head snapped back, and I was already pressed close to him, my left palm against the open wound in his abdomen.
I released another blast of water.
Yashin was hurled backward.
His body scraped across the steel floor, stripping away rust and leaving a thick trail of blood until he hit the broken wall.
Tsukumo staggered to the side.
"Again," he said.
The wall's shadow stretched across the floor before Yashin had finished getting up. A sharp black blade erupted from the ground, right between us.
Its tip tore through my pants and opened a deep cut along the outside of my thigh.
I felt warm blood run down my leg, but I raised the water to stop Yashin, who was already advancing right behind the dark blade.
His dagger cut through the current.
Before I could retreat, Yashin's free fist hit me square in the mouth.
My head snapped back.
My back struck the concrete counterweight, and the taste of blood spread over my tongue.
Tsukumo tried to attack from the side, but Yashin pulled his weapon back and slammed its metal hilt into his temple.
My friend lost his balance and crashed hard against the concrete.
I pulled at the water pooled beneath the warden's feet.
The current struck his ankles and knocked him onto his side.
Yashin planted his free hand on the floor and swept his dagger low to keep us back.
The cut gouged a strip through the steel, and another shadow blade rose from the crack.
We ducked together.
The black projection passed over our heads and sliced through a beam. The severed metal fell between us and the platform's edge.
The impact caused part of the structure to give way, tilting the steel floor.
Tsukumo hooked his forearm over my shoulder.
I grabbed his clothes, and we managed to stay upright as rainwater streamed around our boots.
Every puddle on the platform began flowing toward the lower side.
Yashin followed the water with his eyes and lunged toward the opening beside the broken wall.
I raised another cylinder of water directly in front of him.
The warden stopped so close that the spray hit his face.
He tried to go around the column on the right, but a second current rose in that gap, blocking his path.
He took a step back.
I drew up a third column of water, positioning it between the wrecked engine and the counterweight.
The rain around us began changing direction.
Drops falling over the platform were pulled toward the cylinders, sweeping through the air in curved bands.
Water sprayed continuously between the currents, splashing Yashin's face even as he tried to move away.
I began focusing on every space around him. Wherever there was room for a boot, a shoulder, or a dagger, I put water.
Yashin tried to advance through the gap between two cylinders.
I closed it immediately.
One current struck his side and crushed him against the other. He cried out in pain, doubling over, and Tsukumo rushed toward him.
Tsukumo's injured leg nearly buckled on his second step, but he lowered his body to use the momentum and drove a punch beneath Yashin's ribs.
I diverted the flow a second before it could hit my friend.
They fell together onto the engine's metal parts.
Tsukumo landed on top, using his body weight to pin Yashin's weapon arm to the floor. The warden tried to raise his dagger to stab him, and Tsukumo reached for his wrist, but his broken fingers simply wouldn't close.
I slammed my palm against the floor.
Water surged beneath Yashin's elbow and forced his arm upward, pushing the dagger's point away from Tsukumo's body.
My friend seized the opening and drove a vicious headbutt into the warden's face.
Yashin tried to shove him away with his free hand.
Tsukumo struck again with his forehead.
On the third headbutt, the cut above Tsukumo's eye split wide open.
Blood ran over his eyelid, but the impact made Yashin release the clothes he had grabbed.
Tsukumo rolled off him to the side.
I brought the current crashing down on the warden.
The mass of water struck him from above and crushed him into the wreckage. Pieces of metal flew around his body, and the impact made the steel floor vibrate beneath my knees.
"Get up!" I shouted at Tsukumo.
Tsukumo tried to plant his hand on the floor, but his arm gave out. I rushed over and grabbed his coat at the exact moment the shadow beneath the engine opened.
I hauled him upward.
The point of a black blade pierced the air exactly where his neck had been an instant earlier.
Yashin emerged from the wreckage right after it.
Water broke against his shoulders as he came toward us with his dagger extended, cutting through the currents I tried to put in his way.
I took long steps backward, dragging Tsukumo with me.
A cylinder rose between Yashin and me, but he plunged through it without hesitation.
The pressure stripped pieces of skin from his already burned face, exposing raw red flesh, but his dagger remained pointed at us.
I diverted another current straight at his legs.
Yashin drove his weapon into the floor and braced himself on the hilt.
He pushed off with his less injured leg, twisting sideways to leap over the jet, and drove his boot square into my chest.
I was hurled against the steel column.
Blood gushed from the wound in my chest again, spilling over me, and I lost control of the currents.
Two cylinders collapsed at once, flooding the floor.
Tsukumo stepped between Yashin and me.
The warden tore his dagger out of the floor and raised it to cut Tsukumo's throat. Tsukumo lifted his broken hand toward the weapon.
Nothing happened.
His fingers trembled, unable to summon his power.
I pulled in all the water I could still gather.
The current struck Yashin's arm and diverted the blow, but not enough.
Tsukumo twisted his upper body to protect his throat.
The blade sliced open the top of his shoulder, tearing through his clothes and exposing raw flesh.
Before Yashin could draw the weapon back for another strike, Tsukumo slammed his forearm against the warden's wrist and forced it downward.
His broken hand stayed raised between them.
The dagger's hilt faltered in midair.
I saw Yashin's wrist begin to sink under an invisible pressure that wasn't coming from my water.
Tsukumo let out a hoarse cry. Blood ran from his nose and covered his lips as he forced the warden's weapon down another few inches.
I ducked beneath Yashin's arm, punched his open abdomen, and blasted water straight into the monster's chest.
The warden was thrown backward.
Tsukumo's strength gave out, and he collapsed beside me.
I caught his coat, but my own knee buckled.
We both ended up kneeling on the soaked floor, struggling to breathe through our mouths.
I looked at his hand.
"Tired already?" I asked between gasps.
Tsukumo stared at his crooked fingers, which no longer obeyed him.
"Almost."
By the broken wall, Yashin stood up again.
His clothes hung in strips over his sunken chest, blood ran from his shoulder, and his ruined leg barely touched the floor.
He tore the dagger from the plating and advanced once more.
Tsukumo got up first.
I lifted my face.
Rain was filling the spaces where the columns of water had fallen.
I closed the fingers of my left hand.
A cylinder rose behind Yashin.
Another formed to his left.
The third crossed the platform horizontally, passing between the counterweight and the column at waist height.
Yashin sliced through the nearest current with his dagger.
I gathered both halves before they could hit the floor and hurled them at his arms, striking from opposite sides.
Tsukumo rushed through the opening I had left, and I went with him.
Yashin's dagger came straight at my face.
I knocked his arm aside with a short jet of water, and Tsukumo drove an elbow into the monster's ribs.
My left fist struck his mouth before he could retreat.
Blood and saliva scattered through the rain.
Yashin tried to hit me with the weapon's hilt, but Tsukumo struck his elbow halfway through the swing.
The dagger skimmed my hair.
I pressed my palm against the warden's chest and released the water I had gathered.
He stumbled back a step, straight into the cylinder behind him.
The current shoved him forward again.
Tsukumo dipped low and drove upward, hitting Yashin's chin with another punch.
I struck his face again.
Water wrapped around my fist as it hit the warden's nose.
I felt the already broken bones give way beneath the blow.
His blood ran between my fingers, but Yashin grabbed my arm with his free hand and tried to pull me toward the dagger.
He planted his boot on the floor and leaned back hard, resisting the current pushing him forward.
I cut off the pressure.
Without the water to push against, Yashin lurched backward, losing his balance and dragging me with him.
Tsukumo came in from the side before the blade could reach me.
His knee struck the warden's weapon arm, knocking the dagger's point downward.
I freed my wrist from Yashin's grip and slammed my palm into his face.
My element carried the heat of Force.
A cloud of steam burst between us.
The warden roared in pain, covering his face with his arm, and plunged through one of the currents to escape the heat.
Boiling water struck his neck and poured through his torn clothes, scalding his open wounds.
Yashin emerged on the other side with his skin hissing and blood dripping from his chin.
No path around him remained clear.
Columns of water spun between the iron beams, the concrete, and the engine wreckage.
Some rose until they disappeared into the storm; others curved close to the floor, blocking every route Yashin sought.
Raindrops swept sideways across the platform, pulled from one current to another as steam spread above the floor.
I kept only one corridor open for Tsukumo.
My friend advanced without even needing to look at me.
Yashin raised his dagger, but Tsukumo was already pressed close to his weapon arm.
He struck beneath the warden's elbow with his forearm and leaned his body into him, preventing him from completing the swing.
I directed a cylinder of water straight into Yashin's back.
Tsukumo stepped aside at the exact moment the water struck the monster.
I came in from the front and slammed my palm against his chest, releasing another blast.
Yashin was trapped between the two crossing currents.
His feet left the floor.
I twisted my arm, tilting both cylinders together, and hurled him violently into the ground.
I shouted with all my strength until I felt my split lip tear open again.
"YOU'RE NOT GETTING DOWN THERE!"
The shadow beneath my feet suddenly opened.
I fell onto my left hand, and sharp pain shot up my arm to my shoulder.
As I fell, one of the cylinders lost its shape and collapsed.
Yashin emerged from behind the column beside Tsukumo, his dagger already descending to kill him.
My friend threw himself against his arm to stop the blow. The edge tore through the side of Tsukumo's coat, and they crashed together against a wall.
I raised a horizontal current to drive the warden away.
Yashin grabbed Tsukumo's clothes and pulled him into the jet's path, using him as a shield.
I stopped the attack halfway.
Water skimmed past them and burst against the engine casing.
Yashin seized on my hesitation.
His free hand closed around Tsukumo's throat, pinning him against the concrete, while he drew the dagger back to drive it into his belly.
I pulled water from the puddles between us and split it into three swift currents.
The first struck the wrist of his weapon arm.
The second hit beneath his elbow, pushing the blade's point away.
The third knocked the warden's supporting knee out from under him.
Yashin lost his balance and faltered.
Tsukumo made a muffled sound, lowered his head against the warden's chest, and pushed with the only leg he could still use.
They separated as they fell.
Yashin fell into one of the water cylinders, while Tsukumo staggered toward me.
I caught him before he hit the floor, but I couldn't support his weight.
I fell with him, slamming my knee against the steel.
My torn pants soaked through with blood, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from letting go of his coat.
Yashin pushed through the current once more.
His dagger came in low, aimed at our fallen bodies.
I tried to get up, but my leg wouldn't respond.
I sent a jet of water skimming along the floor.
It struck the warden's boots and delayed his first step.
Tsukumo hooked his forearm around my neck, and I pulled a current beneath our bodies.
The flow dragged us backward across the smooth floor.
Yashin's dagger sliced through the air right in front of our faces and sank into the steel plating.
We crashed into the column, with Tsukumo falling onto my chest.
My vision went completely white for a second.
When I could see again, there was blood in my mouth, and the flow of water inside my body was uneven and faltering.
My heart beat hard, then took too long to beat again.
Behind the warden, the rhythm of the rain suddenly changed.
I felt it first in the currents. Small ice crystals began forming along the edges of the cylinders, knocking against each other as the water spun.
A sudden, intense cold rose through the crater's shaft and swept across the platform, dispersing all the steam covering the floor.
Yashin stopped walking.
Snowflakes rose through the opening in the broken wall.
The communicator clipped to my vest crackled loudly beside my ear.
"GET OUT OF THE WAY!"
It was Candice's voice.
Then the pressure reached us before he did.
My knee buckled, and I had to brace myself against the column to stay standing.
Beside me, Tsukumo stopped trying to raise his arm, his breath catching in his throat for an instant.
The cold came from inside the hole.
It climbed swiftly up the crater's walls, coating the metal in a thick white layer.
The water running over the edge hardened first, turning to solid ice; moments later, small crystal spikes began growing between the steel plates.
Yashin stopped advancing.
His dagger stayed raised, but his head snapped toward the opening.
For the first time since the fight began, his attention left us entirely.
The aura kept rising, heavy and crushing.
I felt its weight in my chest, in my aching shoulders, in the hand still trying to control the currents.
A thin, brittle layer of ice quickly formed over the diluted blood around my boots.
A shadow cut through the snowflakes rising from the abyss.
Havelyn emerged carrying Candice. The harpy struggled to open her right wing to correct her flight in the strong wind, sending them both tilting dangerously to one side.
Havelyn compensated with a powerful beat of her left wing and cleared the edge, keeping Candice suspended directly in front of the opening.
Candice already had her scythe raised.
"UP HIGH!" Candice shouted, her voice cutting through the wind.
"ABOVE THE OPENING!"
Yashin reacted before she could finish.
He spun and lunged toward the side of the platform, desperately searching for a way to escape.
His boot came down squarely in one of the last puddles that hadn't frozen.
I felt it.
Just one more time.
I raised my left hand with the last of my strength.
The water cylinders tilted in unison. One thick current blocked the path directly ahead of Yashin; another struck his back hard, shoving him toward the crater's edge.
The warden tried to slice through the first current, but water wrapped around his weapon arm and merged with the jet coming from below.
I pulled everything upward.
A column of water rose directly beneath his feet, tearing him off the steel floor.
Yashin roared in fury.
His dagger ripped through the water, scattering blood and hot steam, but another current struck him from the side, holding him directly above the open hole.
My chest tightened with searing pain.
Blood surged up my throat, and I swallowed some before managing to spit the rest onto the floor.
My left hand began to sag with exhaustion.
Tsukumo stepped forward. His body swayed dangerously, almost pitching forward, but he stretched his trembling arm toward Yashin.
His broken fingers tried to close, but only shook helplessly.
The warden's dagger stopped halfway through its swing.
His wrist was forced downward.
Tsukumo let out a hoarse, muffled cry, and a thick trickle of blood ran from his nose to his chin.
The gravitational pressure lasted only a moment, just long enough to keep Yashin from cutting through the water holding him up.
Candice slashed through the air with her scythe.
Ice raced through the freezing water.
Frost climbed swiftly along the sides of the column and sealed around Yashin's legs.
Two thick, massive arches of ice grew from the crater's edges, meeting his body several meters above the abyss.
The warden thrashed and tried to raise his dagger.
Candice extended her mechanical arm.
A heavy band of ice pinned his elbow to his torso.
Another crossed his back and clamped around his opposite shoulder.
Yashin twisted violently, cracking and breaking pieces of his frozen prison, but the ice kept forming and thickening around him faster than he could destroy it.
I kept the water pressed hard against his legs until the ice arches finished joining.
Then my hand dropped.
Tsukumo lost his footing that same millisecond.
Yashin was completely immobilized above the crater.
And directly beneath him, white surged upward.
Havelyn beat her wings hard and carried Candice aside, moving them both out of the direct line of fire.
Candice kept her scythe pointed at the warden, reinforcing the ice walls whenever he opened a crack.
A deep, thunderous voice echoed from the depths of the shaft.
"SILVER WOLF!"
The raw shout carried across the entire platform.
Yashin's eyes widened, and he looked down.
Rubens's aura struck the surface with such violent force that the wind it generated swept my hair backward.
The last loose streams of water on the platform rose and shattered into thousands of crystals before hitting the floor.
Rubens shot out of the hole at incredible speed.
I saw his right fist first, completely encased in a thick mass of white ice.
Long, sharp spikes closed over his knuckles and extended along his arm, shaping the head of a furious wolf in perfect detail, its jaws open.
The man's massive body followed right behind it.
His clothes had been reduced to tattered rags.
Blood still flowed freely from wrists that had spent years locked in iron restraints, but his arm stayed extended and steady, his armored fist aimed straight at Yashin's chest.
The warden tried anything he could to break free.
He pulled his weapon arm so hard that the ice around his elbow snapped and cracked.
The dagger's sharp point began emerging between the fragments.
Candice clenched her mechanical hand.
The ice prison tightened around him even more.
Yashin lifted his face, his mouth open in a scream that the surrounding roar swallowed completely.
Rubens was already on him.
The armored fist struck the warden square in the chest from below.
I heard the sharp impact before I even felt the shock wave.
The ice holding Yashin exploded into thousands of shards. The warden's ribs gave way all at once beneath the devastating punch, caving his chest inward, and a massive gush of blood burst from his mouth, splashing directly onto Rubens's arm.
Yashin's body bent backward in a painful arc, his head and legs flung in the same direction by the momentum of the blow.
The black dagger slipped from his numb fingers.
For the briefest instant, I saw the weapon spinning through the air among glittering pieces of ice and drops of blood.
Then white swallowed everything.
A thick wall of ice suddenly rose directly in front of our column, completely sealing off the path of the rising blast.
I wrapped my left arm tightly around Tsukumo and lowered my head.
The force of the impact struck the other side of the barrier, making the steel structure shake violently against our backs.
The entire floor shuddered.
I heard whole metal plates tearing loose, iron beams cracking, and ice spreading and snapping around us.
The brutal pressure dragged what little air I still had out of my lungs.
Even so, I felt the water react.
The currents and cylinders I had left scattered across the platform froze solid in a single second.
They became tubes of pure crystal, clear enough for me to see the wreckage on the other side through them.
The rain itself froze in midair.
Thousands of falling raindrops became small, glittering stones of ice, swept along by the massive wave of energy rising from the crater.
They flew above our protective wall, colliding with one another and casting pure white reflections across Tsukumo's bloodied, dirty face.
I lifted my head with effort.
The titanic strike kept climbing.
A broad, colossal band of ice and crystals split the dark storm from top to bottom, carrying Yashin's body into the heavy clouds.
The gray sky parted around the energy.
The dark storm clouds were violently pushed aside and dissolved into nothing as the white column tore upward.
Blue sky appeared.
First, a narrow, clear opening.
Then an immense expanse of blue grew swiftly above our heads, swallowing what remained of the storm.
Sunlight broke over Gron-Tarh.
And absolute cold spread across the ground.
The freezing wave swept over the platform, raced down the crater's walls, and surged across the complex's metal plain.
Watchtowers, industrial walkways, and entire hangars were coated in white ice.
Puddles hardened instantly, pipes grew thick crusts of glittering crystals, and the most distant structures vanished beneath a blizzard sweeping low across the ground.
The freeze advanced far faster than my eyes could follow.
It reached the neighboring platforms, crossed the landing strips, and swept over distant buildings on the horizon.
As far as I could see, the facility's dark steel turned pure white.
Above us, the wave of power still wasn't finished.
The radiance rose beyond the last layers of clouds, crossed the boundary of the atmosphere, and reached the void of space.
Millions of crystals scattered beyond the planet, tracing a bright silver band along the curve of the world.
I kept staring upward, motionless.
My hand lay limp on Tsukumo's torn coat.
I couldn't feel my fingers anymore.
Havelyn landed lightly near the column, bringing Candice with her.
The harpy folded her right wing as soon as her talons touched the frozen floor.
Candice planted her scythe in the hard ice and lifted her face, following the white trail climbing into the sky.
Rubens fell back down, landing heavily on the platform's edge.
The frozen steel cracked and sank beneath his feet.
One of his legs trembled, and he struggled to steady himself, but he remained standing.
His right arm was still extended in front of him.
The thick ice around his fist slowly began to crack and break apart, shedding heavy chunks stained with Yashin's blood.
The weight of his powerful aura still hung over us.
I looked back at the open sky, where the crystals still gleamed with reflected light at the edge of space.
All of that had come from the force of a single punch.