The fight continued.
Yūta knew it because his legs were still responding and the dagger was still in his hand and the mana was still flowing — more faint than at the beginning, with the accumulated cost of everything that had happened in the gymnasium since he had come in, but present.
The green remnant was faster than anything he had faced before had prepared him to face.
Yūta matched it at moments — not in speed but in anticipation, using what he had learned about how it moved to be where the strike was not going to arrive instead of trying to block where it was. It worked. Not perfectly, not with the margin he would have liked, but well enough for the exchange to remain an exchange and not a quick resolution.
The green remnant threw the threads from the right.
Yūta moved to the left — the threads passed where his shoulder had been — and responded with the dagger to the remnant's side, with the mana concentrated at the point of impact.
It connected.
Not deeply — the green one had turned slightly to reduce the damage — but it connected, and the remnant stepped back half a pace with something in its expression that was no longer just curiosity, though it was not yet concern.
Yūta felt something in his legs.
Not pain exactly — more like the specific signal of when a system has been operating at its limit for too long and begins to communicate that the limit is very close. The mana too — more faint than it had been two minutes ago, with that quality of something that is running out, even though it has not run out yet.
A little more, he thought.
The green remnant charged.
Yūta responded — the dagger, the mana, the movement Kaito had taught him forty times in four days — and the exchange was the fastest of any they had had until that moment, with both connecting and absorbing and neither landing the definitive strike that would close the equation.
Then the mana ran out.
Not switched off — it ran out, all at once, in a way Yūta had not chosen and his body had not negotiated but simply executed because it had reached the point where there was nothing more to give. His hands stopped glowing. His legs responded, but with a delay that had not been there before. Something in the centre of his body that had been holding everything together gave way in a manner that had no precise name, but whose result was completely clear.
His knees found the floor.
Yūta tried to get up.
He could not.
The green remnant approached slowly.
Not with hurry — with that calm it always had, which was the most unsettling thing about it because it suggested it had never felt that this could end any other way.
"You surprised me considerably," it said, looking down at him with those white pupil-less eyes. "More than I expected from someone at your level." It paused. "But now this is finished."
The threads appeared on its fingers.
Yūta looked at them.
He tried to find the mana — he sought the river, he sought anything that would respond — and found nothing that had enough shape to be useful. The body had given what it had and had nothing more at this moment.
The threads tensed.
And then the green remnant stopped.
Not because of Yūta — because of something that had caught its attention from some point behind him, with the speed of something that has senses that go beyond the usual five.
"Someone entered the dome," it said.
And then, on that face that should not have been capable of recognisable expressions, a smile appeared that was different from all the previous ones — more genuine, wider, the kind that appears when something that has been waited for finally arrives.
"The other hunter," it said.
Yūta processed that.
Kagami.
"He's going to kill you," said Yūta, very quietly.
Not with drama. With the specific certainty of someone who genuinely believes it and has no energy to dress it up.
The green remnant looked at him, moved closer and with its right hand took hold of Yūta's head.
And then it laughed — not the short laugh from before but something longer, more genuine, that filled the gymnasium in a way that no other sound in that space had filled it.
"That," it said, when it finished, "is the most interesting thing you've said since you arrived."
Footsteps came from the double doors.
Kagami Ryo entered the gymnasium with his usual unhurried pace and assessed the space in the time it took him to cross the threshold — the students in the corner, the teacher with Sota, the empty spaces, Yūta on his knees in the centre with the mana spent and his body not responding.
He stopped beside Yūta.
"Good work," he said.
Yūta looked at him from below.
"I can help—"
"Stay and watch," said Kagami, not in the tone of someone being kind but of someone giving an instruction that has no room for negotiation. "That's an order."
He placed himself between Yūta and the green remnant with the ease of someone taking a position they had calculated before entering.
The green remnant looked at both of them — at Kagami first, then at Yūta on the floor, then at Kagami again. And then it ran its tongue over its lips with the deliberateness of something that is anticipating something it likes.
"I've been waiting for you," it said.
"Stop talking nonsense," said Kagami. "Let's get on with it."
The green remnant laughed.
"All right," it said.
The fight between Kagami and the green remnant was different from what Yūta had been able to do — not in kind but in scale, in a way that was perceptible even from the floor where he was unable to get up.
Kagami moved with that economy of his as always — no advance signals, no unnecessary visual effects, only the body responding before the strike arrived with a speed that had nothing spectacular about it except the result. The green remnant responded with that fluidity it had shown before, but without the restraint of something measuring — direct, with the confidence of something that knows what it has in front of it is at its level, and accepts that with something that resembled enjoyment.
Yūta watched them.
He tried to get up once — his legs responded a little, not enough — and stayed watching.
I'm not at that level yet, he thought, without bitterness. Just as a fact the fight in front of him was showing him with perfect clarity.
Neither of them was using their ability yet — Kagami without the gravitation, the green remnant without the threads en masse. Just the direct exchange of two things that know how to fight and are measuring each other before deciding how much to show.
The green remnant struck Kagami's side — Kagami absorbed the impact by turning and responded with his elbow to the green one's shoulder before the movement had finished. The green one stepped back. Kagami did not advance — he waited, read, held his position.
"I've had enough of this," said the green remnant, at some point in the exchange.
Kagami did not respond.
"I'll use everything," said the green one. "And you should too."
It took off its shirt.
What was beneath was not a human back. It was a surface from which threads emerged — not the ones it had thrown from its fingers, but a dense network of them integrated into the body in a way that suggested they were not a power it used but a part of what it was. From the light green of its skin the threads came out in every direction with that almost invisible fineness, and when the remnant extended its arms they expanded through the gymnasium sealing the exits — the doors, the tall windows, the gaps — with a speed that left no time to process the scale of what was happening.
The gymnasium was completely sealed.
Kagami looked at the network of threads that sealed every exit.
Then he sighed — not from fear but as someone who has assessed a situation and reached the conclusion that there is no longer any reason to keep being partial in the response.
He activated the gravitation.
Yūta felt it before he saw it — a pressure in the air that was not exactly physical but which the body registered all the same, like when altitude or temperature changes abruptly. The space of the gymnasium changed in nature in the area around Kagami and the green remnant in a way that made even sitting on the floor require an adjustment.
The green remnant felt it too.
And in its expression something appeared that Yūta had not seen there before.
Genuine interest.
The fight with the gravitation active was visually different — the green remnant lost and recovered traction on the floor in ways that did not correspond to the movements it was making, the threads it threw arrived at destinations slightly different from where they were aimed because the space between them and the target was behaving differently, and Kagami moved with a freedom that the reduced gravity in his immediate area gave him and which made his effective speed greater than the visible movement suggested.
The green remnant adjusted.
Not perfectly — Kagami was better at this than the remnant had calculated — but enough for the fight to remain a fight.
The threads from the back activated — not thrown but extended, seeking Kagami from multiple directions simultaneously with the coordination of something that does not need to aim because it is already everywhere.
Kagami changed the gravitational field — not in his own area but in the space through which the threads were travelling, increasing the weight in that specific sector until the threads lost speed and fell before arriving.
The green remnant looked at him.
"What's your name?" it said, in the middle of the fight, in the tone of someone asking a question because they genuinely want the answer.
"Kagami," said Kagami. "Just Kagami, for you."
The green remnant processed that.
"Mukuro," it said, gesturing at itself. "That is my name."
"I didn't ask," said Kagami.
"I know," said Mukuro. "But you're going to want to know it."
The fight continued.
It arrived without warning from the sealed sector beside the double doors — a figure that emerged from between the threads with the ease of something that knew them from the inside and knew how to move between them without being caught.
It was different from Mukuro — taller, with a build that could not be made out, as it wore a cloak that covered its face and body. Only its eyes were visible, and they were white, but of a different whiteness — colder, less curious.
"Mukuro," it said, in a voice that had even less correspondence with the language. "We can leave now."
Mukuro did not stop immediately.
"Akuryō," it said, in the tone of someone who had not expected this interruption. "I'm not finished yet."
"Orders from the leader," said Akuryō, with the neutrality of someone communicating a fact with no interest in debating it. "We achieved the objective. It's time to go."
Mukuro looked at Kagami.
Kagami looked at him.
"Let me kill the hunter," said Mukuro. "Just to see what forms. It's a question I've had for a long time."
"No," said Akuryō. "We're leaving."
Mukuro kept looking at Kagami for a moment longer.
Kagami had the mana active and the gravitation ready and his left side reminding him of some of the impacts from the last few minutes. He looked at the two remnants — at Mukuro with his threads and at Akuryō with that presence that had still not shown what it had — and assessed.
Two at that level in this state is not the same as one.
He did not say it. He did not need to.
The threads sealing the gymnasium withdrew — slowly, with the same coordination with which they had arrived, freeing the exits one by one until the space became again a gymnasium with ordinary doors and windows.
Mukuro walked towards the exit.
He stopped.
He turned towards Kagami.
"I hope to see you again," he said. "This conversation is not finished."
Then he looked at Yūta on the floor.
"You too," he said. "Perhaps it will be interesting to see you again, little hunter."
And the two of them left.
The gymnasium fell silent.
Yūta tried to get up.
This time his legs responded enough — with the visible effort of something at its limit, but enough to be standing.
Kagami looked at him.
"I'll admit I was wrong," he said.
Yūta looked at him.
"Wanting to send you back to headquarters," said Kagami. "That was a mistake." He paused. "Thank you for staying."
Yūta looked at him for a moment.
"It's the first time you've said something good to me," he said, with what remained of his usual smile.
"Don't get used to it," said Kagami.
Yūta laughed — short, with the visible cost — and looked towards the corner.
Sota was with the teacher who was still pressing against his shoulder, eyes closed.
"Sota—"
"He's going to be all right," said Kagami.
"How do you know?"
"Because the shoulder is bleeding, but not deeply," said Kagami. "And because before coming in I spoke with the hunters in the area. Ambulances are already on their way."
Yūta looked at Sota for a moment longer.
Both of them noticed that the curtain which had separated the outside world from Sota's school was gone. "They left completely," said Amane.
"Yes," said Kagami.
"What will we do about the people?"
"Humans who survive this without powers process it as a dream," said Kagami. "Or they simply don't remember it. That's how it works when the veil lifts." He paused. "Everyone except Sota."
Yūta nodded.
"Toma and Masa died inside the veil," he said. "Sota saw them."
"I don't know them," said Kagami. "But if they died while the veil was active nobody outside this gymnasium is going to remember them in any way that makes sense." He paused. "Don't worry about them."
Yūta said nothing.
"If you're worried about Sota you can speak with him," Kagami continued. "But tomorrow. Right now it's better to leave him with the teacher and the others. Let the ambulances arrive. Let this night pass."
Yūta looked at the gymnasium — the empty spaces, the teacher kneeling beside Sota, the students who were beginning to move with the slowness of people returning from somewhere.
"All right," he said, quietly.
The two of them left.