The battlefield outside the Fifth Gate was a symphony of stillness.

  No footsteps.

  No whispers.

  Only the low, high-pitched hum of threads—too thin to see, but loud enough to feel. Every hair on Watari’s body stood on edge.

  Across the field, above the gate—

  She hovered.

  Sylvetta.

  Like a marionette suspended in the wind, her limbs sck, head tilted, strings rising from her back and wrists into the air like spiderwebs of corrupted Tamashkii.

  The air beneath her bent unnaturally. Her threads shimmered with a subtle pulse—Kugutsu no Omochiin full force.

  Watari stepped forward alone.

  Kaito had stayed behind for now. Kusunagi had fallen unconscious. Takeya, even further back. This part—Watari had to take on himself.

  Sylvetta’s eyes fluttered open. Wide. Gssy.

  “You’re not part of my assignment…” she said softly.

  Her voice was faint. Barely human.

  “Did my brother send you? …Or are you just another puppet?”

  Watari didn’t answer. Just raised his bde and tightened his grip.

  And with that—

  The fight began.

  Sylvetta didn’t move.

  Her threads did.

  Dozens.

  Hundreds.

  They whipped forward from the sky, the walls, the ground—shing toward Watari from impossible angles. They weren’t random. They were choreographed. Tuned.

  He parried the first.

  Ducked the second.

  Third one caught his shoulder.

  Fourth looped around his ankle.

  Watari gritted his teeth and sshed both—

  But by the time he regained his footing—

  CRACK.

  A thread nailed him to the stone beneath, pinning him for just a split second.

  Long enough for another to ssh down—

  BOOM.

  Watari flew back, tumbling across the field. He gasped, rolling to one knee.

  His Tamashkii… it wasn’t flowing right.

  His swings were off by inches. His footwork felt a second behind his thoughts.

  Kugutsu no Omochi wasn’t just attacking him—

  It was rewriting the battlefield.

  Watari’s bde trembled faintly in his hand.

  Sylvetta tilted her head again.

  “Your flow is off,” she whispered. “It’s okay. Mine used to be too.”

  She raised her arm. Strings extended.

  “Until he fixed me.”

  Watari frowned.

  “Who?”

  Sylvetta didn’t respond.

  Another flurry of threads surged toward him.

  This time—

  He charged forward.

  If she was messing with his sense of space—

  Then he’d close it.

  No rhythm. No retreat. Just pressure.

  He lunged straight through the storm—taking hits, sshing wildly, forcing her on the defensive.

  He got close.

  Too close.

  He struck—

  But again, her threads bent the space.

  He missed.

  She spun gracefully, a puppet mid-dance, and sliced her fingers through the air.

  Watari screamed—three deep cuts fring across his side.

  He dropped to a knee, panting.

  Sylvetta hovered overhead, the silhouette of her threads turning the field into a tapestry of suffering.

  “You’re not like him,” she said quietly. “He wouldn’t have missed.”

  Watari looked up, his breath shallow.

  “…Who is he?”

  She blinked once.

  “Brother.”

  A pause.

  Then—her voice cracked, just barely.

  “But it’s okay… you’ll learn to move like him.”

  “I did.”

  She snapped her fingers.

  The field pulsed.

  Watari felt his bance give again—like the world itself tilted.

  Another thread shed out—

  And just as it was about to pierce his back—

  CLANG.

  It missed.

  Barely.

  Watari blinked.

  He hadn’t dodged it.

  He’d been moved.

  A blur shifted beside him.

  Kaito stood there, Midnight Fang active—his body cloaked in flickering mist, his eyes narrowed with sharp precision.

  “You’re te,” Watari said between breaths.

  Kaito didn’t respond.

  Instead, he raised two fingers—and the mist shifted again.

  A string of Midnight Fang wrapped gently around Watari’s waist.

  “You’re swinging right,” Kaito muttered. “But you need to be on the left.”

  Watari blinked. “What?”

  Kaito flicked his wrist.

  The moment Watari went to ssh again—

  His body moved.

  Slightly. Subtly.

  Enough to correct his position in the disrupted space.

  And for the first time—

  He nded a clean blow.

  The threads parted.

  Sylvetta’s eyes widened.

  Watari and Kaito locked in.

  Mist and bde moving as one.

  Kugutsu no Omochi continued to twist the battlefield—but Kaito’s Midnight Fang began reading it. Countering it.

  When Watari struck too high—Kaito dropped his stance.

  Too far left—Kaito pulled him right.

  Every swing, every shift—

  Perfected.

  Together.

  Sylvetta raised more threads.

  More pressure.

  More distortion.

  But the team pushed through.

  Until—

  Kaito staggered.

  Just a bit.

  His breathing sharp.

  Watari looked back at him. “You good?”

  Kaito coughed, his hand trembling.

  “She’s… changing it too fast,” he muttered. “I can’t track every movement anymore…”

  Sylvetta floated higher, her gaze unfocused.

  “He always said my steps were wrong…”

  She twirled her finger. The threads followed.

  “But he made them perfect.”

  Her voice cracked again.

  And now—

  Her threads screamed.

  They tore through the battlefield like bdes of grief, of control, of memory. Each one faster, sharper—emotional.

  Watari narrowed his eyes.

  “…She’s not just fighting with skill.”

  “She’s fighting with pain. With full blown emotion.”

  A shadow moved behind them.

  A cough.

  Blood hit the ground.

  But the footsteps didn’t stop.

  “Guess this is the part where I stop spectating——“

  Takeya.

  He stepped forward, one arm clutched around his ribs, blood dripping from his lip, face pale—but walking anyway.

  Through the barrier.

  Through the pain.

  Every step forward brought another sptter of blood. But he didn’t stop.

  “Takeya!” Kaito barked. “You shouldn’t—!”

  Takeya didn’t answer.

  He stopped beside Kaito. Eyes on Watari.

  Then—

  He spoke.

  “You’re too fast when you switch to Kōsetsu. Too shallow when you shift to Sakura.”

  Watari blinked.

  Takeya’s eyes narrowed.

  “She’s disrupting your flow. So you need to make yours louder.”

  “You need to go silent.”

  “Then loud.”

  “Then spiral.”

  “Then power.”

  He paused.

  “That’s how you reach the fifth.”

  Kaito stared at him—then nodded.

  Watari closed his eyes.

  Breathed.

  Tamashkii surged.

  His bde gleamed.

  The thread storm howled.

  And the final csh—

  Began.