The battlefield was a hellscape.
Charred ruins cracked and hissed under Reika's feet as molten streaks licked the stone—rivers of fire carving veins of fury through the scorched earth. The sun had vanished behind smoke. All that remained was the glow of flame and fury.
Reika stood alone. Blood soaked her coat, one sleeve torn, her katana dragging in her right hand like an afterthought. She exhaled, shallow and rattling, but her eyes—her eyes burned brighter than any inferno the Shikibans had conjured.
Six Flame Shikibans circled her, their bodies wreathed in living fire. Their armor was forged of obsidian and flame-charms, flickering with cursed kanji. They weren't just enemies. They were executioners.
The largest stepped forward, magma dripping from his gauntlets. "The Kageshiki girl. You should've stayed broken."
Another Shikiban lifted a hand—his fingers curled into a seal. "FLAME FORM: NINE-FOLD SEAR!"
A barrage of crimson flame-crescent blades burst from his chest, searing through the air with banshee howls. Reika twisted.
Her body became motion.
She weaved through the deathstorm, barely visible—each step a breath between dimensions. A blade scorched her shoulder; another singed her thigh—but her katana flashed upward in a perfect arc—
CLANG!
The flame wielder's head split from his body in a geyser of black fire. Reika landed low, spinning on her heel, crimson blossoms spraying from her katana's path.
The rest of the Shikibans hesitated.
She lifted her head slowly, smoke curling from her skin. Her voice cracked like breaking bone.
"One down."
They charged. All at once.
Flames howled from every angle—walls of heat bending space, the roar of combustion louder than thought.
Reika met them.
One Shikiban flanked left—his chest igniting into an ethereal lion's maw. "FIRE CURSE: ASHEN DEVOURER!"
The lion lunged.
She vaulted upward, flipping mid-air. Her blade howled as it descended, splitting the spectral lion down the middle—dissolving it in a cyclone of smoke. She landed on the Shikiban's shoulders, driving her katana through his back until the hilt cracked bone.
He dropped like a furnace collapsing.
Another approached from behind. "FLAME STYLE: LAMENTING PYRE!"
The air behind her erupted into black fire.
BOOM!
The explosion threw her forward, skidding across burning ground. Her arm twisted unnaturally, and pain lanced through her ribs.
She coughed blood. Gritted her teeth.
Then rose.
"Is this all?" she hissed, her voice laced with venom. "Where's the hell you promised me?"
The fourth Shikiban didn't answer. He simply raised both arms, and the very sky above them split.
From the crimson tear in the heavens, a dragon of pure flame descended—its body made of thousands of interlocked seals and tongues of fire, its eyes pits of endless wrath.
"FLAME GOD ART: INCINERATION WYRM!"
The ground shattered under its descent.
Reika didn't flinch.
She stepped forward—head low, one arm limp at her side, katana flickering with embered edge.
The dragon roared.
Reika's lips moved.
"Dragon to dragon."
Then she vanished.
Flashstep.
She appeared mid-air—eye to eye with the fiery beast. Its maw opened wide, a swirling vortex of heat surging forward.
Her katana swung upward.
"SHADOW-FIRE BREATHING: THIRD FORM—CRIMSON LOTUS SPIRAL!"
A spiral slash exploded from her blade, winding like a burning helix, carving straight through the dragon's core. The beast shrieked—its seals unraveling in a chain of nuclear detonations.
She was caught mid-blast. Her body slammed against the cratered earth, skin burning, eyes barely staying open.
But she rose. Again.
Smoke curled off her form. Her katana was half-melted at the edge, glowing red. Her breathing was ragged—but her smile?
That was still intact.
Two Shikibans remained. They exchanged glances. No words.
One struck a stance—fingers bleeding from overcasting. The other snapped his neck side to side. Their bodies surged with crimson aura.
"DUAL TECHNIQUE—FLAME REAPER'S DESCENT!"
Their energy fused—becoming a blinding whirlwind of molten death. A tower of flame rose like a god's execution, screaming downward toward Reika with the force of a meteor.
She didn't move.
She screamed.
The air shattered.
Her aura detonated into the sky—purple and black flames, monstrous and divine. A dragon's silhouette coiled behind her, woven from agony and rage. Her hair whipped like wild fire. Her wounds sizzled closed.
And in her eyes—there was no more doubt.
She blurred forward—through the center of the descending reaper-flame. Her body became flame—her spirit, a tempest of defiance.
In one godlike sweep, she passed through them.
Time hung still for a heartbeat.
Then both Shikibans erupted into gory plumes—bisected, atomized, gone. Their armor clattered uselessly to the blackened ground.
Silence fell.
Only crackling embers remained—floating like fireflies around the lone figure in the center of the carnage.
Reika stood tall, katana sizzling at her side, breath heaving. The battlefield was scorched, broken. Shikiban blood painted the rocks. Her shadow stretched long behind her, clawed and shifting like the dragon still coiled around her soul.
But in her expression—there was no triumph. Only grief.
She looked down at her hands, still trembling.
"I don't want this…" she whispered. "But I will burn everything if I have to."
She turned away from the ruin. Not a single Shikiban left breathing.
Ashes trailed her with every step.
And behind her, the scorched battlefield whispered a single name in reverent fear:
Reika.