The sound of battle was distant at first.
A dull hum beneath the ringing in his ears.
Then came the memory
Bakuza's fist, wreathed in black flame, tearing through the air like a comet.
The impact.
The silence.
Kenji's body twitched.
Dust clung to his lips as his breath dragged itself back from the void.
For a moment, there was only darkness.
Then air.
The scent of scorched stone and lightning.
The faint tremor of Shinrei pressure shaking the ground.
He opened his eyes.
And the sky was burning.
Flame pillars from Kaen's duel with Bakuza painted the horizon crimson.
Wind currents twisted in chaos, disturbed by Khael's dragon aura and Rael's radiant Judicator storm.
The world itself was coming apart and he had been lying useless in the dirt.
Kenji pushed himself up, spitting blood.
"…Bastard."
His voice cracked, half a snarl, half a vow.
You think you can just knock me out and erase me from the fight?
He staggered forward, veins of wind pulsing faintly under his skin.
Each step drew gusts, whispering around him like forgotten spirits.
He clenched his fist.
The wind screamed.
"I'm going to use my full strength!!"
A sudden burst of gale tore the rubble apart, spiraling upward in a green-silver cyclone.
Cracks etched themselves across the ground as his Shinrei pulse spiked.
The pressure dragged the ash upward, shaping it into swirling halos.
Far away, Saya glanced over her shoulder, eyes widening.
"Kenji…? No way—"
He raised his arm, veins glowing with windlight.
"I too can access the Eclipse Gate!"
The declaration split the chaos like thunder.
For an instant, even Bakuza looked up from his clash with Rael — grin faltering as the air warped and screamed.
Kenji's Shinrei ignited, a torrent of emerald and white light spiraling skyward.
Feathers of compressed wind cut through the battlefield so sharp they shredded shadow flame and stray lightning alike.
His voice roared against the storm:
"ECLIPSE GATE!!"
A shockwave of raw emotion erupted — fury, pride, defiance — bending reality itself.
Wind howled from every direction, converging at his feet as a massive seal burned into the ground a circular pattern of runes inscribed with the old symbol of the Veinwalker's Oath.
His body lifted from the earth, eyes glowing pale cyan, hair whipping in the furious current.
No more hesitation.
No more being the background.
If the others can burn, then I'll carve my wind through heaven itself.
His aura solidified, forming spectral wings of translucent gales behind him shifting, ever-flowing.
Every motion sent ripples through the world.
"Eclipse Form – Zephyr Dominion
The battlefield bent under his surge.
Kaen's flames leaned toward him; Ceyla's lightning was drawn to his current; even Khael turned, eyes narrowing at the familiar resonance.
He did it… he opened it.
Khael's thoughts flickered, pride and worry clashing. But at what cost, Kenji…
The wind cracked like thunder as Kenji blurred gone in a breath, appearing before Bakuza's flame vortex.
"Eyes up here monster!"
He thrust his palm forward.
"Cyclone Sever!"
A spiral of compressed wind tore through the inferno, cutting flame into ribbons and scattering Shade mist like dust.
Bakuza snarled, flames blackening the edges of his grin.
"Hah! A fly that learned to sting!"
Kenji's eyes sharpened.
"Then let's see if your fire can burn the sky itself!"
Wind met fire.
Emotion met destruction.
And the heavens themselves split open.
The battlefield was collapsing.
Wind screamed through the fractured earth, flame towers burst from the cracks, and above it all the air shimmered with warped Shinrei.
Kenji's Eclipse Form tore through the haze, wings of translucent wind extending behind him, each beat splitting the clouds apart. His body was outlined in cyan radiance, veins pulsing with unstable power.
Across from him, Bakuza laughed, a deep, jagged sound that seemed to echo from the Void itself.
Flames of black and crimson coiled around him like living serpents.
"You think wind can smother my fire, boy?"
His grin split wide, teeth glowing faintly under the flame's pulse.
"Then let's burn the sky itself!"
Kenji vanished reappearing behind him with a boom of displaced air.
His kick connected with Bakuza's ribs, sending an explosion of compressed wind spiraling outward.
But Bakuza barely moved.
He turned, a shadow smile cutting through the blaze.
Kenji's eyes widened.
He absorbed it…?
Flames erupted from Bakuza's back, engulfing Kenji in an inferno that screamed like tortured souls.
But before the fire consumed him
a beam of golden light sliced through the flames.
"Move aside, Kenji."
Rael descended like judgment incarnate.
His Judicator Form blazed, golden runes cascadeing across his armor, the Lumen Blade humming with divine resonance.
A halo of radiant edges spun behind him like a crown of light.
Kenji hovered, coughing smoke, glaring at him.
"Took you long enough, Princess."
Rael smirked, his tone sharp, confident almost cruel.
"I calculated your failure before you attacked. Consider this a rescue."
"What, you arrogant bastard—!"
But Rael was already moving, his blade cutting a straight arc through Bakuza's firestorm.
Light carved air, and for a heartbeat, the world seemed to pause.
Then everything exploded.
Flames collided with radiance, the shockwave uprooting entire swaths of land.
Khael shielded his team from afar, summoning Wind Dragon Scales that deflected the blast, the ground around him fracturing.
"Focus! Don't let the Echo fields overlap!"
He shouted across the chaos his tone commanding, steady.
Ceyla's lightning carved sigils into the ground as she and Juno fought Kero, the pale swordsman with long black hair and a voice like silence itself.
Every movement from Kero was surgical, his blade, whispering wind and shadow, creating crescents that erased everything they touched.
"You dance well, Veinwalkers… but this is not rhythm. This is execution."
"Execution this!" Ceyla yelled, lightning screaming from her hands.
Beside her, Juno's Taishin Gates burst open one after another, his punches shaking the air like thunderclaps.
Shigeo's eyes darted, unseen equations flickering across his mind calculating every motion, every probability.
If Ceyla moves one step forward, she's dead. Khael's next Echo pattern overlaps with Kero's spin arc…
He adjusted the field.
"Redirect, 42 degrees east! Wind shift in three… two… now!"
Khael's eyes flashed.
He felt Shigeo's predictive command.
The storm bent with him and his Dragon Echo roared, tearing through Kero's defense.
Ceyla's bolt followed perfectly, synchronized.
"Lightning Fang!!"
The sky ripped apart.
Meanwhile, back at the core of the storm
Kenji and Rael stood side by side.
Fire and Void surrounded them.
Bakuza's laughter rolled like thunder.
"So, you two finally decided to fight together? Cute."
Kenji wiped blood from his mouth.
"You talk too much."
Rael's gaze didn't waver.
"Kenji. Sync with my circuit."
Kenji blinked.
"You serious? Your arrogance'll blow us both up."
"You said you could reach the sky." Rael's voice sharpened. "Then prove it. I'll be the light, you be the storm."
Kenji's grin returned.
"Fine. Don't die, princeling."
Their Shinrei signatures collided, light and wind intertwining, harmonizing through instinct and sheer will.
For an instant, the world went silent.
Then
The fusion detonated.
"ECHO FUSION: JUDICATOR TEMPEST!!"
A colossal spiral of gold and cyan burst from their cores, wrapping around them in radiant armor.
Kenji's wings fused with Rael's halo, forming a burning cyclone that lit up the battlefield like a second sun.
The very sky cracked.
Bakuza shielded his face as his flames were pushed back for the first time.
His grin faltered but only for a moment.
"Heh… finally worth killing."
Rael raised the Lumen Blade, its edge vibrating with celestial hum.
Kenji spread his wings, wind and light whirling like divine fury.
"Judicator Tempest – Verdict of the Sky!"
They moved as one.
A slash of pure light.
A blast of razor wind.
Together, a spiral beam that pierced through Bakuza's inferno, tearing apart even his Shade-infused fire.
The explosion lit the entire field.
Lira's healing bloom wrapped around Kaen's wounds as he charged forward, his own flames spiraling in resonance with the others.
"Don't think you're stealing my spotlight!"
Saya's voice rose beside him, "Kenji's losing balance, keep the flow steady!"
Shigeo's tone came through, calm, precise:
"Counter-path adjusted. Probability of collapse… 21%. Stable enough. Keep pushing."
Khael glanced across the chaos his team moving like one living storm.
Lightning, flame, wind, light all converging under his command.
He smirked.
This is what three years bought us.
And as the Judicator Tempest struck Bakuza full-force, splitting flame from shadow, Khael whispered, low and steady:
"Break the void."
The impact drowned the world.
Light.
Wind.
Silence.
To be continue