Nathaniel snarled — a low, primal sound that vibrated in his chest. The floor cracked beneath him as he launched forward, muscle and momentum exploding in unison. His strike met Kagami's guard with a thunderclap of force, her forearm catching the blow — but the impact drove her back a full step, boots grinding against the reinforced flooring.
A slick sheen crawled across Nathaniel's arm — Uratsu-forged resin, secreted instinctively from his pores and hardening like living armor. It clung to Kagami's limb, tightening in an instant, trying to lock her movement.
Her eyes flared a brilliant blue, the temperature around her spiking as a burst of heat surged from her skin. The resin hissed, blistered, and melted off in streams of molten slag.
She struck back — an upward hook that cut the air with frightening precision — but Nathaniel was already moving. He slipped past her arm, seized her ankle, and pivoted his hips with brutal efficiency. The next moment, Kagami's world flipped — then crashed.
The ground split on impact, the echo booming through the training hall as Nathaniel slammed her down hard enough to crater the floor. Smoke and heat swirled between them, the air warping from the clash of their Uratsu flows.
Kagami's body snapped back to life the instant her spine hit the ground. Her legs coiled and clamped around Nathaniel's arm like steel cables, muscles flexing with serpentine precision.
Before he could wrench free, her tail slammed against the crater floor — a sharp, explosive thrust that launched both of them upward. The motion tore them clean off the ground, sending Nathaniel spiralling mid-air as Kagami twisted through the momentum with frightening grace.
Her palms flared open, gathering flame — royal blue, dense and concentrated until it pulsed like a miniature star. The heat warped the air around her fingers, the condensed Uratsu roaring with restrained fury.
"Draconic Crucible!"
The words tore through the air as the sphere detonated upward, a focused blast of azure fire racing toward Nathaniel like a cannon of pure wrath.
Nathaniel smirked mid-spin, eyes locked on the torrent of royal-blue fire rushing toward him. For a heartbeat, the world slowed — the flame's reflection burning across his irises like molten glass.
Then his veins flared cyan.
His fingers snapped open, palm slicing through the air as the kinetic energy inside him detonated outward. Sparks cracked against the air — fshhh! — releasing a violent vacuum that ripped oxygen from the path of Kagami's attack.
The flame collided with the pocket of empty space, buckling in on itself before bursting apart in a spray of scattered embers. The pressure wave that followed blasted through the training chamber, rippling dust and molten fragments away in concentric rings.
Nathaniel hovered mid-air, body steady against the recoil, the whites of his eyes glowing with stark intensity."Nice try," he muttered under his breath, the faint ghost of a grin still lingering on his face.
Kagami hissed, fury flashing in her slitted eyes as she launched herself skyward, a comet of blue fire and muscle. Her claws gleamed, heat-distorted air rippling around her as she aimed straight for Nathaniel's chest — a living spear.
He didn't flinch.
At the last second, Nathaniel tilted his body, twisting effortlessly to the right. Cyan jets burst from his left shoulder and thigh — brief, controlled flares that spun him clear of her strike. The air shimmered from the heat as Kagami sliced through the space where he'd been an instant earlier.
She steadied midair, gaze snapping downward — and froze.
Below, thin cables of resin snaked out from the cracked flooring, glistening faintly in the reflected light. They moved like veins, seeping through the debris, weaving into the rubble in patterns too precise to be accidental.
A beat later, the ground answered.
Thoom!
Columns of hardened debris erupted upward, smashing through the ruined training floor and detonating in a choking dust cloud that engulfed them both.
The smoke cleared in a rush of displaced air.
Nathaniel's vision blurred for half a second before pain slammed into him — sharp, cold, real. He looked down to see the jagged tip of a scaled tail jutting clean through his abdomen. Blood spilled from his mouth in a bright arc before his body registered the rest — the heat, the smell of scorched flesh, the hiss of cauterization sealing the wound as fast as it formed.
He followed the length of the appendage upward.
Kagami towered above him — fourteen feet of dragon-born wrath, her body a fusion of molten strength and divine precision. Her ice-blue eyes gleamed with mirth, a cruel satisfaction twisting her lips as she raised him effortlessly with a flex of her tail.
Her gear had grown with her, armor reshaping over her expanded frame in seamless, heat-tempered layers. The temperature around her was suffocating — the air itself shimmered, distorted by the radiance of her Uratsu.
Kagami laughed, low and resonant, the sound vibrating through his chest. "What's the matter, Alderman? Thought you could bite a dragon and not get burned?"
With a flick of her tail, she hurled him off like discarded prey. Nathaniel hit the ground hard, his body skidding across the fractured steel tiles with a metallic clang. No blood followed — the wound already sealed by her scorching heat, leaving a blackened scar across his midsection.
He coughed once, breath ragged, the copper tang of blood thick on his tongue.
Nathaniel's body hit the ground with a dull crack — skull striking reinforced flooring hard enough to flash his vision white. For a heartbeat, the world spun in silence. Then the static hum of the interface bled through his fading consciousness.
[MAX–REGEN]
His vacant, white eyes opened again — unblinking, empty. Dust swirled around his motionless frame. His shirt hung in tatters, bruises painting his skin beneath the torn fabric. For a moment, he just stood there — disoriented, breathing shallow — and then his body twitched.
Ribs snapped back into alignment with audible clicks. Torn flesh sealed. Burned skin flaked away to reveal smooth, pale tissue beneath. A dull white sheen rippled over his body like a liquid film before fading into his skin.
[NORVANITE]
He wasn't using Uratsu — not consciously. His reserves remained dormant. This was something else. Something buried deeper, drawing from the ambient flow around him, reshaping his body through instinct rather than intent.
Kagami's head tilted, her dragon-slit eyes narrowing. "What—"
He was gone before she finished.
A sonic ripple cracked the air as Nathaniel blurred forward, his movements jerky, inhumanly efficient. He appeared behind her in a haze of dust and shattered tiles, eyes blank, veins faintly glowing beneath his skin.
His vision wasn't seeing her — not physically. Through that ghostly white glow, the world had flattened into outlines of heat and energy. He saw Uratsu signatures — Kagami's core pulsing royal blue, burning bright in her chest and spine.
That was where he struck.
Two precise blows landed — one at the base of her neck, the other between her shoulder blades — each perfectly angled, each carrying a resonance beyond physical force. It wasn't rage or technique driving him. It was familiarity. Muscle memory not his own.
The dragon-born staggered forward, her flames flaring in confusion as static rippled through her Uratsu flow.
Nathaniel stood behind her, steam coiling off his skin in silent waves, his breathing measured yet hollow — eyes still burning with that vacant white glow.Kagami's body stiffened, her movements lagging as the last surge of power faded from her veins. The air between them hummed, tense and thick with residual heat and kinetic static.
Then, all at once, both of them fell.
Kagami's draconic form shimmered, scales receding as her body shrank back to its human frame, the royal blue glow in her eyes dimming to nothing. Nathaniel's knees hit the ground moments later, the dull sheen fading from his flesh as the world around him blurred into silence.
Two forms lay amid the fractured rubble — steam, dust, and faint traces of blue and white light marking the end of their clash.