The stadium air thickened.
Leone's wild rotations had already scarred the arena's surface, but now, as Kyoya adjusted his stance, the very air seemed to ripple with tension.
"Let's see you spin through this, Aarav," Kyoya muttered, his voice low but sharp.
With a sharp twist of his launcher grip, Kyoya pushed Leone into a tight spin lock. The Beyblade compressed its orbit, and the friction between its rugged Rock Wheel and the cracked stadium surface created a swirling updraft.
Dust lifted in tight spirals, debris skittered across the floor, and soon, a visible vortex of air enveloped Leone.
Madoka's eyes widened. "He's activated the Special Movel!"
Gingka's grin turned serious. "That's his territory now."
Madoka explained rapidly, her gaze flicking between the rising tornado and Aarav's poised figure. "Kyoya's compressing Leone's spin torque into a grounded airflow barrier. Any Beyblade that tries to break in will lose rotational stability instantly. It's a defense wall that forces the opponent to either break rhythm or be pushed out."
Kenta stood beside them, fists clenched, watching Aarav's unmoving posture. His lips were pressed tight, but the worry in his eyes was clear.
"Aarav… you can't break through that with rhythm alone… can you?"
But Aarav didn't flinch.
Phoenix spun just outside the vortex's edge, its rotation axis still perfectly aligned. It hadn't attacked. It hadn't even adjusted orbit.
It was waiting.
Kyoya's smirk widened. "Come on, Aarav. You can stare all you want, but you're not getting through this wall. You'll either spin yourself out… or step into my storm and get torn apart."
Aarav's fingers subtly shifted on his launcher belt.
Madoka caught it immediately. "He's tightening Phoenix's spin flow. He's not going to brute-force through… he's going to use Kyoya's own tornado."
Kenta's eyes flickered in realization. "He's going to spin with the storm?"
Phoenix's rotations began to shrink into a micro-orbit, the outer flow tightening into a loop so small it seemed stationary to the untrained eye.
But Aarav wasn't holding back.
He was syncing.
Every rotation of Phoenix started pulling on the outer edges of Kyoya's tornado, siphoning micro-pressure waves into its spin field.
Kyoya noticed the shift, his eyes narrowing.
"Tch. You're still playing it calm, huh? Let's see how long you can balance."
He drove Leone's rotations faster, the vortex intensifying, whipping the stadium dust into a full spiral that climbed above their heads.
But something was off.
Madoka's voice was sharp. "He's turning Kyoya's storm against him. Phoenix's friction is absorbing the outer vortex layers, using the storm's momentum to feed its own spin strength."
The air's color seemed to shift as the dust-laden tornado around Leone began to glow faintly orange.
Kenta's eyes widened. "It's… it's turning into a fire tornado?"
The friction from Phoenix's compressed spin and Leone's gale force was generating heat—not fire as a power-up gimmick, but a visual from raw physics.
The tornado, now tinged in fiery hues, spun around Leone, but Phoenix wasn't backing down.
Aarav's stance lowered, his right foot sliding half a step back, anchoring his body's rhythm with Phoenix's pulse.
Kyoya growled. "You really think you can tame my storm, Aarav?"
Phoenix's orbit narrowed one final time, its spin axis so tight it looked as if it were drilling into the stadium floor.
And then it moved.
Not fast.
Not aggressive.
But deliberate.
Phoenix glided forward, its rotations absorbing the storm's lower air currents, the fiery tornado funneling into its spin path.
The stadium trembled under the shift.
Madoka's breath caught. "He's not breaking the tornado… he's cutting through it."
Kenta's fists were clenched, but his lips curved into a grin. "He's flowing through the storm…"
Kyoya's teeth clenched as Leone's rotation faced resistance.
"What are you doing, Aarav?!"
But Aarav's gaze never wavered.
Phoenix's crimson frame was now engulfed in swirling embers, not as a special move, but as a natural result of friction convergence.
It wasn't spinning against the storm.
It was spinning through it.
Then came the moment.
Phoenix's axis tilted—a fraction of a degree—but the impact was immediate.
The fiery tornado split, parting like a curtain being sliced by an unseen blade.
From the crowd's perspective, it was as if a giant Phoenix, wings ablaze, tore through the storm wall.
The visual wasn't a projected spirit—it was the raw manifestation of rotational flow overpowering air pressure.
Phoenix shot through, and in that instant, as if time itself slowed, the image appeared.
A Phoenix, colossal and radiant, diving with its talons extended.
Leone, still fighting within the collapsing vortex, looked like a lion caught in the storm's unraveling core.
And as Phoenix struck, the visual of its talons gripping Leone's neck materialized—symbolic, yet so vivid it sent a shiver through every onlooker.
Kenta's eyes were wide, breathless. "He… he's got him…"
Kyoya's snarl broke through the noise. "Don't get cocky!"
But his grip had tightened.
He could feel it—the storm wasn't in his control anymore.
Phoenix's spin locked onto Leone's, redirecting the last vestiges of the tornado's force into a sharp, rotational backlash aimed directly at Leone's core balance.
The stadium air, once wild and swirling, was now compressed, still.
The moment of impact had arrived.