The impact knocked me off my feet. One second I was breathing heavy with an axe in my hand, the next I was airborne — and not in a good way.
Then Kaito was there.
He caught me mid-fall like he always promised he would, one arm bracing my back, the other holding steady like he'd done it a thousand times. The moment paused around us — breath, heartbeats, torchlight flickering off feathers and blood. The husband sprinted toward his fallen wife, a blur of movement and rage in overalls and cracked owl porcelain. He cradled her with hands that trembled just enough to feel human.
Kaito didn't let go of me right away. He checked my ribs, my breathing, muttered a soft spell I could barely hear over the humming in my ears.
That stillness hung for a beat too long. Like the whole damn forest agreed we needed a moment. Even the cultists, even the owls, even the fire hanging in the air like judgment — everything just... waited.
"You okay?" Kaito asked, brushing a hand over my arm.
"No thanks to them," I muttered, glancing at the limping wife and the husband growling some half-broken vow in owl screeches.
The women — me and her — locked eyes across the ruined ground, bruised, limping, covered in magic and grit. There was still fight in her shoulders. And something about that pissed me off.
"We're not done," she snapped, limping forward.
"Sure," I said, dragging my thumb along the blade of one axe. "But first—how's your thigh?"
Kaito let out a slow whistle, sharp and low. A tone I knew. The van responded immediately, lights flashing like it heard the cue.
Then classical music — not the show tunes, not the carnival mix — but orchestral, swelling like something out of a haunted ballroom — boomed from the van speakers. The trees rustled with each rising note, and the very air around us started to swirl.
"This one's called the Fall Ballroom Dance," Kaito said, already lifting his bat with a smile that was too calm for what was happening. "They taught it to me in Prague. Didn't say it'd end in blood, but hey — traditions evolve."
Wind spun around us in tight, precise rings, carrying leaves, ash, feathers, and sparks. The cult couple lunged again — but the dance had already started. We moved. Together. In sync. The wind followed.
Our movements twisted the storm, until it became us — a pirouetting tornado of steel, sound, and fury. The cult couple couldn't keep up. The rhythm overtook them. It didn't just knock them down — it shredded. It blended. By the time the wind slowed, they were gone.
Blood hung in the air like perfume.
My knees hit the dirt, shaking. My hands still clutched the axes, but my body didn't want to move anymore.
"Kaito…?" I whispered, but everything started to tilt sideways. My vision blurred. The world spun the other way now.
And then — blackness.
I fell into a dream. Screams tangled in chains. Kaito — not as I knew him, but changed. His body tall and shadow-crowned, eyes glowing red-gold, markings seared across his chest like language too old to say. People were screaming. Chanting. Something about me, about the chimes, about judgment.
And I was alone in the center of it all.