The battlefield was ablaze with tension, and though the flames had claimed their first victim, the echoes of Yoi Ohara's fall reverberated far beyond her skeletal form.
Her aura, once a suffocating shroud of venom and shadow, had been extinguished.
The poison mist dissolved into nothingness, dissipating like smoke swallowed by the wind.
The serpentine shadows that writhed and hissed around her throne of darkness scattered into ash, leaving only silence where her dominion had stood.
It was not merely a death, it was the collapse of a realm, the unravelling of a power that had once seemed eternal.
Sai stood over her, his armour blazing like a furnace, each plate glowing with the molten breath of his fire.
His chest heaved with heavy breaths, each exhale carrying sparks that danced in the air before fading into the void.
His sword of flame hummed with molten energy, its glow reflecting in his crimson eyes, which burned with both triumph and exhaustion.
He lowered the blade slowly, deliberately, as though the act itself was a ritual, a declaration.
His voice, sharp and resolute, cut through the roar of the crowd like a blade through silk, "You fought hard… but fire does not fade. It devours everything."
The words hung in the air, heavy and absolute.
The crowd erupted in thunderous cheers, the arena shaking with the sound of thousands of voices merging into one.
The stone pillars trembled, banners whipped violently in the heated wind, and the monarchs seated upon their thrones leaned forward, their expressions grave yet awestruck.
To see a realm shattered and its master defeated was no ordinary feat, it was a declaration of supremacy, a rewriting of the hierarchy that governed their world.
Yet victory was a fragile crown, and it slipped quickly from Sai's brow.
From across the battlefield, Ban Nakajima stirred.
His dragon-skeletal eyes narrowed, embers glowing faintly in the hollow of his chest.
His claws flexed, scraping against the stone floor with a sound like grinding steel, each movement deliberate, each gesture a promise of violence.
His smirk, once mocking, had vanished, replaced by a predator's hunger.
His voice, low and cold, slithered across the arena like frost creeping over fire. "So… you have proven you can burn shadows. Let us see if your fire can scorch bone."
The crowd hushed instantly, as though the very air had been stolen from their lungs.
The silence was suffocating, broken only by the crackle of Sai's flames.
His aura roared higher, swelling like a storm, his fire licking the edges of the battlefield, turning stone to molten rivers.
The air between them shimmered with heat and tension, two forces poised to collide, each embodying a primal truth: fire that consumes, bone that endures.
And still, at the edge of the battlefield, Kane Eguchi remained silent.
His aura rippled faintly, bending the air as though time itself leaned toward his command.
His eyes were sharp, calculating, watching not just Sai's victory but the storm that was about to follow.
He was the observer, the tactician, the one who saw beyond the clash of elements into the threads of destiny itself.
His silence was not weakness, it was patience, the patience of a man who knew that time was his weapon, and that every second was a blade waiting to be drawn.
The arena trembled, the ground itself seeming to pulse beneath their feet.
Yoi was finished, her dominion erased, but the battle was far from over.
Fire had devoured shadow, but now it would face bone and time.
The arena shook as Ban Nakajima's final strike landed.
His skeletal-dragon leg slammed into Sai's chest with devastating force, the fire armour shattering under the impact.
The sound was like a mountain splitting, a crack that echoed through every stone pillar and every trembling heart.
Sai's body was hurled across the battlefield, crashing into the stone floor with a thunderous echo that reverberated like a death knell.
His flames flickered desperately, clinging to existence, then extinguished in a final gasp, leaving him motionless, a fallen titan.
The crowd gasped as one.
Thousands of voices, once roaring in triumph, collapsed into silence.
Sai Fukuda, the blazing warrior who had defied realms and shadows, who had stood unbroken against venom and darkness, was finally knocked out.
Dust rose around his fallen form, curling upward like smoke from a dying pyre.
The battlefield trembled in silence, as though the earth itself mourned the extinguishing of his fire.
Ban stood tall, his skeletal-dragon frame casting a monstrous silhouette against the fractured arena.
His chest glowed faintly with embers, each breath heavy but steady, the rhythm of a predator who had claimed his prey.
He looked down at Sai with grim satisfaction, his voice carrying the weight of inevitability. "Your fire burned bright… but even the brightest flame dies when faced with bone and dragon."
The words struck like a verdict, final and absolute.
The crowd shivered, monarchs exchanged glances, and the air itself seemed colder.
From the sidelines, Yoi Ohara stirred.
Still weakened from her earlier defeat, her skeletal form trembled, shadows curling weakly around her like dying serpents.
Yet her lips curved into a faint smirk, her voice a whisper of venom. "At last,… the fire has been extinguished."
Her words slithered into the silence, a cruel echo of triumph.
But even as she spoke, the atmosphere shifted.
***
At the far edge of the arena, Kane Eguchi finally moved.
He had remained still throughout the chaos, a statue of patience, a phantom of inevitability.
Now, he unfolded his arms, and the air around him rippled unnaturally, bending and twisting as though reality itself recoiled from his presence.
The battlefield warped, stone pillars bending at impossible angles, shadows stretching and snapping like broken threads.
His eyes glowed with a cold, timeless light, twin lanterns of inevitability.
Each step he took made the battlefield tremble, not with weight, but with the distortion of time itself.
The crowd fell silent, their cheers replaced with uneasy murmurs.
The monarchs leaned forward in their seats, their jewelled crowns catching the warped light, their expressions grave.
They sensed it, the storm that was about to break was unlike anything they had witnessed before. This was not fire, nor shadow, nor bone.
This was something greater. Something inevitable.
Ban turned, his dragon-skeletal eyes narrowing as he watched Kane approach. For the first time, his breath faltered.
Even he felt the weight of the aura pressing down on the battlefield, a suffocating gravity that bent his bones and clawed at his embers.
His voice, usually sharp and mocking, was quiet, almost reverent. "So… you've decided to move."
Kane's expression was unreadable, carved from stone and eternity.
His voice was calm yet chilling, each word carrying the resonance of inevitability. "The warm-up is over. Now… time itself will decide the victor."
The arena went still, the tension unbearable.
The crowd held its breath, waiting for the inevitable clash.
Even the wind seemed to pause, the banners frozen mid-sway, the dust hanging in the air like suspended stars.
And then, Kane took his first step in the Bloodmoon kingdom's tournament.
The air warped violently around Kane, reality bending, time itself was shuddering.
The battlefield was no longer stone and flame.
It was a canvas upon which destiny of the fighters would be rewritten in the fight.
The semi-final was no longer just a battle.
It was about to become something far greater.