He descends from his throne, his curved blade slithering at his side. Madarame looks around, surveying his environment. His eye darts toward the man walking slowly toward him.

  “I am Sura, Sword Saint. None have seen this blade and lived to tell the tale.”

  He edges closer.

  “Prepare yourself.”

  Madarame is riddled with horripilation at the man’s words and presence.

  Flash.

  Sura appears in front of Madarame—movement at the speed of light. He cleaves through the air, his blade hissing as the wind whistles, streaking toward Madarame’s neck.

  Clang.

  Sura and Madarame stare at one another, wide?eyed. Madarame has conjured a shadowy web at the point of contact, barely defending himself. The webs squeal as Sura leans into the strike, still trying to decapitate him. A millisecond later and Madarame’s death would be recorded in the log and read by Yumi.

  Sura Mori Madarame.

  A moment earlier and Sura would have noticed and would have redirected his blade.

  Madarame tenses, veins bulging as his sleeves tear. He launches his fist into Sura’s liver. Sura tightens his grip on the sword, jumps onto Madarame’s chest, kicks off him, and flies backward.

  “You’re strong,” Sura says. “As strong as an appellation. I can count on one hand how many pact users can keep up with them.” Genuine respect colours his voice.

  “And you—you are exceptional,” Madarame laughs.

  He rushes forward. Sura swings pre-emptively, but Madarame leaps up into the air.

  “Bahahaha!” Madarame laughs, far too high to reach he scratches at Sura.

  Sura guards.

  Nothing happens.

  He resumes his stance—and in that crucial moment, impossibly thin webs, capable of splitting light, ravage Sura’s body.

  He jitters as they strike him thousands of times, his face stolid and stoic. He shows no sign of pain; even the jittering comes from impact, not agony.

  “Clever,” Sura admires.

  An absolute monster—this man’s raw prowess allows him to keep pace with a pact user. Sura points his curved blade at Madarame and mimics the out?of?range attack.

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  He slashes the air rapidly, then jumps back.

  Madarame feels the wind rushing toward him. It slices into his bicep, shears off a tuft of hair, and removes the lobe of his left ear.

  “Clever,” Madarame mimics.

  He lands.

  Both men stand grounded now, waiting for the other’s next move. Madarame can’t use projectile attacks—Sura is far too fast. If it exists in the air for even a moment, he can perceive and evade it.

  But trading blow for blow in close quarters would be suicide.

  “All in,” Madarame whispers.

  He conjures a scythe of shadowy, liquid web.

  He flourishes it.

  Sura launches forward, swinging his blade like a cleaver. Madarame blocks with the scythe’s handle, but the curve of the blade slices across the back of his hand. Every movement must be dodged or blocked with pinpoint precision.

  Madarame shoves Sura back and swings underhand as opposed to overhead, aiming to impale him through the stomach and lift him skyward. Sura slides back, yet a straight gash opens across his torso from navel to clavicle.

  Madarame wastes no time. In a fraction of an eye?blink he closes the distance, head?butting Sura in the teeth. Sura’s head snaps back. Madarame drops the scythe; it dissolves as it hits the ground. He wraps his arms around Sura’s torso.

  “Disappointing. Know your strength.”

  Sura slips Madarame into a headlock and lifts him into the air.

  Madarame flails, kicking Sura’s temple. His strikes don’t even make Sura’s head shift.

  Sura slams Madarame’s spine across his knee, splitting him in two.

  He breathes in the air through his nose. His eyes closed.

  The halves explode into a sphere of webs, slicing hundreds of thousands of times. Sura shields his eyes.

  He gasps.

  Faster than light, he realizes.

  That head?butt. That infinitesimal instant when my gaze slipped. A decoy made of shadow?webs. Where is the real—

  A scythe pierces his spine from behind, lifting him into the air, his back to Madarame. Sura grabs the blade and crushes the webbing between his palms, teeth gritted. Madarame releases the scythe, letting gravity take him. He touches his fingertips together, weaving threads, then snaps them open—firing straight at Sura.

  Sura twists mid-air, driving his elbow into Madarame’s head, smashing him into the ground. He rolls over, narrowly avoiding the guillotine of descending webs.

  Madarame’s webs yank him skyward just as Sura drives the edge of his blade toward where Madarame’s heart should be.

  He pulls out two small daggers from his belt, pinches the skin of his chest and back, where the scythe entered and exited and use the knives as a pin closing the wounds.

  Sura breathes. He stills himself, watching every movement.

  Madarame lands, now wielding a traditional broadsword. Steel clashes with steel—blinding flurries of strikes. Sura’s blade hisses as its hilt catches Madarame’s weapon. He slices across Madarame’s face, carving into the eye not covered by the patch, blinding it.

  “Shit.”

  Madarame dissolves the patch instantly.

  “An eyepatch for a perfectly good eye?” Sura laughs heartily, blood crawls out of his mouth. “You’ll be entertaining indeed!”

  With one eye closed, Madarame slashes upward, aiming for Sura’s groin. Sura lifts his sword to parry.

  Woosh.

  Sura looks at Madarame—and his vision rotates. His feet remain planted as his torso falls away.

  Black flames cauterize the wounds as a wing cleaves him cleanly in two.

  Madarame grins, eyes wide.

  Seraphiel strolls past Sura's head casually. His heel in his face, a disgrace.

  “You alright?” they ask in unison, each eyeing the other’s wounds.

  They look towards Sura’s body—gone. The severed halves slither away.

  The lower half stands upright as a torso regrows. The other piece follows.

  Two Suras now stand before them, curved blades in hand, advancing.

  “Cheap,” one says coldly.

  “Trick,” the other finishes.