The fighting died in waves, the way a fire dies when the fuel runs out. The scattered skirmishes between Quinlan's soul army and the Fujimori elite forces stuttered and slowed as the weight of what had gathered on the main field reached the outlying engagements, and one by one, fighters disengaged and pulled back toward their respective sides.
The Fujimori forces withdrew toward Kaede and Elder Chizuru in disciplined columns, their blades still drawn, their eyes still forward. On the opposite end, the soul soldiers fell back toward Quinlan's position in a tide of spectral light, and the women who had been fighting alongside them came with them.
Ayame landed first.
She took one look at Quinlan's condition, at the blood running from beneath his helmet and the stone-and-ice hands hanging at his sides and the puppet queen bleeding beside him, and her expression didn't change.
She turned her back to him and faced the field.
