The marked stones surrounding Yuzuki glowed beneath the black fog, their crimson light spreading across the broken arena floor in uneven lines. Some were close enough to threaten him directly, while others had been placed nearer the spectator side of the ring. Whether Chrollo truly intended to endanger the crowd or merely wanted Yuzuki to believe he would, the result was the same. Standing still allowed the trap to tighten, and retreating toward the stands was no longer something Yuzuki was willing to risk.
His fifteen-second cooldown ended.
Yuzuki activated Infinity and ran through the nearest opening.
The first pair of marks detonated as soon as he passed between them. The blast tore apart the floor behind him, throwing heat, dust and shattered stone into the air. A second explosion followed from his left, then another from behind, until the centre of the arena disappeared beneath a storm of smoke and debris. Everything reaching Yuzuki slowed at the edge of Infinity, leaving him untouched inside the violence, but the technique did nothing to quiet the strain running through his injured back as he forced himself forward.
'Five seconds.'
He could barely see Chrollo through the fog, yet the Six Eyes still picked out fragments of movement. The book remained open. Chrollo was not retreating quickly enough for someone supposedly trying to avoid a direct attack.
'He wants me to spend it getting close.'
Yuzuki kept moving anyway. Remaining inside the minefield would only give Chrollo more time to shape the arena around him, and closing the distance at least forced the Spider to respond.
'Four.'
The smoke thickened until even Chrollo's aura became difficult to separate from the fog. Dozens of faint threads moved through the darkness, some connected to real constructs and others existing only to distract his eyes.
'Three.'
A page turned.
For one brief moment, Yuzuki remembered another sealed room and pale skeletal fish swimming through the air.
'Indoor Fish?'
The thought came instinctively from his memories of the story he had once known. Chrollo used the ability in Yorknew, inside a sealed room, against men who never understood they were being eaten. But Yorknew was still roughly a year away. Chrollo should not have possessed that page yet.
'No. Too early.'
Then doubt followed.
His own existence had already changed too much. Kastro was alive. Shizuku's history had shifted. Chrollo had fought opponents he had never faced in the original timeline and displayed abilities Yuzuki did not remember. Knowing what should happen no longer guaranteed knowing what could happen.
That hesitation cost him.
'Two.'
A wooden figure descended through the smoke above his left shoulder. Yuzuki noticed the disturbance too late to identify its weapon clearly. He turned enough for the first hooked blade to slide past his neck, but a second puppet emerged from below the fog, its movement hidden behind the explosion's pressure and noise.
'One.'
Yuzuki reached Chrollo and drove his right palm forward with a restrained point of Blue. Chrollo leaned aside rather than blocking, allowing the pull to catch his clothing and drag him half a step off balance. Before Yuzuki could follow, Infinity expired.
The fifteen-second cooldown began again.
A curved blade tore through Yuzuki's left shoulder from behind.
He felt the impact immediately. The hook entered near the damaged muscle, ripped sideways and carried away a strip of flesh as the puppet passed him. Blood sprayed across the dark fog, and Yuzuki's left arm dropped before he could stop it.
Pain travelled from his shoulder into his ribs and spine, turning the entire side of his body into one burning line.
Yuzuki staggered away from Chrollo and barely avoided another puppet approaching through the smoke. He caught its wrist with his right hand, redirected the blade past his body and kicked its knee until the wooden joint shattered. A third shape moved overhead, forcing him to duck despite the agony in his ribs.
Chrollo disappeared deeper into the fog.
"You expected something else," his voice said from somewhere ahead.
Yuzuki pressed his right hand over the wound. Blood slipped between his fingers almost immediately. "You own a book full of other people's bad ideas. It narrows nothing down."
"You stopped for a moment."
"I was disappointed."
A soft sound came from the darkness, almost a laugh.
The answer was casual, but Yuzuki knew Chrollo had noticed the hesitation. That worried him more than the wound. Chrollo did not know about reincarnation or the memories Yuzuki carried, but he now knew there were abilities Yuzuki expected without seeing them first.
Another puppet entered from the right. Yuzuki struck its elbow aside and retreated before a second blade could reach his thigh. The fog made every exchange worse. He could detect the attackers by pressure changes and aura connections, but Chrollo had filled the darkness with so many false trails that certainty arrived only when the threat was already close.
He could continue fighting inside the fog, but he would be reacting to Chrollo's choices for the rest of the match.
Yuzuki looked upward.
The black vapour remained trapped beneath the sealed roof, thickened further by dust from the explosions. It did not require an enclosed room as a strict Hatsu condition. It simply worked far better when the arena could not vent it.
That was enough.
Yuzuki raised his right hand toward the ceiling.
Through the fog, Chrollo's position changed.
Yuzuki formed Blue against one of the central roof supports. He chose a section above the empty portion of the arena rather than the stands and pulled sharply.
Metal screamed overhead. A reinforced panel tore free from its frame, followed by several connected sections of roofing. The opening widened under the spatial pull until daylight and rain broke through the darkness.
Wind rushed into the arena.
The black fog began to unravel.
It did not disappear completely, but the sealed mass lost its shape as the rain and outside air scattered it across the open roof. The aura threads sustaining the puppets became easier to distinguish, and Yuzuki finally saw the nearest attackers clearly enough to avoid them without guessing.
The price of clearing the battlefield fell toward the spectators.
Pieces of steel, concrete and broken roofing descended around the opening. Most were aimed toward the empty centre, but one long support beam spun toward the eastern stands while smaller fragments scattered behind it.
Yuzuki saw the people below beginning to run.
For one second, Chrollo was open. The Spider stood near the edge of the thinning fog with his book exposed, watching the falling debris rather than Yuzuki.
Yuzuki could have attacked.
Instead, he extended Blue above the stands.
The falling beam changed direction with a violent jerk. It missed the lower seats and crashed into the empty arena floor, throwing up a spray of broken stone. Yuzuki redirected two more large fragments before allowing the smaller pieces to strike the raised emergency barriers.
The effort pulled heavily through his damaged shoulder and back. Blood ran down his arm, mixing with the rain gathering on the floor, while the aura around his right hand flickered from the strain.
Inside the private box, Bisky stood with one hand pressed against the glass.
"He had Chrollo for a second," Kastro said.
"He also had a steel beam falling toward a few hundred people," Bisky replied. Her voice remained calm, but her fingers had tightened hard enough to whiten at the tips. "He made the choice before he even thought about it."
Wing watched Yuzuki's left arm hanging almost uselessly beside him. "That wound is deep. If the blade damaged the shoulder stabilisers, he may not be able to raise it properly for the rest of the match."
Shizuku remained seated beside Pakunoda. She had not spoken since the blade struck Yuzuki, but her eyes followed every movement he made.
Pakunoda glanced down at Shizuku's hands.
They were clenched tightly in her lap.
"He's still standing," Pakunoda said quietly.
Shizuku did not look at her. "I can see that."
Rain fell steadily through the damaged roof, washing the last of the thick dust from the arena.
Yuzuki gave him a tired look through the blindfold. "You already knew."
"I had a strong suspicion."
"That's a long way to go for confirmation."
Chrollo's expression did not change, though his gaze briefly moved to the blood running from Yuzuki's shoulder. "Not for me."
The marked rubble scattered around the arena was easier to see now. Several of Chrollo's earlier seals remained active beneath the broken stone, while others had been displaced by the collapsing roof.
Yuzuki could not attack Chrollo directly without entering another unknown setup, so he targeted the ground around him instead.
A point of Blue formed beneath the rubble.
The broken stone shifted at once. Heavy slabs slid across the wet floor and collapsed toward Chrollo from several directions, carrying marked fragments with them. The Spider disappeared behind the converging mass an instant before it struck.
The crash shook the arena.
Yuzuki focused through the dust.
A wooden puppet lay crushed beneath the rubble.
Chrollo stood several metres away beside a fading marker, his clothing torn slightly near one shoulder but his body otherwise unharmed. He had exchanged positions with one of the prepared constructs before the stones closed around him.
Yuzuki stared at the remains of the puppet. "You marked it earlier."
"Yes."
"How many?"
Chrollo turned another page. "Would the answer help?"
"Probably not."
"Then I'll keep it to myself."
Yuzuki's mouth twitched despite the pain. "You're learning how converse."
The ruined arena stretched between them. Yuzuki had opened the roof to clear Chrollo's fog. Chrollo had turned the explosions into cover for hidden puppets and used those same puppets as escape points. Every change to the battlefield removed one danger and created another.
Neither of them controlled the arena completely.
They were simply taking turns rewriting it.
Chrollo rested one finger against the page he had just opened. The aura surrounding the book shifted, quieter than before.
Yuzuki searched the remaining rubble.
Before the explosions, several arena workers had been stationed beyond the safety boundary to monitor structural damage. Most had escaped through the side passages when the roof opened.
Two had not.
Yuzuki caught traces of living aura beneath the northern section of debris, but the signatures did not look right. Each seemed to divide into several smaller trails, overlapping with the aura of the remaining puppets.
He could no longer tell which shapes were constructs and which contained actual people.
Chrollo looked toward the same section of rubble.
"Let's see what you do when the obvious answer is the wrong one," he said.
Yuzuki removed his blood-covered hand from his shoulder and lowered his stance.
Somewhere beneath the rain-soaked debris, a human voice called for help.
---
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