Rain streamed through the broken roof and washed blood into the cracks covering the arena floor. Without his blindfold, Yuzuki could see every drop striking the stone, every fading trail of aura left by Chrollo's puppets and every slight movement in the hand holding Skill Hunter. The clarity was useful for only a few seconds before it became painful. Pressure pulsed behind his eyes, and the burst vessels around his pupils coloured the whites faintly red.
Chrollo. The calm leader who would stand in Yorknew without showing fear had never truly been empty inside. Yuzuki knew enough about Meteor City and Sarasa to understand where the Spider had begun, but memories of another world could not tell him exactly what the man in front of him would do next. The timeline had already changed too much for that.
Chrollo stood across the ruined floor with Skill Hunter open in his left hand. The bookmark rested between two fingers of his right, while marked rubble and the remaining puppets floated under the altered pull of the gravity ability. He appeared composed, but his breathing had deepened and his page turns no longer came as easily as they had at the beginning of the fight.
Yuzuki lowered his stance.
He did not activate Infinity.
Using it again would give Chrollo another five-second pattern to control, and maintaining the barrier while processing the full flood of the Six Eyes would exhaust him faster. His best chance was to stay close enough that Chrollo could not comfortably prepare another layered combination.
Yuzuki ran forward.
Chrollo closed the book around the bookmark and shifted before Yuzuki reached him. His free hand struck toward Yuzuki's throat, quick and direct, while a nearby puppet dropped from above to force him into the line of attack.
Yuzuki ignored the puppet.
He slipped inside Chrollo's palm and formed a tiny point of Blue near the man's shoulder. The sudden pull dragged Chrollo half a step forward, ruining the alignment of his strike. Yuzuki drove his right palm into the exposed joint before retreating from the puppet's descending blade.
The blow landed, but Chrollo did not give him room to recover. He pivoted and kicked directly into Yuzuki's wounded side.
Pain exploded through the knife wound and cracked ribs. Yuzuki folded around the impact, blood rising into his mouth, but used the turn of his body to send his elbow toward Chrollo's face. Chrollo leaned away, though the strike still opened a cut along his cheekbone.
They separated by only a step.
Yuzuki spat blood into the rain. "That one hurt."
Chrollo's eyes flicked toward Yuzuki's damaged left arm. "You shouldn't still be able to move that shoulder."
"I'm not moving it very well."
They entered striking range again.
With one useful arm and an injured spine, Yuzuki could not match Chrollo through ordinary exchanges. The Six Eyes showed him openings, but his body was often too slow or too damaged to take them. Instead, he used small pulls from Blue to spoil Chrollo's footing, tug a sleeve at the wrong moment or turn a clean strike into a glancing one.
Chrollo adapted quickly. He shortened his movements and stopped committing his full weight until he had already forced Yuzuki to react. A palm aimed at Yuzuki's jaw became an elbow toward the shoulder wound. A low kick stopped halfway and turned into a step that trapped Yuzuki's foot beneath Chrollo's heel.
Yuzuki caught the edge of the closed book before it struck his temple and tried to wrench it from Chrollo's grip. Chrollo released the pressure, allowing Yuzuki to pull himself forward, then drove his knee into the torn muscles beneath his ribs.
A wet gasp escaped Yuzuki.
Chrollo followed with a short strike toward his neck, but Yuzuki turned his head and caught the wrist against his right forearm. He twisted, pulling Chrollo closer while a tiny distortion of Blue dragged at the man's rear heel.
For a moment, they were locked together, close enough for Yuzuki to see the rain collecting against Chrollo's eyelashes.
"You built all this because of Meteor City," Yuzuki said.
Chrollo's expression remained still. "You're choosing an unusual time to discuss history."
"You won't stop turning pages long enough anywhere else."
Yuzuki tightened the hold on his wrist. Chrollo could break it, but doing so would require giving up the balanced stance protecting the book.
"You wanted the outside world to be afraid of taking from your home," Yuzuki continued, his breathing uneven. "Fine. I understand that."
"No," Chrollo said quietly. "You don't."
"Maybe not."
A puppet descended behind Yuzuki. He pulled Chrollo sideways with him, forcing both of them out of its path without releasing the wrist.
"But protecting Meteor City didn't require becoming the same kind of monster that hurt Sarasa."
Chrollo stopped moving.
It lasted less than a second.
His eyes widened slightly, and the aura around him lost its smooth shape. The sudden pressure was rawer than anything he had released during the fight, carrying none of the careful restraint behind his earlier abilities.
Yuzuki felt the change and knew immediately that he had reached something dangerous.
Chrollo tore his wrist free.
The book remained in his left hand, but he did not turn a page. He stepped forward and drove his forehead into Yuzuki's face.
Cartilage cracked.
Yuzuki staggered backward, his vision flashing white as blood poured from his nose. Before he could steady himself, Chrollo struck the wounded side of his body twice in quick succession. The first blow reopened the knife wound. The second drove a broken rib deeper against the surrounding muscle.
Yuzuki tried to lift his guard, but his injured arm did not respond.
Chrollo's kick struck his jaw and threw him across the wet floor.
Yuzuki hit the stone on his back and slid through a shallow stream of rainwater and blood. The concussion sent the Six Eyes into chaos. Aura trails doubled across his vision, and every raindrop became a bright, stabbing point of light.
Chrollo stood where he had fallen, breathing heavily.
"You know nothing about her," he said.
His voice was quiet again, but the calm had not fully returned.
Yuzuki rolled onto his side and pressed his right palm against the floor. "Probably less than you."
"Then don't speak as though you understand."
"I don't need to understand everything."
He pushed himself onto one knee. His legs trembled beneath him, and his left arm hung uselessly at his side.
"I just know she wasn't killed so you could become this."
Chrollo's aura sharpened.
Yuzuki felt Blue and Red respond within him.
The two techniques sat on opposite sides of the same impossible balance. He had combined them before, and his body still remembered the damage. Even healthy, forming Purple tore through his arms and upper body. In his current condition, the recoil might kill him before the technique finished travelling across the arena.
But Chrollo stood almost directly ahead.
His composure was fractured. His guard had shifted toward physical aggression, and he had not reopened Skill Hunter. If Yuzuki formed a narrow enough corridor now, Purple could erase him before he restored the full structure of his defence.
For one moment, the possibility felt simple.
Blue gathered.
Red answered.
Chrollo noticed the change in Yuzuki's aura. His expression settled, and his feet shifted apart as he prepared to move, but he was already inside the likely path.
Yuzuki looked at him.
He did not see an innocent man. Chrollo had killed people who had never harmed Meteor City and led others who treated entire lives as things to steal. Yuzuki did not excuse any of it.
But beneath the fury, he had seen grief.
For a moment, Chrollo had not looked like the untouchable head of the Spider. He had looked like the child who had found something unforgivable and decided the whole world would pay for it.
Yuzuki let Red fade.
Instead of forming Purple, he placed the point of Blue several metres behind Chrollo.
The sudden attraction seized Chrollo's body and dragged him backward. He twisted in the air, landed on one foot and slid across the wet stone until he recovered his stance well beyond close range.
The unfinished pressure of Purple disappeared.
Silence returned to the arena.
Chrollo studied Yuzuki from across the distance. He had felt the two opposing forces begin to gather. He had seen Purple once before and understood what Yuzuki had chosen not to finish.
"You stopped," he said.
Yuzuki wiped blood from beneath his nose with the back of his hand. "You noticed."
"Yes."
"Then we can skip the explanation."
Chrollo's gaze remained on him for another moment. The anger withdrew behind his usual stillness, though it did not disappear completely.
"You gave away your best opening."
"I know."
"For someone you just called a monster."
Yuzuki forced himself upright. "I didn't say you stopped being one."
A faint change passed across Chrollo's face. It was not quite amusement, but it was closer than anger.
He reopened Skill Hunter.
"Then don't mistake your decision for protection."
"I wasn't planning to."
Chrollo turned one page, adjusted the bookmark and moved his free hand behind the book. Across the arena, one of the remaining teleportation marks flickered to life. Two pieces of rubble carrying opposite Sun and Moon symbols shifted toward the open routes beside Yuzuki, while something narrow and metallic disappeared beneath the rain near his rear flank.
Yuzuki could see the separate movements.
He could not yet see the complete trap.
His Infinity was available again, but his body was failing and the pressure behind his uncovered eyes had become almost unbearable. Chrollo's earlier anger had vanished, replaced by a colder focus than before.
Yuzuki raised his right hand and steadied his breathing.
He had spared Chrollo when killing him might have been possible.
Now Chrollo was preparing to answer that mercy with everything he had left.
---
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