The world came back to Akiko in fragments. Sharp, disjointed pieces that didn't quite connect.

Her ears twitched at the sound of distant crashes. Metal screamed against stone. The ground trembled beneath her like it had forgotten how to stay still. The air tasted of scorched steel and ozone, sharp enough to sting.

Her HUD flickered, struggling to stabilize. Red warnings bled across her vision.

Mana reserves: critical.

Shield integrity: compromised.

Recharge required.

"Akiko?"

The voice pulled her upward.

She blinked. Raya's face swam into view, pale and tense. Her helmet's glare visor was pushed back, revealing eyes that had seen too much in too little time.

"You're awake," Raya breathed, relief breaking through her exhaustion.

Akiko tried to sit up. Her suit hummed in protest. Her muscles trembled.

"What... what happened?"

"You burned yourself out," Raya said. She glanced over her shoulder, where fire-light licked across the ruined flow station's frame. "That thing destroyed everything."

She forced herself up, breath shallow. Her eyes found the battlefield beyond the wreckage.

And stopped.

The entity's construct loomed, its form radiant with controlled fury. Fusion drives flared at its back in radiant arc, heat shimmer rippling across its limbs as it pivoted with precision.

Opposite it, a much larger creature answered, a scaled-up version of the creature that had disintegrated under the construct's opening salvo, a heaving mass of scaled flesh and jagged spines, each movement shattering the ground and sending aftershocks through the soil.

Where Karn kept getting these monstrosities, Akiko had no idea. But they just kept getting worse.

The creature and construct collided in an explosive arc of destruction. Energy blazed from beneath the creature's scales. The construct's plating refracted it in veils of heat and plasma.

Akiko's breath caught.

She wasn't supposed to be here for this. This was too big. A clash between monsters that warped the meaning of scale. She was a spark on the edge of a wildfire.

She was supposed to deal with that? Ridiculous. Impossible.

A flicker caught her eye, to the right. And then a voice, lilting and amused.

"I leave you alone for one day, and you nearly die. Honestly, Akiko. You do know how to keep things interesting."

"Sifra," Akiko rasped, relief hidden under sarcasm.

The fae hovered just off the ground, wings trailing shimmer like torn starlight. Her expression was unreadable, except for the faint, bemused curve of her lips.

"Did you miss me?" she teased.

Akiko exhaled, dragging a hand over her face as the HUD pinged again. Critical, failing, burning out.

"Not now," she muttered. But even she couldn't keep the gratitude out of her voice.

Sifra tilted her head, gaze gleaming. "You look dreadful. Lucky for you, I keep my promises."

She floated closer. Her hand reached out, fingertips poised above Akiko's chest plate.

"Shall we restore that little spark of yours before you go rushing back into the storm?"

"Do it," Akiko said without hesitation, ignoring the burn of worry in her chest.

Sifra touched the suit. Mana surged.

Cold, crystalline mana, invasive and exhilarating flooded into her. A flavor of magic that didn't belong in this world.

Her suit groaned. Her mana meter climbed. Foxfire sparked at her fingertips, too bright, too sharp.

"There," Sifra said, dusting her hands. "Good as... well. Close enough."

Akiko flexed her fingers. The sparks danced, unfamiliar. Her claws thrummed with energy she hadn't earned.

"Thanks," she muttered.

"Try not to waste it," Sifra said, tone sweet as honey.

Akiko rose slowly. Her body obeyed again, but it felt like she was on borrowed time.

The ground beneath her boots trembled violently as Karn's creation roared, its massive claws rending through the shattered remnants of the pump station. The entity's construct darted above it, fusion drives blazing, lashing out with precise, surgical strikes. Metal shrieked. Ice splintered. Sky and stone alike groaned under the weight of powers that shouldn't share a battlefield.

Karn stood atop a jagged outcrop, draped in ragged robes that fluttered unnaturally in the thin atmosphere. His skin had withered to parchment, drawn tight over bone, sunken at the cheeks, with veins of blue light pulsing faintly beneath the surface. His eyes, once human, now burned with a cold, unblinking hunger. Blue light coiled around his fingers, casting long shadows across his skeletal hands as he chanted, each word etched with ritual precision, his voice hollow with the echo of death.

Water erupted from the ground, twisting into massive whips that snapped through the air like serpents, hammering toward the construct with deafening force.

Akiko ducked behind a collapsed wall, foxfire flaring along her claws. Her HUD shivered with proximity warnings and seismic alerts.

"Damn it," she muttered, bracing as a shockwave cracked the earth behind her.

High above in orbit, the entity's frigate responded. Red lances of beam fire sliced through Karn's summoned water, boiling the air into mist. Missiles rained downward, striking with surgical punctuation, each one detonating with enough force to crack a mountain.

Karn didn't flinch. His magic surged, dragging more water from the moon's fractured depths. It curled into a vortex, a spinning tower of elemental force that clawed at the atmosphere.

"Raya!" Akiko shouted. "Stay back!"

"I'm not exactly eager to jump into that," Raya called from cover, crouched beside Kess behind a crumpled beam. Her voice was steady, but her eyes were on Akiko. "What's happening? The ground's shaking like—"

A deafening crack silenced her as a fissure tore through the ice meters away. Steam hissed up from the raw black wound.

Akiko staggered, catching herself on trembling limbs as the entity's construct launched again, fusion drives kicking in with a thunderclap of heat and force.

It struck Karn's creation in the shoulder, and the beast reeled, roaring, blood and energy spraying into the air.

But Karn didn't stop. The vortex collapsed inward, then lashed outward in a wave of ice-shards and hydrostatic pressure. The shockwave hurled debris in every direction.

Akiko ducked just in time as a piece of structural plating slammed into the wall beside her.

"This is getting out of hand," she growled, voice clipped.

"It's worse than that," Kess said from behind cover. "He's destabilizing the crust. If this keeps up—"

The sky flashed. A new salvo screamed downward from orbit, beam lances vaporizing air, missiles striking like celestial punctuation.

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Akiko's HUD flickered again:

Seismic activity intensifying. Structural integrity of local terrain: critical.

"Great," she muttered. "As if this place wasn't falling apart fast enough."

Beneath them, fissures yawned wider. Steam and boiling water erupted in jets. Chunks of terrain shifted underfoot like drifting tectonic plates.

Karn's monster stumbled from another blow. The vortex imploded, sucking in ice, magic, and atmosphere, and then detonated outward in a concussive blast that knocked Akiko backward.

She gritted her teeth, rising slowly. Her eyes snapped to Raya and Kess.

"You two stay out of sight," she said, voice low but ironclad. "I'll deal with this."

"Akiko—"

"No arguments," she said, locking eyes with Raya. "Not this time."

Raya froze. Then nodded, jaw clenched.

Her gaze flicked to Karn, still focused, still summoning. She could end it. Slide through the cracks in his awareness. Bury her claws where it counted.

But the creature… it thrashed and bled and roared across the battlefield, each movement fracturing the surface further. It was too big. Too blind. It wouldn't stop until there was nothing left to crush.

Karn had all the hallmarks of a lich. He could come back. The creature wouldn't.

Her breath slowed. Her focus narrowed.

"Sorry, big guy," she muttered, stepping into motion. "You're first on the chopping block."

Akiko launched herself forward, claws blazing with foxfire as she charged toward the battlefield.

The fractured ground bucked beneath her, but she kept her footing, weaving between jagged fissures and debris-strewn ice.

Up close, Karn's creature was monstrous, a glistening leviathan of scaled hide and jagged bone. Each lumbering step cracked the crust deeper, sending tremors rippling outward like shockwaves. Its breath steamed the air. Its roar drowned the wind.

The entity's construct moved with terrifying clarity, fusion vents flaring, strikes landing with mechanical brutality. Where the beast was raw and furious, the construct was cold resolve, each motion the execution of a solution already calculated.

Akiko darted along the creature's flank, claws flaring as she leapt. "Hey, big guy!" she shouted. "Try me!"

She slashed across its ribs. Her foxfire hissed against oily scales, leaving blackened gouges. The creature turned on her with a roar. Too fast.

She dove, hit the ground hard, rolled. Her shield shimmered as its claws raked the ice where she'd stood.

Shield integrity: 64%.

"Fantastic," she muttered, scrambling to her feet. The creature charged again.

The construct struck from behind, a clean blow to the beast's exposed shoulder. Karn's creation howled, staggered, tried to twist away, but it was losing ground. Each impact shook the ground. The tide had turned. And that was the problem. If the construct finished this fight untouched… she'd be next.

Akiko's breath caught sharp in her chest. Then she saw it. An opening. She exhaled, dropped low, and sprinted straight toward the construct's towering, radiant frame. Her claws flared weakly. Her shield pulsed red.

Akiko gritted her teeth. "Right. Let's even the odds."

She sprinted low, staying behind debris until she was close, then vaulted upward. Her claws scraped the construct's chassis as she climbed, every movement jarring against its shifting weight. It didn't react. Didn't see her. Didn't need to.

"Alright," she whispered, bracing against its smooth plating. "One last hit."

She drove her claws inward, channeling foxfire, seeking that resonance she remembered from the mining station. The thin point of contact where thought became current. And found it. Her suit jolted. Her HUD exploded with alerts.

Mana surge detected. Overload imminent. Neural deviation threshold approaching.

It hit her like a wave, freezing and electric and wrong. The entity's power tore through her mana pathways like data with nowhere to land. Her breath locked. Her vision fragmented. She wasn't holding it, it was holding her.

Focus.

Focus.

Akiko gritted her teeth, hands burning. Her claws sparked violently as she fought to rechannel the flow, siphoning just enough to flood her foxfire core, not enough to drown.

Too much.

Her HUD shimmered, flickered, then snapped back.

Foxfire reserves: overcharged.

Warning: Integration strain at 92%.

She exhaled, staggered. And dropped.

The construct didn't notice. It kept moving. Calculating. Executing.

Akiko hit the ice hard, rolled to her knees. She could still feel the cold in her teeth. But her claws blazed like never before.

"Round two," she rasped. "Let's see if I can be a problem."

The world narrowed to motion and fire.

Akiko surged forward, foxfire blooming from her limbs in radiant arcs. The air rippled around her, too bright, too hot, her veins a crucible for stolen power. Each step cracked the ice beneath her, every breath a tremor in her chest.

Ahead, the creature reared, a tower of scaled fury, its roar a quake that shook the sky. It struck, but Akiko was faster now.

Too fast.

She slipped beneath its claws like smoke, leapt high, and drove her fire-wreathed claws into its exposed side. The impact rang out, a tolling bell across the battlefield. Flesh cracked. Heat hissed. The beast reeled.

She landed crouched, the frost spiderwebbing beneath her heels. Her breath came sharp. Her claws pulsed like stars on the edge of collapse.

Nearby, the construct had slowed. One of its limbs faltered mid-swing, motion jittering like a skipped frame. Its reactor glow dimmed to a harsh flicker. Internal feedback from the siphon. Its strikes no longer landed clean. The beast capitalized on its weakness.

Claws raked against alloy plating. Sparks flew. The construct staggered, metal warped along its side. A chunk of armor fell to the ground, steaming and half-melted. Its next strike went wide.

Warnings flared across her vision:

Mana instability. Discharge imminent.

"I know," she whispered, and rose again.

The creature turned, jaws wide. Akiko sprang upward, twisting in mid-air, flame trailing her like a comet's tail. She landed between its shoulders, claws plunging into the thick muscle at its spine. It screamed. A raw, primal thing that split the air and stilled the world.

"Not so tough now," Akiko hissed, her voice edged with fire.

The construct descended from the sky behind her, slower this time. Its limbs aglow with reactor heat, but its stance wavered on landing. Still, it struck true, enough to stagger the beast.

Together, they drove it into the earth. The ice fractured. The land groaned. Steam billowed like smoke from a dying god.

Akiko vaulted clear. The beast's tail lashed out, sundering the battlefield behind her.

Her vision swam. Her flames danced erratically at her fingertips. Wild. Unstable.

Her HUD screamed:

Critical pressure. Contain or release.

She bit down a curse. "Then let's finish it."

The creature rose once more, slower now. Wounded, uncertain, but still vast.

Akiko ran. Her path curved wide. She moved like fire made flesh, a blur against the storm. She saw the opening. A wound. A crack in the armor of flesh.

She leapt. One final breath. One final burn. She twisted mid-air and slammed her claws into its chest, and let go.

Applied Spellform Initialized: Foxfire Pulse Vector (Tier II)

The foxfire detonated inside of it. Light swallowed her. Heat surged outward. For a heartbeat, there was nothing but brilliance. A flare that erased shadow and silence alike.

The creature screamed its last, before collapsing into ash and ruin. The earth shook beneath its fall, the cracked ice finally giving way.

Akiko landed hard. Her knees struck the ground. She rose, just barely, her breath ragged, her claws flickering out.

The godfire was gone. Spent. And so was she. She stood among steam and silence. The battlefield was still. Save for the hum behind her.

The entity's construct knelt beside the ruin, its frame trembling. Sparks flew from its joints. Its lights dimmed. Its motion, once divine, had become mortal.

She turned. Watched. The construct tried to rise. It fell.

The glow faded from its limbs, the fire guttered out. What had been invincible was now inert. A blackened monument to the battle she wasn't meant to win.

A whisper touched her mind.

You've weakened it.

Akiko coughed once. "That was the idea."

The construct twitched, then sagged. A giant brought low by a stolen spark.

Her claws shimmered once more. Then went still. Behind her eyes, the entity's presence flickered, cold and distant. A tide drawing back.

This is not over.

She didn't answer. There was no need. The silence that followed said everything.

The ground groaned beneath Akiko's boots, a new fissure splitting through the crust as steam hissed upward, thick with the scent of scorched minerals and boiling ice. The battlefield still trembled, as if unsure the fight was truly over.

She moved unevenly, foxfire flickering faintly at her sides, the light trailing from her claws little more than memory now. Her limbs ached in deep, shuddering pulses, the kind of exhaustion that settled into bones and refused to leave.

Raya reached her first, slipping an arm under Akiko's with practiced ease, eyes sharp with worry.

"You look like hell," Raya said quietly.

Akiko gave a weak snort. "Feel worse."

She tried to straighten, tail twitching once behind her as if to shake off the weariness. It didn't help much.

Kess hung back. Arms folded tight, jaw locked. His stare carved straight through her, something heavy weighing behind his eyes.

"What the hell was that?" he asked, voice low. Controlled, but just barely.

Akiko met his gaze. "You'll have to be more specific."

Kess didn't blink. "The construct. The monster. You charging into the middle of it like a damn flare beacon."

Raya shifted beside her. "Kess—"

"No," he snapped, eyes never leaving Akiko. "She didn't just fight. She escalated it. She climbed onto a goddamn weaponized construct like she thought she could out-burn a fusion core."

Akiko barked a laugh. Dry. Hollow. "And?"

"You nearly brought the whole moon down on us," Kess said, stepping forward. "This station's collapsing. The crust's fractured. You saw the fissures."

Akiko stepped free of Raya's support with a small grunt, straightening under the weight of her anger.

"That wasn't me," she said. Her voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the rising steam like a blade. "That was them."

She jabbed a claw toward the still-smoking wreck of Karn's creature. "The construct, the monster, Karn's whole post-human fan club. They were tearing this place apart long before I got involved."

Kess exhaled sharply, the sound flaring like a vent under pressure. "And you just added fuel."

"Yeah," Akiko said. "I did."

Her claws shimmered weakly, but her posture didn't shift.

"But I stopped it. Karn's toy is down. The construct's not moving either. So unless you had a better plan for dealing with a planetary deathmatch, you're welcome."

She turned her head, gaze sweeping the ridge where Karn had stood, where he'd conjured vortexes and stitched monsters out of flesh and water.

Now it was just ice and churned snow.

"Karn's gone," she muttered. "Of course he is."

Kess followed her gaze, silent for a beat. "He'll be back."

Akiko's ears twitched low. Her eyes still burned. "Then we'll be ready."

The silence stretched between them, full of steam and grief and tension left unsaid.

Raya stepped between them, her hand grazing Akiko's arm.

"She's right," she said. "It was chaos. But we're still here."

"Barely," Kess muttered.

Akiko exhaled. The fire behind her eyes dimmed. Not gone, just banked. "I don't do things halfway," she said. It wasn't an apology.

"I know," Raya said. Her voice was soft. And knowing.

Kess looked back toward the ruins of the battlefield. The lingering haze, the shifting ice, the unanswered threat.

Then he turned. His voice dropped quiet.

"Next time, try not to take the whole damn moon with you."

Akiko smirked. "No promises."

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