“Once”

The plaza did not echo. That was the first thing Kazu noticed. Sound didn’t bounce here. It didn’t linger. It didn’t decay the way sound was supposed to. Every noise arrived, existed for exactly as long as it was permitted to, then stopped. As if the space itself decided when it had heard enough.

His breath felt wrong in his chest. Too present. Too loud. When he exhaled, the sound cut off halfway through, like something had closed a door around it. The clock tower loomed overhead, tall and narrow, its silhouette pinned in place as if the shadow had been nailed directly to the stone beneath it. The hands were frozen at 3:59.Not almost four. Not waiting to move. Locked. Watching.

The lanterns hovered at the edge of the plaza, trembling in uneven lines. They didn’t flicker. They didn’t dim. They simply refused to advance, their glow thinning at the boundary like light afraid to cross a threshold it didn’t understand.

Kazu felt their pull at his back. Not physical. Not forceful. Insistent. Like hands resting lightly between his shoulder blades, reminding him where safety ended. The man beneath the red umbrella did not move. Rain never came. The umbrella’s fabric was immaculate. No tears. No sag. No ripple. It cast a shadow that didn’t match the angle of the clock tower or the lanterns or anything else in the plaza.

Reina adjusted her grip on her sword, careful enough that the guard didn’t scrape. Her stance shifted half an inch. Not forward. Not back. Just enough to realign her weight. Balanced. Ready. Kazu swallowed and rolled his shoulder once.

Pain flared immediately, sharp and ugly, traveling down his arm like a warning that had arrived too late to matter. He ignored it. His lantern hummed at his side, high-pitched and anxious, its light pulsing unevenly like a heartbeat struggling to settle. The umbrella tilted..Not toward them. Toward the ground.

A gesture without urgency. Without threat. A warning without intent.

Reina spoke first. “You’re blocking the way.” Her voice didn’t rise. It didn’t sharpen. It landed exactly where she wanted it to, steady and clean, like a blade placed flat against stone.

The man didn’t answer.

Kazu tightened his grip on his sword. His palm was damp. He adjusted anyway.

“We’re not here to talk.”

The umbrella lifted just enough to suggest amusement.

“Of course you are,” the man said.

His voice was calm. Unrushed. Worn smooth by repetition..Familiar in a way Kazu didn’t want to examine.

“You just don’t know what you’re asking yet.”

Reina moved. No shout. No signal. No wasted motion. Her blade cut low and fast, angled to take the legs out from under him before he could shift his weight. The air bent around the strike, a thin distortion rippling outward from the steel. Kazu moved with her without thinking. He stepped in from the opposite angle, sword coming down hard in a diagonal meant to trap the umbrella, to force contact, to create a moment where space had to choose a side.

The umbrella turned. Once. Metal never touched fabric. Their attacks slid away like they’d struck a surface that wasn’t there. Reina’s momentum twisted sideways, her foot landing where the ground dipped unexpectedly. Kazu felt his blade skid off empty space, the impact vibrating up his arms and stinging his wrists like he’d struck glass.

They separated instantly. No command needed. Umbrella Guy hadn’t moved his feet. He hadn’t even looked at Reina.

“That’s dangerous,” he said mildly.

Reina reset her stance, jaw tightening. “You should try harder.”

The umbrella tapped the stone. A sound like a clock ticking wrong. The ground shifted. Not violently. Not dramatically. Just enough. Reina’s next step landed half an inch lower than expected. Her balance broke. She corrected instantly. Too late. Pressure slammed into her side.

She flew. Not thrown. Reassigned. Her body moved as if the plaza had changed its mind about where she belonged. She hit the ground hard, rolled twice, and came up on one knee, breath sharp and clipped. Her sword scraped stone as she steadied herself, teeth clenched hard enough to creak.

“Kazu,” she said, already pushing forward again.

He didn’t answer. Because the space around him had changed. Distance stretched as he lunged. His step ate ground without bringing him closer. The plaza elongated under his feet, every stride feeling slightly delayed, like his intent had to be approved before it could complete itself. His sword felt heavy. Not resisted. Just… less willing.

Umbrella Guy snapped his fingers. The sound didn’t echo.

Kazu’s lantern screamed. Not light. Sound. A tearing, high-pitched shriek that scraped against his skull. Light tore sideways. The air compressed violently, folding inward around his chest. His vision tunneled as something invisible slammed into him and bent him backward at an angle no body should take.

He skidded across the stone, ribs screaming, breath knocked out of him so completely that his lungs forgot how to restart. He coughed once. Hard. Reina was already there. Her blade flashed as she cut at the space Umbrella Guy occupied, not where he had been but where he should have reappeared. He wasn’t. Her sword passed through air that felt wrong, like cutting through water that refused to move.

The umbrella tip appeared inches from her throat. Not touching. Waiting.

“Your timing is good,” he said calmly. “Your assumptions are not.”

Reina twisted away just as the umbrella snapped upward. It wasn’t fast. It didn’t need to be. Her shoulder took the hit. Something popped. The sensation arrived before the pain — a hollow, sickening release — then the agony followed, hot and immediate. She hissed sharply, stumbling back, one arm going slack. Her teeth clenched hard enough that her jaw shook, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a sound.

Kazu forced himself upright. His vision swam. His shoulder burned. His ribs felt wrong. His lantern hovered close now, frantic, its glow erratic.

“Reina,” he said, voice rough.

“I’m fine,” she said immediately. A lie. A practiced one.

Umbrella Guy finally turned his head toward Kazu. Even now, the umbrella shadow hid his face completely.

“Still standing,” he observed. “That’s better than last time.”

Kazu froze.

“…Last time?” he said.

The umbrella tilted.

A pause.

Then: “Focus.” The air thickened again.

Reina attacked. Faster now. Sloppier. Anger bleeding into her precision. Kazu moved with her, adjusting his timing, forcing his body to keep up, forcing his sword to answer him even as the plaza resisted every decision.

They pressed him. Angles crossed. Steel sang. Their footwork tightened, Reina compensating for her shoulder, Kazu compensating for everything else. Not enough.

Umbrella Guy stepped aside. Just once.

Kazu’s sword cut empty air. Reina’s blade skimmed past his shoulder, missing by less than a breath. The umbrella snapped down. Stone cracked. The shockwave didn’t throw them back. It misplaced them. Kazu slammed shoulder-first into a pillar that hadn’t existed a second earlier.

The impact stole the world from him in a burst of white. Something shifted wrong in his arm and he screamed despite himself, the sound cutting off halfway through as the plaza rejected it. Reina landed hard on her bad leg. She collapsed briefly, palms scraping stone, breath shaking, then forced herself upright again, face pale and furious.

Umbrella Guy exhaled slowly.

“You rely on urgency,” he said. “You mistake movement for progress.”

Reina spat blood onto the stone. “And you talk too much.”

For the first time, he laughed. Not loudly. Not cruelly. Just… tired.

“…Good,” he said. The word landed heavier than any strike. The blood on his wrist did not drip. It hovered, trembling, as if unsure whether gravity still applied to him. Umbrella Guy looked at it for another moment, then flicked his hand once. The blood vanished. Not wiped away. Rejected.

Reina didn’t wait. She moved on instinct alone, knife already gone from her fingers as her sword came up instead. She ignored the scream in her shoulder, ignored the way her grip felt wrong, and cut straight through the space between them with everything she had left.

Kazu followed a heartbeat later. Not coordinated. Not clean. Desperate. His sword came in low, aiming not for Umbrella Guy but for the shadow beneath the umbrella, the wrongness that anchored him to the plaza. If the man wouldn’t move, then the space had to.

The umbrella spun. Once. The snap of fabric sounded too sharp, too close. Reina’s blade glanced off nothing and twisted sideways. Kazu felt his strike slow mid-swing, like his arm had been submerged in thick water.

Umbrella Guy snapped his fingers. Twice.

The plaza answered. Stone surged upward between Reina and Kazu, not rising but being reassigned, cutting their line apart. Reina leapt back just in time as the ground folded where she had been standing, compressing inward with a sound like bones breaking.

“Stop splitting,” Umbrella Guy said calmly.

Reina skidded, boots scraping. “Then stop forcing it.”

Another snap.

Reina’s sword was torn from her hand. Not knocked away. Removed. It vanished mid-air and reappeared embedded in the clock tower wall thirty meters behind her, humming violently, metal screaming as if offended by the distance it had crossed.

Kazu swore and lunged anyway. The umbrella met his blade head-on. For the first time, there was contact. The impact rang out sharp and wrong, like metal striking glass stretched too thin. Pain exploded through Kazu’s arms, his hands going numb instantly. He staggered back, barely catching himself as the umbrella pressed forward. Not striking. Guiding. The pressure built without warning. Kazu’s knees buckled as the air around his chest thickened, compressing his lungs. His lantern flared bright, screaming again, light tearing at the edges like it wanted to escape him.

Umbrella Guy leaned closer.

“You’re pushing,” he said. “That’s why it hurts.”

Kazu bared his teeth. “You don’t get to decide that.”

“Incorrect.”

The umbrella lifted.

Kazu was hurled backward. He hit the ground, rolled, and felt something tear in his side. The pain was distant now, muffled, replaced by a high ringing that swallowed everything else. He coughed and tasted blood. Reina was already moving again. She didn’t go for him. She went for the space. Her foot slammed down, hard, cracking stone as she twisted her body and drove herself forward barehanded, grabbing the umbrella shaft with her good arm before he could react. For a fraction of a second, Umbrella Guy froze. Surprise. Genuine. Reina used it. She headbutted him.

The impact jolted through her skull, white-hot and blinding. She felt cartilage give. She didn’t care. She twisted, trying to wrench the umbrella free, muscles screaming, vision swimming. The plaza shuddered.

Umbrella Guy snapped his fingers again.

Reina was ripped sideways, slammed into the ground hard enough to leave a crater. She didn’t cry out. She lay there for half a breath, chest heaving, blood running from her nose into the cracks beneath her. Kazu forced himself up. His body screamed no. He ignored it. His lantern surged forward, light sharpening, focusing into a thin, unstable beam that tore straight toward Umbrella Guy’s shadow.

The beam hit. The shadow warped. Umbrella Guy turned sharply.

“Ah,” he said quietly.

The beam carved a line across the stone at his feet. Not deep. Not damaging. But real. For the first time, Umbrella Guy stepped back.

Just one step.

Kazu felt it like a victory and a warning at the same time. Reina pushed herself up, shaking, one hand pressed to her ribs. “See,” she muttered. “He bleeds.”

Umbrella Guy looked between them. Really looked. The umbrella tilted, lower now, casting deeper shadow.

“Yes,” he said. “Once.”

He snapped his fingers. Everything dropped. Gravity doubled. Then tripled.

Kazu was crushed to one knee instantly, bones screaming as pressure slammed down on his spine. His lantern flickered wildly, light fragmenting, barely holding together. Reina collapsed fully, palms slamming stone as her leg gave out beneath the weight. She gritted her teeth, refusing to scream, her vision darkening at the edges.

Umbrella Guy walked toward them. Each step sounded wrong. Too loud. Too final. He stopped in front of Kazu. The umbrella tip rested lightly beneath his chin. Not pressing. Not threatening. Absolute.

“You’ll remember tonight,” he said. “Not because you lost.”

His voice softened.

“But because I let you stand at the end.”

He turned slightly, angling the umbrella toward Reina.

“And because next time,” he continued, you won’t get the “once.”

Reina forced herself to look up at him, eyes burning, defiant even now. “Next time,” she said hoarsely, “I won’t miss.”

Umbrella Guy paused.

Then, quietly, “I hope so.”

He snapped his fingers. Sound vanished. Light folded inward. The plaza collapsed like a thought being withdrawn. And the world went black.