4,464 shabd

The river moved without hurry, its dark surface reflecting the fractured glow of distant city lights. It carried with it the smell of damp concrete, rust, and old oil, scents that clung stubbornly to places long abandoned by people but not by memory.

        On its banks stood the factory.

        It loomed low and wide, a carcass of steel and brick stretched along the riverside, its broken windows staring blankly into the night. Once, machines had screamed within those walls, furnaces had burned, and men had labored until their voices were swallowed by noise. Now, only silence remained, thick, unnatural, and heavy enough to press against the ears.

        The wind threaded through collapsed scaffolding and torn tarps, producing a hollow whistle that echoed through the empty halls. Loose chains swayed gently, tapping against metal beams in irregular rhythm. Somewhere inside, water dripped steadily, counting time no one bothered to measure anymore.

        The moonlight barely reached the ground here. What little illumination there was came fractured, slipping through broken roofing and jagged gaps in the walls, scattering pale reflections across puddles of stagnant water. The river lapped quietly at the concrete embankment, indifferent to the decay above it. This place had been chosen deliberately.

        Abandoned factories were perfect for things that wished to remain unseen. Too isolated for witnesses, too forgotten for patrols. Even the city seemed to avert its gaze, allowing the structure to rot in peace.

        Yet tonight, the stillness was wrong.

        Mikado entered the abandoned factory, his shadow stretching ahead of him, warped and elongated by the fractured moonlight slipping through broken panes above. It moved first, crawling across the concrete floor and rusted machinery, as though announcing his arrival before he did.

        The air inside was tense, thick, expectant, as if the building itself were holding its breath.

        Each step echoed softly, swallowed almost immediately by the vast, hollow space. The scent of damp metal and stagnant water clung to the air. Dust drifted lazily through the beams of light, undisturbed for years, yet now stirred by his presence.

        Mikado's grip tightened around the black storage case in his hand. His senses stretched outward, listening beyond sound, feeling for disturbances in the stillness.

        Then he stopped.

        His final step echoed, the sound traveling farther than it should have, slipping through corridors and broken chambers of the forgotten ruin.

        …hhaa

        …hhaa

        …hhaaa

        In the dead of night, within the suffocating silence of the factory, his own breathing became his sole companion, ragged, measured, joined only by the steady, deliberate drip of water echoing from somewhere unseen.

        Drip.

        Drip.

        Drip.

        Each sound felt accusatory, as if the building itself were reminding him he did not belong here.

        The factory was silent, but not empty.

        Somewhere deeper within the structure—

        ZAPPPPPPP—!

        A spear of electricity tore through the darkness without warning.

It struck from the side, swallowing Mikado whole in blinding light, violent and absolute, like the breath of an electric dragon unleashed at point-blank range. The blast screamed as it carved through steel and concrete alike, tearing a massive chunk from the factory wall as if it were paper.

        Fire followed in its wake.

        The lightning continued onward, crashing into the river beyond the factory. The water detonated on impact, erupting skyward in a violent explosion of steam, flame, and shattered concrete, sending shockwaves rippling across the surface.

        For a heartbeat, the night burned white.

        Then the echoes came.

        From within the fading glare, a hand emerged from the darkness, extended, fingers spread wide. Residual electricity clung to the open palm, flickering and curling like smoke from the mouth of a recently fired gun.

        Its owner stepped forward.

        It was Isabella.

        Her eyes glowed faintly, lit from within by cold, crackling light. Arcs of electricity danced along her arms and shoulders, snapping softly against the air before dispersing, as though her body itself were a conduit struggling to contain the power coursing through it.

        What she had unleashed was no mere magic. It was refined, advanced magic, electricity born of air, honed to a lethal edge. A direct hit like that could have erased a person entirely, leaving nothing behind but scorched ground and broken stone.

        Yet Isabella showed no trace of hesitation.

        No remorse.

        Her expression was distant, indifferent, as if she had done nothing more than crush an insect beneath her heel. To her, the target had not been a human being with breath, will, and rights, but an obstacle, removed without a second thought.

        The electricity around her finally faded. But the question remain how's Mikado could he still possibly be alive? As stated it was advance refined to the point of lethality. A direct hit like that could have erased a person entirely. 

        Smoke drifted thick through the air as embers floated lazily downward. Fire still shimmered across the fractured concrete, heat distorting the space above it. As the seconds passed, moonlight slipped through the cracks in the shattered ceiling, carving pale lines through the haze.

        A shadow began to rise.

        "Tch." Isabella clicked her tongue, irritation flashing across her face as the silhouette took shape, upright, unmoving.

        Mikado stood where he had been moments before. Untouched.

        Not a single graze marked him, despite the scale and violence of the attack that should have erased him entirely. His posture was calm, almost casual, as if the lightning had never reached him at all.

        "A miracle?" Isabella muttered, her voice edged with disdain. "No… not likely."

        Her gaze dropped.

        Embedded deep into the scorched ground between them was the wooden nail, driven straight down with deliberate force. Faint scorch marks radiated outward from it, the concrete around the nail cracked and blackened, as though the attack had been swallowed there instead.

        Isabella's eyes narrowed.

        Its black storage case was gone, reduced to nothing by the blast. Yet the wooden nail remained, standing firm where everything else had been torn apart, embedded deep into the concrete like an anchor defying the ruin around it.

        "Hah." Isabella exhaled sharply, planting both hands on her waist. The sound carried the weight of a hundred years’ worth of dissatisfaction, tired, annoyed, and faintly amused. Whatever she had expected, this was not it.

        Mikado, for his part, did nothing.

        He remained exactly where he stood, posture unchanged, eyes fixed on Isabella without hostility or fear, only a steady, unblinking focus that made the silence stretch.

        Isabella clicked her tongue and turned away from him, already bored. She moved toward the rusted metal staircase at the side of the factory, the kind once used by supervisors to oversee the entire floor below. Her sandals struck the steps as she climbed, each sound ringing sharply through the hollow space.

        Clang.

        Clang.

        Clang.

        Flakes of rust drifted down with every step. Pipes and old machinery loomed beneath her as she ascended, the elevated metal platform above coming into view, a narrow walkway that overlooked the factory floor like a judge's stand.

        When she reached the grated landing, Isabella stopped and looked down at him from above.

        The distance gave her the advantage she preferred.

        Below, Mikado remained still, small against the vastness of the abandoned factory, yet impossibly unmoved.

        "Back then," Isabella began, her voice echoing from the elevated platform, "during your duel with the student council vice president, everyone was dazzled by your physical abilities, your speed, your explosiveness, the sheer violence of your movements."

        She let out a soft scoff.

        "But they were wrong about what deserved their awe."

        Her gaze dropped to the wooden nail embedded in the ruined floor below.

        "It wasn't your mastery of ancient martial arts that should have frightened them," she continued. "It was your ability to wield Fuzai no Kui, the Stake of Absence."

        The name lingered in the air.

        "That is no ordinary anti-mage weapon. Unlike any sealing or nullification tools, it doesn't suppress magic." Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Magic simply ceases to exist around it."

        She turned her attention back to Mikado, her mind retracing the moments of the attack with cold precision.

        "When my lightning swallowed you whole, you drove the stake into the earth. In that instant, my magic vanished within its radius—stripped from existence itself. No resistance. No backlash. Just… absence."

        A pause.

        "Of course," Isabella added, almost reluctantly, "your incredible physical strength played its part. Without it, you wouldn't have survived even long enough to plant the stake."

        She was right.

        The amount of strength Mikado had forced out in those few milliseconds, just before the blast of electricity swallowed him whole, was immense. There had been no time for precision, no luxury to remove the wooden nail from its storage case. Instinct had taken over.

        He had driven it into the ground through the bag itself. Muscle and will had aligned in that fleeting instant, his body pushing beyond restraint as he slammed the stake downward with everything he had. The earth cracked beneath the impact, and the magic that should have torn him apart simply vanished, erased at the moment it touched the radius of absence.

        Had he been even a fraction of a second slower, there would have been nothing left to stand there now.

        The fact that he had survived was not chance. It was an effort, brutal, precise, and paid for in that single, impossible moment.

        "It was the same during your duel with the student council vice president," Isabella continued coolly. "There's no world where a Level Five mage loses to a single strike of wood to the forehead."

        A faint smile tugged at her lips, thin, knowing.

        "But everyone was too blind to see what really happened. Too busy applauding your speed, your discipline." Her eyes flicked toward him then added almost casually "Everyone except your girlfriend, I suppose."

        Mikado remained motionless.

        Then, just barely, his eyebrow twitched.

        The change was so subtle it might have been missed entirely, but Isabella caught it

        "As I thought," she murmured, a faint smile forming as though she were setting aside something too insignificant to dwell on.

        She rested a hand against the metal railing, looking down at him. "Fuzai no Kui, the Stake of Absence..."

        Her eyes drifted once more to the wooden nail embedded in the ruined floor.

        "But its price is singular and absolute." Her voice lowered. "The Stake drains the life of its wielder. Not gradually. Not symbolically. It consumes existence in exchange for absence."

        A pause followed.

        "And yet," Isabella said, studying him closely, "you wield it without visible backlash. No decay. No hesitation. No sign of life being torn away."

        She exhaled softly, something close to admiration slipping through her cold demeanor.

        "If that isn't worthy of praise," she concluded, "then nothing is…"     

        Silence settled between them.

        The factory groaned quietly in the aftermath of her assault, embers flickered across cracked concrete, twisted metal ticked and popped as it cooled, and somewhere water continued to drip, stubbornly counting seconds neither of them acknowledged.

        Then—

        Crack. Crack.

        Tiny arcs of electricity danced across Isabella's fingers. Small, controlled, but deliberate. The light reflected in her eyes as the current crawled along her skin, steady and sure.

        "Now," Isabella said calmly, electricity whispering along her fingers, "I'll ask, gently."

        Her gaze locked onto him.

        "Surrender the Stake of Absence."

        Despite the word she chose, there was nothing gentle in her voice. It carried weight, pressure, an unspoken certainty that made the air feel heavier. Her tone did not ask for compliance; it assumed it.

        The contradiction was obvious.

        She spoke of gentleness after having struck him with an attack meant to kill. After unleashing power vast enough to tear apart steel and stone, after drowning the night in lightning and fire.

        And yet, looked at closely, it wasn't hypocrisy.

        It was natural.

        This was how someone like Isabella demonstrated authority. Power first. Mercy second. Survival was the proof that permission had been granted to continue the conversation. Her earlier strike had not been a negotiation, it had been a declaration.

        You lived once.

        "Your duel saved me some trouble," Isabella said casually. "It told me everything I needed to know. It's the only reason I approached you that afternoon and before that at the cafeteria."

        "Ah, my apologies for that incident. It wasn't my intention—" Isabella was about to continue, but she was cut off

        "Tell me," Mikado said, his voice low, controlled, and unmistakably serious, "why do you have her scent?"

        The words cut deeper than any blade.

        For the briefest moment, Isabella didn't respond. She hadn't intended to answer, had no reason to. And yet, against her will, her mind began to process one. The question lingered, heavy, invasive, as if it had reached somewhere it wasn't supposed to.

        "…Seems it's otherwise," Isabella concluded quietly.

        She withdrew her hands. The electricity faded, but the air around her shifted. Her hair began to lift, strands slowly rising as unseen currents gathered.

        "I see," Mikado said.

        He crouched and reached for the ground, fingers closing around the wooden nail embedded in the concrete. With effortless strength, he pulled the Stake of Absence free. The ruined floor cracked softly in protest, but the weapon came loose as if it had never resisted him at all.

        Isabella watched.

        Then, just as Mikado began to rise—

        He vanished.

        "—Ahhh!" Isabella let out a sharp battle cry. Her body lifted from the metal platform as power surged outward. The air twisted violently, clouds forming overhead in unnatural haste. Thunder rolled as the storm answered her call, tearing through what little remained of the abandoned factory. Steel screamed. Concrete shattered. Wind howled through the ruin like a living thing.

        But even amid the chaos—

        Mikado appeared.

        He stood atop the ruined, silhouetted against lightning and cloud, and launched himself forward in a single explosive motion. He shot through the storm without hesitation, disregarding the lightning that formed a deadly barricade between them. The storm was not a warning.

        It was an obstacle.

        And Mikado had never been the kind of man to stop for those.

        Electricity flared in Isabella's eyes. Before Mikado could reach her, the current flickered once more, then condensed.

        A giant arrow of lightning tore through the air.

        It struck him head-on, exploding in a blinding flash and hurling him backward. Mikado crashed into a mass of abandoned machinery, steel screaming as rusted frames collapsed under the impact. Sparks scattered across the floor as his body skidded through debris and smoke.

        Isabella lowered her arm slowly.

        "Don't misunderstand," she said, her voice calm, unwavering. "I may be on the same level as the student council vice president…" Lightning crept along her fingers as she looked down at him.

        "…but I won't be overwhelmed by fear or lose my composure." Her gaze sharpened, predatory.

        "No matter how many times our eyes meet, don't lump me together with someone who only fights on a stage governed by rules." She tilted her head slightly. "If you're a killer—"

        A pause.

        "I've already seen bodies before."

        The storm churned violently above, answering her resolve.

        This wasn't arrogance.

        It was experience.

        And Isabella made one thing painfully clear:

        Mikado wasn't facing a prodigy bound by regulations.

        He was facing someone who had survived real battles, and walked away unchanged.      

🍱

Mikado rose slowly, using the Stake of Absence as a cane. The wooden nail pressed against the ruined floor, steadying him, not out of weakness, but restraint.

         Above and around them, the storm Isabella had summoned churned violently, thunder rolling through the hollow shell of the factory. Wind tore through broken windows, rain hissed against scorched concrete, and loose sheets of metal screamed as they were ripped from their rusted bolts. Lightning flashed overhead, painting Mikado's silhouette in stark white for a split second.

        Then, unexpectedly, a smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.

        Isabella had called herself a Level Five mage, the same rank as Kanzaki, yet Mikado could feel the misconception within the truth. Her mana density distorted the air, her control sharp enough to carve the storm itself, and the violence she wielded carried no hesitation. She stood far closer to Level Six than she let on.

        He exhaled through his nose, something between amusement and anticipation, as thunder boomed again overhead.

        He would be honest with himself, it had been a long time since anyone had pushed him this far, since he'd been forced to acknowledge danger rather than dismiss it.

        Wind whipped at his shirt, rain stung his skin, and lightning crawled across the sky like veins of living light. And somehow… that made him smile.

        Mikado sprinted sideways, his feet barely touching the ground as he glided through the ruins, every turn precise, economical, as if the broken factory floor were something he had already memorized. His movements weren't frantic, they were calculated, stripped of excess, driven by instinct honed through repetition. Isabella's gaze never left him.

        Her eyes tracked his path with cold accuracy, pupils reflecting the storm she commanded. The moment he shifted his weight, lightning answered her will.

        Bolts came crashing down from above, raining in a merciless barrage, spears of white-blue electricity slamming into concrete where Mikado had been a heartbeat earlier. Each strike detonated on impact, shattering metal, liquefying stone, and sending shockwaves tearing through the air.

        The factory screamed.

        Mikado twisted, slid, vaulted, lightning grazing past him close enough to scorch the air, the heat singing against his skin. Thunder followed every strike, overlapping into a continuous roar, as if the sky itself were trying to bury him under its wrath.

        Boom!

        Boom!

        Bang!

        Kaboom!

        He skidded behind the husk of an old machine, its frame half-devoured, most of its body already eaten away by Isabella's storm. Metal screamed as another bolt tore through it, reducing gears and panels to slag.

        From behind cover, a chunk of torn steel flew outward.

        Mikado had thrown it, casually, with the same ease one might flick a pebble across a river.

        Naturally, Isabella incinerated it midair. A single bolt split the night, reducing the metal to drifting ash before it could reach her.

        "Tch."

        Isabella clicked her tongue, irritation flashing across her face, for two reasons.

        The first was Mikado himself.

        He was infuriatingly adaptable. No matter how violent her storm became, no matter how mercilessly she rained lightning upon him, he slipped through it, gliding along the narrow margins between destruction. And worse, he was closing the distance. Little by little, inevitably, he would find an opening.

        The second reason unsettled her far more.

        Her victory was not guaranteed.

        She hated acknowledging it, but she had known this even before tonight.

        Isabella had done her research. She knew the truth behind Fuzai no Kui, the Stake of Absence.

        Compared to other anti-magic relics, it was almost laughably crude. The Vise of Concoction, for example, burned mages alive, its lethality scaling directly with the target's magic structure, the stronger the mage, the more vicious the effect.

        But the Stake of Absence was different.

        It had only one function.

        To erase magic.

        Not suppress it. Not seal it. Simply cause magic to cease existing within a defined radius. And even that came with a condition, it had to be plunged into a medium. Once removed from the ground, its effect vanished entirely.

        On top of that came its price.

        The Stake drained the life of its wielder.

        A brutal, absolute exchange.

        Under normal circumstances, it was a weapon doomed to kill its user long before it killed their enemy, a purely defensive tool, meant to deny, not dominate.

        But Mikado was not normal.

        He bypassed its flaws. He ignored its cost. He wielded it as though the weapon itself had been made for him.

        And that made the weapon dangerous.

        Too dangerous in his hands.

        Isabella knew it.

        She was certain, if she gave him even a moment, if she let her guard slip even once, this fight would end.

        Still…

        She needed the Stake.

        And she would not allow this to be the night she lost it.

        …As the vow echoed within her, one person alone flashed before her eyes, her smile, her laughter, and the promise Isabella had made to her.

        Isabella's eyes narrowed, resolve hardening into something unyielding.

        There was no hesitation.

        The storm answered her will.

        Clouds churned violently overhead, lightning crawling through them like living veins before doubling, then tripling, crashing down in rapid succession. Bolts struck from every angle, hammering the ground, shredding metal and stone alike, each strike sealing off another path. 

        Every escape route vanished.

        Mikado was being cornered.

        But unbeknownst to Isabella, he was done running.

        To her surprise, he suddenly leapt upward, rising through the storm until he hovered at the same height as her. The sight stole her breath, confusion flashing across her face, if only for a fraction of a second.

        That was all Mikado needed.

        His right hand snapped back. Veins bulged along his forearm as his grip tightened around the wooden nail,  its tip catching the lightning-lit air with a brief, cold glint.

        Then—

        Pah!

        The Stake of Absence left his hand.

        It tore through the air, ripping apart pressure and wind alike. Faster than the lightning arrow racing toward him, it plunged into the earth directly beneath where Isabella hovered. Dang!

        The effect was immediate.

        Her magic was purged.

        The storm faltered—then collapsed.

        Isabella's body dropped as gravity reclaimed her, and the lightning arrow lost its course, unraveling midflight as it veered harmlessly away.

        Mikado remained untouched. 

        Isabella had been hovering nearly thirty feet above the ground. When her magic was severed, the change was instantaneous.

        Her pupils shrank.

        The world dropped out from beneath her.

        For the first time since the storm had formed, panic cracked through her composure. Her hands shot out instinctively, fingers grasping at empty air, as if magic might answer her call out of habit alone.

        Nothing came.

        Wind tore past her ears as her body pitched downward, balance lost, limbs flailing in a reflex she hadn’t needed in years. Her dress snapped violently, the storm clouds above still roaring, oblivious to the fact that their master was no longer among them.

        Isabella twisted mid-fall, teeth clenched, forcing her body to turn. She threw an arm across her face, bracing—

        Impact.

        …The ground met her with a brutal, bone-rattling crash. Metal plating buckled beneath her weight, cracking and warping as dust and splintered concrete burst outward in a choking cloud. Her body bounced once, then skidded across the factory floor before collapsing against the broken stone.

        Pain detonated through her ribs.

        Her breath was torn from her lungs in a sharp, helpless gasp. The taste of iron flooded her mouth as she rolled onto her side, coughing violently, fingers clawing weakly at the cold concrete as she struggled to draw air that burned all the way down.

        For a moment, she couldn’t move.

        Above her, the storm faltered.

        Lightning fizzled out into fractured sparks. Thunder unraveled into a distant, hollow rumble, an echo of power already lost. The clouds still churned, but they no longer answered.

        Isabella coughed again, harsher this time.

        "H—hk…"

        A wet sound escaped her throat as blood slid from the corner of her mouth, dark against her pale skin, dripping onto the floor beneath her. Her vision swam, the world tilting and blurring as the pain finally caught up, raw, unfiltered, screaming through her ribs and spine.

        No lightning came to her call.

        No magic surged to reinforce her bones.

        No storm rose to cushion the fall.

        For the first time since this battle began, Isabella felt it fully.

        Gravity.

        Impact.

        Frailty.

        "Ahh-ughhh!"      

        Her body trembled as she tried to push herself up. One arm buckled immediately, sending her back down with a sharp hiss drawn through clenched teeth. Pride fractured louder than the concrete beneath her.

        Human.

        Dust settled slowly around her.

        And through it, untouched and unmoving, Mikado stood, silent amid the ruin.

        Her defeat had been sealed the moment she chose to fight Mikado. She knew that much now. What she hadn't anticipated was how brutal it would feel, how painfully human the loss would become once magic was stripped away.

        This was not because she was weak.

        Far from it.

        Isabella was stronger than Kanzaki, more refined, more ruthless, and far more experienced despite sharing the same Level Five designation. Mikado would not deny her that. Against most opponents, even elite mages, her storm alone would have decided the outcome.

        But experience was not measured in years alone.

        In that regard, Mikado stood far ahead of her.

        He understood mages, how they thought, how they fought, how they relied on power that answered them without question. He knew the rhythm of casting, the instinct to dominate space, the hesitation that followed when magic failed.

        Isabella, on the other hand, had never faced something like him.

        This was her first time fighting a non-mage whose strength did not bend to mana, whose resolve did not fracture under overwhelming force. A man who could stand inside a storm and treat it as terrain rather than terror.

        And that difference, more than raw power, had decided everything.

        "H—hik." Isabella gasped so hard as air became strangely so hard to swallowed. 

        Her vision wavered, the edges of the world folding inward as her eyes rolled back. Still, through the haze, she caught one last image.

Mikado stood over her.

        "—Cold…"

        The word slipped from her lips in a breath so faint it barely counted as sound. It was all she could manage.

        She stared up at him, and what settled her, was his eyes.

        They were empty of pity. Empty of warmth. Detached.

        Nothing like the man who smiled and laughed with her at the school gate, who spoke casually as if the world were simple and harmless. That version of  Mikado was gone, stripped away as cleanly as her magic had been.

        The gaze looking down at her now was distant, measuring, so calm it was almost cruel.

        As if she were no longer a person to him.

        Only an outcome

        "...My lady…”

        The words escaped Isabella like a confession, barely louder than breath. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, slipping free not from pain, but from regret, from the promise she had failed to keep.

        Drip.

        Drip.

        Rain began to fall.

        At first it was gentle, hesitant droplets slipping from the storm she herself had summoned. Then, as if answering her grief, the rain thickened, pouring down in heavy sheets. The sky wept openly now, crying for a master who could no longer command it.

        Cold water soaked into the ruined factory floor, washing over blood, ash, and shattered stone.

        Isabella's lashes trembled.

        Slowly, quietly, her eyes closed.

        And the storm, at last, was left without a will.