Smoke hit him before the ridge did, thin and sharp at the back of his throat.
He'd learned that smell in Halgrove already, and he'd hoped he wouldn't need to learn it twice.
They crested the rise together, and the old stones opened up below in a shallow bowl of cleared ground: broken pillars ringed by dig trenches, toppled scaffolding, tools left where the dig crew had dropped them mid-work. Husks moved through the wreckage in loose formation, black plating catching what little light made it through the haze overhead.
Herbfolk fled ahead of the Husks, bark-pale skin gone the color of ash, hair whipping around faces turned forward, not back. One older Herbfolk went down hard over a fallen support beam. A younger one doubled back for her without slowing enough to actually stop.
Lyra caught up alongside him, wings not out yet, her eyes still on the fallen Herbfolk behind them.
"How cruel."
She didn't sound like herself.
The ground leveled out ahead into the dig's main clearing, and Nyxara stood at its center, the ruin around her clearly beneath her notice. Iuba Volvens paced at her side, mane spinning slow and lazy.
Nyxara's eyes found them the moment they cleared the last trench.
"Star Maidens. Sooner than I expected. Again."
She didn't reach for her blade yet, just watched them close the distance, unbothered.
Zaria didn't slow down.
"Call off the Husks, Nyxara. Now."
Nyxara didn't even glance at the Husks in question.
Her gaze slid to Hikaru instead, and held there a beat longer than it needed to.
"You know I don't take requests. Especially not from you."
Hikaru's jaw tightened, eyes cutting toward the treeline where the last of the Herbfolk were still running.
"Tch. You'd really throw Husks at people who can't even fight back."
Nyxara's blade cleared its sheath in one clean pull.
"They were never the objective. You are."
Iuba Volvens's mane picked up speed, impatient.
"ENOUGH. IUBA VOLVENS GROWS TIRED OF BEING IGNORED."
Hikaru didn't even look at it, gaze locked on Nyxara instead.
"You're not the one I'm worried about right now."
Zaria's hand went to her Vambrace.
"Enough talking."
"Starseed, awaken!"
Flame swallowed her whole, and the Red Star Maiden stood in her place before the light even finished fading. Senna's key thrummed a half-second later, frost spiraling out cold and quiet, and Lyra's chime rang bright behind that, wings unfolding gold and rose. Hikaru's key clicked home last, gold light wrapping him in one smooth pull.
Four Star Maidens stood across the open ground, and Nyxara didn't so much as blink at any of it.
Zaria's eyes cut toward Senna and Lyra.
"Handle the Husks. Get the workers clear."
Senna nodded once and peeled off toward the treeline, Lyra's wings already snapping open behind her.
Zaria turned back toward the clearing, weight settling low.
"Hikaru. Take the beast. I've got her."
Hikaru's grip tightened on the lance.
Nyxara's mouth curved, faint, unreadable.
"Confident."
Zaria didn't answer. She was already moving, sword igniting as she closed the last of the distance between herself and Nyxara.
Iuba Volvens's mane spun up, eager.
"GOOD. IUBA VOLVENS DID NOT FORGET LAST TIME."
Hikaru planted his feet, lance coming up.
"Neither did I."
Iuba Volvens didn't wait for him to reset. It came in low, jaws snapping for his leg. Hikaru sidestepped and drove the lance down into its shoulder.
It shook the hit off and spun, mane catching the lance's shaft, and the force of it threw him back into one of the standing pillars. Stone cracked behind him, chunks raining down across the dig trench below.
He rolled clear before the rest of the pillar came down. Iuba Volvens's tail snapped out, stinger scraping across his forearm plating, and he answered with a straight thrust that caught it across the flank before it could pull back.
It roared and pressed harder, claws raking the ground as it forced him back toward the trench line. He planted his heel at the edge, the ground crumbling under him, and used the give to drop under the next swipe instead of taking it head-on.
The mane came around again, faster this time, and he didn't have room left to dodge clean.
He triggered the Pulse instead.
The shockwave hit the mane's lower edge and knocked it sideways, dust and loose stone kicking up around both of them, and the number in the corner of his visor ticked down, though not by much.
[■■■■■■■■■□] 90%
Somewhere behind him, steel rang against steel, fire crackling under it. Zaria's fight was still going.
Iuba Volvens recovered faster than he expected. It hauled itself out of the dust and came at him again, driving him along the trench's edge toward the collapsed scaffolding, and the fight kept moving with them, pillar to trench to splintered wood, neither side holding the same ground for more than a few seconds at a time.
Iuba Volvens circled instead of closing again, mane easing back half a notch to read him for a new opening. Hikaru used the break to drag in a breath, and that was when he heard a voice break through everything else going on around them.
"Oh no. No, no, no."
Lyra. Somewhere past the last of the Husks, close enough that he could hear the actual panic in it, not just noise.
He didn't get anything else out of it. Iuba Volvens lunged, and he had to give it his full attention or eat a stinger through the ribs.
He caught the mane's edge on the lance and shoved it wide, and in the half second that bought him, Senna's voice came through too, flatter than Lyra's but loud enough to carry.
"They're pinned. Whole section of the wall came down on them."
"We can't get them out fast enough on our own."
That last part was Lyra again, higher, the words tumbling faster than her usual pace.
Iuba Volvens pressed him again before he could hear anything more, claws raking low, and he had to drop his weight to keep them from catching his legs out from under him.
Senna's voice cut clean through everything else this time.
"ZARIA. WE NEED HELP."
Across the clearing, Zaria's blade faltered against Nyxara's for the first time since the fight started, just for a half second, but Hikaru caught it anyway.
Nyxara noticed it too. She didn't press the opening. She just watched, waiting to see which way Zaria was actually going to go.
Zaria didn't take her eyes off Nyxara, but her voice carried across the distance to him anyway, pitched to reach him and nobody else.
"Hikaru."
He got the mane shoved wide again before he answered, breathing hard.
"Yeah."
"Can you hold him? On your own, if I go?"
He didn't answer right away, not because he needed to think about it, but because Iuba Volvens gave him exactly zero room to. He caught a claw on the lance's shaft, twisted it wide, and only then got the words out.
"I've got him. Go."
"You're sure."
It wasn't really a question, not the way she said it. It was her giving him one more chance to say otherwise.
"I said go."
Her expression shifted, gone again before he could read it, and then she was already moving, breaking off from Nyxara and sprinting past her without slowing down to see if she'd follow.
Nyxara let her go. She didn't so much as turn to watch her leave.
Instead, she turned toward Hikaru.
Iuba Volvens caught the shift in her attention and eased back half a step, mane slowing just enough to let her step into the space beside it.
Hikaru reset his stance, watching the two of them line up together.
Two against one changed the math fast, and not in his favor.
He checked the meter out of habit more than anything else.
[■■■■■■■■■□] 90%
Still plenty left. He just didn't like the idea of needing it against both of them at once, not when whatever came after today might ask for more than he had left to give it.
Nyxara came in first, sword already up, and Iuba Volvens followed a half-step behind her, mane spinning back up to speed.
He caught Nyxara's first strike on the lance's shaft, the impact jarring straight up through both arms, and had to twist away before Iuba Volvens's claws could open his other side.
The beast didn't miss by much. Three parallel gouges tore through his sleeve before he got clear.
Nyxara pressed again while he was still recovering, blade flashing low, and he barely got the lance down in time to block it. Two more strikes followed in rapid succession, each one forcing him back a step, and he was already giving ground before Iuba Volvens circled around to cut off his retreat entirely.
Iuba Volvens's mane spun up, delighted with itself.
"IUBA VOLVENS APPROVES OF THIS ARRANGEMENT. TWO AGAINST ONE. FINALLY, ODDS THAT MATCH YOUR ACTUAL SKILL."
"Shut up."
He didn't have breath to spare for anything better.
He backed toward the nearest standing pillar, using it to cover one flank, and that bought him a moment before Iuba Volvens's tail whipped around the stone entirely, stinger firing wide. The bolt blew a chunk out of the pillar instead of him.
He didn't have cover anymore. He had rubble, and two of them closing in from either side of it.
Hikaru dropped low, sweeping the lance in a wide arc to buy himself room, and caught Iuba Volvens across the foreleg hard enough to make it stumble. He used the opening to put real distance between himself and both of them.
Nyxara didn't chase him straight on. She adjusted instead, cutting the angle, herding him without wasting the motion of an actual pursuit.
He recognized what she was doing about a second too late. She wasn't pushing him away from Iuba Volvens. She was pushing him straight toward its blind side.
The tail caught him across the back before he finished putting that together, and the impact sent him sprawling into the dirt.
He rolled through it, came back up on one knee, and barely got the lance up in time to catch Nyxara's next strike an inch from his throat.
Iuba Volvens's mane spun up another notch, pleased with itself.
"IS THAT ALL. IUBA VOLVENS EXPECTED MORE, EVEN FROM SOMETHING THIS SMALL."
He shoved Nyxara's blade wide and used the opening to get back on his feet.
"You've used that one already. Get better material."
Nyxara didn't answer him at all. She just kept coming, patient and unhurried, like his jokes weren't worth the breath it would cost her to respond to them.
He fought the two of them across what was left of the clearing after that, giving ground more than he took it. The ground under his boots kept shifting, packed dirt to loose stone to the edge of another trench, and somewhere in the middle of it Iuba Volvens's tail clipped his hip hard enough to nearly take his legs out from under him entirely.
He stayed up.
Nyxara's sword found him again, a shallow cut across his forearm this time, and he answered with a strike of his own that actually landed clean, the lance's head catching her across the ribs hard enough to send her back a full step.
For the first time since she'd stepped into the fight, she looked almost surprised.
It didn't last long. She reset in half the time it took him to recover his own stance, and came back in exactly as controlled as before, like the hit had cost her nothing worth acknowledging out loud.
Iuba Volvens used the moment he'd spent chasing that small win to get in close, claws raking for his chest, and he twisted just enough to keep them from finding anything vital.
His hand twitched toward the Pulse anyway, old habit reaching for the easy answer before the rest of him caught up.
He stopped himself.
Not yet. Whatever comes after today is going to need this more than I do right now, and I'd rather bleed through this than have nothing left when it actually matters.
He kept fighting on that alone, lance moving on instinct more than any plan he could've named out loud, blocking what he could and taking what he couldn't, giving up ground he didn't have left to give.
Nyxara and Iuba Volvens closed on him together, one from each side, and for the first time since Halgrove, Hikaru didn't have anywhere left to retreat to.