The two demons came at Nagi and Yuji together this time, clearly having learned something from watching their companion fall — coordinated now, flanking wide instead of charging straight in, dark energy pulsing brighter around them like they’d drawn strength from their fallen ally’s failure.
Nagi and Yuji fell back into position without discussing it, shoulder to shoulder, backs nearly touching, the same wordless rhythm from before settling over them like it had never actually broken.
Around them, the wider battle hadn’t slowed at all.
Mikey’s wind still cut sharp arcs through the mist a dozen yards off, Sani’s flame roaring in short controlled bursts, Kei moving between the two of them like something carved from ice itself, precise and untiring.
But for a moment, in this one corner of the clearing, all of it faded to background noise against what was happening between the speed boy and the thunder noble.
“Whoa.” Gota’s voice carried from across the clearing, disbelief plain even through the chaos, staff still raised against a demon of his own.
“Those two are actually working together?”
“Not something you see every day,” Kakame muttered, shadow tendrils weaving tight around a straggling demon of his own, attention split but impressed all the same.
“Didn’t think Yuji had it in him to accept help from anyone.”
Nicolle, ice already forming at her fingertips for her next throw, allowed herself a small, genuine smile despite everything.
“They’re protecting each other,” she said, quiet, like she wasn’t sure the words would hold if she said them any louder.
Nagi pushed harder, speed bleeding into speed until the space between one strike and the next barely existed at all — darting between both demons, drawing claws and dark energy toward himself again and again, opening gap after gap for Yuji to fill.
Sweat mixed with the dust on his face, his breath coming ragged even in the brief windows between bursts, but he didn’t slow, didn’t let the strain show in anything but the tightening line of his jaw.
“Hot damn, Nagi!” Yuji’s grin cracked through the blood and dirt on his face, genuine surprise threading through the usual arrogance.
“Your speed’s actually useful!”
“Just flow,” Nagi said, mid-blur, the words barely more than breath.
The demons adapted fast, though — too fast, coordinating a pincer that forced Nagi to accelerate past anything comfortable, past anything safe, chasing an opening that kept shrinking with every exchange.
He could feel the edge of his limit approaching now, that familiar pressure building behind his eyes, but there was no clean way to stop mid-fight without leaving Yuji exposed, so he simply didn’t.
The limit hit without warning, the way it always did — no countdown, no mercy, just the floor dropping out from under his own speed all at once.
Nagi’s vision swam, his knee buckling as the world snapped back to its normal pace faster than his body was ready for.
Blood welled at his nose, dripping warm down over his lip, a second thin line tracking from the corner of his mouth.
His ears rang with a pressure that hadn’t been there a second ago, like something behind his skull had briefly strained against a wall it wasn’t supposed to know existed.
*Limit,* he thought, distant and strange, like the thought belonged to someone standing a few feet away from his own body.
He forced himself back onto his feet, legs unsteady, vision doubling at the edges, and kept moving anyway — slower now, stripped of the blur that had carried him this far, but still fast enough to draw one last opening across the nearest demon’s guard.
Every step cost him something he didn’t have spare reserves of, but he pushed through it the same way he pushed through everything, one motion at a time, refusing to let his body’s protest become the thing that got someone else hurt.
“Go—!” The word tore out through gritted teeth, more command than request.
Yuji didn’t need telling twice.
His eyes lit with something fierce and eager, both hands igniting with thunder thick enough to crackle audibly against the mist.
“Let me show you my power!”
He surged forward and drove both fists into the two demons simultaneously, slamming them together at the point of impact in a single, devastating burst that lit the clearing white for half a second.
“Take this!”
The explosion that followed rattled the barrier itself, thunder rolling outward in a shockwave that flattened nearby underbrush and sent both demons screaming to the ground, dark energy sputtering out of them like a snuffed flame.
Silence settled over that corner of the battlefield for a moment, broken only by ragged breathing.
Nagi wiped the blood from his face with the back of one shaking hand, managing something close to his usual calm despite how badly his legs wanted to give out.
The taste of copper sat heavy at the back of his throat, familiar in the worst way — this had happened before, plenty of times, but never quite this badly, never with quite this much afterward left ringing in his skull.
“Hah,” he said, breath uneven.
“Nice one.” A small thumbs-up, more habit than energy behind it.
“Tch.” Yuji was panting too, but there was a smirk under it now, reluctant and genuine at once, some of the earlier hostility already burning off in the aftermath.
“Don’t get cocky, speed boy. That was luck.”
“Sure,” Nagi said, not bothering to argue the point.
Around them, the nearby students who’d caught the tail end of the exchange stared in open disbelief.
“They actually — worked together?” one of them managed, weapon still half-raised, forgotten in the shock.
“I thought they hated each other,” another said, and nobody, including Yuji, bothered correcting that assumption out loud. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Gota just shook his head slowly, grinning despite himself, jogging over with Kakame close behind now that their own corner of the fight had quieted.
“No way. No way that just happened. You two are never going to hear the end of this.”
“Shut it,” Yuji muttered, though there wasn’t much heat left in it.
High above, still perched comfortably on his branch, Nagumu brought his clawed hands together in a slow, delighted clap.
“Oh, beautiful.” His voice carried down easy and warm, thick with genuine amusement.
“I love it, truly. The chill one and the angry noble, actually finding harmony.” A soft, theatrical sigh.
“How touching. Hahaha!”
Beneath the laughter, though, his human eye stayed fixed on Nagi a moment longer than the joke warranted — on the blood still dripping steady from his nose, on the way he was already trying, and failing slightly, to stand up straighter than his body currently allowed, on the faint tremor in his sword hand that he was clearly fighting to hide from his own teammates.
*Sixty seconds shouldn’t cost that much,* he thought, the amusement in his voice not quite reaching the calculation running underneath it.
*Not for something so simple as speed.
That’s not exhaustion.
Exhaustion looks different.
That’s a body pushing against something it wasn’t built to survive pushing against — a limit with teeth in it, not just a wall.*
He tilted his head slightly, watching the way Nagi’s breathing evened out faster than it should have, faster than any ordinary first-year’s recovery had any business being.
*Curious,* he thought again, turning the word over like a coin he wasn’t quite ready to spend yet.
*I’ve met a great many things wearing human faces in my life.
I wonder, quietly, what exactly you’re wearing yours over.*
He filed the thought away carefully, the way he filed away everything that interested him, and let his laughter carry on exactly as loud as it needed to sound entirely harmless.
“Not bad, little flows,” he called down, grin widening.
“But two down leaves four more eager to meet you. Let’s see how well that lovely teamwork holds up when the real ones stop holding back.”
Below, Nagi straightened as much as his legs would allow, sword still steady in his grip despite everything, already turning to find whatever threat came next.
Beside him, Yuji rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles, thunder still simmering faint and ready at his fingertips, neither of them quite looking at the other but both of them, without quite admitting it, standing a half-step closer together than they had been an hour ago.
Outside the barrier, faint and distant through the shimmering blue wall, Kirito’s blade kept striking against light that refused, again and again, to break — each impact ringing out like a countdown neither side inside the clearing could hear.
*End of Chapter 21*