"Are you afraid of me, Jin?"

  Her voice was calm, almost gentle, yet it carried across the battlefield with absolute certainty—as if the very air had no choice but to carry her words.

  I wanted to say yes.

  I wanted to believe that fear was the only rational response to what I had just seen—to the woman I had once known ripping the life from men like it was a passing thought, watching them break apart with nothing more than idle curiosity.

  But I hesitated.

  Because the truth was, I wasn’t sure if what I felt was fear…

  Or something else entirely.

  Reika tilted her head slightly, watching me, waiting.

  And then—she simply turned away.

  Because in the end, I wasn’t what mattered right now.

  There was still work to do.

  A shogunate officer, barely standing, took a shaking step forward, his face twisted with equal parts rage and desperation.

  "Monster!" he spat, gripping his naginata with bloodied hands. "I will not let you take my home!"

  Reika’s expression remained unchanged.

  "And how do you pn to stop me?"

  She did not mock him.

  She did not ugh.

  She genuinely wanted to know.

  The man charged, a final, futile effort, his bde aimed for the tendon at the back of her ankle—the only part of her remotely within reach.

  Reika simply shifted her foot, and the naginata struck empty air.

  She moved so easily, so fluidly, it was like watching a mountain drift aside as if weightless. The officer stumbled, and in that instant, her foot was already in motion.

  A simple kick, graceful and efficient.

  Her toes caught him beneath the ribs, and in a blur of motion, his body left the ground.

  For a moment, he was weightless, soaring through the air like a broken doll.

  And then—he collided with the ruins of a temple, the impact sending shockwaves through the crumbling stone. His body didn’t move after that.

  Reika lowered her foot again, barely even gncing in his direction.

  "Predictable," she murmured.

  Further ahead, a small group of survivors had taken refuge inside what remained of a pagoda, clutching their wounded, watching helplessly as the Goddess of Ruin approached.

  Among them was a samurai, armor dented, face smeared with soot and blood.

  And beside him—a woman and a child.

  A wife and son, perhaps. Or maybe just strangers, thrown together by fate, by terror, by the instinct to survive.

  It didn’t matter.

  Reika saw them.

  And so, they became part of the game.

  She crouched, lowering herself just enough that her massive form loomed even heavier over them, her sheer scale making them seem small enough to disappear beneath her palm.

  "You have a choice," she said, softly.

  The samurai’s grip on his sword tightened.

  "You can run with them," she continued, nodding toward the woman and child. "Or you can fight me."

  She didn’t threaten them.

  She didn’t need to.

  She was simply offering him the reality of his situation.

  The samurai’s breath came in ragged gasps.

  He looked at his bde. Then at his people.

  And then at her.

  Reika waited, her violet gaze steady, patient, unblinking.

  And then—he lunged.

  Not for her.

  For his family.

  Reika’s lips curved slightly, just for a moment.

  And then she let him go.

  Because he had chosen well.

  She had no interest in cowards.

  The woman and child fled with him, vanishing into the darkness.

  Reika exhaled, turning her attention elsewhere.

  There were still plenty more who wanted to fight.

  She would entertain them all.

  One of the wounded crawled among the wreckage, his legs twisted unnaturally, armor crushed from an earlier impact.

  He looked up just as Reika’s shadow fell over him.

  His face was contorted in pain, but beneath the agony, there was still defiance.

  And Reika saw that.

  Which meant—he wasn’t allowed to die yet.

  She crouched, resting one knee against the earth, deliberately close. Her stocking-cd thigh hovered just above him, her sheer scale dwarfing his broken form.

  "You still want to fight?" she asked, not unkindly.

  The man said nothing.

  He just gred at her, jaw clenched, breathing ragged.

  Reika’s fingers twitched, and for a moment, I thought she might use her energy tendrils again.

  But no.

  Not this time.

  She reached out, extending two fingers—delicate, slender, deceptively gentle—and touched his ruined leg.

  Then she pressed down.

  Just slightly.

  The moment her fingers applied pressure, the warrior’s entire body arched off the ground, a hoarse, broken scream tearing from his throat.

  The sound was ugly. Desperate. Real.

  "It must hurt," she observed.

  She lifted her fingers, allowing the pain to settle.

  The man gasped, his body convulsing from the aftershock.

  "You endured that well," she said. "Let’s try something else."

  Her fingers shifted, moving higher, pressing lightly against his chest.

  "This part is important, isn’t it?"

  He sputtered, unable to reply.

  So she tested it.

  Her fingertips sank in, the bone beneath them bending, cracking.

  The warrior’s breath cut off completely, his face twisting in agony—then, in absolute silence, his body went limp.

  Reika withdrew her hand, brushing away the faint smudge of blood on her palm.

  "That was interesting," she mused.

  And then she stood up again.

  There were still plenty more to break.

  Through it all, she never stopped looking at me.

  Even as she crushed, destroyed, toyed with her victims, she still found time to acknowledge me.

  And in that moment, I understood something terrible.

  She wasn’t just doing this because she could.

  She wasn’t just proving her dominance.

  She wanted me to see it.

  She wanted me to understand.

  Because whatever Reika had become—she still remembered me.

  And she wanted me to know what that meant.