In the long corner of the Backyard's pond... a woman in purple shinobi clothes, moved like liquid shadow made flesh.

Selka.

Fighting the SBV's Marshal.

'Marshal Kassir,' Merin's mind supplied automatically. 'The Hydra's Fang.'

The deadliest of the three Marshals of the SBV. Called "Hydra's Fang" because of his snake-imitating fighting style that can seemingly attack from multiple angles at once.

Kassir's sword moved in serpentine patterns, the blade weaving through the air in S-curves that made it nearly impossible to predict where the next strike would come from.

His footwork was equally deceptive, sliding steps that made him appear to glide across the ground rather than walk.

He struck high. Selka's dagger came up, deflecting.

He immediately flowed into a low sweep. Selka phased her body blinking out of existence for a fraction of a second and reappearing two feet to the left.

Kassir's eyes narrowed. He accelerated, his blade becoming a blur of steel, striking from six different angles in rapid succession each one coming from an unexpected direction, each one aimed at a vital point.

Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang.

Selka's twin daggers met every single strike, her movements were precise.

She wasn't faster than him. She was simply always in the right place.

Kassir committed to a full-power thrust aimed at her heart, putting all his weight behind it, a strike that couldn't be deflected, only dodged.

Selka didn't dodge.

She stepped forward, into the attack, her body rotating as she moved. The blade passed through the space where she'd been a microsecond before, missing by a hair's breadth.

Her dagger came up in a rising slash that caught Kassir's extended sword arm.

Slice.

First blood. Not deep, but enough to draw red across his forearm.

Kassir hissed and pulled back, resetting his stance. His sword came up in a defensive guard, eyes tracking her every movement now with heightened wariness.

Selka didn't press her advantage. She simply stood there, daggers held loosely, head tilted slightly as if curious about what he'd try next.

That casual stance infuriated him more than any taunt could have.

He attacked again in a complicated series of feints followed by a genuine strike aimed at her exposed ribs. The kind of combination that had killed dozens of opponents over his career.

Selka's form blurred.

When she solidified, she was behind him, one dagger pressed against his kidney, the other at his throat.

"You're skilled," she said quietly, almost conversationally. "But you fight in three dimensions."

She stepped back, releasing him.

"I fight in four."

Kassir spun, bringing his sword around in a desperate slash.

She wasn't there.

She was everywhere.

Five Selkas surrounded him in perfect copies, each one moving independently, each one wielding daggers, each one looking absolutely real.

Space manipulation taken to its logical extreme. Not illusions. Actual instances of her existing in multiple positions simultaneously by folding space around herself.

The advanced version of Tugnier's third circle 'Mirage.'

Kassir's blade cut through one. It dissipated like smoke.

Another Selka's dagger scored a cut across his thigh.

He whirled to face her. That one dissipated too.

A third Selka's blade opened a shallow wound on his shoulder.

He was bleeding from multiple cuts now, each one shallow but all of them adding up.

The Hydra's Fang was being hunted by something that moved through dimensions he couldn't follow.

When the final Selka appeared directly in front of him her dagger was already at his throat, pressed just hard enough to draw a single drop of blood.

"Yield," she said simply.

Kassir's sword clattered to the ground.

The Marshal fell to his knees in defeat... his lips parted in dread and shame.

But just then the pressure in the chaos-filled outer yard suddenly changed.

Every head turned.

The sliding doors of the wooden mansion opened slowly, gliding to the left with a soft whisper of wood on wood.

The movement revealed the tatami floor inside, beautiful craftsmanship, intricate woodwork, traditional design perfected over generations.

No one noticed any of it.

Because all eyes focused on the figure whose presence had overridden dozens of dancing and swirling auras.

The Sword King and Sword Saint paused mid-motion, as Sword king turned to look at his tasked principal.

Cassandra, bleeding and exhausted, turned to look.

The man was dark-haired, with deep shadows under his eyes that spoke of too many sleepless nights or perhaps something more sinister. His dark violet robe danced in the dawn's breeze like living shadow given fabric form.

He stepped from the tatami floor onto the soil of his backyard.

The first rays of early dawn hit him directly.

His pale, weak-looking arm rose, fingers adorned with oversized rings featuring skeleton designs, far too large for his thin digits.

He blocked the sun with his hand as he yawned lazily, as if he'd just woken from a pleasant nap rather than emerging into a battlefield.

His gaze swept across the scene with casual disinterest.

The blood pooling before Kael. The fallen SBV soldiers scattered like discarded toys. His own men, dead or dying.

He paid no mind to any of it, not to Kael nor to his defeated forces.

His sleepy eyes found Selka first, standing over the kneeling Marshal. Then they tracked across the yard until they found Cassandra.

Those sleepy eyes widened.

A smile crept across his face as he took in her sorry state. Her torn dress. Her multiple wounds. Her exhausted stance before the Sword King.

"That Izar is one lucky bastard..." he said to himself, though his voice carried clearly across the unnaturally silent yard.

He stretched languidly. "Maybe unlucky too. His elaborate plan to pin the Sinclairs for the Emperor's death proved useless if the Duchess herself dies before morning."

He slid his pale arms into his sleeves, protecting them from morning's chill.

Then the air changed.

Sinister dark mana coiled around him like dozens of serpents, writhing and twisting in a way that made even seasoned warriors' skin crawl.

"Well... whatever." His tone remained conversational, almost bored. "A meal has served itself for my children."

The ground shook.

Something underneath responding to their master's call. To Dominion Saytan's call.

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