Atman kept smileling, like he was just too excited.

He stood on the old platform with rain running down his cloak and dripping from his hair, hands raised loosely in front of him as if he waited for Kenzo to decide how serious this was going to be.

Kenzo faced him a few steps away, shoulders loose and relaxed, hammer floating near his side. The head of it looked too heavy to move fast, too heavy to lift easily.

Raizen watched in silence, umbrella over him and Saffi. The platform felt smaller and more ominous, now that the two of them stood on it like it was a ring, and they were witnessing the fight of the century.

Saffi sat close under the umbrella, back straight, eyes wide. She looked alert and slightly concerned like she already regretted being here.

Raizen glanced at her once, then back at the two grown men that acted like teenagers.

Atman's lips moved. Raizen didn't hear it over the rain, but he caught the meaning from the way his shoulders tensed.

"Let's go."

Kenzo moved first.

But not with a huge swing or with brute force, like Raizen expected.

Everything was controlled. He stepped in with calm speed and flicked the hammer forward like it was a light blade, the heavy core cutting through rain with a clean arc.

Atman's smoke answered instantly.

Black-blue threads slid out from inside his cloak and sleeves, controlled strands this time. When Atman did something with smoke, it was always different kinds of smoke, as if the possibilities of his Eon were quite endless.

They wrapped around the big head of the hammer and pushed it aside, guiding the impact away rather than stopping it head-on.

Kenzo adjusted mid-motion without effort, rotating his wrist and changing direction like the weight didn't matter.

The hammer came again, a second strike from a completely different angle. Atman hesitated for a split second, taken by surprise, then blocked it with smoke again, bracing the threads like tendons, catching the force.

Metal and smoke didn't make a sound when they met, but the air felt like it pulsed. The impacts pushed the rain outward in small bursts, droplets scattering away from the clash.

Raizen's eyes narrowed.

They were holding back. Both. Despite their combat mastery and experience.

He could feel it.

Atman didn't flood the air with choking darkness, attacking from every direction at once, like he did before. He didn't blind Kenzo. He kept the smoke close, leaving Kenzo space to see and move, as if he tested him.

Kenzo did the same. He didn't slam the hammer down like his enormous hammer should be used, in Raizen's opinion.

Raizen watched Kenzo's grip.

One hand.

One hand on a hammer that looked like it could crush stone. It looked like it weighed more than a hundred kilograms.

Kenzo shifted his stance and swung in with a quick diagonal swing. Atman's smoke snapped upward to meet it, threads twisting together like a shield.

The hammer hit the smoke.

But the impact was so strong, rhe smoke scattered completely, barely holding the hammer from hitting Atman in the face.

Atman's eyes stayed focused, jaw tight, the rain sliding down his face like it wasn't there. He stepped sideways, using Kenzo's momentum against him, then sent a thin thread toward Kenzo's wrist.

Kenzo pulled back instantly, hammer spinning around his hand and returning to guard as if it weighed nothing at all.

Raizen's throat went dry.

This wasn't a fight the way he understood fights. It wasn't rage. It wasn't desperation.

It was just pure control.

Kenzo moved again. A forward step, then a sudden stop, then another strike, faster. Atman met it, redirected it, then answered with two threads aimed at Kenzo's legs.

Kenzo hopped over them smoothly, hammer sweeping low to crush the threads.

The threads snapped, evaporating into mist, then reformed immediately from Atman's cloak.

Raizen blinked.

Atman didn't have a weapon.

Kenzo had that massive luminite hammer. Sang had the wand. Everyone Raizen knew of had a blade, a spear, something.

But Atman had nothing in his hands.

Sure, he had the Chasmis, but that couldn't have possibly have been enough, right?

Raizen leaned forward slightly, eyes fixed on Atman's movements. The smoke was too precise to be pure technique. It reacted too fast. It resisted too much.

He turned his head toward Saffi without taking his eyes fully off the fight.

"How can he be this strong without amplification from luminite?" Raizen asked, voice louder than he meant. "He doesn't even have a weapon!"

The rain swallowed half the sentence, but Atman still heard him.

Mid-exchange, Atman twisted his head toward Raizen with an amused expression, and for a split second the fight paused without either of them stepping back.

"You think Eon amplification has to be with a luminite weapon?" Atman shouted, voice carrying through the rain.

Before Raizen could answer, Atman grabbed the collar of his cloak and yanked it aside.

A necklace flashed under the gray light.

Not small. Not subtle.

A thick chain held a luminite stone embedded in a heavy setting, pressed against his chest. The stone pulsed faintly, the glow muted by rainwater and fabric, but still obvious once you saw it.

Atman let the cloak fall back into place and turned toward Kenzo again as if nothing happened.

"Luminite doesn't care what you swing" Atman said, voice quieter now, almost casual. "It cares what you channel."

Then the fight resumed.

Kenzo stepped back now, parrying. Atman's smoke threads looked denser, tougher now, that they were attacking, like they carried more weight.

Kenzo rotated the hammer head and forced the smoke to slide instead of touch him. He angled his wrist and came in for a short, sharp strike aimed at Atman's shoulder.

Atman bent, the smoke catching the hammer's path, dragging it just barely off target. Kenzo's hammer almost grazed Atman's cloak.

"Heyy! Not the cloak! It costs a fortune!" Atman complained.

"My bad" Kenzo shouted back, then added "I bet I could afford it"

Atman answered with a thread that snapped toward Kenzo's side like a whip.

Kenzo turned his body and let it pass, then swung the hammer in a tight circle to force space between them.

Raizen watched the exchange, each swing calculated, flawless.

Saffi remained still beside him, eyes moving rapidly, tracking every move. Her face stayed calm, but her posture looked tense.

Atman shifted again, smoke threads spreading wider. Kenzo swung through two, then stepped in and drove the handle forward like a spear.

Atman leaned back, smoke forming a hard brace in front of his chest. The handle hit, stopped, and the impact pushed Atman's boots back half a step through wet wood.

Kenzo pulled back and got ready for the next move. He didn't even look the tiniest bit tired.

Atman reset too, smoke threads calming down.

Raizen couldn't tell who had the advantage.

Then Atman's voice cut through the rain again.

"Man, this ain't fun! Stop holding back!"

Kenzo didn't move for a second.

He looked at Atman with a purely confused look.

"You sure?" Kenzo asked.

Atman lifted his chin. "Yes."

"Really?"

"Oh, come on already!" Atman shouted.

As soon as Atman finished his words, Kenzo moved so fast Raizen didn't even see it at first. One moment he stood a few steps away, holding the hammer next to him.

The next moment, Kenzo was inside Atman's space, less than one step away.

For a split second, rain droplets around Kenzo seemed to hang in the air, like his movement was faster than the fall of water.

That speed looked familiar.

Kori's. Back in the Rust Room, when Raizen asked her to show him her true power.

That instant movement looked like teleportation to the ordinary eye.

Atman's eyes widened quickly, his Chasmis already reacting.

He tried something, smoke surging forward, but Kenzo was already there.

His hammer spun from low to high in a smooth crescent.

The hammer hit Atman's smoke.

The impact sounded like the air itself got punched.

The shockwave kicked every single droplet you could see around, droplets exploding away from the collision.

Most hit Raizen, Saffi already hiding behind him, then innocently grinning in his face.

Atman's smoke held for a fraction of a second, then it broke.

The impact launched Atman's body upwards like he weighed nothing.

The rain trailed behind him in thin streaks. His cloak snapped open for an instant, then folded around him again as he rose.

Raizen's head tilted up automatically, eyes trying to follow.

Atman kept going.

He shot up through the leaves above the platform, tearing a small hole in the canopy, and then he vanished from view entirely, swallowed by rain and branches. That's just how powerful Kenzo's swing was.

Raizen stood still, still trying to process what just happened.

The umbrella dripped slowly, like it was shocked, too.

Kenzo stood alone on the platform hand above his eyes, looking after Atman. "Welp... He's definitely gone, ha ha!"

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