Sonic booms and warped pulses echoed through the training grounds as Tetsu Akiyama and Hana Yume engaged Lilith in a high-speed battle of Will and wit. The air shimmered with time distortion as Lilith vanished and reappeared unpredictably, her Chrono Veil folding space around her like a second skin.
Tetsu gritted his teeth, parrying a pulse of condensed time with his reinforced gauntlets. The sheer force sent him skidding back across the dirt. "She's speeding up her attacks inside the distortion!" he shouted.
Hana responded with a focused blast of crimson petals—her Will of the Crimson Bloom—that bloomed into hundreds of radiant needles, seeking Lilith's presence in every distorted flicker. "Then we have to lock her down before she jumps again!"
Lilith emerged behind Hana, silent as a ghost. Her fingers stretched forward like claws, aimed for Hana's spine.
"Too slow," Lilith whispered.
Tetsu dove between them, Will bursting from his legs as he drove a glowing punch into the warp field. The impact bent reality for a moment—his fist didn't strike Lilith directly, but the feedback snapped her out of the veil.
She stumbled.
That was their opening.
"NOW!" Hana shouted, weaving her arms in a dance-like motion. Petals spun from her sleeves in a cyclone, forming a spear of pure Will. She hurled it with a war cry just as Tetsu launched forward again, fists wrapped in explosive kinetic force.
Lilith's eyes narrowed. Her own Will surged outward, freezing time in a sphere around her. The spear and punch both halted inches away.
She stepped through the frozen moment like a goddess above mortals.
"You think sheer teamwork can outmatch time?" she said.
Then the sphere shattered.
A hidden burst of crimson exploded from the spear midair—a trap laid by Hana—and the moment the time field collapsed, Tetsu's punch roared forward again.
Lilith twisted, barely avoiding the full brunt, but the side of her face was grazed, blood trailing in slow motion.
She blinked, shocked.
"Not bad…" she whispered.
Hana landed beside Tetsu, breathing heavily, her hair scorched and tangled. "We're not done."
Tetsu smirked, a bruise forming across his cheek. "Not even close."
The battlefield around them continued to shake—Kael, Raizen, and Kaito's clash with Kurojin lighting up the horizon.
But right now, here in the present, two young Wielders stood against a chronomancer in the ruins of a corrupted world—and they were holding their own.