“Impossible…! Fluctuations? Within my Stasis Domain?”
Panic crept into the commander’s voice. A verdant wind surged from Koyoi’s drawstring pouch, spiraling into a vortex that enveloped her and Asahi.
In the stagnant air, a thin rift opened. It felt as if time flowed slightly faster in that space alone. Koyoi’s fingers moved; Asahi braced himself on one knee. Their bodies were responding. The world, ground to a halt, began to breathe again.
The wind formed a ring around them—a sanctuary of lightness. Outside that circle, the world remained heavy as stone. Koyoi focused every ounce of her will on maintaining the ring, synchronizing her breath with the Wind God to keep the spirit from tiring.
“…I can move!”
Asahi drew his sword. The blade, once dull and sluggish, regained its luster as it caught the wind.
“A Wind God? How interesting.”
The commander leveled his staff.
“But it is a minor deity at best. It cannot hope to overcome my ‘Absolute Stasis’!”
The man was the captain of the Observers. A silver insignia gleamed on the lapel of his white suit—the same mark worn by the Observers back at Yamabuki Waystation. This man was the one directing operations for the entire region.
The captain swung his arm with cold precision, reinforcing the power of his domain. He showed no hesitation in rewriting the world's laws. Koyoi felt a chill at his sheer conviction.
A transparent circle expanded from his feet, causing the grass beneath him to turn white as if frozen. Each time the circle grew, the air became more rigid. Koyoi met the expansion by intensifying her wind, brushing against the edges of the circle to protect the fluctuations she had created.
A beam of gray light erupted from his staff, petrifying anything it touched instantly. The ray curved as it hit the wind, shattering against a nearby wall. However, one stray bolt grazed Koyoi’s feet, and the tip of her straw sandal turned to stone. Koyoi gritted her teeth, struggling to pull her foot free. The wind caressed the stone, forcing a crack into its surface.
As the crack spread, Koyoi felt the sensation return to her leg. The stasis wasn't perfect. If she could create a ripple, there was a way out. Hope flared within her.
“Move!”
Asahi scooped Koyoi up and leaped.
The beam struck the ground, and the grass was instantly transformed into a stone sculpture. The petrified blades didn’t even flutter when the wind hit them. Koyoi gasped at the unnatural sight. Even the water droplets on the tips of the leaves had hardened, leaving tiny crystals atop the cracked stone. This wasn't just stopping time; it was a spell that robbed things of their movement.
“…What incredible power.”
“Yeah. But he has an opening!”
Asahi watched the enemy's movements, looking for the tiny interval when he swung his staff. To generate the stasis, the commander needed absolute concentration to maintain the core. If that concentration wavered, the barrier would falter. Asahi didn't miss the slightest flicker.
He narrowed his eyes at the tip of the staff. Every time a beam was fired, the commander’s arm paused for a fraction of a second. In that instant, the circle of fixation thinned. There. Asahi gripped his sword and kicked off the ground.
Asahi charged.
Clad in the wind, his blade was faster than it had ever been.
“Slow!”
With a wave of the commander's hand, an invisible wall manifested in mid-air.
CLANG!
The sword was repelled.
The blade threw off sparks as it was knocked back, and Asahi slid across the ground. The floor beneath him was so rigidly fixed that his landing was delayed. Koyoi sent a gust of wind to strip the stasis from beneath Asahi’s feet, creating a patch of movable ground for him.
“Spatial fixation. Troublesome.”
Asahi breathed heavily, readjusting his grip on the sword. “It’s not just one wall. There are layers.” His voice was low and resonant. Koyoi read the flow of the wind, searching for thin spots in the barrier. Even a stasis field had its own ripples. If the wind targeted those, they could break through.
Koyoi closed her eyes, feeling the currents. The barrier wasn't smooth; it was marred by faint irregularities. That was the weakness. She signaled the direction to the Wind God, and the wind stretched out into a thin needle, being sucked into the gaps of the wall.
“Koyoi, use the wind!” Asahi shouted. “Disrupt his stasis with everything you’ve got!”
“Right!”
Koyoi pulled the drawstring of her pouch wide.
“Wind, please! Go wild!”
…Are you sure?
“Yes! Break it all!”
…Understood!
The Wind God erupted from the pouch.
It transformed into a cyclone, roaring toward the commander. The air shrieked as the spatial fixation began to peel away. The tornado carved through the walls, creating a corridor of distortion between the layers.
Koyoi aligned the wind’s flow to stabilize the passage. A road of wind running through a frozen world. Asahi stepped onto that path and swung his sword. Every time his blade struck the walls, sparks flew. Those sparks hung suspended in the fixed air, floating like glowing blue grains. Seeing them, Koyoi realized just how powerful the stasis was—but the fact that there were sparks at all meant that movement had been born.
The cyclone swirled around the staff, shredding the gray light. For a fleeting second, the circle at the commander’s feet thinned. Asahi lunged into the opening and swung. The blade struck the staff with a dull thud. A fine crack webbed across the surface.
“What…!?”
The commander’s eyes widened. It was his first sign of genuine agitation.
“Tch… this was not in the calculations!”
The commander lost his footing.
In that instant, the entire valley shuddered. Stagnant dewdrops fell, and the feathers of distant birds trembled. The power of the stasis was fraying. Koyoi felt the presence of the Wind God growing, and the flame in her chest burned brighter.
The tremor was brief, but the crack was real. To widen it, Koyoi focused all her consciousness on that inner light. The light touched the wind, and the wind responded. As the two fluctuations overlapped, the walls of the domain grew transparent and thin.
But the commander wasn't finished. He thrust his staff into the ground, and a surge of gray light expanded, re-establishing the stasis with even greater force. The air grew frigid, and Koyoi’s arms felt like lead.
As the fixation intensified, Koyoi’s body began to stiffen. The wind pushed back, but the walls were thick. Asahi continued to swing his sword, carving tiny nicks into the barrier. They were small, but as long as there were wounds, no wall was unbreakable.
Koyoi seized the opening and poured more wind into the fray, trying to pry the nicks open. The wind raged inside the cracks, making the walls vibrate. The commander’s expression turned grim. His calculations were failing.
“My domain will not break,” the man said softly. “If you break it, the entire valley will collapse with it.”
Koyoi caught her breath. She had to shatter the stasis while protecting the lives within the valley. She needed the Wind God’s fury. Koyoi gripped her pouch tight and whispered to the wind: Be angry.
The Wind God let out a sharp cry, and the vortex grew even larger. The air vibrated, and her hair whipped around her face. A storm was being born.
The captain braced his staff, casting his final layer of fixation. The center of the valley glowed white, and time threatened to stop once more. But the wind would not be stayed. Fury and prayer merged as the storm pierced the boundary of the stasis.
Koyoi closed her eyes, her heartbeat falling into rhythm with the Wind God. Don’t stop. I won’t let it stop.
A moment later, the sound of the storm shattering the fixation echoed through the valley.
It was a sharp, piercing sound, like ice splintering. Koyoi opened her eyes and saw streaks of light. The cracks in the barrier were spreading across the entire valley. In the next moment, the world would begin to move.
The commander took a step back, grinding his teeth. He could feel the premonition of his domain's collapse. Looking at his face, Koyoi knew the Wind God’s rage had reached him.
Behind him, the Observers broke into a panicked chatter as the lights on their devices flickered wildly. Koyoi layered her wind onto that chaos, expanding the fluctuations even further. The more the stasis wavered, the faster Asahi moved. The moment of truth was at hand.
“Just a little more,” Koyoi whispered to the wind, feeling the core of the storm swell. The walls of the domain were paper-thin now, pushed to the very brink of collapse.
Asahi’s breath turned to white mist, and the tip of his sword trembled slightly. Koyoi took a deep breath, steadying the wind’s movement. The wind let out a low, guttural growl. The real fight was about to begin, Koyoi thought fiercely. We will win. I promise.