The chains rattle.

  Not from movement—

  But from something deeper.

  Something awakening.

  Hyouma’s eyes glowed.

  Not fully red. Not fully bck.

  Something in between.

  Something unnatural.

  Then—

  Crack.

  The chains darkened, shifting into something twisted, their once dull steel now gleaming with a red-bck luster.

  Akanagi had been fully unleashed.

  Ayase rolled his shoulders.

  Hyouma had transformed. His energy was warping. His aura was twisting into something…else.

  And yet—

  Ayase didn’t move. Didn’t tense. Didn’t so much as raise a brow.

  His voice was casual. Too casual.

  “Akanagi, huh?”

  A smirk. A slow, knowing exhale.

  ”…Still doesn’t make you impressive.”

  Watari exhaled, feeling the shift in the air.

  Akanagi wasn’t just a transformation. It was wrong.

  A perversion of Resonance.

  He gnced toward Ayase.

  Not worried. Not tense. Not even interested.

  “Man,” Watari thought, “This guy really doesn’t get shaken by anything, huh?”

  Then—

  Jiro moved first.