Doma's hands were still moving.
Kneeling amid the shattered ice, he thrust his pale fingers into the ice chips on the floor. Cold pumped from his fingertips, and fragments of ice crystal rose one by one, crookedly piecing themselves together in the air, trying to form some kind of shape.
Even half a lotus petal. Even the remnant of an arm.
Instinct built up over centuries drove his shell-so long as he had a breath left, he would not stop.
Yaha stood three paces away and watched for three seconds.
"It's useless."
His voice rolled up from the bottom of his throat, hoarse and slow. It sounded less like speech than the recitation of a fact already settled.
"In front of me, all your struggling makes you nothing but a turtle stuck on its back."
Doma's hands paused.
The half-formed ice crystals in the air lost their supply of power. Gravity pulled them back to the floor, where they scattered into tiny fragments.
Yaha's left hand settled on the hilt.
This was not the earlier motion of nudging the guard to expose an inch of blade. His entire palm wrapped around the hilt, his knuckles tightened, and he drew the whole jet-black blade in one stroke.
The Cursed Markings on the blade lit up.
Their color burned past dark red and deep orange, approaching an abyss that could devour color itself.
Cursed Technique Eight.
Cursed energy peeled away from both sides of the blade, becoming densely gridded lines of slashing force, spaced half an inch apart. Layer upon layer expanded outward, covering every direction of the ruined tatami room, above and below.
"Beneath the domain, all is dust."
The blade paused in the air for half a beat.
"Scatter."
The single word fell.
There was no sound.
As the grid