Ash and smoke still clung to the broken bones of the Mishima Arena. Once the crown jewel of spectacle and power, it now stood as a ruin—its once-golden archways blackened by fire, its stone pathways shattered from rebellion. The night sky bled crimson above it, with floating embers tracing the air like dying stars.
Genji Takashima stood at its center, his coat fluttering in the dead wind. His breath was slow, steady. The phoenix flame beneath his skin pulsed with purpose.
Across from him, boots crunched against the scorched ground. Kogarashi, Kirika Mishima's most loyal warhound, stepped from the shadows.
Clad in obsidian armor reinforced with wind-channeling vents, Kogarashi was a tall, wiry man whose every step cut silence into the air. He bore no expression—only focus. At his back hung a pair of dual wind-blades, jagged like bird wings. His eyes, grey as stormlight, never left Genji.
"You should have stayed gone," Kogarashi said, voice a rasp that cut through the air like a knife. "Now I get to be the one to kill the bastard heir."
Genji said nothing. The time for words had ended.
With a sudden flicker, Kogarashi disappeared.
A burst of air erupted behind Genji.
He twisted, blocking just in time with a flaming palm. The impact sent shockwaves spiraling, tearing what remained of the arena tiles.
Wind Severance Style—that was Kogarashi's signature. A martial art that turned pressure, velocity, and silence into blades sharper than steel.
Kogarashi struck again, his foot dragging along the stone in a crescent arc—a motionless cut of air curved toward Genji's ribs. Genji ducked, feeling the wind shear the tips of his hair.
He moved backward, then pivoted into a flaming arc-kick. Kogarashi vanished again.
"No wasted movement," Kogarashi said, reappearing behind Genji, slashing low.
The phoenix flame shield flared around Genji's waist, blocking the blade just enough. But the force hurled him against the cracked statue of Mishima's founder.
Genji grunted, coughing blood. He stood again.
"You fight with fire. But fire is reckless," Kogarashi said, circling. "Wind is clean. Wind is precise. And it always finds the cracks."
Genji wiped his lip. "So what happens when wind meets a storm?"
The two clashed again.
Fists met blades. Air compressed into slicing spears. Flame burst into shielding halos. The arena became a cyclone of destruction—one side dancing on speed and invisibility, the other erupting with wrath and legacy.
But Genji was losing ground.
Every strike Kogarashi made chipped at his defense. A gash opened on his shoulder. A cut along his thigh. The wind was not flashy—but it was endless.
His body was slowing.
And then he heard it.
The whisper.
Vilerasa.
Not a scream. Not a command. Just a breath through embers.
"You hesitate. Still. Even now. You think power must be earned gently. You think control means restraint."
Genji clenched his fists.
"No."
He stepped forward.
A blade sliced toward his heart. He caught it.
With bare hands, wreathed in roaring flame.
Kogarashi's eyes widened.
Genji exhaled.
The flames curled around his legs, around his arms, wrapping him in coils of living energy. But more than heat—there was electricity. The kind that hums before a thunderstorm. The kind that changes the pressure of a room.
Lightning crawled along his knuckles.
He stepped forward once.
The wind howled.
He stepped again.
And the storm answered.
Genji roared—a sound primal and deep—and his body spun.
Fire surged upward.
Lightning spiraled from his limbs.
The move emerged, raw and untamed.
Thunderclap Spiral: Ashen Howl.
He became a wheel of fire and thunder, a rotating storm of pain and fury. The pressure imploded the stone beneath his feet. Walls cracked. The air screamed.
Kogarashi moved to dodge—too late.
The spiral caught him across the chest. Then the leg. Then the jaw.
His body slammed into the arena walls, cratering the stone.
Silence.
Genji stood in the smoking crater, panting, trembling.
Kogarashi didn't rise.
He had been bested. Not by brute force—but by conviction.
Genji collapsed to one knee.
His breath was ragged. His mind, heavy. But the voice within him—Vilerasa's—was quiet.
As if... satisfied.
The doors of the arena creaked open.
Juliet Carl, Blaze, and Xao Min Feng entered. Their eyes told the story: they'd seen the whole thing.
Blaze helped him up.
Xao Min placed a hand on his back.
And Juliet simply nodded.
"The general is down," she said. "Only Kirika remains."
Genji stood.
"Then we finish this."