Hiro stood on the stairwell landing with Natsu at his back and ran the numbers.
None of them were good.
The Umbral below.
Two possessed above.
No clean direction through either side.
His spiritual energy had dropped to maybe a quarter at most. Every deep breath dragged sharp pain through the cracked ribs on his right side.
His arms were heavier now too. Slower at the recovery.
Behind him Natsu’s breathing was controlled but strained.
Her hands were raw from the seal work.
The skin across her fingers had split in places from forcing too much spiritual output through repeated barrier construction.
Her personal shield had barely survived the last direct impact from the Umbral.
Another one like that would break through completely.
Hiro looked back at her briefly.
Short dark hair damp against her temples.
Coat torn at the shoulder.
Eyes already calculating the sa problem he was.
No escape route.
No reserve energy left for a prolonged fight.
She looked back at him silently.
Above them, the two possessed n started down the stairs.
Slowly at first.
Then faster.
Dark energy thickened around their bodies as they descended.
Hiro shifted his footing slightly.
Then chains shot past his head.
Two pale lines crossed the stairwell fast enough to whistle through the air.
Spiritual chains.
Thin.
Unstable.
Both wrapped around the first possessed man’s wrists and ankles at once before snapping tight violently against the stairwell wall.
The possessed body jerked sideways and crashed hard into the concrete.
Dark energy exploded outward from it imdiately as the ghost inside started fighting the bindings.
A second pair of chains followed.
These caught the second possessed man around the shoulders and waist before driving him backward into the wall behind him hard enough to crack concrete.
Pinned.
Both ghosts started struggling instantly.
The chains trembled violently under the pressure.
Hiro turned sharply.
Kaito stood on the landing above them.
Bare feet against cold concrete.
Hospital gown hanging loose around him.
The bandage around his head had shifted sideways slightly.
Both his hands were extended outward.
Thin fading threads of spiritual energy still connected his palms to the chains below.
His face had gone pale from the strain.
His arms were visibly shaking.
"Take the ghosts," he said.
His voice stayed steady sohow.
"Now. Before the chains break."
For one second neither Hiro nor Natsu moved.
The chains were already straining hard.
Hairline fractures spread through several links as the ghosts forced dark energy against them from inside the possessed bodies.
"Now," Kaito said again.
They moved instantly.
Hiro hit the first possessed man with everything he had left.
No restraint anymore.
Sustained direct strikes hamred into the pinned body one after another, concentrated spiritual force driving into the ghost beneath the skin while Natsu built barriers around the restrained target and spread extraction seals beneath it at maximum speed.
The chains scread under the pressure.
One link cracked at twenty seconds.
Another warped badly after that.
The extraction seal finished at ten.
Natsu drove it upward through the body imdiately.
The ghost tore free.
The stairwell shook violently from the release.
The chains around the body went slack instantly.
Dark energy burst outward into the air in spinning waves as the ghost hung free above the stairs—
Hiro slamd cleansing seals into the wall beside it.
Four sharp strokes.
The ghost ruptured apart inside the seal field.
Gone.
One.
They turned imdiately toward the second possessed man.
This one was already halfway through the chains.
Two links had snapped completely.
Its right arm tore partially free from the restraints and slamd against the wall hard enough to crack more concrete.
Natsu dropped into the extraction pattern imdiately.
Six rapid seal strokes across the stairwell floor.
Hiro hamred direct strikes into the possessed body between each movent to interrupt the ghost’s attempts to fully break loose.
The right arm ca free at eight seconds.
The extraction seal activated at six.
The ghost ripped upward out of the patient’s body violently—
—and Hiro erased it before it fully stabilized.
Two.
Both possessed n collapsed motionless across the stairwell steps.
Both ghosts gone.
The Umbral had never stopped moving.
It had continued climbing the entire ti.
Now it stood at the second-floor landing below them.
Dark energy gathered around it in slow dense waves thick enough to darken the stairwell lighting.
Its attention had shifted.
Not toward Hiro.
Not toward Natsu.
Toward Kaito.
Toward the weak spiritual output still lingering around his hands.
Toward the bandage wrapped around his head.
The Umbral stared upward at him silently.
Hiro stepped forward imdiately and positioned himself between them.
He raised both hands again.
The motion pulled sharp pain through his ribs hard enough that his vision blurred briefly.
His spiritual energy reserves were nearly empty now.
Blood stained one knuckle where skin had split open during the earlier fight.
A bruise had ford beneath his left eye from one of the possessed ghosts. He had not even noticed when it happened.
The Umbral looked at him.
Then it started up the stairs again.
Slow steps.
The dark energy around its body thickened with each one.
Hiro raised his hands higher.
Spiritual energy gathered instinctively around his palms—
—and imdiately started coming apart.
The light distorted.
The shape would not hold.
His output bled away into the stairwell air in thin strands before the technique could stabilize.
Hiro’s eyes narrowed.
The Umbral kept climbing.
The pressure in the stairwell was changing again.
During the fight the dark energy had spread through the space naturally. Heavy. Cold. Constant.
Now it was moving with intention.
The closer the Umbral ca, the more unstable spiritual energy beca around it.
Hiro could feel his reserves pulling away from him at the edges every ti he tried to gather them.
Drained.
Forced apart.
His techniques breaking down before they fully ford.
Behind him he heard Kaito’s chains snapping one link at a ti.
The Umbral reached the next step.
Another pulse spread through the stairwell.
Natsu’s unfinished seal lines on the wall dimd and collapsed into dust.
Three more steps.
Hiro tried to force output into his right hand again.
The spiritual energy flickered violently across his skin and dispersed before he could shape it.
The Umbral continued upward.
Calm.
Certain.
It had realized they were exhausted.
Now it was simply crushing their ability to fight back.
The Umbral climbed another step.
Its dark energy filled the stairwell now.
Every breath Hiro took felt heavier than the last. The pressure kept grinding against the remains of his spiritual energy until even trying to gather output hurt.
His hands would not stop shaking.
Behind him Natsu pushed herself upright against the wall with one arm. Her other shoulder hung lower now. Damaged. Her breathing stayed controlled but shallow.
Above them Kaito was still on the landing floor trying to force himself up.
The Umbral kept climbing.
Slow.
Certain.
It knew exactly what state they were in.
Hiro tried to raise spiritual energy one more ti.
A weak flicker crossed his palm and dissolved instantly.
Nothing left.
The Umbral reached the next step.
Then the next.
Hiro looked at it and understood with complete clarity that they were about to die here.
No dramatic feeling attached to it.
Just fact.
The Umbral stopped halfway up the stairs.
Its mouth opened slowly.
Dark energy folded inward through its body.
The pressure in the stairwell changed imdiately.
Hiro felt it at the base of his skull first.
Then behind his eyes.
The Umbral was compressing everything in the space around them. Spiritual energy. Air. Presence. The entire stairwell felt tighter every second it built.
Kaito made a strained sound above them.
Natsu’s knees buckled against the wall.
The Umbral released it.
The pressure hit all three of them at once.
Hiro’s vision flashed white.
Pain crashed through his nervous system hard enough that his body stopped responding properly. He hit one knee against the stairs and barely caught himself before collapsing fully.
Behind him Natsu slamd into the concrete wall.
Above them Kaito cried out sharply as the last spiritual chains around his hands shattered into fading fragnts.
Everything went heavy.
Hiro tried to breathe.
His ribs scread.
The Umbral started climbing again.
One step.
Another.
Hiro forced his head up.
The Umbral was looking past him now.
Toward Kaito.
Its dark shape moved steadily through the dim stairwell lighting while dense waves of black energy rolled off its body and spread across the walls.
Kaito tried to push himself backward across the landing.
His arms gave out halfway.
The Umbral kept coming.
Hiro planted one hand against the stairs and tried to stand.
His body shook violently from the effort.
Nothing answered him anymore.
No spiritual energy.
No strength.
Just pain.
Beside him Natsu saw it too.
Saw the Umbral climbing toward Kaito.
Her jaw tightened hard enough that the muscles in her neck pulled visibly.
She forced herself off the wall.
One arm barely working.
Still trying to move.
Still trying to stop it.
The Umbral reached the top of the stairs beneath Kaito’s landing.
Then it stopped.
For the first ti since the fight started, it reacted.
Its head turned sharply toward the outer wall of the stairwell.
The dark energy around its body shifted.
Hiro felt it too.
A vibration.
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