The dark moved.
Mazoku came across the field of bones like a wave breaking, and Jin's blade rose to meet him, and claw met steel in the middle of the cavern with a sound like a mountain splitting in half.
The shockwave tore outward from them both. Bones flew up from the floor in a great white spray. The chains overhead swung wildly, clanging against each other. Half the torches along the walls blew out at once.
Jin felt it go through his whole body. Through his arms, his shoulders, his spine, all the way down into his heels. His sandals sank into the black silt. His teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached.
And across the locked blades, Mazoku smiled.
They broke apart and came together again, and again.
By the time the bones had stopped falling, they'd clashed more than twenty times.
Neither of them gave an inch.
