"DOMAIN!" Yura screamed as the next wave of bullets hissed through the air. The purple lattice of her barrier snapped outward just in time, shots bent, curved, and dissolved against it like pebbles skittering across glass. In the next heartbeat, the Spire soldiers blinked, confused, as half their ranks switched places with Yura's group.
The trick bought them ground, but not safety. Kentaro's stomach dropped; they were in the middle now. Twenty soldiers surrounded them in a tight ring, rifles lowered but longswords raised. Gunfire was useless this close; the steel gleamed in the dim corridor light, and every blade pointed inward like the teeth of a trap.
Kentaro froze in the huddle, watching his friends form a living wall all around him. Yura slumped slightly, chest heaving, cooldown. No domain for at least a minute. The elevators were wrecked thanks to Yumi and Shogo's earlier chaos. That left one option.
They had no other choice but to fight.
