The rain fell without rhythm.
Thick, heavy, unbroken — as if the sky had given up on choosing where to touch first.
Thunder moved in the distance, not exploding at once, but rolling along the horizon like something too large to be in a hurry.
Each echo crossed the flooded plain and came back warped, dissolved in the shallow water that reflected a gray, depthless sky.
Nothing there felt solid.
Not the ground.
Not the silence.
Then—
The laugh that slipped out was completely wrong.
The water beneath Brígida's feet rippled.
Not from impact.
But from delay.
Pixy was no longer where she had stopped.
A pink streak cut through the air to the left, too fast to follow, leaving behind only the light — almost childish — sound of a restrained giggle.
"Hee—"
The strike came low, crooked, deliberately clumsy.
The blade passed where Brígida had been an instant earlier.
The water split into two thin walls.
The cut crossed the space between them.
Brígida did not move.
She raised the staff just enough for the cage-shaped structure to vibrate.
The dark core pulsed — once.
The space in front of her hardened.
Not like a shield.
Like a boundary.
Pixy passed through.
The impact did not throw her away.
It only bent her course.
The light body spun in the air, lost alignment, fell sideways onto the water.
The surface trembled under the minimal weight — and held.
Pixy rolled, laughing softly, and vanished before finishing the motion.
She reappeared behind.
Two chaotic blades sprouted from her own arm, shaped by the living symbol twisting beneath the skin.
The attack came from above, spiraling, without a clean trajectory.
Brígida took a step.
Just one.
The staff touched the flooded surface.
The heat did not explode.
It occupied.
The air between them grew dense, heavy, saturated with something ancient and contained.
The pink blades began to lose definition — not dissolving, but failing to hold form.
Pixy crossed anyway.
For an instant, the strike almost landed.
Then it went out.
It didn't burn.
It vanished.
The magic failed for a single heartbeat.
In that same instant, something shifted.
Not the blow — but the air.
The pink blade did not touch Brígida.
It passed.
Skimming the water bubble.
The perfect surface rippled once.
It did not break.
But it reacted.
A thread of vapor rose, thin, silent — like a warning the world did not intend to grant twice.
Long enough for Pixy's body to lose support and be flung sideways, sliding across the plain in an irregular arc.
She rolled twice before stopping on her knees, neon-pink eyes shining with renewed attention.
She didn't speak.
The symbol on her arm opened a little more, like a wound that smiled.
The world around her lost coherence.
Pixy advanced again — zigzagging, in short hops, appearing and vanishing out of sequence.
Attacks came from wrong angles, some passing far too close, others missing by inches, none repeated.
Brígida watched.
The amber eyes did not track the body.
They followed the flow.
On the third real attack, she swung the staff in an incomplete arc.
Golden ash scattered, slow, floating like warm pollen in the soaked air.
Pixy crossed the circle.
And the ground gave way.
It didn't break.
It simply stopped being there.
She fell for an instant — too short for panic — and launched herself out with a loud laugh, spinning in the air before touching the water again.
"Hah—"
She landed on her feet, leaning forward, eyes sharp, assessing.
"You dismantle…" she murmured, more curious than amused. "Interesting."
Brígida did not answer.
The staff came down, steady.
The dark core pulsed again.
The heat changed.
It didn't increase.
It chose.
Pixy rushed straight in this time.
No trick.
No sidestep.
The punch came loaded with raw chaos, a blow meant to pass through and see what resisted.
Brígida raised her free hand.
Two fingers.
The strike stopped a hand's breadth from her face.
Not by force.
By absence of permission.
Brígida moved her fingers.
It wasn't a shove.
Nor a strike.
A simple gesture — too short to be called an attack.
The air answered.
The space in front of her collapsed all at once.
A dry, invisible impact hit Pixy in the center of the body and hurled her backward as if the world itself had decided to reject her.
She rolled through the mud once, twice, three times — too light to sink, too heavy to stop — until she lost rhythm and slid in an uneven arc across the flooded plain.
The chaos around her shattered with the motion.
Silence fell.
The rain seemed to hesitate for an instant.
Pixy stayed down a second longer than necessary.
Then lifted her head.
Pixy blinked.
Then smiled, slowly.
"Hehehe…" She tilted her head. "Big sis… you're fun."
Brígida lowered her hand.
Her voice came calm, deep, ancient.
"You do not fight… to win."
The staff touched the water again.
The golden ash began to move on its own.
Pixy stood.
Unhurried.
The body still loose, but now aligned.
She faced Brígida.
Not in fear.
In attention.
The smile remained — but now, focused.
The rain did not lessen.
It thickened.
It fell slanted, dragged by the wind, scoring the flooded plain while long shadows advanced in the distance — not cast by anything visible, but growing all the same, as if the world were slowly being covered by something that did not need shape.
Slow.
Constant.
Impossible to rush.
Pixy was still smiling when she took a step forward.
Not to attack.
To look.
The laugh sharpened, shifted in tone — less explosion, more interest.
The neon-pink gaze drifted past Brígida… and found the water bubble behind her.
That motionless perfection amid chaos.
Pixy tilted her head.
The smile grew, crooked.
"Ooooh…"
The word slipped out like someone discovering a forgotten toy.
She took two light steps through the mud, circling without hurry, eyes never leaving the figure suspended inside the bubble.
"She sleeps like that?" she asked, casually. "Or did you shut her down on purpose?"
No hostility.
No haste.
The rain slid down the bubble's surface without ever penetrating it.
Brígida did not move.
The staff remained firm, touching the water like a fixed point in an unstable world.
"She breathes in there?" Pixy went on, crouching slightly, like a curious child before a rare insect. "Or do you do that for her too?"
The symbol on Pixy's arm pulsed, reacting to the proximity.
It did not advance.
It watched.
Brígida spoke, at last.
Her voice did not rise above the rain.
"Do not come closer."
Pixy blinked.
Then laughed softly.
"Hihihi…" She straightened, hand to her chest. "How protective."
She took another step, still out of reach, still respecting something that wasn't fear.
"Does she hear you when she sleeps?" she asked, eyes gleaming. "Does she dream of you?"
The smile thinned.
Sharper.
More attentive.
Pixy leaned forward slightly, as if scenting the air.
"Funny…" she murmured. "She smells familiar."
Brígida did not reply.
The dark core atop the staff pulsed once.
The golden ash around the water rearranged itself, slow, like particles choosing where to rest.
Pixy raised a finger, thoughtful.
"I've seen someone like her before," she said, as if commenting on something trivial. "White hair… quiet eyes…"
The neon-pink gaze lifted to meet Brígida's.
"Like a white viper."
The rain seemed to hesitate for an instant.
The air cooled.
Brígida rotated the staff slightly, just enough for the water around them to respond.
"Certain names do not belong to you."
The answer came simple.
Ancient.
Final.
Pixy's smile widened beyond before.
Not joyful.
Satisfied.
"Hehehe…" She took a step back, lifting her hands in exaggerated surrender. "All right, all right~"
Her gaze returned to Brianna one last time.
Lingering.
"You guard dangerous things, big sis," she said, with warped affection. "I like that about you."
Pixy tilted her head to the side.
The smile never left.
"I do too."
Before the sound of rain could swallow the motion, Pixy brought two fingers to her own abdomen — and cut herself.
Without hesitation.
Without pain.
The neon-pink eyes flared with violent intensity as blood spilled.
The drops touched the shallow water.
And did not spread.
They struck the ground like seeds.
One.
Two.
Five.
The blood bubbled — and figures began to rise.
Identical bodies, identical smiles, eyes as bright as the original.
Pixys emerged one after another, tearing through the flooded surface, multiplying too fast to count.
Laughter overlapped.
It did not come from a fixed point.
It bounced off the water, the shadows, the rain-saturated air — warped, delayed, as if space itself had forgotten where each body ended.
Brígida took a step back.
Then another.
Not from instinctive retreat — but to gain space.
Enough.
The staff remained firm, the water bubble intact at her back.
She lifted her gaze, measuring the distance between herself, the copies… and what lay beyond.
"The walls…" she said, after a brief pause, "will hold without my intervention."
The rain fell heavier for an instant.
Pixy smiled.
"Ahhh…" she sing-songed. "So that's it~"
She spun in place, satisfied, while the copies spread slowly, closing angles.
"You wanted to go meet the big bros at the castle, right?"
One of the Pixys cackled.
Another made an exaggerated, mocking bow.
"Sorry~" said the original, sweetly. "But I think you're going to have to keep playing with me."
She brought her bloody finger to her chin, thoughtful.
"After all…" she murmured, "…the little boy ran away."
She blinked.
The smile skewed.
"After he cut me into lots of pieces."
A short pause.
"That move had a funny name…" She frowned, trying to remember. "Waning Moo…? No, no… Waning Moon?"
She laughed at herself.
"Ah~ whatever~"
The multiple Pixys began to move.
Not attacking.
Not yet.
Circling.
Leaping from shadow to shadow, testing distance, timing, reaction.
"That doesn't matter now," she said, bright. "Because it looks like…"
The neon-pink eyes locked onto Brígida's.
"…big sis is going to play with me."
The smile was the same as before.
But the world around it was not.
The rain kept falling.
The space closed in.
And, for the first time, there was no doubt at all:
That game had already begun.