The rubble gave way with a low crack.
It was not an explosion.
It was surrender.
Soaked stones slid, broken beams groaning under a weight that did not come only from concrete.
An arm emerged from the mud and fragments, steady despite the involuntary tremor running through it.
Isabela rose slowly.
Her body protested — muscles taut, breath short — but she stood anyway, shoving the debris aside like someone who refuses to remain fallen.
Rain streamed down her face, mixing with the damp dust still clinging to her skin.
When she straightened her posture, she felt it.
He was there.
Azazel stood a few meters away, exactly where the world had reorganized itself to accept him.
The posture was the same: upright, calm, absolute.
The rain continued to fall around him, obedient, striking the ground with excessive precision, as if every drop had received clear instructions.
Nothing about him suggested recent combat.
Nothing suggested effort.
Isabela took a deep breath.
Planted her feet.
Lifted her face.
"Where is she?"
The question did not come out shaky.
It came out clean.
Azazel did not answer.
Red eyes rested on her, assessing not the wounded body, but the decision behind her stance.
The silence that formed was not awkward — it was heavy, dense, as if the very air were waiting for permission to continue existing that way.
Isabela did not look away.
"What did you do to her?"
The world remained still.
Then Azazel spoke.
"I offered her a choice."
The voice came low, controlled, without any emotional inflection.
There was no provocation there — only statement, like someone enumerating a clause already anticipated.
Isabela felt the weight settle on her shoulders, not as an attack, but as a reminder.
"A choice…" — she repeated, carefully — "coming from a being like you is rarely what it seems."
The corner of Azazel's mouth moved the slightest amount.
It was not quite a smile.
"Even so…" — he said — "it was a choice."
Silence returned, shorter now, sharper.
Azazel closed his eyes.
Not in fatigue.
In consideration.
When he opened them again, the deep red seemed even more still, as if it had decided never to move again.
"She chose."
The sentence fell into space like an ancient verdict, without adjectives, without explanations.
The world did not react with violence — it reacted with acceptance.
Gravity settled in, firm, patient, like something that had found its final position.
Silence fell.
Not abrupt — deliberate.
The rain continued, but more spaced out, as if the world had decided to listen before insisting on existing.
The rubble around them ceased any late adjustment. Nothing else gave way. Nothing else complained.
Azazel remained motionless.
There was no tension in his posture.
Only permanence.
He was the one who broke the interval.
"From what I've heard…" — he continued — "while I wandered the abyss, humanity found new gods."
"And with them…" — the red eyes narrowed the slightest bit — "forgot the meaning of fear."
The question did not sound curious.
It sounded necessary.
As if that information had been considered relevant long before being formulated.
Isabela inhaled deeply.
The air came in heavy, far too dense for injured lungs, but she did not retreat.
She squared her shoulders, grounded her center, and held his gaze without challenge — not out of submission, but out of conscious choice.
Azazel tilted his head slightly, almost imperceptibly.
"Then tell me…" — he continued, after a deliberate pause — "how you know my name."
A drop of rain fell between them, too precise.
"From that…" — he went on — "I will decide whether I grant you time."
Another pause.
"Or whether I end your trajectory here."
The pressure in the air adjusted, almost imperceptibly.
Not pressing.
Measuring.
Isabela was the first to accept it.
She exhaled slowly — not to calm herself, but to organize what came next.
"You speak like someone who cannot be killed."
Azazel did not move.
"But I saw one of yours fall."
The pause was minimal — calculated.
"Not from weakness."
"From limit."
Rain fell between them with absolute precision.
The world seemed to hold that word for an instant longer than it should have.
"Do not speak of fear," she said, "when even gods arise…"
A short pause.
"…and still learn how to fall."
Isabela's eyes gleamed.
Not with fury.
With decision.
She kept her gaze fixed on his.
"It took me time to understand that." — A brief pause. — "But I made a point of reaching that conclusion… especially because of you, Azazel."
The weight in the air shifted.
Not like an attack.
Like a boundary being drawn.
Isabela opened her right hand.
The space around her responded.
A circle formed beneath her feet — ancient symbols emerging across the soaked surface, traced in lines of deep blue light.
"…Circle of Judgment," she whispered, like someone activating something that does not ask permission.
Blue flames rose around Isabela, not wild — disciplined, contained, like a court awaiting sentence.
Azazel watched.
He did not retreat.
He did not react.
Isabela slowly closed her fingers.
"Dómrblár."
The name fell into space like a verdict.
The flames answered immediately.
The circle contracted, and the blue fire began to gather — not around her, but in her fists, condensing into dense masses, vibrating with a pressure that did not seek explosion.
It sought impact.
Gravity around Azazel wavered for the first time.
It did not lose control.
But it recognized a force that did not ask permission.
Azazel remained motionless.
But his eyes… for the first time… were not only evaluating.
They were calculating.
The circle remained active.
The blue flames compressed in Isabela's fists did not expand.
They vibrated — dense, disciplined, like something that had learned not to waste force.
Azazel observed it for an instant.
Just enough.
Then he spoke.
"So… this is the path you reaffirm."
The voice came low, old.
There was no reproach.
Only statement.
"There was another." — he continued. — "You ignored it."
Isabela did not answer.
She advanced.
Her foot sank into the mud, her whole body following the strike.
Her right fist tore through the air, compressed blue flames snapping at the knuckles.
Azazel did not retreat.
The world tilted by one degree.
The fist passed where his chest had been an instant before and struck only rain and compressed air.
Water exploded outward.
Isabela twisted her hips and attacked again.
Azazel tilted his head.
The blow passed a hair's breadth from his face.
Before she could pull her arm back, Azazel's hand touched her forearm.
Gravity adjusted.
Isabela's arm dropped abruptly, as if its own weight had doubled.
Her shoulder cracked.
She clenched her teeth and forced her body forward.
Her knee rose.
Azazel raised his forearm.
The impact sounded dry.
The ground gave way beneath Isabela's feet.
Her leg came down too heavy to sustain. She dropped to one knee, mud splashing around her.
Her left fist rose immediately, compressed blue flames spinning tight.
Azazel raised his open hand.
The blow stopped.
Not blocked.
Contained.
The blue flame flattened against something invisible.
The air vibrated. Isabela's fist trembled under the sudden resistance.
Azazel closed his fingers.
The weight concentrated.
Isabela was hurled backward without him taking a single step.
She crashed through a side wall, wood and stone breaking into wet shards, and rolled among the debris.
She stopped on her side.
Breathed shallow.
Spat blood.
Azazel remained in the same spot.
The ground around him intact.
Isabela drove her hand into the soil and stood again.
Advanced.
The punch came straight, both fists now in rapid sequence.
Azazel merely raised his arm.
Gravity folded around the impact.
The blows diverted downward at the last instant and struck the ground.
Stone shattered into thick plates.
Azazel answered.
One step.
Not forward.
Into her axis.
His fist rose short, precise, striking the sternum.
The impact did not explode.
It sank.
Isabela was thrown backward, her body folding in the air before landing on her back in the mud.
Silence reclaimed the space.
Azazel did not move.
And the fight did not advance because he pressed.
It advanced because Isabela insisted.
Isabela remained down for an instant longer than her body accepted.
Mud streamed along her back, cold, heavy.
Each breath came short, scraping her chest where the impact still echoed.
The world seemed to tilt slightly downward — not from instability, but from another's decision.
Even so, she moved.
Fingers dug into the cracked ground.
Her arm trembled.
Her knee slid, found purchase.
Her body rose little by little, like something that refuses to obey its own condition.
Azazel did not advance.
Did not correct.
He only watched.
When Isabela stood again, even bent, even breathing in breaks, his red eyes remained fixed — not on her state, but on her insistence.
Then he spoke.
"There are truths that cannot be confronted."
The voice cut through the rain effortlessly.
"Gravity… is one of them."
The weight around Isabela answered those words.
It did not fall all at once.
It increased.
The ground beneath her feet groaned, fine lines opening in the hardened mud.
The blue flames in her fists vibrated harder, compressed to the limit, reacting as if something were trying to crush them from the outside in.
Isabela forced her torso upright.
Her shoulders ached.
Her sternum burned.
Even so, she lifted her face.
Azazel tilted his head the slightest amount.
"Even so…" — he continued — "you speak like someone who knows more than she should."
The silence that followed was not threat.
It was waiting.
"Explain that."
The pressure increased another fraction.
The ground finally gave way beneath Isabela's feet, cracking into irregular plates.
The fissures spread in circles, as if the earth were being forced to recognize her.
She smiled faintly.
Not with confidence.
With mutual recognition.
"I'm sorry…" — she said, her voice steady despite the weight. — "But explanations don't come for free. You'll have to go beyond this."
Her eyes gleamed.
Not with uncontrolled light.
With focus.
The gravity around Isabela's body intensified abruptly — not the one coming from him, but the one she pulled into herself.
The air seemed to drop all at once.
The impact drove the ground even deeper, stones being crushed under the sudden pressure.
Azazel watched.
And, for the first time, did not immediately correct the environment.
"Duration…" — he said at last. — "rarely favors those who insist on resisting."
The red gaze remained fixed on her.
Immobile.
And yet, attentive.
The fight was not over.
She had simply chosen to continue.