The sky above the Spirit Woods had turned bck, not with night—but with darkness. It pulsed and rolled like a living storm, torn open by the final screech of the Wraith Stalker. Now, the Heartless were coming.

  Skuld stepped through the broken outer fence of the Powhatan vilge and into the clearing beyond, her boots crunching softly over cracked twigs and trembling earth. The hoard surged toward them, a living tide of shadows and eyes and smoke-like limbs. Her fingers tightened around the hilt of Ravenveil Whisper, its slender frame vibrating with anticipation.

  "This is going to be a long one," she murmured to herself.

  With a breath, she dispelled the Zephyr Talons, allowing her Keybde to return to its default state. The transformation consumed more magic than she could afford right now. This wasn’t the time for bursts of power—it was a war of endurance. She would save her strongest techniques for when they were needed most.

  A gust of wind swept past her, rustling her short bck hair and the feathers etched into the length of her weapon. She lifted her arm and tapped the silver bracelet on her wrist—the one etched with twin wing engravings and centered with a raven-shaped gemstone.

  A pulse of blue light surged out.

  Her Keybde Armor began to materialize—yer by yer, piece by piece. Silver and blue pting with bck trims shimmered into existence, elegant yet practical. Her helm settled into pce st, its visor glowing with a soft azure hue. Silver feathers etched along the edges gave her silhouette a graceful, birdlike appearance.

  The wind caught the translucent cape trailing behind her. It danced like a spirit in flight, glowing faintly as the power of her heart gathered in full.

  Skuld’s breathing steadied. Her heart calmed.

  Ravenveil Whisper shimmered in her hand—its silver-and-blue edges catching what little light remained. The quiet before the storm. Behind her, warriors readied their spears, arrows, and chants of protection. Beside her, Aqua whispered quick strategies to Pocahontas. But Skuld only stared ahead.

  She only needed to look forward.

  The world fell still.

  Then the darkness surged.

  A wall of Shadows came first—crawling, sprinting, leaping. Their forms rippled unnaturally, like corrupted ink spshed across reality. Hollow Prowlers followed next—low, feline Heartless with glowing yellow eyes, elongated cws, and bodies that moved more like smoke than flesh.

  Then… it came.

  The Tyrant Tusker.

  The ground trembled beneath each of its steps. Its massive boar-like body shimmered with dark armor. Its twin tusks—massive, jagged, and glowing with cursed sigils—dragged shallow trenches through the earth as it walked. It did not roar. It did not charge.

  It simply watched.

  And waited.

  It was a general commanding its army, not a beast mindlessly rampaging.

  Skuld felt the shift in pressure before she heard the next sound—the creak of armored boots stepping up beside her.

  Aqua now stood at her left, her Tidal Scepter already in hand, glowing with a soft, oceanic hue.

  “Skuld,” she said quietly, “Let’s go.”

  The first wave hit like a crashing tide.

  Skuld surged forward with a burst of wind at her back, unching herself into the oncoming swarm. Ravenveil Whisper shimmered as it cleaved through the first line of Shadows, the bde’s electric-blue veins fshing like lightning every time it struck. She twirled low, ducked under a lunging Nightfang, and with a spin, unleashed a crescent of cutting wind that carved three enemies down at once.

  A bst of Aeroga exploded outward from her as she flipped through the air, the swirling current lifting her into a high arc over the battlefield. Below her, chaos reigned—Heartless lunged, roared, twisted their bck bodies into unnatural angles, snapping at anything living.

  She nded with the grace of a falcon striking its prey, her bde already mid-swing. Another Hollow Prowler lunged from the mist, but she parried its cws and shed out with a Firaga point-bnk to its chest. The fireball detonated, throwing the beast back into a tree.

  “Too many…” she muttered, already moving again. A Thunderga rained from above—her spell striking a group that was about to fnk the archers behind her.

  She twisted and ran again, wind curling at her heels as she cut through two more. But they were everywhere. Her chest burned. Her magic reserves were already waning.

  She wasn’t fighting badly—she was fighting too hard.

  “Don’t slow down!” she whispered to herself.

  But it was no use.

  A roar erupted behind her, and two Nightfangs fnked her from either side.

  Cws swiped.

  Skuld blocked one, barely evading the other. A third came from the front. A fourth from behind. Her Aero barrier caught the first strike—but it shattered under the pressure of the others.

  She was surrounded.

  Skuld clenched her teeth, magic pulsing through her body. She thrust Ravenveil Whisper into the air.

  “Alright… You want a real storm?”

  The blue veins of the Keybde lit up with furious light as the hilt began to shift. The feathers etched along the bde shimmered, unfurling like wings. The bde split down the center.

  In a fsh of wind and light, Zephyr Talons formed around her arms.

  The twin cw-shaped weapons pulsed with storm energy, and Skuld dashed forward, vanishing in a burst of speed.

  Hurricane Rend.

  She reappeared inside the circle of Heartless, a spinning blur of cws and wind magic. The air around her howled as she sliced through the encircling enemies, tearing them apart in an instant. One fell, two, three—

  Skuld nded in a crouch, chest rising and falling rapidly.

  But she didn’t stop.

  She unched herself into the air and spun—Stormfang Execution—a cyclone of blue streaks surrounded her as her body spun like a living tempest. Bdes of wind howled from her strikes, shredding the approaching horde.

  "Let’s dance," she whispered.

  She vanished in a gust of wind.

  Her body became a blur of movement. With each strike of her Talons, crescent wind bdes carved through enemies, shredding Shadows like fragile leaves.

  A Heartless lunged at her blind spot—too fast, too close.

  Until a blur of blue intercepted it. Aqua nded beside her, Tidal Scepter glowing.

  Aqua’s voice rang out from somewhere behind her, “Skuld! Fall back if you need to!”

  But Skuld didn’t answer. She was in it now—flowing through the momentum of battle like the wind itself.

  She dashed mid-air, her boots creating shimmering magical ptforms, allowing her to change direction instantly. The sky was her domain now.

  One leap. Another. She vanished in a burst of air, appearing behind a Shadow about to pounce on a Powhatan warrior. Her cws sshed, the wind howling with her strike.

  Then—Skybound Phantom—she burst forward, afterimages of herself appearing mid-strike, disorienting the enemies.

  Her cws glowed with silver light. One final technique.

  Wind Fang Hunt.

  The Zephyr Talons morphed—elongating, shimmering with raven-like streaks of dark energy. They became dual dagger-like bdes with blue cores and faintly glowing silver edges that created trails of blue feathers in their wake. She soared upward, the wind building beneath her, a trail of glowing feathers cascading in her wake.

  She hovered above the battlefield for only a heartbeat.

  Then she descended.

  Forty-eight sshes.

  In seconds.

  The night was torn by wind trails and glinting silver-blue bdes as Skuld became a blur, zipping from one side of the field to the other, her movement marked only by the ripples of wind and the falling bodies of Heartless.

  When it ended, she nded hard, panting, surrounded by felled enemies and glowing embers.

  But there were still more coming.

  The hoard hadn't stopped.

  Skuld dropped to one knee, the Phantom Wings flickered and vanished as she reverted them back to her keybde. Her body trembled inside the armor from the exertion.

  But her eyes never left the enemy line.

  She whispered, “Still standing. That’s enough.”

  And then—

  A sharp bst of light exploded beside her. Helios had arrived.

  His spear spun in his hands, glowing with silver radiance, as he smashed it into the ground—bsting several Heartless into the air with a shockwave of pure light.

  His voice carried across the battlefield.

  “Aqua! Time to show them why they should fear the sea.”

  A moment ter, a swirling vortex of water burst through the enemy ranks. Aqua, armored and poised, stood within the eye of the storm, her Tidal Scepter glowing bright.

  As the wind howled and water surged, Skuld forced herself to stand.

  Across the field, Helios and Aqua fought in perfect synchronization. His spear—a streak of silver light—whirled and pierced through the battlefield, while Aqua’s scepter flowed like the tide itself, casting spells with devastating grace.

  Skuld’s breath caught. For just a moment, she allowed herself to take it in—not just the chaos, but the beauty in the way they moved. Helios' relentless accuracy. Aqua’s magical precision.

  But then her gaze shifted—Pocahontas.

  She was firing arrows from a raised ptform, each one glowing with a faint aura of wind. Behind her, John Smith covered the fnks with his musket and quick instincts, guarding the vilgers retreating to safety.

  Pocahontas was different now, no longer the cautious woman just learning to channel the wind. She was fierce. Certain. Her arrows weren’t just surviving—they were protecting.

  A gust brushed Skuld’s cheek, and she smiled.

  "I guess we’re the reason she’s changing so… fast."

  Suddenly, a group of Hollow Prowlers slipped from the treeline, circling toward the unprotected right fnk.

  Skuld narrowed her eyes.

  “No you don’t.”

  She raised her Keybde and leapt once more into the sky, unching off a ptform of conjured wind. As her feet left the ground, she whispered to the air:

  “Just keep blowing forward.”