Sekhmet stepped into the glowing red path. The ground pulsed once beneath her, not with violence, but with recognition. It accepted her like soil accepts roots, like an old battlefield accepts the return of its general. The crimson radiance of Red Riot widened around her like the breath of some ancient furnace, its light licking across the charred stone with hungry reverence. The air thickened with heat. It was not just warm. It pressed against the skin like a second atmosphere, dense and fragrant with the musk of ash and scorched metal. The sky overhead rippled and bled into a molten dusk, swaths of maroon and deep vermilion curling in slow motion like smoke caught beneath glass. Thunder rumbled in the distance, slow and deep, like the slow heartbeat of a slumbering titan beneath the world. Sakura followed, her stride unshaken, but her senses burned alive. Her bare feet met the ground and paused. It was stone, but not inert. The surface shifted beneath each step, textures blooming and retreating like breath. Sometimes it was smooth like volcanic glass, then rough like bone-ground grit, then slick like cooled slag. There was memory in the earth, a thousand echoes buried beneath the soot. As her weight pressed forward, faint tremors rippled through the floor, as though the field itself was remembering footsteps like hers. Ash swirled on currents that had no wind. It moved with purpose, coiling and uncoiling through the air like spectral dancers. Petals of ember drifted downward, weightless, catching in Sakura's hair and vanishing into heat before they could burn. Each inhalation filled her lungs with iron and fire, the scent clean and violent, like steel fresh from a forge. Her skin prickled, not from cold, but from power brushing against her like static clinging to her aura.

Before them, the battlefield rose. It did not appear from nowhere. It had always been there, waiting for them to step into its awareness. It stretched far, a coliseum of broken earth carved by fury and shaped by time. Cracks in the ground bled molten light from below, glowing veins that pulsed in tandem with the beat of something massive and unseen. Monoliths loomed in jagged arrangements, each one cracked through with old blows, still steaming faintly in the heat. Obsidian pillars jutted from the field like fangs from a buried beast, and from them hung tattered banners scorched, frayed, their symbols faded but not forgotten. In the far reaches, vague shapes marched. Humanoid, but not human. Their silhouettes walked in rhythm, formed not of flesh but of memory... Chakra molded into soldiers with no faces, no voices, only purpose. Their armor did not clang, it hummed. Their blades did not glint, they waited. They were echoes made real. Formed to test and forged to teach, but at the center of it all, untouched by time or ash, stood the cleavers.

A pair of weapons planted deep into the ground, upright, as if waiting for a hand strong enough to lift them again. They were massive, not only in size, but in presence. Their blades were forged from matte obsidian black, their surfaces unreflective, swallowing light rather than casting it. Beneath that dark metal ran veins of molten red and gold, glowing softly, like lava held beneath cracked skin. They did not shimmer, they pulsed. They did not shine, they glowed with breath. The air around them was different. Thicker and heavier. It did not carry threat, it carried history. These were not weapons meant to dazzle. They were built to destroy, to shatter through armor and resolve alike. Their edges were jagged, brutal, serrated with uneven teeth designed to tear, not to cut cleanly. Their hilts were wrapped in ancient leather, cracked and blackened with age, yet unmistakably alive with dormant chakra, coiled like a serpent waiting to be awoken. The vibration that filled the air came from them. A frequency just beyond hearing. Sakura felt it in her bones more than her ears. It was the low hum of metal that remembered blood. That remembered purpose. It sang in her chest like a war song trapped inside a bell.

Sakura's steps slowed. Her pulse beat harder now, not from fear, but from something else. Anticipation. Recognition. Her breath deepened, drawn almost involuntarily as her body adjusted to the weight of the form. Her arms tingled, not from chakra use, but from resonance. She felt pulled forward, not by force, but by kinship. The cleavers were not just relics, they were parts of a sentence still being written, and she was the next word. Sekhmet remained still. She did not rush. She allowed the moment to stretch long, the silence to thicken into meaning. It was not absence, it was utter reverence. The heat pressed against them like a ceremony, the embers circled like silent witnesses. The very air required stillness. It demanded awareness. Then, without lifting her voice, without fanfare, Sekhmet spoke.

"This is Red Riot," she said, and the sound of it moved the ash like a wind had passed, though none blew. "The War Form. Astra's first truth." The words sank deep, landing like anchors in a sea of flame. Sakura's breath caught in her chest. Not out of fear, not hesitation, but clarity. The name meant more than it sounded. It rang with authority, with trial, with inheritance. She stepped forward again, each movement careful, deliberate, as if walking onto sacred ground. Her gaze did not leave the cleavers. They did not flicker. They stared back in their own way. The hum grew stronger. Steadier. She felt something behind her sternum shift. A weight she hadn't realized was there lifted, replaced with a sharper resolve than she had ever experienced in her 12 years of living and in the distance, the rhythm of invisible war drums began to pulse again, slow and deep, calling her forward into the first of many fires.

"These blades are for when diplomacy has failed. When protection has cracked. When there is nothing left to do but destroy what would harm what you love." Sekhmet's voice cut through the heat like a blade of its own, sharp and ringing with absolute truth. Her eyes glowed brighter now, their emerald intensity pushing outward like light forced through crystal, casting reflections across the scorched arena floor. "They are built for impact. For disruption. For control. You are not swinging wild power... You are wielding a decision." The words coiled in Sakura's mind like fire-wrapped scripture, not just instructive but formative, reshaping something at her center. She reached out and wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the first cleaver. The moment her hand closed, the weight surged into her bones, bypassing her skin like it had been waiting just beneath it all along. It struck her body not as a burden, but as a question; Can you hold this? Her arm dipped with the force, the tension moving through her shoulder and into her spine. The metal thrummed beneath her fingers, low and electric, as though the weapon breathed in her grip. Then it moved deeper. Into her chakra. Not absorbing it, not rejecting it, demanding it. It reached into her like a tuning fork finds its note in a bell tower, calling forward the pieces of herself that had remained dormant. Her breath hitched, eyes widening slightly, not in fear, but awe. The cleaver whispered, not in words, but in impulse. Promises of overwhelming strength. Of power that could break through stone and soul alike. But only if she earned it. Only if she could carry it without flinching. The hum thickened, gaining volume, like a choir of metal just beneath the veil of sound. Her fingers flexed tighter. The first cleaver stayed in her grasp.

Sekhmet's voice followed, steady and unwavering. "Close range combat is its design. You will learn to move within the storm. Feel the heat. Taste the distance. Fight with presence." She paced slowly as she spoke, every step creating soft bursts of red light on the ground beneath her feet. "But if you wish to modify it later; chains, mobility, reach, that is your right. Your growth will shape its evolution. For now, you learn it raw. Real." Sakura took the second cleaver into her other hand. Its weight was no gentler than the first. But something in her muscles adjusted, bracing. Her body found balance between the two extremes. She felt her shoulders pull back, not in resistance, but in readiness. Her hands trembled slightly, but her grip did not loosen. The cleavers were not symmetrical, yet they felt made for her, their imbalance perfect for disruption. Their jagged designs caught the wind, and sparks lifted around her like gold dust. Together, the cleavers grounded her. Not just to the field, but to her own purpose. They reminded her where she stood. Why she fought. Who she fought for.

"With Red Riot, your strength will be enhanced," Sekhmet said, her voice shifting now to a lower, more intimate, almost reverent tone. "The more you hold back in life, the more it stores. Your restraint is not weakness, it is a reservoir. When the time comes, when your limit is pushed, when your heart ignites... it will release that restraint in bursts. Explosive and devastating. Petals shaped from power you denied yourself." Sakura blinked, and it was as if the world answered. The battlefield did not dissolve, it transformed. Like ink in water, chakra and stone rearranged themselves. The broken monoliths pulled back, the sky darkened into a roiling storm of red and gray, and new figures surged from the edges of the arena. Simulated enemies, neither illusion nor dream, formed from pure chakra. Dozens. Maybe more. Their bodies were faceless, but they moved with intention, not like puppets but like echoes of real foes. Some darted with flickering speed, blades in hand. Others towered like giants, chakra swelling with brute strength. They were shaped from threat itself. No voice. No hesitation. All of them came for her. Sakura did not panic. But her breath changed. Her lungs filled slower, deeper, centering herself as the sweat began to gather along her hairline and at the nape of her neck. The grip on the cleavers tightened again. Her chakra moved beneath her skin, instinctive and wild, like heat rising from a forge just stoked. Her knees bent. She leaned forward slightly, not to flee, but to meet them head on. The air shifted. Not just from the movement of her enemies, but from the cleavers. They thrummed now like a war drum. They remembered. They desired impact. They urged precision. And they waited, not to move for her, but to respond to how she moved them.

Every breath she took was real. Every muscle tensed in preparation. This was no dream simulation. This was training that would scar. That would mark her bones with new memory. Pain would linger. Cuts would draw blood. The bruises tomorrow would be hers. Earned. Honest. Sekhmet's voice moved with her into the chaos. Not shouted, not spoken, it filled the very air, reaching past the sound of the encroaching threat, threading through the heartbeat in Sakura's chest.

"Three techniques you must remember. Learn them until they're instinct. Until your body can carry them awake." The words came like drumbeats from Sekhmet's mouth, reverberating through the heat-thick air. They didn't echo outward, they echoed inward, lodging in Sakura's bones, rattling through her marrow like commands written in lightning. A figure lunged from the haze, faceless and fast, sword drawn and glinting with hostile chakra. It moved with perfect intent, not anger but purpose, a test given shape. Sakura reacted, muscle before mind. She pivoted on the ball of her left foot, cleavers rising in a tight arc. The metal howled through the heat. One blade caught the enemy's strike, the other swung wide... She missed. The enemy vanished in a flicker of smoke and light. Not destroyed. Dodged.

"First technique," Sekhmet said calmly, unmoved by the failure, "Ground Rupture. Strike the earth hard enough, and the land will answer."

Sakura nodded once, sweat dripping from her jawline, the warmth gathering along her collarbones like steam rising off tempered steel. She turned, locating another construct, two this time, closing from opposite angles. She breathed deep, drew on her center, and slammed her left cleaver into the earth. The blow cracked stone. A thunderclap echoed across the battlefield, but nothing else happened. The ground trembled, yes, but in isolation. The energy didn't ripple. The chakra didn't break. The enemy constructs remained upright, staggered but unharmed. Sakura blinked, panting now, sweat seeping into the edges of her vision. She'd hit hard. She knew she had. Then why had it failed?

"You hit with power," Sekhmet said from behind, "But not alignment. Strength without focus is waste."

Sakura didn't argue. She stepped back, repositioned, eyes narrowing. Another pair advanced. One on foot, swinging wide with a great curved axe, the other leaping overhead. She waited until they crossed paths in front of her, then brought the right cleaver down in a savage vertical strike. The ground shattered again. Chunks flew. Dust choked the air, and still, the quake was incomplete. The enemy above landed beside her, blade grazing her shoulder before she turned to parry it. The pain bloomed bright, raw, a ribbon of fire across her skin. She hissed, biting back the instinct to retreat. She was missing something. Sekhmet's lesson echoed again, but not as words, more like rhythm. Like pulse.

"Strike the earth hard enough," Sakura whispered, closing her eyes for half a breath, "and the land will answer." She remembered the feeling from before. When the cleavers had first accepted her. That demand for total presence. That refusal to allow hesitation. Her grip tightened. Not just power. Presence.

Another enemy approached, chakric body flickering between real and illusion. Sakura planted her feet, knees bent, arms drawn back. She visualized it. Not just the cleaver. Not just the battlefield. But the entire field as an extension of her will. The cleaver became a conduit. The earth beneath her, a lung. Her chakra, the breath. And she inhaled. One beat, two... Then she dropped her weight and slammed the left cleaver into the ground with everything she had, not just force, but belief. The impact was different. It rang deeper. The ground did not just crack. It rippled. A perfect tremor tore outward in concentric circles, the very crust of the field lifting in jagged ridges, energy shuddering through stone like a heartbeat striking from underground. Dust burst skyward. Chakra in the air stuttered, folding in on itself. Sakura felt it surge up her spine, down through her legs, and back into her arms. The constructs nearest to her staggered violently. One was flung backward. The others dropped to their knees, their footing shattered by the pulse. She felt it. The exact moment the land answered her. The technique had worked. A roar of firelight exploded across the battlefield from the aftershock, painting the edges of her vision in gold and vermillion. The petals of chakra that spiraled around her shoulders did not burn. They danced. Red, wild, alive. Sekhmet's voice, quieter now, threaded through the air like a whisper carried by heat.

"Good. You understand now. Strength is not noise. It is communion." Sakura breathed deep, the scent of scorched dust thick in her lungs. Her arms were heavy, but not trembling. Her legs ached, but they held. And somewhere inside her chest, right beneath the bruises and breathlessness, she felt it, that strange reverence. Not for violence.But for knowing that when her will struck the earth, the world had listened.

"Second technique," Sekhmet said, her tone neither softer nor sharper than before, only absolute, "Bloomline Break. You release pressurized air, not with chakra, but with precision. You will tear through barriers like silk." The words vibrated beneath Sakura's skin, shaping the beat of her heart to match their intent. She shifted her stance, cleavers pulsing faintly in her grip. The air around her was thicker now, almost coiled. Something invisible had changed. There was a tension threaded into the atmosphere, as though the very wind was watching, waiting for a command. She stepped into the motion without hesitation, pivoting sharply on the ball of her foot. Both cleavers arced outward in a clean, twin slash. She felt the strain in her shoulders, the raw drag of weight and will, and she followed through to the end of the swing with exactness. A gust peeled from the blades, loud and sharp. But it was wild. Uncontrolled. The air screamed, but it scattered. The gust fanned wide, shoving dust into the air, disturbing the battlefield, but not cutting. Not slicing. Not what Sekhmet had described. The target ahead remained untouched, the construct flickering with faint mockery, unimpressed by the force that had missed it entirely. Sakura hissed and dropped back into stance, her fingers adjusting subtly on the cleavers.

"Too much force," she muttered to herself. "I let it slip too wide." Sekhmet did not correct her. She watched, arms folded, eyes heavy with patience. She knew this was a form that could not be taught in exact words, it had to be felt. Sakura reset. She breathed slowly. Her feet spaced with discipline now, heels digging into the cracked ground as she squared herself again. A new construct approached, this one taller, plated in mirror-smooth armor, its chakra vibrating like a held breath. A barrier. The perfect test. Sakura narrowed her eyes. She pivoted and swung again, this time adjusting her angle, tightening the line of her cut. The motion was clean. Swift. But her release wasn't. The wind snapped free, but it tumbled, spinning in a crooked line. It hit the construct's barrier with a dull thud, dispersing like thrown water. The enemy remained untouched, its stance unshaken. Sakura's arms dropped to her sides, the cleavers suddenly heavy again. Her breath dragged in. The taste of ash clung to her tongue.

"Precision," she repeated, closing her eyes. "Not pressure. Not force. Precision." Then in that moment something clicked. Not all at once. Not like a sudden revelation. It was smaller than that. More internal. A recalibration in her chest, a softening of something rigid. She tightened her stance again and let her breath fall into rhythm with her heartbeat. Not the rush of adrenaline. The slow thrum of her center. Her will not forcing the air... guiding it. She inhaled and stepped forward. Her body pivoted, shoulders aligned, cleavers swinging in a perfect arc. This time, she let the blades hum as they moved, feeling the wind peel not away, but through. A narrow, dense burst of pressure followed the motion, slicing free not with violence, but with grace.

The air didn't cry out this time. It sang. A whisper-thin blade of wind tore through the construct's barrier. The shell split down the middle with the sound of silk being torn apart in a single breath. The construct itself fractured a heartbeat later, vanishing in a clean wave of gold and silence. Sakura stared, eyes wide, her arms still in motion's end. The air trembled in her wake, and for the first time since the lesson began, she felt the technique settle into her muscles like memory, like truth. Sekhmet nodded once. No praise, no smile. Just confirmation. But Sakura wasn't finished. She drew her stance again. Another construct rose. She stepped, pivoted, swung, and precisely. Wind lashed forward in a perfect, curved line. Another cut. Then again. And again. Each movement sharpened, refined. Sweat clung to her jaw. Her hands were raw from the grip. Her shoulders burned. But her eyes never left the target. She adjusted for height, for movement, for density of the enemy forms. Not one cut was wasted. Ten enemies. Ten Bloomline Breaks. The battlefield was marked in narrow divots and scattered remnants of chakra-light. Sakura stood alone among them, chest rising, breath ragged, but steady. Her body remembered now. Precision, not power. Tearing through resistance not like a storm, but like a blade of breath.

"Third," Sekhmet said, her voice deepening with finality, "Crimson Momentum. Spin. Leap. Use your own body to turn your weapons into a vortex. It will send enemies flying. Mark the battlefield with force." The words ignited something ancient in Sakura's blood, something that responded not with fear, but familiarity. She didn't wait for further instruction. She moved. Her knees bent, muscles coiled tight, and then she leapt, air rushing past her skin in a rush of hot wind and intention. Her body twisted midair, the arc of her spin guided not by calculation but by instinct honed in the crucible of training. Both cleavers extended outward like wings, and for a heartbeat, her body became the eye of a storm. The weapons pulled the air with them, dragging light and force into a swirling spiral of red-gold energy. An explosive wave erupted outward. The ground responded instantly etched with glowing red symbols that lit like pressure points struck across the skin of the earth. Crimson seals flared beneath her, shaped in geometric perfection, binding the ground in rhythm with her momentum. The vibration that followed wasn't noise. It was a pulse. Chakra rippled outward in a soundless concussion, and the constructs closest to her were flung into the air like weightless debris. Their bodies shattered against distant stones, dissolving into gold fragments that scattered like sparks across the field. Her cleavers trembled in her hands as she landed, steel humming with the echo of motion just spent. Her arms quivered from the torque. Her shoulders screamed. But her footing remained solid. Her knees bent slightly, absorbing the shock. She didn't stumble. She didn't fall. The red aura bloomed around her skin slowly, not violent, but inevitable, like fire crawling up oil-soaked cloth. Ember petals spilled from the chakra she stirred with each movement, dancing behind her in trails of heat and memory. Her eye lit fully crimson, the pupil sharpened into a glowing sigil. The air around her didn't simply react. It obeyed. Still the enemies advanced.

Sekhmet remained silent, watching with arms folded, the edges of her expression sharpened not with doubt, but with something rarer, pride sharpened to a blade's edge. Sakura didn't wait. She turned again, forced herself into another leap. Her feet barely kissed the scorched ground before she spun again. This time faster. Tighter. Her cleavers carved a crimson ring through the air. The force burst outward again. The red seals followed. Enemies were lifted from the ground and thrown aside like leaves meeting a gale. The chakra inside her burned hotter, demanding more. But she pushed it down. Refined it. A third spin followed. Then a fourth. With each pass, her body remembered more. The angle of her core. The pivot of her heels. The timing between her leap and the full outward sweep of her arms. Her breath shortened, her muscles began to knot with overuse, but her momentum carried her forward. Even fatigue became rhythm. Even strain became a tool. She adjusted her cleaver grip on the fifth rotation, narrowing the arc to cut deeper. The shockwave changed. Tighter. More direct. Constructs no longer scattered in wild paths, they flew exactly where she intended, propelled like projectiles into stone and flame. The battlefield rang with each clash, each crash of defeated enemies reduced to gold dust. Her arms ached beyond pain now. They trembled, gone half-numb. But still she moved, as if movement was the only language she had left. Her cleavers dimmed slightly after the eighth full rotation, the red aura no longer burning wild but glowing close to the skin, steady as a low sun.

Sakura slowed finally, her boots dragging to a stop. Her breath was ragged, pulled from deep in her chest. She fell to one knee. Not collapsed. Grounded. Her cleavers sank into the earth beside her, their tips biting deep, holding her upright like pillars. Sweat poured down her face. Her arms felt like stone. Her lungs clawed for breath. But her spine was straight. Her eyes didn't waver. Sekhmet stepped forward, kneeling across from her, the battlefield now quiet except for the hum of the seals still pulsing faintly beneath them. The goddess did not rush to speak. The silence itself felt earned, sacred, like a moment between verses in a sacred hymn. Then finally, her voice came, low and unwavering.

"You chose to fight with everything you had." Sakura looked up. Her gaze was steady. Clear. Her body wrecked, but her will, untouched.

"I didn't want to cheat the form," she whispered, her voice cracked but unshaken. "I wanted to feel every part of it." Sekhmet nodded once, no flourish, no ceremony.

"You are ready to remember the next." And as the war-scorched field began to dissolve into golden dust and the blood-hot aura faded from her skin, Sakura's entire being pulsed with the echo of what she had just endured. Even in sleep, her body ached. Her arms still burned. But her spirit had been tempered like steel in flame. This was only the first Form, and she would master them all.

The silence that followed was not silence at all. It was a breath caught in the throat of the universe. The battlefield, though still, carried the resonance of everything it had just witnessed. The scent of ash lingered, sharp and earthy, twined with iron and scorched stone. Even the embers in the air had slowed, drifting down in soft spirals like glowing feathers. Sakura remained kneeling, palms pressed to the cleaver hilts still sunk deep in the ground. Her arms ached with the weight of them, not just in muscle, but in marrow. Her fingers twitched slightly, tremors rolling through her forearms like aftershocks. But she didn't loosen her grip. Her breath came in shallow pulls, her chest rising and falling with effort. Sweat traced a line from her brow down the curve of her cheek and into the hollow of her throat. Her hair clung to her temples. Her lungs didn't scream anymore. They burned slow and deep, like a forge that refused to cool. Her body had passed the edge of pain and into something else. A quiet. A place of clarity. She blinked, and even the act of keeping her eyes open felt deliberate.

The seals beneath her feet pulsed one last time, then dimmed, their crimson glow retreating like the last breath of a dying star. Around her, the golden constructs remained where they had fallen, shattered into light, fragments still flickering with the chakra echoes of their defeat. The battlefield was empty now, but not hollow. It was memorable. The ground held the memory of her motion, the weight of her momentum. The very stone carried the story of what had just unfolded. Sekhmet had not spoken again. She hadn't needed to. She remained across from Sakura, kneeling in the same mirrored posture, her robes pooling like molten silk around her. Her eyes; identical to Sakura's, but older, deeper, the green of ancient things, were steady. They didn't judge, they didn't praise. They saw, and Sakura? Even as her body trembled, even as her shoulders sagged and her breath came raw, felt the strangest thing rise in her chest. Peace. Not because the fight was over. But because she had stayed in it. Because she had not flinched. Because she had bled for this technique not in fear, but in understanding. Crimson Momentum was not simply about spinning or striking or creating space. It was about self-trust. Control in chaos. Precision inside exhaustion. To spin was to surrender control and reclaim it a second later, to risk opening yourself and choose still to strike. She had done that. Not once. Not twice. But until her bones knew how. Until her hands had carved the memory into the muscles themselves. She breathed again, deeper now. The hum of the cleavers had dulled to a soft throb beneath her palms, like a heartbeat waiting for its next command. They no longer fought her. They pulsed with her. Sekhmet leaned forward slightly. Not in concern. Not in command. But in communion.

"I did not expect you to refine it so soon," she said quietly, and her voice was not distant and ethereal now, it was here. Beside her. Human in its pride. Sakura didn't lift her head, not yet. She spoke to the earth between them.

"I need to."

"Why?"

"Because this isn't just training. It's remembering, unlocking your memories." Her fingers tightened around the cleavers' hilts. "This isn't something I'm learning. It's something I'm awakening." Sekhmet's expression didn't shift, but the air around her did. It vibrated once, a low, resonant note that echoed through the floor and up through Sakura's spine.

"You speak as one who knows," Sekhmet said, softer now. "That is good. Because this was only the beginning." Sakura finally lifted her gaze. Her body was broken open in ways only battle could do, but her eyes were clear, sharp as sunrise through storm clouds.

"I know," she said. Sekhmet stood slowly. The battlefield responded. The stone healed behind her step. The air cooled, just slightly. The ash drifted lower, calmer. Even the light changed, softening from blood-red dusk into a warm amber that bathed the space in something like reverence.

"You've etched Crimson Momentum into your body," the goddess said. "But more than that, you have proven yourself capable of moving through pain without losing precision. That is rare. That is sacred." Sakura pushed herself to stand, every muscle protesting, but she rose anyway. She pulled the cleavers free from the stone with both hands. They came loose not with effort, but ease, as if now recognizing her grip. She stood with them at her sides, blades low, her posture not proud but centered. The war-scorched field no longer looked like a battlefield. It looked like a training ground remembered by gods. Sekhmet raised one hand and touched Sakura's forehead gently, not to heal or test, but to connect. The gesture was silent. Symbolic. Like a crown passed without ceremony. Then she lowered her hand again. "No shortcuts," she said. "But no more hesitation either."

Sakura gave the smallest nod. "I won't stop." she meant it. Not because she was brave. But because she was becoming. Piece by piece. Form by form. Not a shadow of someone else. Not a replacement. But a return. To what she was always meant to be. The battlefield sighed around them, the last of the embers vanishing into the cooling air. Far above, the sky swirled again, chakra constellations spinning into new configurations. A new path was beginning to light. But she was not there yet. Not quite. The War Form had demanded everything and she had given it. Now she stood on the edge of what came next. Blood in her mouth, flame in her veins. She was ready, always ready.