Kai, on his knees, looked at the stone floor of the catacombs.

His left shoulder wasn’t responding well.

Not broken — partially dislocated, the kind of thing that in a ring would mean the end of a fight, and in this tunnel meant adjusting.

He slammed his shoulder against the nearest wall with a sharp movement.

The sound was ugly.

The shoulder popped back into place.

Kai exhaled.

He stood up.

---

[GarcíaFTW: HE RELOCATED HIS OWN SHOULDER]

[NocheEterna99: AGAINST THE WALL. WITH A SLAM. ALONE.]

[StreamerHunter: Kai has a split lip, a bruised side, and now the shoulder. And he stood up.]

[xSorinx: Eris stopped moving when she saw that.]

[Pedro_Sierra: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ THAT’S BAKI... I MEAN KAI ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ]

[Deral_Bleattler: ←←← dislocated shoulder →→→ wall →→→ relocated →→→ standing. HE FELL AND GOT UP CALMER THAN BEFORE.]

---

Eris was looking at him.

Her eyes had changed — not the dark red of professional hunger from before.

Something different that Kai didn’t try to name because he didn’t have time.

"How much can you take?" she said.

"I don’t know yet." Kai adjusted his stance, compensating for the shoulder.

"You?"

Eris didn’t answer.

She came again — faster, more direct, without the patterns of the previous exchanges because she’d processed that patterns didn’t work against Kai and had decided that pure speed was a better strategy than an elaborate tactic.

Kai didn’t dodge.

He took the first hit on his crossed forearm — the impact was enough to move him two steps but not knock him down — and used those two steps to generate momentum in the opposite direction.

He came back at Eris with all that accumulated energy.

Fist strike to the chest.

Center.

The same point that had worked against the S-ranks.

Eris blocked it with both hands crossed.

The impact made Eris stagger back a step and a half.

Kai felt both fists up to his elbows.

---

Denser than the S-ranks still, he thought. The heart method needs more force than I have right now with the shoulder like this.

Different angle.

He looked at Eris.

Looked at the crossed hands she’d used to block.

She blocked with both hands. That means for a moment both arms were committed to defense.

If the next strike arrives before she separates her hands...

---

[NocheEterna99: Kai is looking at Eris’s hands with that face]

[GarcíaFTW: THAT FACE MEANS HE FOUND SOMETHING]

[StreamerHunter: viewers: 4,200,000.]

[xSorinx: Eris is looking at him too. Both are calculating at the same time.]

[Pedro_Sierra: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) who calculates faster ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]

---

Kai attacked.

Not the chest — Eris’s right shoulder, the same one he’d marked before.

Obvious target.

The kind of attack anyone who’d watched the fight so far would expect.

Eris raised her right arm to block it.

Kai didn’t complete the strike to the shoulder.

He changed at the last moment — hip turning, weight transferring, the same principle as the feinted jab he’d used against the dungeon android but applied differently — and the real strike came with the left elbow straight to the center of Eris’s chest while her right arm was committed high.

Sustained pressure.

The heart method.

With the elbow instead of the fist because the shoulder couldn’t handle more.

Eris didn’t convulse like the S-ranks.

But she stopped.

A full second of total stillness — not moving, not breathing, without the continuous processing of an S+ entity that’s always calculating.

One second.

Kai used it to separate and put two meters between them.

The left shoulder protested the whole way.

---

Eris exhaled.

Slowly.

She looked at her own chest.

Then at Kai.

"The heart," she said.

"Yes."

"You used it against my S-rank comrades."

"Yes."

"And now against me."

"Yes." Kai adjusted his stance again. "With less effect because you have better defense. But enough."

Eris processed this.

Behind her, from the gate, the townspeople had stopped shouting and fallen silent, watching the fight.

One of them — the greenhouse one, recognizable by the dirt still on her hands from when she’d been captured — looked at Kai with the expression of someone waiting for something specific.

Kai saw it.

Nodded once.

She nodded back.

Eris saw the exchange.

"You’re not going to give up," she said.

"No."

"Even though I’m S-rank and you’re injured."

"No."

Eris was silent for a moment.

"Why?"

Kai nodded toward the gate.

"Because they’re in there."

---

[GarcíaFTW: "BECAUSE THEY’RE IN THERE"]

[NocheEterna99: no drama. No speech. Just the direct reason.]

[StreamerHunter: Eris asked why and Kai pointed at the gate. END OF DISCUSSION.]

[xSorinx: The guy nodded. They’re coordinating something.]

[Pedro_Sierra: (╥_╥) this man (╥_╥)]

[Deral_Bleattler: ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´ωﾟ)ﾟ｡ "because they’re in there" ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´ωﾟ)ﾟ｡]

[User_7741: ヽ(°〇°)ﾉ KAI THE BEST ヽ(°〇°)ﾉ]

---

The rank markings on Eris’s hands stopped glowing.

She didn’t turn them off — they just stopped glowing.

Kai noticed.

Eris took a step to the side.

Not toward him.

To the side.

Leaving the path to the gate with half a meter of space that hadn’t been there before.

"My mission," Eris said, looking ahead instead of at Kai, "is to protect the prisoners until my mistress decides what to do with them."

Kai waited.

"My mistress is busy." Her eyes moved toward the back of the chamber where the sound of Serah and Lira’s fight kept filling the catacombs.

"And the prisoners will remain protected if they leave the cell."

Kai looked at her.

"I’m not going to repeat it," Eris said.

Kai walked toward the gate.

Eris didn’t move.

---

[GarcíaFTW: ERIS LET HIM PASS]

[NocheEterna99: SHE FOUND AN INTERPRETATION OF HER MISSION THAT ALLOWS HER NOT TO BLOCK HIM]

[StreamerHunter: "the prisoners will remain protected if they leave the cell" — TECHNICALLY CORRECT]

[xSorinx: she didn’t say it twice. Just once. Kai understood.]

[Pedro_Sierra: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Eris found a loophole in her own mission ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]

[Deral_Bleattler: ←←← mission: protect prisoners →→→ interpretation: protect them OUTSIDE the cell →→→ BRILLIANT]

[System — notification]

[Current viewers: 2,500,000]

[The system notes that Kai freed the prisoners without defeating their guardian]

[The system notes that the guardian found an alternative interpretation of her mission, due to the respect she has developed for Kai]

[The system notes that this is just to see Kai fight without worrying about the others.]

[The system considers that also a form of winning]