The chamber trembled.

The air distorted as Cerberus emerged from a shadowy abyss split into the stone floor—three monstrous heads snarling in different tones of wrath. Flames curled from between its jagged teeth, lighting the gloom with hellish red. Its eyes glowed like furnaces, and smoke curled from its body like breath from the gates of Tartarus. The obsidian armor coating its hide shimmered with cracks of molten heat.

Kurai exhaled.

Skuld tensed, looking over to Helios' barely breathing form and the infernal monster.

"You handle the beast. I'll save him," Skuld said, preparing to dash forward.

"No," Kurai said calmly, stepping ahead. "I brought you here to heal him. Focus on that and leave the destroying to me."

Cerberus pounced.

All three heads snapped forward like meteors, fangs aiming for Kurai. She leapt upward, spinning mid-air, her war fan unfolding with a metallic snap. With one sweep, a vortex of shadow wind erupted, knocking Cerberus off-balance before it could land.

The left head belched fire—a tidal wave of flame that swept across the room. Kurai landed, raised her hand, and formed a dark barrier that bent the inferno away from Skuld and Helios direction. The stone beneath her feet melted and turned to molten rock.

Kurai surged forward.

She somersaulted through the air on her darkness platforms, unleashing the fan's bladed segments with a whip-like crack. Each razor blade twisted in mid-air, targeting the beast's knees and flanks. Cerberus roared, twisting to shield its joints, but one blade slipped between its armor and bit deep.

Skuld ran to Helios, chanting under her breath.

"Curaga!"

Green light flowed into his body. His skin, once shredded and charred, began to mend. Bones restructured. Breathing eased. His eyes fluttered beneath swollen lids.

Cerberus howled again, its center head launching a shockwave howl that shattered the remaining floor tiles. Kurai skated through the debris with a dancer's grace, slashing with her fan and firing compressed orbs of darkness at the beast's limbs.

"Shadow Crescendo," she muttered.

The fan glowed. Then burst.

A circular barrage of darkness erupted, striking all three heads simultaneously. Cerberus reeled back, blinded, staggering. Its knees buckled.

Then Kurai appeared above it.

Her foot came down.

With a sickening crunch, she smashed Cerberus's middle head into the floor.

She didn't stop.

Twisting, she plunged her hand into the beast's flank. Darkness bloomed.

Cerberus convulsed.

And then exploded in a silent, imploding vortex of black.

Skuld flinched as the backlash wind rushed past her. She looked up, panting.

Cerberus was gone.

But Kurai didn't have time to breathe.

"You're becoming a real nuisance."

Hades appeared from behind a veil of fire. With a flick, he hurled a bolt of blue flame that Kurai batted away with her fan.

"A shame I can't turn you into my queen of the underworld."

"You're not my type," Kurai growled, eyes narrowing.

"Oh, let me guess you like guy who are chained to walls, right?" replied Hades in a condescending manner.

They clashed.

Sparks erupted as shadow met godfire. Kurai's fan crashed against Hades' flaming hands, their shockwaves blowing wind and heat across the chamber.

Hades swung in wide arcs, his hand releasing trails of flame that carved fissures into the walls. Kurai responded with calculated strikes, her war fan flicking forward with scalpel-like precision, slicing through the air and occasionally nicking Hades's robes and skin.

Kurai disappeared in a flicker.

Hades turned—too slow.

A deep gash opened across his back.

"You... little shadow rat!"

"I expected more from a god," she hissed.

They clashed again, now in close quarters.

Hades unleashed a nova of infernal fire. Kurai waved her fan, summoning Void Bloom—a dome of dark wind that scattered the heat and allowed her to dart forward, her cloak turning into chains of shadow that sought Hades' limbs.

Skuld continued to pour healing light into Helios.

"Come on," she whispered. "Please... wake up."

Helios stirred again.

His eyes opened—dim, but conscious. His lips parted.

"Skuld... where..."

"Shh, it's okay. That girl is buying us some time. I've got you."

Hades roared.

"You think this is your stage!? I am King here!"

Kurai grinned and swept her hand sideways. The very darkness in the air twisted, forming blades that slashed silently toward Hades from all angles.

The god roared as one grazed his shoulder and another pierced his thigh.

Kurai spun her war fan once, then pointed it forward.

"Your throne's crumbling, little godling."

"I tire of you," he spat, lifting his hands.

Kurai said nothing.

She moved.

She blurred forward, fan spread wide like a reaper's wing, intercepting the blow as Hades' flaming hands came crashing down. Sparks screamed across the chamber. Hades twisted his body and slammed his foot into the ground, summoning a geyser of fire that erupted beneath her.

The blast swallowed her whole—for a second.

Then a lance of darkness shot from the flames, impaling the ceiling. Kurai shot upward in its wake, clothes smoldering, her eyes glowing.

She hurled the blades of her fan forward—six edges spinning like death.

Hades lifted his hand and formed a burning shield. The blades hit—and then curved.

They reversed in mid-air, circling behind him. Three pierced his back. He let out a bellow and staggered, flames cracking the stone beneath his boots.

Kurai descended like judgment.

Her war fan reformed in her hand, black winds coiling at her feet. She hit the ground with a quake, launching herself at Hades again. He swung, wide and desperate, but she parried with the flat of her fan, twisting aside and slamming her palm into his chest.

A pulse of shadow knocked the god backward.