"How dare you‽" Blaze growls at Silver.
"I told you, we're taking them in alive if possible," Silver reminds.
"THEY DESERVE ONLY DEATH!" Blaze bellows.
"That's not for us to decide!" Silver counters.
"Hanna, please, stay calm," Oak pleads, electing not to use the yōkai name to appeal to the person inside. "We're better than them. You're better than them."
"How the fuck can you let them live after everything they've done to us‽" Blaze demands, growing noticeably in size, her pelt starting to glow, three more tails sprouting alongside the existing three.
"Hanna, please, don't do this," Silver pleads.
But Blaze doesn't listen. Without warning, she unleashes a powerful dæmonic scream, throwing the other yōkai back twenty feet. She then erects a thick wall of flame around them, trapping them while she drags Kaede over to where Tsubaki is laying. Blaze rolls both unconscious Grand Masters onto their backs, then lowers her head over them waiting for them to wake up. Luckily, she doesn't have to wait long.
Kaede is the first to stir, letting out a long groan as consciousness slowly returns. "By the kitsune, my head hurts," she mumbles. "As does the rest of me." A moment later, she opens her eyes. At the sight of the incandescent face of Blaze Kitsune just three feet away, Kaede screams in terror, desperately trying to scramble away.
"Silence and stay still!" Blaze demands.
Kaede freezes, petrified into silence.
"Good," Blaze growls. "Now, wake her."
Shaking with fear, Kaede shuffles over to Tsubaki. "W‑Wake u‑up!" she stammers, rocking the tanuki's shoulder.
Without warning, Tsubaki snaps awake and pins Kaede to the ground. "How dare you touch me?" she demands.
"L‑Look b‑behind y‑you," Kaede instructs, raising a shaking hand to point over the tanuki's shoulder.
"I swear, if this is‑" Tsubaki starts, looking over her shoulder to see murderous visage of Blaze Kitsune just two feet from her. Scared into silence, the tanuki slowly rolls off the pika and lays beside her in the mud.
"Now I have your attention, I'd like to describe your punishment," Blaze growls. "I will make you suffer twice as much as you made me and my friends suffer, and when I've finished, you'll be begging for death. But that's just the start. I will burn you so thoroughly they won't even find the ashes."
"N‑No ch‑chance of a p‑plea b‑bargain?" Kaede asks.
Blaze looks Kaede directly in the eyes, the vixen's own burning with vengeful fury.
"I'll t‑take th‑that as a 'n‑no'," Kaede accepts.
"Just for that, I'll make your death especially agonising," Blaze promises.
"D‑Do we get a l‑last request?" Kaede asks.
"No," Blaze answers. "Now, let's see… What to burn first… I know exactly what to burn."
Kaede swallows heavily. "Anywhere but there," she pleads.
"You don't get to‑" Blaze begins.
Silver slams hard into Blaze's flank, throwing the kitsune away from the Grand Masters before she can harm them. "Enough!" he bellows, creating a protective metal dome over Tsubaki and Kaede.
"Agreed," Slate adds, standing alongside Silver as he protects the metal dome with a layer of rock.
"We don't want to fight you," Oak pleads, adding a wooden cover to the dome as she joins the Silver and Slate. "But we will if we have to."
Blaze fixes the three yōkai with a volcanic stare of hatred. "Stay out of my way!"
"No," Silver states defiantly, the three yōkai placing themselves between Blaze and the dome protecting Tsubaki and Kaede.
"THEN YOU WILL BURN WITH THEM!" Blaze yells, the ground shaking with every word.
Silver, Oak, and Slate stand their ground as Blaze charges, the vulpine yōkai surrounding herself with an intense flaming aura, intending to blast the others aside and smash the dome open in a single charge. As Blaze rapidly closes the gap, Silver tries desperately to think of a counter‑attack that will halt the charge but leave Blaze unharmed, but he cannot think of anything. Reluctantly, he raises a wall of spikes, hoping it will be enough to force Blaze to slow down.
The kitsune doesn't slow down.
Blaze hits the spike wall in a ball of fire, demolishing it completely. However, some of the spikes survive the impact, and impale the yōkai's chest and forelimbs. But even that is not enough to slow her down: she slams into Silver at full speed, propelling him into the dome.
As Silver bounces over the dome, Oak and Slate counter‑charge, hoping that Blaze has been weakened by the spikes embedded in her. Oak gets there first, and clamps her jaws around Blaze's left forelimb, biting down as hard as she can as she digs into the ground. The feline yōkai is almost pulled off her feet, but her efforts prove to be enough to divert Blaze away from the dome, and cause her to stumble and fall. Slate takes advantage of Blaze's fall to pounce and bite down hard on one of the kitsune's back legs, digging into the ground to try and anchor the vulpine yōkai in place.
Fuelled by pain and pure rage, Blaze swipes viciously at Slate with all six of her tails, raining dozens of heavy searing blows on the mustelid's flank while also snapping at Oak with her flaming maw, tearing one of the feline's ears apart in the process. Despite the onslaught, both Oak and Slate hold on tight, and slowly but surely, drag Blaze's limbs apart far enough that the vixen is no longer able to stand.
Blaze drops flat on her front, trying desperately to get up, but unable to overcome the combined strengths of both Oak and Slate. Driven insensible by rage, Blaze starts thrashing violently, doing everything she can to escape the vice‑like grips of the feline and mustelid. Unable to remain anchored, Oak and Slate desperately hold on as they're repeatedly slammed into the ground. Eventually, the repeated impacts cause them to lose their grip, and they land heavily, dazed by the intense battering they just received.
Free at last, Blaze tries to get to her feet, but the damage to her limbs is too great, and she stumbles and falls, the Fire Crystal working overtime to repair the damage. After a few attempts, she finally stands. But as she turns her attention to the dome once more, she is impaled and pinned down by six massive spikes of pure steel. Howling in agony as her life force starts to bleed away, Blaze tries desperately to get up, but finds herself unable to move the steel spikes pinning her down.
"I'm so, so sorry, Hanna," Silver apologises, warily approaching his wife. "But I cannot allow you to continue. It breaks my heart to do this to you, but there's no other way."
For a moment, it looks like Silver's words have penetrated the red mist fogging Blaze's mind. But less than a moment later, the flaming hatred returns to the kitsune's eyes, and she unleashes a flaming roar, engulfing Silver in pure fire.
"Hanna, please, stop this!" Silver pleads, the Metal Crystal struggling to protect him from the intense heat.
His words fall on deaf ears. Blaze raises the intensity of the fire, overwhelming the Metal Crystal's protection. Slowly, the heat starts to penetrate Silver's body, and he's unable to stop himself screaming from the pain‑
The flames stop suddenly.
Grimacing in pain, Silver raises his head to see Aqua Okami standing over Blaze Kitsune, dousing her with unbelievable amounts of ice‑water. Struggling to his feet, Silver limps over to watch as Aqua slowly but surely extinguishes Blaze's pelt.
"I… I had to… to stop her," Aqua pants, his efforts having exhausted him to the verge of losing consciousness.
"I know," Silver accepts softly. "I just wish… I just wish there was another way."
For a few moments, the two yōkai watch the motionless form of Blaze Kitsune, the vixen showing no signs of life. Silver removes the semi‑molten spikes pinning her down, then rolls her onto her back, and removes the Fire Crystal from the vixen's chest.
With the Crystal removed, the form of Blaze Kitsune dissolves into the air, leaving behind the body of Hanna Skarlett.
Silver removes the Metal Crystal from his own chest, his yōkai form dissolving into the air. Discarding the Crystal, Rob sprints to his wife, and lifts her in his arms. "Hanna, please, prove to me you're still alive."
Hanna remains motionless in Rob's arms.
Rob lifts Hanna's body to his, hugging her tightly. "I'm so, so sorry it had to end this way," he sobs.
For several moments, the hare mourns the loss of his wife, not noticing Hanna's tail is twitching. Eventually, the vixen manages to wrap her tail around her distraught husband, and returns his hug with shaking arms.
"Thanks for saving me," she whispers.
"It's what I'm here for," Rob replies. A moment later, the realisation hits him like a sledgehammer. "You're… You're alive‽"
"You're such an idiot," Hanna teases.
"We should call Hideyoshi," Rob decides, loosening his hug.
Hanna pulls Rob tight to her.
"OK," Rob promises, holding his wife lovingly.