What happened?

'The pieces… the pieces…'

The pieces couldn't be himself and the three others, although he probably would have to manipulate them at some point, a game of Domain couldn't be played with only four pieces.

Suddenly, Ryu's gaze glowed. The wind and the clouds were moving differently in relation with one another. Logically, this made little to no sense. The clouds should be relying on the wind to pick and choose the direction of their flow, but in this case that wasn't happening.

'Could it be that the pillars are both the grid lines and the pieces?'