It nearly covered the sky and was starting to converge with the yellow smoke to the west causing some kind of light reaction in a greenish sky. His nostrils filled with the smell of rotten eggs, cat feces, and burned rubber.

"I'm getting rid of the troll meat, Ai. Its heavy and starting to turn." She did not respond. He dumped what he could out of his back. Anything that helped lighten the lead would let him move more quickly. His foot was sore, but Aino had wrapped it well enough to allow him to walk.

They passed the dead bodies. He briefly examined them, noting the neat bullet wounds through each of their skulls and the bluish tinge of their skin.

Aino was nothing if not efficient.

Through the trees separating the grasslands and the town, they traveled.

A spear of ice took his heart as he saw the bloody bodies on the outskirts of the desecrated town.

He stepped on a broken doll. Its face was melted partly off, and its black hair singed and chopped. Attached to the doll was a small hand.

He stopped looking down.

Aino stopped him close to the edge the town. The sound of cracking assaulted his ears. A neat ring of wet dirt surrounded an ocean of blue flame.

They had contained it at least.

In the distance, he could make out buildings, growing taller and taller, wreathed in blue flames and sinking under blue smoke. The cracking drowned out other sounds that might have been present.

"How are we going to get south if there is a big ass fire in our way?"

Aino looked around.

"Can we go around? Is that quick enough?" Eien offered, knowing she was unsure, too.

"We could go back north. Scrap this plan and make a new one."

Instead, she whipped around to face him. Surprised, he stepped back as she eyed him seriously.

“Contract with me,” she said.

“What?” She grabbed his wrist with the skin flap.

“Contract with me,” she replied, more loudly, undoing the flap of her own skin to connect it with his.

He felt a burning sensation in the back of his mind. That pull back to Beldam was dissolving in flames, and ice replaced it. The familiar pull left the back of his skull and instead, he felt cold and empty, as if a friend had left forever, and it was not coming back. What did she do?

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There was no way to cancel the government contract. They were the only ones who could make a contract! And…Aino cancelled it. She replaced it. He felt at the new contract in his head, at the back of his skull. It was less intrusive than the government’s contract. It felt small, cold, and soft, pulling him towards the woman in front of him, staring at him with apathetic eyes.

She turned back to the fire, relaxing her shoulders and her face, leaving him panting in confusion. He heard her whisper something and the fire moved. It disappeared, forming a path in front of them. Beneath the flame was the blackness of debris. Charred remains.

"Follow quickly," she said, and she sprinted off. Eien ran as fast as his ankle could allow. He felt like he was slowing her down, but his feet felt strange, like they weren't landing on the ground. He heard no crunches of burnt plant or human matter. He did not feel the vibrations under his feet.

He was too out of breath to ask.

Smoke and flame surrounded them like effervescent walls. Aino kept moving despite the lack of visual. He tripped up behind her, and then almost crashed into her as she stopped suddenly.

She whispered a few words and pulled her hands apart slowly. He felt himself floating, weightless. Her hands slowly clapped together and the smoke bubble they were in started to expand a bit. She looked around at the ground on which they stood and then floated upwards towards the top of the smoke. He followed, almost wetting himself as he had no purchase on anything and felt like he was about to fall.

"See it?" she asked. He swallowed some grass tasting bile and looked towards where they were heading. He saw buildings, just a bit ahead. They were on fire and near crumbled.

"What am I looking at?" he asked.

"The great city of Anticia. We are in the center." He jolted his head behind him and saw the edge of the fire in the distance with yellow smoke billowing behind.

"How did we get here so fast?" She merely clapped her hands together, and they fell.

He stood up again, spitting vomit out of his mouth as she pressed her hands forward and they continued, more slowly this time.

She stopped again.

"What are we looking for?" he asked.

"It is close," she replied. After a few more steps and hesitations, he noticed that they stopped on top of a half burnt double door.

She squatted down and touched it. It crumbled under her fingers, leaving a film of soot on her otherwise unblemished hand.

Then, she spoke some words and the doors blasted open inwards leading into a dark tunnel.

Eien bit his tongue, hoping that it was spacious enough for the both of them while being hidden enough no one would find them when the government sent the Antmen to comb through the wreckage.

He shivered as he descended the steep stairs.

Darkness.

It was dark, but the light from the flames above them allowed his eyes to adjust very slowly.

They reached the bottom of the cellar, and he felt himself squish a little bit into the floor. It smelled of earth, potatoes, and burned plant matter.

"This a cellar? You were looking for a cellar? There must be hundreds of cellars in the town. Is this one special?" he chattered, feeling for the walls. His fingers traced loose outlines of brick.

The room was filled with child-sized sacks of potatoes and other tubers about the size of his fist.

Then he felt the heat.

It was awful, like suddenly he entered an oven. He noticed Aino had collapsed at the wall near the stairs, sweat dripping from her nose.

"Are you okay?" he sputtered, kneeling down to look at her.

She breathed out loudly and said, "Yes. We wait here."

He waited for her to say anything more, but she merely stared out without seeing, taking gulping, gasping breaths.

Taking off his gear, he collapsed at the opposite wall from Aino. He closed his eyes, and his body suddenly felt like lead.