Desmond regained consciousness for the first time when he fell into the water.

But only half conscious, as if he was dreaming, almost. So he experienced the sensation of his lungs filling with water as if it were happening to someone else. As if he himself was someone else, and he was someone else watching from afar, who had nothing to do with this.

In that state of semi-consciousness he saw flashes. He saw the truck sinking into the water.

He saw broken glass floating together and shimmering. Like a school of fish.

He saw blood forming stains in the depths of the water. He didn't think because he couldn't think. But seeing that brought to his mind the image of red paint stains on a white canvas.

And he saw, though in that state he did not know what he saw, nor could he remember, Laura and the woman he called his savior. Fighting in the water.

He lost even what little consciousness he had at that moment. When his eyes opened again, his sword was touching the land on the shore.

More importantly, his savior was kneeling beside him. Looking down at him, one hand on his chest.

Ah, she is so beautiful, so, so beautiful. With that thought his heart started pumping blood harder.

Desmond broke the hypnosis her gaze had imposed on him to examine himself up and down.

He was fine. Not only did he feel fine, he was fine.

He didn't have the slightest bruise anywhere on his body. Post"resurrection regeneration had taken care of that. However, it always took hours, but with one look around it was obvious that it couldn't have been that long since the trucks hit the water. Far from it.

Minutes, at most.

Why did he say that?

Because the shore was strewn with blood and corpses. Apart from the two of them, the only living thing was Laura, who was curled up against a tree. A large pool of blood stretched out below her and to the sides.

"What happened while I was... out?"

Really? Really, that's what he'd told her talking to her in person for the first time, the only thing he could think of?

Literally anything else would have been better.

And on top of that with such a long pause between was and out. As if it was such a complex word that he had to rub his only two brain cells together for a long time to remember it.

Ah, gods, he couldn't have made a worse impression on her. He was stupid and fucking useless!

Desmond gulped.

He started thinking about what he could have said, as if it would do any good at this point. As if apart from reviving he had the uncanny ability to go back in time. Ha, he'd like that.

"I gave you this and I can speed it up," his savior replied simply, slowly and after a while.

She stood up. She extended a hand toward him, offering help.

Desmond took it.

Her name. For example, he could have asked her what her name was. He wanted to know. It was one of the things he wanted to know most in life, along with everything to do with her, down to the smallest detail.

He was grateful for everything she had done for him.

He wanted to live by her side and help her and feel her warmth.

And, of course, he would always honor her. He had no problem with referring to her as mistress, savior, or even goddess. She was all those things and more.

But her name. He wanted to know. He needed to know it.

Despite the circumstances, despite how guilty he'd felt about turning his back on Amy and Christina, that was all he could think about now.

Those two, like the attack and his brief school life, everything that had happened in just over a week, seemed part of a strangely long and elaborate nightmare.

Not part of his past that he would abandon if she asked him to, but something that had never existed in the first place. It really felt like that.

With one hand she had helped him up. In the other she held that very special knife.

His savior didn't have a scratch on her. Neither her body, nor her clothes. But it wasn't just that. There was no trace of blood in her pure white clothes, and even though she had been in the water not long ago, her clothes were dry.

She let go of his hand, and Desmond grabbed his own hand with the other, squeezing.

He could still feel her warmth.

Grinning from ear to ear, Desmond, along with his savior, turned back to Laura. Moving closer.

"If I'd known I was going to die tonight.... " Laura took a deep breath. "Ah, I don't even know."

She was badly injured, but the wounds she currently had wouldn't be what killed her. They were healing. Wounds all over her body were smoking, enveloping her in it slowly, like a ghost in a fog.

His savior's knife was wet with blood. She had spilled blood recently.

Evidently. The corpses around and over which she had passed were not of people who had taken their own lives with their bare hands.... Well, one or two might have, in desperation, seeing that they could not win or escape.

But that wasn't the point. Sure, his savior had killed recently, sure, to save him, but he had a feeling....

His savior made a cut on Laura's neck.

Not very deep. Her goal wasn't to kill the woman before her regeneration saved her. Because it wasn't a spectacular regeneration. If she stuck the knife in her neck, she would die. It would be that simple, almost as if she were a normal person who couldn't defend herself against mages like them.

What she wanted was... he wasn't sure if she had answers, or for her to do something, or a little bit of either.

In any case...

"Concentrate," his goddess commanded coldly. Ah, just to be able to be here beside her, close enough to touch her, to smell her, was already a blessing. But the sound of her voice... It was a heavenly song!

It would bring tears to his eyes. If he was careless, he would cry like a baby.

As if he had just realized that this wasn't a dream. It was real. After so many years, he was finally with her. And his life could begin again, for real.

Like she said, concentrate. You have to focus.

The fight was over. But tonight's incident wasn't over, not really. Surely his savior wouldn't need him to resolve it, she had it all more than under control.

But at the very least, out of respect, out of showing his devotion, he had to stay focused.

Because this was a big deal. Because it mattered.

Because it was the beginning!

You and me, alone against the world. You and me, mo...

A defense mechanism kicked in, preventing him from finishing the thought, making him forget even how he would have finished it. Or that it was so bad he couldn't say it, even to himself.

"What do I have to concentrate on? "Laura asked. Too haughtily, even now, after losing everything. He should teach her a good lesson.

No, he had to stay out of it.

As he had thought, it was better to leave everything in the hands of his savior. How could he fear someone like him, a sniveling brat he had had in chains, at his mercy, less than an hour ago if what his savior had done wasn't enough?

"I've lost, you've won. This is the part where you kill me. That's it. But you don't. Tell me why, now that your instrument has awakened."

"Desmond is much more than that."

My name. She said my name. It sounded so... so beautiful, so elegant, coming from her lips. It sounded like... like a magic word, almost. Or something like that.

His head was a mess. He didn't even know what he was thinking.

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If it occurred to him to open his mouth he would surely be capable only of a string of nonsense, the accompanying shame of which he would take to his grave, he would be remembering it even if he reached old age.

Which was not too likely.

"Of course, of course. You don't have to insist so much. He will believe it, whatever you do, because he wants to believe it. And that's enough for him and for you."

"You know what I want. I want answers," his savior continued, deciding to ignore her.

As she should be.

She had wisely decided there was no point in responding to her taunts, to her poor attempts to drive a wedge between them. By now, even Laura herself must have understood that it was somewhat pointless, but it was the only thing she had, in her situation.

A petty little vendetta, at best. That was all she could hope for now that all her men were dead and she was there, bleeding. Lost in the dark of night with only the two of them for company.

She had lost completely. And she should accept that instead of putting up that futile resistance, which only provoked laughter.

"Why should I give them to you?" Laura answered with another question. "Whatever I do, I'm dead, you know? You should at least offer me the chance to get out of here alive."

"Even if I did, you wouldn't believe me."

Laura laughed, one hand on her stomach, as if she were having fun with her friends.

Was that how he had sounded laughing in the car, as he chased her? That unhinged?

Surely.

"No. That's true... So we're back to square one. I have no reason to tell you anything. Keeping my mouth shut will at least allow me to pass into the next world with some dignity."

Dignity? Someone like you doesn't even know what that word means.

Her savior's expression didn't change at that ridiculous comment. But she did react. She crouched down in front of Laura and plunged the knife into her stomach.

Laura let out a gasp. She saw blood trickle between her lips.

The fear of seeing himself bleed or seeing other people bleed had left him long ago. Still, for a moment... he thought he'd seen enough people bleed for one night. Just for a moment.

"I want locations, names, numbers. I want everything you can give me."

"Give me something too... equivalent exchange, come on..."

She grabbed her shoulder with one hand and pushed her against the tree trunk, at the same time pushing the knife further in. Laura choked on her own blood, spat it on the blade, on herself. Between them.

Between them was an ocean of spilled blood.

"Fuck. Fuck."

Laura started crying.

A reaction to the pain, involuntary, uncontrollable. After seeing her bleeding from the mouth a moment ago, he'd felt... tired. Felt he'd seen enough for tonight.

However, now that he saw the tears running down her face, he felt nothing.

No tiredness, no sympathy, no hatred.

Just a thought, how pathetic, lacking in heat. Mechanic.

"I can carefully cut you up and keep you alive as long as I want, if you don't cooperate. If you do, what I can give you is a quick death. I think that's a good offer."

Laura replied with a bloodstained smile.

"All right, don't hold back. Unleash the monster inside you. Show your child," Desmond shuddered, "how savage you really are. How inhuman. That will be my revenge, to take him away from you forever."

How pathetic, he thought again. If she were in her right mind, she wouldn't even try this.

But since she wasn't, since it was all that she had left...she'd come back again and again, trying to break down a barrier she couldn't even hurt. Desmond shook his head.

"There is nothing and no one who can take me away from her. Nothing and no one. And you are... No matter what she does to you, how she tortures you, you're the real monster. How can you call someone a monster without a hint of irony? It disgusts me."

"Why is that?"

"Do you really have to ask? You sold your soul to the Empire. You fight now as their lapdog. So many people, so many innocents, have died because of you. And for what?"

He stretched his arms out to his sides as if trying to encompass the scope of her depravity. Of her crimes against humanity. Something completely impossible.

A part of him was aware that he should shut his mouth and let his savior handle this.

But, while Desmond could never be considered to be in his right mind, at this moment he had gone even outside of the normalcy within his madness.

He was... attacking Laura, looking for something he himself didn't know what it was.

Was he looking for something? Yes?

"For lust for power. For nothing else. You... you're not... You're not even human. I used to think so, but I was wrong."

"Ah, no? That reminds me of something. The tactics they use... the Empire and Albion. The enemy is not like us. They are not human. It has no right to anything but death. As far as I'm concerned, both sides are monsters with many masks, but the same face. Talking the same. Doing the same terrible things."

"That's not true," Desmond replied. It had been a bad idea to open his mouth, he had known that from the beginning, but he had just realized to what extent it was bad.

Whatever it was he was looking for, he wouldn't find it in Laura.

That woman was crazy. Completely crazy.

"Oh, of course it is."

"Even if that were true, so what? Since both sides are the same, is it okay to do whatever you want? To think only of what suits you?"

"I did what I had to, believing in my cause. Just like you."

"A world where no one can die would only make wars more violent. More cruel. Violence... It's part of human nature. You can't tell me you've really done everything you did, believing in that dream of a little girl. Don't you dare. Because then... every life you've taken... has no meaning."

Laura looked into his eyes.

"What you told me is just what you tell yourself. Does it help you sleep better at night? Huh?

"What do you want from me? To lie? To tell you that I'm a monster who only cares about herself and that you were right, all this time, deep down, you were right and I knew it?

"These are your last moments. I want you to stop lying to yourself.

For some reason, his savior was standing back, letting him talk. Was she okay with this? Or was she just doing it for him, because he needed it, for some reason he couldn't name himself?

In any case, he felt grateful. And instead of stopping at once, of letting them get back to what really mattered, he went on.

"The truth is, you enjoy it. Hurting people. Being able to control them, to make them fear you. You enjoy it all. I've seen it with my own eyes. Does a person like you really have such an idealistic dream? I'm sorry, but I can't believe it."

"Are you saying you're better than me? That you don't enjoy it, being powerful? The way you laughed while you were going after me tells me the opposite."

"It 's true. I'm a piece of shit too," Desmond admitted. His savior glanced sideways at him, still bent over, clutching the knife plunged into Laura's stomach. "But this isn't a competition to see which of us is the bigger piece of shit. This is..."

Desmond put a hand to his face, pushing his hair out of his eyes.

"I... I don't even know."

"You asked me why I "sold" my soul. The problem here isn't that the conversation isn't getting anywhere. The problem is that you don't like what you're hearing. That you and I are not that different...."

"I've already admitted that I'm a piece of shit like you.

"But, if I asked you if you felt guilty killing my men, if you thought, even once, about their dreams... their families... the things that make them human, you would answer that none of that matters. That they are not human in the first place. But I... I am different. I'm more human than you."

"Don't pretend that..."

"Pretend? I killed the person who found me out because I lost my cool, I made a mistake. But I got you out of there by sparing a lot of lives that were at my mercy. Your friends' lives, for example."

It was true. She had had no reason not to kill any of those who had been with him.

And, as for the teachers, especially the principal, she had plenty of incentive to kill them. However, she had only carried him and gotten the hell out of there in a hurry.

It wasn't something he had given much thought to.

No, rather he didn't like to think about it. Because it was something he couldn't explain. He had excused it by telling himself that she must have had some special reason, and he had stopped thinking about it. So that he could avoid admitting that the only possible reason was that she hadn't wanted to kill unnecessarily.

That she had shown them mercy.

A monster like this. She hadn't asked him any questions, but Desmond heard what followed in his head.

Would you have done the same in my place?

The answer was no, of course not. He would have killed them all and wouldn't even have thought twice about it. Why should he hesitate to kill scum like that? Scum that couldn't even qualify as human.

He was sweating. Breathing hard. His heartbeat was painful.

Suddenly? Or had he just realized it, but it had been like this for a while?

In any case, why?

Why the fuck?

Laura had imagined he would reply that none of that mattered to him. She'd hit the nail on the head, of course. And that was the right answer, wasn't it? After all, the dogs of the Empire and he, or any citizen of Albion, were not the same.

The people of the Empire, every last one of them, without exception, were the natural enemy of the human race.

They were animals that had to be exterminated.

So why react this way? As if Laura was saying something reasonable. Not a single thing she had spewed out of her mouth came close to being coherent. Because she was crazy and maybe partly because of the blood loss.

It had an easy explanation, that string of nonsense. But what about his reaction to something he should have dismissed without thinking twice about it?

He didn't have an excuse to justify that.

"I can see by your face that you're beginning to realize I'm right," Laura continued, unfazed. She hadn't flinched at all, even though she was almost literally between a rock and a hard place, and her life had practically come to an end.

It was frustrating, even though Desmond knew that this was not a strength, but a sign of weakness.

She was doing this not because she was strong, because she still had an ace up her sleeve that could turn the tables, nor was she doing it for something as simple as buying time, waiting for the cavalry to arrive.

She could afford to act this way because she had nothing to lose. That was all.

"You don't have to admit it out loud. Seeing your mug is enough for me. It fills me with satisfaction. You're a bastard, the world would be better off without you. And maybe without me, too."

Her savior pulled the knife out of Laura's stomach, roughly, with a jerk.

Laura coughed several times, loudly, spat more blood.

The steam released as her wounds regenerated floated between the two women, clouding their faces. Each time Laura was wounded, more steam came out, and it didn't stop for quite a while.

Now, however, Laura was so wounded that the steam came out continuously.

"On that last point, at least, we agree," said his savior. "So let's get back to what concerns us, to rid the world of your presence as soon as possible."

His savior took out of her pocket a piece of paper.

It was a map, which she unrolled in front of the enemy's eyes.

"Show me the cities where you have a base, and the places. Number and street. Reference points. Whatever it takes. Now. Or I'll have to get creative."

Laura...

Laura spat in her face, in response. A mixture of blood and saliva. It was almost like... like foam.

A howl pierced the darkness of the night.

By the time Desmond realized that sound had come from his throat, he already had his hands on Lara's head. Squeezing.

He had already gone too far to stop the inevitable.

He squeezed harder, and the head burst between his hands.