Prota was discharged with no physical issues. That didn’t mean she had absolutely zero issues. She stood outside the hospital with her staff in hand, unsure of what to do next. Her mind was blank. Not a single thought ran through it. She ended up sitting next to the door like a lost puppy for hours before getting up.

With nowhere to go, she went back to the inn that she and John had been staying at. Since they didn’t know how long they’d be here for, John had booked the place for at least another month, so she was set on housing for now. Besides, she only had to wait a week. In a week, they’d go on the rescue mission, and then if John were rescued, everything would go back to normal, and if he was dead, she’d just kill herself, and they could reset.

Kill herself. She shuddered suddenly as she did a double take on her own thoughts. Since when had something like that become so easy to do? She looked down at her own hands. They were shaking.

“John…” she muttered, falling onto her bed.

It wasn’t like he was gone, right? She’d get him back in a bit. She just had to hold out. She just needed to hold out for one more week. However, as she remained in her bed, she found that she couldn’t. It was too hard. A sense of guilt slowly crept over her body, her heart sinking into her gut as thoughts pestered her over and over. No matter what she did, she couldn’t stop replaying the scene of her failing to cast her spell. Failing to take action. It replayed over and over in her mind, tormenting her.

The guilt pressed down on her with the weight of the world, crushing her even though there was nothing but air surrounding her. That sense of dread. She couldn’t get rid of it. It permeated through her body, stressing her mind until she could feel her heart beating out of her chest, the anxiety becoming unbearable.

She tried to empty her mind, but it was already empty. Her breathing quickened as she couldn’t escape, couldn’t block out the pain. She could feel her body break out in cold sweat as she began to tremble as her feelings took over. She curled up, trying to protect herself, but protect herself from what? There was no one hurting her but herself. The pain was coming from inside.

Make a decision.

Decision? What decision was there to make? Hadn’t she already made a decision? Follow John. That’s all she wanted to do. Wasn’t that enough? She didn’t want to have to think for herself. It was easier to do what John told her to do. He never put her in situations that were malicious or harmful, and even the situations that were painful were typically for a reason. Provided he was thinking, which wasn’t very often, John was the kind of person to weigh the pros and cons of an action before doing it. The action of training Prota was worth the pain. It was worth it to listen to John.

So then why did she have to make her own decisions?

Well, here was one situation where she could make her own decision. She’d been told to stay at home and rest. She’d been told not to go on the mission. So she’d do that, right? She wanted to. But she found that she couldn’t. She jumped off her bed and paced, growing uneasy. She wanted to go back and help. In fact, she felt good enough to charge in right this instant. Surely she could do something. Her abilities were strong enough. She’d grown. She could get lucky. She could…

She stopped in her tracks, reality slapping her in the face. Those were excuses. She wasn’t strong enough. She wasn’t weak. But her opponents were stronger.

Her decisiveness was an issue. She’d been told that. But she’d never worked on it, and it was coming to bite her in the ass. As long as she acted solely on John’s commands, she’d always hesitate. She’d never do something with full conviction, because it wasn’t necessarily her will.

But she didn’t want a will of her own.

Prota fell back on her bed, closing her eyes as she did the next best thing she could do. She embraced the cold within her, shrinking back into her shell. Her barrier. How could she have forgotten? The best way to deal with feelings…

Was to not feel at all.

~~~

“I’m worried about her.”

“So am I. You can help her by bringing that boy back,” Kit said quietly.

Fate threw his sword down on the ground, panting. He’d been training rigorously, but it always felt like it wasn’t enough. He shouldn’t have lost John. It might’ve been John’s fault, but that wasn’t how Fate was thinking.

He should’ve- no, he could’ve done something. And he didn’t. Now many were paying the price.

“Be honest with me. He’s not alive, is he?”

“...I don’t know,” Kit said quietly. The level of volume was still conveyed through their telepathic link. “He might be. He might not be. It’s hard to tell. They might be holding him hostage.”

“If they were holding him hostage, they’d tell us,” Fate grumbled. “That’s how hostages work. Why hold a hostage when your targets don’t know whether your hostage is dead or alive?”

He didn’t want to say it, but John was probably dead by now. Even if their enemies planned on torturing him, torture in this world was drastically different from torture on Earth. Beings with mana could typically sustain a lot more damage than those without, and so the level of torture needed to be upped. John, who was without mana, couldn’t take much abuse. He was fragile in fights; he’d be even more fragile to torture.

Fate picked up his sword and continued to swing.

“Your blade is swinging without purpose. You are swinging out of anger. Not out of focus.”

“Isn’t anger enough of a channel?”

“What are you angry at?”

Kit, for once, wasn’t teasing Fate. She, too, was sobered by the situation.

“At our enemies! At Draco! What else?”

“You are angry. At everything, no?”

“Of course!”

“Then are you focused on everything? All at once?”

Fate stopped swinging and turned to face the pink fox.

“Yeah? Then what should I be focused on? What would you say focus is?”

“Focus? Your focus is like a block of iron. You can be a club. Or you can be a sword. You can swing yourself around wildly out of a singular emotion. Or you can focus yourself onto a singular thought, a singular task, and sharpen your thoughts to the point where they can cut through anything.”

“...you said you didn’t know anything about my ability.”

“I don’t. But your ability still utilizes mana. And mana is what we use to manipulate the world. If your ability is truly the ability to cut through anything, then you just need to make it as sharp as possible. Sharp enough to cut through time, space, through mana itself. And you cannot do that without focusing. So before you rile yourself up any further, calm down. Otherwise, you’re just a baby swinging a knife.”

Fate’s grip on his sword tightened as he slashed at a tree, the sheer weight of the blade and mana felling several more in the process. He threw his sword to the ground and let out a pained roar until he ran out of breath, then fell to his knees, panting.

“...are you ok?”

Fate’s breath was ragged, but it was calming down. He grabbed the hilt of his sword and got up, his eyes glowing with determination.

“Again.”

~~~

John was alive. Surprisingly.

It wasn’t that he’d been put through any kind of physical torture. Apparently, Doctor was saving that for last. Instead, he’d been put through all other kinds of torture, most of which hadn’t really affected him.

Isolation was one. Doctor had apparently found a way to extend one’s perception a time, something John speculated was a result of the [Deus Ex Machina] energy Doctor had. Unfortunately for Doctor, John was used to extended periods of time alone. Zero was there to keep him company, too. On top of that, his system had all sorts of interesting things to do, so he was never truly bored. Being alone wasn’t all that different from being in his inn room.

After seeing that the isolation had little effect, Doctor had put him in a room with several other people, all somewhat healthy, but they all seemed a little… off.

Upon talking with them, John discovered that they were all relatively fresh prisoners. They’d been physically tortured, then healed, then put through a period of isolation like he had. However, they still had a glimmer of hope. They still wanted out of this hellhole.

In short, they wanted to live, or at least die the way they wanted to die.

And, as living beings do, in times of need, they began to band together. Form relationships. A bond began to grow, one formed purely out of necessity. Random strangers were sharing deep secrets, past traumas, hidden pains, all because of the situation they were in.

John didn’t buy any of it. However, he had to admit that it was clever on Doctor’s part.

The physical torture was a base level of hell. Physical pain that made you want to die was bad, but as long as you lived through it, if you were strong enough, you’d keep going.

Most people wanted to keep going.

However, afterwards, the isolation would be brutal. Initially, prisoners would be given hope, since they’d be left alone for a while, but in a bit, they’d crave the voice of another. Since it was merely an extension of perception, they’d have no need for food, water or rest, so they would get no proof that other life existed as well.

Then, once they were on the brink of insanity, Doctor brought them out and put them into a group. And then left them alone. The group had checked for anything suspicious, but the walls were all dirt. No hidden windows or anything. As far as they could tell, there were no mechanisms for spying. With that, communication immediately began. They all had something in mind.

The boost of hope they’d gotten from seeing each other was a dopamine boost the likes of which could never be replicated. They believed they were invincible. They believed they could do anything. Their deepest wishes were granted, and with that, any wish they had could be granted as well.

It was all bullshit.

“You know it’s been less than an hour, right?” Zero sighed.

“I know,” John thought back.

His system’s clock. It wasn’t moving. It might’ve felt like days, but barely any time had passed at all. They were still playing in the palm of Doctor’s hands.

~~~

Albert was sitting at his desk, doing paperwork, but he was getting impatient. His left hand was tapping on the desk, and he found himself often taking breaks.

“I always said you weren’t suited for desk work.”

“Bren.”

Albert looked up to see his right hand man- no, his old friend standing in front of him.

“It’s the only job I can do.”

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“You’re going out on one more.”

Albert sighed. “This was my fault. I shouldn’t have put the manaless boy on the team in the first place, no matter how good he was.”

“I talked to Fate, the masked boy. Apparently, that manaless boy that shouldn’t have been on the team got them out of more pinches than you might imagine.”

“Well, it seems that his so called insight didn’t get him out of this mess,” Albert sighed, putting his pen down. “He was lucky. But you can only be lucky for so long.”

He took the stack of papers on his desk and put them in a cabinet.

“You know, if we get out of this, we might see the growth of an incredible generation,” Albert said without turning back.

“You think they’re as good as we were?”

Albert snorted. “Better than us. Fate. He’s got a mana bond, he’s got who knows how many elements, he’s a swordsman… that kid might as well be the hero or something. The girl, too. When was the last time you saw a mage that talented, that young? Chantless casting? New spells? Even the dwarf that just joined us. Have you seen what he builds in that home of his?”

Albert sat down heavily in his chair. “We’re relics of the past, Bren.”

“...do you regret it, Albert?”

Albert froze at Bren’s question. It had come out of the blue.

“I’d rather not think about that.”

“And yet you keep our picture on our desk.”

Albert’s framed picture had been put away since he’d learned about Elfin, but it was still on his desk. Bren walked over calmly and reached over, pulling the picture out of the frame. Doing so revealed two more people that had been hidden, standing at the edge of the picture.

A man just as large as Albert was holding a petite smiling woman in his arms.

“Elise and Breaker. You hide them away. You don’t bring them up. But you blame yourself for their deaths, don’t you?”

“I… it should’ve been different, Bren. That was a mistake.”

He snatched the photo out of Bren’s hands and put it back in the picture frame, carefully putting it down on the table again.

“We lost good friends that day, Bren. We lost another one recently. Those kids shouldn’t have to lose anyone. They’re doing an adult’s job.”

“Then why don’t I come with you? Actually, why don’t I go instead of you? Your injury-”

Albert smiled sadly. “Someone has to look after the guild, Bren.”

“Hey-”

“No. I don’t plan on dying. But if something happens…”

Bren nodded solemnly. “I’ll do my best.”

“Good man.”

Albert got up and embraced his friend, then headed towards the door.

“It ends, Bren. Two years of work. It all ends now.”

~~~

Danjo wasn’t very affected by John’s capture. They hadn’t really bothered to get close, and John hadn’t done much other than offer engineering tips here and there. Besides, being told that you might be sacrificed for the greater good wasn’t exactly great for a good relationship.

However, he was determined not to mess this up.

“I’ll get you back, Olivia,” he muttered as he worked on his gloves. “I promise.”

He was still tinkering when he heard a knock on his door. He didn’t know who it was, but only one person ever really came to see him. His house was on the outskirts of the forest, away from the town. He liked it better that way, since he was still a little shy, and it allowed for his furnace to run hot.

“Fate?” Danjo called out as he opened the door.

“Hey. Mind if we talk?”

Fate walked in and sat down at the kitchen table, bringing out some sandwiches. “Did you eat yet?”

“No.”

“Did you stay up all night working again?”

“...yes.”

Fate sighed. “Danjo, you need to get proper rest.”

“But…” Danjo gave up and took a sandwich.

Fate looked uneasy. He glanced here and there, trying to say something multiple times before sighing. He took a deep breath and looked Danjo in the eyes, making the dwarf uncomfortable.

“Danjo. I need to make sure one last time. Are you ready for this?”

“I- well, I’m scared,” Danjo muttered as he nibbled on the food. “I’ll probably die, right? …but I can’t not go. I have to go.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t leave my sister behind. I need to be there. I need to make sure.”

“Prota isn’t coming with us,” Fate tried. “You can stay behind, too. Really.”

“Is it because I’m weak?”

“Danjo, you-”

“I know! I know I’m not strong like you or Prota,” Danjo said quietly. “But I can’t do nothing. I can’t just sit like a coward and hide. I’m- I’m scared, but I have to do it. Fate. Please.”

Danjo was looking down at his sandwich, so he didn’t notice Fate’s blade flash out. In the blink of an eye, the tip of the sword was pointed at Danjo’s throat.

“What about now? Danjo. What if I’m the enemy? I could kill you. Right now.”

“...and if I say I won’t go, what? You won’t kill me?”

Fate didn’t respond. He just stared at Danjo. The air was tense. Fate’s killing intent was clear. He would attack.

“I have to go, Fate. It’s a selfish request, but I need to be there myself.”

Fate continued to hold the blade at Danjo’s throat, but Danjo didn’t waver. A minute later, Fate dropped the blade.

“Fine. I needed to make sure. Sorry about that.”

Danjo sighed deeply as Fate sheathed his sword.

“Fate,” Danjo called out hesitantly as Fate got up. “Why… what was the point?”

“I don’t want to lose you, Danjo,” Fate said without turning back. “We lost John. I don’t want to lose you, too. But it would be worse if I stopped you from doing what you believed was right.”

With that, he left. Danjo was still shaking as he looked at the food on his plate. He could barely even hold his sandwich with his own two hands. He was afraid. But he was more afraid of what would happen to him if he didn’t go.

~~~

Only a day had passed, but Prota had already reverted to a husk of a person. She only ate, slept and bathed, doing nothing but lying on her bed for the rest of the day. Fate dropped by to see how she was doing and to give her food, but he didn’t really know how to help.

Prota had considered practicing magic, but what was the point? She didn’t really think her magic was the issue here.

She wanted to go on the mission with the others. She wanted to do something. Anything. She just didn’t want to be useless. She summoned a little ball of blue flame and stared at it, as if the fire would get rid of her metaphorical chill, but it didn’t do anything at all.

Maybe this was the end of their adventure. She’d grown. She’d gotten more than a year of life. A year of hope. It’d had its ups and downs, but it was a life she would’ve never gotten had she never met John.

It was time to end it here. They’d get John out, and she’d tell him that it was time to end it. It was better for both of them. That was the rational thing to do. That was the right thing to do, probably. Prota didn’t bother to think too hard about it.

She lifted her head as the door opened a crack. Kit trotted in with her fox form, then nudged the door shut. Prota remained silent as she watched.

“You really are lost, aren’t you?” Kit said as she converted to her human form. “I’m using up a lot of energy maintaining a barrier, so we’d better make this quick. There’s too many people around.”

Kit crouched down and stared Prota in the eyes.

“Get over it. I don’t know what’s going on with you. But you need to get over it.”

Prota tried to look away, but Kit wouldn’t let her.

“You have something you want to do, don’t you? Then do it. Go and do it. You can’t let others stop you from doing what you need to do. You’re not weak. I don’t know what’s holding you back, but you can let that beat you, or you can beat it. It’s up to you.”

Kit turned around to leave, but stopped at the door.

“What would John think if he saw you right now?”

With that, Kit turned back into a fox and left. Prota buried her face into a pillow, closing her eyes. What would John think?

She wasn’t sure.

~~~

How long had it been? John wasn’t sure. Technically it’d only been around a day, but given how much his cellmates had planned, it must’ve felt like a month. They’d begun to question why they weren’t hungry, tired or thirsty, but after some discussion, it seemed that they were ok with their situation. Whatever helped them get out faster.

John wasn’t part of the planning. He’d turned the group down. There was just no point to anything they were doing. None of them were getting out. They shot him dirty looks, but he didn’t care. They would all die within… well, whenever they got out. Out of the pan, into the fire. Now that he thought about it, how had he and Fate managed to rescue so many prisoners? Surely Doctor was more competent than that, right?

Had he and Fate just gotten lucky?

Suddenly, the door to the cell scraped open, two guards standing in the doorway.

“On your feet!”

A group of men entered the cell and roughly dragged the prisoners down the halls to another room. The lights flickered on, revealing a clean empty room with a singular drain in the middle.

“...fuck,” John muttered.

This room looked way too familiar. A singular drain. An empty room.

“Fight.”

The guards began to leave the room one by one until there was only one left.

“Wh- what do you mean?”

“Fight each other. As soon as there’s only one of you left, we’ll open the doors.”

There was a low muttering as the prisoners tried to figure out what was going on. John just sighed. It seemed that they were truly delusional. There was no point in denying it, so he just went and said it outright.

“It’s a battle royale. I- fuck. The winner gets to go home. It’s easy.”

“This one gets it. Get to it.”

The guard left the room after that, but not before he dropped a rusty dagger on the ground. John sat on the ground and leaned back. He looked at the five or so other people in the room with him. The people that had bonded. The people that had grown to care for each other.

The looks in their eyes were turning to that of greed and violence. The torture and suffering they’d been through was too much. It overcame their common sense and consumed them. The hope that had given them the strength to collaborate was now the very thing that was turning them against each other.

They all stared at each other, hesitating, wary, waiting for someone to make the first move. A small portion of rationality remained.

Unfortunately for them, John wasn’t going to wait for them to make the first move. Mana was surely prohibited in this room. Doctor wouldn’t give the prisoners a chance to escape with magic. He’d want perfect control.

Fortunately, this made it a winning fight for John.

He walked over to the knife and picked it up, checking it out. It wasn’t great, but it would be a lot better than using his bare fists.

“Hey, hold on,” one of the others said. “Let’s talk about this.”

“Talk about what?” John said, mildly annoyed. “You guys were gonna kill each other in a bit.”

“We can figure something out. They want us to kill each other. It’s a trap. We can-”

“No, we can’t. I’m not playing this game of imposter. Did you think I was gonna wait for one of you to backstab me? I’ve played enough ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ to know better.”

John toyed around with the knife as he calmly walked forward, his eyes empty. He was mildly surprised that they’d figured out that it was a trap, but he had no intention of waiting around. It was clear Doctor wouldn’t let them out until there was only one left. He checked the edge of the blade with a sigh. It was dull. The tip was pointy, though. That was good. He wasn’t too fond of making people suffer, even if they weren’t real. The room grew quiet as he looked up, scanning for his first target.

“Let’s just get this over with.”