Rei threw his entire right side forward as he buried his fist into the troll's back. A green hue of magical energy surrounded his arm as he drove his fist into the beast's stomach.

Its bare feet slid across the icy tiles and its back collided with a wall, the entire bottom floor shook from it.

I looked at the massive beast and frowned. “Even after all that…you’re still standing?”

I raised my other hand intending to blast it away when suddenly I heard Veldor’s heavy footsteps rush towards me. The hairs on my neck stood up and I faced back, only to see Veldor standing behind me with a shield raised.

An icy club crashed down on his shield and Veldor’s knees bent. The force of the club was so powerful that a wave of air pulsed off of his shield.

We were pinned.

I looked off to the side and saw Arga running under two other trolls' legs. She was running for her life, just narrowly avoiding their swift strikes. Each punch to the tiles left troll-fist-sized craters in the ground and knocked her off her feat.

Arga was blown around like a leaf in a storm, she barely stayed on her feet through it.

Just one of these guys was strong enough, then all these other ones started showing up. There’s no end to it…how are we going to get out of this?

Veldor shoved his back against mine, “What’re you spacing out for, we’ve got trouble on the staircase!”

Coming down the spiralled stairs was an army of undead soldiers. Skeletal warriors wrapped in ice and armour rushed at us with rusted weapons. What was left of their skin was whiter than snow and hung on by patches and threads, they were mostly bone.

“More Ice Walkers, why are they rushing from the upper floors?!” I gripped my chakrams and rushed towards the troll's feet.

It brought its fist down and I scaled up its arm towards its head. I nearly lost my footing running up its arm because of the specs of ice but I made it to the ear.

Its skin was tough, far too tough to cut but there was still something I hadn’t tried. The beast raged out and opened its grotesque mouth to try and chomp down on me but I avoided it. I jumped off its shoulders and flew towards the corner of the room where the wall met the ceiling.

I spun through the air and using the momentum of my spin, I threw out both chakrams. My blades glided through the air and carved out both its eyes in one slash.

The troll gripped its face in agony and fell back. Its backside crashed against the wall and bits of ice fell from the ceiling.

My blades circled the beast's head and kept it occupied. Without its sight, the troll thrashed around aimlessly at empty air.

Arga and Veldor did their best to fight off their ones too but things weren’t looking good. Veldor’s strength was in his defence, so against an enemy that only attacks, he was left to a game of endurance.

Arga however…

She gripped her sword and lifted it from the ground, another furry fist crashed down at her. Arga dodged it by a hair and the impact alone sent her flying off her feet. Her two-handed sword slid across the ground and she rolled beside it.

My eyes shut, I couldn’t bear to watch any more. “Tch! We need to regroup and take them down before we’re–”

Swish!

I reeled my head back and avoided the arrow that cracked the wall behind me. I traced it back to one of the many Ice Walkers that surrounded me. Among the warriors holding rusted axes or large swords, were soldiers bearing thin bows and a full quiver of arrows.

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“Not good!” I panicked. I was backed into a corner with Ice Walkers scattered throughout the room. To my right was the massive troll that blindly swatted at the air trying to knock away my chakrams and to my left, an army of the undead approached.

I’m trapped…

***

Harmonious scratches of pen on paper echoed through the working area of ASH. Kana’s desk was no exception.

She waved her hand over the pages with demonic speed. She signed and wrote at such a fast pace that the coworkers who passed her desk stared wide-eyed as they failed to keep up with her hands. It sped across the pages in a blur.

An office worker with round glasses walked over and stopped at Kana’s desk, after one look at her hands, she flinched.

“Uh…Miss. Mills, could I ask you about something please…”

“Sure thing, what’s up?” Kana asked as her hands continued to fly over the pages.

She worked in perfect flow. She swiftly fed the pages off the large stack onto the pile in front of her and then signed the empty spaces with perfect timing. By the time she finished signing, the next page had already fallen over the previous one and the cycle continued.

“Scary…” Mei uttered.

“Sorry, I’ve got a lot of work piled up so I can't stop. Not even for a second.”

“Oh okay…well the thing is, it’s actually regarding Rei Alos.”

Kana’s eyes flicked away from her paperwork and onto Mei with a worried brow. With her eyes off her desk, her writing hand froze. The hand holding the pen stopped cold in its tracks while the other continued to feed pages off of the stack.

The pile of pages quickly grew out of control and all fell off the table. Loose papers flew across the open office room and the surrounding desks all erupted into chaos as they were hit with stray pages.

“Sorry! Sorry! Sorry, everyone!” Kana rushed off to pick up the loose pages flying through the air.

“Ohhh man…what’s wrong this time? He couldn’t have forgotten to fill something out, I checked three times…” Kana asked herself.

Mei rushed to give Kana a hand, she grabbed pages off of the other worker's desks as she spoke and nodded in apology to each of them.

“It’s nothing like that…I was just curious about him.”

“So it’s nothing bad then? Sheeeesh~ You had me worried for a second!” Kana melted back into her chair with a sigh of relief.

Mei placed the last of the messy paperwork back on Kana’s desk. Her feet were constantly moving, even her hands restlessly fidgeted with the corner of the file. Kana grinned.

“He’s pretty amazing, isn’t he?” She asked with a warm tone.

Mei nodded with red cheeks.

“Don’t get me wrong, he’s headstrong and can be seriously oblivious sometimes! All those things annoy me but…he can be pretty cool sometimes too.” Kana blushed.

She glanced at Mei’s surprised expression and realised what she had just said. Kana quickly snapped back to reality and rushed to change the focus off of her.

“Hey, you’re not asking all this because you’re interested in him are you?”

Mei’s bloodshot cheeks burned even brighter as she lowered her chin into her raised collar.

“...no.” She muttered back.

Kana didn’t seem the least bit impressed. Her eyebrow rose and her lips pouted.

“Well, it doesn’t matter either way because he’s mine!” Kana barked.

“Yours…? What do you mean by that exactly?” Mei returned the favour with a coy smirk.

Kana’s face filled red and her eyes immediately rose to the ceiling, as if she were looking for answers on the roof.

“Uh…well I was just…I meant that he’s my client—yeah that’s it! He’s my client, so don’t try and get chummy with him, okay!” Kana gripped the ends of her desk as she leaned over it.

“Fine, I get it, I get it.” Mei looked away in defeat.

“Hmph! You better.”

Kana leaned back in her chair with a triumphant grin but that soon faded away after Mei’s question,

“So where is the soon-to-be silver rank now?”

“He’s off in the Tower, again.” She fell back into her chair and sank until her body was half off the chair and towards the floor.

“Already?! He only just got back from fighting those talking monsters, is he okay to be fighting again so soon?”

“He seemed fine when we spoke but I couldn’t refuse him. There wasn’t a scratch on his body when he came to see me, he must have healed already.”

“Still though…that kind of recovery is unheard of, even by the Gold-ranked members.” Mei’s tone fell as she went into deep thought.

Kana turned her attention out the window and rested her jaw over her palm,

“He’s impressing everyone these days. I just wish he’d make some time for me now and then…”