Oriz wrapped her arm around Bella’s neck and pulled her back.

“No!” Zoe shouted as she charged toward her friends.

The distance closed, but she was still too far, and there were no portals to step through.

Skidmark flung blinding lighting at Oriz, but the assassin deflected it with an open palm. A grass blade shot out from between her fingers and sliced Skidmark’s throat. The woman dropped, her hands wrapped around the wound as blood flowed.

“Stop,” Bella cried out as she reached for her sword. “Don’t do this!”

“I’m doing this for us,” Oriz hissed.

She grabbed the sword from Bella.

“No!”

Bella thrust an elbow back, but it cracked against Oriz’s reinforced body. She screamed at the pain. Dark energy flooded from her and swallowed Oriz. For a moment, Oriz staggered and bowed under the weight of Bella’s body path.

Anton charged, his palm out and ready to plant his technique. Oriz’s leg blurred, and she kicked him in the stomach hard enough to send him flying. His eyes winked out from the force of the blow.

“You don’t know what’s good for you,” she said through gritted teeth. “These friends will lead you to your death!”

Bella struggled.

“Rather them than you!”

Oriz threw Bella to the ground. She placed one foot on Bella’s chest, pinning her, and raised the blade above her head.

“By virtue of my power, I claim this blade!”

“No! Please, no!”

The runeblade lit up with a fiery light as a howl spun out. Dust whipped into a cyclone as the runeblade retracted its barbed roots from Bella’s flesh. Blood flowed as Bella screamed.

Zoe arrived and swung a mirror-coated fist toward Oriz. The alien spun the howling runeblade and parried. A clang rang out, the harmony broken, discordant, swallowed by a caustic screech. Heat bubbled over Zoe’s Mirror and she gritted her teeth against the stinging pain.

Oriz smiled as the roots of the blade dug through her flesh. Grass Skein poured up from the wounds and wrapped around the blade in an exchange of veins. Vibrant green Skein pulsed beneath her skin.

She swung. The runeblade boosted her stats and Zoe couldn’t dodge, only parry, but the blade sank through her Mirror and into her flesh.

Blood flowed, and Zoe bit down on her scream.

“You never deserved her love,” Oriz said as she yanked the blade free and swung again. “You never deserved their faith. You are nothing but--”

Zoe grabbed the blade. It sunk into her hand. A wind of void and space pulled at her flesh. She screamed and flung the sword aside. In that momentary opening, a hound leaped from her chest. The metal beast crashed into Oriz, jaws clamping around her throat. It snarled and tore.

Lightning arced out. Skidmark had pulled herself to her knees. One hand cauterized the wound in her throat as she flung a blinding chain of white electricity at the metal hound. It coursed through the beast's body and into Oriz. Her blood boiled and spat as it flowed from her body.

But the alien laughed.

She bucked and kicked the red hot glowing hound away. It crashed into the cave ceiling and disintegrated.

Oriz stood, swaying, more like a puppet than a person as the barbed wires of the runeblade guided her.

Zoe ignored her wounds and charged. Mirrored chains spun out from her back as Moth guided the attacks. Zoe punched with her good hand. The blow sank into Oriz’s guts, but the runeblade whistled down in a counter. Zoe bent backward as her chains lashed forward. Blade met chain in a clanging rhythm. Zoe tried to grip the harmony, but the twisted howl of the runeblade destroyed her attempts.

Oriz sliced through the chains with an enraged shout and charged at Zoe. Her attacks grew frenzied as she swung the sword faster and faster.

“Again and again you lead people into danger! Your selfishness causes pain! How do you like it when it happens to you?”

Zoe leaped back, blood flowing from a dozen wounds. Her Mirror tried to plug the wounds, but Moth ached. Zoe stared at the face of madness attacking her. There was nothing to say, only actions could put down a rabid dog, but she was slowing, growing weaker.

Oriz parried another blast of lightning and thrust the blade toward Zoe.

Bella leaped up in front of the attack.

Oriz faltered, her blade going wide as she slid to a stop. Her eyes widened.

“What are you doing?”

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“Stop,” Bella said, staggering, tears streaming down her face, blood flowing from her ruptured flesh. “Stop, please. Don’t hurt them. I’ll go with you if you leave them alone.”

Zoe heaved a breath.

“Bella, you don’t have --”

“It’s alright, Zoe,” Bella said. “You don’t have to fight for me.”

Oriz’s eyes glowed like the dawn as she reached out a hand.

“I knew you’d understand.”

Bella reached out and gripped Oriz’s hand. She held her tight.

“Now!”

Black energy flooded from Bella’s body and wrapped around Oriz. The runeblade hit the floor like a ten-ton anchor, and Oriz buckled. A yellow fire burned in her eyes as her body trembled. She struggled to lift the blade, but it remained as fixed to the ground as her knees.

“How could you --”

Zoe brought both fists down like a hammer. A bell of Mirror formed around them as she struck Oriz’s skull with all of her Might. A toll rang out clean and pure, and Zoe seized the vibrations running through Oriz. Remorse panged, a fraction of a moment, a sliver of regret — things should have never come to this — and then she collapsed the harmony.

A portal split Oriz’s skull in twain. Her head opened and gore burst out as she reeled back. She slumped. Blood spilled from her mouth as she swayed.

“You… you… you…”

Zoe could see her brain, and though she’d seen such gore many times before, a sickness coiled in her stomach.

Oriz sagged and swayed like grass in the wind. A green glow formed through the jagged wound in her skull, and verdant threads slowly extended like stitches to pull the wound shut. A visceral, squishing sound filled the air as Oriz pulled herself back together. Her eyes flickered between cloudy and clear as she hovered on death’s edge.

But she remained alive, and with every passing heartbeat, she resisted the reaper. Such was the power of one who passed beyond level 50.

Zoe sighed. She didn’t want to do this — to keep doing this — how many more betrayals would there be? How many friends would turn on her?

“Why?” she asked Oriz.

She stood above her crouching mentor. Two yellow eyes, spread further apart than they should be, latched onto her. Hateful flames glowed within. Oriz’s skull creaked as it reformed.

“You… you are… you’re cursed…”

Zoe sighed.

“We’re all cursed, Oriz. Every one of us is under a System’s thumb. All we have is each other, but I don’t think you understand that.”

Oriz grasped for the runeblade, but the black energy dripped from her like ink. Her fingers clutched and clawed, but she couldn’t reach the long handle of the runeblade.

Zoe raised her fist. She wished it would all end in a single blow, but something told her she would be punching again and again until Oriz finally died. She didn’t feel like a surgeon, an executioner, or even a butcher — she felt like a beast.

Hounds snarled within her blood, and she smiled. If she was to be a beast and tear the throat from the gods above, then so be it. She raised her hand and fed a trickle of time between her fingers.

[Mind’s Eye Incision] grew into a slender blade wreathed in time.

“No,” Bella said as she gripped Zoe’s arm. “Let me.”

“Bella…”

Her pale fingers held Zoe’s dark-skinned biceps, so light, but the force tugged like gravity. Cancelling her techniques, Zoe felt the backlash of abusing [Empress in Time]. Her visions grew dizzy as she turned to Bella. It was a bad idea. She knew it was a bad idea. This had to be ended, and it was something building for so long — part of her believed Oriz had seen this coming since that first fateful meeting in the dunes of Purgatory. She felt a shadow of sympathy for the woman, even as her brains oozed from the gash in her skull. What would it be like living so close to the person you betrayed? Watching them grow stronger, and knowing that retribution must fall like a star from the sky?

“Are you sure?”

Zoe couldn’t say everything on her mind. She couldn’t even put it into words, for the look in her friend’s eyes stopped her. [Our Hearts Toll as One] said everything, and Zoe sighed.

Bella crouched down and lifted the runeblade from beneath Oriz’s grasping fingers.

“I reclaim this blade,” she whispered.

A slight gasp came from her as the brambles drew themselves out of Oriz’s flesh and dove into hers. Zoe couldn’t imagine the feeling of something borrowing through her flesh like that — especially after they were just yanked out — but Bella merely trembled as she lifted the runeblade above her head.

“I loved you,” she said.

Oriz looked up.

“Nobody… knows you like I do…”

Her skull was almost completely back together. The black energy pulling her toward the ground flickered and steamed as Bella pushed her body path to the edge.

Skidmark stumbled closer. She propped up a woozy Anton. Her throat was burned and gashed. Her pale skin was bone white from blood loss.

“Do it,” Skidmark croaked. “Kill the bitch.”

“Shut up, Skidmark,” Zoe said.

This all felt so wrong. It shouldn’t have come to this. She wished she could activate [Fools Rush In], but that power was long gone. Neither her, nor Anton had any charges remaining.

But Bella…

“You can undo this,” Zoe whispered to Bella. “Burn away this timeline.”

“That power never came back after the Gambler died,” Bella said as tears dripped down her cheek. “Besides, some things need to happen.”

The blade dropped, but they had waited too long. Oriz reached up. Her hand moved in a blur as it snapped free of the black energy. She grasped Bella’s wrist. The blade still fell as Bella drove it toward her former lover. Before the blade sank into flesh, grass exploded.

Zoe blinked.

Oriz and Bella were gone. Her Willpower rushed out and cracked the floor below her.

“Damnit!”

“You should have done it yourself,” Anton croaked.

“Shut up, Anton,” Skidmark said. “Now’s not the time.” She gave Zoe a side-eye. “You should have, though, that’s what makes you the boss.”

“I know,” Zoe said as she ran her hands down her face. “I know, I know, I know!” She was so tired. So done. “Anton, find them.”

“Boss, I’m…”

“Find them!”

The air screeched as her voice tore it apart. Her friends’ hearts trembled through the link, but Zoe didn’t care. Rage boiled in her mind. She closed her eyes and focused on breathing as Anton spread his silver scouting technique throughout the cave.

“They’re not in the cave, but I see some tunnels.”

“Then look in the tunnels,” Skidmark said with an exasperated sigh.

“Right, right?”

Zoe leaned against the cave wall. She spent all she had on that fight. If it wasn’t for Bella’s damn heart…

No.

She loved Bella for her heartfelt humanity. That was the person she needed beside her. Zoe’s role was to shield her, and she failed.

She spat out blood. A tooth lay in the puddle. It would grow back.

She reached through [Our Hearts Toll as One] but the connection skipped like static. Could it be the heavy layers of rock and earth between them? Maybe Oriz had a method of canceling the technique? Maybe Bella was already…

No, that wouldn’t happen. Oriz couldn’t be that deranged. At least, Zoe hoped.

“God damn,” she said. “Without Bella, we can’t cut a portal out of here.”

“Oh…” Skidmark said. “What do we do then?”

Zoe stared at the empty space where Oriz had crouched. She was so close to ending it, but instead things only got worse. Was there a lesson here? Had empathy failed her? Oriz had said time and again that there was no place for humanity’s misguided approach in the world of the System. Did this just prove her right?

She gritted her teeth as she yanked her eyes away from where Oriz had crouched. The island’s lifetime could be counted in hours, and Zoe would settle this before then.