Episode 29: Don’t Fight Me, Ignite Me, Part 3

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Yonah pushed Victoria behind her. As Caim was now, he could easily tear her to pieces. Victoria might be powerful, but she wasn’t fast or particularly resilient. That’s why they needed each other to maximize their potential, and now it was just her.

She’d have to be enough.

To start fulfilling her mission, she wildly lunged at Caim with her daggers, launching a flurry of attacks that were barely visible to the naked eye.

Of course, she couldn't just attack. At the same time, she gave it her all to dodge the ever-approaching tentacles.

It was madness.

It was like reaching into a blender. But she had no other choice. She had to make him lose ground; she couldn’t let him get too close to Victoria. This meant, of course, taking on the same risk. Her head could fly off at any moment. She’d die pathetically without even realizing it, and then the thing possessing Caim would massacre Victoria effortlessly before she could cast any spell.

That was... unthinkable.

She had to win.

She noticed that Caim was missing an arm, and her heart leapt into her throat. Anyone would think it should have been the first thing she saw, but in the middle of that forest of tentacles, there was little time to notice anything.

Yonah crossed her daggers in front of her chest, blocking the onslaught of a tentacle that the thing possessing Caim used as a battering ram. It didn’t knock her off her feet, it didn’t break her, but it did drag her back several meters. She didn’t lose all the ground she had gained with her desperate efforts, but a significant part of it. Moreover, the ground was torn apart, the stones uplifted.

She was lucky to be alive. She had blocked the blow, and even so, it left her arms trembling. If she had taken a direct hit, it would have turned her torso into a huge, empty hole.

But still, she cast aside her doubt and charged at Caim again.

The conditions for victory hadn’t changed. For the sake of the three of them, she had to keep him away from Victoria long enough.

Her only hope was to buy Victoria enough time to cast a spell that could defeat Caim in one strike. She didn’t believe she could manage it a second time, so as unreasonable as it seemed, it had to work on the first try. Otherwise, they could kiss the world goodbye.

And even then, it would only be to defeat him.

As for saving him, bringing their Caim back…

They’d cross that bridge when they came to it.

Yonah jumped, flipping, cutting through half a dozen of the overwhelming tentacles in the air. No matter how many they cut, more always came, and it seemed the total never changed.

The pieces fell towards her. Yonah steeled herself and dodged forward, not backward, leaping over Caim's head and that sea of tentacles. No, it wasn’t Caim, but… Even though she knew it in her head, it was hard for her heart to distinguish what was from what she was seeing.

That’s why she was even holding back. As if she could kill him if she slipped up, as if she could afford it in the first place when her life was hanging by a very thin thread.

She believed, she wanted to believe, that she wasn’t the only one doing so.

Yonah was getting too close to attack (once, because she had no other choice; now she wished Caim had taught her how to shoot). Yes, okay, she was fast. But no matter how fast she was, it was strange that she had come out unscathed until now.

He must be resisting, consciously or unconsciously.

Trying to avoid mortal blows.

Yes, she had almost died a moment ago, but that’s why it was a fight. She never said it was easy for her. Yonah couldn’t tell if it was just what she wanted to see, but…

She needed something to hold on to.

Not just for the future; the future didn’t matter much right now, with her neck ready for the executioner’s axe.

She lived in the moment.

A moment in which her life was as fragile as the last leaf of a tree waving in the wind with the arrival of autumn.

That suggested her death was inevitable.

Was it?

Yonah was as afraid of dying as any person, but she wouldn’t mind if it meant something. For example, if sacrificing herself could buy Caim and Victoria’s survival, that would be acceptable. Not ideal, of course, but the world wasn’t ideal; it demanded sacrifices at every step of the way.

That’s precisely why it was very unlikely she’d have the luck, the privilege, of seeing if her sacrifice was worth it before dying.

So, she couldn’t accept her death as inevitable. Clinging to the hope that Caim, in his own way, was fighting by her side, that in reality, it was three against one, she’d keep going.

But her determination would come to an end almost as quickly as it formed in her mind. She had made a mistake, and now she wouldn’t be able to dodge. As a result, tentacles would crush her head. Even if she dodged and disabled one with her daggers, another would catch her. She had missed the opportunity to dodge entirely.

However, she didn’t need to dodge.

A wall of ice formed between her and the tentacles, stopping them just in time.

Of course, she didn’t have such an ability, and they couldn’t be lucky enough to have someone else stumble upon this and decide to lend a hand.

Victoria was responsible for this.

She should be grateful for saving her life, but that meant all the power invested in preparing a one-hit-kill spell had been redirected to an ice wall to defend her when Victoria saw she wouldn’t survive without help.

Which meant her desperate efforts so far had been in vain. She could only hope that Victoria hadn’t let her emotions control her, that she hadn’t done this just to save her life, knowing Yonah would’ve done the same for her if she could.

She decided to believe Victoria had made a rational decision, that she hadn’t had time to finish the offensive version, so if she hadn’t saved her, both would have died horribly.

She decided to believe it was all her fault for not being fast enough.

For not giving Victoria the time she needed.

It was easier to think that way for her.

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Many other people would have been crushed under the weight of guilt, but this was the kind of guilt Yonah could handle. Knowing the two of them could have been saved, at least, but Victoria had wasted that chance just out of love? That was a different story. That was unbearable.

She had to try twice as hard to ensure that terrible future never came to pass. Now everything was in her hands.

Since she couldn’t do it the first time, it was now less likely she’d succeed. Not much time had passed since the fight began, but keeping this pace was exhausting. And every attack she blocked instead of narrowly dodging left her whole body trembling, even without a direct hit.

She feared her body would fail her.

She feared she had already squandered the chance to win and was now merely prolonging the inevitable.

After meeting Caim, she found something new to fear every day. But there were many good times too. To recover them, to extend them into the blank pages of the future (by the gods, they had a whole life ahead of them), she just had to keep up a little longer.

What was this small suffering compared to the years of happiness they could have, would have when they succeeded?

Just a little more, one last effort.

Of course, that wasn’t strictly true. Even if everything went perfectly now, they still had a long way to go and countless battles as bad or worse than this one to leave the Tower and this infernal place behind.

But she needed to believe it.

She needed to believe it was that simple, that everything she wanted was within reach.

That’s how humans functioned. Step by step, even the most arduous task seemed possible. So, for now, she only had to concentrate on this step. She would set aside everything else. All the fear, the doubt, and…

Yes, the urge to succumb to despair. Because it was always easier than continuing to fight.

That determination would create the key to the future she desired.

She would grasp that future with her own hands.

Caim’s arm suddenly regenerated in the blink of an eye. So he managed to surprise her and grab her by the neck while she spun above him, having jumped.

By tempting fate, the doors to that future seemed to slam shut. But Yonah slipped out of his grip with ease. All she had to do, painful as it was, was cut off his hand.

His blood splattered on her face, and she squinted as it hit her.

It spilled on the ground too. Red. Of course, his blood was red, what else would it be?

Things went well for a while. She wasn’t advancing, but she didn’t need to win, just to give Victoria the chance to deliver the finishing blow (the first and last, for the sake of the three), but life always found a way to kick you in the mouth. Especially when you thought you had everything under control.

He grabbed her by a leg and lifted her, leaving her hanging upside down, completely at his mercy.

Their gazes met again.

Once more, Yonah saw nothing familiar in that look. Not even a small spark of recognition.

Caim could rage and lose control, he was a human being like any other, but the rage burning in his eyes now was something inhuman and blind. It wasn’t that, after having forgotten them, he believed everyone was his enemy or something like that. He didn’t need such a complex reason. He wanted to tear her to pieces because she had gotten in his way. That was all and nothing more.

It was an instant, but it felt like an eternity.

Before he threw her aside. Against and through a wall. The debris followed her inside, along with an expanding cloud of dust that got into her lungs and caused several dry coughs as if she were trying to vomit something stuck halfway, but that was putting it mildly.

It felt more like a train had run over her, with the obvious exception that she wouldn’t have survived that. Still coughing, she crawled forward on the ground, pushing the debris away from her. She should at least try to stand up, but her legs were trembling too much.

At that speed, of course, she couldn’t escape from Caim.

Crawling on the ground as if her legs were broken. And she didn’t escape; he grabbed her legs with his own hands. But, once again, he didn’t take the opportunity to tear them off, to mortally wound her. Instead, as soon as he had her within reach, at his mercy, he grabbed her hand…

And broke it.

Yonah stifled a scream, her face suddenly red and covered in sweat. Whoever was in control seemed more interested in returning her than in killing her. For now.

If Caim hadn’t been able to offer more than the slight resistance of diverting his attacks and avoiding fatal blows, she couldn’t depend on him now that she was defeated. Even if his hands swerved a bit to the left or right, he would still end up breaking her neck anyway.

Her hope…

As from the beginning, was Victoria.

The hope that she had given her the necessary time. The hope that Caim wouldn’t be able to dodge the spell, and that whatever spell it was would be able to knock him out in the first place without risking killing him. There were too many unknowns in what they called a plan.

However…

With eyes filled with tears of pain, she looked at him intently.

“Caim, calm down. I’m here, I’m here. I will never abandon you.”

Even as that monster twisted her wrist more.

Even as she felt the bones breaking.

She called out to him again and again, as if trying to calm him. As if promising him that everything would be okay.

In the end, her hand had twisted one hundred and eighty degrees and hung grotesquely.

If it weren’t for the pain, she wouldn’t even feel it. It was as if it were no longer part of her body.

She felt disconnected, in general. Despite the strong emotion contained in her voice, an indescribable emotion, it was as if her soul had detached from her body and now she was watching the scene from the point of view of a third party who had nothing to do with it.

She would like to be very, very far away from here, but not in that sense.

And not alone, of course. She would do whatever it took to not face another day alone for the rest of her life.

That’s why I’m… We’re here.

That’s why things have ended up like this, right?

No. As she watched Caim’s face contorting with the savage pleasure of causing harm, of subduing prey, she realized that wasn’t true. If the three of them shared the same desire, Caim would have been content with what he already had, never venturing in search of the Tower. No matter who turned their back on him, how they treated him, they would always be by his side.

Victoria, especially, had given him the ultimate proof. Killing her own father for him. After something like that, it was impossible to doubt her. Although it wasn’t as if she thought Caim doubted her or had any reason to do so.

Just that… That was it. The ultimate proof, what more could he want?

Caim let go of the wreck that her hand had been reduced to. Yonah was surprised. She thought he would tear it off completely. One pull and that’s it, it was barely still connected to her body.

Caim knew perfectly well that they would always be there for him, only it wasn’t enough for him. With them. Yes, to put it bluntly, there was no other way to look at it. And it wasn’t a selfish desire, because anyone would want to be accepted, validated. Especially after long years of systematic abuse. From the youngest kid to the oldest person, everyone feared and hated the mark of the beast, the devil’s horns. That’s how things were. That’s how they had been for many, many years.

“No one can stand in my way anymore.” At least until now, he had remained silent.

Those were his words, his voice. But that excessive malice, that tone…

What a knife to the heart. Unrecognizable. Completely.

It had to be like that, because Caim was no longer Caim, but…

She saw Victoria on the other side of the “tunnel” created by her dramatic entrance. She was holding the staff with both hands, raising it high. But she still wasn’t ready, it was obvious.

She didn’t mean it in a good way. That she wasn’t ready to cast the spell and risk killing Caim, since nothing weaker would bring him down, especially now that he was stronger than ever.

Simply, the spell wasn’t ready yet. That was all.

So… There was no time left or second or third chances.

If she had known from the beginning that the end of the path they had chosen to walk would be so dark and bitter, her decision wouldn’t have changed. But, even so, what a pity.

“Don’t you even recognize me? I know you’re there, somewhere. I can feel it. We’re family, we feel these things.”

Blood didn’t bind them, but that didn’t matter.

If only they had stopped fooling around and retired to, say, a cabin in the woods. Their souls surrounded by the purest nature, letting them heal. That would have been nice. Of course, as long as they were together, anything would be fine.

If there were life after death, at least they could meet again on the other side. Cold comfort, but comfort nonetheless.

“I recognize you,” said the creature. “You are a chain about to break forever.”

Yonah felt a shiver even before his hands rested on her neck. In fact, she barely noticed the touch; his hands were like those of a ghost. Or maybe she was the ghost.

He didn’t squeeze, cutting off the air. At least she could say goodbye.

Though she didn’t know what the hell to say.

She felt tears running down her cheeks.

They had little to do with physical pain, naturally.

She could reach out, grab one of her daggers, and stab him in the chest. And what would she achieve with that? Well, nothing. In the next instant, he would break her damned neck, so it was the same as doing nothing. Accepting the results of her decisions, of her efforts.

Don’t Fight Me, Ignite Me, Part 3: END