“This isn't our fight!” Nos shouted as he dodged another unspawn tentacle that pierced the ground beside him.

With an upward swing of his punch dagger, he sliced off the appendage of the creature just in time to sidestep another tentacle whizzing by him. He caught the limb under his arm and was dragged around for a moment, feet leaving trailed in the dirt. Finally, he found the right angle to attack and plunged his blade in and vivisected the joint.

Lua was attempting to rush in towards the bull unspawn's main body, but the barrage of tentacles she had to cut through slowed her advance. “If we leave, they'll just chase us down!” Every step she took was less then her last, her twin blades dancing furiously, green metal glinting off light with each cut.

“No!” Seks added. “Nos is right. If we want to catch up to The Janus, some of us might have to bite it.”

Pempe provided cover from the wave of small unspawns that were attacking from the east. “I'm losing strength of the trace I've placed on her.” Nos could see Pempe's mind work on the options. “Seks, Trini, Four, hold them off with a bunker. Lua, Nos, you're with me.”

It was another one of those times where Nos greatly admired his classmate for always picking up the bag in making the hardest of choices. Deciding who lived and died must be by no means an easy choice for Pempe to make, yet he did so with barely a blink.

“Alright, we'll split. Five minutes,” Trini exclaimed their estimated holdout duration. “Try not to die.”

Immediately, Pempe let the way out of the main streets while Nos and Lua followed. Nos took a quick look back towards his classmates. Trini had taken the water from the drizzling rain and frozen a ring of ice around them, setting up a slippery perimeter. Seks created a dome of earth while Four-Chan set up another border of light pillars to fire on her command. The formidable makeshift fortress fired on their enemies, nigh-impenetrable. Beams of light flashed from the towers of light, blasting away at anything small while Seks focused on blocking off attacks from the bull unspawn with pillars of earth. Anything else that got through fought Trini on icy ground and were swiftly cut down. But with numbers from the unspawns, they would eventually be overwhelmed. And the amount of magical energy needed to create the bunker meant the group would not be able to make a second one should the first fall.

They had to hurry.

Together, the trio raced north. Moving through unfamiliar streets, it did not take long for them to realize where they were headed. The Wendereight Embassy was the only building amidst a district of burrow houses, its high structure standing clear with marble stone and ornamental corners, the roof a dirty clay above the bushy trees. The rain was picking up, and their feet sloshed through muddying grounds and runny puddles. Soon the tree trunks cleared and the large double door of the embassy came into view.

From his peripherals, Nos saw movements. “We have incoming!” Unspawn hunters galloped unevenly around the trees, chasing after them. “Book it!”

Going from a race into a sprint, they ran with primal instinct, pushing aside branches and using pulls at trees to gain that slight burst in speed. Of them, Nos was the quickest. Of course he was. Of all of them, he had the least magic prowess and had to compensate whatever raw magical power he lacked with pure physique. Nearly a decade of training and honing his physical skill complemented by his little magic was what got him into the academy in the first place.

Crossing the courtyard of the embassy, he basically slammed into the barrier at top speed. Quickly, he pulled opened the double doors and slipped inside, widening the entrance enough for his classmates to run through. He counted as they passed by him. One. Two. Three?

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Did he miscount?

It wasn't time to double check his maths. Pulling the handle, he yanked and closed the door shut. Just after, the frame gave a silent tremble from the unspawns smashing against the outside, dust falling off the archway. Thankfully, it seemed the creatures were not particularly smart enough, only pushing against a pull door. But for added assurance, he took the large wooden door bar and dropped it into the lock.

Through panting breaths, Nos gave a sigh of relief before turning around to face the embassy lobby. The floor was marbled with the black stones known to Wandereight, and the white walls raised up the sides of the larger foyer towards decks and railed corridors above, all lighted by white cryst lamps at each of the sixteen supporting pillar as well as the chandelier that dangled from above.

Surprisingly, there was no one around, and Nos speculated that as Janus, the woman must have cleared the embassy earlier.

Two staircases curved at the corners opposing the entrance. Between the two stairs was another large double door. And betwixt the door and the trio was a third figure. A familiar face that stood facing them, armed.

Lua voiced in surprise, “Joachim?”

Before them the mute teen stood, having rushed in at the last moment. Like them, he was rain soaked and boot muddied, and his eyes were bagged and red. In the light, the cuts to his clothing and light wounds underneath showed he did not have an easy time, likely having gone through battles of his own. He locked determined eyes with Nos.

“Where's Enneya?” Lua asked.

Joachim's head lowered slightly, though still looking at Nos who was starting to get annoyed by his stare.

“But at least you're okay,” Pempe added hastily. “We're going after The Janus. Another hand will go a long way.”

Lua and Pempe continued forward, heading towards the second double door. Throughout it all, Joachim did not move and his eyes were kept squarely on Nos. The latter had an inkling of what was going to happen next but he took a step forward anyway. The bladed yo-yo shot out towards Nos but stopped right before his face, steel whistling with the spin and cutting short just of his eyes before being tugged back into Joachim's hand.

Nos noted, “I don't think I'm going.”

Lua and Pempe looked on in shock. The latter voiced, surprised, “Joachim?”

Nos quickly continued, “You don't have time for this.” Echoing his earlier statement to the rest of his classmates, he added, “Lua, Pempe, this isn't your fight. It's mine.”

Worried but impatient, Lua egged, “We're running out of time.”

Nos saw Pempe look at him but he did not take his eyes off Joachim. “He wants me. Go. We'll catch up.”

Echoing Trini, Lua gave a curt nod. “Three minutes. Try not to die.” She jogged off, pulling a reluctant Pempe along towards the opposite double door.

With just the two of them immediately left, Nos confronted Joachim. “What's up?”

Joachim pointed to Nos and drew a line across his own throat.

Nos could understand where the mute was coming from. He had personally witnessed the death of multiple of their friends in traumatising proximity that neither him nor the others had to. And while Nos was not as close to their classmates as Joachim was, he was already seeing the pragmatism of dying out of order and ending the fight early. Trini, Seks, and Four-Chan were still fighting, and he had no idea what happened to Shichi and Shimona. But with The Janus within arm's reach for Lua and Pempe, Nos was ready to do what needed to be done to prevent further bloodshed. If he killed Joahcim there and then, the fighting outside would end, and reinforments might arrive for the two facing down The Janus.

“I would ask you to say something, but then again, you can't, can you?” Nos and Joachim had never truly warmed up to each other over the seasons. “But if you want to kill me, you're going to have to fight for it.”

Joachim got into a battle stance as behind him, Lua and Pempe walked through the double doors into the next room. Nos held his single punch dagger's handle in reflection and with a click, separated his weapon into two thinner and lighter daggers. He was going to have to be offensive. If anything of their sparring matches taught him was that Joachim liked to keep a range, which was detrimental as Nos excelled up close.

“You're up on deck.” Nos readied himself.

Opposite, his opponent's back gave a soft grey glow through his torn shirt as the magic circuits activated. A breeze emanated from Joachim's centre as magical wind poured out.

“Deal.”