Unity didn’t notice himself move. He simply stared as Crow fell, eyed the boy while he lay against the stone and painted his lap in entrails. Moments passed, then, seemingly by magic, he was at his side. A burn in his legs and a cold, wind-touched sensation against his cheeks.

Kneeling by the boy, separated by as many feet as he was fathoms just moments ago, Unity found himself retching.

The perpetual flush of pink life had vanished from Crow’s tanned skin; replaced by a sheet-pale and waxy complexion that seemed closer to the bones strewn around them than flesh. Shock, Unity imagined. Or, perhaps more likely, exsanguination. He could see a thick flow of blood pooling around the boy as he eyed him.

The leaking ichor stole Unity’s calm in an instant, sending a terrified chill running down his spine and leaving a tremble in his hands.

Guts, as deep a red as the liquid life drying against Crow’s chin, wrinkled and ringed like a mass of worms digging through the same bed of soil. They seemed to contort, bloating one moment to almost deflate the next as they oozed revoltingly through the bifurcated belly that held them.

Tears welled at the smell. Iron and bile, acid and shit. It was almost enough to drive Unity back, force him from his friend to vomit until all trace of the reek had left his nostrils.

Instead he steeled himself, tightening lids hard about wetted eyes until the tears retreated to their ducts.

Unity forced his face nearer the gash. An ugly thing stretching a cubit from one end to another, a half-hand at its broadest. At such proximity the stench was intolerable. He leaned back and made a puddle of his breakfast.

For moments he saw nothing but the vomit as it escaped him. Then movement drew his gaze back to Crow.

The boy coughed, spewing blood and spit upon his own peeping entrails as he leaned forwards- the tensing of his abdomen sickeningly apparent in how it made the protruding organs shift.

Unity scrambled towards him on scraped knees, placing a hand on his shoulder as rage warred with worry to dictate his words.

“Sit back you idiot, you’ll die!”

His emotions, it seemed, had settled in a draw.

“I need to fight.” Crow muttered, numbly. Voice low and soft, making crimson bubbles and salivating pink-stained foam as the breath left him. Unity wanted to demand he save what little oxygen they could be certain he had left.

“You need to lie back and close your eyes.” He answered, fighting to keep the anger from his tone.

Crow hadn’t been transported from the stage, and Unity could only deduce that it was because the boy had somehow retained consciousness after being hollowed out. If that were the case, lulling him to sleep would take him from the battle.

And quite possibly save his life.

“No.” The boy snapped, giving Unity pause through the weight of certainty behind his voice.

He met Crow’s eyes, finding them suddenly focused. Runic green piercing the fog of agony like a spear through mist.

“What are you-” Unity began, cursing as Crow continued forcing himself up. Even in spite of the terrible wound across his gut, magic made him too strong to pin.

“Crow, stop!” He swore, tumbling back as his friend straightened to a stand.

Unity needn’t have bothered with his warning, for Crow glanced down at the exposed guts of his own volition. Eyes widened at the sight of intestines hanging between parted flesh, now reaching down to his knees and swaying pendelously.

“Oh.” He said, short and blunt. He sounded as though a flaw in his schoolwork had been exposed. Shock, as clear as any case Unity had ever seen.

At least he’ll feel no pain, for now.

Crow staggered back, his shoulders hitting the wall and his eyes widening in horror as the guts rocked with the movement. Disbelief marred his stare, but Unity couldn’t fault him for it.

He hasn’t pissed himself. I wonder if I’d compose myself so well, were I in his place.

The wondering stopped as he approached the boy; slowly, cautiously. Fearing he might lash out in a confused rage. The worry was unneeded, for Crow looked at him with an unbroken lucidity.

“I need to fight.” He said, eying Unity unhesitatingly. That look alone told him, through the sheer, hysterical lack of hesitation on display, that there would be no reasoning with the boy.

“You can’t, like that,” Unity said. As Crow stiffened, shoulders squaring in preparation for a fight, he hurriedly continued. “But… I can help you.”

Because you’re a coward. He sneered to himself, thoughts turning against one another like starved wolves. Because, despite knowing what you ought do, you haven’t the stomach or will to do it. Just as that infernal eating test in the first stage showed to all the world.

“How?” Crow asked. Eyes wide, face relaxed. Save for the spasmic tensions as pain began to leak through his shock.

There was trust plastered across every inch of that face, sending uncertainty and apprehension to stab deep in Unity’s gut. He raised hands crackling with magic as an answer.

“By taking a risk.”

Astra recognised Gemini Menza in an instant, yet found herself able to muster neither surprise nor confusion at the girl’s presence. The undead drove all thought from her head with its assault; leaving room for nothing, save a mindless adherence to her own instincts and training.

Fire ran along her shoulder as the sword of pitch hissed by, blood wetting her tunic and pulling the fabric tight against her as it welled from the gash. Astra cried out despite herself, then the undead strangled the sound as it brought its blade sidelong to catch her again.

A blue pillar jutted up from beside her, slower than the sword swing yet starting a moment sooner. It rose to Astra’s height just in time to intercept the blade; leaving cobalt fractals to rain down as the metal sank deep into it.

She moved without sparing a glance at Deka, thanking the girl in silence.

The undead was driven back a half pace by Astra’s kick, its shield coming about to crunch into her. Even guarded and anchored, she felt her feet leave the ground and a wind at her back as she flew yards from the enemy.

Gemini Ren Menza moved to replace her.

Astra was awed by the girl’s speed; faster than her in all ways, and with a grace to do her swiftness justice. Her hands were aglow with magic as she came at the enemy, turning the air hot around them and making it move in rolling waves.

Even while building energy like that, she can spare potency enough to move the way she does?

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Something peculiar built in the pit of Astra’s stomach. Harsh and unpleasant, like the taste of fish oil on her tongue. She dismissed it, watching the Gemini strike.

Her fists left dents and buckles without fail; fingers dragging across the battered metal to further marr its surface in great streaks of glowing red, seeming to make the very armour bleed.

The undead’s sword retaliated, stabbing and slashing to no aveil. The Gemini danced back, a smirk pulling at her face. Lopsided and playful, it set her eyes alight and seemed to make every inch of her glow.

Look at me. The smile seemed to say. Aren’t I amazing?

It was the very grin Astra had seen on one newspaper after another for years, always seeming to beckon her ever further into training. A challenge that had called out long before she first saw its owner in person.

Very well then, Miss Menza. It’s time for me to finally answer it.

She rushed forth as the undead closed on the Gemini, its blade cutting air in practice for the girl’s flesh. Menza backed away without hesitation, seeming entirely at ease in her retreat.

Astra came to the battling pair just as a particularly wide swing left the giant off balance.

Heels met metal, set it screeching against the stone floor in a stumbling fight for balance. The Gemini hurled more searing energy, hot and heavy as it flew like splashing magma. Their assault bought only seconds of unsteadiness.

Then their enemy was moving again.

Unity fought himself as Crow writhed. He could see the pain plastered across his teammate, covering his face like wallpaper and resisting him like a tempest. Every moment he maintained the touch of magic felt like a betrayal greater than any he’d even considered before.

Yet he continued. Looking into the boy’s eyes, seeing the unerring determination they held, how could he not?

The air assailed him as he worked, choking stench not clearing an iota while Unity let his magic seep into Crow.

He felt his thoughts extend to the boy’s flesh, running through the tattered meat on a slighter scale by the moment. Tissue turning to cells, cells to the very molecules from which they were made.

Eventually, he reached a level of oneness with it that seemed to blot out the world.

It was a sensation Unity had only ever experienced moments at a time. One to be abruptly ended as he wrenched his mind away, his magic apart.

To do so now would be to ruin Crow’s body further, casting him from the stage in tatters. It was a terrifying power, instilling in him a dread of his own hand’s slightest twitch. The most minute slip of his focus.

Yet even deliberately keeping his eyes away from the boy’s, Unity could still see the unhesitating urgency behind them from the corner of his own.

I ought to stop this madness and punch you in the gut. He found himself thinking. See if the pain knocked you out, then strike your chin for good measure if it didn’t. Force you to safety, since you clearly won’t walk there of your own volition.

There was an undeniable appeal to the notion’s simplicity. Save Crow by harming him; deal some pain in the moment to spare him from a hundred times more later on. Unity was tempted.

Yet couldn’t. He could sooner lay hands against an open fire than Crow, somehow.

“You couldn’t just back off, could you?” He snarled, forcing his focus back to the wound and trying not to think of how fragile his teammate’s body felt.

“Couldn’t just show the bare minimum caution, keep yourself alive rather than keep the enemy dead.”

He hadn’t expected a reply with any sort of coherence; perhaps some gargled mumbling, if even that. Crow surprised him by speaking with a voice dangerously close to the lucidity of his eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

The words struck Unity like a cudgel, emptying his mouth of wit and filling his eyes with tears. He blinked them away, redoubling his efforts.

“Fucking bastard.”

Astra hit the ground, rolled. Got to her feet in time for Deka to make a saviour of herself again. The undead’s sword rebound from a jutting blue stalegmite as it protruded before her, sending sapphire chips to join the blade in cutting a wide arc through the air.

A boot followed the swing, striking like a battering ram and flattening her against the ground. Astra felt the stone scrape her as she slid away, tumbling and rolling in a daze.

When she finally stopped, regained sense enough to see what was happening around her, she saw the Gemini strike the ground just as she had- blood wetting one of the girl’s arms.

Gem cursed as she slid, her arm screaming its agony into her ear like a wailing child demanding it end.

How, exactly? The limb made no suggestion, merely continued its mindless mewls of pain.

She stumbled to her feet, eyes wide and body twitching with a combative frenzy as she waited for the undead to attack once more. It didn’t; stunning her with its absence, and moving halfway to the black girl before she’d even registered its motion.

The blonde’s hesitation was a fraction of Gem’s, barely staying her as she took off into a sprint. Their courses intersected just fathoms from their petite ally, ending in a clash so great it seemed to make the room shudder.

Were it not for this ceiling, I could obliterate the lump of metal. Leave it sitting in a crater of melted stone with its body in shambles.

But Gem couldn’t simply wish her surroundings away, and the ceiling didn’t respond to her will an iota. She had nothing but the tools she’d used already, and even those remained untouched as she stared slack-jawed at the blonde girl’s rush.

That’s not true, though.

There was one last weapon, one she'd meant to save. Gem supposed it would be of little help unused.

Deka screamed even when Astra appeared before her, fear overpowering relief and escaping as a pathetic, helpless cry. She remained still while her teammate seized the towering undead’s weapon, locking her grip tight around its wrist and visibly straining from head to toe as she slowed its fall.

Glacially, amazingly, the metal halted. Then the undead’s shield slammed into Astra while her arms were held high, forcing Deka to duck as the girl shot back towards her and struck wetly against the wall behind.

She had time enough, barely, to open her mouth in silent horror as it came for her.

Gem leapt as she came within feet of it, taking off through the air at a fast enough pace that she had only a heartbeat to spend cursing her own idiocy before striking the target.

Her body bounced from the creature, proving its mass again, yet robbing it of balance.

She stumbled back as it turned, filling her hands with magic and her head with calm.

There was no face visible behind the dark iron mask, but Gem was sure of the anger it obscured.

None but her still stood to face the wrath, and she found herself wondering how the blonde girl had ever kept the monster’s vicious edge from her flesh without aid.

Gem fled from it with neither pride nor hesitation; answering every slash with a backstep, every thrust with a scrambling leap to one side. It was an unfamiliar.

One she knew would end sooner rather than later. The moment a single step was missed.

Ducking, diving, weaving and surviving, Gem found her defence flawless for twenty unbroken motions.

Her twenty-first saw a boot tip catch on uneven ground, slowing the dodge by a fatal instant. Strength and feeling fled from her leg as the blade swept through it, leaving the muscle slack as silk and bone soft as jam.

Gem toppled, staring up at the monster and feeling fear seep deep into her heart. Turning quickly to terror.

Her eyes caught a wall of black as the shield shot outwards; then it struck her.

Crow saw the Gemini fly head over heels, standing with a stab of gut pain and flickering of his vision. It was only Unity’s hand, pressed strengthlessly against his shoulder, that held him back.

“Let me go.” Crow snapped, rounding on his teammate. He saw the boy flinch somewhat, found himself wondering whether the reaction was part of some manipulation.

“So you can run in and get yourself opened up again?” Unity countered.

“So I can go in and help.”

Crow shook his teammate’s hand off, starting forwards once more.

“I was lucky, stitching you up.” Unity continued. Something in his voice held Crow still in a way even the boy’s grip had failed to. He turned to meet his eye, listening as the artificial continued.

“There’s no guarantee I could do it again, or that I wouldn’t kill you in the attempt. My help was a judgement call I made because something told me you’d kill yourself trying to fight while your guts were exposed regardless. Don’t make me regret it now.”

The urge to act was a strong one, nearly wrestling control free of Crow in spite of the sense he heard in Unity’s words.

“What do you suggest as an alternative?” He asked.

Unity smiled victoriously, the expression alone instilling a worry in Crow almost strong enough to dissuade him from listening.

“I need you to cause a distraction,” said the boy.