It's a massacre.

Apart from Cayden, we are all unsurprisingly fragile, and none of us are particularly fast. In the first phase, the sibling's movements were clunky and predictable, but now it feels as if we're completely and utterly outmatched.

A pirouette is all it takes for our enemy to slip out of Cayden's grasp. The dancer taps and jumps around like an excited child trying to do ballet, but each step they take is heavy enough to leave a mark wherever they land. They do a backward flip and teleport right on top of Lexia before landing a high kick on her face, knocking her out instantly. There's a pit in my stomach as I see Lexia in danger, I don't want to lose her, I can't lose her.

I almost break into a sprint to try and save Lexia, but the dancers do not finish her off, and they twirl some more, jumping from person to person. They kick Eda in the torso and spin back to Cayden, no matter how hard Cayden and Eda try, they can't get a hit in. The attacks thrown at them are like a melody whose tune only serve to enhance their dance.

They don't come to me, though, they ignore me entirely--of course, I'm not strong, so maybe they don't fight me because they don't consider me a threat, but I don't think that's the reason. They don't want to dance with me, and I don't want to dance with them either, I simply don't belong there.

Eda tries to limit their movement by growing more vines, but it joins the dance, undulating in rhythm and hitting Cayden instead. The dancer jumps back to Eda and grabs both her hands; a tango between the two of them starts, she's spun around like a puppet that's missing a few strings, they finally grab her head, her eyes widen as her head is slowly twisted and-

CLINK

Cayden comes back, faster, stronger, each slash leaves a visible blue mark in the air, as if his strikes were strong enough to wound reality itself. The dance is faster and harder to follow, Eda tries to stand up and help, but she's just as powerless as I am--she'd get in the way, we'd all get in the way.

But he can't do this forever, there's too much power behind each swing, too much energy is wasted trying to keep up with them. He might be a hero, but even heroes have their limits.

I take a few hesitant steps towards the fight, it's scary because I might get caught in the cross fire and die, but I think there's another type of fear in there, a fear telling me I shouldn't be here, it's not my place. But who is that fear to tell me where I should or should not be? If my death is meaningless all the same, then what purpose does fear serve in this scenario?

I carefully make my way behind the dancer, its attacks are always going around me, Cayden's sword always miss me by an inch. They aren't missing me on purpose, I am simply deemed so unimportant in the grand scheme of things that even my blood would be considered an unnecessary distraction from this fight.

I jump on their back and wrap myself around their torso, I'm weak, so they could easily shake me out, but that would require acknowledging my existence, something that no one here wants to do. But I'm still here, as weak as I am, as hard as it is to hold on, that's enough to slow their dance ever so slightly, to lose a little bit of elegance, to lose a little bit of momentum.

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Plants start to grow on them once again, but this time they stay and keep growing. The vines are like me, weak but persistent enough to have an effect. Cayden almost pokes out the dancer's eyes, and so the dancer stop dancing, and they counterattack directly this time. Cayden ducks under their attack and slash their legs, as agile as they are, they are not built for direct, confrontational combat. The dancer stumbles backward as they lose balance. Cayden strikes again, his attacks never truly losing momentum, as his sword is now the one to dance with our opponent's failing body.

Something is in my abdomen.

It hurts.

Again, it twists and turns. It takes me a moment to process what's happening, as blood-red ribbons at the edge of my vision.

Cayden keeps stabbing the dancer, over and over again. But I'm still here, their attacks now consider me important enough to serve as collateral. It hurts to breath, my arms let go, and I drop hard on the ground. Another spike of pain, I look down at my torso; a disgusting mesh of flesh and blood can be seen poking out of my clothes.

I can hear their screams, "Dear brother, is this the end? I wanted to see the world."

"So did I, dear sister."

"Dear brother, was I not good enough?"

"Dear sister, you were perfect, and so was I."

CRUNCH.

SPLAT.

I can hear disgusting sounds as the body is being minced and ripped apart by Cayden, he swings his sword up and down mercilessly, far after the creature has stopped moving. This continues for what feels like hours, he does not let up, he dismembers the creature again and again in smaller and smaller pieces, until the mangled body is completely unrecognizable.

Then, he stops/ He looks around him as if in a daze, stumbles for a few steps towards Eda, and falls unconscious. Eda quickly rushes to his side, she's crying--but I think he's fine, he wasn't hit that much during that fight, he's probably just tired.

Ho right, I'm bleeding. I try to call for Eda, but I cough up more blood, I'm more hurt than I thought. I hope Egglin isn't mad at me, being stabbed like that is definitely unhealthy. It's not like she's aware of what I'm doing now, but I don't want her to be disappointed in me either. Maybe she'd be happy to learn I tried to protect someone like this? I wonder what she would've said.

I'm losing consciousness, will I die here? Eda is still busy with Cayden, she might not realize I'm wounded before I bleed out. At least the pain I'm in doesn't feel so bad compared to what Lexia's spell, another thing I have to thank her for.

Suddenly, I feel all the pain wash away, my wounds close by themselves as my blurry vision regains focus. I try to get up to see if I'm truly okay, but someone falls on top of me and I fall back down.

"Ugh, I feel sick. Stat loans are the worst..." Lexia mutters, awkwardly laying on top of me. My heart is beating a lot faster than usual, is it because of the near-death experience? Or maybe my heart needs to pump a lot more blood to regenerate me body like this. She sneezes a few times, it's really cute.

"How did you know I was dying?" I ask.

"I didn't, I just checked my skills and one of them was active and draining your charisma. Then I looked at my party screen and I really couldn't remember you, so I connected the dots." She weakly pushes herself off of me. I wanted her to stay here a little longer, I miss her warmth already.

It's nice of her to help me like this, even when she could've forgotten about me so easily. She also allowed me to tag along, even with how powerful she is; even though I'm clearly dead weight. She's very pretty now that I get to see her from up close, gentle eyes, smooth and inviting lips, rosy cheeks I just want to squish. The more I see of her, the faster my heart beats, my gaze goes a little lower, to her chest-

"I should probably give you your charisma back, so I don't forget you exist again." Lexia says.

I blink a few times.

I look her up and down.

It's Lexia.

She raises an eyebrow. "Is there something on my face?"

"Not anymore," I reply.