“Any last words?”

This sentence gave Mila a sense of deja vu. Something long buried in her memory - a movie long forgotten.

The situation reminded Mila of it. She refocused, trying to see what was happening behind Isabel’s protective grasp. Her head was quickly pushed back behind her girl’s shield.

They couldn’t stay here. Polonomia’s intervention had given them time, but it had run out. Knowing it was pointless to reason with Isabel, she tried to at least get her companion to calm down.

It didn’t work. What options did they have?

“Do it already!” Zemny hurried the madman. “We can’t risk that person returning.” He referred to Polonomia.

“I know, I know. But you still owe me. I will remember your machinations.”

“I was right to do it.” Zemny scoffed. “If not for my foresight, we would not have the thousands of souls ready to harvest.”

“I would have preferred my pathetic son to be left alive.”

“Are you trying to be a father now?”

“He might have sired a capable child.”

Mila still could not see anything. “Isabel…You can’t do this.” She was getting desperate. “You are not sacrificing-”

A blast of incoherent noise sent Isabel and Mila tumbling to the ground. At first, Mila feared it had come from the gun, but a moment later, she realised the noise was coming from outside - where the battle continued to rage.

“DO NOT LISTEN!” Mila screamed, trying to overcome the terrible mix of screeching hymns and ominous absence of silence.

“MR CROW!”

The next moment, a bit of normalcy returned to the room - or at least around Mila and her group. The bird’s song fought back against the otherworldly tumult.

It was a losing battle, but at least locally, it helped a great deal. “Do not listen!” Mila repeated. “Do not try to make sense of what you are hearing coming from outside.” She tried to think. “Focus on my voice!”

All around them, chaos began to unfold. Some of the weaker guards succumbed to the enthralling sounds of corruption. Mila had no leisure to worry about anyone else but Isabel.

“After we get out of here,” Mila continued to speak. “We should visit a beach!” She moved closer to Isabel’s ears. “Bring me more to the left. Just a few more spots to modify.”

Mila heard the gunshot. She froze for a moment, fearing it had been aimed at them, but nothing happened. Someone else had been hit.

“I bet you would love to see me in swimwear.” Mila knew they had an arduous journey ahead of them. But she couldn’t bring up the likely dead friends of her friends. “And I would like to see yours!”

They reached the required spot. Mila once more fell on the ground and began carving new lines. Above her, Isabel did her best impression of a blanket.

“And then, I think a date in the mountains would be in order!” Mila cut her finger on the dull piece of metal. She hissed, then continued. “Somewhere high! Above the clouds! Move to the next place! I am done here.”

Occasionally, between Isabel’s grasp, Mila could see the unfolding events around her. As she worked, a piece of puzzle clicked in her mind. “Remember how we agreed it was okay to touch each other in sleep?” She regretted bringing up this memory. Someone probably heard her saying it. “We never did get to do that, did we?” But it had to be said.

The whole room was filled with many small-scale skirmishes. Isabel and Mila had not been left alone either, but her girl’s masterful application of the barriers made them too tricky of a target to commit.

To add to the mayhem, a group of soldiers intruded from the other side of the room - all tattered and bruised, none without serious injuries. Still, they raised their weapons and charged. Unfortunately, they did not make any attempt to understand the situation and simply attacked anyone who happened to come into their reach.

They didn’t survive for long. As they succumbed to their injuries, the bizarre corruption overwhelmed their minds. Their bodies began shifting in strange ways, earning them quick death from everyone involved.

This was just a prelude to the Military’s arrival. Mila spared a glance at one of the Azan’s subordinates, becoming twisted as well. The woman was quickly chopped in pieces by Laura, who happened to be the closest.

“D-don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I am telling you to do it,” Mila stopped Isabel above one of the corpses and exchanged her ruined dagger with a new one. “It is just that I might lose consciousness for a while.”

Mila felt Isabel’s embrace tighten in askance. She heard her girl attempt to speak, to ask - what had Mila meant by that?

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“I can not explain.” Mila scratched and scratched, her hands bruised, cracked and brittle. The blood began to seep from the overworked fingers. “ She held down the curse welling up at the back of her throat. “I want to!”

A sudden impact threw them both to the side. Despite Isabel cushioning the blow, they were flung at the nearest wall, hitting it heavily. Mila groaned, trying to draw back the air that was pushed out of her lungs.

Isabel was back on her feet first. Mila allowed her girl to handle her body as it refused to listen to its owner. She was pushed against her girl’s chest and then brought back to the spot they had been before.

“ANYWAY!” Mila screamed over the sudden cracking over their heads. “WHEN THAT HAPPENS,” She pushed her voice as hard as possible.

The eerie melodies and enchanting whispers grew louder. The hymns of alien worlds and songs of valiant gods mixed and fought against each other.

Mr Crow’s protection was not enough anymore.

“YOU ARE ALLOWED TO DO THAT!” Mila finished carving the spot. She nudged her girl, who was still protecting her from above and watched Isabel’s tears fall in front of her. “NO, NO, NO! IT WILL BE FINE!”

It was hard to keep the volume of her voice constantly at the maximum. Mila glanced at Zemny, wondering why the fool hadn’t done anything about the noise yet.

The man was simply standing, looking up with an astonished look on his face, mouth hanging open. Next to Zemny, Azan kept shaking the madman. It took a while, but finally, Mortimer’s father began moving.

Seeing Zemny begin weaving a new spell, using the excess mana the many deaths gave, Mila returned to her own work. “I WILL BE FINE! PERHAPS UNRESPONSIVE FOR A WHILE!”

There was a simple reason for Mila’s sudden openness. As she connected another set of runes, the pathways began twisting by themselves. Her senses could tell the unseen pathways in the air were changing as well.

Beneath Mila, new lines were scorched onto the ground. From where she had worked, all around the room, runes began connecting and changing by themselves.

Mila hadn’t done it on purpose, but she had triggered a failsafe mechanism. She had been aware something like that existed, only, in that one dream, the master of the rituals had not managed to isolate and study it.

So, while Mila knew how to change…

More ideas rushed through Mila’s head. This fail-safe… “AND WHEN IT HAPPENS, DON’T FEEL BAD ABOUT DOING ANYTHING!” She didn’t forget to shout, keeping Isabel’s attention from wandering.

The ritual began shifting. Mila squinted as the light began pouring into the room. The ceiling had been torn off completely, allowing the fake sun to shine its light upon their heads.

“DON’T LOOK UP!” Mila cautioned Isabel, as well as her other comrades. “MOVE TO THE SIDE!” She watched the ground become covered with intricate engravings - incomparable to what Zemny had managed to do.

The stolen pieces and bits left behind by the original maker of the ritual fused and transformed. They extended and swallowed the mana. They fueled the reforming of the ritual’s original purpose.

Which was… Well, Mila wasn’t sure of what it was. It had been created with a singular purpose in mind. While the person she had dreamt of had been far above Zemny in skill, he still hadn’t deciphered most of the workings the ritual had.

Mila had to wonder… Who exactly had been the maker. She knew her companion did not like it when she did. Now, too, he noticed and warned her not to.

It was almost time. “I LOVE YOU!” Mila turned around and hugged Isabel. They had run out of time.

Frankly, they had been too late. But it wasn’t all lost. The outside force kept holding them down - not allowing the shoddy replication of the ritual to finish forming.

It allowed the new pathways to replace the old. A fresh wave of mana burned away the old, cleaning away the impurities introduced by the years of work Zemny and his predecessors had put into it.

Isabel clutched at Mila’s tattered cloak, leaning down and attempting to whisper in the ear.

It was impossible to hear. Mila nuzzled against Isabel’s nape, placing a gentle kiss.

Above them, defiance-filled roars fought against mechanical, unfeeling dissection. The sounds of battle soon were filled with exclamations of surprise.

The changes in the way the ritual worked were noticeable for everyone. Mila kept Isabel close. There was a moment of quiet as the most powerful beings around evaluated what could these changes in the ritual bring.

In the middle of the peaceful second, Mila heard Isable’s barely audible reply. “...love you, too…”

Mila smiled. She really needed to hear these words.

If only there were no one else here. Especially-

“NO!” Zemny’s desperation shook the surroundings. “I AM LOSING CONTROL OVER IT!”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU SHIT?” Azan was losing his cool as well. He was clearly shaken.

From what Mila could tell, both of them had looked up. They had probably seen ‘It’. She knew ‘It’ was there, behind the thin shell of reality between here and there.

The large mana ball - the imitation of the imitation above, began to sputter and deform. Zemny desperately tried to regain control, but it was for nought. He couldn’t change what he didn’t understand.

“DAMNIT! EVEN THE-”

Mila didn’t hear what else he had lost. It didn’t matter either. “WE HAVE TO LEAVE!” She tried to get everyone's attention. “THEY WILL BE ABLE TO USE MAGIC SOON!”

The large concentration of mana was depleted as it was siphoned upwards to where the core of the ritual was. Mila felt her mana control snap back into being there. “ISABEL!”

Mila’s girl nodded. Her barriers were working again. As Isabel carried Mila away, she also covered everyone else's retreat. They had heeded Mila’s words, choosing to trust her.

As for the defenders, they lingered around the deflating mana ball, not knowing what to do. Their two leaders were bickering again, consumed by the failure to keep control over the ritual.

Only Helly refused to leave, being pulled back by the efforts of Andrew and the wolf. She was still trying to claw her way towards Zemny, who was holding her grandfather’s gun.

Soon, they reached the doors they had arrived from. Mila and Isabel waited for everyone else to leave, guarding their backs. Mila hadn’t stopped talking. “-AND MAKE SURE YOU PLAN IT PROPERLY!” She poked Isabel’s side, making sure her girlfriend understood that the next date was a big deal.

Mila kept talking about the date until - “NOW LEAVE! I HAVE TO STAY!”