"How long are we going to keep doing this?"
The wall of blood crystallized between them.
Lucy Walker stood in the breach she had carved through the warehouse wall, her remaining hand raised, crimson mana pouring from her fingertips in waves that made the air shiver. Her empty sleeve was pinned neatly at the shoulder, the fabric crisp, deliberate, a statement rather than an absence.
Reina's revolver was already raised.
She fired.
Or at least she tried to.
A crimson red blade sliced the barrel into two.
Reina's gold eyes shifted.
Her remaining arm was raised, her fingers splayed, her crimson eyes blazing with an intensity that made the air itself tremble. Her empty sleeve was pinned up neatly at the shoulder, the fabric crisp and clean despite the chaos that had brought her here.
The blood-wall pulsed. Expanded. Began to advance toward Reina like a tidal wave, a wall of crystalline death that would crush anything it touched.
Reina dashed backwards.
Hoshimi pressed his back against a rusted support pillar.
His chest was still healing, he could feel the bone fragments grinding together, the muscle tissue weaving itself back into place. The sword's warmth pulsed in his chest like a second heartbeat, feeding him strength, keeping him upright, keeping him alive.
"Lucy." His voice was hoarse. Barely audible over the groaning of the blood-wall but he noticed something in the corner. "Bind her legs. I have a plan."
Lucy didn't answer. Didn't acknowledge him at all. But the blood-wall shifted. Her fingers curled. The blood pooling beneath Reina's boots answered, surging upward in thick ropes that wrapped around the Vice Principal's ankles, her calves, her knees. They tightened with enough force to crack concrete, to buckle steel, to hold something that had never been held.
Reina looked down at the restraints. Her expression did not change.
"You think I can't get out of these?"
Lucy didn't answer. Her face was pale, her breathing controlled, her remaining arm trembling with the effort of maintaining two simultaneous constructs.
The blood wall. The bindings. Both held. For now.
Hoshimi grabbed Lucy's wrist. "Run."
They ran.
Through the warehouse, through the maze of rusted machinery and collapsed shelving, through the shadows that pooled in corners where the moonlight couldn't reach. The blood-wall collapsed behind them with a sound like shattering glass, releasing a wave of mana that washed over the warehouse and made the walls groan.
Reina landed in front of them.
Her boots made no sound on the concrete floor as she straightened, her revolver already raised, her gold eyes fixed on Hoshimi's face with the same clinical detachment she'd worn since the Academy.
Lucy stepped in front of Hoshimi. Her remaining arm came up, blood already pooling at her feet, already rising in thin threads that wove together into a net of crystalline death. Her crimson eyes met Reina's gold ones, and for a moment, the two of them simply stared at each other.
Lucy attacked anyway.
The blood-net shot toward Reina with the speed of a striking viper, its edges razor-sharp, its weave dense enough to shear through steel.
Reina swayed, a subtle shift of weight from one foot to the other, and the net passed through empty air where her chest had been. She stepped inside Lucy's guard, her free hand closing around Lucy's throat.
Lucy's blood rose to defend her.
Too slow.
Reina threw her. Lucy's body crashed through a stack of rusted barrels, through the warehouse wall behind them, through the exterior brick and into the alley beyond. The sound of her impact echoed through the empty space like a thunderclap.
Reina turned back to Hoshimi.
"You're still running," she said.
His hand found his knife.
[She's outside now]
The warehouse ceiling exploded.
[I can do this]
"KIRA!!"
Her dirty brown hair was wild around her face, a stream of blood seeped down her arm from the explosion before, but her blue eyes were wide but steady.
The skin at the base of her neck was fully open, that raw, fleshy valve drinking in the moonlight, converting it, transforming it.
Her chest heaved, in the sweat tracing paths through the dust on her cheeks, in the raw, desperate determination.
Her lungs expanded. The carbon monoxide that poured from her throat was different now.
The gas emerged as a visible vapor, pale and sickly green, shot through with veins of black that pulsed like living things. It spread across the warehouse floor like a tide, seeking not lungs but steel.
The pillars groaned. The ceiling sagged. The entire structure began to come apart.
Reina looked up.
The first chunk of concrete fell toward her. She sidestepped, the debris crashing into the floor where she'd been standing. The second came from her left. She ducked. The third, the fourth, the fifth, a cascade of destruction that rained down on her from every direction, pillars crumbling, beams snapping, the entire warehouse folding in on itself like a house of cards.
"Are you really planning to collapse the whole building? You can't outrun me."
Then something latched onto her leg, a crimson red chain binding her feet together.
Hoshimi grabbed Kira's arm and ran. Through the collapsing building, through the maze of falling debris, through the dust and the chaos and the deafening roar of structural failure. Lucy was waiting outside, her face bloodied, her empty sleeve torn, but alive.
She raised her remaining hand, and a shield of blood crystallized above them, deflecting the debris that rained down from the disintegrating warehouse.
They made it to the street.
Behind them, the warehouse collapsed.
A hundred thousand tons of steel and concrete and glass crashing down on itself in a cascade of destruction that shook the ground beneath their feet and sent a mushroom cloud of dust billowing into the night sky. Windows shattered for blocks in every direction. Car alarms wailed. The city's sirens, already screaming, reached a fever pitch.
Dust erupted in a massive cloud. Hoshimi threw his arm across his face. Lucy pulled Kira behind her, forming a thin blood shield against the blast wave of debris and pulverized concrete. The ground shook. The windows of nearby buildings shattered. Car alarms wailed across the harbor district. For a long moment, there was nothing but dust and thunder and the sound of a building ceasing to exist.
Lucy stood beside him, her blood-shield dissolving into mist. Her crimson eyes were fixed on the rubble, tracking something only she could see.
Kira's breathing was ragged, her chest still open, still drinking in the moonlight. But her hand in Hoshimi's was steady. Her voice, when she spoke, was barely a whisper.
Hoshimi lowered his arm. The warehouse was gone. In its place, a mountain of twisted steel and shattered concrete rose toward the gray sky, a monument to destruction, a grave. Steam rose from the wreckage where water pipes had burst. Electrical wires sparked and died. The dust began to settle.
[Is she dead?]
The rubble shifted.
A single slab of concrete, twenty feet across and twice as thick, rose into the air. It hovered for a moment, suspended by an invisible force, then flew sideways and crashed into the street with enough force to crater the asphalt.
Reina walked out of the wreckage.
Her coat was torn. Her left sleeve was gone entirely, revealing the toned muscle of her arm beneath a layer of dust and dark, spreading bruises. There was a cut on her forehead, a thin line of crimson tracing a path down her temple and across her cheek. Her ginger hair was white with concrete dust, her gold eyes ringed with exhaustion.
But she was standing. Walking.
She didn't speak.. She simply raised her pistol and fired.
[That's insane]
The bullet caught Lucy in the shoulder. The impact spun her around, sent her staggering backward, her blood rising to defend her but too slow. She hit the ground hard, her empty sleeve flapping uselessly, her crimson eyes wide with shock.
"I just came back, and this is what I have to do?"
Neila walked out.
"And you're really persistent, Vice."
Her white coat was gone, replaced by dark, practical clothing. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail, not a single strand out of place despite the chaos. Her blue eyes were fixed on Reina with an expression that was neither fear nor hatred but something colder.
"Bet you didn't know I could do this."
She snapped her fingers.
The sound that erupted from her hand was not a blast.
A high-pitched whine that climbed rapidly, higher and higher, until it passed beyond the range of human hearing and became something that could only be felt. A pressure in the chest. A tremor in the bones. A heat that built.
Reina's coat ignited.
Not from a spark. Not from a flame. From friction. The sound waves Neila was generating were oscillating the air molecules around Reina's body at a frequency that generated heat, thousands of degrees of it, concentrated and focused and utterly merciless.
The coat went up first, the dark fabric curling and blackening as flames licked across its surface. Then her shirt. Then her hair.
Reina was burning.
A pillar of fire in the shape of a woman, her silhouette barely visible through the inferno, her gold eyes reflecting the flames like twin suns. The asphalt around her feet began to melt. The air shimmered with heat haze. The temperature in the street climbed to something that should have been fatal.
Neila didn't stop. Her fingers curled, snapped, curled again, each motion sending a fresh wave of sonic friction into the conflagration, feeding the flames, intensifying the heat, pushing Reina's body beyond what even a level ten witch should have been able to endure.
Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen.
The fire raged.
Behind the inferno, Vert stood at the edge of the street. Her white-green hair was untouched by the chaos, her gray eyes fixed on the burning figure with an expression of detached curiosity.
She made no move to intervene. Just watched, her ancient gaze taking in every detail of the scene before her.
Neila glanced back at her. "Vert, aren't you going to do something?"
"No."
"What do you mean, no?"
"Let the boy experience this moment." Vert's voice was soft. Almost gentle. "It's the last chance he'll get."
"You keep speaking in riddles." Neila's jaw tightened. She turned back to the inferno, her fingers already curling for another snap.
The fire went out.
Instantly. One moment Reina was a pillar of flame, the next she was simply standing there, her clothes charred and smoking, her skin reddened but unbroken, her gold eyes fixed on Neila with an expression that was neither anger nor pain.
Boredom.