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.
She blew on her own shoulder. A casual puff of air, like someone extinguishing a candle.
The temperature in the street plummeted back to normal. The melted asphalt began to cool, solidifying in rippling waves around her boots.
"Clever," Reina said. Her voice was hoarse but steady. "But I don't think that was enough."
Neila's eyes widened. She took a step back.
She moved.
Neila snapped her fingers, a sonic needle aimed at Reina's throat, but Reina was already gone, already closing the distance, already inside Neila's guard. Her palm struck Neila's solar plexus with the force of a wrecking ball. Neila folded, the air driven from her lungs, her body trying to curl around the injury—
Reina's other hand closed around her throat.
she was directly in front of Neila, her hand closing around the younger woman's throat. She lifted her off her feet. Neila's legs kicked. Her hands clawed at Reina's wrist. Her sonic bursts erupted from her fingers in desperate, uncontrolled waves, blasting chunks of asphalt from the street, shattering windows, carving furrows in the walls of nearby buildings.
"Fuck off Vice!"
Neila spat in her face.
Reina's grip tightened. Neila's face went red, then purple. Her struggles weakened. Her sonic bursts faltered, sputtered, died. The blood from her fingers dripped onto Reina's wrist and sizzled there, evaporating on contact with skin that was still hot from the flames.
She threw Neila into a nearby building. The brick facade crumbled on impact, burying Neila in a cascade of mortar and shattered glass. Her mana signature flickered, dimmed, steadied. Still alive. Barely.
Reina turned.
Hoshimi was already in front of her.
He didn't have a plan. Didn't have anything except the knife in his hand and the sword's warmth in his chest and the desperate. One moment he was standing at the edge of the clearing, his knife in his hand. The next he was there, directly in front of Reina, his blade already in motion. The edge caught the afternoon light and flashed silver, aimed at the soft tissue of her neck.
Reina caught his wrist.
Her grip was absolute. Unbreakable. Her gold eyes met his violet ones, and for a moment, just a moment, something flickered in their depths. Something that might have been regret or might have been satisfaction or might have been something that had no name in any human language.
Backhand.
It was like getting rammed into by a speeding truck.
He crashed through a parked car, through the window of a storefront, through the wall beyond that. Glass and metal and brick gave way around him in a cascade of destruction. He came to rest in the wreckage of what had once been a bakery, his body broken, his breathing ragged, his vision swimming with pain and dust and the distant, fading light of the streetlamps.
The sword's warmth flared in his chest.
He could not feel his left arm. His right leg would not bear weight. Blood poured from a gash in his scalp, hot and wet, blinding him in one eye.
"Vitae Core."
The spell was flooding his body with healing mana, but the damage was too extensive, too sudden, too much. His vision swam.
He pushed himself to his knees.
Everything was shaking, a fine, constant tremor that ran through his body like an electric current. Blood dripped from his split lip, from the gash on his forehead, from a dozen smaller wounds that he'd stopped bothering to count.
He pushed himself to his feet.
His left arm was broken. He used his right to brace against the cracked pillar. His right leg was useless. He used the wall to hold himself upright.
Blood dripped from his chin. His breath came in ragged gasps. The building creaked around him, threatening to complete what Reina had started.
He limped to the hole his body had made in the wall.
Through the gap, he could see the street. See Reina turning away from Neila's crumpled form. See Lucy forming another blood wall, thinner than before, her reserves depleting.
See Kira trying to produce more gas, her throat raw, her mana exhausted.
Hoshimi stepped through the hole. Fell. Caught himself on one knee. Pushed himself up again. His right hand found the knife still clutched in his grip. The blade was bent, nearly broken, useless. He dropped it. His hand went to his chest instead.
He felt the sword's pulse. Felt its warmth. Felt the ancient, patient power that had been waiting for this moment.
He took a breath.
Another.
His legs steadied. His vision cleared.
The blood still ran down his face, but he no longer felt it, the boiling feeling started to fade into the background. The breaks in his arm, his leg, his ribs, they were still there, but the pain had become distant.
He straightened. His hand pressed flat against his sternum, against the place where the sword's presence burned brightest.
And he spoke.
The name tore from his throat with a force that surprised him.
The warmth in his chest erupted.
Light exploded from his sternum. Golden, blinding light that poured from him in waves, washing over the ruined street, over the burning buildings, over Reina and Lucy and Kira and the distant sirens and the indifferent stars above. The light coalesced. Became something that he could hold.
The sword materialized in his hand.
[Damn it, what do I really want?]
Not the knife. Not the magical weapon Reina had given him. This was different. A blade forged from the essence of a goddess, its surface crawling with runes that burned with the light of a dying star.
[I want to live]
Its hilt was warm against his palm, familiar and strange all at once, and its weight was perfect, absolutely perfect, like it had been made for him and him alone.
[I want the people around me to live]
The last of the golden light faded.
[I want to live in peace]
Hoshimi stood in the ruins of the street, the sword of promised victory blazing in his grip, his violet eyes glowing with a light that was not entirely his own. His legs were steady. His hands were steady.
[I want everything to be over]
He raised the blade.
Excalibur answered.
The light along its edge intensified, became blinding, became something that seared the eyes to look at directly. The air around it shimmered with heat. The asphalt beneath his feet began to crack from the sheer pressure of its presence.
Reina turned to face him.
Her gold eyes swept over the sword, cataloging its mana signature.
"That sword," she smiled. "I've fulfilled my end of the contract."
Then a flicker of yellow. A face so unbelievably blinding. A woman who was tall, and pale. Her hair was a golden yellow this time. But her clothes were the same, a simple black dress, black boots.
"Reina Albert."
Her voice was soft, almost gentle. The kind of voice you'd use to wake a sleeping child.
Vert's eyes flickered ever so slightly.
He raised Excalibur. The light along its edge flared. The air itself seemed to hold its breath.
Then its size multiplied, piercing through the clouds with its burning blade.
[Please, I don't want to do this anymore]
"EXCALIBUR!"
The light came down onto Reina.
Her eyes started to cloud.
She could no longer stand.
Her breathing became erratic, as she collapsed onto one knee.
Blood dripped from her lips.
Black Scene.