"Arlua! Take Shizuo through to the angel realm!" Kyohei ordered, black wings flared to shield his sister and the prince from the view of the two demons advancing on the portal to the angel realm.
"I can fight too!" Arlua snapped, silver feathers bristling indignantly.
"I know you can," Anna murmured, smiling slightly, then turning to face the demons alongside Kyohei, her wingtip brushing his. "Buy you're the Seeker. You have to take him back." Arlua stared at her brother and his partner for a long moment, then scowled.
"Fine. Let's go, Shizuo." The two angels disappeared into the portal, and Kyohei exchanged a glance with Anna, who let out a soft hum. Together, they crouched, gazes fixed on the rapidly approaching demons. Their feathers rustled as they shifted their weight, then shot forward to meet their enemies. Tania reached them first and twisted to slide between them, her blowgun appearing in her hands. Anna, the more agile of the two Guardians, twitched her wingtips and spun to face the female demon as Kyohei, who wasn't as out of shape as his partner, braced himself to meet Malcolm's onslaught.
Anna lunged, magic sparkling around her as she hummed, her blood racing at the thought of her first battle in ages, but Tania wasn't there anymore. She had dropped to the ground, brought the blowgun to her lips, and fired. Anna folded her wings close and dove sideways, but the dart still scraped across her wingtip. Pain disproportionately agonizing to a blowgun dart swept through her, a crushing agony that was all the more terrifying because she had felt it before.
It was the feeling of her wing being crushed. She screamed.
Kyohei heard Anna's cry in the instant before he collided with Malcolm, and between one heartbeat and the next, when the larger Guardian – so attuned to his tiny partner's voice even after years apart – his attention shifted to her. He forced his focus back to his opponent, but not in time to stop the demon from driving his magically-reinforced fist into the Guardian's diaphragm.
Air and a few drops of blood burst from Kyohei's mouth, and he doubled over the Enforcer's fist, scrambling to get his breath back and to claw at that horribly blank expression.
"Foolish," Malcolm whispered, no feeling at all in his voice as he twisted his wrist, sending Kyohei stumbling backwards, toward Anna. "I am Supai's right hand. An angel who could not even defeat his own prince can never dream of defeating me." Kyohei was about to spit a retort at the demon, but a wavering sob from Anna distracted him.
Anna, the magic from Tania's dart coursing through her, was reliving having Shizuo crush her wing over and over, her cries increasingly soft and broken. She couldn't see; the pain was making her vision darken. Then she heard a thump, and the pain retreated just enough for her eyes to focus again. Malcolm had kicked Kyohei, who had thrown himself backwards with enough force to lessen the impact of the blow and to pass over Anna's now-crumpled form to land heavily on Tania, weakening the female Enforcer's concentration.
But Anna's relief was short-lived as Malcolm stepped forward and ground his foot into the feathers of the wing that hadn't been previously crushed. She screamed, and Kyohei surged to his feet, feathers bristling in rage. Malcolm's eyes didn't so much as flicker with emotion as he lifted his foot, letting her scream die off, only to slam it down on the joint at the crest of the feathered limb with a snap that could only mean the bone was broken.
The tiny Guardian opened her mouth to scream again, to voice her pain, and found that no sound came out. Her vision swam as she gasped, fighting the pain that rolled over her every time her agonized panting made her body shift enough that it moved her now-broken wing. Kyohei lunged toward Malcolm, but Tania had regained her footing and seized the larger Guardian's hair in one hand, yanking his head back and jabbing one of her darts into his throat.
He gurgled, hands clawing at her wrists, but the demon, strengthened by his physical and emotional agony, didn't budge except to drive the dart deeper into his vulnerable neck.
Malcolm removed his foot from Anna's wing, but the little angel was paralyzed enough by her own pain and the sight of Kyohei's injury that she barely noticed.
Kyohei's and Anna's eyes met for a long, moment, silent except for their harsh breathing. His lips moved and his throat shifted despite the dart embedded in it, and although no sound emerged, Anna knew what he was trying to say.
"I love you," his eyes and lips were telling her.
And then, before she could reply, before she could fully process the movement, Tania wrenched the dart one way and his head another, so that the Guardian's lifeblood poured from his throat.
"Leave the broken one," Malcolm said. "That way we don't have to clean up the mess." Tania nodded and let Kyohei's limp form fall. He hit the ground in a heap, his blank eyes inches from Anna's horrified face.
"Kyohei…?" she whimpered. The demons moved away, toward the portal. "No!" They would follow Arlua and Shizuo through! She couldn't let that happen, couldn't let them get away with hurting Kyohei. Forcing her pain to the back of her mind – her mental anguish was enough to dull the ripples of agony in her wing – she managed to stand.
Her fingertips glowing with her magic, fueled by fury, grief, and determination, the tiny angel let out a shriek and threw herself over the body of her partner, her fingernails catching in the female Enforcer's back, her angel fire letting her rip through skin and muscle and searing to the bone.
Tania didn't scream; she tensed and shuddered, the pain fading almost as fast as it swept over her. Before she could realize what had happened, her legs collapsed beneath her.
Malcolm spun, kicked out sharply, and his foot made contact with the Guardian's ribs, strongly enough to shatter them and drive the broken ends into her lungs even as his sister went down, slain in an instant by righteous angel fire.
Enforcer and Guardian landed within an instant of each other, one limp and the other fighting for consciousness. Malcolm frowned, the most expression he had shown since arriving in the human realm, and then crouched to swiftly crush Anna's windpipe.
"Now I have to clean up three times the mess," he observed. "Supai won't be pleased about Tania." The Enforcer sighed. "Damn. Maybe I'll chase the others to the angel realm before I clean up." He stood and turned toward the portal, which was still open, presumably because the Seeker and the angel prince had hoped their Guardian companions would be joining them shortly. Too bad for the angels.