The pain was overwhelming.
There was nothing she could see beyond that pain, there was only a blinding white light about her. Every fiber of her being was stretching, expanding, her nerves felt like they were exploding. In the light, there were flecks of color, and she felt her feet lift off the ground, felt angel wings beat at her back. Her nerves blasted with pain, her skin felt hot, her mind was sharp and the light around her burned.

I have got to protect them.

Why was she doing this. She shouldn't care. She'd reached the goal. She'd been lied too, tricked. She'd also won and she'd also lived and she'd also pieced things backed together. But if the target was acquired already, she wondered, why would she been sending every ounce of energy she had out into the air around her.

From her back, she felt angel wings beat.
A sharp mind could not overtake the waves of pain. She was forgetting, she was disappearing, her being was breaking in the air around her. It came in waves across her, it washed through her body like the wind did the treetops.

Gotta protect them.

Gotta...

Why was she doing this...?
She couldn't remember.
She felt wings at her back.
her head rolled with another wave of the pain.
Why was she doing this?
She didn't know anymore.

I gotta...

And with one shattering cry, the light around her broke. It fluttered in the air around her in pieces, between them she could see the ground below. She could see the faces of friends dotting it, their expressions turned upward at her.

In a moment brief and quiet, she looked. Her own skin glowed, but the glowing layer of skin seemed to be flecking off as she started to fade, and the glass-like light around her began to fall. The sound matched and she could hear it shattering faintly. Her ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton. As she moved her hands up to touch her ears, she noticed more of her light flecked off as she moved, falling like snowflakes around her. She pulled her hands from her ears, confused when they came away bloody. The red was sharp and pronounced against her skin.

When that one quiet moment was over, she broke. Her magic shattered, her power faded, and she fell from the sky in a crumpled heap on the ground below.

I just needed to protect them.