Not...good. Teeth clenched, Dart could hardly twitch a muscle while paralyzed in psychokinesis. He assumed the same for Alice, who had yet to turn back human or make any sort of move otherwise. He couldn't keep track of Noah, moving behind his back, but the sound of the sorcerer's mocking voice made his hairs stand on-end.

"Does it sting? To have your victory ripped away from you when it came so close?" Noah's hand was cold, clenching down on his shoulder, nails digging deep while Dart could do nothing about it.

Dart heard Noah chuckle lightly, before an explosion of pain ruptured in the back of his leg, kicked by an armored boot. He couldn't scream, cry, or even flinch—stuck in a spatially-suspended state at Noah's mercy.

Noah wandered into Dart's field of vision, and his pupils, the only part of his body he could move, shook to follow the man. He studied Dart from a few feet away with a wry grin and cocked chin, as though devising new ways to torture his captive.

"Oh, why so dour, boy?" He laughed, walking fearlessly up to Dart. He began to push Dart's inward-tilted jaw up with a fist, bringing him precisely to eye level. "Chin up! Be proud that you've made it this far!"

Dart's heart rate shot up when he saw Noah's fist flying for his face, only for it to stop just before his nose. "Ah! Ah! Ah!" He taunted Dart, bringing his fist a little bit closer to skin, only to pull back his fist. He turned around, pacing two steps forward, and paused. "POW!" Noah shot back to Dart, throwing a real punch this time to the cheek. His features contorted on contact, head turned askew as a result of the blow, and staying there, frozen into a new position. Even the fresh blood and falling teeth in his mouth seemed to stop moving when Noah willed it.

But even at his absolute lowest point of dread, Dart didn't resign himself to fate. He kept his eyes on Noah, a withering, hateful glare, directed at Cassiel's kidnapper and Gopher's murderer. Please, God. Hot sweat trickled down his bleeding face while his head raced with thoughts of malice. Give me one moment of freedom. One moment's all I need to kill him.

Noah was unimpressed by the intimidating front, shaking his head. "You're quite a showman! If I had a crowd gathered here, I'm sure they'd be gawking at that fierce determination!" His pacing footsteps carried him along an elliptical path, much reminiscent of the lectures he gave as a teacher. "But that's all you have. Ordinary men like yourself, mortals, I would go so far as to call you, can't stand up to magical might with just guts alone! Perhaps you ought to be reasonable with yourself, set goals in line with your limits, and accept the fact that you'll never be able to best someone like—"

By some divine miracle, Dart broke through Noah's tight psychic hold on him, lunging with the sword in-hand. Noah whipped around yelping, as the sword pierced—or so Dart would have liked to believe; all he'd accomplished with his one blessed moment of free movement was grazing the side of Noah's head, drawing a meager amount of blood. Then, he was frozen once more the very second Noah decided to raise his palm. Gingerly rubbing his wound, Noah stepped aside from the sword, resuming where he'd left off with Dart.

This was fear. This was despair.

"That was a bold attempt, boy. But you won't be so lucky a second time." He lightly pushed his hand forward, and Dart was flung back like a ragdoll against the farthest wall of the arena, his spine smashing against the stone wall.

To his own surprise and Alice's, he was able to move somewhat, letting out a scream and writhing in place.

"Dart! We should—we should run! We aren't strong enough!" Alice desperately advised, now that Noah's hold had loosened. But, Dart's arms and legs did nothing more than shake.

Blood pooling down on his face, Dart sputtered out a brief apology. "I'm sorry about all of this, Alice." He looked up to see Noah in the hazy distance, walking towards their position. "I should've offed him when I had the chance," he muttered, balling up dirt in his fists. "I was just so angry."

"Don't..." After that apology, that pure resignation, Alice wanted to slap him. But seeing how broken he was becoming, she lacked the strength to carry it out. "Don't tell me this is the end..."

Noah approached with a rhythmic stride, a leisurely stroll as he drafted and rejected various means of killing the duo before him. "Snapping your neck against the ground...no, that would leave a bad taste in my mouth. I'd rather have something thematic. For example..." His eyes widened, donning a devilish look as he flexed both hands outward. Simultaneously, Dart and Alice were split apart from each other, the latter still in weapon form, rising in the air as high as the second floor of the colosseum.

"Let's flip you around..." Noah made a loop with his finger, and Alice rotated in midair, with her blade pointed towards Dart. A glint caught in Dart's eyes, gazing at the tip of the sword, and it was then that he realized what Noah was planning.

Staring right back at him, a shortness of breath overcame Alice. Noah had chosen a cruel and unusual means of execution, forcibly turning Alice's blade against Dart in savage mockery of the bond between meister and weapon. As if purposely keeping them in suspense, Noah moved the two closer together very slowly, never giving them any indication of when, or even if, he was going to change his pace to a deadly jolt.

After teasing with agonizing slowness, Noah's arms crossed at once. "DIE!"

Dart's body jerked at the same time as Alice's, his body speeding for the sword as the sword sped for his body. His instincts didn't fail him in that instant of terror; before the sword could run through him, he swung his hips, avoiding it by a hair's breadth as it tore by, wind howling in its path. Barely having managed to save his own life, Dart breathed heavily, so panicked and desperate that his heart was primed to jump out of his chest at any moment.

"D-Dart! You were able to..." Alice sounded just as bewildered as him, and Dart realized this was the first time he'd ever witnessed her so frightened in the face of an enemy. He wondered what kind of face she was making right now, in the glint of the sword, as he lacked the strength to turn himself around to see her.

"Oho!" Noah bellowed below them. "It seems I lack full control at a distance—we'll see how long that lasts for."

Dart's pupils moved downward, trying to anticipate the next attack by watching Noah wave his hands. He knew, to some extent, that it was a futile effort to guess where he might be struck, with Alice out of his field of vision. Feeling hopeless and out of options, he strained himself to move his arms in front of his chest, in some attempt to brace himself for the coming assault. Looking at Noah's reaction didn't do Dart's morale any wonders: he merely smiled, turning his left pointer finger upward to move Alice.

Where? Where? Dart slowly bit on his lower lip. Nothing seemed able to give away the sword's location to him, not even the shadows on the ground revealing where she was poised to strike from.

The tension reached its highest point when Alice broke the quiet with a fervent shout. "A-ABOVE YOU! OUT OF THE WAY!"

With that, Noah sharply cast his arm as if mimicking a sword's cut. Gaze shooting up, Dart caught brief sight of the blade falling directly over him. In spite of his efforts to shift his guard, his arms refused to move—damned psychokinesis—leaving him vulnerable to a fatal blow.

But, by virtue of another miracle, the sword missed Dart. Alice whizzed by in front of him, and he followed suit afterwards as gravity took its sudden course.

"I can move," Alice said, quietly surprised as she turned human just to verify it. Equally curious, Dart turned his palm around just to see if he could access a range of motion in his joints. They looked to Noah, the most baffled of all, nose furling in fury as he tried again and again—to no avail—to put them under psychokinesis once more.

"Gah—you—you devil children! Be moved by my strength, or so help me..." Noah looked delirious, stomping forward with veins practically popping out of his forehead. However, his outrage briefly subsided upon noticing that Dart and Alice were not looking at him, but something behind him. What could be so important, he wondered, that their attention could be seized in the middle of battle? "Or...so...help...me..." The red in Noah's face lost its hue and paled when he glanced around; far away, an odd, green aura began to encapsulate Cassiel.

He lost interest in the two he was fighting previously, and started towards the Esper. "Impossible." He muttered, glaring her straight down. "That machine is powered by BREW. There's no way she's resisting it..."

/

At the time Cassiel became conscious of her surroundings, everything was agonizingly bright and loud. But she could tell what was happening, vaguely: Dart and Alice were fighting for their lives against Noah, bloody and battered. Victoria was out, and Julian nowhere to be seen in her frail vision. They weren't just fighting for the academy anymore; they were casting down their sweat and tears, their lives, just for her?

She thought it a fool's errand—the idea of nameless, faceless mortals going up against a man with the intent to usurp everything and the means to do so. She wanted to tell them to run, get out of this hellish book before they too became items of its horrid collection, or worse yet, trash to be discarded from it.

She opened her mouth, but it seemed she lacked even the strength to whisper. Her shouts were reduced to coughs, delivered from aching, stringy vocal chords. Had Noah robbed that from her too? Not only her powers, not only her vitality, but even the basic process of telling her comrades to escape was just out of reach of her capabilities.

She focused in on the one responsible for it all, Noah, narrowing her already half-shut eyelids. Thoughts began to swell in her being, sparked by his image, and then spiraled further and deeper. Hatred for Noah. Hatred at her own powerlessness. Fear for her life. Fear for her friends' lives. Curiosity about the battle's outcome. Curiosity about the world beyond this place.

A remembrance of the world.

A will to see the world.

A will to survive.

Her thoughts were broken and invaded by the clanking racket of Noah's footsteps, and she was reminded of her first thought: how much she hated him.

Stop this. She thought, an inkling of strength returning to her as she pulled against the ethereal chains of her restraints. Get away from me!

/

"Get...away..."

Though her inflection was low, not even shouting, her voice was heard across the arena in a powerful echo, and a wind never before felt in this arid wasteland blew in the colosseum. Alice and Dart beheld the sight from afar, mute in their mutual awe.

"You can speak?" Noah's eyebrows rose, before quickly correcting his ill manners. He dropped to a kneel, genuflecting before her. "I mean, my goddess...!"

"Enough...!"

Noah's head turned from the ground to the captive Cassiel. His expression hardened, in spite of his fear. "It—it is not your role to defy my will!" He regained confidence in himself, and outstretched his arms. "BREW! Correct this fault at once!"

The aura surrounding Cassiel shook, losing luster, and she was violently tethered back to the restraints she was beginning to escape from. The chains lit up with BREW's magical might, and shocked Cassiel with something that seemed like otherworldly electricity.

"C-Cassiel!" Dart cried, the sight of her withered body enduring further agony too much to bear for him.

Cassiel writhed against the machine, yet despite the toll it appeared to take on her body, she remained fully conscious, adamantly refusing to black out. The ground beneath the colosseum became unsteady to stand on, and with the cracks forming at their feet, it would be no hyperbole to say an earthquake had started up. While all this happened, Alice was hit with the creeping idea that the stirring winds and the shaking earth, the sensation of raw power in the air, was something that was no longer in Noah's control.

Noah took another step towards the Esper, holding his arm out in front of his face to block the updraft of sand and gravel. He outstretched his palm and clenched, as if trying to re-seize the powers that now abandoned him. "I—I COMMAND YOU!"

Noah's yell was drowned out by Cassiel's voice, but to reduce it to a yell would be an understatement of the spirit behind it. The sound was more like an amplified shriek, so deafening it could likely be heard for a mile beyond its epicenter. Concurrent with her outburst, the earthquake harshened dramatically, multiple tears in the ground spreading to the edge of the arena.

"ENOUGH!" Cassiel screamed.

Faster than anyone could process, Noah found himself embedded in a small crater, collapsed. He lifted his hand up, only to be pushed further into the ground by some unseen force. That was when Dart saw it: Cassiel's arms, though bound by chains, were extended outward as far as she could push them—she was willing this. She was alive, frighteningly so compared to before, her own tears flying upward while her Esper power surged.

"That's...this is crazy." Dart mumbled to Alice. "Noah said it himself, didn't he? That Espers couldn't move living things with psychokinesis?"

"I don't think she is." She replied, not taking her eyes off the spectacle. "Maybe she isn't pushing down on him...but gravity itself, centralized in one area."

"Crazy," he repeated. "This is madness."

A soft light glowed in the crater, emanating from Noah's hands. It seemed he had managed to relinquish some power, barely able to walk. "It's time I bring this...meaningless...struggle..." His knees shook, but he eliminated that weakness in himself with an empowered shout, beginning to match Cassiel's power. "TO AN END!"

Jade lightning crackled between them, a mental fight for dominance ensuing between the Esper and the imitator. Dart stood up, but the force of the wind deterred him from moving, like trying to run down a conveyor belt. Alice gave him a knowing look, grabbing his arm to keep him grounded. "Right now, the battle's in her hands. The most we can do is play cheerleader."

Noah bellowed a laugh, and soon after, he was able to stand steadily. "With each passing moment, I feel lighter and lighter on my feet! Your rebellion isn't going to last!"

And indeed, he was correct. Noah's boots ceased to touch the ground in a few moments, but given the reaction on his face, this was not of his own volition. Up and up he went, increasing in velocity until he abruptly changed direction, slammed back down against hard ground. It was a simple, brutalizing technique on Cassiel's part, swiftly switching from a fraction of Earth's gravity to double, triple, quadruple in a blink. After the fifth drop, he was in a deeper crater than the one he emerged from, lying shamefully in the dirt.

"ENOUGH!" Cassiel screamed again, and she held her arms straight up, redirecting her psychokinesis to something else.

When Noah no longer felt the weighty push of gravity, his eyelids opened up in a dazed state. The crater he was in was deep enough to a point where he couldn't see the rest of the arena without having to step out, head turning around as he tried to guess how much time had passed since getting thrown about by Cassiel. By now, he was fully aware of the 'human experience': the sensation of blood trickling down his face, the sting of a fresh wound, and the swells of his chest desperately trying to catch his own breath. These new maladies infuriated him, and despite the new power his human vessel afforded, he almost deemed the drawbacks far too much to make it a long term arrangement. Upon stepping foot on level ground, the first thing he saw with his deranged visage was Dart and Alice, looking rather shaken by the spectacle. Just looking at them, those obstacles given flesh, made him furious, and he burned with murderous intent waiting to be acted on as soon as he had the capability to.

He momentarily forgot his anger when a great shadow darkened over him. The sight he was met with upon looking up over his shoulder did nothing to ease his mood.

"No." He said aloud, at first in disbelief. Then he repeated it, fearing for his life. "NO!"

Hanging far above, giant chunks of stone were held in a grip of emerald aura, the colosseum exterior itself torn apart and weaponized by psychokinesis. There was nowhere to run. He only braced in place, arms held out in an effort he knew to be futile. "I'LL STOP IT!" Noah boasted, though the savagery of his tone seemed to give away that not even his endless well of pride could convince him of victory.

/

Real tears mystified Julian's vision. He was in awe; was this the same girl he had met mere months ago? The same, naive, fun-loving girl, now fighting bitterly through blood, sweat, and tears for her own survival?

Like everyone else present and conscious, he gawked at the impressive colosseum debris floating high above. He didn't know if his voice would reach her—maybe it would be better off that way. But he tried regardless. "CASSIEL! GO!"

/

A final, haunting shriek poured out from the bottom of Cassiel's chest, slamming her arms downward to follow through with the psychic motion. The chunks of the colosseum were let loose from the reins of her suspending power, dropped with every intention to kill Noah where he stood. With each successive impact against the ground, the ground thundered, dust of ancient structures so thick in the air that it became difficult to breathe, even at Dart and Alice's distance. It was like watching a bomb go off, or standing at the center of a natural disaster. Whatever became of Noah was frustratingly difficult to judge, despite the certainty that he'd been crushed; he'd been standing, the last they saw of him, but his frame was obscured by a piece of the colosseum's outer rim falling in front of him.

In the end, the only noise audible in the colosseum were Cassiel's tense breaths, exhausted by the fierceness of her attack. But even that eventually quieted, and silenced, when her eyelids dropped shut. And thus, she returned to being the lifeless girl on the cross.

"Is it over?" Dart asked, standing up and in the process immediately becoming aware of a curious phenomenon. When he hopped to his feet, he lingered in the air for what felt like a moment longer than he should have. He looked to Alice on the ground, and her brows-furrowed expression told him that she noticed it too. To verify that it was more than just some odd fluke, Dart bent his knees and jumped.

He yelped. The force with which he was propelled into the air was far more than he expected, hovering for a second at the apex of his height before gravity's light tug slowly but surely dragged him back down. He landed flat on his bottom, sucking in a breath at the aftermath of his surprise.

After a moment, he wondered aloud, "This has gotta be something with Cassiel, right?"

"Um..." Alice held out her hand to the air in front of her; at her gloved fingertips, she could squint, barely making out faint green crackles in the wind. "T-That's a safe bet, yeah..."

Even after Cassiel's surge in power left, it seemed part of the influence lingered in the area—as far as Alice and Dart could observe—with a lessened force of gravity. Perhaps the inverse of heavier gravity could apply to other areas in the colosseum, but it was a theory they were reluctant test just wandering about. Regardless, the havoc Cassiel wreaked on this place had turned it into a contradiction to all known physics, that much, they both knew.

"Hey, Dart." Alice rose, a little bit of a quake to her voice. "It'd be best to get Cassiel down from that machine. God knows how long she's been suffering on it..."

Dart nodded quickly, head turning to look upon that wretched cross. "Y-Yeah. We gotta find Julian and Victoria, too..."

He had only just closed his mouth when a sound like a punch came from the fallen colosseum debris. The two still standing became deathly still, their eyes locked on the ruins at the center of the arena.

Another bash against the debris sounded off, and then, after a brief period of universal silence, there was footsteps unmistakably produced by metal on rubble.

"No..." All of Dart's malice for Noah were dredged up again as the thought crossed his mind that the man was not quite dead, his bloodied palm clenching tight into a fist. Equally wary was Alice, assuming weapon form in her dread. The hilt quaked in Dart's grip, holding the sword at his hips.

At the top of a fallen pillar, a silhouette that blocked out the twilight sun emerged, confirming their worst suspicions. How, how could Noah have survived that magnitude and amount of colosseum thrown at him?

"Rats...I'll stomp you all out like rats..." He growled, completely maddened with rage. In his grip, there was a shield that Dart barely recognized—no, he thought, it couldn't have been...

There was a shield in Noah's balcony earlier, bearing the same insignia, shape, and size as the one currently in his possession. He couldn't have hidden it somewhere in the arena, not when Dart was watching him throughout the entire time. But during the barrage, when things were hard to see, it was possible that he could have reached out with psychokinesis, and seized the object from such a distance. Yet, something about that explanation still boggled Dart; how could one shield let him survive everything Noah endured?

Noah lifted his palm up, summoning three pieces of debris sharpened into deadly spears. His silence and face full of malice, said much about the mental state he was in. Good, thought Dart, he much preferred Noah with his mouth shut anyhow.

"Those sharper rocks are going to be lethal, Dart. Dragonslayer will do." Alice advised, the clearness of her intonation a comfort as always. Nodding in acknowledgement, he sprung from the ground toward Noah on his little mountain of debris. In midair, Dart locked onto the rocks hanging behind Noah, and used them as his trigger to activate Dragonslayer. As soon as the broadsword was close enough to be swung at Noah, Dart plunged the sword at his chest, only for him to jump backwards further into the debris. Even in his Titanium armor, the area's gravity was lessened enough that he moved with the agility of an acrobat.

Seeing the weakness on Noah's face emboldened Dart to taunt him. "It ain't much like you to run off, Noah." He touched down on a cracked structure and jumped again in pursuit.

Nose furling with contempt, Noah took aim from below, drawing his palm back and then shoving it forward to fire off two of his rock-fashioned spears. The speed of the projectiles caught Dart off-guard—swinging Dragonslayer around to shatter them was met with a significant amount of recoil both times. He landed on his knees, recovering from the shock, but within a second he was up again, running straight for Noah with Dragonslayer dragged in one hand.

Bloodlust in his eyes, he slashed the Dragonslayer in a forward arc. Instead of cleaving through Noah's armor, it clanged against that shield of his without so much as scratching the surface. He wouldn't be deterred. Sweat droplets flew off Dart's skin with the speed at which he moved, flinging the weight of his blade in an attempt to cut into the armored shell. A harsh reverberation, and his attempt at a clean strike was batted away by a swivel of the shield in Noah's grip.

"Aback!" Noah's powers were slowly returning to him, jutting his palm forward to skid Dart back further into the debris. The meister stumbled, nearly tripped, but maintained his balance, shaken.

"Why won't you die?" Dart broke into a dash again, losing the proper concentration to maintain Soul Resonance.

"This shield was forged in the fires of Eibon and Death's hearth! It has endured the might of ancient Fleurah's strongest mages without a dent—a boy swordsman cannot hope to scratch it!"

The meister grit his teeth, continuing to run at Noah even when he preemptively put up the royal shield. "Yeah?! See if that—" forgoing the sword, Dart put his body weight into a dropkick. It connected beautifully, with Noah caught too surprised to bring the shield up to his head in time. "MAKES ANY DIFFERENCE!"

A tooth flew out from Noah's flapping jaws, and he swung the shield like a bludgeon to knock Dart up. The boy's kneecaps were struck, with an awful crack that left nothing good to the imagination as to what was happening beneath layers of skin and muscle. Up, he flew, before recuperating from the blow to land on his own two feet.

Alice regarded Dart somewhere between awe and fear. At this rate, he hardly looked human—with the numerous injuries he'd sustained over the course of battle, the stilted way he stood from his broken bones, and the dark inkling of determination in his eyes, overpowering all else, he had the appearance of a hungering zombie. "Dart..."

"I can still stand!" He shouted. "I can still fight!"

"Then come!"

With a noticeable lag in his gait, he started towards the sorcerer, and hacked his sword against that shield for all he was worth.

I had one chance to end it all, Dart mused, glaring at Noah's face partially hidden by the shield. And I blew it! If we all die, it'll be my fault and my fault alone!

"Your attacks are faltering!" Noah moved his arm in preparation to hit Dart's side with the heavy shield. A brief summon of Dragonslayer was able to block it, but hardly enough to faze lashed out with his sword, trying in vain to put it through the bastard's head—and he was denied that, with a simple head tilt.

"...Why do humans fight?" The Book of Eibon's voice thundered in the colosseum, observing curiously the struggle occurring within itself.

"For revenge, and emotion?" It wondered. Hate in his eyes, Dart brought out Dragonslayer again and attempted to smash it over Noah's head, but blocked easily.

"For ideals?" It suggested alternatively. Noah threw out a punch with his free hand, missing the meister who dodged nimbly.

"I know all, yet nothing. Teach me, swordsman and sorcerer, the meaning of the madness! Show me humanity! Show me depravity! But most of all, show me struggle!"

/

Throughout all the battle against Noah—with Victoria, with Dart, with Cassiel—Julian felt he could do nothing but watch as they put all their chips on the table in a gamble to win. Everyone had laid down something. Everyone but himself.

I gotta do something. He thought, assuming human form where he wouldn't be seen, the debris around him serving as natural cover. But what?

His gaze, initially fixed on Dart and Noah, began to wander about the arena, hopelessly searching for a way to assist in any way he could. A gasp caught in his throat, with a spark of an idea.

"C-Cassiel!"

There, that draining machine she was tied to—the chains binding her were loosened, perhaps enough to pull her free with enough force. And so long as Noah was occupied...

"Damn it," he cursed beneath his breath. He was so afraid—afraid, but resolute.

/

"Come on!" A rock spear blasted against the sword in Dart's weakened grip. After Cassiel's surge in power, Noah's psychokinesis seemed to recharging gradually, priming more deadly projectiles from the debris.

Dart's breaths came out hot. "NOAH!" He put his remaining resilience into a swing of unexpected power and rapidity, aiming to fatally cleave into the hip and end it all. Yet, his hope was quashed in an instant, when he saw that even the peak of his reflexes were still outpaced by the speed of psychokinesis, the shield shooting around to defend its wielder.

A despairing and weary gasp exhausted came from him. Mortal stamina could only be pushed for so long. Half-hunched over, he looked up at Noah with doubling vision. The man's smirk basked in the dying sunlight, like a devil in shining silver, a devil whom Dart could throw all of his wrath and anger at to no avail. But in the corner of his eye, something disrupted the perfect picture of evil standing before him; far in the distance, he saw Julian running for Cassiel, chained-up on the machine.

Dart must've shown visible shock in looking at it, because Noah's nose furled up and looked over his shoulder to Julian. The battle paused, as both Dart and Noah processed the sight before returning to an immediate urgency.

"Oh, don't try!" Noah snarled, whipping around to set his sights on Julian with a spear levitated.

"Stay away from him!" Dart raised his sword at the sorcerer—

—and found himself impaled upon a sharp chunk of rock, forceful enough to drive him into the rubble meters away.

Alice felt her throat go horribly dry at the sight. Not a cry, not a gasp, left her mouth, swallowed up in a great physical well of despair. With no room for ambiguity, she knew the fight's outcome was decided right there.

Eyes bulging wide in agony, Dart looked down, noting the spear pierced straight through his right breast. A gasp and a cough became mangled into one noise, an unexpected spurt of blood expelling from his mouth. His eyelids dimmed somewhat with the realization that he wasn't going to make it from this. "...Oh." His tensed limbs, which instinctively tensed up in preparation to stand up again, relaxed in acceptance of his defeat.

A bright light shined in the corner of his vision, squinting at the sight of an untransformed Alice. Her voice wasn't clear, ringing and echoing to him. "DART!" There was an aspect about her much unlike what he was used to: she was crying—weeping, with shaking shoulders and face red and flushed. Hands placed on his chest, she looked at the wound with an expression of increasing dread. "This isn't—this is bad...!"

"Y-Yeah, it's kinda..." His head rocked back. The pain came and receded in waves, from all-consuming to barely present in his mind. "Pretty awful." He laughed grimly. But then he looked at her very seriously and said, "You ought to run."

"Run?!" Alice yelled indignantly at him, gloves wrinkling as she balled her hands into fists. "F-Fuck that! I'm not about to abandon my best friend in this Hell!"

A genuinely touched smile formed across his lips, and he clasped his bloody hand around hers. "Best friend..."

The warm moment didn't last long. He remembered Julian, and saw him, trying to undo the chains around Cassiel. "J-Julian," he said. "What's gonna happen to him?"

Noah appeared to be in the process of lining up his spear, eyes narrowed at the oblivious Julian far off.

"Alice." Dart tried to sit up in his current position, wincing at the spear and starting to pant in a rapid rhythm. "Pull me free! Get me off this thing, now!"

"Your chest—!"

"GO!"

Thus commenced the first bloody pull.

/

Julian's footsteps were unencumbered by gravity, sprinting light on his feet for Cassiel. There was desperation in his eyes, but also a want for forgiveness and redemption. I'm coming! His mind screamed, hand outstretched to his meister and the chains that bound her. It was frustrating how slow he moved, like walking on the moon, ever slowing his approach. Just...hang in there a second longer!

/

Alice couldn't watch as she gradually assisted Dart in writhing free of the spear. The air stunk of his blood, and the scene's horror was further punctuated by the noise—both of the tearing flesh and the sickened grunts of pain Dart made throughout, some part of him well aware he should've given up long ago, but still enduring despite the near-complete failure of his body function.

"Almost...THERE!" Dart hacked and spat and frothed at the mouth, focusing intently on Noah and Julian. If he could just block out every other sensation than the sight of those two, then he thought he might just have a fighting chance, one last time.

"Brace yourself!" Alice grit her teeth and gave her all into the last pull. She didn't see the results—only felt the spurt of hot blood splattering onto her clothes. When looked behind, and gawked to see him still standing in spite of the gaping hole in him.

"Aaannnd...enough." Noah's upright finger fell on Julian, surrounded in a psychic aura as he pointed the boy's way.

Dart ran, unarmed, at Noah. The hate was gone from him, only an intense, mounting fear remaining. "JULIAN! HE'S COMING!"

Hearing Dart's outcry, he whipped around just in time to perceive the spear, but not remotely fast enough to defend against it. Julian was able to get out a gasp before the vicious impact stole even that from him, going through his abdomen with little resistance. Julian, who posed no threat at all...

The colosseum was mute in the aftermath of the event. Dart and Alice, in shock, and Noah brimming with satisfaction. "You've had that a long time coming, rat."

"He...he wasn't an obstacle. He never was." Alice initially mumbled, but her voice rose higher with a potent disgust. "That was spite. You maimed a child out of spite."

"And a child shall judge me for it?" Noah replied, looking down on her from the small mound of rubble he stood on. Her breaths filled up tight in her chest, nearly consumed with the same fury that had swept away Dart earlier.

Dart, meanwhile, was crushed. His last reservoir of strength disappeared, reduced to a kneeling position in the dirt.

"I can't stop it," he groveled, and sobbed. "I never could. Too goddamn weak to fight the tide of things! Always have! ALWAYS WILL BE!" Enraged at the futility of it all, he slammed his fist in the dirt. "I'm no Maka Albarn—no, I'm not even worthy enough to hold the Dragonslayer in my hands! I'll ruin it, with my worthless pride!"

Noah readied another volley of spears, these ones pointed at the remaining two.

"Damn you, Noah..." Alice stepped in front of her despairing meister, ready to make what she knew was to be her last stand.

"HEY!"

A voice not belonging to any of the three still conscious bellowed for all to hear.

Dart looked up to the voice's source and found Julian. His body seemed to float in the weakened gravity, able to strain his vocal cords to shout despite the grievous wound suffered. Why? Dart wondered. Was it not better to spend what little time he had left in peace? No—Julian wouldn't make an effort without a point, not out of some needless sentimentality. Dart watched with strained eyes, and saw Julian's hand twitch, shake, but then steadily point to a definite position.

He was pointing at Cassiel. And he grinned at Dart, a rare drop of hope in his usual pessimistic face, before he shut his eyes for good.

At once, Dart understood. It was never about his own pride, nor the things Noah had done. There was a singular objective behind all these trials and tribulations: rather, a single person of good and pure heart to save. Alice must've seen it too, the way her face froze looking at Julian.

He'd failed to protect his friends.

But it wasn't too late to do them proud.

The pain from the aches and cuts and bruises in Dart silenced themselves for a final time. "One..." He supported himself on Alice's shoulder. "One more go. Let's give our sword one more go, Alice."

"Y'know..." Alice smiled, however grimly. "I like the sound of that." Graceful, she stood firm and let her human form give way to the light, assuming the form given to her by birthright: the refined, monochrome broadsword, unstained and sharp despite the numerous battles she'd participated in. The jewel-bottomed hilt landed squarely in Dart's hands, which despite his growing weakness he held firmly.

Noah looked over the pair on his mound of ruins with a mix of contempt and intrigue. Clearly, he hadn't expected them to keep fighting, and it seemed at any moment he was waiting for Dart to keel over and die.

"Bothersome, meddling adolescents... Your ambition is a paltry sum compared to my own!"

A flourish of his arm launched three of the spears floating behind him in rapid succession. Dart retreated with a backward jump, the lessened gravity carrying him far from Noah and high into the air. At the peak of his height, he was right at the colosseum's center, the last gleam of sunlight at twilight reflecting on the black of the sword.

He began to fall, slowly, squinting down at Noah during his descent. In spite of his fading consciousness, his thoughts became oddly clear...

Julian, and Cassiel, and Victoria, and Alice...everyone else here at the academy, too...

I really didn't think I was cut out for being a meister at first. Maybe I'm still not.

All I know is that these have been the best years of my life. Thanks, all of you.

He let the guard rest over his right shoulder, the tip pointed diagonally to the skies.

The show of acrobatics didn't much impress Noah. He brought his palm up to affix the spears in the right direction, hiding an intense annoyance behind a stoic facade.

"Hit me with everythin' you got..." Dart muttered through grit teeth, jacket flapping in the updraft. "I'll hit harder."

Without Dart or Alice truly processing it, blue sparks, or something different, seemed to be collecting around the blade. It was the product of a Soul Resonance, most certainly—not a thing of pure instinct like Dragonslayer or a conscious, stated effort between meister and weapon—but a synchronization and harmony of the mind, their purpose, thoughts, and feelings so shared that their very selves might have joined together as one, while still strictly divided into the role of weapon and wielder.

The sparks of magic flared up. With the widening of Dart's eyes, a momentary flash occurred, and Alice's blade was no more; that is to say, she became something else.

"What?!" Noah flinched, taking a step back in shock and outrage.

The shape Alice took on was no ordinary blade, not her own, not Dragonslayer's. The sharp blade had become nearly paper-thin, and double—no, triple the length of normal, with a ghostly blue tint to it. Words to small to read moved across its edge, scrolling and disappearing. Its tip, well behind Dart's back, had an ever-so-slight curve, and the usually-present jewel at the bottom of the hilt was gone, as though it had been stripped of human vanity and pride.

"Dragonslayer no more..." Alice spoke with preternatural tranquility, followed immediately by Dart.

"...Enter the ancestor, Dragonsbane."

He touched on the ground, and got running for Noah.

The presence of this new and powerful thing struck a blow to Noah's proud soul. He felt fear, a fear that could stand to dwarf the ambition in him that he thought indomitable. He wouldn't have it. A divine ruler could not falter in front of any obstacle, especially one that amounted to nothing more than a long blade.

"Dart and Alice, was it?!" He snarled, raising more spears from the rocks beneath him. "Be happy that I have acknowledged your existence enough to make me put in the effort to QUASH IT OUT!"

He cast both arms in the shape of an 'x', sending at the pair a barrage of lethal debris. He didn't care if it was more than necessary. He didn't care if he was spending all this energy on a pair of children. He wanted them dead, and by now he'd resigned himself to any means necessary.

The storm of debris closed in on Dart quickly. He reaffirmed his fingers' grip on the sword, the Dragonsbane, and with a few flicks of the wrist, the rocks were reduced to dust in the wind behind him.

"Agh!" Noah sputtered, having just spent his entire arsenal to no effect. His heart rate spiked at the sight of Dart running at him, sword in-hand. But there was still cause to fight: Cassiel's power was returning to him, slowly but surely. If he could just reawaken the fuller extent of his psychokinesis, then...

"I command you! HALT!" Noah's palms flashed with green, buckling down with the fullest confidence in himself. The telltale green light of a psychic hold enveloped Dart, and Noah had half a mind to deem him frozen.

"Dragonsbane, sever." Dart let loose a sharp exhalation and swung the sword once at the surrounding air, undeterred by any attempt to stop his advance. He ran up the pitiful mound of dirt leading to Noah, the hilt at his side. The sorcerer was baffled; so the blade's cutting power extended beyond what was visible to the eye?

"NO!" Noah violently protested, stumbling backward and tripping. His short life seemed to flash before his eyes. First, the affection for his father and creator, learning slowly about humans, studying the ancient magic craft alongside Eibon, realizing what he was destined for, and then came putting his plan into motion. He formed artificial relationships, imitations of solidarity between coworkers, between teacher and student, master and devoted knight, betraying it all because he failed to see them at his level. Ants beneath his feet, fools to be misled...

And now, his aspirations and everything he'd sacrificed to grasp at them were threatened by a simple comradery. He grasped again at the sky, fingers curling and clawing at what was far above him.

In the middle of Noah's short fall, Dart slashed in a wide horizontal arc. No resistance met Dragonsbane upon contact with Noah's gilded armor nor the shield, cutting right through them and past as though it was just empty air.

Dart came to a skid and looked down at the ground. Mere feet from him lay Noah, cleanly bisected. A growing pool of Lifeblood oozed from his upper torso, the deathblow instant if Noah's static expression was anything to go off of. "He's dead...?" He asked aloud, sounding surprised.

He smiled through busted lips. "Then I did it."

Satisfied, Dart Dekei dropped the Dragonsbane and let himself fall backwards.

"Congratulations." Alice transformed back into her human self, taking a knee next to him. "We're past this Hell, Dart."

She pondered shaking him awake, but decided against it after considering what he'd endured. Let the lazy boy rest, thought she.

"Alas...an unsatisfactory end." Bellowed the Book from nowhere and everywhere. "I've yet to decipher the human purpose, and with no master, I shall...fade."

"Human purpose?" Alice wondered about the question herself, before supplying a response for the ever curious tome. "I suppose it's a matter of finding your own comfort in life—or, realizing that comfort when it's already there." With that said, she surveyed the arena for her friends. She hoped they were alive.

"Ah, is this true?" The surrounding scenery began to blacken. "Sublime explanation, really..."

"I would hope so." Unsure of her own impending fate, Alice closed her fists, trying to be brave in the face of what could be her death or something worse.

The country of Fleurah, and the Book of Eibon...it seemed to Alice that the mystery had finally unraveled itself and laid to rest, at least to herself.


"Really? He left it lying there?" Lord Death brushed the sides of his mask between his thumb and forefinger. He and Joe had sat down for coffee within the Death Room, sharing a mutual confusion in Noah's sudden absence.

"Real strange, sir." Joe agreed, of a better mind with some java at his lips. "Noah's a flighty type of guy, but he shouldn't be too hard to rein in, right? Just page him come Monday...though I'm thinking we should probably keep the book somewhere safe."

"Safe, you say? We've got one in the basement! Excellent idea, my good Buttataki!"

"Not what I meant, but sure!"

Without previous cause for worry, the prone book flung itself open in a mess of flying pages, ejecting into the Death Room a sudden mess of people, five to be exact. Four teenagers and one adult in their company (recognized as Victoria Brandt rather quickly) were piled up on the floor in various states of ill health, only one of them conscious.

"You've got...you've got to help us." A blonde child spoke.

Following an uneasy pause, Joe's mouth opened in recognition of all of them. "...Alice?"

/

For all the buzz that the scene of the stretchers being wheeled in and out of the Death Room generated, a celebrity may as well have passed through the academy. Trips to the hospital wing were routine around the DWMA, but with four victims and several teachers about in a frenzy, the curious eyes of the public couldn't help but pry. Joaquin and Cole were in the gym when the wildfire of news reached, not knowing what happened, only that it involved some of their classmates.

Dumbbell still in-hand, Joaquin dialed Georgina as fast as he could.

Georgina picked up after a long waiting period, sounding confused. "J-Joaquin? Aren't you and Cole on a date right now?"

"I am, but forget that for now. Something happened with Cassiel, you gotta get to school fast. Tell the sisters too, will you?"

"Yeah! Yeah, I can. I'll—I'll be there quick." He could practically feel the urgency from her halfway across the city.

Cole rested a hand on his partner's shoulder, looking at the exit in the corner of the room. "Joaquin, we ought to go too."

"I was planning on it, wasn't I?"

By the time they hastened up to the ground floor and made a break for the hospital wing down the halls, there was already a cluster of students held back by a handful of staff at the entrance, much to their chagrin.

Joaquin cursed, and tried to push his way past after a moment of hesitance. Still, he found himself denied by a beefy guard. "What's the big idea? We're friends, damn it!"

"Yeah, I'm sure you're all friends!" The guard retorted.

"Oh, you don't wanna make enemies with this—"

"Joaquin!" Nika shouted, waving from far back in the crowd. "Get back here!"

Resigning himself, he brushed past the mob of underclassmen again, reconvening with Cole, the sisters, and Georgina by the wall.

"Wish I knew what was happening..." He muttered, kicking against a locker with the back of his foot.

"Agh, don't we all." Cole echoed a similar frustration at the unfolding scene, providing a small comfort.

"Y'know what I wish? I wish that they'd told us before they went off to do something dangerous or stupid like I know they did! We could've...y'know...!" Nika threw her arms up, for lack of words.

"Jesus," Nicolette spoke through gritted teeth, gazing at the ground. "I really hate you, Dart. What was the point of yesterday if you were just gonna martyr yourself the next?"

"H-Hey," Georgina stepped in the middle of them, trying to ease their tension with the single hand she had available. "You guys are talking like t-they're not gonna make it out of this. You saw what we could do in Fleurah—we're strong, aren't we? Now's not the time to guess the worst has happened," she said with a smile, though adding a cautious "I hope," at the end.

"You're right, Georgina. Let's all hope." With a sigh, Nika walked off to the double doors outside and gestured for everyone to follow while the crowd of onlookers at the wing only seemed to grow in size every passing minute.


As the evening progressed, more staff arrived to shoo off the gawkers, and others began to awaken, one by one. First Victoria, then Julian, and lastly Cassiel, who received the most attention from nurses on account of her malnourished and withered form. She was conscious, but still not quite cognizant of her surroundings, it seemed.

Julian was sitting upright in bed, staring up at the ceiling in what seemed to be silent panic when Victoria moved over to his bed partition from the other side of the long room.

"Look at you. Still alive after all, huh, tough guy?" She smiled, proud but wearily. Her standing was supported by crutches, but it was impressive nonetheless to see her up within mere hours of her injury. Julian was in awe.

"Don't act coy, you piece of shit, I could say the same for you." When Julian sat up, he irritated his abdominal wound, cursing it, but maintaining posture nonetheless. "You pulled all the weight. You guys all did."

"C'mon, Julian. Where would we be in that Greed chapter without you? Not to mention, trying to rescue Cassiel in the middle of all that action—pretty ballsy, if I say so myself. Which makes me wonder..."

Victoria swiveled around on her crutches, regarding Alice in the corner. She looked lonely, sitting on a stool beside her still unresponsive meister. "Hey, Alice." Victoria nodded at the girl as she spoke. "What happened? I'm sure it was great, too bad most of us were out cold for it."

"Ah! You mean..." Alice's dulled eyes lit up, then becoming pensive as she tried to recall. "Dragonsbane, it was called. That was what we used to kill Noah. The Robinson line goes far... I wouldn't be surprised if my mother knew much about it from our ancestors. From what I gleaned during the resonance, its power is absolute: it cuts anything."

"Woah..." Victoria mumbled, making a slicing motion with her arm to imitate what surely must've happened to Noah. "If that's not something you two dreamt up, it's the best weapon I've ever heard of."

"Yes, well," Alice took a breath, her pride giving way to something. "You have Julian to thank for that. If not for that stunt he pulled so late into the battle, I don't think Dart or I would have found the strength to try."

The compliment struck Julian unexpectedly, reduced to a hot-faced, sputtering mess. "Are you freakin'—" He let out a last groan, head turning aside bashfully. "Yeah, well, thanks Alice. Suppose that means a lot, coming from an uptight chick like you."

She snickered, attuned enough to Julian's personality to draw the right message from it. Between them, Victoria beamed, full of satisfaction and relief at the way her students seemed turn out in their time at the DWMA.

Their chat swiftly quieted once they all overheard the talk of the physical therapist from the far end of the hospital wing. "Careful now, Cassiel—if you're going to walk, you'll need to be aware that your body's been through a little much over the course of...how long?"

There she was, wobbly and a little shaken, but at the very least, she looked alive with all the color returned to her face. The therapist was guiding her to the door, taking it slow on account of her weakness.

Like she sensed something unspoken in the air, Victoria looked at Julian and gestured with her elbow to her. "Hey, Julian, now's a good chance if you wanna..."

"Y-Yeah," wincing, he pushed himself out of bed. It was a strain, but possible, if only for a minute or two.

He hurried out of his partition to the center floor, managing to catch a glimpse just as she was about to leave out to the hallway.

"Cassiel?"

Her attention was seized, stopping, and turning around to look him directly. She seemed so drastically different, but still distinctly Cassiel, with her hair down and in that drab hospital gown as opposed to her usual colorful wardrobe.

She registered nothing but shock for several seconds. Desolate, Julian didn't know what to do but stand there. What could she have thought of him, given so much time alone and so much time to resent what he said in their last meeting?

Expression unchanging, Cassiel pushed from the therapist's hold, hobbling towards Julian. His heart was caught in a sharp rhythm, eyes gone wide in his panic.

When there was all but a foot between them, her shoulders rose and fell unsteadily. Her dry lips parted, but not a word would come out. The way she peered at him was deep and searching, and by God, that pierced him harsher than anything before.

"Cass," his voice broke. "I'm sorry."

Without another word, she flung herself into him, arms seizing tight around his back. She wailed, and Julian too couldn't hold back the inelegant sobs escaping him in the bittersweet melancholy of the moment.

Eventually, Cassiel was able to get out something comprehensible. "You're here. You're all here..."

/

"Miss Robinson, I think you'll understand, but we're going to consider you a visitor for the time being. The next visiting hours start at noon tomorrow—get some rest, won't you?"

Alice nodded cordially, though still bearing some residual anxiety in her quiet demeanor; for hours now, Dart had yet to wake up since the battle. Of course, he had been through much, so it was only natural that he spend a long time resting up...but the voice in the back of her head wasn't the reassuring sort. "Right. I'll be off, then."

Standing by the exit, Victoria tried to instill some confidence in her pupil with the heartiest grin she could manage in her current state, watching as Alice passed her by.

Just as she was about to leave, Alice paused, looking up to Victoria with a rigid frown. "About Dart... You think he'll turn out quite alright, Victoria?"

There wasn't a moment's hesitation in her reply. "A hundred percent. Don't go worrying about it—me, Julian, and Cassiel are gonna be here to watch him. He's a resilient kid."

"I suppose you're correct." Alice mustered a grin through despondent lips. "Thanks, teacher."

Appreciative of that title, she shut her eyes and leaned against the wall while Alice's footsteps quieted in the distance. Once Alice was gone, however, Victoria's expression sunk; she could be as bold as she wanted about her supposed belief in Dart's survival, but in truth, she was just as unsure as Alice.

"Better go check on him..." She mumbled. She passed by Cassiel and Julian, asleep in their own beds, reaching Dart by his window-side partition. There was a flowered vase on the windowsill that Victoria suspected had been there since her own time as a student at the DWMA, carrying an antique aroma blown by the outside air of Death City. The ECG waveforms were infrequent, but still pulsing with the beat of his heart.

"Hey," Victoria shook his arm gently. "...You better hang on, little hero. You got people waiting to thank you."

She thumbed away a tear from her eye, and her mouth opened agape when she came to notice something about him.

There was the most contented smile on his face.

I hope you were happy here, Dart. Victoria prayed. I hope someone as gentle as yourself could find some meaning in this violent place.

AN: Just one more thing before the conclusion.