A/N: Special thanks to Ipsen, for the helpful account of what adrenaline does to injuries. =)

I do not own or profit from any of what Kazue Kato has created.


The already confusing cavity twisted and bent in the light of… fire, for lack of better word. Inside a humongous hourglass-shape of two pyramids joined at the tips, black fire trickled down from the top chamber, and white trickled up from the bottom one; switching colour as they switched places, churning wildly in their confines. The shadows of six people flickered on the cavern walls, their bodies nothing but sharp silhouettes in the light. A huge seal, the Secret Seal of Solomon, had once encircled the hourglass, but was scraped out of use: an intricate binding seal was painted in its place.

"Six of them." He looked back at Mephisto, who was leaning heavily against the wall. Never seen the old goat like this. The purple bangs glued to his skin, and his breathing was quick and shallow. Like one about to pass out any moment. "If I break that seal, your powers return?"

"Yes."

"Swell. I'll expect the cavalry in a minute, then." False hope is better than none, at least when you look like that.

A clammy hand caught his shirt when he'd turned around to go.

"Don't…" Mephisto swallowed with effort. "Don't… break the container. Under any circumstances. They've… fully activated my heart, somehow… fully vulnerable to the chant… make them… stop…"

"You got it."

There is no real way of sneaking into a dead end with only one entrance. Then again, with the anti-demon fortifications on the way, it wasn't likely they expected to be disturbed.

"Oi! Stop that!" The moment of surprise was brief, but valuable: Shiro seized the guy closest by and held him like a shield, sword to his throat. "Stop chanting!"

"Idiot. We went into this prepared to die", the guy said in a calm voice: first sign that this… was not going to be easy.

"He's human", another shadow observed, a female.

"So?" said the guy Shiro held. "Sacrifices can be made. One less of the demon's dogs."

"Shit." Shiro felt a chill run down his spine as light danced over the woman's face. That was Natsuya, the number one Dragoon in the entire Academy. "Stand back or he dies", he snarled, pulling his hostage closer to make sure she didn't have a clear aim on him.

"Not before you die", she said calmly, training her gun at him. But her eyes... weren't on him.

Shiro ducked just in time to feel a blade clip hair off the top of his head. Before he knew it, he'd slit his hostage's jugular, his sword trailing a red streak in the air as he swung it around at the attacker behind him. Steel met steel, and the sharp clank soaked into the squirming walls.

"Agari… chan…?"

The flickering of the white light was the only movement in her face. Cold eyes returned his stare. Calm. Rigid. The kind prepared to die for her mission.

A gunshot rang a short, reverberating crack, but was sucked up by the walls: the bullet bit into the surface way off its mark and shattered, like glass.

"Hey, Agari-chan! You don't have to do this!" She was good with a sword, but she was no Mephisto. Shiro had no need to fear for his safety – unless one counted the other four in the dimensional pocket. "I don't know about them, but you're not batshit-crazy. Whatever you think you're doing, stop it."

"Shut your mouth", she hissed, turning angles on a hairpin to create an opening.

"She's going to kill me…" he realised, mind far away in disbelief. His body carried on the parrying on autopilot, grateful for all the training hours with a private instructor. "Oi, I don't wanna kill you! There has to be some-"

The bullet whizzed closer this time, but still pitifully off. What was up with that? Natsuya was supposed to be the Academy's best marksman.

"Just hit him!" Agari snarled at her, sweeping at Shiro's head and leaving a thin, stinging line on his throat that bled down into his collar.

"She's going to kill me." The thought became clear and sharp as a breath in winter morning. Agari would kill him. Agari would kill him with the same cold determination she had tried to kill Midori. Just like she was trying to kill Mephisto. "If I kill her…"

He tried to imagine the light going out in those hard, dark eyes. Tried to imagine Agari topple to the ground in slow motion, limp and empty. Imagined time stopping just as she hit the floor.

Imagination. The lies we tell ourselves, pretty or ugly. The light didn't go out, and she didn't fall slowly. She just fell. Not a word, not a twitch. Dead. Terminally, irrevocably dead.

Time didn't stop. Neither did he. Once you walk over the edge, you have no choice but fall to the bottom. If these people were prepared to die, and kill, then he would have to be the same.

He brushed the back of his hand over the edge of his katana and summoned his shahrokh to draw the fire from Natsuya's gun. Something was off with her aim – maybe the atmosphere in this dimension was different – but a lucky shot is as good for killing as a well-aimed one.

He charged for the seal, but jumped back as a bullet shattered right in front of his feet.

"I can't aim", a tall girl said in a rich, masculine-sounding voice. She circled to position herself between him and the binding seal. "You finish him off, I back you up if he tries to reach the seal."

The Knight, Katsu, that had led the search in the labyrinth: highest ranked in his year class…

The sight of his tall stature and strong frame made Shiro feel nauseous.

"Why, hi there. You the one who tried to snuff me in the labyrinth, then?" He heard gunshots from Natsuya, answered with rumbling growls. As long as he kept moving and didn't get too close to either Dragoon, hopefully…

"That was a warning. You are making a serious mistake, Fujimoto Shiro-kun." The spear-tipped khakkhara jingled like a rattlesnake in his hands, rippling under the steady chant that filled the place. "It's not too late for you to open your eyes and lay down your weapon."

The kind of speech you'd hear in a crappy film, his brain observed lightheadedly. The kind of speech the good guys throw the villain and the villain never listens. Shiro didn't have time for that - Mephisto didn't have time for that. The chanting Aria sat cross-legged a few feet away from the hourglass, further into the cavity. Maybe…

"Shahrokh! Take that guy!" The familiar turned sharply at his command, flying at the sitting shape…

Shiro reacted just in time not to be skewered on the sharp end of Katsu's khakkhara. He slapped it away with his sword, but the Knight followed the movement through with a spin and numbed his arm with the heavier end of the staff. This wasn't like fighting a Knight with a sword.

A sharp, purple burst of light flashed through the cavity, and the shrill, agitated cry of the familiar reached his ears. Another protective circle around the chanter, then. They sure had come prepared.

"Help me out here!"

Had to work fast, had to work fast… He deflected another stab, this time prepared to block when the other end came around: or so he thought, but Katsu went into close combat instead. Not good, not with a guy that size…! Shiro backed, sword ready to stave off-

Over the heavy beat of shahrokh's wings, he heard the crackling sound of branches growing faster than normal: the wooden body of Katsu's khakkhara had sprouted twigs that grew into snugly fitting branches around his arms.

Shiro lunged forward and drove his sword home straight into the immobilised Knight's gut.

It could just as well have been his own.

"I shouldn't be able to do this…" Not for very long, the tight feeling in his stomach told him. No, not for long. This was survival-mode, and it let him do things… but he wouldn't be able to keep his mind in this detached state much longer. "I have to get to that blasted seal."

Katsu sagged to the ground in a growing pool of deep red, slid off his sword and left the sickening smell of blood mixed with intestine content in the air.

Had to get to the seal...!

Another gunshot, so close it made his head ring. Shahrokh's fierce growl turned shrill, and became a low, howling gasp. The demon went down, miasma oozing from her shuddering shape. Shiro dashed to cut down the tall Dragoon before she could turn the gun on him, but fell flat with a surprised gasp. He was too high on adrenaline to really feel it... but the hot, gushing feeling down his calf told him the cut was deep, and precise.

"That should keep you in place. Dog." Behind him, Natsuya had holstered her gun and used Agari's sword to slice off the tendon in the back of his knee.

"We should kill him", the other one said, doing it already with her hard eyes. There was no missing from that distance, even with a strange atmosphere. "After what he did to the others. He's sided with Satan and his minions; he can die with them."

"I think he should live." Natsuya circled to stand between him and the hourglass, sword-tip carefully aimed at his head. There was no compassion in that statement, and none on her face when she glanced at him down her nose. "At least long enough to see his master die first."

These people, just who the hell were they?

Adrenaline dulled the burning in his leg, sped through his veins and slowed time with each heartbeat. Rather than slip out of his cold survival-state, Shiro sank deeper into it; discarded any restraints set by compassion like a set of worn-out clothes. These people were no ordinary students of True Cross Academy. They were not going to give up their objective, and they were not going to let him get in their way. Either they died, or he did.

You think that choice is never easy to make. In reality, it's made for you. Once all other options have been disabled, there is only one choice.

He tightened his grip on the katana discreetly and tried to test how much mobility he had in his left leg. A distraction would be good, but there was nothing he-

"N-Natsuya-senpai…"

"Oh… 'Speak of the devil', they say", she said, looking past Shiro. "You made it this far, demon?"

How Mephisto even moved in that state was beyond Shiro. He clutched the chest of the hakama, as if physically holding on to his body and his life; staggered forward, a corpse fresh from the grave. Tar-black creeks of miasma oozed from nose and eyes in a face that twisted with the effort to force decaying muscles to move through power of will alone. He was in a lot of pain. And he was royally furious.

"I would expect you to", Natsuya continued, watching with a cold smile as he cringed with each rhythmic beat of the chant. "It wouldn't do to miss your own funeral."

Mephisto took the fist from his chest. He wasn't clutching the hakama: he was clutching… a tiny, delicate hourglass…?

"Fili Dei…" he rasped, murder burning in his eyes, "…miserete nobis…" He crushed the miniature in his hand.

The gargantuan hourglass shattered, showering the cavity and everyone in it with gleaming shrapnel; the flames clawed at the seal barrier, roaring and twisting like wild beasts behind bars.

In the corner of his eye, he saw Mephisto slump down on hands and knees, vomiting thick miasma. Before him, Natsuya toppled over, back pierced by hundreds and hundreds of translucent shards. And over the roar of the flames, the chant went on…

"That evens the odds a bit…" Shiro gritted his teeth and dragged himself up on his feet. As if he could complain about a cut tendon after Mephisto's performance.

The other Dragoon hadn't been lucky enough to have a human shield. She clutched a gash in her neck, aiming at him with an unsteady, bleeding hand.

"How could he do that?! He's supposed to be powerless, how could he do that?!"

"Oh he always has a trick or two up his sleeve", Shiro said, forcing the agonized grimace into a smirk as he dragged himself closer. Let her think it had been planned, that would unsettle her.

"You dog…!" she hissed, missing him by less than a hand's breadth. "If you had even a sliver of honour as a human being, you would hack his head off!"

Another shot, one that almost grazed his arm. He didn't pay any mind, focused solely on completing what he'd set out to do. What he had to do. If he'd counted correctly, she only had two left…

"Then I don't have much honour."

"That's obvious enough!" she screamed, face livid and her hand trembling: he was right, she only had two bullets left. Question was, could he make her miss at this short a distance…? "Do you even know who that is?!"

"Yeah: Prince Mephistopheles, King of Foppishness."

She cracked a shrill, crazed laughter. Perfect… Shiro clenched his teeth and forced himself forward, readying to-

"Fully ensnared in the demon's lies! That's Prince Samael: Crown Prince Samael!" her voice pierced the chant and the thumping heartbeat in his ears. "Satan's eldest son!"

Shiro saw her lips move… he heard the sounds from her mouth… but his brain couldn't code the words into meaning. Samael. That name was in his school books.

Shiro's head turned of its own accord.

"He's Satan's…?"

The bullet tore into his arm with the force of a hundred scorpion tails. Half blind from pain, half furious from it, he cut her throat in one sweep. And that was the last thing his left arm would do for him for many months to come.

"Nngh, damn…!"

It was pure, hammered-in reflex that made him clumsily sheathe his katana before staunching the blood: the kind of hardwired commando the mind has learnt to run on autopilot despite how ridiculousin the context. The part of his brain that made plans without his assistance also kicked in, and told him to prioritise: seal first, patching later.

Seal? He looked from the madly clawing flames to the barely breathing demon. Unseal his powers at maximum effect? He wouldn't be able to house even a candle-flame in his condition.

"Satan's son…" Telling himself that the throbbing in his arm wasn't so bad, he bent down and picked up the gun with his right hand. One bullet. "For whom…?" a sardonic thought said curtly.

Who was the true enemy here?

A little late to develop a conscience. A little late for most things, really. Time was slipping, and he didn't know what the hell to do. So Shiro left the lead to the part of him that seemed to know what it was doing, and focused all of his being on that thing alone; restraints discarded, ready to do whatever the situation required.

"Oi…" The whispered chant was deafening in the silence; and the Aria didn't move a muscle. "That's the kid… the freshman with the key… Susumu…" Shiro limped slowly over to the smaller seal, already knowing his options. "I'm gonna tell you once, and only once." He put the gun to the guy's head. No missing at this distance. "Stop chanting." He met Shiro's eyes, completely calm. "And a good little actor you are, too." Shiro cocked the hammer with a soulless click. "Or I'll shoot."

It's one thing to kill in the heat of battle, when you feel the frailty of your life hammering at your eardrums. It's another thing to look a defenceless kid in the eye and pull the trigger in cold blood. Susumu knew that, relied on it: told him so with his eyes.

What he didn't know was that Shiro Fujimoto was a man of his word. A man with the potential to accomplish anything, given the right motivation and the right amount of adrenaline iron-coating his nerves. Few people are that ruthless – few even believe people can be that ruthless. That's what makes them such easy marks for the ones who are.

Before Susumu had the hidden knife out of its sheath, Shiro pulled the trigger. The strange atmosphere of the pocket dimension swallowed the sound of the combustion, and the chant with it.

There. He'd hit the bottom. He was the lowliest a human being can be. But he was alive: and with the option in mind, he couldn't say he regretted the choice.

"Never was a good person, was I…?" he thought wryly. His hand was shaking; good. Then he wasn't a complete monster. He winced at the sound as the gun clattered to the floor.

There is silence, and there is silence. There is silence that is tense, like a glass vase balancing on the edge of a table, waiting to be broken: and there is silence that forbids such interruption, striking ears deaf with its unfelt weight. And there is the final silence; the silence of a breath that will never be followed by another.

A silence broken by laughter coated in velvet nightmares.