Byleth had always hated monthly missions for a variety of different reasons. They put her children in danger, they brought out the worst in her, and they could never end peacefully.
Looking back, Byleth was a bit uncomfortable with how she'd acted during the Golden Deer mission. At the time she'd been doing what she had to. Her children were in danger. Looking back at her own actions, she was admittedly upset with herself. Her actions at the time had been tactically unsound, she could have done more harm than good, and most upsetting of all she'd acted feral. Not just her... but Sothis as well. Which was strange, to put it lightly. Sothis was (ironically) the calmer of the two when it came to protecting and guiding those in their care.
Sure, Byleth was the one who was supposed to be good with tactics. The one who wore her emotionless heart with grace. But when it came down to protecting her children… Byleth didn't always have the most self control.
The best example she could think of was with Morrigan all those years back. She'd acted entirely on impulse and it was something that never changed. While time might have been of the essence, Byleth was reckless and she could have hurt one of her children. Or even scared them. She could have made them think she wasn't safe to be around! That thought alone was distressing. Sothis was supposed to be the calm one when Byleth couldn't be; one of them needed to have an even head at all times.
Yet she'd acted with the same bloodthirsty abandon as Byleth.
So much for 'always trying to use as non-lethal tactics as possible'. It was a creed she'd stuck to when she was younger, adventuring from region to region. All lives had their values. Their worth. It wasn't right for her to steal them if she had the power not to, nor was it her right to judge who got to live and who got to die based on self-proclaimed morality - which was gray at best and a roulette wheel whenever she was around certain dark mages. She had spells specifically tailored to avoid lethal outcomes.
Fodlan had changed her. Or maybe it just woke up a monster she didn't know was there. Maybe all Gods were monsters parading around in human looking masks. And she'd officially become one of them. The thought made her sick to her stomach. She didn't want to be a monster. A leash-less beast.
"You aren't the monster," Sothis said. She looked at Byleth sadly, her expression speaking far louder than actual words.
It made her heart absolutely sink in the pit of her stomach.
Yeah, no.
You know what? Nope.
Absolutely not. Neither of them were going to be the monster. They were the masters of their own stories; they weren't going to play into someone else's grand design and fall into a category they didn't want to be a part of. Byleth was just going to have to try a little harder to keep herself in check from now on. To figure out what was having such a negative impact on her to make her act against her better judgement.
Instead of using the minimal disaster that was the Golden Deer mission as something to linger on, she'd use it as a reminder of who she was striving to be. What she didn't want to become.
The problem with that resolution was the fact that Rhea kept putting Byleth's Goddess-damned children in danger.
Considering what happened last time with the Golden Deer, the Black Eagles and the Blue Lions were going to be working 'together' on their monthly mission. And by together, Rhea meant sending them out onto the same battle field, but making sure they never encountered one another via overly-convoluted tactics. Which was a problem to Byleth.
It wasn't like Rhea was just being stupid either and choosing tactics for the hell of it. She was planning something, and Byleth was uncomfortable not knowing what.
They were currently going up against some bandits in Zanado. Which was normal for this point in the month. After what happened to the Golden Deer, though, Byleth didn't necessarily trust what constituted as 'normal'.
It was just a regular old Red Canyon mission... except Byleth had the feeling everything was about to go terribly wrong.
She didn't want to admit it, but Byleth herself wasn't even fully recovered from the Golden Deer mission. She'd been taking it easy the last couple of days, but she'd also had to play teacher for the Blue Lions while Manuela had her hands full. Byleth honestly tried to get lots of rest, she did!
But every time she lied down it was either a nightmare or a student knocking on her door, keeping her on the move. She wasn't too terribly injured, but she was more fatigued than she was letting on, and she had no doubt that whatever happened here would push her stamina to its limits.
The plan of attack was simple. The Black Eagles would assault the front while the Blue Lions looped around to attack the back. This ensured there would be no escape and the Blue Lions could easily sweep the field. Except... The Blue Lions had more offensive students. Students who acted like actual knights and could take a hit. And the Black Eagles had more mages. Mages who were about as squishy as an undercooked souffle. So why were the Black Eagles the decoy?
If that wasn't bad enough, the bandits were spaced out enough that going around back wouldn't even matter. The group was so large, at least based on the report Byleth read beforehand, that one half wouldn't even notice the other was under attack, meaning they wouldn't be routed and the divide-and-conquer strategy was literally pointless.
If anything, it did more harm than good, since it halved the capable fighting force that should really be focusing on a weak point and chunking through the oblivious bandits piece by piece. That wasn't even taking into account the fact there could be Rift Beasts, and depending on their 'rank' as Byleth was now calling it, it would take either Byleth focusing all of her efforts on the thing or an entire damn class of students to kill one.
Sometimes Byleth had to seriously wonder just how severely Rhea got injured in the battle against Nemesis. Her tactics were flat out suicidal at times. Byleth genuinely had to wonder if she'd taken brain damage, or if she was just that deep into something Byleth could only describe as draconic degeneration.
Complaining aside, Rhea probably had some type of plan. Unfortunately, whatever it was, it was something unfamiliar to Byleth's typical resetting. It agitated her to not know what was going on in Rhea's head. She wasn't to be underestimated, and her current mindset thanks to the changes that had already been made were unpredictable to say the least. Which was part of what made Byleth so nervous about this battle, regardless of what advantages they did still have.
Her father was leading the Black Eagles. As was to be expected of the House's main teacher. Byleth was a little reassured by that fact. What wasn't as reassuring was the fact that she was currently leading the Blue Lions. As previously mentioned, after what'd happened to the Golden Deer, Manuela currently had her hands full babysitting a bunch of injured fawns. Some of which refused to stay in bed. Case in point: Leonie, who'd gotten beat up pretty roughly but had been caught outside of bed multiple times by Byleth alone.
Manuela being unable to lead the Blue Lions left the heavy lifting to Byleth. Which was well and good and fine, it wasn't like it was an unfamiliar task! The problem with that came when she realized her ability to jump around the battlefield was severely limited by having to play tactician for the children. She could leave Dimitri in charge, but that was probably the last thing she wanted to do.
Even mildly sane pre-war Dimitri was still a greasy, depressed, lonely boy who didn't know what shampoo was. She couldn't in good conscience leave that unfortunate creature in charge of the lives of 7 other people.
Especially not when he, Sylvain, and Felix all collectively shared a single brain cell named Ingrid. In some ways they were worse than the Deer.
No, it seemed Manuela was stuck babysitting the fawns, so Byleth was stuck babysitting the cubs. Under normal circumstances, it would be completely fine! But even with her father puppy guarding them with his life, Byleth just couldn't stop worrying about the Eagles. She knew her Eagles. They'd do something stupid. One of them would do something stupid, and then it'd just be a constantly devolving mess of someone doing something stupid and then exacerbating it as the next person tries to fix the mess in the most stupid way possible.
For example, Caspar getting decked in the face hard enough to get knocked out by the Death Knight. So Linhardt - having no understanding of common sense - tried to go save Caspar, while also trying to knock out the Death Knight. Not with magic. With his fists.
These children? Don't know how to keep themselves alive?
Byleth could worry all she wanted but at least they were all still on the same battlefield. Maybe the Black Eagles weren't in her direct line of sight, but they were in a close enough place that Sothis could keep an eye on them if (when) things started to turn sour. So Byleth focused on the terrible tactic of sneaking up behind the bandits while the Black Eagles tried to garner their attention.
"Steady," she reminded her students as Felix started to sway on his feet, refusing to stay still. He just grunted, and it took Sylvain actively gripping his shoulder to stop his constant fidgeting.
"My apologies, Professor, it seems my class for the most part isn't used to waiting for ambushes," Dimitri said, awkwardly glancing between Felix and Ingrid. Sylvain seemed okay, but Byleth was starting to think Sylvain had more experience than he was letting on, in the form of memories he wouldn't talk about. By accident or on purpose, when he was sparring Felix under the supervision of Byleth herself the other day, he'd accidently used a technique that was exclusive to herself and her father. Not because it was a special family technique or anything, it was just exclusive in Fodlan because it was common in Tellius.
Sylvain had avoided eye contact with her for the rest of the day, as though he knew he'd done something wrong or telling, and didn't want to fess up yet for some reason or another. All in all, that made three people she was starting to think remembered something. Claude and Sylvain were two, which was good and she could deal with. Mostly, anyways. Close friends. Good boys. They wouldn't do too much damage as long as they didn't blab, and they were smarter than that. They were often both smarter than they let on.
The third was Jeritza, which had Byleth exceptionally worried.
Jeritza was in an interesting position where she wasn't entirely certain of the full weight of his loyalty. Was it to Edelgard herself? The Empire as a whole? She didn't think it would be to Those Who Slither.
So who gave the order?
The Blue Lions finally managed to get into position after circling around the rather large bandit group for way longer than Byleth was happy with. Finally, they could get started and help the Eagles, who were no doubt already in the middle of preparing to strike and- oh no.
"What in the world are those?" She heard the incredulous voice of Felix ask as he peered over her shoulder. For even Felix to be taken off guard was a testament to the terrifying power of the beast that sat before them now. The Blue Lions, upon finally getting into position, now gazed upon the figure of at least one Rift Beast. Lounging, surrounded by a conglomerate of Those Who Slither.
Wait, no, there was a second one. Damn it. Really, they had to deal with two?
"That thing is rather similar to the monster you killed when Claude, Edelgard, and myself first met you and your father," Dimitri said as they stared at the creature. None of the Blue Lions looked comfortable and any hint of reinforcements were still a ways off. Rhea didn't just send the students and the students alone after the Golden Deer incident, but those reinforcements were at least an hour behind. If they weren't smart, both classes would be massacred before the reinforcements arrived.
Damn it Rhea, was she actually trying to get them killed? Byleth genuinely couldn't wrap her head around what the other woman was thinking when she planned this. What was she trying to achieve, other than purposefully getting Byleth or the children killed?
Byleth said both a quick curse and a quick prayer under her breath before turning back to her students. "Okay, in formation. There's no going back now," she said. There was literally no going back, all things considered. The Black Eagles would be staging their attack soon, and Byleth would have no way of getting to them in time to try and get things called off. She might have been able to if one of her students was actually promoted, but sadly the resident pegasus knight didn't know that she was one of the most fearsome pegasus knights Byleth had ever laid eyes on.
Without a pegasus or a wyvern, there was no way to get the Black Eagles before their charge. The Eagles would be needing her Lions for backup considering what kind of battle this was, so there was only forward and death.
At the very least, the Rift Beasts she could see were much smaller than the creature she'd fought with her little Deer. They didn't look like they were going to be randomly break time, and there only seemed to be two from what Byleth could tell. Thankfully. Sothis had just gotten time fixed and was very disgruntled the entire time she was fixing it.
And by getting time fixed, Byleth meant specifically on all the main land masses. Small islands and the ocean proper was a problem Sothis was still working though, all while muttering threats of teaching Byleth how to help her. Even with Sothis' dedicated work some countries were a bit wibbly wobbly still.
As far as she was aware, Elibe jumped forward nearly 20 years. For Tellius it was almost 10. Other places, like Magvel, actually went backwards a couple months. Some places like Valm and Ylisse got lucky and things mostly balanced out. It was still a problem Byleth dearly hoped they wouldn't be dealing with again, at least not anytime soon. She could deal with losing the ability to reset, but she didn't want time randomly breaking like a child's toy.
"We're actually going to fight that thing?" Even Felix seemed worried as he glanced at the monstrous beast.
"No," Byleth said. "You all are going to fight the bandits. I, am going to fight any of those monsters that show up," she said. Considering it was smaller hopefully she'd be able to handle the creature on her own. It was only a bit larger than the first one she'd ever killed. It looked dumber too. Her students still looked at her like she was a madwoman.
"Professor, are you sure? Didn't you get hurt during your last missions? Are you sure you've had enough time to heal?" Annette started to fuss while the front-line units hesitantly got into their positions.
It was actually Sylvain who put his hand on Annette's shoulder and smiled reassuringly. "The professor is the last person you should be worried about. She'll be fine, she's a big strong girl who's done this before. You should be more worried about us. You just pay attention to whacking anyone who gets near us with that axe and those spells of yours." His smile widened a little and Annette actually did relax under his calming aura. He didn't even turn 180 and start flirting with her, he just left it at that and got into position between Felix and Ingrid.
Felix was on the far left, positioned in such a way he could easily fan out on his own. Sylvain and Ingrid were in the middle, right next to each other. They were a bit like the tip of the arrow, usually hitting the enemies first, since more often than not they were mounted units. To Ingrid's right was Dimitri who could fan out right much like Felix could fan out left. This also gave them the added bonus of being powerful flank guards.
Behind them were Mercedes, Annette, and Ashe. Occasionally Flayn depending on the reset in question, or whoever else they ended up adding to the group. Mercedes was in the center between Annette and Ashe, so she for the most part had access to everyone in order to heal them, and there was another barrier between arrows and the very squishy healer. Even if Annette and Ashe weren't too durable themselves, they weren't as squishy as a bishop might be.
In the back was Dedue who took his job as the rear guard very seriously. As long as Dimitri wasn't in danger. If Dimitri was in danger, then the entire formation had a tendency to break down, but luckily Dimitri wasn't in danger often.
Byleth often played whatever role seemed to be lacking. More often than not, she was the front guard who did her best to sprint after Ingrid and Sylvain. Sothis always found it hilarious since - somehow - Byleth managed to pull it off, keeping herself mostly between her children and the scariest of foes.
Today would be no different.
"On mark," she said as the little ones finished organizing themselves into their proper order. Just as she said that, there was a loud bang off in the distance. Likely the Eagles. They'd come prepared with numerous explosive barrels to use as their grand entrance. It also just so happened to be the signal for 'charge'. The moment her children heard the explosion they started their advance, moving at a quick but steady pace.
Sothis stayed with Byleth until told otherwise, monitoring their respective magic pools as well as keeping an overhead of the battle.
There were about two visible Rift Beasts alongside the plethora of bandits and a couple Slithers she could see slinking around in the dark. One turned on its heels and went for the explosion the moment it went off. It was the Eagles' problem now, one that her father could hopefully deal with. The other stayed on guard, turning towards the children when they became visible to the bandits.
It at least had the desired effect of taking the bandits off guard. But considering how large the group was and how spaced out they seemed to be, it wasn't as potent. The bandits in this area of the canyon didn't have their full attention on the Eagles, since they weren't anywhere near them. Meaning they could recover quickly and turn on her Lions. The Rift Beast came at them without hesitation, releasing a guttural noise that was part human and part horrific monster beast.
That was one of the most unnerving things about the Rift Beasts. They could talk. White Beasts and Demonic Beasts couldn't. They growled and snarled and acted like animals, which made them easy to kill and easy to ignore. These creatures acted... human almost.
Her best comparison was a Feral One or a degenerating dragon that had yet to lose its full sense of self.
Even that wasn't quite right though. These things felt too smart for that to be a perfect comparison. Actually, now that Byleth thought about it, they acted more like enemy laguz than anything else. Ones that weren't feral. They were smart, driven, and spoke in such a way they didn't seem like monsters that were just under some big bad's control. They seemed like enemy units following a general's command. The comparison was especially true when she considered some of the things that they'd said.
There was also this odd semi-obsession with perfection, though that might have just been a facet of the two specific cases she'd encountered. That was one of the things she had to remember. She'd only come across two of them.
It didn't seem this third case would prove or disprove her theory, since it seemed to be the most feral of the bunch. It couldn't form full sentences. Growled and drooled, spitting out a single word. "Kill."
The Lions advanced on the bandits without much worry. They looked like they'd be fine. They at least came into this prepared for a fight, as opposed to the Deer who were expecting some easy escort mission and maybe some low level brigands. When the mages popped out and started shooting fireballs, her cubs weren't nearly as taken off guard as her fawns had been, but they were at least able to recover instead of scatter like the fawns had.
The Rift Beast snarled before hissing at her, parting long jaws and revealing a snake like tongue. At first glance the creature looked like a horse, though slightly larger than average. The closer one got, the more messed up it seemed. It looked as though it could stand on its hind legs with enough effort. The front hooves weren't actually hooves. They broke apart in large claws which reminded Byleth of a bird of prey's feet.
The creature had a humped back, though it didn't make it look like a camel. It more so made it look sickly. The creature's skin was a deep shade of black, but it was speckled with off patches of green that looked like diseased portions, accented with grey and brown as though it was rotting from the inside.
The most terrifying thing about the monster was its mouth. It was dog-like, which on a horse looking creature was a particularly terrifying detail. A long mouth parted almost its entire face, revealing multiple rows of sharp teeth.
"I have met dragons less terrifying than you," she muttered as she drew her blade without hesitation.
The creature gave a noise somewhere between a screech and a howl as it charged her. Its feet pounded the ground with such ferocity that she could feel the vibrations.
She really should have brought a better sword.
After the last encounter, she promised herself she'd never bring a cheap iron sword to a battle again. Her original intention with that was to do as little damage as possible and let the little ones get experience, and frankly, it was a terrible idea. Something could always go wrong. So she brought some sturdy blades, the likes of which worked well against regular mortal enemies. Simple, but devastating in the proper hands when used against your typical run-of-the-mill human.
She was now starting to realize that she should have brought something magic. Maybe one of the gifts Robin and Tiki gave her before she left, the sword and spear she kept adding dragon fang after dragon fang to after she made new friends. Or maybe she should have brought the dagger that Nowi made her out of Nah's baby teeth, a creation she'd later added Morrigan's baby teeth to as well.
What a mistake it was that she'd brought normal steel to a fight like this.
"Switch tactics?" Sothis asked, hovering over her as Byleth threw herself out of the way of the charging, feral monstrosity, which tried to snap at her heels as she jumped. Absolutely she needed to change tactics. In her off-hand she drew on the divine energy of the Goddess dwelling inside of her soul. She drew strength from that holy magic. As the creature came back around and attempted to charge her once more, she aimed her palm at it and released.
White energy shot at the creature before exploding into brilliant blue flames. The fire didn't burn; instead, the creature began to scream as its skin turned a more frostbitten looking black. One of its front legs gave out, and it started to writhe with pathetic shrieks. Byleth flinched. Feeling a small burst of pity for the creature, she strode forward and ended it quickly.
Unlike the second Rift Beast she'd ever encountered, but much like the first one, this one didn't have any kind of emblem in its forehead. Probably due to being so much weaker, or maybe it had to do with the second monster's ability to break time and subdue her Divine powers. When she forced her blade through its skull, it just went limp instead of dissolving.
There really seemed to be different 'classes' or 'ranks' of these creatures. Oh, she did not like that. Not one bit.
Byleth focused her attention back on her Lions, watching then finish off the first small group of bandits. There were likely more, but the immediate area was looking clear. Okay, that wasn't too bad. Not terrible, if Byleth did say so herself.
Of course, as soon as she got her hopes up, something just had to go wrong.
Before Byleth could even go check on her cubs, she heard a horn off in the distance. Cold panic shot through her veins as she whipped her head around in the horn's direction. It couldn't be a mistake; the sound was too perfect a replica. Which meant bad things.
"What was that?" Dimitri asked, looking around in a worried fashion.
"Stay in position, we press forward immediately as fast as we can while being safe. That was my father. In our company, we use a variety of different signals to communicate. That horn means danger. Essentially, it's a code red. For big battles like this where the company splits into a lot of different parts, that horn means that someone is losing. That horn in particular is the one my father uses. It always goes shrill at the end because I made it for him, and he refused to get rid of it even though I made it wrong," Byleth could feel herself growing terrified, but she tried to keep up a brave facade for her cubs.
A couple of the more empathetic students picked up on it. Ashe gave a sympathetic wince while Annette grimaced. For others it went right over their heads. Which was a good thing she supposed as they started focusing on her orders and moving forward as she'd instructed.
All they had to do was keep moving forward. They just had to get to the other group.
"Should I go on ahead?" Sothis asked. Byleth shook her head. Given the situation, the Lions could very well get into their own trouble, and they'd need Sothis. Byleth trusted her dad not to wait until the last second to blow the horn, giving them enough time to get to him. She trusted him to be strong and able to wait. She just hoped her trust wouldn't be misplaced.
They met slight resistance along the way, but nothing compared to the Rift Beasts. Small parties of bandits which seemed intent to kill but never managed much more than slowing the Lions down. Especially now that Byleth was at the front alongside Ingrid and Sylvain.
Every time they slowed down, Byleth could feel her heart give a quick, uncomfortable stutter in her chest. She wasn't used to having a heart that beat, and she knew well enough this kind of stress probably wasn't good for it.
Luckily, nothing terrible happened, and they kept moving forward at a constant rate until they caught up to the main battle. The Eagles vs. the majority of the bandit forces, and a Rift Beast. It was identical to the one Byleth had fought earlier, hissing and nickering. Growling and howling.
Her Eagles looked to be struggling. Edelgard, Caspar, and Ferdinand were all on the front lines. Petra and Dorothea were just behind them, with Dorothea constantly switching between sword and magic to aid her classmates. Hubert and Linhardt were in the back, focusing on their respective areas of expertise in order to blast bandits and keep the front liners alive.
The Lions were quick to throw themselves in, taking part of the burden for themselves as Ingrid and Sylvain managed to kill two of the brigands, just by merit of taking them off guard.
Byleth couldn't see her father anywhere, which worried her deeply.
The Eagles and Lions mixed about as well as Byleth could expect. It wasn't a perfect synergy with the Lions and Eagles melting into one another as a cohesive group, but it was better than it would have been a reset ago around this time.
Byleth brought her full attention back to the battle at hand just in time to see Edelgard get swiped across her flank with a sword. The heiress hissed, taking in a sharp breath. With the addition of the Lions, she'd taken to the flank that was closest to Byleth. Unfortunately, she'd let her guard down a little too low.
Byleth darted over without hesitation, as the bandit who'd managed to swipe Edelgard raised his sword into the air. She was getting a strange sense of deja vu for a couple moments as she pushed her way in between the hit and her student. The hit never landed though, and not because Sothis froze time. A much prettier dark grey horse than the Rift Beast charged forward and reared at the bandit who was trying to get the cheap shot on Byleth and Edelgard. The bandit had little time to respond before a spear was pushed between his shoulders.
"The two of you okay?" Jeralt asked, his eyes narrowed and focused. Byleth suddenly felt like she was 13 again, running around in vain attempts to try to keep up with her older and more experienced father. She nodded, turning back towards Edelgard. Luckily, the hit scored on Edelgard wasn't deep. It wasn't even anything to worry about; the blade had just glanced off of her side from the looks of things.
"Hang back and play healer, from the looks of things there's one more wave coming, and it's going to be a stronger one," Jeralt said before turning his attention to Dimitri who'd somehow gotten disarmed and was currently in a fist fight with one of the bandits. It looked like he was losing..."Are you kidding me?" Jeralt muttered as the children broke formation and everything turned into a mess, the students trying to protect themselves and their friends. "Amateures. Untrained Amateures," he muttered, and all Byleth could do was shrug. At this point in the reset he wasn't wrong.
It was all too much for Byleth to try and take in at the moment. She was getting overwhelmed and her head felt fuzzy. She needed to try to focus, to ignore the whirlwind blur around her, and try to trust her students.
Byleth turned to Edelgard once her father was gone, pressing the flat of her palm into the injury. Edelgard gave a wince of discomfort, but quickly relaxed into the touch once the magic started doing what it was supposed to. "Think you can keep going?" Byleth asked.
Edelgard nodded resolutely. "You can just stay behind me, my teacher. Focus on healing as much as you can, I won't allow myself to be taken so off guard again." That extra layer of determination in Edelgard's voice struck Byleth in just such a way that she blushed, but decided it was best she ignored the feeling. Now was not the time. Certainly not with Edelgard. Edelgard was too important to Byleth; she didn't want to risk losing her.
Finally, some cohesion was forming between the two houses.
Mercedes and Linhardt were running around, practically playing tag with how many times they darted past each other shouting this or that as they rushed to the aid of various classmates. Byleth didn't know that either of them could even physically move that fast. Least of all Linhardt.
Dedue had moved to the front alongside Caspar and Ferdinand, and of them the three were more or less forming a wall in front of the archers and the magic users. Bernadetta and Ashe were behind that wall, standing shoulder to shoulder and keeping their aim trained on the Rift Beast. Hubert and Annette were in a similar position, just a little farther behind the archer pair. Annette on good occasion went so far as to gently shoulder Hubert in an attempt to correct his aim. During the mock battle Hubert had accidentally hit the Lions quite a few times; now the aim of the two mages was outright terrifying.
Felix and Sylvain were more or less isolated on their own, fighting in a pair. Petra and Dorothea were working together in a similar fashion. Occasionally, the two pairs would cross paths and help one another.
Dimitri was getting a bandit pulled off of him, courtesy of Jeralt.
Confident in the fact that none of her children were immediately dying, she sheathed her sword and started casting with both hands, pulling the healing energy into her palms and dispersing it to the rest of the group. Her range was pretty good considering healing magic was one of those things she never lacked practice or talent.
"I'll wait a while before I start helping," Sothis said as she continued to survey the battlefield. "You get drained fast using healing, and we don't know how bad future waves could be. We might need a Pulse, so I'll keep scouting."
It was true that while Byleth was skilled, she had her specialties and weaknesses. Healing magic was one of those things. Originally she'd been terrible at it. It took years before she discovered she had a talent for it. She was good at it now, but she also ran out of energy fast. It drained her magic pool a lot faster than any of her offensive spells could dream of, which was why she so greatly preferred to leave things in the hands of Mercedes, Linhardt, or Marianne when they were an option. Sadly, this wasn't the kind of battle where she could hang back.
Suffice to say, her energy started running out quickly. Things were moving way too fast, and her ears were starting to ring.
Edelgard threw herself back into the battle, doing her best not to get banged up too badly while also trying to avoid getting pinned. The entire group was very close to getting pinned against a nearby wall, and the bandits were using that to their advantage, moving in a sharper formation than Byleth would have expected from bandits.
She didn't have the time to try and help, as she was constantly stuck between healing her children and keeping an eye on Edelgard herself, who was the second most at risk fighter. The first being Dimitri.
Byleth felt herself falter slightly, her head starting to get fuzzy. Her legs wobbled, but she was fine. She was fine.
"Don't push yourself too hard," Sothis said, looking at her other half with worry. Byleth was using exceptionally high level spells from other regions. The fact of the matter was that this wasn't a fight they were supposed to win. If it wasn't for the spells she was using, her children would die here. Unfortunately for Byleth, that meant incurring the physical burden that came with casting high enough level spells that magic could temporarily act as a replacement for medicine.
Everyone would obviously need medical attention when they got back to the monastery, but this would work for now. It had to.
She felt herself stumble forward slightly, but corrected immediately before her students could notice. She didn't want them worrying about her. Not when they had more important things to focus on.
The bandits just never seemed to end! Caspar was breaking his fifth jaw and Ashe had gone through almost his entire quiver. Bernadetta, who hadn't missed a single shot, was officially out of arrows and Dedue was doing his best to salvage what he could and return them to her as they slowly pushed forward, inch by inch.
At the same time, it wasn't enough to completely overwhelm them. But it was enough, slowly, over the course of the fight, to begin weighing on the spirits and the shoulders of her students.
Byleth was starting to lose her ability to stand when a cry finally burst through the air and the bandits took a shocked step or two back. Knights, dressed in heavy armor. Trained and ready for battle. Byleth had never in her partially-immortal life been so glad to see a Knight of Seiros as she was in that moment. Leading the charge was Shamir, who ordered the group of Knights to sweep around to protect the students.
Safe, they were safe.
Jeralt came to Byleth's side with a heavy sigh, watching the students sag slightly and lean against one another. Edelgard moved to Byleth's other side, looking around to survey the damage with a grimace.
Shamir came up to the trio, looking suitably apologetic.
"You did well, given the circumstances. We're sorry we couldn't get here sooner, but it looks like everyone's al-" Byleth didn't hear the rest of the statement. She'd used too much energy. Her knees gave out and her body pitched forward before there was nothing around her but darkness and silence.