"Stations! Get on the damn wall, you fucking bastards! You wanna see another dawn, get your sorry asses to the fortifications!"

Captain Katsuki's loud, obnoxiously volatile voice had one proper use and this was it. There was no better tongue to demand attention and order in this or any other army and when the darkness of the ether crept in with shuffling reanimated corpses on approach, his was the only voice the scores of soldiers wanted to hear. It might as well have been the voice of God to the the men facing yet another night of horror.

The darkness was unnatural as it had been the last time. Even though it was night, no stars broke through, the moon lost to a blanket of weighted aura. The magic that inhabited Shoto allowed him to see aspects of the ether that a layman may not and his miscolored eyes could detail the ebbing pulse of the ether breaching the air. It followed the Archdemon wherever it went and grew with its conquest. The entire world would be like this, feel like this, if Dawnfell crumbled to the onslaught, if the nation didn't fend them, if the Summoner was not put to a stop.

There was reason for the tangible fear that wafted over the encampment. How could hope not flicker out like a candle in the wind when the armies of the ether approached in a force as strong as the last battle while their own numbers had been diminished to a fraction of what they had started as? The men preparing ballistas and trebuchets looked to have already pissed themselves at the sight of their impending enemy.

Shoto had spent his entire life in touch with the ether and killing minor demons in the training rooms of the Magesterium. The weight of the ether was not new to him, the sight of demons was familiar, but this was nothing like any fight he'd faced before. They thought the last battle was to be the end all, the deciding factor to the outcome of this war, but Nana had changed that tide at the last moment. There was no such savior, this time. She was locked away in a cage and the other mages were all dead. Shoto was all there was. The only mage left in Dawnfell's army.

He turned his eyes back over the rushing encampment, over the men coming to terms with their fates, of the lieutenants demanding order and formations, of the Lord Commander directing their strategy at the far end of the encampment.

There was a shout that rang above the others, something horrible and fearful. Panicked.

A body broke from the tight formation that the Captain had created and the soldier stumbled as he ran. The others looked with wide eyes as the man tripped in his retreating, scrambling back to his feet in despairing fear to run for his life.

The captain took long strides, not rushing, oddly calm as his sword drew into his hand to handle the disturbance in his ranks.

Shoto couldn't help flinching when the sword came down on the fitfully crying soldier, one downward thrust into the back of his neck ending him in a mercifully quick death. Blood splattered up onto Katsuki's armor as he cleanly whipped his sword free and wordlessly went back to his task of organizing the fear stricken troops, now tenser and more solid than ever after seeing what became of those that tried to run.

It was cold, something that disgusted Shoto more than he could ever admit, but it was necessary. The consequences had to be immediate or else the army itself would devolve into panic and disorder. But it chilled Shoto's insides to see how effortlessly, how calmly Katsuki had just killed one of his own men. It was a calculated strength he didn't want to challenge.

The line of once dead humans and elves grew ever closer, striding over the strewn expanse of corpses left from the previous battle, still decaying into the sullied earth. The drained husks crumbled easily under their feet and Shoto centered himself for what he had to do. He couldn't overextend himself like he had last time, he was no good to anyone passed out from magic overuse when no other mage was on standby to take over. But he had to be ready to give this his all. There was no time after this to try again. They held the line today or they lost.

In a few moments, Katsuki appeared at his side, looking out at the fast approaching army. They were in range now and the Captain hit the mage's shoulder roughly.

"Do it," he ordered.

No more stalling, no more contemplating. It had to begin.

Shoto turned back to the inner wall and opened his arms, pulling glyphs into the air. With sweeping motions, orange light spread out and condensed over the artillery, catching fire to each projectile in leaping red flames. Every archer's arrow blazed to light in the same fire and Shoto had to shake himself from the dazed from how widely his spell had stretched. He much it had already taken out of him.

The fire would spread rapidly upon impact and hopefully hinder the march of their enemy. But he had to quickly prepare to control it as well, to not let it spread to the fortification. And he needed to stay standing to do that.

Shoto stumbled as he looked back to the battlefield, but the Captain grabbed him by the back of the collar and jerked him up straight, roughly.

"Stay on your feet, mage," he snapped, "You're all we've got."

That, of all things that had left his mouth the last few days, didn't actually sound resentful. Worrisome maybe, perhaps defeated. But there was no use for the Captain to be pissed that he was the only mage they had left anymore. It was now just a sad fact that they had to live with. A week wasn't enough time for reinforcements to reach them and Katsuki's shit attitude over the unfairness and how overly fucked they were had finally taken a back seat. He was just like that, it seemed, irrational in a lull, composed in the face of gruesome, unfair death.

Shoto leaned on his staff and squared his shoulders, building his strength for his next spell while Katsuki's hand lifted. The archers pulled back on their bowstrings and the artillery groaned on its tense ropes.

"Fire!" he shouted, throwing his arm forward.

Red flames filled the sky, lighting the ebbing flow of the ether in Shoto's eyes, before impacting the hordes of undead in a burst of mounting fire. Dying shrieks rolled over the battlefield as the magic that moved the corpses shed from them, catching countless undead in the consuming flames, forcing the minor demons that possessed them back to the ether without a body to ground them.

There was a victorious shout from the army at Shoto's back as the fire spread and undead fell to it, a small hope dousing their fear, but only for a moment. As Shoto expected, the quickly spreading fire dashed towards the encampment.

His hands shook as he lifted his staff overhead. Shoto closed his eyes, just trying to stay standing as his energy flowed into the next spell. With a sharp breath he released the chilling burst.

A massive wall of ice shot up before their fortifications, jutting out across the entire face of their barricade moments before the fire hit it. Steam lifted as the ice kept the flames at bay.

Joyful chattering continued to pass around the soldiers and Katsuki threw a biting glare over to them. "Don't get comfortable!" he shouted, "That'll only slow them down! Be at the ready!"

Order slowly returned as the lieutenants reinforced his command.

Short of breath, Shoto dropped into a crouch, holding the wall in front of him for support. He knew he hadn't saved the day or anything, but it was awful to be reminded that all of that effort would only serve to hinder the attackers for a short time, that the most he could do was so damn little.

"I hope that's not all you've got," Katsuki crossed his arms.

Shoto shook his head at the ground. "We're fucked, Captain."

"Should have pegged you for a quitter," Katsuki scoffed, "Mage blood is tainted, they say. I guess it makes all of you cowardly too."

Were this any other day Shoto might have argued with him, his fellow mages had stood and fought and died like Katsuki's own men had in the last battle. But this was the middle of a hot warzone in the few stalled moments before the undead crashed against their defenses. The comment only served to tighten his chest with annoyance and pull Shoto back standing straight, ready to prove him wrong.

"Life's never been fair," Shoto adjusted his footing, stabilizing himself, readying for the onslaught, "It makes sense I'd spend my last day alive stuck with you."

Cracks formed up the icewall and the clanking and shuffling of thousands of undead soldiers were close enough to feel reverberating against the barricade. It was still hot beyond the wall, but the heat was subsiding as the ice countered the flames. The wall it created couldn't be seen over, but the hacking and clashing of armament on the ice told them what was happening, said they were breaking through one way or another.

A wry grin spread over the Captain's face as he drew his sword. "You lucky bastard."

Everything that happened next was hard to follow. Ice crumbled and fell, crushing undead, but barely stalling their push. Half decayed bodies crashed into the walls and the gates groaned. Men stood to hold it closed, but that too fell.

The tight troop formations held the bottleneck, but the rush of the enemy was almost too quick to counter. Katsuki ran to join his men below and keep their position solid, but the rest of the scrappy beasts had redirected their attack to climb the wood fortifications. The archers fired volley after volley down at them, but their numbers were greater than the arrows at their disposal.

Undead flooded the ramparts and Katsuki was forced to stay and hold them back. Shoto cut down countless in quick blasts, every ounce of training in his repertoire, coming to full use. He wasn't even thinking, he had no time to do so. His hands and staff cut the air in fluid movements, the night filled with the colored light of glyphs and spells, knocking, crushing, burning, and ripping the possessed corpses.

"Hold the wall!" Katsuki shouted as the archers fell back and swordsmen replaced them.

If the bulk of their forces could detain the bottleneck they stood a small chance. But if enough scaled the walls to flank them, their one advantage would be gone.

Close combat magic didn't take nearly as much out of Shoto as the large spells he'd cast earlier, but he was losing his focus, his precision. It wasn't long before he made his first mistake. A misguided ice shard knocked the sword from Katsuki's hand, missing the fast encroaching target making a direct dash at Shoto and disarming the Captain at once.

He didn't have time to shout at Shoto for his ineptitude, because the undead soldier Shoto had missed was already crashing into the mage. Suddenly he was falling and shoving away the vile clawing hands of what was once a man and now a monster.

Shoto collided with the ground below in a pained groan. In a haze he scrambled to get back to his feet, but the wind and clarity were knocked out of him and that same undead soldier leapt at him, more skeletal husk now that flesh. Shoto's staff was out of his hand and it took all of his panicked strength to hold off the possessed creature.

Before he could even think of a spell to destroy it, an unexpected swipe or razor sharp claws slashed down across Shoto's face, ripping streaks of flesh from his forehead to his chin. He screamed as heat burst across his features and his hands slipped.

A boot collided with the monster just before its teeth could rip out Shoto's jugular. It rolled across the ground with the force on the kick and its attacker leapt of Shoto to finish it off.

As soon as Shoto saw what was happening it was at first surprising to see that his savior was Katsuki, sword back in hand, severing the rotten head from the undead's decayed shoulder. A quick glance up to the ramparts showed what had brought Katsuki down to ground below. They had been overrun, the last of the soldiers even then falling to their tearing hands and rusted blades.

The undead were spilling over into their ranks and the Captain was pulling back what remained of his men on the wall to the shield formation at their backs.

"Form up! Form up!" Katsuki was shouting at the battalion setting their shields and angling spears as the few survivors of the wall slipped between small openings.

The Captain grabbed Shoto the fabric of his tunic as he ran past him, dragging him to his feet and forcing him through the shieldwall as his troops created an opening for them. It closed at their backs just ast the horde struck the human wall.

Shoto fell back to his hands and knees, panting with tears in his eyes at the pain bursting across his face and the weakness shaking through his body. Katsuki's attention was back to his troops, directing the spearman, solidifying their line when a man would fall. But the Captain filled every opening fast, keeping the line tight and each man in determined preparation to replace anybody that fell.

But Shoto couldn't bring himself to be awed or impressed by his precision and clear headed commanding. Everything the Captain was doing and everything Shoto had done was fruitless. The ramparts had fallen, the gate had been breached and the Archdemon's aura had already overwhelmed the encampment completely, though he seemed to be the only one to feel it.

It was just a matter of time now. They had no advantages left.

Shoto held his face and choked on the weight in his chest. It was hopeless. They had failed and Dawnfell would be the first to suffer for it followed by the entire known world.

With a shuddering breath Shoto let his hand fall away from the gashes in his face, as his flesh started to go numb. The hand hovered in front of his face, dripping in thickly coated blood. It turned Shoto's stomach to think what state his face was in, to see how much he had bled already.

Then what he'd been forcing himself not to think about for the last week hit him like a collapsing wall of bricks. He'd told himself that her innocence and her actions wouldn't be up to him to judge, that a new Master would arrive and take this out of his hands, assure him that this threat could be neutralized by the Synod's power. That the hunt for the Summoner would bear fruit and the Archdemon would fall as it had before. That the Dawnfelden army could hold this fortification until then. That the encampment would stand as long as the world needed it to.

But the mages hadn't come. The reinforcements were days away. The nearest village was a day's walk away and every available force from Dawnfell was already battling for their lives with them at this moment. There was not enough time to make a proper stand after the last battle. There was nothing coming to turn the tide...and if they failed this blight would creep over the scores of innocent behind the frontlines.

The armies of the dead had to be stopped here. And they had to be stopped now.

He couldn't do it. The Dawnfelden army couldn't

But she could.

Shoto shot to his feet, wobbly for a moment, but leaned on his staff to stabilize himself. It was wrong and possibly stupid, but there was nothing left to lose. Even if it was damnable, he wouldn't sit idly while the world fell and he could do something to stop it.

He got barely a step before Katsuki's voice cut across him like a blade.

"Hold your ground, mage, we still need you here!"

Shoto shook his head at the Captain's command, pausing only a moment to look back at the vicious red eyes. "She's our only hope, Captain. I have to do this."

Running as fast as his unsteady feet could carry him, he took off into the encampment while Katsuki's rage filled shout followed after.

"Shoto!"

Everything was out of his perspective except his need to find Nana. He didn't want to die today. Didn't want the Dawnfelden army to meet their horrid fate. Didn't want everything to end by today's defeat.

There were no guards at the prison, every able bodied man at the forefront now, leaving the hazy eyed mage alone in her imprisonment, chained in the mud as he had left her that afternoon. He didn't even think to look for a key, weakened as he was, he didn't need one for something so simple.

Hissing on the buzz of pain throbbing across his face, he lifted his hand to the cage door and twisted a glyph, breaking the lock with the scraping sound of metal. Adrenaline kept him going into the body of the cell as he dropped beside the mage and burst a quick wakening spell into her face.

"Wha-!"

Nana jerked away and blinked wildly before seeing Shoto, bloody and drained, kneeling in the mud in front of her.

"What are you-?"

Shoto opened another spell of breaking in his hand at the chains that held her to the post and shook with a choked sob in his throat as he forced out the strength to break it. It shattered and Nana lunged forward, catching Shoto before he fell face first into the muck, bleeding, hurt, and exhausted by the strain of magic.

"You have to...they're-"

"Don't try to talk yet," Nana assured him, taking the bottom of his face in hand and turning up the bloody mess of his squinted eye and gouged cheek towards her, "Just hold still."

It was easy enough to do as she said since Shoto could barely move.

A dirt covered hand swiped beneath his chin, catching a handful of blood as Nana took a deep breath. The blood turned to light and magic in her hand before she slammed the open palm into his chest, shocking him with the hard impact. The air ripped clean from his lungs as a magic more powerful than he'd ever felt coursed through every fiber of his body. Every nerve was alive, every sense alert, and in a split second he forgot his pain and weariness.

He gasped, gripping her arms for dear life as his full clarity returned.

"That won't heal you entirely, but it'll get you back on your feet," Nana pulled him up to stand, holding onto him tightly, "What's going on out there?"

Shoto shook his head, fixing her wide, desperate eyes. "The undead breached our defenses. There's too many. They're endless. You have to do something!"

Nana nodded, understanding immediately, "I'll-"

"I told you to hold your damn ground!"

Shoto's gut dropped, spinning on the drawn sword and ferocious expression of the Captain standing in front of the tattered cell door.

"What are you doing here, Captain?" Shoto was astonished that Katsuki of all people would have chased him down at a time like this.

"The Lord Commander saw you run," The viciousness in Katsuki's voice was unmatched, "He knew what you were doing...he sent me to stop you."

"We don't have time for this!" Shoto yelled at him, wired on the energy Nana had given him, confidence soaring, "If any of us want to make it out of this hellhole alive, we need her!"

Katsuki set his footing, sword raised in an attack position as he drew a shield in front of him.

"I was right to call you a coward," Katsuki spat, "Step away from the blood mage!"

"You aren't going to stop us!" Shoto slammed his foot on the ground, jarring a magic shard into the air at the Captain, attacking without thinking.

"Shoto, no!" Nana shouted too late.

The shard came at him with the speed of a bolt of lightning, but the Captain reacted deftly, shield catching and absorbing the attack. Ripples of light rolled over the object and the attack dissipated into nothing like snow on hot coals.

Shoto stumbled back in shock. How had he done that?

Katsuki glared over the shield and swung his sword in preparation. "You think we would accept mages from the Synod without having a means to defend ourselves against you?"

Enchanted armaments. How had Shoto never considered that? He hadn't really considered much about the occupation of battle mages during his time at the Magesterium. He'd never wanted nor planned to be here. To do this. He'd never thought about how the armies they fought alongside viewed his kind. How the laymen mistrusted them.

"We don't need to fight," Nana insisted, hands up towards Katsuki, "I mean no harm to your soldiers, but there's an enemy force out there that will destroy everything if we don't do something!"

"Like I'd listen to a Blood Mage!" Katsuki scoffed, "I don't even trust the regular ones." He eyed Shoto directly.

"But you need them, you need us," Nana stepped towards him, firmly, "You always have. That's why the Synod sent you a cohort, because you cannot fight the effects of the ether without mages."

"Your magic will consume every living thing and taint the earth with your corruption if I let you live!"

"The earth is already corrupted by the ether and every life here is already lost if I'm not allowed to stop the Archdemon! Can't you see that?"

Stubbornness unmatched by anything Shoto had ever seen battled in front of his eyes; the entrenched mistrust of the military commander versus the vibrant spirit of the blood mage. Katsuki stood in the way of Nana putting an end to this needless slaughter already so heavy with casualties. Their dying voices were already shaking the air with the clashing of sword, shield, and arrow on flesh and armor and Shoto's frustration was beyond what his temper could handle. The pressure in his chest was growing to the point of bursting and, without a conscious decision, magic began to swirl around him in a way he had never experienced, in a form he had never held in his control before.

His staff drew off of the ground and into his hand as the world coated over in a red haze. That's when he saw Nana and Katsuki's equally shocked expressions turned on him.

"Shoto, what are you-?"

It was beyond what he could hold onto, more than he'd ever handled and his grasp of the building, shaking power in his hands slipped. The magic burst from him in an earth shaking wave, the wooden bars of the prison shattering around him, knocking Katsuki and Nana to the ground. It felt like crushing a brittle piece of paper in his hand, effortless and terrifying.

His rage switched to fear the moment the magic had taken its effect. He dropped everything, every willful connection to the magic in his blood, and panted in fearful shock over what he'd done. He prayed that he hadn't just done that, that this was just another piece of a wretched dream.

But his two clear eyes looked down to his clean hands, any trace of the blood he had shed, now gone. He touched his face. The gashes were still deep, but the bleeding had stopped, wounds sealed, eye functioning, and face clean.

Shoto shook his head in ragged terror. Blood magic. He'd used it without even thinking. Without even trying to.

Suddenly Nana was at his side, grabbing him by the arms, shaking him to turn his eyes to hers.

"Shoto, stay with me," she demanded, "I know you want to freak out, but I need you to get some control. There's no time!"

Shoto tried over and over to get something other than stuttering out, but couldn't. And he'd have stayed like that too, if not for the jarring sight of brambling corpses scurrying towards them.

The Captain slowly pushed himself back to his feet, regaining his senses and seeing what they now saw.

"Fuck."

Everything went still for a single moment as they all became aware of the encampment. The screams had stopped, the clamor of a fight had ended and what remained was demonic chittering and marching feet. Not a single human voice remained to beg for mercy, to cry out in terror or death. The ether hung heavier than ever and Shoto could see it like a living, physical mass in the sky. Everything from where they stood to the gates was overrun...nothing alive remained.

"We have to run, now!" Nana snapped, her commanding voice stronger than even Katsuki's.

But both boys were stuck in shock, watching the approaching horde.

Nana was not waiting on them to come to terms with the overwhelming defeat and Shoto was shoved forward as Nana forced him to move his feet and start running. As soon as he did, he didn't dare to stop, the shock dissipating into the rushing need for survival.

A glance behind him showed Nana dragging the Captain from his stupor as she had done to Shoto and making him run after the mage as she took up the rear.

They ran up through the encampment, past the Commander's tent, the empty training yards, and the deathly quiet grounds of what was once their temporary home. If either of them even thought of stopping for a moment, Nana gave them a kick in the pants either verbally or with an actual strike. They were running for their very lives and any other dispute was meaningless in the face of survival and escape.

As soon as the encampment was behind them, Nana stopped and turned on it, on the fortification that had stood as the first defense, the front lines of the entire country, now cloaked in death with the armies of the ether scrambling after them. It seemed unwise to stop now that they'd made it through, but before Shoto could demand for her to keep going she opened her hands towards the camp and he caught himself on what he saw.

The dark, thrumming blackness of the ether gave way to a pulsing, bright red. Blood, light, and power, drew up from the encampment and converged on Nana, much like it had done when she stood against the Archdemon. Red light burst from her eyes again, her body hazed in the color of blood as the very power and strength of her magic wafted around her.

"No!" Katsuki screamed and lunged towards her.

Shoto physically tackled the Captain, using his full force to knock him to the ground; he couldn't allow him to stop her, she was their only hope.

In a struggle of limbs, Shoto fought to keep him back, but he was smaller and not physically as powerful as the well trained soldier. An elbow with his face, right where he'd been half gored by an undead. And as he in a sob at the sting of pain shooting through his face, Katsuki threw the mage from him. Shoto's back hit the ground, continuing to fight him as the magic in Nana's hands took on new life.

Screaming convictions of death, Katsuki slammed his knee into Shoto's chest, punching him full in the face as the mage lifted a hand to throw out a defensive spell. Shoto cursed and grabbed his nose, swinging his other hand at Katsuki in a base, uncoordinated reaction to the pain he kept inflicting on his face.

Katsuki was reaching for his dropped sword, while he fended back Shoto, intent to kill in his determined eyes. Prepared to end whoever he needed to to stop the blood mage now drawing power from every human body that lay in the encampment below.

But Katsuki didn't get his sword, didn't get to kill Shoto, because Nana's magic erupted from her in an earth shattering burst over the encampment.

Both men froze in the midst of their struggle, eyes turned towards the camp; pain, anger, and desperation lost to shock and awe.

The very earth split before Nana's hands as tendrils of violent, destructive magic stretched out along the camp in harsh, burning, consuming power. The undead crumbled under the onslaught as did every structure, every post and armament. Every remnant of the thousands of lives that had resided there were broken and destroyed with the endless armies of undead that decomposed on the touch of blood magic.

Katsuki's hand was stayed, mouth open, eyes wide, lost to anything but the overwhelming sight that lay before them. The complete destruction of what was once their temporary home. The blood magic he had been unable to stop. The reality and weight of true defeat.

The split in the earth grew wider and wider, separating the encampment from Dawnfell, separating the world from the armies of the ether by fracturing the ground itself.

In the middle of the split rose a shimmering, red wall, a barrier that reached to the sky and out across the land endlessly. It hummed with magic and crackled with life as it took hold and stood like a powerful fortification while Nana fell to her knees. The power dispersed around her, absorbed into the wall she had created between them and the armies of ether.

Shoto took Katsuki's shock to his advantage and kicked the Captain off of him, rushing to Nana's side as the Captain continued to stare in horror at what he had just seen. He pulled her back to her feet, but she was unstable, taking shaky breaths, drained by the energy she had given to that spell.

"What have you done?" The Captain's voice was a whisper. Shoto had never heard him sound like that. Never heard him speak so quietly or with that much weight put on so few syllables.

He and Nana looked back at him, her arm around his shoulder as he supported her weak body. They saw a tear roll through the dirt, matted on his cheek, his expression that of a man who was lost, who had just had his entire life ripped from his hands. The red of the destructive magic reflected in his ruby eyes.

Nana spoke in a tired voice, ignoring the pain that hung over what she had done, "This will only slow them down. I put a patch on an open wound; a barrier that will hold no more than a month if the Summoner doesn't tear it down before that."

Katsuki's pained eyes and bared teeth slowly turned from the sea of destruction and back up to her.

Her breath left her lungs in a tremor. "I bought us time."