Part 14

Sorey marveled at Mikleo having learned the teleportation arte at some point but that was all the thought he had time to spare, he and Rokurou both dashed forward, swords out and holding them at Innominat's throat. He didn't look much different without Laphicet to possess; still a twelve year old boy, still white hair, still thin frame and unsoiled clothes. But the feel of him was different to the point of obvious. The Empyrean was prone on the cracked ground, the floor vibrating again underneath them.

"Give up," Sorey growled, pressing his blade to Innominat's neck. "You can't win this."

"There's nothing to win, boy," Innominat grunted, eyes manic and hateful. "I'm the victim here… I just want to feed, why won't anyone understand that?"

"We do," Rokurou said, voice level and calm, eyes shrewd. "But that's not what you're really after."

Wide eyes, full of pain, turned to the daemon. "What would you know?" he asked, voice high and pitiable. Sorey frowned, throwing a glance at his friend.

"I know that you've been feeding off of Velvet's brother and probably Velvet herself," he said, "I know you've been eating emotions from defenseless daemons down below. Laphicet said he noticed this almost eight hundred years ago. You've been feasting, haven't you? You might be hungry, but you're not hungry. And without Velvet's brother as a vessel you don't have that excuse."

"Then why?" Sorey asked, keeping his stance and tone aggressive, holding his domain in place. "What were you doing up here as the seal was breaking? What do you hope to gain?"

The innocent, vulnerable eyes disappeared, emotion slowly bleeding away from that young face, and something far darker emerged. "Why?" he asked. "Why? Because my place was stolen from me by that baby! I was betrayed by my siblings! They replaced me! I didn't do anything wrong!"

"Yeah you did," Rokurou said. "You were totally okay with eating every emotion mankind could ever feel, instead of just their malevolence."

"That wasn't me!"

"Yes it was," Rokurou said. "Take it from a daemon who's been alive for almost two thousand years. You can only cope with the malevolence if you can admit there's a problem." He adjusted the grip on his greatsword, blade pressing into Innominat's neck. "If you can't even see that you're wrong, then we have a problem."

Rokurou, wait.

Sorey gasped slightly, looking up. "Phi says to wait," he said.

Rokurou's eyes flashed to him, a dart up and back. He said nothing, did not remove his blade, but he didn't press further.

Sorey turned back to Innominat, and let Phi speak through him. "The Empyreans and I have talked," he repeated, "We've known for a long time your seal was weakening. We already have me, the Fifth Empyrean, but I am from you, and killing you would kill me."

Innominat scoffed. "You are my weakness," he muttered, full of spite. "I was happy to be rid of you."

"Pathetic," Rokurou grumbled.

"You are going to live," Sorey repeated, trying to keep up with what Phi was telling him. "But to do so the two of us must at last become one. Wait, what? Phi, what are you talking about?"

All at once Innominat's eyes doubled in size, and his head jerked to the side, drawing blood from Rokurou's sword. Sorey risked glancing over, saw Mikleo in a defensive bubble with Laphicet, leaning over and talking.

"What are you doing to my vessel?!"

There was a burst of elemental energy - Rokurou went flying but Sorey barely felt the lightning blast, skidding back but staying on his feet. Innominat was flying to Mikleo, his partner looking up in startled surprise that was bad that was bad! He reached out to armatize, realizing at the last second that if he did Laphicet would be left vulnerable. He instead pulled on his second contract, his second tether. "Phi! Maotelus!"

The One Who Lives.

The rush of armatization was different, his hair bleaching to white, his eyes turning olive green, his feathers white now instead of the iridescent rainbow of his new form with Mikleo. Phi merged with him, and he felt the Empyrean's sad acceptance. He cast an arte Sorey didn't immediately know, grinding the other Empyrean to a halt. Mikleo was wide eyed, crouched in front of Laphicet and staring like he was looking at a mythological ghost.

"Here's what's going to happen," they said, walking forward. Innominat was screaming now, frozen in place, but with a gesture a bubble was placed around him, dulling the sound. His face was contorted in what Sorey could only describe as a tantrum, wailing inside the sound bubble, trying to twist but unable to move. They lifted an arm and Sorey watched in utter surprise when he saw a therion arm erupt from it - not a malevolent black and red, but a pure white and gold. There was no sense of hunger, as Rokurou had so often described, but a resigned sense of inevitability. "I learned this from someone very close to me," they said. "You didn't appreciate her, not the way Laphicet did, and not the way she deserved. But nonetheless it was through her that I learned how to be me. I learned what I liked and didn't like, who I loved and didn't love, what interested me and what didn't. She pushed me to be who I am, and in honor of her, I am going to eat you."

Phi, Sorey asked. What will happen to you if you do that?

Tell Mikleo to armatize with you, was the soft reply, the first part will be the hardest.

They lifted up their not-therion arm and plunged it down, piercing the sound bubble and the arte that had frozen Innominat. The claws penetrated, slashing deep into Innominat's chest cavity, and all at once something Sorey didn't have words for happened: the surreal sensation of absorbing something, maybe? He could remember when he absorbed his spiritual powers during the Shepherd's trials, the feeling of power, but whatever it was he - they - were absorbing flooded into him and then out, but not out, really, because Phi was still a part of him. Somewhere, partitioned off in a way that Sorey didn't even know was possible with armatization, Phi took and stored the power of Innominat. Innominat… just… shriveled, hollowing out from the inside, and slowly disappearing.

Sorey stared, shocked.

Tell Mikleo to purify us. Go!

Phi aborted the armatization, his small form staggering forward and falling to his knees, white energy ribboning out of him in great waves.

Sorey was already running, and Mikleo seemed to already know what to do, shouting: "Mitis Vozrey!"

Sorey the Gentle.

Sorey felt the tug and gladly accepted it, flooding to Mikleo. Already long hair tripled in length, flaring out as the blue tails of his cloak spawned three more, making for nine tails in total. He lifted not his bow but Sorey's ritual sword, a circlet of light shining above them like a halo.

"Purification!" they shouted, Mikleo needing no instruction.

Sorey was used to silvery flames, Lailah's personification of it as a fire seraph. Now the silver light crashed down like a tidal wave, enveloping Phi in a silvery white sphere not unlike the seal that had kept Innominat in check. Sorey reached out, Mikleo, too, and pressed on Phi. Sorey offered empathy: knowing how hard Phi was trying to make everything right; knowing the risks he was taking leaving his vessel, coming up here and armatizing with Sorey; offering a hand to Innominat in spite of everything that had been done to him. Mikleo, too, offered empathy: understanding the pain of being alone, feeling abandoned by the one(s) closest to him, the struggle to be who you wanted without knowing what that was. Together they offered empathy: to both Maotelus and to Innominat.

Innominat tried to reject it; would have rejected purification outright, but now inside of Phi, the fifth Empyrean, was now forced to face everything he did. Confronted with all of it, unable to look away, unable to do anything but realize the truth, and still he tried to deny it.

Mikleo and Sorey grunted, both of them pushing further, Sorey strengthening their domain and Mikleo tightening the purification. Phi was writhing, obviously in pain as the silver waves surrounded him, but they could tell that their friend accepted the empathy, and that acceptance flooded into a resistant Innominat. Merged as the two were, they could not accept half the purification and, kicking and screaming, Innominat had nothing left to do but to radically accept it. All of it. Everything he had done, everyone he had hurt, every ounce of pain. And with each revelation was a new scream, and with each scream was a new wave of empathy, and Innominat hated feeling so miserable, and gladly accepted the understanding.

It took an eternity, Sorey and Mikleo working together, and they poured everything they had into the purification. It wasn't malevolence they were getting rid of - it was resentment, spite, anger, betrayal, hurt. These were complicated, nuanced emotions that took time to unpack and understand. Radical acceptance could not be done in seconds, and both of them knew rushing the process would only lead to more problems. They took as long as they took, as long as they needed to, and Innominat slowly receded from their perception, digested and accepted by Phi.

At some point it finally finished, and Sorey and Mikleo separated with a gust of exhaustion, both of them falling to the ground and panting for the effort they had both performed.

Before them was Maotelus, his great dragon form just barely fitting into the chamber.

"Thank you," he said. "I must go now and return to my vessel where it is safe."

Sorey saw the light of a teleportation arte, could sort of process that Phi was going to try and bring them with him, but it faltered and disappeared with Phi, leaving them in the rumbling chamber.

"Purification!"

Rokurou had seen those two malak armatize many, many times over the winter. Always it was Mikleo going to Sorey. To see Sorey go to Mikleo was certainly different, and Rokurou felt a distinct need to try to fight them like this, to see where his power and skills stood against this new form they had.

He shook his head. Better to do that after they were all back down and safe. He stayed still, waiting, observing. After a minute of the silvery water engulfing the Laphicet that Rokurou had traveled with, he wondered just how long it would take, especially with all that thrashing about in the water as waves of white twisted and curled, lightning sparking out and fading. He circled around, watching. But the armatized Mikleo had his eyes closed, focusing, and nothing changed.

Two minutes and Rokurou lowered his swords. Still no signs of escape. Everything was… stable.

Three minutes and Rokurou risked sheathing his swords. Whatever those two were doing to Laphicet, was going to take a while. So whatever effort they were putting into this was probably going to leave them both exhausted. Possibly retreating to their vessels.

The sheer power that swirled around them would have been jaw dropping if Rokurou hadn't seen something similar happen between Velvet and her brother.

Speaking of.

Rokurou stepped right past her brother to the broken white sphere where he had last seen Velvet. His shortswords took care of the last of the white sphere, its energy dissipating, leaving Velvet, unconscious on the ground.

An emaciated Velvet.

Anger flared easily, despite Rokurou's easy-going nature. And he wanted to dive into those silvery waters and slice Innominat out of Laphicet to just cut him to shreds, but that would never work. As they had learned all those centuries ago, Laphicet was a piece of Innominat. And now Innominat was a piece of Laphicet.

Rokurou let out a long breath, and reached into his belts.

When they had left Ladylake, they had all agreed that they would have to walk into this battle completely prepared. Rested and ready. It was part of the reason they had stayed at Elysia for a few days. From Ladylake, they had purchased many gels, or the ingredients to make gels since Mikleo had a talent for it. (All he needed was a sniff of a gel to say, "No, that one's not potent; it's going sour." Rokurou could only shake his head and put it back to select another one.) Elysia itself had what Rokurou didn't think was made anymore after Laphicet discovered the recipe. Elysia had Elixirs.

It took two Elixirs for Velvet to wake up.

"... Rokurou?" she asked, eyes darting in an unfocused manner. "Where's Celica?"

Rokurou frowned, easing Velvet into sitting up and supporting her. Laphicet had mentioned something about dreams. That meant that Velvet had likely been spending more time dreaming than awake. But she remembered him. That had to mean something.

"Take it easy," he said softly. "Look around. Tell me what you remember about when you were last here."

She looked around hazily, still half in dreams. "I was never here… No… I was… Why…"

He gave her time, still watching Mikleo and his silvered waters encasing the thrashing energies around Laphicet.

"Artorius," Velvet growled. "They died. My brother Laphicet. My sister Celica. My nephew Phi. Me." He could feel the anger radiating off of her, even though she didn't have the strength to move.

"And what happened here?" he asked. "How did we all get here? Magilou, Eleanor, Eizen, me-"

"Phi," Velvet's voice shook, as everything was coming back and she was getting raw from all the feelings. "Artorius. We defeated him, didn't we?" She clutched her head, eyes squinting like she had a migraine. She grunted, collapsing forward.

"Velvet!"

"Sister!"

Rokurou had his longsword out in the blink of an eye, preventing Velvet's brother from getting any closer.

"Oh! Oh…" her brother stopped, hands raised. "I deserve that… don't I…" His eyes welled, and he sank to his knees, tears slipping down his cheeks. He gave a hiccuping sob. "I take it you're… not one of the ones?"

"Ones?"

"That man…" Velvet's brother turned to look at Mikleo, armatized and arms shaking, focused completely on those silvered waters and the maelstrom inside. "He said that many people wanted to make sure that Velvet and I lived."

"He's right," Rokurou said. "That's Mikleo. His partner Sorey." He hesitated for a brief moment. "Maotelus. Myself."

"You?" The child looked to Rokurou's longsword, still pointed at him, as the ground under their feet rumbled again. "But…"

"I want you to live. I want Velvet to be happy and that means a future with you in it." He narrowed his eyes. "But I will watch. To make sure that Innominat isn't still in there. So that you don't hurt her."

"I could never-! I…" The child's face suddenly slacked in horror before looking down to his hands. "We said such awful things to her… Things… to make her break…"

Velvet grunted, still clutching her head. "I'm ugly… worthless… nothing…"

"No…" Velvet's brother cried, buying his face into his hands. "No, she never deserved that…"

Rokurou sighed. What a mess.

There was another rumble, the floor shaking, and Rokurou pulled Velvet close as everything shuddered. Across the way, Mikleo grunted, but their concentration never wavered, the silver waters still containing and swirling around Laphicet.

Right. Escape was going to have to be considered.

Velvet groaned, agony in her bony form as she clutched at a different part of her head.

Rokurou looked to her brother. "Are you just going to sit there sobbing over things as everything falls apart, or are you going to help us get out of here?"

"I... How do I…?"

"You made this place, didn't you?" Rokurou asked. "You and Artorius."

"Artorius? Oh, Arthur…" Fresh tears spilled as Velvet's brother looked over to the skeleton that was Artorius from all those centuries ago. "I… Arthur and Innominat made this place. To watch the world for Malevolence…. I made this with Arthur, to… devour…"

"I will devour…" Velvet echoed, still clutching at her head, grunting with almost every hissed breath of pain.

"Focus," Rokurou growled. "I don't care why this place was made. That doesn't matter. You know this place, so how do we get out of here?"

"But I- I did such horrible things…"

Rokurou had to admit, he was a little fed up at this point. Wallowing in regrets and self-pity never changed anything. Feel the pain, yes. Pain meant you were still alive, pain meant you could still make choices, pain meant you could find a way to move forward, even if it wasn't the way in which you wanted. He had mourned his losses over the centuries, either of battles or of friends.

"Look, kid," Rokurou interjected, trying to stop that slow, never-ending, paralyzing spiral of self-hatred and guilt, "do you, or do you not want Velvet to survive?"

"Of course she should survive!" her brother shouted, tears still streaming. "She's been through so much, and because of me-"

"Then how do we get out of here?"

"Huh? Oh! Oh!" Her brother stood, wobbled as another rumble shook the entire chamber, then looked around. Actually looked around, absorbing details and aware for the first time since he'd been split from Innominat.

Beyond him, Mikleo grunted in effort, adjusting his footing, but still focused entirely on those silver waters and Laphicet inside.

"There's a-" Velvet's brother looked around again. "There should be…" He looked to Rokurou. "I need to check on the artes, and the systems of this place."

"Then have at it," Rokurou replied. "I'll keep things safe in here."

Pure gratitude flashed across her brother's face and for a moment, he looked so much like the Laphicet that Rokurou found it was unsettling. But he nodded and sprung off, floating slightly and gliding away, out of the room.

Rokurou let out a small breath in relief. That kid was going to need a lot of help if they made it out of this alive. But Rokurou felt safer with the kid gone, and sheathed his sword.

"Velvet?" he asked quietly. "Talk to me, what's going on?"

"Headache," she grunted. "Hunger."

He nodded to himself. "Then take some of my energy," he said, sliding the sleeve of his yukata up to his elbow and the tighter sleeve of his dark linen shirt underneath.

The instinct of a therion took over after that. Her bandaged arm transformed into a massive black and red monstrosity that sank talons into his arm. Velvet still grunted, whatever headache she was having seemed to be never ending, but the talons kept sucking.

Rokurou grit his teeth. He was almost two thousand years old, he'd worked on improving himself, not just in his artes but in how he coped with being a daemon. He was powerful. So powerful that Sorey and Mikleo had been his first true challenge in centuries. He let his power be drained and drained and drained to help Velvet.

Already, she was looking less emaciated, no longer just skin and bones. While her defined muscle wasn't back, she no longer looked sickly.

That was enough.

He ripped his arm back.

Velvet's therion arm reached again for it, but he slapped it away. "Velvet. Are you still here?"

"Rokurou..."

Finally.

Finally. After an hour of feeding, Velvet sat up on her own, held herself up under her own power. Rokurou shook his arm, rubbing a gel over the pierced skin. He wondered if either Sorey or Mikleo would have enough power after whatever they were doing for a healing arte. Mikleo, in particular, seemed adept at it.

"Rokurou…" Velvet looked around, wincing around her headache. "I… Erghhhh…" She curled into herself, clutching at her head with her human arm, reaching back to rub and massage the base of her skull and up around the back and then around to her forehead. "Laphi?"

He pulled out another gel for his arm. "Investigating how to get down from here," he replied. While Velvet had been feeding, he had watched her brother poke his head in to check something before heading out into the crumbling structure again.

Across the way, Mikleo grunted again, and Rokurou could see sweat forming on his brow.

Huh, it was getting warmer up here.

"Velvet?"

"I'm here…" Velvet looked at him. "I… it hurts. To remember. Every thought just.." She groaned, curling back over her migraine.

Right. Her brain was still separating dream from reality. Rokurou rubbed her back lightly, giving her support.

A while later, Velvet's brother came in again, gliding forward, but he looked sweaty, tired, and determined.

"Something broke the heart," he said gravely.

"Yeah," Rokurou said. "Me. That was me letting Innominat know he was going down."

"Oh… I... Sort of remember that?" the kid said, face pinched and thinking. He shook his head again. "That was the primary power source of this observation station. Without it, everything is losing the artes that held it together." He hesitated. "Has… How long has it been?"

"Over a millennium."

He nodded. "Without that self-sustaining power, the outermost reaches of the station have already crumbled and started their descent. The pieces are small enough, they should break apart in the atmosphere. But… the larger pieces…"

"That's a problem for later," Rokurou said. "We need to get out of here. I'm just the muscle. I don't understand artes. That platform we took before, is it operational?"

Velvet's brother shook his head. "It's already dust in the atmosphere."

"Damn."

"I…" he shook his head. "I know the glyphs. I know the runes. I… I think I can make another one. I just have to get the math right." He grimaced. "Math…"

"Yeah, I'll be no help there."

Velvet grunted. She looked up again, eyes finding Rokurou, before she glanced over. "Laphi…"

Her brother spooked. Eyes wide, face surprised, frozen. Then his face echoed the Laphicet Rokurou knew and he looked determined. "Don't worry, sister. I'll get us down safely."

"Laphi… wait-!"

But her brother was already gone.

"He can't… He's sick…"

Rokurou rubbed her back, offering his support as he had since he first owed her a debt. "He's a malak now, Velvet," he said softly. "All illness he suffered is gone."

Velvet sat up straight, her face still pinched in headache, eyes squinting to see past the pain. "But he…"

Rokurou looked her in the eyes. "He's not sick. He's not frail or weak or helpless. He can do things, so he should do them. You can't treat him like he's human anymore. He's a malak. And malakhim are strong."

She grunted through another throb of her headache, before nodding. The ground trembled again, more violently. Mikleo almost stumbled, but somehow kept his footing, still focused on those silvered waters.

Velvet seemed to notice him. "Who's that?" she asked suspiciously, blade extending.

"That's Mikleo and Sorey," Rokurou said, gently putting a hand on the blade. "They came up here to free you."

"They?" she scowled through the headache. "An armatus. Which is the enslaved malak?"

"Neither," Rokurou said. Right. Time to explain some things. "It's been almost two thousand years, Velvet. A lot of things are different."

"And what are they doing to Phi?"

"Purifying Innominat."

For the first time, Velvet's face slackened, eyes wide in surprise, despite the migraine, as she turned to him. "Explain," she demanded.

Well, that took a while. Explaining how Shepherds had changed after Artorious, how for Shepherds were often remembered for taking down a "Lord of Calamity", the most recent Calamity that ended it all, and how a Shepherd named Sorey had saved Laphicet and was now a malak.

"They're both malak? And with an armatus?" Velvet was rubbing her forehead, trying to take it all in through her migraine. "How is that even possible?"

"We'd have to ask Laphicet. He also armatized with Sorey earlier when we were fighting Innominat." Rokurou shrugged. "We live in strange times."

"Then where is Innominat? If he's not in Laphi?"

"Laphichet… devoured him."

Velvet offered a cool look.

"He patterned the arm after yours."

She shook her head.

"See those bands of white around him in that water?"

She rubbed at her headache again. "Yes."

"That's way less powerful than when this started. Mikleo and Sorey are purifying Innominat." Rokurou chuckled. "I don't get how that works. Innominat is an Empyrean. For all that he's absorbed a lot of Malevolence, he's still not a daemon. I leave that sort of stuff for people smarter than me."

Another rumble shook the floor, and Rokurou could feel the pitch starting to change.

"Whatever they're doing," Velvet said, "they had better hurry up."

"They can't afford to."

"Laphi…"

Velvet's brother glided in and paused, several feet away as Rokurou narrowed his eyes. Everything indicated that her brother wasn't going to hurt them, but… Rokurou had been alive too long to not be cautious.

"What those two are doing to Innominat…" Her brother shook his head. "Purification is… I don't understand a lot of it, but the other Laphicet, he is… was… a part of me. He's giving… empathy." He looked down. "Accepting empathy is hard…" he said quietly. "Especially when you think no one can understand."

"Laphi…"

These two needed a lot of healing.

Still, Velvet was conscious and working through a headache. She could move, albeit slowly. So Rokurou got up and quietly stepped away to let the two siblings talk. Rokurou knew that if something went wrong, she would find some way to alert him. So he took a chance to walk around the silvered waters that contained Laphicet and the weakening swirls of power that were Innominat. Laphicet looked peaceful, a faint glow around him, and a warm smile. The swirls of white were thinner, and they didn't slash or strike, so much as chaotically move in confusion. Shrinking. The silvered waters had a sheen to them as the water continued to purify. Rokurou couldn't quite say with certainty, but it felt like the purification was happening faster.

That was good, because the pitch was sharpening again, and Rokurou needed to lean to stay upright.

Mikleo, however, was looking strained. Sweat was rolling down his temple almost in rivers, face crunched tight in focus, and power just radiating. His arms shook and his legs shook, and yet he never moved beyond steadying his balance as he focused on whatever was going on in those silvered waters.

Rokurou could only put a hand on their shoulder, in a show of his quiet support.

Three hours.

Three hours after Rokurou had watched the silvered waters engulf Laphicet did they splash down to the ground before disappearing. Sorey and Mikleo separated, collapsing into panting heaps of exhaustion, as Laphicet's illusion of his malak form faded to his true form. A massive dragon of pure power floated before them. It barely fit in the chamber.

"Thank you," Laphicet said, bowing his head to the two malakhim. "I must go now and return to my vessel where it is safe."

Rokurou hoped that meant they'd all be safe.

Under their feet, a teleportation arte flared, encasing all of them.

But the ground rumbled.

A crack went through the arte.

And when the light of the arte faded, only Laphicet was gone.

"Well, damn."

"Wh-what?" Sorey got shakily to his feet, stumbled, then stood again. "What happened?"

"The arte broke," Velvet's brother glided forward, studying the crack in the ground. "This… It broke through the arte. The other Laphicet couldn't pull you… us like he wanted to."

"Then how are we-"

Another rumble, louder than all the others shook the room and everything tilted, sending them all to the ground and sliding. Velvet dug her claw into the ground, catching her brother. Rokurou also dug one of his shortswords in and a short distance away, Sorey dug his sword in and grabbed Mikleo, who still seemed out of it.

Everything shook.

Rokurou scanned everything, for anything that could help.

"We need to get to the glyphs!" Velvet's brother shouted. "I think it will get us home!"

"You think?" Rokurou demanded.

The child shook his head. "It was a lot of math."

"What if it's bad math?" Rokurou replied. He'd survived for almost two eons, he did not want to end like this. Better to die in battle!

"I can check it!" Mikleo replied, holding his head with one hand, while the other was wrapped around Sorey's waist. "I understand the basics of it. Just… Sorey, I need-"

"Go ahead! I've got you!"

Mikleo nodded, retreating to his vessel, leaving the bow in Sorey's hand.

"How do we get there?" Sorey asked as another roaring rumble shifted everything again, changing the pitch to something more even, something they could run on.

Velvet released her hold on her brother enough for him to start gliding. "This way!"

They ran.

Velvet and her brother took the lead, Rokurou staying near Sorey, who looked almost ready to collapse in exhaustion. They passed through a hellish room of blacks and purples, no longer swirling but pulses fading, cracks reaching all around, and then out into the pale pathways of the heavens, with the vast curve of the planet below them.

Way closer than the last time Rokurou saw it.

"Oh, hell," he whispered. Chunks of the… what had her brother called it… station, were sinking below them, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces, and burning.

"This way!" the child said, gliding ahead, waving an arm.

"Laphicet! Look out! Lethal Pain!" Velvet shouted, leaping above him and using a sharp slash of her therion arm to break up a chunk of station that had been sinking to them. She landed lightly in front of her brother, then pulled him to her to shield him from the shattered debris.

"Sorey!" Rokurou did similar, pulling the ascended shepherd down to cover him.

"It broke the path!" the child shouted. "Oh… how do we get around, how do we get around!"

Sorey ran forward. "Everyone! Hold on!" Once everyone had a grip, "Flash Step!" Lightning seemed to surround them and there was a crack of thunder. Rokurou had to blink, trying to see through that blinding flash, and found they were on the other side of the broken path. Sorey himself, was collapsed on the ground, holding Mikleo's vessel delicately, and heaving great gulps of air.

"Sorey!"

"Roku…rou…" Sorey got to his knees, cradling the bow close, before sagging forward again.

"Is he okay?" Velvet asked in her usual monotone, colored with urgency.

"...drained…" Sorey said.

The ground rumbled dangerously under them again.

Rokurou squatted down in front of the former Shepherd, offering his back. Sorey stared for a moment before clambering on and holding the bow closely. "Lead the way," he shouted as another rumble seemed to build under the current rumble. To the side, they watched another chunk of the station fall off and start breaking apart in the atmosphere. "We can't have much time!"

Down the path, dodging smaller bits of debris and watching more fall and break into the atmosphere.

Then into another hellish room.

This one mostly untouched, massive, and with a roughly drawn sketch of the teleportation arte.

Rokurou set down Sorey, who held out the bow. Mikleo appeared, still looking ragged, but marginally better than before. A glance at Sorey and his partner nodded, retreating into his own vessel, the Shepherd's glove that Miklo slipped onto his own hand.

The rumbling continued as Mikleo looked around, walking around the arte, eyes sharp and calculating, even as it was clear he was rushing.

The pitch was tilting again.

"Mikleo!" Rokurou shouted.

"Almost!" He reached down, changing small runes, tiny glyphs, "Everyone inside!"

They all stepped into the circle.

"Rokurou… I'll pass out after this…" Mikleo whispered.

"I'll keep both you and Sorey safe."

He nodded, pulled out his staff, and activated the arte.

Author's Notes: Whee! One more left!

First off - hi Velvet! Glad you finally made an appearance after naming the fic for you! She's having a migraine, however, much like Sorey at the beginning of the fic, so we'll wait. Laphi! Good to finally meet you! He's low-key a mess though, after all the trauma he's been through, and Rokurou has to cut through the downward spiral to get him functioning enough to get them out of there. Laphi has a lot of info in his noggin after being Innominat's vessel for so long.

We also finally get Phi to armatize with Sorey - We've been waiting on that one for forever. Well, that and a white therion-arm Phi eating Innominat. That fit so well narratively we couldn't not do it.

Next chapter: we finally get into the headspace of the title character. Will they survive reentry? (I mean, the answer's obvious, but let's pretend...)