Before we start...

Thank you for commenting, SparkyBubbles. I'm glad someone is still reading this :) Looking at the dates of posting, I'm surprised to see how long I've been dragging this story along. But I'll try to finish this as soon as possible.

(And yes, I'll admit ChubbyFeline's comment last year made me less eager to continue. But hey, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and while I do think it spoils the surprise a bit, I do think it's better if I make my intentions clearer when I post a story, so anyone not interested in seeing a particular element can stay clear of the story. I do have more thoughts in the matter, but I don't think this is the place for it. Maybe I'll post an entry in my Deviantart journal.)

Chapter 17: The master of nightmares

Sunlight. The rays of clear light enveloped him in a deliciously warm embrace. Gakupo looked around him, slightly dizzy. All around him a field of tall grass shone like a tapestry woven with gold and green threads. Small splashes of pink, lilac and blue appeared and disappeared around him as the breeze played with the unbridled vegetation. He felt somewhat surprised by the scene, although he couldn't say why. In the back of his mind a rapidly sinking something was calling out to him; however, by the time it was completely silenced, Gakupo had already forgotten who that strange voice belonged to. He looked to the side and gasped.

His father was marching along the field holding a kite in his hands. After a brief and confusing bout of nausea, Gakupo followed him, trying to match his steps with his shorter legs, but it was very tiring. Undeterred, the child tried his best to keep the pace.

"If I'm going too fast for you, you just need to tell me," his father informed him with a chuckle.

Gakupo looked upwards. His father smiled reassuringly, framed by the bluest sky he had ever seen. His carefully trimmed beard and shoulder-length hair shone silver in the sunlight, and the boy was momentarily puzzled, examining the figure before him. There was something nagging at him, but it was too vague to put it into words, so he just smiled in return.

"You know I love you very much, right?" His father said ruffling his hair. "Even if it seems like things are too harsh sometimes, it's because I believe you can make a difference." His eyes wandered to the line of trees at the end of the field, a blurry mass of golden and green hues. "The world and the people within it, left to their own devices, can rival any nightmare. But we can mold them into something better, just by taking our rightful place." He knelt down and cupped Gakupo's face with his hands. "I don't want to hurt you. Just come home, no one will question it. Come back to your family."

At the mention of family, Gakupo glanced at his left, where his mother and sisters were, sitting under a parasol. For a second, the figures seem to waver like summer mirages. Then, he saw his mother and aunt talking and laughing, one pretty like a shiny crow, the other plain but warm like the fire of her hair. His grandparents were there too, solemn but kind. His playful brother and sister waved at him, laughing at some private joke.

His father called back his attention, and Gakupo stared into his piercing eyes. "You can have anything and anyone you want. Come home with me." His last words kept ringing in Gakupo's ears, even after his father fell silent. If anything, they seem to grow larger in the silence, filling every possible space under the sky and creeping slowly inside his head. The sun seemed more dazzling, drawing out the most vibrant colors he had ever seen from the grass and wildflowers around them. The buzz of the insects hiding in the foliage seemed thunderous, like a crowd waiting anxiously for his answer. He only had to say a tiny word, the only word that made sense. A boy had to be with his father, after all. He opened his mouth to reply-

Under all the noise, someone was calling him.

Gakupo tried to move his head to search for the owner of the voice, but his father's grip kept him locked in place. "No, listen to me!"

"They are calling me!" The words slipped out of Gakupo's mouth before he could even comprehend what that meant. Who-

She liked the gift. She liked it! It was the first time Luka ever smiled in his presence. It illuminated her face so wonderfully that Gakupo's jaw almost dropped in awe. Of course, as soon as their classmates noticed what was going on the jokes started, but he couldn't have cared less. Luka had smiled for him and nothing else mattered.

"I brought you a gift." Kaito smiled impishly as he opened the bag of treats he had been hiding under his jacket. No wonder he had chosen to wear his long white coat, despite the heat. Gakupo shoved a candy inside his mouth, still grinning from ear to ear.

Luka's figure seemed to shift, as her white sundress moved with the fierce wind of the season. Her hair had grown past her shoulders by now, and it snaked around her head, despite her new headband. Gakupo fruitlessly stretched one arm towards her and past the bars on the window, wishing he could hug the girl.

Kaito pulled him into a hug. "It's alright. Calm down, you're doing ok." His hand traced figures on Gakupo's back with a steady, calming pace. Gakupo bit his lower lip, trying hard to keep the tears at bay.

Luka's hand clutched at his dress uniform, as if afraid he would vanish. She alternated between laughing awkwardly between sobs and apologizing for making him fall. Still, she looked so glad to be reunited with Gakupo that he could scarcely believe it. Had they truly been searching for him for the past two years?

Luka sighed dramatically and draped Kaito's arm around her shoulders. Gakupo almost laughed at Kaito's wide-eyed stare, but instead he bent down and pulled them both into a hug. For the first time, he truly felt things were going to be alright...

All their words, all the tears they had shed for him, all the times they had cared for him…

Like an avalanche, all those warm images safely kept in the back of his mind shattered the spell Verdigris had been carefully weaving. Around Gakupo, the scenery shook, and he saw a vast plain, with the familiar shape of Oto in the distance. He felt so confused at the view before his eyes that it almost made him physically sick: everything from the moment the princess of Shinwa guided him and his friends into the council room was gone from his head. Did they speak with the king? Were troops coming or were they alone? How did he end up under the warmage's spell?

However, even in his current state Gakupo knew he had no time to ponder, since two threats stood between him and the hated town of his childhood. The troops of the magocracy and Verdigris himself were before him, too real to ignore. Except for the mage, every single one of those men were staring at him with an empty, chilling stare. Line after line, they stood with unsettling immobility, but their bodies gave an impression of contained energy, like a compressed spring. At the same time, they were probably bewitched to ignore everything that was happening if their master willed it.

"No…" Gakupo took a step back, looking around for his friends. His chest constricted when he saw them; Luka was curled up on the ground, seemingly unconscious, and Kaito was kneeling with his eyes closed and his arms at his sides. If he had to guess, they were probably under the same spell that almost trapped him.

The concept of a mage strong enough to keep such a large group of commoners under his control made Gakupo's heart skip a beat; his surprise was compounded by the fact he also had Luka and Kaito under his control. But why was Gakupo the only one not consumed by Verdigris's cage of illusions? It couldn't be his closer connection to the beast, he could barely feel her at the moment.

"This doesn't make any sense," Gakupo mumbled to himself, backing further away from Verdigris. The older mage watched him with an indulgent smile, as if they were in the middle of one of his weekly quizzes. Gakupo pressed his temples, squeezing his head.

"Come home with me, Gakupo."

Why wasn't Verdigris attacking him? Could it be that the warmage was going easy on him? Was he, in his own twisted way, really concerned about his well-being? No, that couldn't be true. Gakupo kept stepping back and almost tripped on the loose rocks on the field. As he briefly struggled for balance, he partially turned and saw Kaito's figure. Like a sleepwalker, his friend's arm moved at a glacial speed, searching for something tied to his belt. Gakupo's eyes widened in fear and disgust. He launched forward to stop Kaito's movements, at the same time he raised a magical barrier around him and his friends.

A moment later, the tide of nightmares hit him from behind. His senses collapsed, trying to take in a thousand disparate images that weren't there, voices whispering, threatening, pleading, howling, the colors, the many colors and terrible, searing light. His stomach turned, he could barely see the knife raising, even though it was right in front of him, and the screaming, the screaming didn't stop, it wasn't him, but it was his voice, and it kept going and going and going and going and going and going...

"I really didn't want to do this," a voice between many said.

Kaito's stomach dropped. He knew where he was, and it was an impossible place. The tower didn't exist anymore, and yet there he was, kneeling next to the husk of the man who taught him so much, the man he loved as much as any boy could love his father.

He quickly averted his eyes. He had worked so hard to push this horrible image into the darkest pits of his mind! The mage had no right to drag it back into the light, no right to disturb his father's rest. Anger mixed with sadness once more, as he stubbornly fixed his eyes on the stones to the right of the body. The mirage would vanish if he paid it no mind, it had to. But then, a chilling idea made him turn his gaze sharply towards his right, past the bars of the cell.

There he was, watching him and the corpse with complete bafflement. Despite the lack of light inside the cell, the lamp on the table behind him allowed Kaito to see clearly the silhouette of his beloved friend as he looked two years before.

"You killed him! He's always protected you, and you killed him!" The words came out of Kaito's mouth without prompting, a vile echo of the past. It almost made him retch.

"Is this real? Kaito, tell me it isn't!" Every syllable made Kaito shiver with intense fright, as they brought him closer to the horrible moment of betrayal. As he feared, he felt himself rise and pull a dagger from his boot. The figure inside the cell was as he remembered, fragile and lovely despite all the mistreatment. His blue eyes watched Kaito approach with a mix of confusion and dread, widening with disbelief.

"I've always cared for you, shielded you as best as I could! And all for this?!" Kaito's lips spat, uncontrollable. His body moved forward, propelled by invisible hands, even as his mind screamed in rebellion.

The knife moved swiftly and uncaring, ignoring the torrent of words racing through his mind. It met Gakupo's skin, drawing a red slash across the bridge of his nose and slicing the eye. The delicate tissue readily surrendered to the blade and the pupil was no more. For the briefest second, Gakupo's expression remained the same, uncomprehending and worried, even as vitreous liquid and blood began to gush out. Then he opened his mouth and screamed, bringing a hand to his face in agony.

Nonononono… Kaito echoed the yell in his mind, unable to rein in his body. But his denial seemed to have an effect: every syllable was like the clapper of a huge bell, making reality tremble and vibrate around him. Gakupo was falling slowly to the floor, messy hair and droplets of blood floating all around him. There was no way it was possible, but even though Kaito's gaze was fixed upon his friend's face, he could also see the drops of blood all around them, shining like rubies in the lamplight.

I have to shake this off, Gakupo and Luka need me! Kaito repeated the phrase over and over, trying to draw strength from it. But it was pointless. Suddenly time seemed to speed up again and Gakupo slammed against the ground, letting out a groan. Kaito straddled him, ready to plunge the knife into his chest. His friend tried desperately to push Kaito's arms away, but his bloodied hands were too weak; his grip quickly faltered and the knife found its target.

…What?

The front of the ragged tunic turned red, as the wound bled profusely. Kaito scrambled away, screaming incoherently. Gakupo's hands scratched at the knife piercing his heart for a few futile seconds, before dropping to his sides. He let out a strange gurgling sound and then went silent.

"No! It didn't go like this! I didn't kill him! I didn't kill him!" Kaito screamed again and again to the cold walls of the cell. There was no answer. He was alone in the tower, irremediably alone. His knees gave out under him and he landed hard on the ground. He didn't care. "You're not dead, you're not dead, I didn't kill you, you're not dead, you're not dead…" Kaito droned on, trying to build a wall of words between him and the scene around him.

Minutes passed by. But this had to be an illusion. There was no way the last two years had been a construction of his mind. Luka and he had seen so much things together, like…

Like…

Like…

His heartbeat increased even more. It was a wild thing pounding, rattling against the bars of its cage.

He couldn't remember.

But he was older, Luka was older. Luka had been there with him, he had seen her blossom into a woman, didn't he? He just couldn't remember what she looked like at the moment.

Don't lie to yourself. You killed him, and Luka left town to marry her merchant. You know it's true.

It sounded like his own voice. It sounded so reasonable. Wasn't he just trying to escape from the pain of losing his father? Of killing his first and only love? It was only human for him to fabricate a pleasant fantasy of rescuing Gakupo from the hands of an evil mage. But he had to wake up eventually.

Kaito lifted his head and looked around him, lost. Where was he? Gone was the cell and its horrors, replaced by a tight space full of documents stacked on shelves up to the ceiling. Morning light touched his head, coming from a narrow window in the stone wall. Kaito sat in front of a desk with neatly piled parchments, a very familiar sight. But it didn't make any more sense than his previous surroundings. His father's desk didn't exist anymore either.

No, it was his desk. He was the captain now; he had taken up his father's job as soon as he reached adulthood. No one doubted him despite of his age, after all he was the slayer of the beast reborn. The whole of Oto lauded him as a hero.

He stared at the woodgrain of the desk, feeling his head about to burst. Was it true? Was everything just a fabrication, an escape from what he had done? His eyes travelled to the edge of the desk and there it was: the dagger he had used that night. He extended an arm slowly and took it. It was all very simple. If this just some kind of illusion, it wouldn't hurt him. But if it was real, he had no business being alive. The tip of the knife rested against the white fabric of his jacket, ready to dispel the nightmare.

"Kaito!" The voice cut right through him, and suddenly he felt hands pulling at his arms, trying to keep him from piercing his chest. He somehow knew the voice had been calling him for a long while, growing more and more desperate.

He blinked and all manner of sensations demanded his attention at the same time. He was kneeling on the ground; the unevenness of the rough terrain could be felt even through his elegant uniform pants and boots. His body ached, as if he had been fighting nonstop for hours. His head pounded terribly. The knife had drawn a bit of blood; it was barely a puncture, but the front of his luxurious jacket was now tinged red, and the wound felt hot, absurdly hot. Yet he still felt like plunging the knife deeper.

"No!" The voice cried out again, and this time Kaito felt as if he had broken the surface of the waters, after nearly drowning. He took a big gulp of air, staring perplexed at the mismatched eyes before him.

"Gakupo…?" His friend was kneeling in front of him, trying to wrestle the dagger away from his hands. His messy hair was sticking to his sweaty forehead and his face was deathly pale. He seemed about to pass out from exhaustion.

"Please…I can't keep this up much longer…" Gakupo said with a barely intelligible sliver of a voice.

Kaito dropped the dagger precipitously; the sound it made when it clashed against the rocky terrain barely registered in his mind. Gakupo's body crashed against his as he leaned forward, ready to collapse. Kaito draped his arms around him, keeping him in place. His friend was shaking so severely that he feared he was having some kind of seizure. That made him finally take a good look at their surroundings, in search for help. What he found made his stomach drop.

They were inside a half-sphere of purple fire. Luka laid on the ground by their side, eyes closed and lost to the world. Just outside the small protective barrier, a figure with a long staff stood glaring at them. Farther away, rows and rows of immobile soldiers stood like dolls waiting for their master's orders.

Verdigris locked eyes with him with a look of intense hatred. It carried a perceptible force, like a torrent of poisoned water pushing against him, trying to topple him. Without noticing it, Kaito hugged Gakupo even tighter. His friend rested his head on his shoulder, still shaking. The gesture seemed to further enrage Verdigris, and the invisible attack intensified. Kaito began to see flashes of images superimposed over the battlefield: painful scenes, every failure and regret dug out from the back of his mind. All the pain his existence had caused others, all the disappointment. Verdigris' face twisted and became many others, each and every one full of disgust. It ended up adopting his father's features, but wearing an expression he had never seen before. Kaito felt sick, yet emboldened. That out-of-character mask of scorn was too much of a discordant note, to the point it helped him focus on reality. He smiled and strengthened Gakupo's barrier with fire of his own; as a result, the deluge of harmful images lessened somewhat.

Gakupo's head suddenly jerked up. "Luka… have to help…" His eyes were half-lidded and unfocused.

"She's right there."

"Luka…" Gakupo tried to pull away weakly. After a moment Kaito let him loose, and Gakupo crawled blindly towards her, almost tripping with her body. He crumbled next to her, their hands touching.

Seeing his friends collapsed like broken marionettes was the final drop. Rage came pouring out of Kaito's heart, energizing every part of his body. It was the same emotion he had felt after the tower collapsed, and it demanded the same thing: stop Verdigris, no matter what. Make him pay.

"You won't hurt them anymore!"

The long corridor stretched farther than any construction Luka had ever seen. The end of it was impossible to see, hidden behind an unnaturally deep darkness. Long shafts of light irrupted inside from time to time, when the walls were interrupted by huge windows of colored glass.

Where was she? Luka turned around, confused, but the corridor continued behind her, plunging into more darkness. There weren't any doors, as far as she could see. There was nothing but her, no echoes in the distance, nothing disturbing the silence but the creaking of her gown and her increasingly nervous breathing.

Was this some kind of spell? The last thing she remembered was riding next to Gakupo, growing closer and closer to their birth town… Her eyes widened as realization hit her: this had to be part of Verdigris' attack. She had to get back to him and Kaito! She hitched up her skirts and began running down the corridor, picking the direction at random. If this was a real building and not a magical prison of some kind, there had to be an exit somewhere…

She ran. She ran, ran, ran and ran, and nothing changed around her. The same loneliness, the same stillness. Her feet began to hurt thanks to her regal shoes. She stopped to kick them off, then paused, still holding the ornately decorated footwear in her hands. She examined the closest window, a beautiful stained glass window showing dancing people in an open fair. A purple star shone over them, directly over the lone figure without a partner.

"My, how subtle you are." Luka smiled humorlessly, then threw one shoe as hard as she could towards the glass. It broke with a huge and satisfying sound, the shards pulverizing as soon as they struck the ground. Luka carefully stepped closer and knocked the glass still clinging to the bottom of the frame with the other shoe. Then she climbed over it and landed outside, tearing the skirt of her gown in the process.

Many trees were waiting for her on the other side of the wall; they were so tightly packed together that instead of the intense sunlight Luka was expecting, the brilliance barely reached the pine needles littering the ground. The young woman observed this before turning around, only to find that the strange building was completely gone.

"If I needed proof that something odd is going on…" Luka trailed off. What now? Did it matter where she went, if she was trapped inside a spell? But she had to do something, so she shrugged and began walking.

The forest was as silent as the corridor had been, completely devoid of buzzing insects or the call of birds. Not even a breeze rustled the leaves. From what Luka was observing, she was the only living creature under the branches. Little by little, the silence began to seep inside of her, cooling off her body. Without noticing it, she began to tug at the sleeve of her gown, but it didn't ease her growing dread.

It had been years since she felt so alone, and it terrified her. If Verdigris was hoping to break her by isolating her from Gakupo and Kaito, she had to admit he was doing a good job so far. Physical pain was nothing next to the prospect of being separated from them.

She began to accelerate her steps, mistreating her bare feet recklessly. Her dress got caught in branches and she tore herself free without slowing down, until it was nothing but silken rags. She didn't care, nothing mattered anymore but running faster and faster.

All of the sudden, she reached a clearing. A very familiar clearing with a small hut in fact, but she didn't waste any time thinking about it, because a young man was standing by the door, looking at her with mismatched eyes. Luka threw herself into his arms, stifling a sob.

"Luka…" His voice was soothing and resigned. Had he given up already? Luka buried her face in his neck, unwilling to see his expression of defeat.

"What are we going to do? We need to get out of here and help Kaito!"

"I've been trying anything I can think of… I think we're trapped here," Gakupo replied, patting her head.

"No, there has to be a way!" Her hands tugged at the back of his jacket trying to motivate him into action. "We can't stay here!"

"I don't like leaving Kaito to fend off by himself any more than you do." His tone had the slightest whiff of impatience, the first time Luka had heard anything like that from him. "But Verdigris is the strongest tamperer of minds in the continent. We knew our chances were slim."

"I…" Luka trailed off. She had nothing but vague platitudes about perseverance to counter his arguments, which she knew would sound hollow the minute she voiced them.

"At least we're together." Gakupo squeezed her tighter. "We'll live inside this dream, and be happy no matter what he throws our way."

Luka pulled away a little to see his face; he was smiling a self-assured smile that seemed out of place. Gakupo was probably trying hard to sound confident for her sake, she guessed. That made her so grateful for his presence that she teared up again; in response, he wiped her eyes and kissed her forehead tenderly.

"We're going to be fine, yes? Say it, Luka. Say you'll stay here with me, and that will be fine," Gakupo's deep voice softened into a whisper.

She could see it, almost as if she was already living it, every single moment at once. The two of them would spend their days wandering under the trees, walking hand in hand. They would speak in hushed tones, slowly transforming the hut and its surroundings into a home. And at night, they would sleep intertwined, dreaming inside the dream.

Living inside an illusionary prison wasn't what she wanted out of life, clearly. But as long as Gakupo was at her side, Luka would be content. She smiled and opened her mouth to express her feelings-

"Luka!" Behind her, a voice suddenly rang out, alongside with the creaking of fire and the sound of crushed foliage.

Luka turned around, eyes wide as saucers. Even allowing for the fact that she was inside an illusion, the sight before her eyes was startling: the plants at the edge of the clearing were moving with absurd velocity. Their branches swayed around violently, the roots surged from the ground, trying to trip and entangle the figure in the middle of the abnormal activity.

"Gakupo…?"

He was swinging his sword covered in flames, desperately trying to advance in her direction. And he was no illusion, she was sure of it. Everything around him seemed to lose consistency and color just by being by his side, reduced to mere props on a stage. Luka's heart beat wildly inside her chest, as she contemplated a simple question… Who was standing near her, then?

Right on cue, two strong hands began choking her with unnatural strength. It wasn't just the force of the muscles, the mere touch of the fingers seemed to extract the air from her lungs, and the very life from her limbs. A malevolent chuckle rang next to her left ear, as she weakly tried to tear those hands away from her neck. Her vision clouded and Gakupo's features lost sharpness, though she could still see his movements as he struggled to reach her.

"Luka! Fight him! You have to fight him!" His voice descended into inarticulate yells as he tossed flames left and right, igniting the fake forest all around them. And yet more or more plants irrupted from the ground and the fire, forming a thick wall between them. The yelling began to grow distant, as if Gakupo was being dragged away from her.

"Useless to the end, aren't you? You should've run away like you always do. It's the only thing you're good at, girl." Her attacker chuckled again using Gakupo's voice, now dripping with disdain.

"I…" Luka's tongue wouldn't obey her, the pressure of the hands around her neck were too much. Every part of her hurt, every part felt wooden and ungainly. She would asphyxiate soon, if she didn't do something. A little voice inside her head balked at the idea of her taking action. She was weaker and smaller than the one wearing Gakupo's visage, what could she possibly do?

Her blood seemed to stop flowing for an instant. Then, a great surge of something, a feeling she couldn't identify rose from within, and she found herself shouting inside her head. She was more than her weaknesses. She was more than a scared little girl. And she would make her enemy regret crossing paths with a beast!

Her vision cleared, as she reached inside of herself and drew out handfuls of flame. The air exploded around her, and her attacker was violently pushed back. He collided against the burning shack and dissipated like smoke. Luka wasted no time celebrating his disappearance; instead, she molded a sphere of fire around her as she stepped forward towards the wall of vegetation. She felt a palpable resistance when her ball of flames pushed against the plants and she had to exert all her strength to break through. The branches and vines grew all around the sphere trying to stop her, but she moved forward gaining each step at a painfully slow pace. It was a good while before the green mass in front of her suddenly opened, to reveal Gakupo in the middle of his own battle against the woods. He shouted her name and extended one hand towards her. Luka did the same, pouring all her might into reaching his fingers-

"Gakupo…" Luka opened her eyes with effort. Her eyelids felt terribly heavy. No, her entire body felt that way, as if a pair of giant hands had tried to wring the blood out of her and then tossed her away with a thought. The ground beneath her was hard, with many small rocks pressed against her body. She probably was bruised all over and her face felt sticky with blood. But none of that mattered at the moment, because Gakupo was lying on his side right next to her, his fingers lightly touching hers.

"We're back." His voice was almost swallowed by the roar of the strange energies around them, but Luka managed to ignore everything else and focus on those few hoarse syllables. It was possibly one of the most comforting things she'd ever heard.

The victorious feeling lasted only for a few seconds, because rising above the chaos, another familiar voice let out a horrific yell. Luka saw Gakupo's face turn ashen, likely the same tone as hers. With effort, she broke their held gaze and moved just enough to see what was going on. Immediately, bile rose to her mouth and she gaged. Her skin crawled and she wanted nothing more than to bury her face on Gakupo's chest and never look up again. Next to her, Gakupo slowly sat up, muttering incoherently. Despite Luka's strong desire to seek refuge in his arms, she remained petrified, unable to even shut her eyes.

The world was squirming, oozing, pulsating and boiling all around them. Everything seemed a second away from melting, crumbling, eroding. Everything wasn't there. Everything was there again. The tide played with the ground; one second, there was nothing there, worse than nothing. Then the dirt and pebbles and grass were back, mundane as ever. Then each stone was an eye looking at her, and the soil pulsated as if alive, a vast expanse of oily flesh, blackened with frostbite. Voices laughed and spoke in indescribable tones next to her ears with distorted syllables. Shadows galloped across her vision. Nothing stood in place, nothing was solid enough for her to hold on, except for the two figures in front of her, and Gakupo's presence to her left.

Given the fluidity of what she was seeing, it was hard to even estimate distances, but she felt like Kaito was a few steps away, guarding them with the rapidly dissolving remains of a magic shield. Farther away, she sometimes saw a static figure at the very center of the nightmare. It was incredibly painful to look at it; somehow, her chest ached in the same way it had ached in every horrible moment of her life, but ten times worse. Armed with a power she couldn't even begin to comprehend, Verdigris was tearing at them all, exposing every instance of suffering hidden inside their memories, jamming claws into wounds fresh and old. Kaito was screaming again, and Luka felt more than saw the forces pulling at him, dragging him closer and closer to the breaking point.

Suddenly, Luka realized that Gakupo was pulling at her hand, gesturing for them to move closer to Kaito. They crawled pitifully towards him; the combination of the constantly mutating scenery and dreadful tiredness was too much to even attempt to get up. Kaito didn't seem to notice them until Gakupo placed a shaky hand on his shoulder, and even then he only gave them a brief, grim look. It seemed like all he had to keep going was mere stubbornness.

"Let me use your strength!" Gakupo gripped Luka's hand tighter and placed his free hand over Kaito's. He closed his eyes and began to concentrate, whispering some incantation.

Luka stared at him for a moment in disbelief. She barely had anything left, none of them had enough power to defy Verdigris, after all. Her gaze dropped to the pale hand grabbing hers and she frowned. Maybe Gakupo had been taught techniques to fight this mad spell, since he was the warmage's protégée. Maybe Verdigris would hold back against him, since the warmage had done so much to keep Gakupo under his control. In any case, it was their last chance. She took his hand and placed it resolutely over her chest, while she focused on the remaining fire inside of her. It began to flow towards him, slow at first, then faster and faster.

As for Kaito, he didn't pause to consider the matter. He just smiled tiredly and brought Gakupo's hand to his lips, before placing it against his heart. Through their bond, Luka felt his energy flowed freely immediately into the weaving of Gakupo's spell. Like a moth, she felt compelled to follow the shining current and touch the strands of the spell. It was brimming with their shared essence. Briefly, their bond allowed her to see through Gakupo's eyes, enough to get an idea of its purpose. She smiled.

As one, three tiny flames stood up and faced the spider in the middle of the web. It was time for the counterattack.