"Pull back, Shai!" Hapi yelled over the carnage. Shai ignored her, continuing to bite down on one of the machine's arms. Hapi grit her teeth and forced more power into her Sign. "GET BACK!"

Shai finally obeyed, just in time to save them from another giant's sword. Dimitri and some of his friends were quick enough down below on the ground to finish off the one Shai had been grappling with, and Balthus was already getting to work on the other machine with a few of the remaining knights.

"Okay, now let's see where we're going next-" Hapi paused. Shai was still growling. "Oh come on you big lug. I was trying to save you." Shai exhaled, loudly. "Fine, you dope. I'll get you a big wad of clay to chew on when this is over. Do you forgive me now?"

Shai rumbled, and began pushing ahead. "See, there we go. It isn't so-"

The blast of fire spat out by one of the monsters was slow, but unavoidable. Hapi shouted out a warning. Shai could feel the heat in the air, and rushed underground, sliding backwards into the hole he erupted out from as quickly as he could. Too fast for Hapi to hold on. She tumbled into the ground, screaming as her leg turned into white hot pain.

"Hapi!" Hanneman shouted as he scrambled to her side. "Are you alright?"

"Just…" Hapi stopped to shake the dust out of her hair. "...Fine. I-" She tried to move her leg, but a hiss of pain was all she could manage.

Hanneman's fingers buzzed to life with a healing spell. It wasn't much, but it dulled the pain. "Leonie! Help us-"

Hapi cried out as someone scooped her up by the shoulders. The next thing she knew, they were hiding against one of the fallen giants.

"You're lucky." Hanneman mumbled under his breath. "If my diagnosis is correct, this is only a hairline fracture. The damage should repair itself in a matter of months."

"Oh, great." Hapi groaned. "That's- ugh!"

"Easy now. Your leg is still broken." Hanneman brought his hand to her knee, and the pain subsided, if only slightly.

He turned to Leonie. "More importantly, what on earth are you doing here? Didn't Seteth explicitly tell you not to come?"

Leonie's lips twisted. A bolt of lightning crashed into the ground behind her. "It started with Flayn, and then Dimitri and Claude joined in, and then…" She shook her head. "We couldn't just let knights die, professor. We couldn't let you die!"

Hanneman took a deep, shuddering breath. "Leonie, it is our job to protect you students. With our lives, if need be." He looked around. "Where are the rest of your classmates?"

"Well, they were just-" Hapi pointed behind him. A few knights were struggling against a monster. "Um. I…"

"I was following Hapi." Leonie swallowed. "I thought everyone was moving with you!"

"Yuri-bird just told me to keep any giants off our backs, I don't know where anyone is!"

"Then we have to move." Hanneman grabbed Hapi's shoulder. "Can you summon the worm? It should be able to take us to safety."

"Sure, I-" A hand grasped an empty pocket. "I-" Hapi checked again. All empty. "I lost my Sign Stone!"

Hanneman bristled. "Your Sign Stone…"

"I need it to control Shai. And from the look of things-" A large oak tree burst into flame. "-I don't want to try and make this even more chaotic."

"Then we've got to find it!" Leonie hefted Hapi over her back in a somewhat dignified heap. "We have to try and find your magic thingamajig and round up the others!"

They rushed in what Hapi guessed was the direction they had come. It was quieter now. Hapi didn't want to guess if that was a good sign.

"Do you see it?" Hanneman shouted. The fires were dying down too. Or maybe the smoke was blocking out the light.

"No, but…" There was a faint glow ahead, in the shape of a lancehead. Plunging in and out of a great looming shadow. Hanneman cast a spell, and an orb of light flew up to illuminate Sylvain, doing what he could to put down a monster in between pants. "Hey!" Leonie shouted.

Sylvain looked up from his grizzly work. "Leonie, what are-" His head swiveled. "Nevermind, we've got to catch up with Dimitri, come on!"

"Hey, wait-" Slyvain was already dashing off. Leonie cursed but managed to keep pace even as she shouldered Hapi. Hanneman had more difficulty.

They found the prince in a dark part of the battlefield, where the flames had run out of fuel. He stood over the grizzled bodies of black robed men, eyes staring off into the distance. Looking like some lost soul that had come to Abyss' taverns for everything but the cheap ale.

Felix and Dedue were next to him, panting. "Boar, stop this now."

Hapi ran her tongue over her chapped lips. "Didi, have you seen Yuri-bird? Or the Claudster? We need to get out of here."

"They are still alive." Dimitri muttered. "These men are still alive. They have to join the dead."

"P-prince Dimitri!" Hanneman managed between gasps. "You have done more than enough tonight! We must get you and your classmates to safety!"

"We need to avenge them." Dimitri muttered. "They can't escape again."

"Your highness." Dedue stepped forward. "Please, listen to me."

Dimitri's eyes widened. "Dedue?"

"Your highness." The man placed himself in front of the prince. "I must insist. We have strayed far from our original objective."

"I haven't seen Ingrid or Petra or whoever in-" Sylvain gulped. "-too long."

"No, no, no." Dimitri clutched his head. "I need to avenge them, need to end this-"

"Your highness-"

"Dimitri-"

"You violent, psychotic animal, listen-"

"-mitri-" Another voice ran through the wind. Hapi twitched.

"Do you all hear-"

"DIMITRI!" It was Edelgard, at the base of a tree, burnt to its core. Trapped. Pounding against a bubble of energy.

The sight seemed to rattle the prince. "El-?" He whispered.

Dimitri stormed up to her, and pounded on the shield. No change. He raised his lance and tried to strike the barrier. Nothing. Hanneman tried his magic to similar results.

"What happened? How did you get here?" the professor asked as he tried another spell.

"I…" Edelgard swallowed. "That…" Her head hung low.

"Edelgard!" Dimitri shouted. "We need to get you out of here! Who do we have to kill-"

"No!" Edelgard's head snapped up. "No!" Her head turned, as did everyone else's. "We have to save Byleth!" Her eyes landed on top of a hill. Even as fires continued to burn, the soft glow of relics shone through. One was Catherine's famed Thunderbrand. Another was on someone's neck. And one was glowing bright red. "He needs to die."

Claude looked at the grizzled scene. The old man standing above Seteth gave a sharp, piercing whistle, and a volley of magic flew through the air into Cathrine and the Death Knight's position.

"Get out of here!" Catherine shouted as she just barely managed to pull Shamir out from under the horse. "You stupid brats, get-" An explosion next to her pushed the two knights down the cliff and into the clearing below. A swarm of monsters and enemy mages were there to greet them, and all too few friends to aid them.

Claude was trying too. But that would mean moving everyone. And with Marianne hit, and whoever was standing in front of him now unoccupied…

"Well, this is a funny little surprise." The man chuckled. "You two, take this one." He lifted Seteth up from under his boot and threw the man's body at two mages robed in black, who quickly retreated.

"W-we have to go save them!" Ashe shouted. "The archbishop, and Seteth, and…" a sob choked down his next words.

Ingatz gulped. "But first we have to get through him."

"Allow me to introduce myself." The man placed a hand over his heart. "I am Nemesis. King of Liberation." He gestured up, at a few ruined pillars. "And I am here to take back what is rightfully mine."

There was a thick cloud of darkness, trapped in a thin, shimmering barrier. Around it, dark purple flames jetted up into the night sky. Claude dared to peer just a bit longer into the blackness- there was something shimmering inside it, a pale green. It moved and bobbed faintly, as though it were just a tree branch, or a banner, or-

An all too familiar mop of hair.

"Byleth!" Claude shouted out as the class recoiled. "What are you doing to her? Why-"

"-We have to save her, too-"

"But if he was able-"

"Doesn't matter, we need-"

"We can't-"

Flayn's voice was soft. "You're going to slaughter us, then?"

"Oh, I'm not going to kill you children." Everyone paused. Nemesis was watching them with the same damn grin. "You haven't noticed? You've all been quite safe from the chaos below next to me."

"...You're…" Ashe swallowed. "...You're not? Why?"

"Because I want you to return home, safe and sound. For you to all run back to your parents, or uncles, or whatever little clique you call family." Nemesis rolled his neck. The crack of his vertebrae managed to overpower all other sound and fury. "I want you to tell them what you've seen here, tell tales of all the knights my forces have killed. How Seiros' greatest champions were little more than twigs beneath my feet."

Catherine was burying Thunderbrand into one of the machine's heads. Her movement was spent and ragged, as she barely managed to dodge another blast of magic. The Death Knight took three head on, but the light of his Relic was waning.

"I will be announcing myself to the rest of Fódlan soon. And I want the world to know what will happen if they raise their hand against me."

Claude gripped the arrow in his hand tightly. He could feel a splinter digging into his skin. In the distance, just past Catherine's fight, he could see a faint glow, slowly growing. His eyes snapped back to focus completely on Nemesis. "...And then what? This is all prelude. A display. What do you actually want from this?"

"Nothing that will interrupt your little fiefdoms." Nemesis tilted his head back to the Death Knight, who was barely holding out against a monster. Rhea was slumped over his shoulder, unmoving. "Your archbishop is my only prey. I am content with her and her line's blood. Nothing that need concern you."

"That's it?" Claude didn't let himself look away from Nemesis. The old man's eyes were firmly locked on his. "You just slaughter your way through the entire Knights of Seiros, tell us you're going to kill Rhea, and we're sent on our merry way? We're supposed to believe that you'll just let us go? After how many of your men we killed?" There was a screech, piercing through the air. "How many we're still killing?"

"I see it two ways." Nemesis shrugged. "Either you take your chances, get your friends to try and run far, far away from here. You get to live for another day." His leg slammed down, and more than a few people in the group jumped back. "Or you think I'm lying. In which case…" Nemesis' eyes scraped across each of their faces. "I just kill each and every one of you, here and now."

"Quite the choice." Yuri muttered before addressing the group. "Time to go."

"Claude, we can't just-!" Hilda sobbed. "We can't let this happen, we just can't!"

"Look, I know you-" Claude didn't get the chance to direct his retort before Yuri Grabbed him by the lapel.

"Listen to me very closely." Yuri growled out quietly. "We stand no chance against him. He was manhandling the strongest knight in the kingdom and the rogue who went toe to toe with Professor Byleth, who's already gone. We have to chance that he's not lying if we want to survive."

Claude hadn't known Yuri for a very long time, but the Abyss dweller didn't strike him as someone who showed his hand much, especially in front of a very dangerous enemy, even if he did think he might not be in danger. But now, his voice was confrontational. Stressed. Almost like he wanted to get into an argument-

Oh, so he must have seen their one hope too. "Run away?" Claude slapped Yuri's hand back. "Are you crazy? Even if we do, he-" Claude took the opportunity to point and steal a glance at Nemesis. He was wearing a smug, self-assured grin and his posture was fairly relaxed- or at least as lax as someone could be on a battlefield. The old man seemed quite content to watch the two squabble. "-Still has the archbishop, still has Teach! We can't just let him get away with this!"

Yuri shoved Claude back. "Listen here, you stupid noble brat. I've been in life or death situations. I know when everything is about to go belly up. Every second you waste arguing in front of him is a second that he gets to mull over his own decision, and wonder if he really wants the trouble of letting us all run away. Swallow your pride, accept your loss, and move on ."

"Listen here, you wannabe con artist." Returning the favor would be overselling it, and not too many in their little group had caught on, so agitating them might escalate things. "We can't just leave things to chance, or pretend not to care about anything. We have to try and save our professor!"

"Please, don't let me stop you." Nemesis snorted.

Claude turned back to face the would-be king. "Listen, you crusty old bastard-" He kept his eyes focused straight at Nemesis'. This was the final stretch, and he couldn't allow for any slip ups on his part. "-You think we're all just a bunch of dumb kids, barely capable of holding swords, much less riding horses-" Still, there was just enough of a glow to see what was coming. "-But we can't just let you walk over us while our friends are in danger!"

"Yeah!"

"We can't just forgive what you've done!"

"It doesn't matter who you say you are, we'll stop you!"

"And so, no matter what anyone else says-" Claude nocked his arrow. Raphael brandished his gauntlets. Thunder crackled around Dorothea. The Lance of Ruin was seconds from cutting through Nemesis' neck. "We have the strength to scale the walls-"

And in the next second, Nemesis wasn't there. Sylvain was still flying through the air when his arm detached from his shoulder. He tumbled to the ground, screaming in agony, clutching a bloody stump.

Claude faintly heard some screaming below. After the ringing passed from his ears and he found the strength to peel his eyes away from the gruesome state Sylvain had landed in, he could barely make out Felix being held back by Dedue. Hanneman was running up the hill. Shouting out into the night.

"I surrender for them, just don't harm another-"

The red-glowing Sword of the Creator burst out of the darkness, and sunk into Hanneman. Blood gasped out of the professor's mouth. "My…students…" He coughed, hacked out. "Don't…please…they're just…" The blade retracted, and Hanneman collapsed. Lysithea screamed, and it took Ferdinand and Raphael to restrain her.

"I said I wouldn't kill children." Nemesis' voice rumbled. Claude turned away from two terrible sights to something much worse. The old king was inspecting the Lance of Ruin, plucking Sylvain's fingers off their deadly grip of the lance one by one. The limb fell with a terribly quiet thud, just one more sound echoing across the battlefield.

Nemesis ran his hand along the lance's tips before plunging it into the earth next to him. His eyes darted back up to Claude's. Like a wyvern that had just cornered its prey. "But after that little display, I think I will need a toll." He lifted up one of his swords, still dripping with blood. It was pointed at Yuri " You have a ring. A relic."

"You want it." Yuri's voice was quiet. Refusing to quaver. A cornered rat.

Nemesis' smile was cruel and terrible. "And the finger it's on."

There were gasps. Murmurs. Uncomfortable, dreadful silences. None of them from Yuri, who just stared right back. "And that will be it?"

Catherine's strength was faltering. She was kneeling, barely able to keep back a swordsman in black. The Death Knight was trying to cast some sort of teleportation spell. The mages weren't letting him.

"Or I cut off all your fingers."

Yuri's eyes were narrow. His lips were pale and his face was sunken. But with a spark of determination. He reached down to his pocket, and drew out a knife.

Claude felt he should say something. Do anything. Buy for more time, get someone else who could help them, save them from this catastrophe. But his eyes would turn back to Hanneman's bloodied, unmoving body, or Sylvain still clutching his shoulder, and any plan that might have been forming in his head would vanish.

Yuri raised the knife. The hand holding the blade was steady, but his ring hand was trembling. "And the other Relic wielders?"

The darkness in the air was hot and cruel. "They'll get their choice."

Yuri bit his lip, then swallowed. The knife was trembling now too.

"Stop!" Flayn emerged from the crowd. "Stop this! Stop this awful, horrible cruelty!" She reached up and grabbed Yuri's knife, which passed out of his hand with almost no resistance. "Nemesis. I know you will not let me leave here alive."

He snorted. "Oh, so you do remember me."

"I can teleport and make that much more difficult than it has to be." Flayn's holy magic swirled to life. Warp sigils floated through the air. "Let my classmates pass from this place, and I will come to you without a fight."

Nemesis cocked his head. "I want that Relic."

Flayn was undaunted. "You will have it."

He chuckled. "But I also want that finger."

The light swirling around Flynn intensified. "Nemesis-"

"Actually, Cethleann, I just remembered something about you, all these centuries later." If Claude still had the mental energy to be shocked, that probably would have meant something. Instead, the horrible lump of dread in his chest just got bigger. "For whatever reason, poor, selfless Cethleann never learned how to teleport herself in the war of heroes. Only how to push others away from danger."

Nemesis took a step forward. Flayn held her ground. "I've got a feeling you still haven't. And of course you could just teleport your little friends away, but that would take time." He took another. Claude finched back. "And since you care so much about the brats, I have a counter offer." Nemesis' red blade unlinked, ready to fly through the air and sink into flesh. "Surrender without a fight and I won't kill half of them."

He was just going to keep uping the ante until everyone was dead.

Nemesis' eyes twitched back to Claude. "Why don't you run and find out?"

Oh. That had slipped out of his mouth.

"I said," Nemesis' arm reared back. His blood red eyes were still locked on to Claude's. "Why don't you run and find out?" His hand snapped forward. Flayn screamed, magic flaring far too late to save anyone. Claude tried to move, to jump, to duck. But Hilda was right behind him, wasn't she? Claude thought she was. If he got out of the way, the blade would surely skewer her. And she was still carrying Marianne, so that meant two people would die. Plus, it wasn't like any of this would save Byleth, who really was the only person who could save them. Teach was still floating above the ruins, bathed in purple light.

It was a short life, but Claude hoped it had been worth something. Maybe his gramps would be able to see things through, or even patch up his relationship with Claude's mom over shared grief. A chorus of shouts echoed through Claude's ears, and then a great shadow descended.

Was that enough to put him down?

…What…was…

More than enough. It was the same dosage we gave the Fell Star.

…He was fighting? No, that wasn't right. He was…

Fire screaming the whir of metal and a terrible churn of magic all rushing through the air all consuming nothing else to focus-

Failing. Failing Byleth. Failing Seiros. Failing his daughter.

Screaming, so many screams. Too old to die on the battlefield. Too young to suffer like the old. Too much of everything-

There had been students there as well. Students who shouldn't have been here. Who he needed to save. Who he wasn't strong enough to save.

In the distance. His ear was dragging against the earth, he could hear them. Begging, pleading. The old enemy, laughing.

He had to summon up the strength to save them, to rescue everyone. But he was old, and tired. It wasn't meant to be. He would fail just as he had failed so many other times.

His daughter was asking for mercy. Strong. Courageous.

She would fail as he would fail. He needed strength, but there wasn't any left-

The monster was laughing, was going to kill them all.

He felt something old. Something he hadn't felt in a very long time. Strength enough to save them all. He reached and reached and reached farther then he had any right to, farther then he had in millenia, then anyone should be able too-

Bones and sinew stretched and cracked against each other, rising high above the trees and digging deep into the earth. Screams and magic struck against his skin- no, not skin, scales. He raced past everything, barreling through anything that was beneath until his vision returned to him, just soon enough to reach a long, taloned limb down to stop the monster's blade.

His long, snake-like body rumbled against the old familiar earth. Fur and horns wafted in the hot night air. Everything looked smaller in this form, even the old monster, who was staring up with the same hate he could feel coursing through his veins.

The old monster held both of his swords aloft against him. No, that wasn't right. He had a name.

"You animals," Nemesis snarled, "are too much trouble." He jumped up into the air, swords ready.

Cichol roared tasting his long forgotten power. The earth headed the call.

Thanks to Dox for beta reading!

For those who don't know, there's a thing in Chinese mythology/folklore about an azure dragon, vermillion bird, white tiger, black turtle, and a central dragon, which might just remind you of a few characters.

Jokes on me, they're probably going to reveal Seteth is the Tiger in Three Hopes. Right now I'm going with dragon because Flayn doesn't have blue in her color scheme and a tiger having an insatiable, unending, animalistic desire for the flesh of fish sounds about right.

This battle will be concluding soon. I'm busy with another project at the moment, so It might take a bit longer- longer than this chapter even, though I hope not. Until then.