Malenia had no trouble weaving through the veil of bolts that were hurled into her path. They were too slow, too obvious. Steering well clear of even the tiniest ominous spark even as the cracks of thunder on stone ignited the air and drowned out the pounding of rain did Malenia peel through unphased. In her wake, Ash too left only whimpering cinders of jitters and hums setting the puddles around them aglow. Perhaps Placidusax, despite the onset of the icy, watery flood that now enwreathed the colosseum and the whole rest of this grand lightshow, was really wearing out—or perhaps the constant wanton summoning of lightning was becoming just a tad too predictable. Either way, as far as Malenia was concerned, he was slowing down—whereas she, thanks rather bitterly to Ash's crimson elixir, wasn't. She bit her tongue, however; she had no idea what the Storm Lord was capable of with the tempests of his name now truly at his back. One thing was for sure: The great dragon's will to fight was far from heeled.

She leapt back for the swollen flesh on the stump of his neck. It seemed she, too, had become predictable, judging by the talons crashing straight into her. In the time it took for the breath to be evacuated from her lungs, she met the floor with all the tenderness of a giant's hammer coming down on a troll's skull. For a moment, she was plunged into a breathless darkness, unable to resist as Placidusax's ragged talons crushed her in their grasp. The world around her lurched as he twisted his hand, grinding her deeper into the stone. Her lungs felt flattened, barely able to breathe, and jagged rock covered her ears, muffling the world outside.

Before he could sand Malenia down to a pulp, however, Ash's greatsword came bearing down on the beast's arm. There was a sudden shift, and then as soon as it had come on, Placidusax's wrathful hold on Malenia vanished. The sound of the storm rushed to meet her, as did the cool open air of the throne room. She was free to gasp for air and, more importantly, to roll onto her stomach and find her feet. The floor was covered in a pooling layer of water now, but that was something she was more than used to. She squeezed her sword and threw her eyes towards the Dragonlord, watching as his towering form shifted to look at Ash. His great stone forelimbs dragged across the ground until one suddenly came up and went alight with a familiar red glare. Malenia had no choice but to fall backwards out of the way; within half a second lightning crackled just inches from her face. She tilted her shoulder towards the ground and rolled crudely away from the attack, tumbling until her feet touched stone again and she could plant a hand into the floor to halt herself, chest panting and ears ringing.

Placidusax raised his other claw as soon as the first touched the ground. Just before it could come sweeping down, however, Malenia caught a glimpse of the hand that had just sent her tumbling: It was the same hand with which the dragon had crushed her against the stone and the hand Ash had waylain, now bearing the angry scuff of his many heavy blades. Dark golden blood welled from the marks, a clear sign that the stony skin had been cracked.

As easy a target as she could get, she thought. She leapt to her feet and dashed forth, sword at the ready. The great dragon's lumbering form leaned awkwardly in her direction as he raised his opposite forelimb to swipe down at Ash, but recoiled away from her as soon as the tip of her blade plunged into the stony folds of his skin and sank into the soft meat below. Reaching her flesh hand out, she wrapped her fingers around the center of the slender blade, locking it into a half-sword grip and driving into her target faster and angrier than he retreated from her. Blood ran thickly as if swollen, a small waterfall of blackened gold painting the Dragonlord's scales. She pushed and pushed until he jerked with a suddenness that Malenia did not expect from the great beast. His arm pulled away, but her sword remained stuck in its stone. Her feet left the floor as she was yanked forth and a vicious sting bit into her hand as the blade was loosened in her grasp, sliding the crease of her palm right along the razor edge. She pulled her hand back at the same time as she wrenched her prosthesis contra to Placidusax's retreat, finally overwhelming her sword's adamant bite and sliding it free from the dragon's arm.

Stumbling backwards to find her feet, Malenia held her sword out in front of her, ensuring her foe did not retaliate while she was busy re-righting herself. Looking out, however, she saw him shift his focus back to the Tarnished whaling into him with an oversized greatsword, so for a moment, she decided to catch her breath. Even revitalized by the crimson tears as she was, she had not been given much time at all to rest from the exertion of facing this godly beast. Her chest rose and fell with hard, dry pants that filtered through half-clenched teeth. Steeling herself, she clenched her hand, but quickly winced when her nails inadvertently dug into the fresh cut along her palm. For a moment, her attention was stolen by the pain, driving her to lift her hand to her face and gaze upon it. Blood smeared messily across her fair skin, coating everything from her wrist to her fingers. A thin red line, darker and thicker than the blotches that surrounded it, continued to freely weep blood. Her whole hand throbbed with a sensation caught halfway between burning and numbness.

Staring at her hand, Malenia was filled with a sense of unease. Not because the injury, painful though it may have been, was particularly deadly, but because it simply felt… wrong. Not just the cut itself—everything.

It was almost incomprehensible. Why did her hand, necrotized to the core, shimmer with clean, shiny skin, unfettered by the centuries of decay that had mired her whole body? Why did her nerves, decimated to the point of near-uselessness by the scarlet cancer, twitch and jolt with all the vitality of Miquella's own radiance? Why did her blood, thick and dark with rot, run with an almost dazzling ruby redness, a red so much more vibrant than the one that should have been there, flowing like water as she watched?

Why could she even see it to begin with?

Her ineffable warrior spirit faltered. The barriers she had erected to block out the overwhelming sensations of being finally liberated from a curse she thought eternal, all at once, began to collapse. Her rough, breathless gasps grew staggered. Her sword went from pointed warily in the direction of Placidusax to spearing the ground to help her stay upright. Her fingers twitched, then rose to life and curled inwards. Her fist clenched again; when the pain of her nails digging into her open wound shocked her nerves, she jerked back to life as if revitalized. When the intrusive action forced more blood up from between her fingers, she stared transfixed, eyes wide and mouth agape. When the burning became too much and she was forced to pull her blood-logged nails away, she smiled.

It was gone. It was really, truly gone.

"Malenia!"

Ash's voice snapped her out of her trance like being hoisted out of an icy ocean. She looked towards him, eyes wide, and noticed him pointing frantically over his head. She followed his finger and darted her gaze upwards just in time for a bright red firework to explode in her face.

Placidusax's attack was nothing short of vengeful. Falling from the clouds to hurl his entire being at Malenia, his claws imbued with the lightning of the divine storm, he struck her as if the Greater Will itself had descended from the great beyond to smite her for her transgressions. She was hurled like an arrow loosed from a bow and flew backwards, dazed and weightless for a long, suspended moment before the world rushed to meet her in the form of a column of rock.

A dull pain burst forth in her back, thickly concentrated around her head. There was a flash behind her eyes and then she was enwreathed in a familiar darkness. Like the rind of a Rowa fruit she was peeled from the wall by gravity to fall limply to the ground below. Her vision filled with undulating chains of stars that swam across her eyes in every direction at once. They dazzled her senses, leaving her without the mind to try and lift herself from the floor—though it was doubtful if her body would have obeyed right away in the first place.

She gasped. Water entered her mouth and dove down her throat, carrying with it tangible bits of gravel and dust. She tried to cough, but couldn't do it without breathing. Her jaw twitched, betraying a sign of life under her skin. As she struggled to peer through the galaxy in her eyes, she flexed her jaw; it obeyed and closed shut. Shielding her tongue and throat from more insipid sand, she pushed the water from her mouth and breathed again. The liquid filtered back through her teeth, leaving sand to crunch unpleasantly in her jaws, but it was preferable to swallowing the stuff. She continued breathing in an effort to revive herself, working her entire body almost like a pump. Back and forth, back and forth, the motions of her lungs gradually powered up the rest of her. Her fingers trembled with an unsteady life as she pushed them into the ground. Her face lifted from the stone and her upper body followed suit, creating space for her to slide a golden knee up under her belly and further push herself into a hunched-over kneel. Water tumbled from her lips as she coughed up the fluid that had entered her chest.

Her head spun with the effort of sitting up, compounded by the heaving of her body as she expulsed globs of water. Squeezing her eyes shut, she shook her head in an effort to scatter the stars in her vision. It worked somewhat; solid light trickled into her eyes but the image it wove was fuzzy—it was the stone floor, she knew that much. She spat the sand in her teeth into the pooling water below; at least that cumbersome sensation was easy to evict. The sickening pain and dizziness, however, were a very different story. She groaned and continued to blink the stars away, but the effort of focusing her eyes only magnified the pounding in her skull as a coherent image began to coalesce.

Somewhere ahead of her, thunder boomed.

The ripping winds of the storm suddenly ceased in their mayhem as a great gust of air slammed into her face. Frigid water was sent splashing over her, soaking into her dress and filtering through the maille beneath, and her knees slid along the ground as she was shoved backwards. Her face stung from droplets like icy needles scattering across her skin. In her disorientation, Malenia was unsure what could possibly be happening—looking up, however, she did not like the answer.

There before her stood Placidusax in all his bloody glory. A geyser of wind erupted from around him while a blinding red light coalesced in his claws, taking the form of a lightning spear the size of a watchtower. Everything whirled as the blood-chilling bolt gathered power, readying itself to unleash a blast so powerful her concussed mind could barely even fathom it—and here she was, on her knees, smack in the middle of the blast radius.

Malenia's heart leapt into her throat. She scrabbled to get her feet under her, but her smooth metal hands slipped on the water-slicked stone, and with a pitiful splash that was drowned out by the roaring din around her, she fell face-first back into the pool beneath her, knocking her head on the stone and scattering her bearings again. Her breath, and her limbs, seized, leaving her a twitching imbecile plastered to the earth while devastation loomed right in front of her.

There was an earth-shaking THUNK next to her head. A thorned pair of hands grabbed her under the arms.

The wind rushed out of Malenia's lungs as Ash lifted her half-limp form off the ground. With a heaving grunt, the knight threw the much larger woman over his shoulders and held her against his back, then took off into a dead sprint. Malenia's toes trailed along the surface of the water and her overlong katana dangled limply from her prosthesis, dragging its impossibly sharp edge along Ash's form, but that did not deter him one bit. Trying her very best to blink her vision back to life, Malenia tilted her head just enough to see the shrinking image of Ash's grafted blade greatsword lying on the floor, abandoned where she had lain.

The din of Placidusax's great bolt was becoming overwhelming. Malenia's heart hammering in her skull, the panicked gasps of the Tarnished beneath her and the loud clanking of his armor as he tore through the rain, the great chorus of the storm itself all faded to make room for the screeching of an impossibly powerful Dragonlord preparing to smite his tiny prey.

Thunder cracked hotly. Malenia flinched at the deafening sound.

"Fuck!" Ash cried, though she barely heard him. The hands holding her against him yanked on her and threw her unceremoniously to the floor. She gasped as she hit the ground, but that breath was immediately squeezed out of her when Ash dove directly on top of her.

Placidusax unleashed his wrath.

Whatever horrifying thunderclap ensued, Malenia heard not a peep of it, for as soon as the blast wave hit her, her eardrums burst. She issued a hoarse cry as her rattled head was shoved into the earth with the force of the concussive blast, but thankfully Ash's weight held her in place, bracing her against the unflinching ground as an explosion capable of levelling an entire town raged around them.

His protection did not, however, assuage the power surge that shot up her prosthetic legs. That hit her in full force and very nearly shocked her heart out of beating. On the bright side, the sudden onset of muscle lockup her whole body went into helped keep her even more still. Even her jaws and throat seized, leaving her unable to vocalize the awful sensations travelling up and down every nerve pathway in her body at light speed. On the dark side, however, everything else also froze. Head pounding, ears ringing, she fought for any ounce of autonomy, wanting nothing more than this ongoing battle to simply breathe to be won already without some new war party clinching her lungs in a death trap. The lightning pooled in her conductive limbs, occasionally shooting painfully into her chest, but not enough to stop her from forcing her diaphragm to work with every ounce of disoriented strength she had in her. Held completely still, enduring an entire thunderstorm's worth of fury in a single lightning bolt, all she could do was breathe to still her palpitating heart.

And then, just as viciously as it came on, the lightning strike died with a final gasp and debris-clogged shockwave. Even while her ears still rang, the din of the storm rushed to meet Malenia, and she gasped with the sudden surge of lightning in her veins dying down from a crescendo of electricity to an angry swarm of bees buzzing in her limbs. Her head continued to scream at her, but she blinked the rain out of her eyes and focused on Ash's helm, mere inches from her face. The intimidating visor stared resolutely at her, but the ragged, choking breaths that whistled from within and the great tremors that racked his body told her that Ash was far from alright. She reached a trembling, twitching hand up and placed it upon the wet metal.

"A-A… Ash?" she rasped. Her stomach twisted in her belly. Ash issued a single weak rasp in response. Malenia squeezed his helm.

"Ash…" she repeated, struggling to form that one word.

His hands, placed astride her, slid out from beneath him. His head crashed into her shoulder.

"Finish the fight," he sighed. Then, to Malenia's horror, the Tarnished slumped against her and went completely limp. Her blood froze as cold as the icy downpour around her.

"Ash…" she called. She placed a hand on his shoulder and shook him. He did not move.

"Ash!" she called again, louder this time. "Ash, get up!"

In a sick twist of irony, Ash's weight was lifted from her body. Not because the knight had obeyed her command, however, but rather because, before her very eyes, his battered and lifeless form dissolved into a cloud of twinkling gold that was swiftly whisked away by the ripping winds of the storm.

"Ash!" Malenia cried. On pure instinct, she reached out and grabbed for the flecks of dust that were once her friend but they dissolved at her touch, leaving her empty-handed and alone as they were scattered to the tempests.

Malenia sat up, eyes wide but staring at nothing, mouth agape but utterly speechless. The rain continued to fall, drenching her to the bone and washing away what of Ash's remains had stayed on her dress.

"N-No," she whispered. "Ash…"

High overhead, Placidusax roared.

Malenia's gaze snapped up to face the dragon and saw that he had already fixed her tiny, trembling form in his sights. Sparing her not even a moment's peace, he raised a talon up by his head, claws spread wide. Thunder clapped as they flashed red with lightning.

As if things couldn't get any worse. She scrambled to her feet and leapt out of the way just in time, falling to the ground some feet away with a cold splash. She found her feet again, quicker this time, giving her a chance to skitter backwards when Placidusax swiped at her once more. She continued to backpedal as the dragon recovered, chest heaving and electroshocked body shaking.

She needed to buy herself some time. At the very least, she was beyond the reach of his claws now—a mistake that was easily rectifiable for the beast, however. It didn't take long at all for him to right himself, assess the situation, and shove Malenia from all the way over from where he was with a potent flap of his wings. Globs of blood from the gnarled gash Malenia had carved into his golden flesh flung into the sky, encircling his great form in a grim sparkle. They floated in the air for just a moment before falling right as he himself, with another furious wingbeat, rose from the ground. A great stormcloud overtook his form and swallowed him up in the span of a second, leaving Malenia alone in the pouring rain.

She knew, however, that she didn't have long. She darted her eyes around the arena, scanning for the nimbus that would soon reappear overhead. As she looked, the glint of unalloyed gold caught her eye. There lay her helm, half-buried in water but otherwise miraculously untouched. She darted over to it and scooped it up, letting the water drain from the inside of the helm before placing it loosely over her head. Holding it at a lopsided angle, she was able to peer well enough through the slits in the visor to keep an eye out for Placidusax. It wasn't much, but it would surely prevent the next blow from turning her throbbing skull into paste—something best avoided if she had the space to evade his tempestuous attacks. With that in mind, she moved towards the center of the throne room.

Her foot collided with something hard, tripping her. She quickly righted herself and turned to see what it was: The long, spiralized handle of Ash's greatsword. It lay abandoned, its master gone. Golden blood and fragments of stone beaten from Placidusax's body covered the jagged edge of the blade, but the rain was making mincemeat of washing it all away.

Malenia's shoulders fell. Only half-aware of her actions, she bent down and reached her true hand towards the sword with slow, ginger movements, almost as if she were afraid to touch the thing. When her fingers closed around the handle, something in her grew cold.

She gave a firm tug. The sword was, as to be expected, unreasonably heavy. Malenia grunted as she hoisted the handle up until the tip of the armament pointed straight towards the ground. For as huge and hulking as it seemed when Ash lugged it around, it barely came up to Malenia's chest and, for as cumbersome as it felt, was about half the length of her own katana.

Were it not for everything happening, Malenia would have chuckled at the way this intimidating sword illustrated just how tiny Ash was. A blade so heavy it sent his entire body careening every single time he swung it, barely able to even lift the thing even after all this time spent wielding it… to her, barely more than a shoddily-made arming sword.

How determined he must have been to lug that bundle of blades everywhere he went. A determination he brought into her home and she felt in full force with the thousands of duels he went to with her until he finally brought her to her knees. A determination that pulled him through the mire of his decaying homeland and through all the Lands Between until he stood at her door. A determination that had led her to this very moment, gazing upon the lonely weapon with clear eyes, grabbing it with clean hands, reflecting with a head filled only by her thoughts and no one else's.

A telltale rumble of thunder swelled over the ambience of the storm. Malenia flicked her gaze in the direction of the sound to see a billowing plume crawling out from the clouds, buzzing with red lightning.

Her gaze flicked back to the sword.

A determination that the Dragonlord sought to squash like a bug.

Placidusax dove towards Malenia and slashed.

Nothing. His claws swiped through empty air. Crashing to the floor, he spared a quick glance over his shoulder to see Malenia's figure there in the rain, several strides away from where she had stood just a moment prior. Eyes that once glimmered through locks of soaked hair were now obscured by a shiny golden helm and alongside her slender blade lurked the grim, ugly sword her companion had wielded.

From the center of the arena, Malenia's lips curled into a sneer. Her chest rose and fell sharply with strained heaves, but the words she growled to the Dragonlord came forth unfazed.

"This…"

She lifted the greatsword and placed it upon her shoulder.

"... is not where his quest ends."

Placidusax roared at her and dissolved into rain and winds. This time, Malenia was ready. As soon as she heard the crackling of his thundercloud form coalesce from behind her, she took off running towards the edge of the arena. Thunder split the sky as he swiped at her again, but she rolled to the side and found her feet as Placidusax landed just a few feet from where she had sprinted to. Malenia leapt into the air and plunged her sword downwards. With a meaty crunch that could only come from splitting armor and piercing the flesh beneath, her sword embedded itself in the same spot where she had straddled him before. Placidusax's two heads screeched their fury and his necks twisted to direct a wave of yellow flames at her. The hand holding Ash's greatsword lifted from her shoulder and moved towards the wrist of her prosthesis, hastily fumbling with the latch that held her blade in place until she heard a small click. She stood up, and this time the katana did not come with, instead remaining buried in the Dragonlord's withers. Placing her prosthesis on the handle of Ash's weapon, she gripped the handle with both hands and held it in a firm grip, baring her teeth and narrowing her eyes at the twin glows that emanated ominously from the backs of Placidusax's maws.

Then, in a flash, the two lights erupted into fire just as Malenia issued a roar of her own and swung Ash's greatsword with all her might.

A sound like a hundred pickaxes striking the same rock at once greeted her. With a shrill shriek of pain, the flames that were just about to overtake Malenia died in Placidusax's jaws as the head she struck careened straight into the neck of the other one. Blood poured from a deep gash that spanned the whole of Placidusax's face, taking with it chunks of broken-off stone skin.

Digging her feet into the dragon's spiny back, Malenia lifted the greatsword over her head and swung straight down. Placidusax yanked his heads out of the way just in time, but unfortunately for him that was not what she was aiming for. Metal rang on metal as the flat of Ash's blade struck the golden spike currently sticking out from Placidusax's flesh. In one fell swoop she hammered her katana straight into Placidusax's back, burying the full length of it in his body. If there were any vital organs in the chest of a dragon, she must have missed them, for instead of keeling over and dying in a geyser of blood, Placidusax issued another enraged scream and with a frantic beat of the wings lifted himself off the ground. Malenia's entire world wobbled with the motion, but against her better judgment, she maintained her balance.

"You want to send me falling again?" she called. "Come on then! Try me!"

He was more than keen to take her up on that. He flapped his wings and rose higher and higher into the sky until his heads pointed upwards and his back went nearly vertical. Malenia's feet slid out from under her but she did not fall, instead catching the protruding handle of her blade before her descent could begin. She only dimly noticed the ground getting further and further away, for she had her sights set on one thing: A gargantuan stone pillar, just one of many encircling the colosseum, that Placidusax was getting closer and closer to cresting. Her feet dug into his skin, bracing herself as the top of the pillar inched closer and closer.

Mist formed at her feet, coalescing and snaking up her prosthetics until it enwreathed her ankles, then her knees, and then her waist. Her heart pounded and her stomach twisted, but she held firm as Placidusax's form started to dissolve around her. It wasn't until the stony wall beneath her feet began to vanish and her sword loosened in his flesh that she leapt into the air, bringing the golden blade with her; she threw it upwards and barely registered the sound of it clattering on top of the pillar before her outstretched prosthesis grabbed squarely onto the lip of it. With a grunt, she hoisted forth Ash's greatsword and tossed it onto the smooth stone face above as well, freeing her true hand to grab on and pull herself up.

From atop the pillar she could see the whole of the throne room. This made it much easier to find Placidusax as soon as he began to reappear even while she busied herself with affixing her katana back into her prosthesis and hoisting Ash's greatsword onto her shoulder. Red lightning crackled on the outer edge to her left, hugging the edge of the arena and speeding towards her pillar. She braced herself, bunching her knees and holding her breath. With as much precision as someone who'd been rendered blind for centuries could muster, she tracked the cloud with wide, wild eyes, carefully counting the number of giant pillars between her and the encircling nimbus.

Five…

He was much further below her than when he'd first entered the clouds. She fidgeted with her katana and tried to still her beating heart.

Four…

Her toes curled around the lip of the pillar, as if trying to hold her in place should this reckless, borderline insane gamble go wrong.

Three…

She gave the handle of the grafted blade greatsword a squeeze, clutching it close. The weapon's weight would be a beast to wrangle, but she had to. She was in far too deep.

Two…!

She slid her feet over the edge of the floor and plummeted from the sky. Ice cold rain pelted her face, and it was only by placing the flat of her sword against her helm that was able to keep it on her head. Just ahead of her, the angry stormclouds parted to reveal three glowing eyes atop gnarled stony faces. Blood trailed from the fourth like a banner. Placidusax snarled at what he saw falling towards him.

One…!

Malenia spun in the air until Ash's greatsword pointed straight upwards; falling faster and faster, the sheer torque of her descent threatened to rip the heavy, wettened blade from her grasp, but she clutched the handle as tightly as she could.

The ground was growing closer and closer at a terrifying rate, but something else grew closer still. Like a speeding carriage, the flying Dragonlord rushed to meet her.

Now!

Malenia swung the greatsword downwards as hard as she could. The sound it made as all of her velocity, all of her momentum, went straight into Placidusax's face was nothing compared to the gnarled cry that the beast bellowed out in response. The head she hit careened straight into the second one and he froze up for the briefest of moments—a moment long enough to send his flight completely off course. Placidusax rolled over midair and went into a sharp descent downwards, but not sharply enough to stop himself from colliding headlong into another of the enormous pillars. Malenia's heart skipped a beat at the explosive sound of such a huge rock cracking down the middle and when she looked up to see the entire upper half of the column begin to tilt towards her, her heart sank faster than the now-limp dragon went into a nose-dive towards the floor, leaving her directly underneath the falling mass of stone.

How foolish she had been. Had she not learned her lesson the first time the Dragonlord had left her suspended in the air with a sword buried in his hide and nowhere to go but down? Now here she was in a far worse version of that same predicament, with no Tarnished to pull her from the rubble and no crimson flasks to bring her back to life. Had she truly signed her own death warrant so close to the end of this gruesome journey?

Dull gold flashed at the edge of her vision. Her eyes snapped to see one of Placidusax's flaccid wings trailing behind him, the flesh underneath torn but largely intact. Flesh that the dragon's rocky skin was built to enshrine in armor, for it was so infirm.

In that moment, the softest thing Malenia could hope to land on.

It was a complete shot in the dark. But it was all she had. She took a deep breath and held for a moment, steeling herself for the riskiest maneuver yet. Then, she released her grip on Ash's greatsword. With the one thing anchoring her to Placidusax gone, she was immediately flung into the air. Her bearings scattered to the wind, she threw her gaze around, scanning with desperate haste for that golden sheen, and found it just as she raced past the boundary of his wing. Barely able to keep track of the rapidly-retreating haven, she reached her sword opposite to the direction it felt like she was falling and drove it upwards. The sensation of the tip sinking into something pliant and malleable made her heart sing. With a clench of the teeth she curled her arm inwards as hard as she could, dragging herself closer to the base of her blade as it remained fixed in Placidusax's wing. Her pounding head had just the faintest of moments to clear, giving her a chance to see that she had, in fact, stabbed directly where she wanted to. As her freefalling body realigned with her sword and placed her in front of the underwing, however, her stomach lurched when she suddenly felt the weapon slip free from its sheath. Her free hand shot forwards and grasped at a stray piece of shredded flesh, slick with oily blood and ready to tear away from the dragon's body. Just as it did so, Malenia shoved her sword into a thicker, sturdier fold near the corner of the wing. It punched through the skin on the outside and ran itself through all the way up to the base of the weapon. Gripping the spiny edge of the wing with her true hand, ignoring the feeling of it cutting into her skin, she angled her arm and tilted her sword so that the spine dipped towards the wing, trying to use the curvature of the armament to "bite" into Placidusax's skin and strengthen her grip somewhat.

It was as secure of a position as she was going to get. Gripping another, less-frayed bundle of bloody golden flesh in her fist, she pulled herself into the underside of Placidusax's wing and braced.

Everything suddenly went black. Malenia didn't register the moments between hitting the ground and waking up face-down on the floor some distance away. She was not exactly there for the moment of impact, nor when her anchor came loose a split second later and sent her tumbling out of the underwing and onto the ground below, rolling over and over until she came to a halt near the tip of Placidusax's tail. She returned to the waking world, however, to put her hands under her and lift her head from the floor with an exhausted groan. Dazed and confused, she rolled onto her posterior and placed a hand to her head, looking blearily around the spinning colosseum. Between the fog in her mind, the visor on her head, and the rain in the sky, it was almost impossible to see much of anything beyond splotchy colors. She did notice, however, when those splotches suddenly grew even darker as if… shadowed.

Her head tilted up to see the falling half of the pillar careening straight towards her. The sight was enough to fill her with the adrenaline needed to haul herself to her feet and stagger away as fast as she could. The width of the shadow grew by the second, taunting her with an edge of freedom that was just out of reach. Her head swam and her body screamed, but the hammering of her heart stopped her from slowing down. She broke into a run, forcing her shaking legs to carry her faster than the boundary of safety could retreat. Fresh rain pelted her as she drew beyond the pillar's grasp, but she didn't stop there. Wheezing and staggering, she kept going until the deafening sound of the pillar hitting the ground had her diving to the floor with her hands cinching her helm to her head. A rain of splintered rocks showered her amidst the cacophony, nearly tearing through her dress if not for the protective maille beneath. Her one remaining arm and half-leg, however, stung with the sensation of a thousand sharp rocks pelting her at once. The rain in the air was overtaken by clouds of dust as the rubble scattered.

Malenia didn't move a muscle for what felt like eons. It wasn't until the sound of fracturing rock finally began to die down that she dared to perk up and look back at what had happened. The shattered pillar had flattened the lifeless body of Dragonlord Placidusax, ringed by an entire field of dust, gravel, and dozens of imposing stone chunks that had all somehow missed the woman huddled against the floor. The fractured main body of the structure was firmly nestled in a blood-splattered hollow caved in from Placidusax's body, threatening to break what remained of him in two. The great beast was nothing short of decimated by the fall.

Malenia stabbed the ground with her sword and pushed it into the earth until she rose. Leaning on the slender blade, she simply stared at the gruesome sight with mouth agape, hunched over and gasping for air until a word finally found its way to her lips.

"Ash…" she breathed, the word barely more than a whisper. Even so, it seemed to pull what little strength she had from her body, as she sank back onto one knee.

"Ash," she rasped again. "We did it. We won! It's…"

She fell to the floor with a soft whump. Even as a fuzzy darkness crept into her eyes, a smile found its way to her slick, wet lips. High above, the storm parted, bathing Malenia in a warm ray of sunlight.

"It's over."

When Malenia came to, she found herself propped against the outer wall of the throne room. Though the storm had died, she found her world shadowed by a familiar figure hunched over her unconscious form.

As soon as her eyes fluttered open, Ash reared back.

"You're awake!" he exclaimed. Though her head pounded and everything hurt, Malenia let slip a smile.

"I am," she agreed hoarsely. "And you're back."

"Of course I am. You thought I'd simply leave you here?"

A weak shake of the head.

"N-No, of course not. But I…"

In spite of herself, she chuckled.

"I find myself forgetting just who you are. When… When the dragon blew you to smithereens, I thought you gone for good."

Ash returned the quiet laugh. His helm tilted to gaze out at the wreckage of the battle.

"Judging by the state of things, you certainly fought as if I was."

Malenia nodded. A thought flitted across her mind, and her smile faded.

"T-The trophy…" she eked out. Ash tilted his head at her, so she elaborated, "For Hewg. The proof of a god slain. Did you…?"

Ash lifted a hand up and opened his fingers. Before Malenia's eyes, an image of gold coalesced above his palm. A wispy, glittering visage of Placidusax, surrounded by flames, rain and lightning."

"The Remembrance of the Dragonlord," Ash explained. "When next I visit the Roundtable Hold, it shall be hewn into what remains of the Erdtree. There, Hewg can gaze upon it in all its glory."

Malenia nodded. "Good," she sighed. The Remembrance faded from view and the hand holding it offered itself to her.

"Can you walk?" Ash asked. Malenia pursed her lips.

"I'm not sure," she assessed. "Everything—ahh… everything hurts like no other. Have you… any of that crimson elixir?"

A small silence before he answered.

"I waited to see if it was necessary to give it to you. I didn't want to force you to drink it if you could recover on your own. It felt undignified."

Malenia rolled her eyes.

"Just give me a damned drink," she groaned. To his credit, the uppity Tarnished was quick to obey, and she was even quicker to sip from the gilded flask. In the blink of an eye, her pain quieted to a low, dull ache, and the numerous cuts and bruises covering her body closed up and faded. With a vigor like she hadn't just fought the king of the dragons, she stood up.

"Much better," she remarked. "Are you ready to go?"

"Not quite," Ash proclaimed. "Have you seen my sword lying around here?"

Malenia paused.

"Uhh…" she stammered. Her eyes fell on the corpse of Placidusax, and her shoulders fell with them.

"I last saw it when I buried it in his head," she admitted. A head that was currently covered in tons and tons of rock.

"Ah," Ash observed. "Damn. No way am I fishing it out of there."

Guilt tugged at Malenia's insides. "I'm sorry, I—"

"No, no, 'tis alright. I only wish I could've borne witness to that!"

"With what blade shall you fight now?" Malenia asked. She turned to face him and saw his visor tilted towards an ugly, jagged dagger held reversely in his hand. She grimaced.

"That mangled thing?" she quizzed.

"Not just this," Ash corrected. He curled his opposite arm as if placing the greatsword entombed in the wreckage on his shoulder. Malenia's confused sneer only intensified as, in the blink of an eye, pale blue wisps erupted from his empty hand and stretched to form the shape of a sword. The azure glow flashed, then faded away to reveal the object Ash had summoned: Another sword, longer still than the multi-bladed one interred in Placidusax's lifeless body but vastly slimmer in profile. The base of the grey blade fanned out from the dark, semicircular handguard before swiftly tapering off into a long, slender point. A deep, textured fuller indicated a craftsmanship far finer than the crude welding of blades that adorned Ash's old sword. For such an oversized sword, it was magnificent.

"Were you able to do that the whole time?" Malenia exclaimed incredulously. When Ash nodded, she pressed, "And why didn't you?"

"... Out of respect for a friend," he answered, words slow and careful in their deliberation.

"What do you mean?"

"A story for another time," he deflected. "Let us finish this journey."