Crow glimpsed himself fold over, mouth agape and eyes widened in shock as a spray of spit and blood flew from between his teeth. A punch to the stomach. He stepped back just in time to avoid his vision becoming true, though the strike was too fast to fully avoid even with the world slowed around him, the backstep made the impact shallow. He didn’t taste the metallic tang of blood rise up from his guts, so he figured that even as much as it hurt- even as much as it made his lungs burn and turned each breath into a challenge- he’d gotten off lucky.

He grunted with the effort of swinging his gauntleted fist around, the metal covering the back of his hand, knuckles and fingers looked very much like a lobster. He felt the impact move up his arm as his fist met its mark, a sharp stab of pain blossoming in his shoulder. The figure appeared before him once more, not fully visible but… there, at least. Translucent, was that the word? Whatever it was, he could clearly make out that it was a human in shape, and that it was leaning back the way all human-shaped things did after receiving a surprise blow to the face.

It didn’t go hurtling across the room this time, however. Apparently it hadn’t been completely caught off-guard. It dug its heels in, a great screeching noise filling Crow’s ears as it slid backwards across the floor- tiny flakes of stone piling up behind its legs as it was churned up from the stone ground. The creature slowed, then stopped. And by the time Crow had even considered a counter attack, it had vanished once more.

He had other things to worry about however. He dropped to his knee as the pain of the strike washed over him. Exhausted as he was Crow had tried to dial down the intensity of his strength enhancement in the hopes of allowing him to use it for longer. With the added drain of his strains ability to slow the world down around him, he’d have barely lasted thirty seconds before completely running out of magic reserves and being unable to use his powers any more. Even with the heightened perception speed involved in a battle of magic, that wasn’t very long. He’d managed to push that up to around sixty seconds by weakening his enhancement, and yet as he brought up a spray of vomit at his feet Crow couldn’t help but slightly regret playing things conservatively.

He had no choice, though. Against anyone else the ability to move near silently while remaining invisible would have been nigh impossible to deal with. It was only luck that he had the Eye of Chronos, and it was that same luck which had kept him alive so far.

He saw himself knocked down, head jerking to the side, and ducked- the strike missing narrowly enough for him to feel the air shift as it moved over him, even with time slowing around him.

Not delaying a moment, Crow countered with another strike from his gauntlet. The enemy shot backwards, momentarily visible once more. He marveled at the power of his punch, had it not been for the glove he doubted he’d have the strength to do much.

He followed up with another punch, and then another. His arms ached as each blow sent shockwaves through them, but he dared not let up for even a moment. Constantly pummelled as his attacker was, it was entering a new moment of visibility before the next could start. Crow could see it clearly now. It very closely resembled a person wearing plate armour, though somehow slightly wrong. Its head was a little bit too pointed, its limbs had one joint too many. Like someone had crossed a man’s body with a praying mantis’s. Crow hadn’t ever seen anything like it before, but that made no difference to his ability to smash it up.

The creature’s arms folded up around its head in an effort to protect it, and Crow took only a moment to remember his sparring matches with his sister before transitioning to a body blow. This sent the thing stumbling even worse than his surprise strike had before, and he didn’t waste the chance to follow up. The moment its arms dropped he clocked it across the side of the head, this time hitting it so hard that he left a dent in its helmet. It stumbled away, and Crow took two steps to get back within punching range. He had the upper hand. It was shaken, damaged and he could clearly see it- he could win, provided it didn’t get a chance to disappear again and regain its bearings.

Crow raised his gauntlet for a hammer-arm, and yet he suddenly felt a great resistance. He glanced up to see the gems lining the metal of his glove had gone dun, and then he was hit by the vision of his body being hurled backwards across the room. His eyes moved back to the creature just in time to see it shimmering back into imperceptibility, and then he felt the air rush from his lungs as his feet left the floor and the world turned on its side.

The corners of his vision were black, his heartbeat was in his ears and Crow couldn’t tell what the hell was happening. He felt desperate panic bubble up in his chest at his helplessness, knowing that the finishing blow would land any moment. His eyes burnt but he dared not stop slowing time. His mind was aching with fatigue but he dared not stop burning more of his magic reserves away to enhance his durability. All he could do was wait for the end.

But it didn’t come.

Gradually his sight cleared slightly. The world went from a confusing mass of distorted shapes and meshed colours to normality, though it was still more blurry than he’d have liked. The pounding in his head was no smaller, but Crow could now see someone darting around in front of him. He couldn’t make out the details of their face, but with the red light humming around them he assumed it was Ethi.

The pain hit him like a cannonball. Crow hadn’t noticed at first, perhaps because of shock or simply his head being fuzzy, but suddenly he realised there was an unearthly agony in his chest. He tried to inhale but doing so hurt, he was pretty sure that meant he had broken ribs. Groaning, he forced himself to his feet. He could see properly now. Properly enough to know that Ethi most certainly was the one fighting, though by the look of panic on her face she was barely managing to keep herself alive even with all her concentration on dodging. He figured it was a good time to give her some breathing room.

After a brief moment to undo his now useless gauntlet and drop it to the floor, he rushed forwards, ignoring the burning protests of his tortured lungs and muscles as he flooded magic back through his body. He was incredibly low now, as he’d been fighting before he would have lasted only a few seconds- perhaps a minute or two from the perspective of someone with his enhanced reactions. But he didn’t need to fight like that now. He didn’t reactivate his time dilation, and he cut his premonitions completely. Crow was relying entirely on his physical enhancement this time. Even with it on full blast he didn’t think he was quite on the level of the invisible creature, but with Ethi’s assistance he might not need to be.

Ethi dropped to her knees just before he reached her, and Crow didn’t need to glimpse the future to know what would come next. When you had the opportunity, a kick to the chin would drop just about anyone on your level. That meant he knew where the creature would be standing.

Just as he came within two steps, Crow jumped from his run. He tucked his knees into his chest as he did, his body turning until the bottoms of his feet were lined up with where he assumed his target was standing. And then he lashed them out at once.

For a brief, terrifying moment he thought he’d missed. That he’d failed to make use of his advantage and left himself open to a deadly attack. Then he felt the satisfying jerk of sudden resistance as his heels crunched into something solid and heavy. The momentum from his sprint was cancelled out as he kicked off the body of the invisible creature, causing him to essentially stop flying forwards and land on his back a mere metre away from Ethi. He glanced at her, smiled, then hurriedly looked to the enemy- the enemy which, in its temporary visibility, he could now see was stumbling away.

Before Crow had the chance to even think of following up on his lucky shot, there was a streak of red and one of the figure’s legs were swept out from under it. He hurried to his feet, in awe of Ethi as he saw her pummelling the enemy even while it attempted to right itself. Her strikes were consistent enough that it was completely opaque while enduring them, and that meant that Crow had a good view of its damage.

Small dents riddled its entire body, as well as a handful of far larger, almost craterous, ones. There was a point in the side of its head where the metal had caved inwards in such a way as to crack and tear slightly, and Crow felt rather satisfied as he realised it was the exact spot one of his heavier blows had landed.

On the other hand, though it was failing to regain its balance under her assault, Ethi’s forest of spear thrusts didn’t appear to be causing it any meaningful harm.

Shit. Crow had finished standing up moments ago. He had limited time left, and he’d wasted some of it staring uselessly. He hurried to join Ethi in beating the creature, but after a second thought decided to discreetly circle around it instead. Though it was a risky choice, he opted to deactivate his enhancement- saving his magic reserves was well worth the risk of being incapacitated if the creature suddenly charged him considering that he could clearly see it, and its ten pace distance from him.

Watching a magical battle without his physical enhancement or time dilation was a curious, and oddly terrifying, affair. Ethi’s strikes had already come as fast as those of an entire wall of bayonets, but now they were so rapid Crow couldn’t track them with his eye. Her body was nothing but a red blur, the knight’s footing changed so slightly that, even though it had been downright sluggish to him just moments ago, it almost looked like it was tap dancing. Unfortunately, being so much slower also meant that Crow didn’t realise it was his time to step in until Ethi had already been forced onto the defensive long enough for the creature to begin returning to invisibility.

He activated his physical enhancement as he ran, and by the time he reached the creature he had reached full power. Unfortunately it had also given the creature enough time to vanish completely. Ethi was now flailing around, unable to see her attacker and likely dodging its attacks by noise alone. Yet as before Crow could ascertain its position from the way she stumbled back, and when he lashed out a kick at knee-level he was more reassured than surprised to feel it crunch into the enemy.

Leaping back the moment he could, Crow narrowly avoided what he could now see was a backhand. The creature was looking at him, momentarily distracted, and Ethi jumped on that moment to land two spear thrusts to its back. Just as it turned back to her, Crow stepped forwards. It spun to fight him off, and was promptly laid into once more by his teammate. This time Ethi’s attack forced it a step away from her, and a step closer to Crow. He made use of the newly reduced distance to land another kick, this time aimed high, which landed solidly on its side.

He’d hit that sweet spot in the side of the joint, where even someone significantly stronger could have their knee broken or strained by the impact. The creature was no exception. While it apparently had no joint to crack, the metal making up that section of its armour screamed as it buckled inwards under Crow’s foot. In an instant the thing’s stance was broken, its retreat from Ethi halted and it began to waver as it took its now injured leg away from the ground. Ethi hit it once more, throwing it to the ground, and Crow brought his foot down on its face. He’d never stamped on anything before, he and Astra had never been allowed to do it during their sparring matches due to the sheer danger such a move carried. As he felt the helmeted head give way under the repeated stamping, Crow realised why.

He wasn’t sure how long he spent bringing his foot up and down on that cold iron head, how many times he’d needed to do it before his target had been released to a flattened, widened clump of inert metal- like a crushed frying pan. Whatever the answer, it was long enough that he felt winded and tired once he finally stopped.

Crow dropped down onto his back, deactivating his enhancement and nearly crying out as he felt his exhaustion amplified by the sudden lack of magical power flowing through his body. He was dimly aware of Ethi dropping down beside him, too, but hadn’t the will to so much as glance over at her. For now all that existed to him was his fatigue. His heart pounding like war drums, his fingers twitching rapidly and uncontrollably, the pain in the parts of him that had been battered by the creature now coming back into focus, that dull stinging in his eyes he remembered well from whenever he’d slowed time around him in the past… It was oddly hard to call unpleasant. Crow supposed adrenalin was to thank for it, but he felt strangely alive. He lay there a while longer, until the world’s sounds began to grow clearer and uneclipsed by the ringing in his ears. Then he started to laugh.

He’d won. He’d been in a life or death struggle, and he’d won. He’d survived against the thing in the tunnels, he’d escaped with his life there, but just now he’d fought for it- and he’d won it.

Sitting up, Crow looked at Ethi. The Oni had already gotten to her feet, not being quite as hurt as Crow but still rather beaten up. Her lip had burst, the skin around her left eye had began to swell up and he was sure she was covered with welts from the many hits she’d failed to avoid. Yet she was grinning. A madenned sort of gleeful smile, victorious and desperate. Crow imagined he wore the same smile on his own face, but by the Eclipse he’d won it. They’d won it.

Crow felt his smile turn to a frown as his gaze turned to his other teammate. Unity was still leaning against one corner, a streak of dried blood covering his chin. He looked paler, Crow hoped it was from shock. Shock would render the boy temporarily useless, but if his life were endangered then he could lurch back into action. On the other hand he might well have paled from internal bleeding, if so there was nothing any of them could do about it.

Ethi spoke, breaking the silence Crow hadn’t noticed the room fall into. Her voice sounded somewhat strained, as though it was a struggle for her to speak at a normal volume without simply screaming.

“How are you feeling?”

Unity’s head turned almost sluggishly to face her, his eyes slowly opened as he spoke, though it seemed as though he was having just as hard a time keeping himself awake as Ethi was keeping herself from doing a cartwheel.

“Oh wonderful,” the black haired boy muttered. “Never better, I’ve had a really comfortable rest. Well, actually, if I had to make one small nitpicky complaint, it would be the fact that half of my fucking ribcage is broken.”

Ethi made a show of rolling her eyes, but Crow could tell she wasn’t at all encouraged by Unity’s sarcasm. He couldn’t blame her. Their teammate looked awful, and as prickly as the boy was Crow was still worried about him. He and Ethi made their way over to Unity’s corner, each placing one of his arms over their shoulders and pulling him to his feet. He wasn’t particularly heavy, at least Crow didn’t think he was, but with their tiredness and injuries lifting him without magic felt like trying to carry Hercules himself.

Crow’s heart skipped a beat as he looked up from Unity and saw the invisible creature had disappeared. He glimpsed an image of himself, or rather what was left of him, sliding across the ground as half of his head caved inwards under a great impact. He tried to think, tried to activate his enhancement as time seemed to slow down around him due to his heightened reactions. It wouldn’t do any good, he’d already exhausted himself finishing the thing off the first time- even with magic his body didn’t have the strength to continue fighting. But he’d fight anyway.

And then Unity’s arm was removed from its place over Crow. The black haired boy was a blur as he moved forwards, both hands held out in front of him- the air before them distorted slightly, as though a hollow statue of a person had been made from a completely transparent material then filled with water, and just as Crow realised he was looking at the invisible creature- it exploded.

The thing’s body was torn apart, jagged chunks flying out in all directions. It was as if there had been invisible hooks digging deep into it all across its body before some great giant ripped them all out at once. Crow could do nothing but stare as he saw the now clearly visible remains of the thing scattered all around him, just as his Gauger hummed slightly. Deactivating his enhancement, for now he had at most half as long left as he had at the start of the battle, he read the words as they appeared.

Room cleared: Advance to next test

There was a scraping sound which made Crow jump and temporarily panic for how much it resembled the metallic body of the creature, and when he looked to its source he saw one of the walls had slid outwards to reveal a passage behind it.

“Secret tunnel.”

Crow didn’t know why he said that, but after one amazing sight after another he’d just sort of lost the ability to feel any sense of wonder. All that was left was a dull acceptance. He snapped out of his surprise and turned to Unity.

“You saved us!”

The black haired boy grinned widely.

“Well, I don’t want to take all the credit. I couldn’t have gotten a firm enough grip to use my magic if it weren’t for you and Ethi making all those bits of its body jut out and luring it towards us.”

Before Crow could fully process his words, the boy began marching down the newly revealed exit. And he noticed with no small amount of annoyance that Unity didn’t appear nearly as weak as he had a few minutes ago. He shared a glance with Ethi, whose face was a mask of seething anger.

“Bastard.” She muttered, walking after him.

Crow waited only a moment before following.