Warnings came too late.

My words, urgent, frantic, reached her… just as it always was with me, too little and too late.

Like the drop of a guillotine's sharpened edge, the fall of death's swift embrace was near-instant. I heard it - the slam, the explosion, the clunking crunch of shattered concrete. Felt it - the rattle in the walls, the floors, another violent tremor that unsteadied all. And saw it - Ash, Jay, disappearing in a thick cloud of dirt and dust.

For a moment, there was only the quiet, only the frantic beating of my heartbeat pounding hard against my eardrums. My lungs felt ready to burst at the seams, I needed to breathe but I just couldn't - everything just went rigid.

It was like my entire body locked itself up, like it's forgotten to do everything else apart from staring - it wanted to just keep staring, keep hearing… hoping that my too little wasn't at all too late.

So it stayed watching, witness every scattered piece of paper drifting lazily through the air from the shockwave, seeing the bits of debris falling to the floor like heavy rainfall from the ceiling, and straining through the gradually dissipating smog for any signs of life.

The first thing my eyes managed to catch was a sway, a strand of white hovering briefly, I don't think my eyelids had ever been more spread apart after that.

A strand to strands, those wisps of white, then a lock of white - from there, I began to see even more. The shimmer of green, a hazy silhouette slowly coming into view.

My body, myself, it got what it sought for alright. Too little wasn't too late after all.

Ash hadn't disappeared.

She stood there at the epicenter of a giant crevice, still lingering that look of deep loathing on her face. From where I was it looked as if someone just used a giant metal spoon and half-heartedly scraped out a sizeable portion of the floor.

My eyes immediately veered downwards to the focus of her intense scowling - towards Jay, sprawled out, his body caked over in a layer of dirt and soot, and mere inches away from his closed eyes, buried deeper than anything else - Ash's foot laid submerged into the concrete.

The moment I saw Jay's chest faintly rising and falling, my body finally allowed itself a gulp of fresh cold air. In and out, in and out… nearly passing out from deprivation.

So? Was it finally over? Has the worst actually come to pass?

These were questions I was asking myself, questions I thought would meet promising answers.

They didn't.

A gasp of breath, eyelids fluttering wide open - I saw Ash's face briefly flinch in surprise. I heard her growl again - as her hand hastily darted for Jay but once more, unlike the last, she seized only air.

Formless again, Jay started to drift from her clutches - his clouded form this time was not as thick, not as grey… more like a thinning trail of steam than a cloud really.

He wasn't dodging anymore, wasn't trying to appeal to reason - Jay drifted and swayed to escape. Ash wanted to stop him, but her foot stayed enclosed in the ground no matter how she twisted and writhed and as result, Jay was free to slither the narrow gap of the exit door.

But just before he did so… the exit was right by me, and I saw him linger briefly in place. Jay spoke again, his echo was faint, his voice barely even a howl in the wind.

Still, like a whisper in my ears, I heard his words… hear the genuine sincerity in them louder than any shout.

"Thank you," He told me. "Thank you for stopping her."

No, that wasn't sincerity. From the bottom of my heart, I dearly wanted to believe that his thank you wasn't from the bottom of his heart. That he was lying again, deceiving again.

I wanted to believe that, but I didn't - and not a moment later, there he had gone, literally slipping through the cracks.

At the same time, in a loud burst of loose rubble, Ash had finally managed to pry herself loose. And as for me… well, the adrenaline was starting to wear, and the pain was starting to catch up to me.

The only thing I managed to let out before my body gave way was a loud gasp of pain.

"Master!"

I felt a gust of wind breezed over me, then, the warmth of soft hands caught my head a second before it met the hard concrete. If it wasn't for the agony holding me by the balls, I would have cracked a smile and a chuckle, marveling over how fast Ash could move from one side of the room to the other.

Too bad I couldn't. Too bad I was leaning into her hands instead, too bad the only thing my lips could form right then were gaps and hisses, wincing over the pain intensifying by the second.

"It's okay, it's okay, you're fine now."

From above, spoke soft words of comfort. Looming over me, Ash looked over with eyes in great distress. It seemed that along with Jay, her terrifying demeanor, her menacing aura had instantly evaporated. All that remained now was the Ash that I knew. The Ash gentle with her movements, tender with her expression so wrought with worry.

For a second, I could almost forget that the terrifying visage from moments ago was only a dream, that the Ash hellbent on destruction, hoarse with her growls was but a lucid nightmare…

Then I looked off to the side and I saw her sword still sticking out the wall, see the deep slashes and gaping holes left from the skirmish, and reality settled in again.

"You're bleeding badly…" Ash whispered.

I followed her gaze to the rip in my jeans, my left leg outstretched, surrounded in a shimmering rim of deep dark red.

"It's the leg… it's always the goddamn leg," I muttered through gritted teeth.

There was a sound of ripping fabric - Ash wrenched out a large piece of her sleeve jacket and started wrapping it around the gash on my calve. The same jacket I gave her way back when, the same jacket she spent a great amount of effort stitching back together… the same one she'd always insist on wearing.

It could just be me being overly sentimental, but I felt a bit bad seeing an empty patch on her right arm even if she herself never for a second hesitated.

"I'm sorry…" She said, ripping out even more pieces when one proved insufficient. "I let this happened. I'm sorry. I should have broken out sooner, I should have paid a closer eye on spells. If only I was… tsk… why is it… it won't stop bleeding!"

I was going to acknowledge her sorries, I wasn't going to hear her faults. I ignored all that, focusing only on what really mattered now.

"Just a small wound, been through worse, I'll live," I said through heavy breaths. "Irene. Go to her now. She has it far worse. I think she's - "

Interrupted. Abruptly. An agonizing scream piercing through the silence telling of a suffering incomparable to my own. Felt a lump in my throat swelling bigger and bigger as I looked over to the side.

Irene was keeling over, both knees bent in a pool of blood, pure agony disfiguring her face - one quivering hand clutching her bloodied, mutilated, bleeding, blazer-bundled arm.

Unlike me, however, Irene had more mettle in her than I could ever hope to have. She decided one excruciating scream was enough and whimpered nothing more - the rest of her agony only vocalized through grounded teeth and heavy grunts.

She blinked once, heaved once, then looked over my way, her gaze sullen but firm.

"Fine… I'm fine," She said, a furrow on her brow. "Piece of shit. I didn't think… didn't realize… he was that powerful."

I nodded vigorously back at her in wholehearted agreement.

"Your leg," She nudged her head forward. "Are you… are you okay?"

My vigorous nods turn to frantic shakes - she had far more important things deserving her concern other than me.

"Forget me," I hissed, looking over at Ash again. "Ash go, she needs some - "

"It'll heal!" Irene interjected, grunting herself back upright, before slowly lumbering herself over to me. "You, on the other hand, he tossed you around like a wet cloth. You don't walk that - you're concussed, you're - "

"Fine!" I heaved. My turn to interrupt with assurance. "I died once. This is nothing compared to that."

There was a moment where nothing happened except for dubious glances exchanged at one another. From Ash to me, from me to Irene, from Irene back to Ash, and vice versa.

Eventually we all just kinda accepted that we were all as fine as we liked to believe even though we didn't believe each other.

I decided to break that silence, changing the topic completely.

"You broke out of the spell too?" I asked.

Irene shook her head. "That's something you don't break out of unless he wants you to."

"But Ash -"

"Is strong," She promptly answered. "Stronger than he realized."

"If only I had broken out sooner than I had," lamented Ash. "His power's remarkable."

Irene scoffed. "And you're no different. I know Elf-Knights are formidable… but you… you're something else entirely."

"So wait," I said, forming a frown. "You're telling me he broke the spell for you?"

"It does seem that way, doesn't it?" said Irene, wincing as she tried to move her injured arm. "Beats me why he did that… he could have easily just left me as I was till I bled out. But he didn't, why didn't he?"

I think I might know the answer to that one. Those things I thought lies - sincerity, gratitude - this was his thank you, his I'm sorry.

Can't fake this one.

"Alright, enough talk," Irene said, spinning herself around to Jay's route of escape. "Elf, stay with your Master. I'm going after this son of a bitch."