"Wow."
Hoshimi's voice was flat, emotionless.
"What a surprise seeing you two here."
He stood at the end of the corridor, his violet eyes fixed on Sarah and Dominic, his hands empty at his sides.
His black hair was disheveled, as if he'd been running, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes that hadn't been there a week ago. But his posture was relaxed, almost casual, and his face betrayed nothing.
[This is going to be trouble isn't it? They managed to find a way to contain Sophia. What the hell are we going to do now? I'm fucked, everyone is fucked, we're all so fucked]
A single bead of sweat went down the back of his neck.
Sarah didn't move. Didn't flinch. Her amber eyes swept across the group, cataloging, assessing, dismissing.
"I doubt that you'd come alone here," she said. Her voice was light, almost amused. "Where are they hiding?"
Bang.
The gunshot echoed through the corridor like thunder in a confined space.
Hoshimi's aim was precise, not center mass, but her leg. The soft tissue of her thigh, just above the knee, where the artery ran close to the surface.
"What?"
Sarah's leg buckled. Blood sprayed across the polished floor in a dark, glistening arc. She dropped to one knee, her face almost meeting the floor before she caught herself with both hands, her fingers splayed against the cold tile.
Dominic crossed the distance between them in the space between heartbeats.
His hand already reaching for Hoshimi's throat, his pale blue eyes blazing with something that might have been rage or might have been hunger.
Hoshimi didn't try to block. Didn't try to dodge. He simply stepped to the side, a single step, barely six inches, and raised his hand.
Mana gathered at his palm, condensed, focused, and released in a single, blinding burst.
The blast caught Dominic in the forearm, punching through flesh and bone like paper. Blood and tissue sprayed across the wall in a dark, wet fan.
Dominic dashed backwards, his back up against the wall as he grasped his burnt arm, a thin wisp of smoke rising up from the hole that went through his forearm.
"How unfair." Sarah stood up, her legs shaking from the wound. She snapped her fingers, a single white orb manifesting into thin air. "You didn't even give me the chance to speak."
[I lose in terms of mana reinforcement and technique, but their durability is still that of a human. Malachite gave me trouble because of the nature of her power, not her strength]
He pulled the trigger again.
The bullet punched through Sarah's forehead.
Blood sprayed from the exit wound, a fine mist that caught the dim emergency lighting and glittered like rubies. Sarah's head snapped back backwards, her body following, her arms flailing as she crashed against the wall and slid down it.
[And my specialty, is in killing humans]
Dominic fired.
The shards were small but they moved faster than Hoshimi could react in time. They punched through his shoulder, his side, his thigh, each impact sending shockwaves through his body.
The last one caught him in the chest.
He flew backward, his spine hitting the wall with a force that cracked the plaster, his vision flickering, his lungs refusing to draw breath. Blood poured from his wounds, pooling beneath him in a dark, spreading stain..
[Damn it, I can't take the two of them on at the same time]
Blood dripped from Hoshimi's lips, his vision flickering on and off.
"Vitae Core."
Steam rose from his injuries, his muscles spasmed and twitched as they stitched themselves back together.
Sarah cracked her neck, the hole in her head completely healed as if it never happened in the first place, her eyes narrowed as she exhaled.
[I feel as if I'm suffocating]
Snap.
Dominic was thrown into the wall with a loud screech, a shriek was a physical force, a sonic wave that vibrated through his bone, the wooden walls crumbling against the burst.
Dominic pulled himself from the crater in the wall, his pale blue eyes fixed on Neila. Wood splinters clung to his dark blue hair, and a thin line of blood ran from his temple where the sonic burst had caught him.
"You're awake," he said. His voice was Dominic's voice, but the cadence was wrong, the warmth drained out of it like color from old photographs. "All of you. How inconvenient."
Neila stood in the corridor behind Hoshimi, her twin-tails slightly disheveled from sleep, her blue eyes sharp and focused. She wore a silk robe over her pajamas, and her feet were bare on the cold floor, but none of that seemed to matter.
"Hoshimi was fucking right wasn't he? It was you. Anyways, where the hell is Sophia Miller?" she demanded.
Dominc's lips curved. "She's not here."
"I guess I need to knock some sense into you, Dominic." Neila smiled, a grin that spread from one edge of her face to the other.
Hoshimi stood up, wiping the blood from his lips with the back of his hand, he spoke with his usual cold tone of voice. "Neila, when Lucy comes, I need you two to take care of Dominic, I need him alive to take him into questioning." His eyes turned towards Sarah. "You on the other hand, he seems to follow your orders quite diligently, you're Audrey's murderer aren't you? He was merely the weapon that you used to kill her. Why?"
Sarah didn't reply, instead she just smiled.
[If I went all out I would accidentally kill him and Dominic, I need to restrain myself while fighting in this confined space. Just in case Sophia manages to escape somehow, I need that sword. The sword of promised victory]
Three white orbs manifested behind her.
Before she could activate them, Hoshimi immediately closed the distance, a brilliant beam of light took the shape of a blade, thrusting towards her gut.
A single white orb pulled against his thrust, redirecting the sword away from her.
Sarah's fingers closed on his skull.
Her fingers were cold, and her grip was iron, her fingernails dug into his scalp, drawing beads of blood that ran down his forehead and into his eyes.
[Damn it!]
Hoshimi had let go of his blade, sucked in by the white orb.
His other hand came up, the gun already in his palm, the barrel pressed against her abdomen.
Bang.
Deafening.
Sarah's body jerked, her grip loosened.
She put distance between the two of them, grasping at the hole in her chest, the torn muscles started stitching back automatically, as she grasped the blood running down her stomach.
Her hand was still wet.
Hoshimi was on one knee, his head started to ache violently, his breathing became labored.
[Damn it, I can't let her put distance between the two of us]
He vanished.
A large gash opened up on her chest, blood dripping from the wound, her eyes latched onto the flicker of mana in front of her, sending a single white orb towards him.
He was thrown towards the wall, the broken shards of wood piercing into his skin drawing blood.
He fell to the ground, grabbing onto his stomach, swallowing hard.
"You got lucky by ambushing me, you won't get lucky twi-"
Sarah flew into the wall.
A sonic wave that tore through the corridor, a physical force that vibrated in the bones. The walls cracked.
She slid down the wall, her legs folding beneath her, her hair falling across her face in tangled strands.
The windows in the room shattered outward. Sarah's eardrums bled.
A flash of long pink hair, loose and tangled, amber eyes that fixed on Sarah. Her sleeves swallowing her hands completely, and her feet were bare on the cold floor.
Sarah smirked, wiping the blood from her lips.
"As you humans say, touché."
"Sarah, why did you do this?" Seraphina held her hands up, ready to scream out at any second. "Why are you using Dominic like this!? Tell me! What about the conversation! What about the Oath!?"
Hoshimi raised an eyebrow.
[An Oath? What in the world could she have possibly done?]
"What Oath?" Sarah feigned ignorance. "I don't remember a single thing." She shrugged.
Hoshimi kicked her leg, knocking Sarah off balance and kneeing her in the face. He quickly pulled out his gun, the barrel pressing up against her forehead as he fired in quick succession.
Sarah smiled, healing the injuries on her brain as if it were nothing.
Hoshimi's eyes narrowed.
[That should definitely not be possible, I thought she managed to do that from pure luck but she seems to have no trouble even restoring her brain]
"Little pink girl." Sarah ran her fingers through her hair, her voice was light, almost affectionate. "You really shouldn't have come."
Seraphina's hands trembled. "Answer me, damn it."
Answer you?" Sarah's smile widened. "I gave you what you wanted. That conversation that you two had when you were trapped in your room? I told him that."
"Huh?" Seraphina flinched. "He said.. he said, it was Edward that told him to come to me."
"Edward?" Sarah shrugged. "That boy? He doesn't care, do you really think he cares about Dominic? He cares about you, he wishes that he would be the one to talk to you on the other side of the door, he likes you."
"You're lying!"
Her amber eyes glittered as she waved her hand dismissively. "You should be thanking me, not interrogating me. Be glad that I gave you a chance with Dominic."
"That's not-" Seraphina's voice cracked. "That's not what I asked for."
"Isn't it?" Sarah pushed herself up from the wall, moving slowly, deliberately, her bare feet silent on the blood-slick floor. "You wanted him to see you. To notice you. To love you." She took a step forward. "I made that possible. I opened doors that were closed to you. I gave you a chance."
"A chance?" Seraphina's voice rose. "You manipulated me! You tricked me into signing-"
"A Witch's Oath." Sarah's smile was radiant, terrible, beautiful. "Yes. I did. And you signed it willingly, didn't you? No one forced your hand. No one held a gun to your head." Her eyes flickered to Hoshimi, then back to Seraphina. "You wanted what I offered. You still want it."
Seraphina's hands lowered. Her shoulders slumped.
"Shut up!" she whispered.
The corridor was very quiet.
"But that doesn't mean I'll let you hurt him."
She raised her hands again.
Seraphina inhaled sharply, the ambient mana swirling around her mouth. She unleashed a continuous, high-pitched scream, a localized shockwave.
Sarah's white orbs immediately shot forward, creating a repulsive field that clashed against the sonic wave. The corridor groaned under the immense pressure of the two conflicting forces. The paint peeled off the walls, and the overhead emergency lights shattered, raining sparks down upon them.
Sarah stared up at the ceiling.
"Well I can't see anything anymore."
Hoshimi took the opening. He turned invisible, the mana trail of his movement the only hint of his presence. He snuck behind Sarah, snatching his blade back and driving it into her shoulder.
Sarah's amber eyes flickered backwards, her pupils locking onto the slight waft of mana that shifted in the air.
"It's easier to predict someone smart than an idiot."
She simply rotated her arm in a way that should have snapped her collarbone, grabbing Hoshimi by the throat.
With a flick of her wrist, a massive pulse of kinetic energy erupted from her core, throwing Hoshimi and Seraphina backward in a chaotic tangle of limbs and debris.
Her amber eyes began to glow.
The corridor grew cold.
The emergency lights flickered, dimmed, nearly died. Shadows stretched and twisted, reaching toward the group like hungry things. The air grew heavy, thick with a pressure that pressed against their lungs, their hearts, their very souls.
Hoshimi spat out a clump of blood from his throat.
[It's scalding, it hurts when I swallow, my stomach feels like it's rupturing. But I'd rather have this than whatever is gnawing inside of me, I'd rather have this than the feeling after I got from Audrey's death]
She raised her hand.
The white orb that materialized above her palm was small, no larger than a marble, but the light it cast was blinding, pure, the color of burning magnesium.
Thorns, black and slick with toxic mana, erupted from the floorboards, lashing around her ankles and digging deep into her calves.
Crimson.
Sarah had looked back, her eyes.
Indifferent.
"I guess your mentality is quite strong isn't it? I thought you'd cause more internal turmoil, Edward."
Edward's hands had gripped around her legs, his eyes burning with a seething hatred.
"Shut up."
5 hours until Seraphina's death