Even as the figure loomed towards them, Kurt kept clutching Mila's limp form against him, as if she were a teddy bear and he was a scared child which, right now, felt like a most appropiate comparasion.

  He hadn't even won. And now he and Mila would both die. All because of his weakness.

  Something snapped on Kurt's brain and, for the third time that night, his instinct for violence took over his being. He placed Mila on the soft grass, loving and careful as he could be, and blasted towards the enemy.

  His muscles groaned and his bones creaked when he flared his Od. The technique always took a toll on his body, placing a strain on his limbs and draining his stamina. But it was only when he was wounded that he could actually feel just how much greater this strain was when compared to any regular physical exertion.

  His blood felt hot within his veins, as if the vital fluid had been replaced with napalm. Each and every one of his muscle fibers felt like the string of a poorly tuned guitar, each one stretched to its limit and ready to snap. And his bones, already so battered by his previous clashing with the wyldfae? He felt them being ground to dust, and the pain was so real and clear on his mind that he wasn't sure if this was an analogy or a proper assesment of their state.

  His face, however, remained composed, with his eyes squarely on the thing he had to slay. He raised his sword hand, steady despite of the pain, and lunged at the creature's shin, just like the move he had opened this fight with.

  There were quite a few differences with that moment though: First, Kurt was nowhere near the condition he had been in when he fight had started. Second, his enemy wasn't distracted at all. No, he had her whole attention. And third, she had already seen that tactic, been a victim of it, and as little of a warrior as she was, she wasn't dumb. She knew where the attack was directed, and could react in kind.

  All in all. Silver Demon never touched her flesh again. Before he could complete his attack, a giant hand came down on his shoulders, and grabbed him as if he were a toy. She had two fingers pressed against each of his shoulders, with her thumb twining around his waist, forming a sort of harness.

  She squeezed him, hard, and the pain was enough to make Kurt's arms go numb, and for his hand to let go of his sword. Then, she swept him off his feet until his head and hers were at the same height. Kurt could only flail his legs in impotent rage, and scream incoherently at her.

  Ruth began snickering, as if she were a little girl and he was a dying bug that was squirming in a particularly funny way. "Not so tough now, are we?" she said between giggles. Then, she turned to look at Mila. "Hey, Baby Girl, come take a look at your 'dashing knight'!"

  Nothing, just silence. Mila was lying on her side as Kurt had left her-So she wouldn't choke on her blood-, with her back facing them.

  "Mila?" The woman called. Her giggling had stopped, and her tone was serious.

  Still, no response.

  Ruth turned to look at him. "What happened to her?" She asked, her tone changing once again. This time, it was one of anger that took over. Her grip on his body tightened even more, and she pulled her arm back until both their faces were just a couple of feet away. "What the fuck happened to her?! What did you do?!"

  Pain was coursing through every single bone and muscle on Kurt's body, and it was getting worse by the second, in conjuntion with the increasing force the wyldfae was putting on her grip.

  None of this kept him from answering.

  "You happened to her, you dumbass!" He snarled at her, and his tone was so poisonus that he could almost feel the bile pouring from between his lips. Then he realized that a hot liquid really was pouring from his mouth with every exhalation and word he spewed, and that this liquid was not bile.

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  Shit, had one of his ribs pierced a lung?

  "The hell do you mean?" She snarled back, tigtening her grip even more. Kurt was so enraged at her that he barely even noticed.

  "I mean it was you, and all those spirits you shoved up your cunt that caused this! Remember that Mila was connected with every fucking tree around us? Well, what do you think happened when you popped like a ballon, uh?! Where do you think all those spirits went to?!"

  If she was mad at him for his taunting, she hid it well, because her only reaction to his words was to turn her head to Mila, and talking again. "I-I didn't mean for this to happen."

  Kurt scoffed, or maybe just wheezed hatefully, at this comment. "Great fucking consolation. I bet Mila cares a bunch about it!"

  Once again, she ignored his hostiliy. "I can fix this." she said simply. And then she began closing the distance between Mila and them.

  "What are you doing?!" Stammered Kurt, eyes darting between both faes. "Don't you fucking touch her!" Nothing. No response, or even an acknolegment of his words. "I mean it!"

  Ruth knelt on one knee besides Mila, and brought her free hand towards her upper torso. That was when Kurt saw red.

  He directed all the life force he could muster to his arms, every single drop of it, until his head felt light and his arms felt like they had their muscle fibers replaced with wild snakes.

  And then, he flared all of it, and the pain returned the feeling of weight to his head.

  Normally, there where two limits to how much Od he could flare: The amount of Od he actually had, which was rather obvious, and how much pressure his body could take before breaking. Right now, Kurt was ignoring both of those limits with gusto. It was something he had experimented with a year or so ago, trying to surpass the normal limits of his body in short burst, like a magic equivalent of hysterical strength.

  The results had been... painful enough to dissuade him from any further experimenting.

  Right now though? Pain was very damn near the bottom on his list of worries.

  His arms, pecs, and back muscles bulged ever so slightly, just enough that it couldn't be written off a simply flexing, and the flares that came from them were more akin to beams of light than they were to any fire. Cracks began spreading through his purpling nails, and blood was pouring from those cracks in fat droplet's.

  Before unconsciousness, or death, could claim him, he brough both his fist towards one another, each appendage drawing a wide arc through the air as they did so, and right to eiter side side of Ruth's wrist.

  He saw the wyldfae's flesh ripple at the point of contact, and then he saw it explode. The vines and roots and bark that formed the last stretch of her arm blew up in a shower of splinters and sap and pulp. Not that Kurt got to see much detail of this, however, because the force of his blow was great enough to not only detatch his foe's hand, but to send it flying straigt towards the ground.

  He didn't hear his landing on the ground, or the pained screams the wyldfae was bellowing. He did however feel each and every one of the hand's fingers shatter between his back and the forest floor, leaving him to lie in a bed of thorns and splinters. He also remembered seeing a mostly black bar with only about a tenth of its length still a crimson red, and the letters STM besides a number with three digits, two of which were at the right side of a decimal point.

  He slumped his head to one side to look at his right arm, which was so numb he felt he may as well have lost it. Nope, there it was, and when he managed to slump his head to his left, the same thing ocurred with his other limb.

  They were still there. Just not in a ...good condition.

  The long sleeves of his shirt had been partially torn and blown away by the force of his last attack, going from covering everything above the wrist to barely covering the elbows. This just gave him a better view of the ruination that had been brought upon his arms, which had so many patches of purple, bruised skin that one could almost believe that was their natural color, and that it was the few areas that kept their natural bronzed color the ones he should worry about.

  His wrists and elbows seemed to be, if not intact, then at least not shattered beyond repair. His fingers, however, where as much of a mess as he had ever seen: They were,by far, the most bruised part of his arms, their skin closer to black than they were to purple, and they were so twisted that not two fingers were pointing on the same direction.

  That was it. No SP, no strength left on his body, and not a single lick of a chance of getting Mila to safety left.

  He had failed, plain and simple, and that realization was enough to bring tears to his eyes, where even the pain from all his wounds had failed. He heard a dry, mirtless, and almost crazed laugh, and realized it was coming from him.

  "You goddamned lunatic." He heard someone snarl at him. Was it Mila? No, right, she couldn't even talk as she was now.

  His laughing grew louder.

  "Shut the fuck up!" The wyldfae demanded. He felt something coming from beneath the dirt press his back, forcing his boneless body into a standing position it simply couldn't maintain. That wasn't a problem though, because two vines-or were they roots? His vision was too blurry to tell- appeared at either side of his body, and twined around his torso like snakes before growing rigid as steel, keeping him up whether he wanted to be or not.

  They also were pressing his arms against the sides of his body. Hard. Hard enough that his laughter died on his lips, only for a scream-not a roar or a bellowing. He had no dignity left on him for those- of agony. That one died too, though, as soon as his eyes set enough to take the scene before him.

  Ruth, a jagged stump were her right hand had been, kneeling besides Mila. She was using her remaining hand to prop the girl up in a sitting position, which allowed Kurt to better see the blood smeared, pain stricken mess of her face, and that stump of hers, so sharp and wicked looking, hovering over the girl's face.

  "Just take a good look." He heard the wyldfae say, and though she was still looking at the girl she had on her clutches, Kurt knew the words were meant for him.

  And then she brought her sharp, maimed wrist down on Mila's head, and Kurt began screaming anew, the pain off his arms forgotten