Desperation
“Fuck! Scatter!” Dozai roared, voice raw.
Too late.
Galvara snapped forward, faster than the fog could follow. Dozai caught the first hit, flaming wire slicing across his shoulder. The heat ripped through flesh and muscle, spinning him sideways like a ragdoll. He slammed into the dirt, the impact knocking breath and sound from his lungs.
White-hot agony seared down his arm. He clawed at the ground, trying to push himself up, but his body wouldn’t listen. His vision blurred, ears ringing with the hiss of molten wire.
“Dozai!” Nobu’s voice cut through the chaos, panicked, breaking.
He lifted his head just in time to see Galvara’s shadow crash into Kenny. Her gauntlet slammed across his chest, the impact detonating with a brutal thud, air bursting from his lungs. Kenny spat blood, eyes flaring wide as pain seized him, before his body buckled and he dropped hard into the haze, coughing, barely conscious.
"Fuck! Kenny!" Nobu tried to reach him, but Galvara’s whip lashed sideways, catching his leg, hurling him across the pit, body spinning, a scream tearing loose before it was cut short—
CLANG.
His back slammed into a jutting metal pipe with a sickening ring. The impact snapped the air from his lungs and his head cracked against the iron as he dropped boneless to the floor.
Roi flung her last knife, a final, desperate shot, teeth bared. Galvara swatted it aside with her trembling fist before driving her knee into Roi’s ribs. The hit landed with a dull, jarring crack, breath tearing from Roi’s throat. She crashed into the wall, unconscious.
Dozai saw everything. Every jolt. Every choked-off cry.
Their pain branded itself behind his eyes as he fought to get up, his wounded arm screaming, but refusing to stay down.
Galvara’s body convulsed with each strike, tears streaking down her cheeks. Her voice cracked, spilling from her lips in broken mutters, half-sobs, half-snarls.
“I won’t lose—! I can’t lose—! For Delnora—don’t look at me like that—I’m sorry, I’m sorry—please!”
Her words bled into screams, her fists a frantic, piston-driven blur, each attack less an act of violence and more a seizure of despair.
“Come on… Come on!!” He forced one hand against the ground, blood dripping from his lips as he tried to rise again. His whole body shook, the weight of helplessness crushing harder than the pain.
But then, Rei appeared in front of her.
Alone.
She looked half-broken, limping, blood trailing down her jaw, from her leg and arm. Her stance was shaky. Not defensive.
Wide open.
Galvara on instinct alone, raised her gauntlet high. Heat surged, ready to turn Rei into ash.
Rei didn’t flinch. Didn’t run. Tears blurred her vision, but she didn't blink.
And she reached for Galvara. Not with a weapon.
With an empty hand.
Steady.
“Please,” she said.
One word. One breath.
And Galvara… couldn’t help but hesitate again.
For a heartbeat, Galvara wasn't in the arena.
She was small again, screaming, her hands burning from her Manaburst Awakening.
An unbearable heat.
And through the heat, a hand. Pale fingers reaching through the flames.
Delnora's.
It was only a second of hesitation.
But from behind, Dozai swung a cracked steam pipe into the back of Galvara's skull. The metal connected with a wet crunch. She choked, a wet, animal noise, and for a sliver of a second the fight stuttered.
He dropped the pipe and fumbled the rusted knife from his back pocket. With a single, shaking motion he stabbed it blindly into the seams between plates at her back. The plates shuddered; the gauntlet tried to flare, to lash, but he shoved gritty sand into her eyes as he pushed her down to the ground.
“Rei! We need—” he breathed.
Rei was already moving too, hands frantic as she turned over fistfuls of rubble. She rammed stones, chunks of hot metal, anything she could wedge between the spinning halos to slow them.
Dozai’s drove his weight over Galvara’s arms.
She fought like a thing half-unmade, hot skin burning his forearms, muscles knotting against his grip. His palms sizzled; the flesh under his fingers blistered but he forced himself to ignore it, to push pain into the background and keep pressure steady.
Every time she bucked, his arms trembled with the effort.
Dozai tasted copper and ash. He’d been holding too long; numb spots crept up his arms. The halo plates still whirled, faster, then slower, an uneven, dying machine. The Maho was losing song; the heat was cooling, but she kept pushing, refusing to yield.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
Dammit! I can’t hold her forever.
The thought punched through like a fist. He needed one more set of hands. One more weight.
He scanned blindly through the steam. Through the ash. Roi and Nobu were slumped against the far wall, pale and still.
And Kenny—somehow, Kenny—was crouched over them, hands on their chests. Checking for a pulse.
Dozai’s heart turned to stone.
No. Please don’t tell me…
“K-KENNY!” Dozai rasped.
Kenny turned, eyes were sunken, the whites rimmed red. He was hanging by a thread like every breath cost him.
“T-They’re still breathing!”
A single, shuddering breath of relief escaped Dozai.
Too calm. Too steady.
His grip slackened the slightest bit.
Galvara seized her chance immediately.
Her right arm jolted wide, a whip-crack of motion tearing against his weakened hold. Dozai’s focus snapped back too late.
Her fist came whipping back around in a brutal, desperate backhand and Dozai's Maho ignited instantly.
The world froze, stretched, and shattered into a thousand sharp pieces. Her arm dragged through the air frame by agonizing frame. He saw the micro-tear in her sleeve, the desperate bulge of tendon in her forearm, the exact, lethal angle her knuckles would take as they carved toward his temple.
His body reacted on instinct.
He was already wrenching his head back, muscles screaming, to pull his temple off the line of the blow—even as his mind remained trapped, forced to watch the impact with crystal, horrifying clarity.
The molten gauntlet scraped across his brow and eye socket. The pain was instant, a white-hot brand scoring his skin.
But his violent backward movement slammed his skull into Rei’s jaw. Her head snapped sideways with a wet, awful sound. The rubble she’d been clutching for the plates spilled from fingers.
THUD.
“SHIT! REI?! REI!” Dozai’s voice tore out of him as time crashed back into full speed.
“GOD DAMMIT!” The roar ripped from the depths of his chest, aimed at Galvara, at the arena, at himself.
Galvara's eyes, still blinded by sand, streamed with tears that cut tracks through the grime on her cheeks.
The halo-plates behind her shattered with a sound like breaking teeth. The gauntlet disintegrated, falling from her arm in dull, lifeless chunks that rang against the stone.
And yet she thrashed. Teeth gritted like a wounded-animal sob choking in her throat, her body moving on the last dregs of a shattered will.
Even stripped of heat and strength, Galvara refused to stop.
Come on. Think. Think!
He looked around again. Desperately trying to find an answer.
“R-Rei? Are you okay?! Did you get knocked out?!”
No answer. Just subtle breathing and a low groan as Rei stayed collapsed on the ground.
To his right, Nobu and Roi were out cold. Kenny was dragging himself over, each movement a monument to agony. He was too slow, too slow.
Dozai didn’t even know if Kenny would make it here.
Finally, Dozai’s head snapped up. The noise of the crowd crashed back in, cheers, jeers, the pounding of fists on railings. He’d been so focused on survival the world had shrunk to just this fight.
Now it all flooded back.
But it didn’t matter, as he looked around he finally made eye contact with the one who set this all up.
Master Hellick.
She perched above in that cold calm, chin propped on a hand. She watched like someone inspecting a wound. Her smile was small and patient.
Rage, pure and hot, flooded Dozai's veins. She was watching them bleed and break like it was a play. He gritted his teeth, a vein throbbing at his temple.
“WHAT DOES RESTRAIN OR SUBDUE EVEN MEAN?!” He barked up, voice raw and shredded from this whole battle. “IF I PIN HER LIKE THIS FOR TEN SECONDS—DOES THAT COUNT?!”
Galvara continued to struggled and so did Dozai as the crowd turned their attention to Master Hellick.
Hellick let her fingers tap her chin, eyes pretending to weigh his question. Dozai felt time stretch out—each second a hot coal pressing into his ribs. He could feel Galvara’s chest beat under his forearm, frantic and slippery.
Dozai continued to bite down in anger. “TELL M— “
“Ah.” Hellick finally said, slow and deliberate. “Yes. That will suffice. Times ticking, dreamer.” Her smile widened just a hair, as she leaned forward.
Dozai didn’t think. Couldn’t.
His world had shrunk again to heat and muscle, hands searing as he crushed them tighter around Galvara’s arms. The jagged rail dug into her shoulders as he forced his weight down, every nerve in his body screaming. His palms slid on blood. Hers, his, he couldn’t even tell anymore, but he refused to let go.
She bucked beneath him, hips jerking, arms thrashing. The raw strength in her body was terrifying. Every time she twisted, Dozai felt himself losing to her.
Her elbow slipping through his grip, her shoulder wrenching sideways.
The sound was everywhere, the wet slap of sweat and blood, the hiss of her burning skin against his own. Every time she surged, the impact rattled his bones.
His jaw ached from clenching so hard. His arms trembled like bowstrings ready to snap.
Galvara’s face was a blur beneath him, streaked with soot, sand, and tears. She was sobbing as much as snarling, breath hitching through her teeth. “I wont stop… I refuse to give up!”
Dozai pressed harder, voice breaking into a roar. “Just fucking stay down!”
But she was stronger.
Gods, she was stronger.
His whole body was just willpower holding back an avalanche.
They locked again, her arms pinned under his grip, both of them screaming into each other’s faces, his from strain, hers from something deeper, desperate.
“HOW LONG?!” Dozai bellowed. He didn’t dare look up. Didn’t dare blink.
If he lost focus, if he slipped even once, it was finished.
He felt the answer before it came, the chill on his spine, the knife in his gut. Hellick’s voice, calm, almost amused.
“I haven’t started. Every time she slipped free, the count resets.”
Dozai’s stomach dropped. He could hear the smile in her voice.
His teeth ground until his jaw creaked. His whole body trembled with fury.
Resets?! She's slipping free about every three fucking seconds!
It became a rhythm.
Slip.
Hold. One. Two.
Slip.
Hold. One.
Slip.
Hold. One. Two. Three. Four.
Slip.
Hold. One.
Slip.
He looked down at Galvara. She was still fighting, her swings becoming wilder, less targeted, as she fights half-blind.
And for a moment, just a moment, his anger cracked into something else.
His throat tightened.
He wanted to plead. Wanted to beg her to stop.
Because there’d be no way he could pin her down for ten full seconds.
For a split second, his focus fractured and that was when she broke free.
Her arms slipped, a clean surge of strength. Her fist shot up and caught Dozai’s chin with brutal clarity, body not reacting in time despite seeing it. His skull snapped back, white light detonating behind his eyes. His grip shattered, his body reeling.
Shit… it’s over...
The thought cracked through his skull louder than the ringing in his ears. His body wouldn’t move, His jaw burned where she’d caught him and he could feel himself sliding under, vision tunneling into black.
And then.... Movement.
A blur in the haze.
A hand, then forearm clamping around Galvara’s throat.
Turning into a desperate rear naked choke.
The one person who didn’t stop moving.
Kenny.
