Nyx pressed space and shoved Luna sideways.
The blade carved through her side instead, and Nyx hit the arena floor with blood spreading beneath her.
"No! Why?! I have the shield card on me, I would’ve survived!" Luna cried out in alarm, watching Nyx crumple with blood sheeting from the wound in her side.
Nyx smiled at her, coughing up blood. "The next hit, yes. But what about the second? A thing like that could land a dozen killing blows a second after it gets you..."
"FUCK!" Luna’s scream tore through the arena, anger so raw it cracked her voice.
The Stalker lunged.
...
On the last pane, Scarlet’s arena was on fire.
The Flame Monarch had been building pressure since breaking free from Ensnare, and everything she’d held back was pouring out at once. The arena floor was molten in a widening circle around her, heat warping the air so badly the viewing pane couldn’t render a steady image.
The Shade stood at the edge of the inferno in a column of dark vapor that refused to burn, phasing through every wave of fire Scarlet threw and striking back with dark tendrils that carved cold lines across her forearms before she could redirect the blaze.
Neither was winning and neither was close to done, but the Shade was locked in that arena, and that was one fewer piece racing for the board.
...
Aria’s crescent hit the Stalker in the skull before the blade reached Luna, moonlight splitting the creature’s guard and staggering it backward.
[Card Played: Second Wind. Target: Luna.]
Warmth flooded through the bond and sealed the gash across Luna’s side and the cuts along her arms, and the gremlin caught herself with lightning crackling so bright it whited out the feed for a full second.
"You’re dead."
Kaiden felt Nyx’s bond thin to almost nothing in his chest, the spatial pressure she’d been carrying reduced to a feeble trickle, and he poured what she could no longer hold into Luna and Aria. The drain behind his sternum screamed as the warmth meant for three flooded through two, but on the pane Luna’s lightning blazed so bright the arena walls turned white and Aria’s moonlight condensed far heavier than before.
Luna hit the Stalker at full Swiftness with Lust Stance burning through every muscle, and the Stormblade carved through the guard the creature had spent every exchange perfecting because the angles were wrong now. Nyx’s sacrifice had broken the positioning it built its predictions on, and the creature’s pound eyes tracked Luna to where she should have been instead of where she was.
Aria hammered it from behind with Piercing stripping the armor from the equation, her crescents punching through chitin and muscle while blood ran freely from the wound across her stomach, moonlight so dense each impact cratered the arena floor beneath the creature’s feet. The Stalker staggered forward into Luna’s next strike, caught between the two of them with no pattern to read and no guard left to hold.
Luna drove her Stormblade through its chest while Aria’s crescents tore into its back, lightning and moonlight meeting somewhere inside the creature and turning it into a ruin. Its last strike lashed out as it fell, catching Aria across the shoulder hard enough to send her spinning with blood sheeting from torn robes, but Luna’s Stormblade was already through its skull.
[Clash Resolved. Victors: Luna, Aria, Nyx.]
Three cards, Lust Stance at full burn, two women battered and one bleeding out on the arena floor, and the thing had still almost won.
Luna materialized at A4 with blood on her Stormblade and both hands raw from fighting, the gash on her side sealed by Second Wind but every other cut still open. Aria appeared at B5, one arm pressed against her shoulder while blood from the stomach wound soaked through her torn robes. Nyx appeared at C4 and sat down on the board without a word, one hand pressed to the wound in her side.
Every enemy piece was locked in an arena or eliminated, and column A stretched ahead of Luna, clear and open from Row 4 to Row 1. Three squares to the finish line.
But on the viewing panes, Alice’s light was dimming against the Obsidian and Calypso’s Ironblood was fading fast. The moment either fight ended, the winner would return to the board, and the Kaiju’s finish line at Row 6 was the same three squares away from where its pieces had entered their arenas.
Same distance. Same number of turns. The only thing that would decide the race was who returned to the board first.
[Luna advances to A3.]
The Kaiju roared. Six burning eyes swept the grid and found the small purple-haired figure sprinting up the lane it had never thought to guard, and the sound that tore from its chest was raw panic. Its claws raked the ground behind its board, gouging furrows into the surface, but every champion it had was locked behind arena walls with no piece to move and no card that could stop her.
On the viewing pane, Alice planted her feet and stopped retreating.
She could feel through their Conduit bond exactly how thin Kaiden was stretched, warmth pouring through lovers she wasn’t one of, and she understood why none of it was ing to her. She didn’t need his warmth to fight. She needed it to win, and she wasn’t going to win this one, so she stopped trying and started trying to last.
Every beam after that targeted the same fracture running down the Obsidian’s chest. She hit it in rapid succession, concentrated light so bright the viewing pane whited out with each impact, and the carapace cracked open with magma pouring from the wound in a steaming torrent. The creature screamed, a sound that rattled the arena walls, and for one full second it stopped advancing because the pain was real.
Alice hit it again while it screamed.
The Obsidian broke into a full sprint, every limb driving it forward, and its forelimb caught her across the ribs and put her through the wall, stone crumbling where she struck. She hit the ground spitting blood and fired point-blank into the chest wound before the dust settled, and the beam drove deep enough that the creature’s whole torso buckled inward.
It hit her again. She went down, came up firing.
Went down again, came up firing.
She sprinted along the arena walls with golden light flickering at her fingertips, firing over her shoulder to keep the Obsidian chasing, taking glancing hits that spun her sideways and sent her skidding across stone, getting up each time because every second counted.
Her light guttered. The beams weren’t cracking the carapace anymore, scattering against volcanic glass without breaking through, and the creature caught her for real with a forelimb that drove her into the arena wall hard enough to shatter the stone behind her.
"Kai..."
She appeared at Kaiden’s side with blazing eyes, and before Alexandra could speak she was already climbing into his lap.
"Headpats." She pressed her face against his chest. "Now."
His hand found the top of her head while his eyes stayed on the board, because she was whole and unmarked. Alexandra’s light found her on instinct and did nothing, for there was nothing to heal.
The weight that lifted from Kaiden’s chest when he understood that elimination didn’t mean death - truly understood it, not as game logic but as fact - was so enormous he hadn’t known he was carrying it until the moment it left.
’They don’t die.’
[Champion 4 (Obsidian) returns to E3. Claimant Turn: Obsidian advances to E4.]
The weight came crashing back.
The Obsidian lurched onto the board with volcanic carapace still cracked from the fractures Alice had carved into it, and it was already moving. E3 to E4 in a single grinding stride, magma bleeding through wounds that hadn’t had time to seal, every limb carrying it toward Row 6 with the blind urgency of a creature that understood the race even if its brain couldn’t name it.
Two squares from the Kaiju’s finish line.
"I’m sorry." It came out rough, aimed at Alice, at Calypso’s pane, at every girl who’d bled for this.
Alice’s hands lifted, and, to Kaiden’s shock, began to give him headpats. "You did what we asked you to do. Stop beating yourself up over it."
[Luna advances to A2. Obsidian advances to E5.]
One square left for Luna.
One square left for the Obsidian.
Defender moves first.
On the second pane, Calypso’s Ironblood finally gave out. She’d spent every second it bought her swinging, the Ravager’s thorax split in three places from Carnage, but the creature’s buffed forelimbs had carved matching wounds across her body. The insectoid caught her clean across the chest, and the demoness went down with her axe still mid-arc.
She materialized at Kaiden’s side, frustrated. "Damn. I wanted to last longer."
"You have nothing to apologize for." Calypso, understanding his thoughts without hearing him say them out loud, dropped her axe against the chair and wrapped both arms around Kaiden from behind, her chest pressing flat against his head and landing squarely on Alice’s hands.
Alice’s eyes snapped open and a kitten-like hiss left her lips.
Calypso grinned down at her and winked. "We have a second kitty at home I see." She did not move.
Alexandra’s light found Calypso the same way it had found Alice, and did nothing, for she was already whole.
[Champion 3 (Ravager) returns to D3.]
Two enemy pieces on the board now, both facing Row 6, and the Obsidian was one square from winning.
But Luna was at A2, and the Defender moved first.
[Luna advances to A1.]
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