R. A. T. H

Sixty-One

Rose took a knee. Not due to respect for the fallen male, but a mixture of pain and mental tiredness. She felt drained as she allowed herself to reach the ground. Her sword disappeared and she held the remaining mana orb with both hands as she fully focused on healing, blocking out the world.

The mechanical outer shell of a mecha opened as Elsa Mont jumped out, feet stumbling onto the ground. Her vision shook momentarily before she quickly ran to Rose's side and crouched down before her.

She furrowed her brows and looked at the state of her friend. Everything was beginning to look more shapely but, well, there was the burnt right hand.

". . .are you alright?" She asked.

Rose took in a breath and opened her emerald eyes. For a moment, she took in that there was still fighting around them—though both side's soldiers left them alone. She smiled.

"I'm fine. My body's 80% healed."

Elsa rolled her eyes and sat besides her.

"You don't look fine. Your arm is still burnt as all heck. How long have you been fighting, anyway?"

Rose opened her lips.

Then paused.

"I've always been fighting," She said as energy rushed into her through the mana lines at her fingertips.

It suddenly occurred to her that she had always been fighting. Of course, there had been moments of quiet somberness as she enjoyed the world, but, since she had awoken anew, the pressure to reach Alos had mounted and kept her trekking. No matter what, that instinctual need had weighed her down.

It didn't feel right. It felt like her base existence was to fight.

Elsa narrowed her eyes and turned to her, looking down at the girl who was a head shorter than herself. "You need to rest."

"I will. When we enter Alos."

"You—ugh."

At that time, just when Elsa was close to an outburst, a slowly healing tail flapped as a dragonian stepped before them.

"Samuel has moved to end the war," Lilias spoke as she gripped her blades; which had returned back to their normal forms. Her crimson eyes looked around them. The crumbling shacks. And the scattering of soldiers still unaware of how everything had largely already ended. "I will go pick off the rest."

Rose watched as the girl left immediately after her words. The battlefield renewed with twirling twin-swords.

Elsa sat besides her. Grimacing slightly at the massacre around them. Lilias was slicing through Walker's men like butter. On that note, however, she spoke and eyed the man in the distance whose figure shook as a laser beam was maintained in front of him.

It was a rather sad, sorry, sight.

"You're not going to talk to him?" She asked, "Walker, I mean."

"No," Rose replied, her focus on checking the current state of her functionality. "I have no reason to speak to him. This was merely a stepping stone."

— — —

Sweat dripped from his forehead as Paul Walker's hand bled. The blue laser had etched its way until it was deep within. Even as three rings glimmered, nothing he did could stop it. Essentially, he was guaranteed to die.

Anger boiled inside of him as he gazed at the battlefield.

His men were being picked off left and right by the dragonian and his eyes fell upon the body of his son.