The sword fell.
Not with grace. Not with mastery. Just motion—awkward, weighted, almost unwilling.
Lina's body slumped, half-unconscious, spine bent like a snapped branch. The blade dragged through the air at an uneven angle, guided more by gravity than intent.
And still—it struck.
The edge slammed into the Seraph's shoulder joint, not clean, but with enough force to send a shock tremor through its upper frame. The alloy cracked, sparks bursting out like blood from an artery. Its arm jerked sideways—weapon wrenched free, spinning from its grasp and clattering across the fractured stone.
The machine staggered back three steps, off-balance, its internal systems flickering as they scrambled to recalibrate the damage—armor cracked, weapon lost, targeting skewed—but it wasn't down, not finished, just momentarily thrown from rhythm.
Lina collapsed alongside it, not from victory but from sheer exhaustion, her body folding over itself as she slumped to the ground with the sword still clenched tight in her bruised fingers, knuckles bloodless, as if something deeper than consciousness refused to let go.
The blade pulsed once—dimly, almost thoughtfully—like it wasn't sure if it was proud of her, or simply acknowledging the attempt.
But the reprieve was short-lived.
Behind her, silent and unflinching, the second Seraph advanced with mechanical calm, its movements sharp and purposeful, unmarred by the chaos surrounding it. With a soft hiss of pressure, one of the spine segments along its back detached and slid forward with clockwork precision, unfolding into a segmented whip that coiled and flickered with current, its surface crackling as it unspooled like a predator tasting the air.
Lina barely registered the sound—her breath was thin and shallow, each inhale dragging like smoke through broken glass, and her vision was beginning to fray at the edges.
She didn't hear the strike and never saw it coming.
The whip lashed across her back in a single, brutal arc—
A sound like thunder cracked through the square as it landed, and the pain followed immediately, white-hot and violent, splitting skin and fiber and breath in one unrelenting wave that knocked the air from her lungs before she could scream.
She was flung forward by the force of it, her body twisting mid-air like a marionette cut from its strings, blood arcing behind her in a thin, beautiful curve before she struck the stone face-first—hard, unforgiving, brutal.
Her elbows scraped concrete.
Her jaw hit with a sound she didn't register.
And then the world went white, not from light, but from the sheer overload of pain.
Somewhere behind her, the Seraph retracted the whip, tip still sparking.
The first Seraph, still damaged but upright, retrieved its fallen blade and began advancing again—slower now, deliberate.
And the sword—still in her hand, still faintly glowing—waited.
Her vision dissolved into static—white, sharp, endless—and for a moment, she didn't know if her body was still breathing.
The Seraph raised its whip again.
It didn't get the chance to bring it down.
A burst of gunfire tore through the smoke, slamming into the machine's upper chassis. The recoil staggered it sideways, shoulder plating blown open, servos twitching as it twisted toward the new threat.
"Found her," came the low growl through comms—Rei.
"Still breathing."
Another round punched through the first Seraph's leg joint before it could stabilize. It dropped to one knee with a metallic shriek just as a second figure burst into the clearing—silent, lean, a flash of silver and red cutting through debris like it belonged there.
His hair spiked in every direction, sharp and wind-tousled like it hadn't been touched since the last time someone tried and gave up.
Arlen.
He didn't speak.
He just moved—right past Lina's collapsed form, spear already drawn in a tight reverse grip, point leveled at the Seraph still holding the whip.
The Seraph struck anyway.
The whip came down, fast and brutal—
—but met steel halfway, intercepted mid-air as Arlen's spear snapped upward, the impact flaring into sparks. With a fluid pivot, he slid in close and swept the shaft low, striking the Seraph's balance point and driving it back two steps.
"Nice to see they still bleed sparks," Rei muttered, sliding in behind him and dropping into a crouch beside Lina. The overhead glow caught on the smooth curve of his shaved head, gleaming like a polished shell casing in the firelight.
He didn't touch the sword—just stared at it, briefly.
"Hell of a thing," he added, voice lower. "And she's still holding it."
Arlen didn't turn. His stance widened, bracing for another strike.
"She shouldn't be."
"Yeah, well. She is."
Rei scanned her body, breath caught for half a second.
"Whip got her bad, but spine's intact. Lucky."
Then, more to himself:
"Could've been worse."
The Seraphs reoriented again, metal limbs hissing as targeting synced.
Four more units emerged from the fog—detached, silent, unreadable.
Rei's eyes flicked across them.
"Six-on-two. That's new."
Arlen's reply came without a trace of hesitation:
"Doesn't mean we leave her."
Rei smirked, dry and tight.
"Since when do we care about outnumbered?"
He rose, rifle snapping up, aim already tracking.
"Let's even it out."
Gunfire cracked again, sharp and clean, as Rei shifted to cover Arlen's flank, laying down suppression bursts while the spear-wielder kept the nearest Seraphs locked in a slow circling rhythm. Sparks lit the air like lightning bugs, metal on metal ringing through the broken square.
Behind them, half-buried beneath cracked stone and ash, Lina didn't stir.
Rei's voice cut into comms—quick, clipped:
"Elya, we've got her. She's bad. Whip strike to the back, partial neural feedback, blood loss heavy."
A breath of static. Then a gentle voice:
"Moving to your position. Keep her breathing."
And from the far edge of the ruins, a pale silhouette emerged—not running, but moving with steady urgency. Light armor swept with a medical insignia, a small field rig strapped to her waist, fingertips already glowing faint blue as she navigated the debris with calm precision.
Elya.
She dropped to Lina's side in seconds, already sliding her satchel open.
"Hold still," she murmured, though Lina couldn't hear her. "You're going to be okay. We're here now."
Her fingers hovered just above the wound—a faint, glowing web extending from her gloves and pulsing as it scanned through torn fabric, blood, and skin. The whip mark stretched across Lina's back, deep and ragged, still burning faintly with residual current.
Elya's face tightened.
"Electric trauma. Some tissue necrosis. We need a field flush."
She didn't wait for an agreement.
With smooth precision, she prepped the injector, slid the stabilizer under Lina's spine, and triggered the delivery—there was a soft hiss, a twitch of breath, and the involuntary muscle spasms began to slow.
Then, as she reached to brace Lina's arm, her gaze caught on something else.
Her hand—still clutching the sword—was changing.
Elya froze for half a second.
The fingers weren't fully human anymore.
The skin at the knuckles had split open, not from injury but from restructuring—thread-thin circuits webbed just beneath the surface, glowing faintly silver beneath streaks of blood. The joints flexed slightly, twitching in rhythm with the blade's pulse.
She leaned in closer, breath held, fingers trembling just slightly above the altered limb.
"Oh no," she whispered.
"Not just interface response. It's… rewriting her."
The sword pulsed again. As if it heard her.
Elya's jaw tightened. But she didn't have time to worry about that now. The bleeding came first. The damage was still real.
Gently, she curled her fingers over Lina's—steady, careful—guiding them back from the hilt one by one. The sword gave the faintest resistance, but Lina's grip loosened as her body sagged further into the ground, tension draining from her muscles like the fight had finally left her.
For the first time, she felt safe enough to let go.
From the pouch at her side, she drew a small injector tube and slotted in a vial of stabilizing agent, then braced Lina's shoulder and pressed it beneath her spine—a hiss, a sharp exhale, and the worst of the twitching stopped.
Over comms, Rei shouted—
"How long?"
Elya didn't look up.
"I can stop the bleeding and stabilize her for now. But this isn't a fix—she'll need full treatment back at base. We move as soon as she's transportable."
Rei swore under his breath, ducking behind cover to slap a fresh mag into his rifle.
"Sixty seconds is still a fucking lifetime out here."
Arlen's voice came through, quieter—measured.
"Then we buy her that lifetime. Hold the line until she's clear."
Elya didn't waste time.
She pressed her palm against Lina's temple, eyes locked on the fractured vitals flickering across her HUD. Her other hand moved fast, sealing the worst of the open wound with a thin layer of synth-mesh, threading biofoam beneath torn muscle to slow the internal bleeding.
Her voice dropped to a whisper, more to Lina than anyone else.
"You did good. Just a little longer. We'll get you out of here."
Heat threaded through Lina's body like smoke—slow, cloying, impossible to breathe through. Every breath felt distant, like it belonged to someone else. Her limbs wouldn't move, her chest rose only slightly, and something inside her pulsed with a rhythm that didn't match her own.
She was burning. Or maybe freezing. She couldn't tell anymore.
Voices came and went.
Not loud. Not clear.
Just fragments.
Someone barked an order. Someone else answered in fewer words. The sound of boots shifting against concrete. A gun being checked. Metal clinked against metal. Familiar and strange, like echoes from a different room in a dream she couldn't wake from.
But through all of it, there was one presence she could hold onto.
A pair of hands, cool and steady, moved lightly across her skin—never harsh, never hurried. They carried the scent of clean bandages and burned ozone, and wherever they touched, the pain seemed to settle just a little.
A voice followed. Soft. Measured.
"Still warm. But stable. You're holding on."
It was the only voice that didn't fade into the blur.
Lina blinked—just once, barely.
And through the haze, she caught the shape of a girl with white hair, tied loosely back, strands falling gently across a pale face. Her eyes—she couldn't tell what color they were—were calm in a way that made Lina's pulse slow just by looking at them.
The girl smiled, tired but real.
"You're safe. For now."
Lina wanted to say something. To ask who she was. Where they were. What had happened.
But her mouth didn't work.
Her thoughts slid sideways.
And sleep pulled her back down—soft, slow, inevitable.