"BOYS!"

"GRACE!"

The scream that tore itself from Callum's lips was, perhaps, the most painful thing that Olivia or Alec had ever had the misfortune of hearing. The despair and worry in his tone so thick as to not just fill it, but to practically flow out of him like a newly shattered dam.

However, neither of them had time to think about or worry about the young man's mental state, because the next thing they noticed was what he was doing. Otherwise known as, where he was running. As in towards the store.

"Callum!" The fist in the back of Alec's shirt let go of him so that Olivia could grab hold of her blade with both hands.

A sense of weightlessness overcame the both of them in that exact moment, the moment where the inclining momentum of Olivia's leap and the oppressive weight of gravity met and deadlocked entirely. A brief moment in time where their forward momentum and wind-resistance began to rotate their bodies in three dimensions, flipping and curling them at the world's whim.

Dust, rocks, and shards of wood seemed to almost hover in the air around them as Olivia's mana flared around her. A nebulous bright red energy that made the look in her eyes only appear so much more dangerous as her sword was lifted over her shoulder and her body curled in preparation.

'Releasing a Power Stance from this position is basically impossible, so I just need to compensate with a crap-ton of mana instead. Charge it up…Charge it up…'

The metal of her blade began to take on the slightest hue of her mana, her eyes focused on nothing but Callum and the entrance to the ruined store. He and Glenn had no idea what was inside that building, of what they had faced. They didn't know the danger that they were running towards. Only she and Alec did. And right now, it was their self-proclaimed duty to make sure that not only did they not run face-first into those demented hands of its, but that they all got through this together.

She hoped, quickly, that Callum wouldn't hold too much of a grudge for what she was about to do, but she knew at the end of the day that she would rather have him pissed at her than die or be mutilated, so she could handle it even if he was.

A roar of effort left her as she uncurled her entire body at once, putting as many muscle groups behind her swing as she could. The glow of her blade increased in intensity for one shining moment before all the mana she had been storing up in her blade exited at the exact same time.

A roaring crescent of mana surged out of Olivia's blade, slicing clean through air, dust, and debris alike as if none of them were even there. With a catastrophic bang, it met the street ahead of Callum and detonated, throwing him back and away from the store.

The green-haired young man hit the ground with a small cough; his arms crossed in front of his face, and his expression tensed into something far more worthy of a 'grimace' than anything else. At the same time, Alec and Olivia met the ground and took a few steps to bleed off the last of their momentum.

The dust from their chaotic escape from the store swirled and parted in the winds of Olivia's attack, the street cleared of all particulates once more. The four academy students were finally allowed to see each other without difficulty or restriction. Which also allowed the four of them to see the debris coating the street, some larger chunks having buried themselves into the road with small craters, and some of the sharper pieces having stabbed into the street and opposing buildings like a rain of arrows. The store itself was a mere sham of its once rather luxurious form, the sleek, polished wood of its foundation splintered and caved in, and the shining metal cappings and gilding spotted throughout now dirtied, dented, and in some cases crumpled and shattered entirely.

And both Callum and Glenn were staring at it as if that store held some long-lost fortune that only the two of them seemed to know about.

"…It's not coming out," Alec muttered, eyes narrowed, and blade-tip pointed at the building still.

He wanted to hope that it had decided to leave them alone for now or had been forced to retreat yet again by whatever those golden runes were, but he didn't dare to let his guard down just yet over such a hope.

"I can't see it inside. I think it was forced to retreat again." Olivia replied, a hand held above her eyes to try and shield them from any additional light while squinting in the direction of the store.

She hoped that the creature had had to retreat; that would make this a lot easier for all of them. Hopefully, they'd actually get to pass this trial before it came back, if it came back at all.

"What- What the hell is wrong with you!?" Callum's shout made both Alec and Olivia jolt on the spot, and even Glenn turned to face him with a surprised look, none of them having expected such a vehement response to Olivia's action.

With a grunt that sounded halfway between exerted and pissed off, Callum rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself to his feet. The moment he was up, his head was on a swivel, finding and locking onto Olivia within a few seconds and stalking towards her like a man on a mission. Which, given what they had seen of him in just the few seconds that the four of them had been reunited, both Alec and Olivia could fully believe that he was.

"Me? What is wrong with me?" Olivia huffed, jabbing a thumb at herself in what she regarded as a fairly safe bet, since his gaze was laser-focused on her and no one else, not even Alec.

"Yes! What the hell is wrong with you!? I was just trying to get to Grace!"

"Get to- We're the only four that entered this ritual!" Olivia snapped, glaring heatedly at Callum, which he was all too happy to reciprocate.

"That doesn't matter!"

"Yes, the hell it does!" The Kio girl growled, taking a step towards Callum just as he was stalking towards her still.

"No! It doesn't! Whether it's her or a simulation, I can't just stand by and let her be injured without trying to help." Callum was finally only two footsteps away from Olivia, finally stopping his march forward as he glared down at her.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"Look, I get it. The both of you take your oaths very seriously," Olivia spoke, evidently trying to maintain some measure of composure even if she very obviously wasn't feeling it, "But we all need to pass this step so that you can actually help her in the future! So, I don't care if you watched her trip over and sprain her ankle or if you watched her fall off the castle spire onto an iron spike, pull yourself together! And that goes for you, too!"

Olivia's glare, which by this stage felt even hotter than the flames that surrounded them, snapped onto Glenn with an accusatory finger to boot. Which only got the briefest of flinches before he relaxed once more and rolled his eyes, clearly just as intent on brushing off Olivia's warning as Callum was.

"How could you say something like that? Just because it's…" Callum's fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles went white and his hands began to shake minutely, tremors rocking his arms as he tried his absolute hardest not to do something that he might come to regret, "She may be an illusion, but she could be seriously injured! O-or even bleeding out! How am I meant to ever look her in the eyes knowing that I let any version of her suffer through who-knows-what?"

"Wait a second." The deathly quiet volume of Olivia's voice seemed to make the green-haired boy across from her still, unlike anything she had said or attempted so far, an incomprehensible, instinctive flare of 'danger' lancing through his body as her eyes glowed a soft red in the flickering shadows of her fringe, "She could be? You don't even know?"

"W-well!" Callum stumbled not only over his words but his feet as well, backing up a couple of steps from the pearlescent-haired young woman, only to have her fill in the created distance without so much as missing a beat.

"No! You're acting like a child! Throwing a tantrum! Over something that you don't even know about!?"

"I heard her voice! That's her blood just there!" Callum retorted heatedly, trying to regain some momentum, any momentum, before the younger woman steamrolled over him entirely.

"Heard her- That's- You haven't even seen her!?" The shrill yell seemed to strike something deep and sensitive in the spiky-haired young man, getting a flinch from him.

Behind him, Glenn just snorted in amusement, already seeing that Callum was beginning to lose not only the moral ground he had tried to stand on, but his backbone as well. His will to fight and fire stripped away by each and every word that the two hurled at each other.

Now, while he was busy getting his ass verbally handed to him by the black sheep, he could go into the store, what was left of it, and find Grace. Then he would finally get that green-haired idiot to give up challenging him for his rightful spot, and he wouldn't have to worry about anyone getting in his way-

"And where are you going?" Glenn clicked his tongue as he paused mid-step, turning to look over at the blue-haired annoyance that was Alec Dius.

He should have known that it wouldn't be as easy as just needing to have the spiky-haired moron distracted; he wasn't nearly so lucky. However, at the very least, the black sheep was too busy ripping into Callum to properly pay any attention to Glenn and Alec, so as long as he could get through this quickly, he'd still be fine.

"That's none of your business, Dius." Glenn scoffed, glaring darkly at the teen and scowling when he saw him do the exact same right back at him.

"I think it is when the two of us needed to face that thing a second whole time just to make it to the both of you in time."

"Huh?" Glenn's expression paradoxically twisted and slackened in confusion, his jaw opened ever so slightly, and a single one of his eyebrows raised, "What the hell are you talking about? There's something else here?"

"Yes." Alec huffed, his fingers drumming an anxious pattern on the hilt of his blade as he looked around warily, "I don't know what it is, all I know is that it's not meant to be here. As in, in the ritual. It's…something that broke in. And it seems intent on taking us out."

"So what?" Glenn snorted, grinning sharply at the blue-haired teen.

He had found something to attack, something to get this annoying blue pest away from him so that he could finally beat Royal-Boy and prove that he wasn't worthy of being anywhere near Grace.

"You saw a ghost and now you're shitting yourself?" Glenn mocked, his grin only growing at the darkening of the teen's expression, "Good gods, man. Royal-Boy and I are fighting over something that, even though it shouldn't matter to him, matters to both of us. That girlfriend of yours is losing her shit over all of us splitting up because she finds us ridiculous, which pisses me the hell off, but at least I can understand it. But you? You're losing your shit and turning into this anxious mess over that?"

A dark, nasty cackle left his lips as he turned and took a few steps towards the younger swordsman, the sneer on his face showing exactly what he felt about the teen before him.

"You're trying to act like this big, unflappable bastion, but all you are is a coward, and Gods does this prove it. So how about, little boy, you sit here where it's nice and safe," He mocked in a babying tone, clapping a harsh hand on Alec's shoulder and squeezing with just a bit more force than was necessary, "Stay still so that no one loses sight of you, and wait for me to come back, kay? Maybe I might even try and help you pass this stage once I prove to Royal-Boy exactly where he stands."

If Glenn was surprised, or put off, by the strange lack of reaction from Alec, he most certainly didn't show it. The young man just removed his hand from Alec's shoulder and clapped them together as if dusting them off, his lips stretched into a self-satisfied grin, and a small hum leaving his mouth as he began to walk towards the store once more.

He wasn't sure what exactly it was that the teen had seen to make him so jumpy; usually, he seemed so much more unflappable than that, but Glenn certainly wasn't complaining. Especially when it gave him the perfect-

A black blur launched itself past Glenn faster than he could react, his body only finally beginning to jerk to the side unsteadily by the time it was a few steps past him. The split-second flash of clockwork cogwheels and a tattered, smoking cloak arrived at the forefront of his mind just as the startled yells from both Olivia and Callum rang out through the air around him.

Was that what Alec and Olivia had been fighting, been running from? Did that mean that it was aiming for them? If he timed this properly…

The large, muscled young man turned on the heel of his foot to see how the three of them would react to the cloaked figure, waiting for the exact moment that Callum tried to interfere so that he could make his move and dash towards the store.

Only for the creature to make a dead sprint for Alec, who was too far away for anyone except the teen himself to do anything about. It's strange, malignant tumour of a hand stretched out towards his face while he stood almost perfectly statue-still, staring at the hand growing closer and closer to his face with each passing millisecond.

"Oh. So that's your deal." And in an explosion of glittering golden lights, Alec shattered like he had never been there in the first place, the entity's arm swinging through now empty space and sending it sprawling across the street before it could slow itself to a halt and wobble to its feet.

"What….the hell?"

"ALEC!"

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