Bell stood on his heels, gently taking off their support from him one by one. His ruby eyes remained dull, but his expression softened considerably, lips curving upward.
"Alright, since there are six of us, we should split into groups of two to search in every direction. At least one group is bound to run into Wiene or her tracks."
"I can keep up with Gros' flight speed while sprinting, so I'll take north with him." Lyd dropped a hand to his waist, claws closing around empty air where his scimitar used to be.
"You're coming with me." Alfia nodded at them, then grabbed Laura's tail, dragging her southward by it.
"Hey! Auntie Alfia, I was just joking earlier! Please leave my tail alone!" Trying to wiggle her tail free from Alfia's grip, Laura buried her nails in the ground, raking deep lines across it as she was dragged away.
"Bell! You have to save me, Bell!"
Tapping his jawline with a finger, Bell looked skyward, ignoring her pleading screams with a shrug. You're on your own out there, Miss Laura.
"So, that leaves the two of us, big guy. Want to split east and west, or sweep together from one side to the other?" Bell glanced at Four while grasping his tattered tunic and caved-in breastplate. He peeled both off his chest, set them on the ground, and wiped some dust off them.
"We go together. Come, get on." Bending his knees, Four gestured to his broad shoulder.
"Got it, got it. Just don't shake too much, or I'll fall off." Bell took a step forward, his bare foot landing on Four's forearm. He climbed up to the bicep, then shoulder, finally standing on the Fomoire's frame.
Four rose to his full height, keeping Bell steady on his shoulder, and extended his other arm sideways to pull his club from the ground.
Grabbing a fistful of the Fomoire's fur for support, Bell pointed ahead. "Let's go east first."
Exhaling plumes of steam through his nose, Four surged forward. A mountain of muscle and hooves, club towing behind him, and Bell resting safely on his shoulder.
...
An hour passed. Clouds gathered overhead, obscuring the sky of Orario. Lightning flashed between them, arcing with detonations that illuminated different parts of the city in shifting intervals.
"Ah. M-move." Black claws dug into a mound of debris scattered across a devastated street. Tiles were broken in uneven pieces, windows shattered inward in parallel lines, their shards reflecting light from inside the buildings.
Blood seeped down the tips of her fingers, her claws chipped and cracked at their edges. But she didn't stop parting concrete, dust, and melted bricks with her bare palms, blisters opening across her blue skin.
"D-Don't die."
A drop of water hit the dust with a tap, sinking inward to form a mini-crater. Another followed, then more, and still more.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
It was not the rain.
Wiene's arms moved even faster as she knelt before the mound. Stuck beneath that rubble, her legs pulverized and wings shredded by metal rods piercing through them, was the same Harpy Bell had saved while tearing up to Daedalus' surface.
"Leave me be... J-just run away from here, it's not safe for... you." The Harpy choked out as blood dripped from the corner of her mouth, body cooling with each breath, the pooled blood beneath them fully crusted.
"I—I will save you—" Wiene sniffled and dug even harder, her fingers scraping raw, more tears spilling down her cheeks.
"Who do we have here?" Tiona chortled from a nearby rooftop, Urga slung over her shoulder, looking down with a lazy grin. "Hey! Check this out, the two of them that can actually talk. Crying together, too, and one's trying to save the other."
"Why do you have to shriek, fool?" Tione grumbled from an adjacent rooftop, adjusting her Kukri knives, Zolas in a tighter grip, aimed at Wiene and the Harpy. "We see it too."
"Lasses, quit your squabbling for a moment, we've got something worth looking at here." At some point, Gareth had appeared meters away from the Xenos. His war-axe slammed into the floor, nearly sending Wiene tumbling sideways from its shockwave.
Footsteps followed next, light and controlled. One boot pressed into a layer of dust that refused to stir, still clinging to tiles.
"He's right. If they can think, they can plan. Focus." Finn said, his spear, Fortia, gripped tightly in his hand.
"Winter that does not forgive." A composed chant rang out beside him, and three interlocked magic circles of frost flared to life beneath Riveria.
Lefiya lagged a step behind, glancing between the others and those monsters, hands trembling on her staff.
Ais came last, winds already howling around her as she stepped closer, Snowflake's tip pointed at Wiene with a flat expression.
"Silence that does not end."
Wiene snapped around, rising into a predator's crouch. Her canines flashed at them, claws raking through air in warning as she spread one arm leftward to cover the Harpy behind her.
"Let's just finish it fast, it's a young 'un and a half-dead one." Gareth shook his head, pulling his war-axe free and raising it overhead.
Before they could continue, Wiene's nose twitched, then twitched again, and her eyes went wide, shoulders loosening on their own, posture relaxing.
Her legs started to move toward Ais. "It's Bel! Bel's scent!" She mumbled while spreading her arms wide, eyes locked on Snowflake, body unguarded, her walk breaking into a sprint.
"No! Don't go there!" The Harpy tried to reach out to her, but Wiene didn't listen, her eyes shining like a child finally reuniting with her father.
"Bel! Bel! Be—"
Squelch.
The world slid sideways, colors smearing into shapes that bled into red. Her back slammed against a wall, arcs of blood spraying its brickwork at her sides, dyeing it crimson.
"Oops, my hand slipped. I had even aimed for her head," Tiona said, rubbing her hair sheepishly.
Wiene didn't hear her, head dropping down unconsciously, landing on something sharp, hard and... metallic?
She was impaled on a wall, Urga driven through her stomach, blood cascading down from the wound, nearly splitting her small frame in half.
Her pupils constricted, and the pain finally hit her, raw and unfiltered.
"AHHHHHH!"
"Finish her, Riveria," Finn commanded, rubbing his thumb against his index finger.
Lefiya squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head away. That Harpy struggled against the wreckage surrounding her, to no avail.
"Freeze — Wynn Fimbulvetr!"
Those magic circles beneath Riveria blazed brighter, frost creeping from them to Wiene, climbing from her feet, freezing her body and cascading her blood in a waterfall of ice.
"It hurtts! It hurts!!" She thrashed, but her legs had already frozen.
"Bell!"
The winds around Ais faltered. Did she just say... Bell?
More tears spilled down Wiene's face, cracks surfacing across the crimson gem on her forehead.
"SAVE ME! IT HURTS!"
A single tear flew through the air, falling, still falling.
"BELL!"
A line of red split the street in two. Scorching winds, burning tiles, and superheated dust chased behind it, but it had already reached the horizon while they barely moved. Before that single tear could touch the ground, it evaporated into vapor, alongside every inch of frost encasing Wiene.
"Riveria, duck!" Finn dove, shoving Nine Hells aside. Gareth twisted on his heels, hurling his war-axe that way.
Tione and Tiona never had a chance to move. The rooftops beneath them tore free of their foundations and detonated outward, hurling both through multiple buildings behind.
Ais could barely react in time, hauling Lefiya off her feet and bursting away with her.
A mist of vapor and steam spread through the area, reducing visibility for a moment, maybe two.
But Bell was there, crouching beside Wiene, one finger pressing on her forehead, other palm resting on Urga's hilt.
Wiene's nose twitched, and through blurry vision darkening at the edges, she saw white hair.
"B-Bell?"
He bent lower, the finger on her forehead dipping down to swipe a tear from her cheek.
"Easy... Sleep now. Everything will be alright when you wake up."
"Y-you promise?" she mumbled with her last ounce of strength.
"... I promise," his voice was a whisper.
"Hehehe~ Bell. My favorite human..."
Her head slumped forward, eyes drifting closed.
Bell remained like that for a breath. Two. Long enough that the only sound left was Wiene's pulse, faint and slowing.
Then his fingers closed around Urga.
The blade groaned first, metal complaining before it gave, deep fingerprints sinking into its hilt as his grip alone bent it out of shape. He didn't look at it. Didn't look at his own hand doing it.
He wrenched it free.
Cold blood erupted from her wound, splattering across his bare torso, and a golden petal drifted loose from between his brows, sinking into her crimson gem before the last drop had even landed.
The cracks across the gem vanished, and her torso wound no longer bled, skin there trying to stitch back together at a slow speed.
A gust of wind howled through the surroundings, sweeping vapour aside to reveal where Wiene was impaled an instant ago.
"There is only Urga there," Lefiya muttered after glancing that way. But Finn, Riveria, Gareth, and Ais all had their eyes locked toward the edge of the street.
Bell was there, his back to them. Two Falna visible on his skin, scales with burning flames etched within them. He had the Harpy slung over one shoulder, an arm looped around her waist, her wounds closing visibly to a naked eye.
Wiene was cradled in his other arm, her hair lifting in a wayward wind.
A Fomoire monster stood ahead of Bell, facing them. His eyes were red, veins bulging across his neck, fingers denting into his club.
"Why are you standing between us, Bell!?" Four roared. "I'll tear them all apart! Every single one of them for touching Wiene!"
"I'll rampage until nothing is left of the surf—"
BAM
"Haack—" Spit flew from Four's mouth, his legs buckling and hitting the ground, Bell's knee buried into his abdomen.
Four and Bell came eye to eye. And the Fomoire's body froze.
Bell's eyes were hooded by stray hair that had loosened from his man-bun at some point.
"Do you want your people to mourn for your death later?"
Those words snapped Four back, like a bucket of ice water poured over his head, and the red receded halfway from his eyes.
"B-but then, what should we do?" the Xenos asked, rising once again to his full height with his club's support.
Gently taking both the Harpy and Wiene off his hold, he offered them to him. "Take them, go to others and tell them to rush back down the surface before every adventurer comes after your people."
Four examined him, then the limp Wiene and Harpy. "...What about you?"
"I'll stay. I have a promise to keep."
"I'll stay too," Four insisted.
"Do you want them to die?" Bell asked while gesturing toward the other Xenos with his chin. "If you take them to a safe place, they would heal in time, if you stayed, they'll likely die in the aftermath."
Four went silent for a long second. The red in his eyes had vanished entirely by now, and finally, he threw his club aside, closing both hands around the injured.
Before turning to surge away, the Fomoire said one last thing.
"I'll remember you, Bell Cranel."
Bell was already walking toward the Loki Familia. A drop of water fell from sky, landing on his blood-covered chest, tracing a path down to reveal human skin underneath.
"...Yeah. Take care of them for me."
Clouds rumbled overhead, thunder erupting in bursts that rattled windows of houses on the other edge of Orario. Babel stood behind him, piercing through clouds and thunder alike, drops of rain cascading along its surface like an oncoming tsunami.
His hair covered his eyes. The world remained monochrome. Ash still refused to flake away.
Bell continued on.
Not stopping. Never stopping.
...
..
.
[Author's Thoughts]
So, how should we go about it? Asura Soul Reaping? Instinct? To be honest I've already decided. We're about to go the wheel way, so yes, it'll be a fight with the wheel as the focus. Stay tuned, its about to get dangerous soon.
Anyway, have a wonderful weekend, everyone!