Daruis didn't hear it, didn't see it, but the instinct that had kept him alive long enough to reach this point reacted before his thoughts could catch up.
He turned just as she appeared again, her form resolving beside him as if she had always been there, the faint glow of a talisman dimming at her wrist. There was no pursuit in her movement, no sense of having crossed space.
She had simply corrected her position, placing herself exactly where she needed to be.
'Fuck, that stupid tailsman is helping her anchor herself to me like I'm prey, she's fuckin cheating' Daruis thought in frustration.
Tailsmans where often used in this world, he had also contemplated buying certain tailsman using his accumulated riches, especially any tailsman that would make him safe from attacks or even mask his base of operations from prying eyes, in fact he was going to buy them right after this.
Her dagger moved immediately, not with speed that could be tracked, but with certainty that did not require it. The strike followed a clean, direct line toward his throat, efficient in a way that made it impossible to counter through reaction alone.
The droids intercepted. Two units moved without hesitation, stepping into the path of the strike just enough to force deviation, plasma blades igniting in tight arcs that disrupted her angle at the last possible moment.
The attack shifted, not by much, but enough to change the outcome. The blade didn't take his throat.
It tore through his abdomen. The sensation arrived in fragments. First the impact, a deep, unnatural pressure that his body refused to interpret correctly, then the sudden warmth spreading too quickly, followed by the delayed realization that something fundamental had been opened in a way that could not be ignored.
His breath failed him mid-motion, his balance collapsing as his body struggled to process the damage.
When he looked down, the confirmation was immediate and absolute. Blood soaked through his clothing in heavy, uneven patterns, and beneath it, structure had given way in a manner that made recovery impossible without intervention.
The pain followed then, not sharp, not contained, but overwhelming in its scale, pressing inward until it drowned out everything else.
He would have fallen if the droids had allowed it.
Two of them caught him before his knees hit the ground, stabilizing his weight as the others shifted around them, forming a moving barrier that forced the assassin to adjust her approach.
She didn't hesitate, didn't pause to reassess in any visible way. Her movements adapted instantly, abandoning the clean efficiency of the first strike in favor of relentless pressure.
Daruis felt fear then, not as a distant awareness but as something immediate and suffocating. If she reached him again, there would be no interruption, no second chance for the droids to shift the outcome.
The next strike would end it.
The units carrying him didn't slow. They moved with purpose, pushing forward through the open street toward the estate district, their pace unrelenting despite the damage he carried.
Blood marked their path in a continuous trail, each step pulling more from him than he could afford to lose. The distance between them and the assassin did not widen. It fluctuated, tightening whenever she broke through their interference, stretching only when they forced her to adjust.
He forced his focus inward, dragging it away from the pain long enough to access the system. The interface flickered into place, unstable but responsive, and he reached for the first option without hesitation. The smoke capsule appeared in his hand just as the droids veered into a narrow alley, the sudden change in direction cutting their line from the main road.
He triggered it immediately. The alley filled with dense smoke in seconds, visibility collapsing into a shifting wall that obscured movement entirely.
The droids adjusted without slowing, navigating through the confined space with mechanical precision.
Above them, the assassins adapted, taking to the rooftops where the smoke mattered less, where their vantage allowed them to track movement through displacement rather than sight.
Daruis didn't rely on the smoke alone. He pulled the decoy device next, activating it without finesse, sending a false signal splitting off from their path and moving in a different direction with just enough consistency to draw attention.
The deception held for a moment, not fully convincing, but enough to create hesitation.
That hesitation was all he needed.
The blink anchor came last. He forced the activation through the haze of pain, his focus narrowing to a single point of intent. The device responded instantly, locking onto a prepared location within his network and collapsing the space between.
The transition was absolute.
One moment the alley surrounded him, the next he was inside the estate, the environment shifting without warning as the droids compensated mid-motion. Stone replaced open air, enclosed walls cutting off the outside world as they carried him deeper into the structure.
The room they entered was reinforced, its purpose clear in its design, with a large tunnel extending beyond it into darkness.
Only when they stopped did the full weight of his condition settle in.
The movement had been holding him together, forcing his body to keep functioning despite the damage. Without it, the injury asserted itself completely, his strength draining rapidly as the bleeding continued beneath the cloth that did little to contain it. His breathing became uneven, each inhale shallow, each exhale carrying less certainty than the last.
He didn't waste time thinking about what had gone wrong. That analysis could come later, if there was a later.
For now, survival demanded a single action.
He reached for the system again, forcing it to respond through the narrowing clarity of his mind, and selected the only option that mattered.
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