Blood struck the ground.

Muzazi roared in pain as he pulled his arm back, staring wide-eyed at the creature that had bitten down on it. The thing had leapt out of the shadows and taken Muzazi's arm in its jaw in an instant -- with the swordsman's attention focused on the Fifth Dead himself, he'd neglected to watch his surroundings.

The creature was like some kind of twisted dog, but smaller, with fur curling upwards from its back like some sort of mohawk. It's entire body was composed of the same orange glass-like substance as the swordfish the Fifth Dead had launched.

The Fifth Dead himself hadn't moved from his original position, staring at Muzazi impassively. "Disposal Hyena," he said, calm as could be. "Continue attack."

He could say that all he liked, but Muzazi wouldn't permit this animal to continue harming him. He let his Aether flow through his arm and into the beast, creating thrusters inside its mouth that forced its jaw open -- freeing Muzazi from its grip. The Disposal Hyena yelped as it fell to the ground, and a second later the kiss of Luminescence took its head from its shoulders.

The beast shattered into orange Aether that returned to the Fifth Dead. The giant took a step forward.

Muzazi breathed heavily as he kept his sword pointed towards the Fifth Dead, trying to ignore the warm blood trickling down his right arm. Luckily, the beast hadn't gotten his dominant hand, so he could still use Luminescence -- but the damage would still reduce the strength of his two-handed swings considerably. He let his wounded arm fall down to his side, and shifted into the Entrende stance -- a one-handed sword style that would suit the current conditions better.

"Will you not fight for yourself, Fifth Dead?" Muzazi said quietly, staring the giant down. "Or are you simply too craven?"

If the Fifth Dead felt insulted by the taunt, he didn't show it. Instead, he calmly adjusted the grip on his quarterstaff -- and swung it at Muzazi's head, once, twice, thrice, each attack quick as lightning, accompanied by a sound like a deafening explosion.

Muzazi blocked the attacks with slashes of Luminescence, positioning his parries so that the quarterstaff slid off the angle of his blade rather than stopping straight away. He couldn't risk the force behind those attacks damaging Luminescence -- there was a real possibility the Fifth Dead could smash the sword, given his clearly monstrous strength.

What was Hadrien doing? Inwardly, Muzazi cursed the fact that he couldn't look behind himself. Defending the others while fighting the Fifth Dead was a difficult proposition -- if he could fight without having to worry about anything else, he was certain this battle would go very differently. He'd have better mobility, for one, rather than being trapped in defense.

The quarterstaff went for Muzazi's legs, and the swordsman hopped over it, feeling the air pressure created by the swing buffet at his feet like rabid waves. The moment Muzazi was in the air, the Fifth Dead opened his mouth to speak:

"Summon," he growled, orange Aether crackling around him. "Disposal --"

Muzazi interrupted the summon with an overhead swing of his sword, and the Fifth Dead shut his mouth as he lifted his quarterstaff to block the attack. The crackling of his Aether subsided, and no Disposal Hyena came forth.

Interesting -- it seemed he needed to finish reciting that mantra in order to bring forth a recorded animal. Was it some kind of technique for focusing his mind in a particular direction, then? Whatever the case, Muzazi knew it was something he could take advantage of.

So long as the Fifth Dead couldn't speak, he was limited to only using his physical strength. The path to victory, then, consisted of relentless attack.

Muzazi ducked under another lightning-fast swing of the quarterstaff and thrust the palm of his wounded arm forward, landing a hit right into the Fifth Dead's stomach. The moment he made contact there, he created a thruster -- maximum strength -- and the white fire that was spat forth sent the Fifth Dead flying backwards, away from the engine.

There wasn't even a second for Muzazi to catch his breath -- as the Fifth Dead was sent flying away, he seized the Special Officer by the scruff of his collar, dragging him along. Wind crashed against Muzazi's face as the two of them were sent zooming towards the entrance, but he didn't relent on the strength of the thruster. He refused to be undone by such petty fears as physical injury.

The moment they reached the door, Muzazi cancelled the thruster on the Fifth Dead's stomach -- and created two new ones on the soles of his own feet instead. The sudden burst of upwards motion broke the revenant's grip on Muzazi's collar, and as the Special Officer finally rose up to eye level with his opponent, he slashed at the Fifth Dead's mouth with Luminescence. If nothing else, if he could hit the Fifth Dead's tongue, he could prevent the giant from speaking -- prevent him from summoning.

The Fifth Dead wasn't so easy an opponent that he'd just allow that, though. He twisted his body sideways, blocking Muzazi's slash with his staff in one hand -- and with the other, he sent a devastating punch surging towards Muzazi's face.

That was a skullcrusher -- Muzazi knew the moment he saw it. He created a new thruster on his own back, sending him speeding towards his opponent -- moving inside the Fifth Dead's effective range so that the fist didn't strike him.

As the punch sailed just past Muzazi's face, the Special Officer swung his own fist right at the Fifth Dead's jaw, pouring as much Aether into his limb as he could.

It never hit its mark. Instead, the Fifth Dead did something simple.

He lifted his leg -- with such speed, such power and such ferocity that, the moment it came into contact with Muzazi's body, it sent him flying upwards at devastating speeds -- right into the ceiling. There was a great slam as Muzazi hit the metal roof, back first, and he knew in that moment that the only reason his spine hadn't been broken was because of his defensive Aether. Still, the breath was pushed out of his lungs by the force of impact, and Luminescence slipped out of his grip -- clattering to the ground below.

The Fifth Dead looked up at him impassively, one foot resting on Luminescence's blade. "Summon," he intoned, Aether crackling around him. "Restraint Serpent."

Like a bolt of electricity winding through the skies, an orange silhouette shot out from within the Fifth Dead's body and wrapped itself around Muzazi, binding him before it even finished materialising into the shape of a transparent orange snake. In some places, it phased through the ceiling behind Muzazi as if it didn't even exist -- in others, it was so present and so tight as to seem unbreakable, like steel cabling.

The Fifth Dead pointed his staff upwards, towards Muzazi, and spoke again: "Summon - Penetration Swordfish." On his command, an orange point of Aether appeared floating in front of him, pointing right at Muzazi's heart.

The shot fired, moving with such speed and precision that Muzazi knew he wouldn't be able to block it. This was an attack made for smashing through armour, after all. It would pierce Muzazi's body and impale his heart with all the difficulty of a knife going through butter.

But that was only if it hit.

A clumsy blue blur leapt in front of Muzazi -- between him and the Swordfish -- Aether sparking around the legs it had used to make such a jump. As it and the Swordfish crossed paths, the orange Aether construct vanished in a flash of electric-blue light, and the Aether circulating around Muzazi's saviour intensified just a tad.

Dragan Hadrien landed in a heap on the floor, blue Aether still crackling around him. What had he done? Muzazi wasn't sure -- somehow the Penetration Swordfish had vanished, but it didn't seem that Hadrien had taken a hit for him. If this was some kind of Aether ability, it wasn't one he'd had the last time they'd thought. For all his faults, then, he seemed to be a fast learner.

The Fifth Dead watched Hadrien fall expressionlessly, no sign of irritation or even surprise present in his mountainous features. "Two," he said, simply noting the change of circumstances, before pointing his staff in Hadrien's direction instead. "Summon - Disposal--"

Hadrien rolled over onto his back, glaring at the Fifth Dead. "Gemini Shotgun."

The blue Aether intensified with a sound like a crack of lightning, and the Penetration Swordfish appeared again -- now zooming instead towards its master.

Reflexes honed by countless battles drove the Fifth Dead to raise his quarterstaff in defense -- but it wasn't enough. The Swordfish struck the staff right in the middle, and there was a resounding crack as the weapon snapped in two, each half flying in a different direction.

Hadrien didn't have the strength to destroy such a weapon, but Muzazi now understood that he didn't need it. The Swordfish had retained the Aether the Fifth Dead had poured into it, which Hadrien had then bolstered with his own. This technique -- Gemini Shotgun -- took in an attack and returned it stronger. An additive counter. Impressive.

Muzazi hadn't been idle either, though. In the moments of distraction Hadrien's gambit had allowed him, he'd begun executing his own escape from the Restraint Serpent.

A multitude of thrusters had appeared on his blade -- one on the very point of the blade, one on the base of the hilt, and a series on the sword's flat side to keep it floating up, edge pressed right against the Serpent. Muzazi alternated the strength of the thrusters on each end of the sword, and as a result Luminescence moved back and forth, sawing through the orange snake at an astounding speed.

He loathed using Luminescence for such crude labour, but there was no other option.

The Fifth Dead kicked off the ground -- clearly resolved to take care of Hadrien himself -- at the exact same moment Muzazi's efforts bore fruit. As the Serpent shattered into orange glass, Muzazi fell down from the ceiling -- and as he did, he grabbed his floating sword and slashed it at the giant quickly growing bigger in his vision.

The Fifth Dead's gaze snapped up to regard Muzazi as he drew close. There was no trace of surprise there, no caution or anxiety. This man was like a machine, executing the optimal move without delay. Instantly, the Fifth Dead planted his feet back down on the ground, turned his body to face the Special Officer, and lunged a hand forward to catch the blade as it descended.

Hadrien was an annoyance, to be sure, but the Fifth Dead was wise enough to see that Muzazi was the greater threat.

Muzazi did his best to keep the chills running through his body under control. At the speed he was falling and with the current position of his body, there was no way for him to escape falling back into the Fifth Dead's grasp. Even if he created a thruster, his weight would slow his movement in those first few vital seconds.

He could save Luminescence, at least.

The sword zipped out of sight with a burst of white Aether -- and in the next moment, Muzazi found himself gasping for air as the Fifth Dead adjusted his attack to instead grab the Special Officer by the throat. The Fifth Dead held him aloft by the neck, Muzazi's legs kicking insufficiently at a floor far below them, tightening his grip steadily, steadily -- painfully.

The Fifth Dead blinked, his face blank. "Weak." This was not a taunt. From the Fifth Dead's perspective, this was simply a statement of fact. Muzazi's attack had failed, so therefore he as a person was insufficient.

He wasn't wrong. This was the way of the Supremacy, as well.

But Hadrien had taught him something, not so long ago, with that humiliating defeat. The feeling of a stun bolt thudding against his back, the outrage of being outdone by underhanded trickery… it wasn't something so easily forgotten. Defeat was the greatest teacher of all.

Where strength was insufficient, it could be bolstered by wit.

There was a flash of white and blue light -- and a second later, the bloody blade of Luminescence was protruding from the Fifth Dead's chest, stopping only inches away from Muzazi's flailing legs. The giant looked down at the sword that had run him through, mildly concerned. His grip on Muzazi's throat lessened, his hand shaking, until the Special Officer was able to slip out of his grasp and fall to the floor, fists ready for further combat. The Fifth Dead, for his part, simply fell limply to his knees.

He hadn't sent Luminescence flying away in a random direction at all -- instead, he'd sent it surging in Hadrien's direction. He knew that if he'd judged Hadrien's Gemini Shotgun correctly, that meant that the Cogitant should have been able to fire the sword back at the Fifth Dead with even greater strength.

In the end, his faith in his own abilities had been rewarded.

Muzazi extended a hand, activated the thruster that was still present on Luminescence's hilt -- and, accompanied by the sound of tearing meat, the sword burst fully free from the Fifth Dead's torso and returned to its master's hand. Muzazi wiped from the blade what blood he could with the sleeve of his prison jumpsuit, the orange turning a grisly red where it made contact.

The only sound was the Fifth Dead's ragged breathing, and the splashing of his blood on the floor. Muzazi's gaze drifted past the prone giant, to where Hadrien was still laying behind him. He offered the Cogitant a curt nod: while he had no doubt that Hadrien's assistance was born solely out of self-interest, that didn't mean it hadn't saved him.

"You lost for one simple reason, Fifth Dead," Muzazi said, pointing Luminescence towards his fallen enemy. "You failed to consider--"

"Summon," the Fifth Dead rasped, blood pouring from his jaw. "Full Roster."

And then the room erupted into orange light.

Muzazi found himself almost blinded, having to shield his eyes with one hand as the force buffeted against him like wind, sending himself skidding backwards on the floor. Hadrien yelped as the same force sent him flying out of sight, and he heard the scream of the Cogitant girl as well. The entire room shook: at this rate, there was a good chance the Fifth Dead would destroy the engine before they got the chance.

The Fifth Dead himself was visible only as a kneeling silhouette within a geyser of burning orange Aether. Muzazi winced: he knew an Aether burn when he saw one. This was clearly a suicide gambit -- but for the Fifth Dead, that didn't mean as much, of course. The orange light began to form bodies, shapes, countless additional silhouettes to accompany their master.

Muzazi held his sword aloft. Let them come.

Nigen Rush, the greatest swordsman the Supremacy had ever produced, had written often of a philosophy he referred to as the 'golden current'. The golden current was the ideal way to move both yourself and your blade, a set of actions that would allow you to flow like water and succeed in any engagement. The key to truly transcendent swordplay was to train your body to identify the golden current, and trust your instincts to lead you down that path naturally. The mind was something to be ignored: the golden current was too natural for it to be anything but a hindrance.

Muzazi flowed through the golden path, allowing his sword to lead him as he cut through the hordes of Aether constructs rushing at him. He did not think about what he was doing -- he did not even consider it. His eyes were simply devices for taking in visual information, his ears receptacles for sound. Once he had this data, he trusted his body to act accordingly.

Luminescence beheaded another two hyena's with a single sword-stroke, exterminated a swarm of engorged wasps with individual and precise slashes -- sliced another serpent down the middle and stabbed between the eyes of a gargantuan elephant. White Aether crackled around Muzazi's body protectively as he moved -- almost danced -- through the horde of Aether constructs.

A ravenous hippopotamus found its stomach cut open. A chimpanzee was impaled and shattered in the moment it first manifested. Always, always, Luminescence was ready -- slapping swordfish out of the air as they zoomed towards Muzazi in complex swimming patterns. The sound of shattering glass was near-constant, as was Muzazi's forward momentum.

Three precise slashes dispatched a lion intent on devouring the Special Officer -- and once he'd smashed a chattering crustacean to a pulp against the floor, Muzazi was once more face to face with the Fifth Dead.

The Aether burn had already taken its toll -- the giant's skin had sloughed away, revealing the bone and muscle beneath. Orange Aether poured from him like a waterfall, the open wound in his chest glowing so incandescently it almost hurt to look at. Muzazi stabbed backwards -- dispatching a shark swimming through the air towards him -- and then slashed forward, his target clear.

His blade met the Fifth Dead's neck -- and stuck there for a moment, the muscles there so thick and so firm they were like steel, refusing to yield to Luminescence. Muzazi let a roar of effort leave his throat as he poured his Aether into his sword, put as many thrusters on it as he could to drive it forwards, onwards, further -- until the slice was made complete, and the Fifth Dead's head came free.

Victory.

The moment the Fifth Dead's head left his shoulders, the orange Aether died away to nothing. The body flopped over to the side and landed with a wet thud on the floor, it's fall broken only by the skin that had already slipped from its bones.

Muzazi let out a deep, relieved breath, closed his eyes, and for just a brief moment enjoyed how quiet it now was.

No chattering of animals, no roaring of Aether, no humming of the engine… wait.

He opened his eyes again. The humming of the engine had stopped, completely and utterly. The engine room was as silent as the grave. Muzazi turned to look at the massive cylinder.

It had seen better days -- holes had been opened all over its surface, as if massive fists had punched their way through the metal, and acrid smoke was pouring out from within its bowels. The lights from the navigation consoles had blinked out, and Muzazi could already feel the ship listing beneath his feet. Whatever landing the Dawnhouse would be making, it wasn't a clean one.

The Cogitant girl -- Noel -- lay slumped in the corner, hair slick with sweat, hanging over her face. "I did it," she muttered, almost disbelieving. "I did it, I-I did it…"

Muzazi nodded. "Very well done. Now that the risk to the planet has been neutralised, we can make our leave. We have transport waiting back in the docking bay." As this girl had helped them, it was only right for Muzazi to allow her to accompany them -- and besides, the Special Officer wasn't so unbending to leave a young girl behind in a situation like this.

Noel nodded vaguely. "Okay, o-okay… but what about the guy with you? Dragan Hadrien?"

Muzazi furrowed his brow. "What about --" Awful, sickly realization grabbed him.

No. Surely not.

He swung around, taking in the room -- the Fifth Dead's corpse, the countless dents and gouges left in the walls and ceiling, the wrecked equipment. Dragan Hadrien was nowhere to be seen.

"No," he muttered, hands shaking. "No, no no no, no. When did he…?!"

"I think," said Noel. "When you were fighting off that guy's last attack -- he just, um, left -- I think."

"Hadrien!" Muzazi screamed, voice echoing throughout the chamber -- unanswered. "Come back here right now! Coward! COWARD!"

There was nothing. No response, no return -- and Muzazi knew he wouldn't get one. If nothing else, Dragan Hadrien was skilled at running away.

Damn it. When Hadrien had intercepted that blow for Muzazi, the Special Officer had -- for just the briefest moment -- considered that there could have been more to him than he'd first assumed, more than a treacherous rat. Clearly he'd been wrong. The moment Hadrien had doubted their victory, he'd fled for the hills -- abandoning Muzazi to his fate.

The tiniest part of Muzazi told him that explanation didn't quite ring true, but he pushed it away. Betrayal such as this left him in no mood for analysis.

His grip tightened on Luminescence's hilt. Should he pursue? To what end? His arm was injured, and Hadrien had proved in the past he had no scruples against using underhanded tactics. He understood now, that if he chased after Hadrien with anger in his heart he would face only ruin.

The ship was going down. He had to escape and meet back up with Marie. He had to get this Noel girl, and Patel who had helped him, to safety as well. There was no time to punish Hadrien as he so sorely deserved.

Reluctantly, with gritted teeth, Muzazi sheathed Luminescence.

You escape today, Dragan Hadrien, he told himself. But only today.

With the slightest nod to Noel to follow him, he strode out of the engine room. As he passed the carcass of the Fifth Dead, he noticed that the body was already cracking and snapping as it's skeletal structure changed, as the meat clinging to its bones reshaped itself and new skin grew to cover the thinning muscle. Twin strands of orange and pink Aether danced over the display.

Muzazi let it be. The Fifth Dead had been his enemy, but he had yet no quarrel with the Sixth.