Dragan grinned with confidence he didn't feel as he faced off against the bald woman, her Guardian Entity bobbing and weaving through the air around her.

Leave her to me? Had he really said that? It was taking all his effort just to stand. Was he really in any position to be taking on anything that wasn't a nap? His legs shuddered beneath him as he took a step forward.

"Are you sure you wanna fight her, Mr. Dragan?" Serena asked, a quizzical finger on her lips. "You kinda seem like you're about to die or something."

Dragan ignored her. "That's an interesting pet you've got there," he called out to the bald woman, readying the Gemini Shotguns he had left. "I kinda want to know more about it. Guardian Entity, right?"

When no answer came -- the woman was clearly trying to figure out a way to get past his Shotgun -- Dragan continued: "You called it Rokurokubi, right? That's kind of a mouthful, isn't it? Who gave it to you? Did they name it Rokurokubi? Are you allowed to change the name once you get it, or is it sort of locked in?"

Constant questions, his tone raising higher at the end of each one. Every aspect of his speech was optimized to be as annoying as possible. Irritation was a dagger that could slip through caution quite easily -- unlike outrage, annoyance made you feel as though you were above the thing annoying you, that it was something to be looked down upon. There was no need to be cautious around something that was merely annoying.

"You ramble about things you don't understand, boy," the bald woman spat into the dirt. "A Guardian Entity isn't something to be taken so lightly."

"Really?" Dragan cocked his head as he watched Rokurokubi's neck sway through the air. "But it looks so weak. I bet I could beat it easy."

The woman sniffed, the irritation on her face growing more and more obvious. "I'd watch my tone if I were you, boy."

"Why?" Dragan laughed. "There's obviously nothing you can--"

The Entity lashed out at him, neck spanning tens of meters in a split-second. Immediately, Dragan fired the Gemini Shotgun he'd primed -- but not in the direction one would expect. Instead, he fired it sideways, so that the blast skimmed across the Guardian Entity's eyes instead of firing into its skull.

Red blood spurted out from the creature's ruined eyes, and it went to rear back in pain -- but Dragan grabbed it by the ear with one hand and pulled it close, his other hand rummaging in his satchel.

Hurry, hurry, fucking hurry, he told himself. You should have already been holding this!

Even as the Entity thrashed blindly in his grip, almost sending him stumbling to the ground, his other hand found what it was looking for -- the waterskin he'd been given for the journey to this camp. He'd drunk it dry along the way, but now it was useful for another purpose.

With a grunt of exertion and a flicker of blue Aether, Dragan jammed the waterskin right into the mouth of the Guardian Entity, making sure that one of the beast's huge fangs went all the way in.

Just a few seconds. He just needed to keep it there for a few seconds.

One -- the Entity continued to thrash wildly, trying to pull away from Dragan.

Two -- it screeched in distress, the sound like nails against a chalkboard.

Three -- it finally pulled away back to its master, sending Dragan falling forward onto his knees, waterskin clutched to his chest.

"Serena," he gasped, securing the top on the waterskin. The pain radiating throughout his body was beginning to become overwhelming again. "She's all yours. Fuck her up."

Serena had watched Dragan's little wrestling session with a bemused expression, but now her face once again spread into a wild, carefree grin. She spun the greatswords in her hands, kicking up dirt and grass where they sliced through the ground.

"Sure thing, Mr. Dragan!" she shouted cheerfully. "You seemed kinda weak anyway, so I'm glad you changed your mind!"

Dragan clicked his tongue. It was true, but she didn't have to say it.

Besides, he'd already gotten what he'd wanted.

No, no, no. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening again. This was what Ruth was good at. More than that -- this was what she was good for. All that she was good for.

She couldn't fail again. She just couldn't. And yet…

Ruth went flying like a cannonball into a bookshelf as Nael hurled her with his Guardian Entity, the wood smashing into splinters and flying through the air. For a moment, she gasped for breath -- the impact had knocked the air from her lungs -- but Nael Manron wasn't going to give her time to recover.

In a second, he was upon her, flipping the shamisen over in his hands and stabbing the handle towards her throat, clearly intent on breaking her neck with it. She went to slap the weapon away with an Aether-infused fist -- only for those damn strings to wrap around her once again and flip her onto the ground.

As the strings held her in place, preventing movement, Ruth felt Nael's boot land on her back, keeping her steady. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Grena toss her sword over to Nael. The Regulator caught it in his free hand, raising the weapon high, the tip of the blade clearly pointed at the back of Ruth's neck.

"Begone," he snarled, bringing the sword down.

Noblesse Set.

There was a flash of white light, the sound of shattering glass -- and in the same moment, the sword went flying out of Nael's hands, slicing through the wall of the tent and out of sight. The strings of the shamisen, too, were repelled, swaying violently through the air like startled snakes as they were knocked back.

Skeletal Set.

Ruth's Skeletal Set reappeared just in time -- Grena had fired another arrow her way the moment she'd seen the armour had first vanished. The bolt ricocheted off of Ruth's Skeletal mask, lodging into the ground, and in the next moment Ruth herself had rolled away, out of range of both Nael and his Guardian Entity.

She landed in the corner of the tent, behind what must've been Manron's desk, positioning herself so that she could see both Nael and Grena at all times.

There was a marked difference in speed between Nael Manron and the weapon he wielded -- those strings could lash out as fast as lightning, whereas Manron was limited by normal human biology. That made predicting his attacks annoying: she had to take into account both his movements and the movements of that damn shamisen. If anything, it made it more like a two versus one.

Scratch that -- three-versus-one. Ruth's eyes flicked back to Grena, who was still pointing the nozzle of her flamethrower in her direction as she caught her breath. That woman was trouble: she didn't seem to have Aether or even a Guardian Entity, but the proficiency she had in trickery and weapons made her a noticeable threat. She couldn't even be sure that the flamethrower was the only thing up Grena's sleeve -- she had two arms, after all.

This whole thing was frustrating. In a one on one, she was certain she could defeat Nael Manron -- in a one on one, she was certain she could defeat this Grena woman -- and in a one on one, she was damn sure she could defeat a musical fucking instrument.

But in this situation, against all three, she was finding herself consistently on the back foot. Cold rage radiated through her body, even as she cursed it -- she knew she'd make stupid decisions when she was angry. Hell, she made stupid decisions when she was calm, too.

Grena's grip tightened on her wrist. Nael adjusted his footing. This break in the action was only seconds long -- this was the sole chance she'd have to come up with a plan.

Claws glimmering in the light of the fire, Ruth brought her body low to the ground. She could win this, she could. If she just --

"Ruth!" came Dragan's cry from outside. "We've gotta go, now!"

Ruth hesitated, her eyes flicking between her two enemies. No, no, she could win this, she couldn't just leave --

Serena's scream came next. "Miss Ruth!" she shouted. "This is sort of really bad!"

Another second's hesitation, the red lenses of her mask fixed on Nael's green eyes -- and then Ruth leapt backwards through the flaming cloth of the tent, emerging once again into the sunlight and the warfare. Cold fury was replaced with hot shame, warmer even than the flames around her.

"And there you go," Skipper had said. "Proof there's more to you than you think."

He'd meant that she wasn't just a killer, and Ruth was becoming more and more certain he'd been right.

She wasn't even that.

They'd been here too long.

Dragan watched in horror as one of the rebels that had come with them made a run for it, the stocky girl barely making it to the treeline before an avian Guardian Entity swooped down from the sky and plucked her head from her shoulders. Her decapitated body made it two more steps, blood insistently spurting from its stump, before falling into an undignified pile.

The other rebel let out a scream like a strangled cat, holding his sword in front of him with shaking hands. It was useless -- he honestly looked like he'd never held a weapon before. Perhaps he really hadn't.

This camp would have been host to many Regulators, and -- by extension -- many Guardian Entities. It had been vital that this operation was an assassination, not a battle. Under these circumstances, using these resources, a true battle would quickly make way for a massacre.

But they'd been here too long.

Ten, nearly twelve Regulators surrounded what remained of their group in a circle, Guardian Entities swarming around them, like dogs straining against their chains. Dragan glanced over at the surviving rebel, the one holding the sword.

"Don't do anything hasty," he muttered. "If they were going to kill us, they'd have done it already."

The man -- no, the boy -- sniffled. "They killed her," he whispered, eyes locked on the headless corpse of his comrade.

"She tried to run," Dragan explained, as reassuring as he could. "Just stay calm. We'll make it through this, yes?"

Calming people down had never been his strong suit -- usually, it was the opposite -- but they couldn't afford to act carelessly right now. Their lives hung off the edge of a cliff. Any movement but the correct one would just cause them to fall.

The Regulator at the head of the group -- a grim-looking man with a scar running along his nose -- took a cautious step forward, hands running over the handle of his battle-axe. Above him, the avian Guardian Entity circled through the sky, looking like an owl with a human skull.

"Put down your weapons," the Regulator growled roughly with a voice like broken glass. "Hands on the back of your heads. Get me? Anything else -- you die."

"Sure thing," Dragan replied carefully, before looking back over at the sword shaking in the rebel's hands. "Drop it."

His eyes widened to the size of saucers. "They'll kill me!"

"They'll kill us if you don't drop it."

"B-But…"

The choice was taken out of his hands. With a flash of violet Aether, Serena snatched the sword out of his grip -- quick as lightning -- and threw it on the floor at her feet. The rebel stared down at it in muted horror, but Serena just cheerfully patted him on the back.

"Don't worry," she said sweetly. "I'll protect you! Stick by me and you'll live forever!"

Dragan didn't know about that last part, but so long as it got the poor bastard to cooperate, he'd go along with it. They needed to stall -- Ruth was taking her sweet damn time, and there was no way Dragan was leaving without her.

It would be a bad strategy, after all, to abandon their strongest fighter.

The Regulator's eyes narrowed, and he spat onto the ground before him. "Go on, then," he prompted, axe still clutched in his hands. "Hands behind your backs. Nice and slow. No sudden movements. You get me?"

"No problem," said Dragan, moving his hands behind his back as slowly as his body would allow. Serena mimicked him cheerfully, their rebel friend a little less so.

Stall, stall, stall.

If they still had a strategy left, that was it. The most valuable currency in any battle was time -- and since they couldn't buy any more of it, they had to make what little they had go on for as long as possible. If enough seconds passed, Dragan was sure he could come up with a new plan.

Something smart. He was good at that, right? Something that flipped the chessboard over, something that turned all their disadvantages into advantages. Something he could communicate to the others in just a second.

He could come up with something like that. Surely he could come up with something like that.

Dragan opened his mouth to speak, still not knowing what he'd say --

-- and in the same instant, Ruth came flying out of the command tent, claws slicing the fabric to ribbons as she landed just in front of their tiny group.

The tension was broken just for a second, just for an instant -- and Dragan knew that it would explode into chaos once that instant ended. He knew what he had to say.

"Fucking run!" he shouted.