Chapter 20A: Versus Enigma VII: Yuichi And Reno Vs Stella

"Double Reaper Technique: Multiple Earth Stalagmite and Birth Of Magma!" Reno says as he slaps his hands together. Suddenly several interconnecting rock pillars shoot up from the ground and surround us as a burning, bubbling, orange liquid flows beneath us. The rock pillars had separated us from Shiori-senpai, well this will mean she is safer still.

But in just that single instance Reno had basically created himself his own small volcano. Jesus it's hot!

"Activating two large scale Reaper Techniques simultaneously, as to be expected of the Cerberus family's prodigy. It looks like I will have to go all out from the word go." Stella suddenly jumps backwards into the air towards Reno's magma pit.

Does she have a death wish?

"Take form, Quadra Dragon!" Stella shouts.

Guess not.

All of a sudden, something that I can only describe as a four headed dragon appeared out of nowhere below Stella, who landed safely on its back. The dragon is roughly seven metres tall with each of its black wings equalling the height of its body. However each of the heads is a different colour from left to right they're green, red, blue, and yellow.

The red head of the being Stella called the Quadra Dragon leans back before unleashing a huge fireball towards Reno and I. Not wanting to be charred, we each dodge to the side and I quickly create my silver and shoot it "Silver Rain!" I call the attack name as it flies towards Stella and her dragon.

"Incinerating Vortex!" Reno also unleashes an attack where the magma below is sharply rising with a high rotation like a flaming hurricane.

The Quadra Dragon however isn't making any attempt to dodge our attacks. "Take form, Shield Wasp! Defender Butterfly!" Two new creatures suddenly joined Stella's growing monster army. The huge armoured wasp stands between my Silver Rain and the Quadra Dragon the shield on its left arm, or rather stinger, suddenly expands. At the same time the huge butterfly that is filled with all the colours of the spectrum erects something like a transparent wall between Reno's attack and Stella. Both our attacks get stopped dead by the two new monsters.

"Tch!" I grunt as I notice the Quadra Dragon's green and blue head moving suspiciously. Suddenly the green head shoots out a ball of compressed air towards me and the blue head shoots a beam of ice towards Reno. We each run in opposite directions around the circular platform within the interior of Reno's volcano. At the same time I manifest several silver javelins that I launch towards the Quadra Dragon, but the wasp simply blocks it like before as does the butterfly for all of Reno's fire attacks. I then suddenly have an idea form in my mind, when Reno launches another attack that the butterfly blocks I manifest another few silver javelins. The first one like before I send towards the Quadra Dragon that the wasp intercepts, however the other one I send at the butterfly, which suddenly releases its barrier to dodge my javelin and Reno's attack at last continues on towards the Quadra Dragon although the blue head intercepts the fire attack with its own ice breath. Whilst the other three heads alternate shooting blasts of fire, air, and lightning at me. "Silver stairs!" I shout as I conjure silver in mid air to act as my footholds as I essentially run literally into the air.

I again launch an attack with my javelins simultaneously at both the butterfly and the dragon. I don't know the reason, but for some reason the butterfly is unable to defend against my silver, unlike that wasp. Although it doesn't seem to have any trouble guarding Reno's flame attacks.

"Just as I thought," I say to myself with a smile, my suspicions now confirmed. The butterfly again opted to dodge the attack whilst the wasp guards the Quadra dragon.

"Reno! Switch targets! Forget the dragon for now, try attacking the wasp with your flames and leave the butterfly to me!" Reno obediently nods as we pass each other.

"Silver Rain!" I shout as I release my barrage of silver towards the butterfly.

"Magma Wave!" A burst of magma shaped live a snake flies towards the wasp.

"Take form Dimensional Tarantula!" Stella shouts from the back of the Quadra Dragon and a huge ugly spider hovers over the magma using several webs to hold itself in place. Suddenly, a distortion covers both the wasp and the butterfly, before our attacks hit them, they both suddenly change places and use their respective defence techniques against our attacks.

"Another strange monster I've never heard of before!?" I angrily glare.

"Such creatures don't exist," Reno states plainly as he stands next to me.

"What are you saying? They're right there and giving my almighty beautiful brain a severe migraine." I state, just how can they not exist if they're right before us?

"Correct, they don't," Stella admits, "One of my abilities allows me to pull things from my imagination and into reality, well there is a limit."

Seriously!? What kind of haxed power is that? Hurry up and trade with me, pulling naked girls from my imagination would be quite the fun pass time.

"You're drooling, Yuichi Shiro," Reno points out and I quickly wipe my beautiful moist mouth.

"During my hospitalisation I had nothing to do but dream things up in my imagination."

"Hospital?" I ask curiously.

Stella shows a somewhat sad look from on top of the dragon. "I was born to a random man and the wife of a man who is part of quite the demented family. An illegitimate child. My step father subjected me to several forms of mental and physical torture. Ripping mother limb from limb in front of me being one of the more milder incidents."

How the hell is that mild!?

"However, there was always one time when that man looked apologetic, during that time he would smile and say how sorry he was as he offered me a glass of lemon water. But it was so strange, every time I drank it I always felt tired and nauseous, ha ha ha."

"Huh, what, what was so funny about that?" I ask.

"It's not funny, Yuichi Shiro. Lemons can be used to cover up the taste of other ingredients that was added into the water." Reno explained.

"Poison?" I ask as he nods.

"Correct, the only time he smiled at me was the time he knew how he was slowly killing me!" Stella screams, "During my time when I was beyond help and awaiting death I met Cammy. She too had difficult family circumstances and had been brought to the hospital after a failed suicide attempt. We confided with one another, everything that happened, and we accepted each other. So when I was approached by Shuren-sama about whether I wanted to live, not wanting to succumb to that scumbag's poison, or to be separated from my new found friend, I instantly agreed, and Cammy followed suit. We cut our ties with our screwed up excuses for a family and were granted the power of an Anomaly, and I gained a fully revitalised body!" Stella regains her anger as she glares at us. "Therefore, for harming my friend, I will have you all die here!" Those final words carried more emotion than the rest of her speech.

All four of the Quadra Dragon's heads shoot out their elemental attacks, Reno and I continue our running around the volcano. Suddenly several distortions appear around both me and the battle ground. They absorb several of the Quadra Dragon's attacks and the attacks continue on at me from out of one of the other holes that were created, I quickly dodge a ball of lightning, that enters another hole and comes out of another, the attack having been redirected towards me.

"Silver Wall!" I conjure up my defence, if I dodge it will probably only have a result like before, so this time I guard, my shield successfully blocks the attack and I break down my now electrified wall into the javelins and throw them at the butterfly. The spider like before switches the place between the butterfly and the wasp, which erects its shield, however...

"Bzzzztt!" It lets out a buzz as the electricity in the javelins is transferred through its shield into it. The overgrown wasp falls lifelessly into the magma pit below.

"One down," I state proudly.

"Gahh!" Stella grunts for some reason as she holds her head.

What happened?

"You really are something else, Yuichi Shiro," Stella compliments whilst still holding her head.

Well, I am one of a kind.

"Take form, Flare Kraken! Ritual Puppeteer! Scythe Millipede!"

Great, more things to deal with, at this rate this will never end.

The overgrown centipede, no she said it was a millipede, charges at me with its blade like legs on the ready, I dive out the way as it leaves a large scar on the rocky surface. Reno, probably noticing my danger, shoots a ball of magma at the creature. The butterfly intercepts and the Quadra Dragon concentrates its attacks on Reno, who skilfully dodges and launches another separate attack whilst the butterfly is still blocking his first attack. The magma heads straight for the dragon, however the caped puppeteer hurls it strings and throws its ugly puppet in the way of the attack. The puppet instantly disintegrates.

"AAAARRGGHHH!" Reno suddenly screams in pain

"Reno!" I shout, I didn't notice any attack hitting me.

Stella looks on with a smile, "Oh, didn't you know? When you attack the Ritual Puppeteer's puppet, a portion of the damage is returned to the user who destroys it!"

What then Reno essentially just attacked himself?

"Not only that, for as long as the puppeteer exists then he can always create a replacement." As she says that the disintegrated puppet reappears attached to the puppeteer's strings.

That's one troublesome monster.

Whilst I'm still half lost in thought I notice the millipede trying to attack me with one of its sword like legs. Not having any time to dodge, I block with my silver sword, the force of the attack forces my feet to slide along the rocky surface. As it unleashes another attack with another of its legs I dive to one side and the momentum the millipede had built up forces it into the wall with a loud crash. Suddenly, out of nowhere a red tentacle wraps itself around my waist and lifts me off the ground, "What the hell!?" I scream as the tentacle tries to pull me into the magma pit below.

"She placed a monster within my magma!?" Reno shouts as he notices my predicament. Come to think of it she did mention something like a Flare Kraken or something.

"Considering you went to the trouble of creating this unique setting, I figured I'd put it to good use."

You can piss off with the idea of giving me a lava bath! I manifest silver around my entire body and manipulate it to pull against the force of the tentacle trying to drown me in the magma or burn is probably a better word. Whilst still battling the pull I manifest a javelin in my hand and slam it into the tentacle, luckily this is enough to force it to let go, and withdraw back into the magma. The yellow head of the Quadra Dragon shoots a lightning ball at me, I create another Silver Wall to protect me from the attack and get myself back to the safety of the platform.

The millipede is there to greet me again as I dive out of the way of its leg.

"A physical close range attacker, an elemental long range attacker, an elemental defender, two support types that can distort dimensions and transfer damage respectively, and one that attacks whilst remaining hidden, and before she had a physical defender as well. Damn, these monsters are very well rounded and cover each others weaknesses." I say as I grunt in anger.

"These are my most prized creations. They won't go down so easily, Yuichi Shiro, Reno Cerberus!" Stella proclaims.

"Yuichi Shiro, we need to take them down one at a time, they're formidable together because of their combinations, but as we defeat them, more attack methods will become open to us!" Reno shouts to me from the other side of the volcano whilst avoiding an ice breath from the blue head.

"I'm already aware," I declare as I dodge another attack from the millipede. The troublesome monsters are the two that are acting as the supports that puppeteer and the spider. The butterfly shouldn't be too difficult now that the wasp has been defeated, but it's still a problem because of the supporters.

As I'm thinking to myself the Kraken slams a tentacle towards me, I jump back and dodge, the attack smashes part of the ground. Next a fireball shoots at me from the magma, it must have been the Kraken. I create a Silver Wall to defend myself from the attack, however a hole appears before it reaches my defence. "Urghhhh!" The fireball that was redirected thanks to that tarantula's dimension smashes into my back. My Silver Armour is able to ward some of the damage but the force still forces me to cough blood. I wipe the blood away from my mouth as I avoid the millipede's attack again.

I then notice that the butterfly is busy defending against one of Reno's attacks and I get a sudden idea fly through my head. "Time to level the playing field!" I shout as I throw an immense number of javelins whilst also flying towards the butterfly myself using my Silver Armour. A distortion suddenly appears both in front of the butterfly and the puppeteer's puppet. As I thought, it is going to try and redirect my attack onto the puppet. Before my silver reaches the hole, I instantly disperse it, and before the hole can close itself I rush through it myself. I find myself in front of the puppet. But the puppet isn't my target, it's the puppeteer itself. I fly towards it at high velocity and by forming a blade of silver at the arm area of my armour I slash into the puppeteer's chest.

"Urghhhh!" It grunts horribly as it disappears.

Like I thought, it's only when the puppet is destroyed that the damage gets transferred. In addition the puppeteer was only capable of fixing its puppet, not itself.

“That takes care of the most troublesome one.” I state.

"Way to go, Yuichi Shiro," Reno congratulates, I respond with a thumbs up.

"Gahhhh!" Stella once again for some reason is holding her head in pain. "Damn you!" She screams as the Quadra Dragon launches its elemental attacks, more holes appear and the attacks come at me from all kinds of awkward angles.

Whilst the dragon is preoccupied with me, Reno suddenly shoots several fireballs, some are heading for the butterfly, some for the spider. The butterfly instantly erects its shield and the spider creates a hole in front of itself and the attack is redirected at Reno from the side. However he dodges by sliding the other side of the hole and shoots another fireball into the hole. The fireball reappears next to the spider and it burns with a horrible screech like noise. The webs it used for footing melt and the tarantula takes a dip in the magma pool below.

"Urghh!" Stella once again is holding her head.

"As I thought, when one of your monsters is defeated you receive some kind of damage yourself." Reno states as Stella continues holding her head in agony.

“Nicely done Reno, now that both her supports are gone we can fight without any worries.” I shout to my partner, whom nods in acknowledgement.

"Curse you both!" The red and green heads of the Quadra Dragon shoot their fire and wind balls at me, and at the point of making contact with me they converge together and...

Boom! - The combustion shakes me, but thanks to my armour I'm not seriously hurt.

The blue and yellow also combined there attacks at Reno but he used the magma to disintegrate the ice and evaporate it all before it made contact, no wonder he is called a prodigy.

The millipede attacks with its sword like legs again. But now that it's support is no longer threatening me, I can fight without restraint.

"Silver Rain!" I shout as my silver pulverises the millipede, that is still trying to relentlessly attack me despite its balance being heavily disrupted by my attack. Whilst it is staggering now is my chance, "Silver side Column!" A huge dense amount of my silver sprouts out of the side wall of the volcano and rams into the millipede that is pushed over the ledge by the impact.

“KRREEE!!” The millipede screeches

"Another one bites the magma." I say coolly.

"Urghhhh!" Stella grunts horribly as the millipede dissolves into the boiling solution below.

Whilst I'm celebrating, I feel the familiar touch of the kraken's tentacle around my waist. "Not again!"

"Don't worry, Yuichi Shiro, that magma is mine! Just get ready to finish it, my fire attacks will be useless after all." Reno states as he claps his hands together whilst avoiding more attacks from the Quadra Dragon, "Magma Eruption!" He shouts as all the magma ascends into the air, the sudden force freeing me from the Kraken's grasp, I then notice the large red squid at the top of the burning magma.

"All right, I'm ready, release your technique, Reno!" And in that instant the magma begins to fall back down to the base of our home made volcano.

"Silver Spike Bed!" I shout as I create a Silver Wall with spikes jutting out of it directly below the kraken.

“GREEE!!” The kraken thrashes its tentacles relentlessly after falling onto my spikes at high speed. After dispersing the Silver Spike Bed the kraken lands back into the magma belly up before disappearing.

"Urghhhh!" Stella once again exclaims in pain, but I'm not letting up on the momentum. I create several silver javelins and launch them at the butterfly, that can only defend itself from elemental attacks. It tries to dodge but I catch one of its wings and like a lot of the other monsters, it fell into the magma with a circular motion as it uselessly tried to beat it's wings. "Urgghhhhhhh!" Stella looks at us as if she has gone completely insane, not that I considered her sane to begin with.

"Now it's just you and that dragon!" I shout whilst pointing my outstretched finger at the one who caused me so much frustration.

"Damn you!" Stella yells whilst holding her head with both hands. "Quadra Dragon!" She yells as the beast unleashes its elemental attacks.

Reno and I counter with my silver and his magma to erect a dual layered shield for us both. Our combined defence is more than enough to stop all the Quadra Dragon's attacks.

"She's finished," Reno states, "Her power came from her combination attacks, which she can no longer do."

"Speaking of combinations, we make quite the dynamite one," I say with a smile and Reno just smiles back with a shrug of his shoulders.

"I'll let you have the best part, Yuichi Shiro," He says with a voice that seemed to say: Lets finish this.

"Thanks," I reply, as I hover up using my Silver Armour. I ascend higher into the sky as I look down on the dragon. I shoot myself like a bullet towards the girl riding on its back. As the dragon tries to fly to one side several pillars of magma surround it preventing it from moving.

"This is for all the people whose lives you've been playing with, in this screwed up game of yours, STELLA!" I shout as the Quadra Dragon launches attack after attack at me, I endure the pain as I fly at the source of my anger with extreme momentum.

"YUICHI SHIRO!" She shouts as she draws a blade, but her body is staggering so she can't wield it properly.

"EAT BEAUTY!" I scream as I force my fist into her face. The force knocks her off the back of the dragon and towards the magma below her. With the attack on its creator the Quadra Dragon disappears with a burst of light.

Just as I think it's over, something shoots towards Stella like a bullet. It then grabs her before she reached the magma.

Who is that? A man with tanned skin was flying with Stella in his arms. He flapped his Wings of fire, keeping the duo airborne. The man shot a large fireball into one of the volcano's sides. The attack Created a large hole for the magma to leak out of.

"Shit! Reno, disperse the magma, or our friends will get caught up in it!" With a nod Reno has the magma disappear as does the stony surface that made up the volcano.

The man and I glare at each other until a voice calls out to him, "Shuren-niisama?" Shiori-senpai calls out.

Wait he's Senpai's brother.

The barrier is no longer holding her. Maybe due to Stella's loss.

"It has been a while, Shiori," he says with a slightly indifferent voice.

"Why did you...Why did Enigma do this!?" Senpai asks in a voice filled with emotions, "If you were alive, why didn't you tell me!?"

"Forgive me, but in order to get revenge on those behind Nadia's death I couldn't allow you to know." Shuren said with a slight bit of guilt in his voice.

"You scum!" I shout, "Do you realise how many people you endangered for the sake of your pointless revenge!?"

“Pointless?” Shuren turns his eyes to me a dark glint flashed in his hawk eyes. “You can only say that because you have never lost someone so dear to you. I have no intention to be lectured by someone so ignorant.” Shuren's wings continue flapping as he turns back to Senpai. “My vengeance has only just begun. I've already eliminated one of my targets.”

"Target?" Senpai asks.

"Just a little while ago, I killed the man who stood at the top of the Slayers!" He answers.

"What!?" Senpai is shocked.

"He was the one behind that Chimera that killed Nadia, so I gave him the punishment he deserved. Soon I shall slaughter the one who authorised the creation of that calamity." He proclaims.

"So, you really succeeded, Shuren." Ark suddenly floats next to him. Under his arms are both Cammy and Slots and sitting on his shoulders are the two gemini twins.

Wait, if he's here what happened to our comrades?

Ark glances at me seeing my worry, "I was told only to retrieve, I didn't harm anyone else." He says almost as if he can read my mind.

"But it does looks like you had quite the hard time. Even though Stella was already in a heavily weakened state before we proceeded with the plan, I didn't think she would be defeated." Shuren states.

"What, she was already in a weakened state before we fought?" I ask in disbelief.

"She had been holding me in a comatose stasis for the past year, this on top of creating this entire world left her heavily weakened. If she wasn't she would have just resporned more monsters. If she was in perfect form you wouldn't have had a sliver of a chance of beating her."

"What..." I can't believe what I just heard. Just how monstrous is that girl?

"Anyway the dimension is breaking apart," Shuren says as he looks into the sky, several cracks are forming. "So we'll be taking our leave, Shiori, Yuichi Shiro."

“Wait Nii-sama!!” Senpai shouts, “Do you think Nadia-san would have wanted you to become like this!?”

A single tear of pure emotion flows down Shuren's eye as he says, “She is not here to stop me...” At his response Senpai fell weakly to her knees as tears cascade down her face.

A black hole engulfs all the members of Enigma and they slowly disappear. Shuren's face is one filled with loneliness, even though he is my enemy I cannot help but sympathise with him.

That expression is of a man who has lost everything. Just how important was his lover to him?

I stand in awe until they completely disappear, it is then I realise. "Damn!" I grunt as I punch the ground, I let them go.

Chapter 20B: Versus Enigma VII: After The All Out Battle

A few minutes after Stella was defeated the dimension collapsed and we returned to our own world. I quickly regrouped with my friends and Yuna, Ren is unconscious from the loss of his arm.

Wolfy is escorting Akane, Alma, and Shiori-senpai home. Shiori-senpai was crying as she left, the shock of meeting her thought to be deceased brother really hurt her mentally. Alma too was hurt pretty badly, and she also lost her sister's memento, Gungnir-Mjölnir.

Yuna is standing silently nearby, she's a bit depressed that the Ichiyu boy who saved her suddenly disappeared all of a sudden before she could thank him properly,

I guess Yuna is developing into a woman now...What, no retort to my thoughts, she's more depressed than I thought.

"We'll be taking Ren-sama back with us to do something about his missing arm," Elizabeth says as she along with Reno support Ren's body.

"I'm going too!" Sakura says decisively, "I can't leave Nii-san when he is in that kind of state."

"Sakura-chan..." Elizabeth stares for a moment at her future sister-in-law. "Okay, but what about your parents?"

"I'll do something about that," I respond, looks like my book on hypnosis is going get a bit more use.

"All right, we'll be in touch soon. Connect." Elizabeth states before the Cerberus and Kirei siblings disappear.

"We'll also be heading back," Rose states, "I hope we meet again soon." She smiles warmly.

"Thanks for everything you girls." I say with heartfelt gratitude as I smile back.

"Nya ha ha, next time lets play together, Onii-chan," Lily says with a happy mischievous smile.

"HMMM! It's not like I came for your sake," Tsubaki states coldly.

"""Connect,""" they say together as they disappear with a burst of light.

"Then comma we shall also be taking our leave period with our leader dead comma I don't know just what will become of us period but comma I swear we shall keep our promise to both you and Ren Kirei period." Ley says as she along with all her still wounded unconscious comrades disappear.

What did she do just now?

"You should head back too, Lilicia," Alicia says as she prods her sister lightly.

"I want to stay a while, don't be cruel, Onee-sama. Unlike you who sees Yuichi-niisama everyday I only get these rare instances." Lilicia-chan says with a grunt.

Has she reached her rebellious period.

"Father will be worried, Lilicia-chan, I promise I'll come to see you soon." I say as I pat the cute girl's head. Alicia shows me an angry expression, no need for the jealousy my love, you will always be my number one.

"Okay..." Lilicia-chan slouches her shoulders "Connect." She says, but she doesn't disappear like everyone else, "Eh...Connect..." She retries but to no avail.

"What's going on?" Alicia asks, when suddenly a hologram appears in front of us and takes on the form of Father-In-Law.

"I'm sorry Alicia, Yuichi-kun." Father begins.

"A recording?" Alicia says.

"Things have taken a turn for the complicated in the Underworld, until things boil over, can I please ask that you both look after Lilicia? I promise it won't take long, so I hope you can abide by my request." The hologram disappears and both Alicia and Lilicia-chan are showing serious expressions.

"Just what could have happened that is so complicated?" Alicia asks rhetorically.

Chapter 20C: Versus Enigma VII: Trouble Abrew Anew (Perspective: None)

“Come on, ha ha ha, how much more can you take!?” A loud voice shouted as he whipped a woman's bare body with a needle filled whip.

The woman was blindfolded, gagged, had a rope tied tightly in a noose around her neck and was stood on top of a small stool. All the while a teenage cyan haired boy was whipping and burning her body with the needle whip and a red hot poker. The woman's legs started to wobble at the continuous torture.

“Ah, if you fall off the stool you know what will happen right!?” The woman upon hearing the words gathered all the strength in her legs to remain on the only thing preventing her neck from breaking, the stool. “That's more like it!!” The boy shouted as he resumed his torture and the woman let out horrendous pleading screams through the gag.

However, the boy paid it no mind as he just laughed at the woman's suffering. Soon the strength in her legs gave out and the stool toppled over.

Crack! - A loud noise resounded as her body went limp and hung from the ceiling.

“Ahhh~ ~” The boy scratched the back of his head, “Another one broke.” He said as he gazed at the many people hanging from the ceiling and the countless number of stools that littered the floor.

The boy pulled out a small cube that he threw onto the ground. The cube took the holographic image of a girl with short silver hair with parts of the sides in cute braids. “I guess since I can't show you my love, I've been playing with my toys a lot more, Lilicia.” The cyan haired boy kissed the lips of the hologram of the Pandemonium family's youngest daughter. “But that will change soon, my dear.” The hologram disappeared.

“Well, I guess for now, I need to order some more toys to play with.” The boy laughed lightly and smiled innocently to himself as he continued to scratch the back of his head in a form of slight embarrassment.

Chapter 20D: Versus Enigma VII: The Next Move (Perspective: None)

"Well done, Carrisa. With this another pawn will serve a purpose. Nadia without Gungnir-Mjölnir is meaningless." The masked man stated without emotion.

"I'm glad you're pleased, Master." Carrisa said with a slight hint of unease.

"Worried about what will happen without you there?" He asked.

"No, I've thrown the past behind me. I serve only you." Carrisa stated whilst straightening her back.

"For as long as it doesn't have a negative effect on the final project, I care not what you do in the meantime, you and Ichiyu both." And with those final words the man clad in the mask disappeared out of sight.

"So I can do what I want for now then?" Carrisa said to herself with a nod.

Chapter 20E: Versus Enigma VII: Yuichi's Final Dilemma

"Must...resist...temptation..." I state as I tightly grip my extending left hand with my right. My left hand trying to reach for one of the black curtains covering up one of my many mirrors. "I swore not...to look...for ninety...minutes..." I further encourage myself.

Another minute passes on my clock.

"Just...seventy six...more...to...go..." I say as I further build up my fighting spirit.

Time passed by slowly, I'm sure I will look back at today and remember this as my longest ninety minutes.