The world around Geruke wobbled. The sky and the ocean rocked side to side. However, the two were indistinguishable due to how blurred everything was. Nausea streamed through his body and up to his throat. Something begged to rush up from it. Pain surged across his head and his heart battered his sternum. Blood from his wrist gushed into the lake. His body weakened as if an immeasurable weight pushed against it.

Despite that, he pushed and begged his limp arms into movement. He reached for his belt. He ripped a dagger out of it and threw it to where he expected Friedroth to be. The blurred and silver figure that loomed over him swerved its head to the side, dodging the dagge-

Geruke didn’t throw the dagger at Friedroth's head like he seemed to predict. He threw it at his wrist. The dagger plunged into a gap in his armour and poked out the other side of his wrist. A halberd fell from Friedroth’s grasp. Geruke snatched it. As soon as his hands felt the wood of the shaft, the blurred form thrust its sword at Geruke’s neck; his halberd too far away to parry i-

Swerving his head to the side, Geruke let Friedroth’s sword slice across his cheek. Geruke surged to a stand and swung the halberd at Friedroth’s neck. He yelled. He spun. Shooting an arm at his belt, his fingers wrapped around a dagger. He yanked it out of its bel-

The halberd sunk through flesh, sliced through muscle, and smashed through bone to zoom straight through and away from Friedroth’s nape, leaving his head to spin over Geruke and splash into the lake.

He fell back into the water and laid for a few moments, appreciating the sound of the breeze, the rustling of grass, and the shaking of tree canopies, hoping for it to bring a brief reprieve to the throbbing pain that surged through his head, body and bleeding wr-

Madrily yelled. The fight continued. Geruke rushed to his feet and stumbled; the world still hazed. He shook his head and slapped his cheeks. Clarity in his sight returned.

Lyrassa continued to fight a Templaga soldier near the road. Swinging her sword like a feather, Lyrassa glided across the grass and the sunset gleamed with an orange lustre on her dry face. She was doing fine.

Two templaga soldiers laid next to her in pools of blood, their heads rolling beside them. One ran to a huxkrana horse, panting and whimpering. Blood smothered his face and gambeson. Whipping a dagger out of his belt, he stabbed the huxkrana horse.

Why? Was it because he didn’t want them to chase him in his escape? Geruke smiled at the realization that after he beat the Templaga, he could take their huxkrana horses and not even need to go to Stradrid city. He rushed up to the road, aiming to kill him and preserve the horses for himself.

But Geruke stopped and glanced at the trees. Madrily battered away a Templaga soldier with her claymore, gasping for breath. She trudged across the grass, sweat stampeded across her skin, and she had to push her eyes open like weights pulled down on them, for they would occasionally fall to slits. They smashed wide open when her back hit bark and the soldier’s claymore thrust at her neck.

Three Templaga laid with bleeding chests on the grass next to them. It'd only be a matter of time before Madrily joined them.

Geruke shook his head and continued running up to the road. Madrily was a powerful warrior. She’d be fin-

He froze and turned to the trees. Couldn’t saving her be a great opportunity to win back her favour? The likelihood of the mission succeeding was small, but if he was to get Madrily to love him again, then all his problems would be solved without needing to succeed in an impossible mission.

But could she love him again? If he saved her in that moment, it would be a onetime decision. There would be no chance that he could keep up the kind and self-sacrificial act forever. He refused to commit to behaving in such a silly way forever.

Only once would he let himself do such a thing, and only once would never cut it. Not to mention, if she ever found out what he did to her manor’s guards, it’d all come crumbling down. Relying on Madrily wasn’t an effective strategy - in fact, it wasn’t a strategy at all. Like Lyrassa said, it was nothing more than a childish fantasyy. He’d be better off relying on the things he was good at - cruelty and killing. He was never good at kindness.

Even Lyrassa glared down at him and nodded up at the huxkrana horses. “Protect the horses!” She shouted, pivoting around the blade of a claymore to then spin and swing her sword at her opponent’s neck. He parried. “Stealing them would make our impossible quest possible!”

She was right. He agreed with her, so he turned to the road, ignoring the trees. It made perfect sense to protect the huxkrana horses and leave Madrily to die. So why did he have such a powerful feeling in his gut telling him to save her?

Was it her strength as a warrior being valuable to their mission? Was it the memories that contained the feeling of her body squeezed against his, the smile that fluttered his heart, and the soft texture of her crimson lips pressed against his? Was it her influencing her mother to stop her from killing him?

Was it her hundreds of acts of kindness that she smothered him with across the multiple years that he’d known her?

He didn’t know. All he knew was that something within pushed him away from the road. He ran at the trees, halberd strangled in his one remaining hand.

He couldn’t let Madrily die.