Desmond continued to turn a deaf ear to Amy's fading voice in the distance, because he was walking away, going after the trucks.

Christina understood him well. He had wanted to connect with someone. Whoever it was.

That was why he had clung to the tenuous bond between them so desperately, why he had tried to see the fact that Amy, Christina and he were teammates as more significant than it actually was.

He had insisted that Christina and he were similar as if wanting to convince her of it...and convince himself, too.

Thinking he had no time to waste and no room in his heart, he had tried earnestly. He had done everything within his power to make that childish dream come true.

But, in the end, he had proved Christina right. And that he shouldn't even have tried.

All he had was this.

The sword in his hands, and the woman he was running towards. That was all he had, and all he would ever have.

He was...

He couldn't change. Or at least he didn't have the tools to change. In any case, this was what was there.

A broken child who hadn't grown up, in search of.... for...

The right word eluded him.

Or maybe he just didn't want to utter it, even within his own thoughts. So he wouldn't have to admit what it would say about him.

Maybe he had known it all along, deep down.

From the beginning, he had been walking a path to destruction. His heart was missing too many pieces that he could never get back. His mind was a fucking mess. As for his body...

Well, tonight he'd pushed it to the edge of its limits. In the rest of the night, he might well surpass them.

Might as well destroy it too.

He finally reached the trucks, before his legs failed him. He took a big leap and landed on top of the roof of the vehicle. The problem was that he didn't stay on top for long.

He rolled off the roof and almost fell, barely managing to grab onto the edges with both hands, resting his feet on the bumper. Or at least he thought it was called that. He wasn't familiar with personal vehicles.

Desmond grunted as he felt his leg break. The one he'd been shot in.

Naturally. Even taking normal steps meant straining the leg, and on top of that he had been filling it with magical energy continuously, straining to maintain that delicate balance that required using physical reinforcement magic to that extent without destroying himself.

And he had failed. He wouldn't be able to use that leg again for hours. Too long.

He would have to manage in this state.

Unable to run, let alone walk. Crippled.

It wouldn't be so bad if he had at least landed on the roof of the right truck. But he hadn't.

He had simply jumped at the first opportunity, correctly sensing that his body wouldn't be able to take much more, that in a very short time something was going to collapse.

In other words, he was on the last truck in a line led by the truck where his savior had been locked up.

Driven by Laura, that bitch.

Five trucks in a row. Put like that, it didn't sound like much, but the distance required seemed ten times bigger to him. Like a big cannon.

But hey, it could be worse. If he hadn't committed a massacre, he'd have to deal with considerably more than five trucks. He'd seen more than a dozen in the hangar; he didn't know how many, exactly, because he hadn't stopped to count them at the time, having more immediate concerns in mind.

The same concern as now. Namely, his neck.

Desmond pulled himself up, repositioning himself back on top of the truck, as firmly as possible when one of his limbs was dead weight.

Laughing at himself, he crawled across the roof. Forward.

"You heard that, didn't you?"

Yes, he answered to himself. The concern of a soldier who had heard him stumbling up here, something that could be interpreted as a warning, but it came too, too late. Too late. They had no idea what was coming at them.

Clinging to the edges of the roof, Desmond swung himself up and threw himself against and through the car window, passing through to the other side. Followed by a shower of glass.

His body had become weak enough that he could be injured by the broken glass.

He felt a cut on his neck. A few more inches to the right, just a pinch of bad luck, and it would have plunged into his neck, delivering him into the arms of a slow and painful death. Luck was an important factor.

To a greater or lesser extent, it always was. The luck of these bastards had been determined since they had chosen him as a target.

What had come out for them was snake eyes, of course.

"Crazy son of a bitch!"

Crazy? Yeah, he wasn't sane. And that was one of the things that made him strong. That had allowed him to fight as if he had nothing to lose, or as if he could not lose, even before he discovered that his ability to regenerate bordered on immortality, thanks to the blessing of his savior.

Almost all of the things that made him so dangerous were an extension of his madness.

The mentality needed to make use of his greatest weapon, transforming his body into, at the same time, the sharpest sword and a bomb that could explode and wipe him out at any moment.

To see such a risk as equivalent to any way of fighting to the death because, anyway, soldiers put their lives on the line every time they fought.

The determination to keep fighting, even bleeding and broken. To think he hadn't lost until he died.

To throw himself into impossible situations, even now, having confirmed that he was not immortal. Not really. That he could die and stay dead.

Because his savior was the only one whose body had no limits.

All those things he had mentioned were important. But there was one factor just as important, though he rarely had a chance to prove it.

Showing that he was a quick learner.

He had seen the way his savior fought, how effective she had been with only a knife, no matter how sharp her blade the short reach was a liability. But he could fight the same way she could, only with a greatsword.

Before jumping into the car, he had gotten rid of the sword, counting on being able to summon it back to his hand when he needed it, even though he had only exercised that skill twice.

After landing, he tried it, and for a moment he was afraid he would fail.

That, having succeeded twice in a row, the third time would be the charm, yes. The time he would be defeated.

But no. The sword appeared in his hand quite naturally.

It was... it really was part of him. As natural as breathing.

He swung the sword, severing the head of the person sitting in the passenger seat, the decapitated head flew, shattering one of the side windows.

The driver pulled out a gun to shoot him, but Desmond was much faster.

Of course. After all, the driver wouldn't have been able to pull the trigger before he attacked even if he had been driving with the gun in his hand.

Desmond plunged it into his chest. The blade, wet with his blood, came out the other side of the seat, nearly severing the leg of one of the soldiers in the back.

No, it wasn't over. The back of the truck was full of enemies.

He could only crawl, now, and this wasn't even the right truck. Neither Laura, nor his savior were here.

Don't think about it, damn it.

Don't think about it at all.

Without pulling the sword out of the driver's chest, who wasn't dead yet, Desmond snatched the gun from between his limp fingers.

The driver was in agony. So, of course, he lost control of the vehicle.

He wasn't very familiar with personal vehicles like this one. But he understood the basics of the basics.

One pedal made it move, the other pedal served to stop it. And that wheel whose name escaped him served to control it.

If he hadn't known that before, he would have realized it in the middle or after the jump, when he saw it with his hands on that thing.

Not taking control of the vehicle would mean crashing, sooner rather than later, and even if he could crawl out of whatever was left of the vehicle after that, he would never be able to reach Laura in time.

He would be killed, and it would take time for him to resurrect, recover, or he would die altogether. Forever.

In either case, he would not find his savior again.

This was his first and only chance to save her.

However, if he turned his back on the enemies and took control of the vehicle, he would be filled with lead an instant later. He had no good options. Shit, fuck. He should... he should have thought this through.

But now it was too late to change course.

He wasn't the kind of guy who made long-term plans.

He was the type to follow his instincts to the end. Which was often an advantage, but sometimes it was nothing more than a burden. Like now.

Time seemed to have slowed down. It seemed to be crawling like a snail.

But Desmond was acutely aware that he had no time. Less than a second to make a decision. One or the other. Or else time would rip it out of his hands, along with everything he had ever cared about.

The only thing he had ever cared about.

If he lost his savior, he would take his own life. Or he would spend the rest of his life searching for her, desperately, without finding her. But he would have nothing left. Nothing. To live as a dead man until the end of his days...that was the best he could hope for, if the car crashed.

Amy and Christina were alive..., but it's not like he could go back to them with his tail between his legs, after what he'd done to them.

He had betrayed them. He'd spit... on whatever was between them. Regardless of what the best name for it was.

He could not expect to be forgiven. To be welcomed with open arms.

And even if that happened, he wouldn't be able to move on. He knew that. He knew that.

Somehow, he had known this was all going to end tonight.

Desmond made the only decision he could make.

He threw the corpse, along with his sword, out the window through which he had entered, which was now just a hole. The corpse slid down the front of the car, fell out, rolling.

He took the seat. Without letting go of the gun, he grabbed the wheel and stepped on the accelerator in an odd posture, as his left leg was broken, unresponsive to his commands.

He tried to take control of this thing. Keep it from crashing into the other vehicles or into the trees. They were in the middle of the woods, going through wild terrain, not a road set up for vehicles.

It was especially dangerous to drive here, and Desmond had never driven a day in his life.

Still, he managed to take control. The truck only brushed a couple of trees, then he managed to get it back into place. Behind the trucks that were making their way through the woods.

After being shaken back and forth, the soldiers soon regained their balance.

To reach for their guns and fire.

The bullets went through the seat, of course.

They blew out the left window, the only one that wasn't broken yet. More than one of the bullets hit him. He couldn't avoid them. He was shot several times in the chest, in the legs, and in one shoulder.

And the most dangerous of all the shots opened a hole in his neck.

Desmond gritted his teeth.

He could feel the blood blocking his throat. The taste of it on his tongue. Staining his teeth.

He put a hand over the neck wound, applied force to slow the bleeding.

He didn't give a shit about the wounds!

As long as he wasn't dead, he hadn't lost.

Desmond laughed.

Even in a situation like this, he burst out laughing like the madman he was. Or well, at least that was the intention. But with his body in that state his wild laughter sounded more like he was simply choking and coughing to expel that which was keeping him from breathing.

He felt strong. He rammed the nearest truck sideways, causing it to crash into a tree.

It didn't bother him that he hadn't knocked it over or run it off the road. That hadn't been his goal. What he wanted was to destabilize the enemies behind him, and that's what he accomplished.

He was much better than them. Much better. So the crash, the jolts, none of it was a hindrance.

Desmond raised the hand with which he held the pistol, pointing it back.

And, guided by the image given to him by the mirror above the wheel with which this vehicle was controlled, he fired.

Again and again, he pulled the trigger.

Before that perfect opportunity, the brief moments of surprise and imbalance, was over, all the soldiers were dead or dying.

Now he could concentrate on what really mattered. On what he had to do.

Before this body failed him, he would get the truck driven by Laura off the road at least. If he couldn't rescue his savior directly... save her, returning the favor, he should at least do the next best thing.

Sow chaos. Hit them where it hurt, so that his savior would have more time. Had a better chance to escape from them, or to finish what she had started.

This plan of his was counting on his savior being able to get back into the fight so quickly after being shot in the head.

Which was far from a sure thing, though he had already seen that her regeneration ability was far superior to his own.

Still, with this dying body, it was the only thing he could do.

He'd bet everything he had on it.

Desmond spat out a large gob of blood, freeing his throat enough to laugh properly.

The laughter of a homicidal maniac spread through the darkness of the night. As blood kept pouring from his mouth and from the hole in his throat as well.

Yes, I can do this. I can hold on at least until I see that bitch's vehicle overturned on the ground, burning.

He stepped on the accelerator and wouldn't take his foot off the gas again. He didn't have a second to lose. At any moment he could lose control of the truck. Because of his inexperience, because he was going too fast, because of a simple blunder that anyone could make.

But the real problem, what really worried him, was that the same applied to his body.

Caution would only hinder his progress. It was useless.

He saw a soldier open the window and stick his head out of it, aiming at him with a rifle that was resting on his shoulder.

The rear doors of the truck directly in front of him were kicked open, revealing more than a dozen people squeezed into that space they had made cramped, in several rows.

In the third row everyone was standing. In the second, on their knees.

And in the first row, they were lying on the floor, between the legs of their companions. All armed, all prepared.

In an extremely precarious position. With one good blow he could knock them off, getting rid of them.

Desmond kept laughing. I can do it, of course I can do it!

He rammed those sons of bitches.

Not all of them fell out of the truck. The first reaction of most of them, as they saw him approaching, ready to ram them, was to hold on with one hand to the truck without stopping firing.

But two or three fell. And he got what he wanted, albeit in a different way than he had imagined.

He ran them off the road, the vehicle fell on its side and ended up stuck between two trees when its momentum ended.

Even if they flipped him over, it started up like nothing despite the damage and they went after him, he could consider that he had gotten rid of each and every one of them. It was as if he had killed them with his own hands.

Because, if he hadn't gotten what he wanted by the time those bastards had time to do that, he never would.

They were no longer obstacles.

But there were three more trucks left in his path, full of soldiers. And the truck... he had no idea how long this thing would hold up, or if he'd be able to drive it to the end, even if it did hold up.

His eyelids were heavy. Everything, even breathing, was a superhuman effort.

He was in no condition to risk passing magical energy through his eyes, so he could see as poorly as any of them on this dark night.

Come to think of it, it was a small miracle he hadn't crashed already.

So Desmond laughed and kept laughing. And he stepped on the accelerator harder.

He felt powerful.

He felt almost as if... Like he was daydreaming. The situation was progressing exactly like that, cloudy, with no apparent solution of continuity. His surroundings looked real, but he had the feeling that looking at the trees from the right angle he would discover that they were like plastic. Part of the set.

The set of this bullshit play. The saving grace of this show was that... that...

I'm not one of the actors. I'm the one who's going to write the fucking ending.

Desmond dropped the gun on top of a console where there was a bunch of numbers he didn't understand or care about. And he called back his sword.

It was a bit excessive, having the sword right on the seat next to him, but this way he didn't have to waste time looking at it, reaching out and grabbing it. It just appeared there as if bound to his hands by invisible chains.

He had to duck his head to dodge a shot. Just barely.

The movement made his head spin. No matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn't dodge all the bullets coming in his direction in his condition. It wasn't just that he couldn't move properly, but that he couldn't move from his spot.

His success... depended too much on luck for his liking.

He raised the sword with one hand, threw it.

It hit the target. At the front of the truck, splitting it in two...that thing underneath which the engine was located.

He considered calling it back to his hand again, but the sword would hinder them more just by being there. A visual obstacle.

The truck didn't crash, however. It did not burst into flames. It simply stopped dead in its tracks, in the middle of the road, without the "heart" that allowed it to live. In short. One obstacle less.

He retrieved his sword, laid it across his lap as he drove.

Five trucks and he had taken care of two. No, no, three. He was sitting on the third. Driving it.

Concentrate.

There were only two left. He was so close to his savior.

So close to Laura, so close to being able to get his hands on her neck, to break it, to make her scream before he killed her! But he couldn't do any of those things, even if he was able to reach her.

For with this body at most he could give his savior a chance to save herself.

Ah, how he wished things were different.

It seemed that satisfaction was always just out of his reach, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how close he came.

He reached Laura. She stood beside her car. Driving wasn't so difficult, after all. He had lost control more than once, going off the road, skimming trees or crashing hard into them.

But he was alive, and the car was still running well enough, at least.

To do this.

Desmond rammed Laura's truck, trying to run her off the road. From this position he couldn't see his savior. But he could see his target, that abomination. I will kill you. Matarematarematarematarare.

He realized, vaguely, that he had bitten his tongue, drawing blood.

"You crazy bastard! Die already!"

Gladly. But only if you accompany me to the other world, good deal, eh?

I don't accept refunds!

Desmond rammed the truck of that abomination. Again and again. He heard more gunshots, what a novelty. They sounded like they were coming from another world. As if they couldn't reach him.

And they didn't hit him, but it got worse anyway. Suddenly, even though he had managed more or less fine so far, the car started to move as if there was another person with his hands on the wheel.

Erratically, pushing, trying to get it out of his hands. To take the vehicle away from him.

If he was in his right mind, he would have realized that one of the bullets had deflated one of the tires. But he wasn't.

He simply, like an animal, continued to go after his prey as if he could see nothing else.

Of course, he hadn't stopped laughing.

Laura and he ran off the road together. Having a small fight. At this rate, this car that he couldn't control properly was going to be wrecked before he had a chance to wreck it.

That sounded like a joke. It wasn't funny, but it made him laugh harder.

They went at full speed through the trees. Almost as if they were falling. Tumbling, propelled forward over the bumps, over the rocky, rough terrain, as if they were going through a wind tunnel.

And where was that tunnel taking them?

"Damn animal!" Laura shouted, out of her mind. Or perhaps, rather, getting in tune with him. Well, one homicidal maniac knew another when he saw one.

Speaking of which, she was pointing a gun at him.

"Die! Die, die, die, die!"

With one eye on him and the other on the road, she pulled the trigger twice in quick succession.

The third time she failed to pull it.

Not because she had crashed or anything like that. But because someone had stopped her. His savior had grabbed the gun with both hands. He couldn't see the corpses from this angle, but she had not only freed herself from her bonds, she had taken care of the enemies around her in record time.

She had regenerated faster than he had dared to dream, even. But she was still not quite well.

She wasn't able to wrestle the gun away from Laura.

She was no longer shooting at him, but only because that bitch was pushing the pistol in the direction of his savior, giving the misleading impression that his savior was the one who was winning the struggle.

The winner would not be decided now.

What was on the other side of the wind tunnel?

Water. Both of their vehicles fell into the lake. As a result, Desmond's head fell forward, hitting the surface hard, he heard a crack. And that was the straw that broke the camel's back. That's what made him lose consciousness.