The moon reigned over the night sky. Its light illuminated them and followed them like a beacon.

When the barrier fell, Desmond could breathe again as he should. Even though he hadn't realized anything had changed. It seemed that the moon was one of those things that had changed without him noticing.

Now, its light seemed brighter. Purer.

And cooler. Like a message from the heavens that said they had no chance of even escaping.

Desmond shook his head. Since when was he a person who believed in that sort of thing?

In any case, fatalism wouldn't help him any. He had to put all his efforts into getting out of this.

To get everyone out of this one.

They passed over a bridge created by the moonlight, through the darkness of the forest.

I won't let it end like this, Desmond thought.

They came out of the forest.

The army was ready to receive them. Immediately, they turned towards them.

As they tried to put distance between them and the machine, they put everything they had into stopping the beast that had emerged from the darkness of the forest.

Abigail responded to these attacks.

By firing with the cannons, yes.

But the cannons were not the only weapon at the machine's disposal.

Its entire body was a weapon. The short arms. The legs, to push, to crush.

Everything had to be harnessed. And Abigail did.

Once again, he was astonished.

She handled the machine as if she had been piloting it for years. Even though it should be something new. He didn't understand how it came so easily to her.

He didn't really care. The point was that it made things easier for them.

He could worry about a little thing like that once they were all out of here and safe.

Now his mind and body had to be focused on surviving.

On protecting what he had to protect.

And nothing else.

Still, it really was amazing.

But even if she wasn't using the bipedal war machine as well as an experienced pilot would, it wouldn't make a difference.

The Azure Empire people were too good at their job, in other words.

They had created these machines to kill mages, not to go to war with each other. So they weren't equipped to handle them if they turned on them.

They were dropping like flies. Because of the numerical advantage, they would eventually overpower her.

It was only a matter of time before attacks from all directions brought down the machine, leaving them defenseless in the middle of enemy territory.

But they had no intention of taking on an army alone and winning. They weren't stupid enough to think that was even a possibility. They were... That is, Abigail was making her way into the building. Then they would run. All of them.

They would have to surrender. Discretion was the better part of valor, they said. There was no shame in giving up a battle that could not be won.

Flies. The shots that kept coming were certainly like mosquito bites. The cockpit didn't even shake from these attacks. If it did, the constant motion of the machine hid it.

They couldn't stop them. There was no one left who could stop them.

The shadow, which had so easily destroyed one of the machine's legs, was dead in the forest.

So now they had a clear path.

Abigail grabbed one of the cannons.

She twisted it in her hands, broke it in half. She threw each of the pieces to a different side.

Some were able to escape, but some were overwhelmed. There were too many for them all to escape.

Rolled over and knocked down.

Now was not the time, but Desmond smiled to himself.

The situation was very serious.

However, it was as if Abigail had stopped in order to play bowling. How could he not feel like laughing with that ridiculous idea in his head?

Besides, it was satisfying. Blood and guts stained the grass. As the cannon halves had rolled over them, the unlucky ones had exploded outward. The contents of their chests had been emptied and dispersed.

Only a madman would enjoy violence. He had already admitted that he wasn't sane, but his enjoyment wasn't one of the things that made him not sane.

Violence against the beasts of the Empire wasn't true violence. The odd thing, in this case, would be not to enjoy it.

But he no longer enjoyed it as much as he once did. He said it as if it had been years ago, but it hadn't even been months.

Since he had become a different person. Someone with things to lose.

Yes.

He had thought himself strong all his life, but it wasn't true.

Only his body was strong. His mind was weak.

Abigail reached the building at last. It had seemed to him that it had taken longer than it undoubtedly had.

She sunk the arms of the machine into the building's front.

That was how she climbed up to the roof. Pulling one of the arms out, burying it back into the wall a little higher, and so on.

The enemy pilot had made it all the way to the roof in one leap.

Perhaps Abigail didn't have the skill in handling the machine to do it that way.

Or maybe she simply didn't want to risk it.

By that Desmond meant, of course, crushing those waiting for them with the jump. There was no roof in the way, after all, not anymore.

In any case, Abigail got where she needed to get to.

The soldiers couldn't stop that.

Nor could the wall of the building, crumbling under his weight, in her path.

She landed on the ground.

They hadn't moved from the spot. Even through the glass of the cockpit, he noticed that Amy was considerably worse.

... Of course she was.

She was in free fall. It wasn't possible for her to get better.

It could only get worse.

Until she got help, that is.

Abigail opened the cockpit.

All the cannons had either been destroyed or had run out of ammunition. Now that he noticed, he hadn't heard a cannon fire in a while.

Yes, Abigail had probably stopped to destroy the last of the cannons earlier.

So they didn't have to worry about the enemy hitting them, even if only by chance.

"Get in here," Abigail said. They'd be a little tight...a little tight, but it should work.

Christina seemed to hesitate, but then helped Amy walk, up to the cockpit. It had probably been his imagination. She had no reason to hesitate about getting in there.

Abigail gently dragged Amy inside.

Christina couldn't do it all alone, and he couldn't help. His arms, even though he was close to Abigail, still hadn't healed. In fact, he still couldn't even feel them.

With his arms like that, Christina had to move them herself so that... well, so that it wouldn't be any more uncomfortable than it needed to be, this cramped situation.

As with Christina, he felt Amy's body against his.

He wasn't having undue and strange thoughts again. What he felt...

If he'd had fit arms to help her up, he knew then that he would have had to do most of the work. Because Amy was practically dead weight.

Dead.

Fucking word. Fuck no. She wouldn't die.

She didn't have to die at all.

They would get her out of here, get her help. The biggest obstacles had been surmounted. Now all that was left was...

"Let's get out of here," Abigail said, closing the cockpit.

Wait a minute.

Abigail began to climb toward the hole the roof had become.

Wait a minute.

Desmond swallowed.

"What are you doing?" Desmond asked.

"What do you mean? Running away, of course. I thought we agreed on that."

"Yes, but the other students? What are we going to do with them?"

It's not like he had any special connection to them. It's not like he was going to cry for anyone there. He didn't know faces or names.

The people he cared about were all right here, crammed (though that word was an understatement) inside this cockpit designed for a single pilot.

But still...

Yet he didn't like the idea of turning his back on so many people.

Leaving them to their fate.

Abigail stepped over the hole and jumped down. She hadn't stopped moving and, to be fair, she hadn't had a choice either.

If she had stopped, the debris would have fallen on her.

Or then she would have had to climb over the pile of debris. Which wouldn't have been a problem in itself, but the collapse of the wall would have meant that the enemies would have had a clear line of fire on them, and they wouldn't have had time to talk anyway.

"Saving the people you love is hard enough. If you try to save everyone, you might not save anyone.... Or lose something important," she added softly in the end.

"But..."

He couldn't object.

Not that she was wrong. Worrying about oneself was part of human nature. In his own situation, surely none of the people in there would have raised their voices in protest.

It surely wouldn't even have crossed their minds that they were leaving a stranger behind while they were heading for salvation.

And Christina and Amy were keeping silent, accepting that outcome implicitly.

However...

"Is that really what you want?" Abigail asked.

"If it's possible..." he replied, albeit hesitantly.

Abigail nodded her head.

"It's okay. As I have told you several times, I am a "thing" that will remain in the world a little longer for the sole purpose of satisfying your every desire. So, if you want something, no need to hesitate. Just say the word and I will do it."

In someone else's mouth, those words might sound like they're full of bitter, sharp sarcasm. Poorly hidden.

But Desmond knew she meant those things sincerely.

That she was talking about herself that way in earnest.

Christina gave him a sidelong glance.

The weight of her gaze was as if she was asking him if he would really put some strangers' lives above Amy's. But that wasn't what he intended at all. Not at all.

"Is that what you really want? "Abigail asked him again.

Oh, she had been waiting for his confirmation. But now he wasn't as sure as he had been a moment ago.

Desmond swallowed slowly. Undoing the lump in his throat.

"You're not wrong," Amy said suddenly.

"Amy..." Christina called her name. She brought a hand up to the other girl's face, but stopped halfway.

She stopped and let it drop. Her fingertips brushed, by accident, against Amy's hair. It was bathed in sweat like the rest of her.

"I wouldn't stand other people dying...to save me. I couldn't live with that. I'm... I'm so scared, but... I don't want to leave things like this."

Desmond looked away.

He couldn't bear it. As he had said, he was weak.

Only his body was strong.

Only Amy and Christina and Abigail mattered, right? He was caught between Abigail and his teammates.

Unable to decide.

Wanting to have it all, all of them, when he knew that wasn't possible at all.

And that was fine up to a point. But now he was even hesitating between them and strangers? When had he become so indecisive?

So...

So weak. He supposed that was the right word.

"It's okay," Christina said. "We're a team. We have to work together. Live... and die together, if we have to."

Yes. That was what it meant to be a real team.

To be united... connected.

To live and die, yes. But today they would live. Tonight wouldn't be their last night. Whatever would happen, he would make sure of that.

As they talked, they had been getting shot at continuously, of course. The world had not stood still for them to have the freedom to speak.

But for him it had disappeared. It all came back to him suddenly: the gunshots, the shaking, the chaos.

Desmond gasped as if it were something new, a surprise attack, rather than something that had been happening constantly for too long now.

Abigail pulled back, obeying his wish.

By which he meant she went back inside the building. She had already knocked down the barrier, so they could shoot her even then. They had a clear path.

Abigail hit the button in the cockpit.

"Come on, let's go!" she told them as it opened.

"What about you?" Desmond asked.

Christina and Amy wasted no time in asking.

They hurried to get down, and to get to a place where they would be safe. As far away from the machine as possible, in other words.

Abigail had positioned the machine to have its back to the enemies.

The cockpit was to the front, so even open, the risk wasn't that great. Not as long as they stayed inside. But while they were going down was another matter.

Luckily, they fared well.

They weren't hurt.

Amy is already hurt, he told himself.

"Come down, Desmond."

"What are you going to do?"

Abigail turned around, staring into his eyes. Her gaze bewitched him as it always did.

"What you want me to do. The only way for you and all the students to get out of this building is for me to serve as a distraction."

His blood ran cold.

She alone, even inside the machine and even if she only intended to serve as a distraction, not defeat them all....

"You won't be able to," Desmond said. His voice trembled.

"It's possible. But I will try. And I'll run away as soon as possible, you don't have to worry about that."

"But..."

"But nothing, Desmond. If this is what you want, I have to risk it. And if you change your mind, if you make a different decision, tell me. I'll do my best to stick to it. As I always do. But you have to decide. And follow the path your decision leads you down without hesitation, without looking back. It's the only thing you can do."

Desmond pursed his lips.

"Desmond!" Christina called out to him.

Desmond looked away from Abigail, looked at the girl.

He swallowed.

He knew he had made his decision.

He knew that maybe he had made the decision he had to make a long time ago.

"Don't let her... "Desmond said, both his voice and his body trembling. "Don't let them capture you. If you do what I want you to do, then do that."

"All right," Abigail replied, simply.

As if it were so simple.

As if it really was, because he wanted it to be, that it would work out that way.

If only it were true.

Desmond got off the war machine.

They rounded up the frightened students and led them out the back door.

Once outside, despite everything, Desmond couldn't help but literally look back.

Towards Abigail, riding that machine, fighting to protect them all.

All of them?

What was he saying? It was as if he was trying to take the responsibility off himself. She wasn't fighting for everyone, she was fighting for him. For him, she was risking ending up in the clutches of these monsters.

If she did, Abigail knew well what awaited her. The indignities and torments.

To be treated as less than human.

But she fought fearlessly. For him. And...

"Desmond." Christina's voice.

Again, it made him look away from Abigail and back at her.

"Yes. Let's go."

He kept walking.

They kept running, following the train tracks that had led them here.

Being slowly swallowed by the dark of the night.