Finally. The leader of the golden masks heaved a sigh of relief.

The girl had put up more resistance than he had thought possible. They had only worried about the monsters that were their targets, and about the shadow magic user.

That, clearly, had been a mistake. A mistake that wouldn't be repeated.

He saw a knife slicing through the air.

Not that his own men had betrayed him, for some reason. The knife was aimed downward. It was meant to take that girl's life.

Fortunately...

He arrived in time.

He stopped the knife, grabbing it by the handle, pushing back.

His subordinate looked back at him. As if challenging him. Or as if he didn't understand why he had stopped him. Impossible to read the expression, with those masks in between.

His subordinate confirmed which of the two things was what his gaze contained, shortly after.

"Why?"

"Why?", he repeated, incredulous. Not incredulous. Rather, he didn't want to believe it. "She is a citizen of Albion. An innocent child. We're not going to kill a child.

The leader forced, twisting his subordinate's wrist, almost, but only almost, making him drop the knife. Because of the pain."

"She has killed many of us. She..."

"She had defended herself from attackers, as anyone would have. She had no way of knowing we would do her no harm."

His subordinate wouldn't let go of the knife.

The man wasn't putting up much of a fight. But he was still holding on to the knife, despite the pain coming from his strained wrist. That was saying quite a bit. Enough.

"Have you forgotten why we came here? We are knights of justice. Not ordinary killers."

Something changed in his subordinate's face.

It was noticeable, even with the mask in between. But it wasn't just what he saw in his eyes, it was also in his body, his body language.

His shoulders slumped. Surrendering.

The leader risked letting go of his hand, and his subordinate pulled the knife back instead of attacking.

"Very well," the leader said. He looked around, trying to see if there was anyone who thought as his subordinate had (and probably still did). "If anyone else has any complaints, you are free to try to get your hands on this girl. But you'll have to go through me first, is that clear?"

They weren't going to hurt innocent people.

If they did that, they wouldn't just sully their souls forever. They would go against everything they were fighting for. Of the purpose of this mission in the first place.

He received no responses other than a few nods.

Not everyone nodded, but the leader was satisfied. At least for the moment.

"All right. Let's move on. We've wasted too much time already."

The city guard would be here soon. If they didn't hurry...

Of course, they had plans and escape routes, they had taken that eventuality into account. But he still preferred not to think about it. Fighting the city guard to escape would be a most unpleasant thing to do. And it could easily end badly. With dead people, despite his best efforts.

So he preferred not to think about it unless things went wrong, and he was left with no choice but that. For the moment, they still had a chance.

It was a pity that circumstances had forced them to go this far.

But, even if they had to do reprehensible acts and get their hands dirty, they would protect the peace of the kingdom. They climbed the stairs to the second floor. Cautiously. They had no time to waste, true. But that didn't mean they had to abandon caution. That girl... Amy Sunderland, had been the only one who had come down to fight with them.

He hoped that was because the other one, Christina, was indisposed for some reason and the witch was too busy with her spawn.

Or that the other girl had chosen to run away rather than fight.

Not only because it would be a big obstacle, but mainly because he didn't want to hurt another girl so young.

One thing at least was clear to him.

Regardless of exactly what the circumstances were, the targets were still upstairs. Because, well... It was impossible, literally, to miss them.

The screaming. The noise, as if the house could come crashing down at any moment, under the strain.

They heard a noise. Like the impact of something... or someone, falling to the ground.

It wasn't hard to see where the sounds were coming from. The chaotic mess unleashed by those monsters. He knew what that monster in human skin had done in Kronos, the capital of the Azure Empire—that could be called a heroic act. And it was.

But it was possible that it could be repeated here, that it had already begun.

That was one of a thousand reasons why it was too dangerous to leave him alive.

The leader and his golden masks advanced toward the room where the targets were.

——

Desmond opened his eyes slowly.

His vision was blurry, as if clouded by tears. When he raised a trembling hand to his eyes, he realized that "as if" had to be removed.

He had been crying, indeed. And some tears still ran down her cheeks.

He was...

Desmond found himself in Abigail's lap, on the same bed. And those black wings again were coming out of his back.

He didn't understand what was going on. Was he still dreaming?

Abigail, on top of him, was smiling at him warmly. She was showing him the same smile she had that day when she saved him. So maybe it was a dream after all. Gods knew he had dreamed of that moment countless times.

"Finally," Abigail said in an almost inaudible whisper. For she could barely speak. And then Desmond realized he had been crying, but he had stopped crying at some point.

The tears that were now running down his cheeks were Abigail's.

"At last. After so long...."

She was crying. Her tears were falling on Desmond's cheeks. But, at the same time... He had never seen her so happy.

That day...

That day's smile seemed fake next to this one.

"Mom? What's going on?"

"It's over. It's done. It's done. It's done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being born."

He didn't understand.

Desmond felt happy, he had even blushed. But he didn't understand.

"What do you mean?"

"What I've been waiting for so long. Your body is already strong enough to... accept the curse of immortality. To release me from my suffering."

Desmond's heart was racing, going a mile a minute. Already? But...

"I don't want to part with you. Not... not so soon. Please..."

"I'm not saying it's over. I'll be here for a long, long time. But... I'm just... I'm just so happy..."

Abigail was talking about something that could kill him with grief.

Still, Desmond smiled helplessly.

Seeing her happy made him happy. It was that simple... For the moment, at least, he didn't have to make it any more complicated.... And surely it would never be. Abigail had promised him, after all.

She had promised her in the past, and she had just promised him now, again. And he believed her.

Desmond put his hands to his eyes, wiped the tears away with the backs of his hands. Clearing his vision, he could see that a piece of the ceiling had fallen.

Did I do that?, he thought, surprised, for some stupid reason.

He had shaken the capital of the Empire— the capital of the beasts. He'd brought down buildings and opened great cracks in the streets.

Desmond had destroyed everything.

Compared to the wide streets and huge buildings of the Empire, a little house like this might as well be made of paper.

That had looked... like the end of the fucking world, or something.

So of course he'd made a piece of the roof fall off. He could do that and a lot more.

"Now you have to focus," Abigail said, "I don't know what triggered you to do this...what gave you the final push, but you have to keep the power under control. Before you woke up, the whole house was shaking."

Desmond noticed that the windows had exploded, scattering broken glass all over the room.

Had it been like that in every room? Every pane of glass in the house?

It seemed like a safe bet.

"It looked like it was going to come crashing down at any moment. This is good, but you have to learn to control that power."

"Of course. What do I do?"

"First of all, take a deep breath. Try to..."

She wasn't allowed to finish the sentence.

They entered the room, people covered in thick black cloaks, faces hidden by golden masks.

Armed with daggers.

When he tried to move, Desmond found that his whole body ached. Every movement, no matter how slight, incited a protest.

He was used to this by now, really.

Too used to pushing himself forward, when the pain burned throughout his body, as if he were literally on fire.

"They're here. So, Amy..." Abigail mumbled, chagrined.

Amy.

Until then, it hadn't even crossed his mind, but now that she said it. Amy. Christina. Where were those two? What had happened?

So, Amy...

What Abigail had said, even if she had left the sentence unfinished, was enough really.

If they'd come this far, then she...

She was already…

Before they jumped on him, Desmond extended an arm. One of the guys in gold masks went flying against the wall.

Desmond clenched his hand into a fist, raised it. And the golden masked one followed the movement.

With his back pressed against the wall, he went up the wall, but didn't quite reach the ceiling. He stopped it. That's right, he had no idea what was going on, how he was doing it. But at least that much was clear.

Desmond twisted his wrist.

The golden mask began to moan as if he was choking, as if... as if something was crushing his chest.

He dropped the knife, as he writhed in pain.

Desmond clenched his fist tighter.

And the enemy's chest... exploded. Like a piñata. Scattering his 'gifts' around the room, all over his comrades.

They wouldn't be able to shake him off, no matter how hard they tried, for a while. No matter how many showers they took, the smell would remain. Being literally bathed in the blood of a comrade was very different from bathing in the blood of your enemies. But that's why he had done it. To make them suffer. He had to believe that Amy was still alive.

And he believed it, that was the truth.

No reason to change his reaction, though. Even if she wasn't dead, not yet, she would have been hurt. He couldn't forgive anyone who would hurt his family.

Anyone who dared to lay a hand on those in her family deserved nothing but a horrific death.

He shouldn't have been able to do what he had just done. But right now he didn't give a shit about the details. All he needed to know was that he could punish them for what they had done.

Abigail was looking at him. She hadn't taken her eyes off him for a second, in fact.

Almost as if she hadn't registered the intruders' arrival in the room.

And she was looking at him wide-eyed; her eyes were shining like those of an excited child, just to see him. She was excited. Of course, she was. The transformation that had begun in the capital... had ended on the other side of the world. And now she had what she wanted, so close she could almost touch it. How could she not be excited?

He wasn't satisfied, though. At least for the moment.

The golden masks watched what was left of their comrade fall to the ground. It didn't even look like a human being, but a discarded and piled amount of clothing.

A pile of wet clothes, and what made it wet was, of course, blood. And other bodily fluids. Everything but sweat. Then his enemies made a decision. In short, they turned and ran out of the room. They had come so far, they had hurt one of his precious friends... and now they were running away with their tails between their legs.

It wasn't even a joke.

Desmond struggled. He pushed himself out of bed.

"Come back here, you sons of bitches!"

Desmond had to crawl. But he didn't get very far. He didn't even make it to the door before he collapsed under his own weight.

Abigail came to him quickly, of course, holding him close.

"Leave me."

"My son..."

"Leave me, please." His voice trembled. "You have to go and check on her. Maybe now she's... she's... If she's not already..."

Desmond didn't dare finish a single sentence.

The intruders had fled only half a minute ago, but he had already come down from the wave of rage. Now, the only thing beating in his chest was fear. An old, familiar fear.

Not the fear of losing the people important to him, his family. Not the fear of the loss itself.

As bad as it sounded...

What Desmond was afraid of, deep down, was loneliness. That kind of fear.

Abigail shifted her gaze between him and the stairs. Hesitating. Hesitating, when every second could make the difference between life and death.

Not even noticing that he was able to muster up some rage, some courage. Not just because Desmond was incapable of really being angry with his mother. But because he understood her. She cared only about him, literally, for her there was only him in the whole world.

And she cared about Amy and Christina, but only as an extension of her concern for him.

Desmond had been like that, not so long ago. Concerned about the mission he had to accomplish, a vague vengeance, simply because he made himself believe that was the mission his savior had given him before leaving him alone. And that could lead to a reencounter.

Desmond had been like that before he got ties to.... To so many things he never thought were for him.

"Please." There was no anger. He just repeated his plea.

He heard a loud noise coming from below. Like glass exploding. Maybe one of the windows had been left intact, despite what had happened. And they'd gotten the hell out of there.

Or maybe it was something else entirely.

Abigail finally came to a decision. She nodded and got up. She went down the stairs, summoning the knife to her hand, her special weapon.

Desmond shuffled forward. He didn't think he was capable of standing. At least not for now. But he could keep moving forward, even if it was crawling. As long as he could keep moving, he would get somewhere. That would always be a good thing.

So don't give up. No matter how much it hurts.

Advance. Advance. Advance.

He had, of course, a motive for striving so hard. It would be different if his only motive was self"preservation.

Surely he wouldn't have made it this far if that was all he had.

One of the nearby doors opened and out of it stepped, staggering, Christina. She was alive. He had forgotten to apply physical reinforcement. On his body and in his eyes.

However, it didn't take physical reinforcement for him to see clearly that Christina was hurt.

The way she walked, so unsteady.

The blood in her mouth, staining her neck.

And then she fell to her knees, as soon as she got out. As she struggled to get to her feet again, despite the damage she had suffered, their gazes met. Christina smiled with what little energy she had. After managing to get to her feet again, she began to crawl over to him. It couldn't be said to be walking, certainly. She was barely standing.

But the important thing was that she was. And that she was moving forward, on top of everything else. He'd said that already, hadn't he? Christina helped him up and let him lean on her. He was a little embarrassed to be forced to accept her help like this. He would have been ashamed to accept anyone's help. But he needed it, so what could he do?

"I'm glad to see you're all right," Christina said. "Waking up in the middle of the night, hearing you scream like that.... It's one of the worst things that ever happened to me."

Desmond, being the selfish prick he was, felt perversely happy to hear that. But he also felt a heavy guilt.

Of course.

"I'm sorry."

"No, thank you. Thanks for being someone I care about like this."

This didn't mean that what was between them was settled, far from it. He knew that.

But even knowing it, Desmond couldn't help but grin like a complete idiot in response.

They made their way down the stairs.

They arrived in time to see the intruders escape into the darkness of the night, pursued by the members of the royal guard, who had finally arrived. Even if it was after it was over already.

The shadows outlining the sleeping were like drawings with lines indicating where to cut.

Both the pursuers and the pursued were on foot or leaping across buildings, helping themselves with their various affinities or being dragged along by the affinity of another.

“Amy!” Christina shouted.

They had found her. She was in the living room, which had undergone a major remodeling with blood, entrails and pieces of corpses, with ice thorns that had been stuck everywhere.

Amy was lying among all that carnage. Covered in blood. He knew at first glance that not all that blood belonged to other people.

They went over to check her condition, their hearts pounding. He could be pretty sure what Christina was feeling. Because, at this moment, their hearts were beating as one. Or, rather, they had stopped beating in unison.

As if an invisible hand had reached into their chest, grabbed their hearts and squeezed, slowing the beats to the point where they were practically nonexistent.

And all of them painful. Just breathing was painful.

But, when they looked at her closely, they were able to breathe easy again. Amy was alive.

Desmond didn't quite understand this situation, he was still confused, disoriented. But Amy had faced these intruders, had been defeated, and was still alive.

She hadn't been murdered.

He didn't see the point. But, in this situation, he didn't give a shit about the details either.

He simply rejoiced, as anyone would.

They took the unconscious Amy in their arms. A sweaty, bloody embrace. And squeezed tight. As if to tell her they would never let her go again.

Savagery: FIN