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She collided with the column at what felt like Mach 6, but, in all honesty, it felt like the other way around. Like someone had taken a massive chunk of rock and smashed in over her.
The archiver almost crumpled to the ground, holding her midsection where her ribs should've been as she promptly spat out a lungful of ink onto the cracked stoneworks.
Or, rather, the cracking stoneworks.
She forced herself to her feet at the realization. They were over eight hundred feet up, so if the tower was collapsing both above AND below them, they needed to be out of it stat, because no amount of immortality will save you from being crushed by two billion tons of crumbling marble.
Biboo was sideways on the ground. So was Nerissa. GEOW between them, who looked like a scared little rabbit rather than the world shatterer he was.
Shiori couldn't make out the twins from here and that set her veins in ice. Her gaze was frantic as she sprinted over to the gemstone's side, the raven girl already trying to pick herself off the ground.
Pero was lying next to them. Still unconscious.
This was all her fault.
One spell. One dangerous spell to save that damn fluffy bat's cursed life because, fuck it, it didn't matter if he was a pain in everyone's asses, he was the twins' family.
And look where that had gotten them.
A piece of fallen rumble toppled over, and Shadow erupted from it, Fuwawa emerging a second later with Mococo over her shoulder. The younger twin managed to find her footing and pushed away, the pair bolting over to the demoness's unattended side and slowly helping her to her feet. Slowly, at least, when considering the deteriorating situation. Magic pulsed through the overtaxed ley-lines, and another wall split in half, toppling over the edge and making ominous shattering noises echo out through the valleys below, light pouring into the room from the setting sun.
None of them paid it any attention.
"Pero's breathing... PERO'S BREATHING!"
The fuzzy sibling's cries managed a sad smile from the archiver as she looked down at the wincing girl in her arms. Terrific. They HAD saved him.
Too bad they were probably all gonna die anyway.
Biboo made a pained noise as she tried to stand, and Shiori was with her the whole way, but the ground seemed to have other plans, lurching forwards and sending the group suddenly shrieking into a pitch-black drop. Rather than take the risk, the taller girl pulled her shorter companion in close to her chest, pain assaulting her from all sides as the world somersaulted around her several times. She struck another wall, knocking the wind out of her again, before a few more rolls had her settle on the ground.
The deafening roars continued, but the monochrome-haired girl's ears picked out the twins' shrieks over them. They landed nearby, panting. Bleeding.
Now it was the raven girl that was missing.
"Look out!"
Everything was happening way too fast. She'd extended an arm out towards the fuzzy girl, only for the gemstone to beat her to the punch. Throwing herself over the pup as a piece of the ceiling the size of a large dining table ruptured against the tiny girl's back. The cry it produced made her stomach flip.
The twinkling sound that followed made it do another.
"BIBOO!"
The secondary explosions from the failed spell continued to thunder above, but all three girls' gazes were on the shattered girl. By some miracle, only her arm, split jagged and harsh from just below the shoulder, had separated, but that was enough to make the twins go through about seven stages of freakout in a femtosecond. Mococo in particular looked inconsolable, her face in her hands.
Shiori grit her teeth.
If Yorick had any, he probably would've too.
The ink blob put up no resistance as she snatched him off her shoulder with her free hand, the other busy getting her beloved gem across her thighs. Her teeth sunk into him as she stretched him out like rubber. Fuwawa's grip was painful against her skirt, but she endured. It almost looked like Mococo's was even harder against Biboo's.
A scalpel. A surgical probe.
Whatever could get this thing fixed quick enough.
"Beebs, please tell me you're awake..."
A pained groan was her reply. Purple eyes blinked a few times, but her gaze was glassy and unfocused.
Her head was pounding. Her heart, if it was still inside of her, was pounding.
...what am I even doing?
If they didn't get out of here, being short one arm would be the LEAST of the gemstone's problems. But... she didn't know how. She couldn't fly, after all. She could try, but she would fail, just like every attempt.
She always failed.
A shadow darted across her vision. No... SHADOW darted across her vision. The raven circled and then rose back into the air, cawing as he maneuvered through a gap, disappearing from sight.
The demoness broke it wider not a second later.
There was no way that the smaller raven could carry GEOW and a still-concussed Pero out of here without Yorick working as a carrying basket for them, yet the blob was a bit busy acting as a makeshift tendon at the moment. So into Nerissa's arms they all went. Biboo first, of course.
The raven-haired girl took one final look over her shoulder, carrying her princess close to her chest. Wine red eyes fixed on the archiver and the two hellhounds clutching to either side of her, ink and far too much blood splattered across all of their clothes.
"You better be right after me!"
"I will! GO, RISSA!"
Feathers exploded across the chamber as Nerissa shot forwards, sailing right over the crumbling wall and out into the open air.
Two terrified voices whimpered against her shoulders. She hugged their waists close. Whispered in their ears that everything was going to be alright.
They had to be. THEY had to be.
Her knees were shaking, not just from the rumbling still filling the chamber as the collapse continued around them. These two were light, that wasn't the problem.
It was her.
She was the problem.
The gods were annoyed by the twins' existence. They were scared of what Biboo and Nerissa could do to humanity.
But they HATED HER.
That was how fate always wanted it. That was how it was written into the stars. And, just as the archiver tried to steel herself, tried to summon just a bit of courage despite all her terror and doubts, the floor shattered again.
Their screams mixed once more. They toppled. Several times.
They landed upside down. And, by some miracle, only her own neck was broken.
The pups were battered and bruised, wounds oozing fresh blood. No chance for sanitation, not with her own ink mixing in with it on the ground. Fuwawa struggled, pushing herself up by her elbows, pulling herself closer to her leader. Nose nuzzling into her shattered collarbone once more. Mococo's movements were more messy, but she too closed the distance between them.
It hurt.
There was no hope. No path that would be opened for her. She looked up, caught one glimpse of the sun, poking through the far wall.
Mocking her.
She'd never make it.
...
Momseki's laughs had rung out from the kitchen, joined by Malpha's own a second later, and some incoherent shouting from Malphus II.
Shiori only looked up from her book when Mococo butted her head against her waist.
"What's up, pup?"
"Nerissa's looking for you."
"Oh?" She raised a brow with a smirk. "It can probably wait, then, if she only sent a messenger."
The fuzzy girl pouted.
"I'm only teasing, fuzzball." She brought up a hand to pat directly between the blonde girl's ears, care taken to leave space from them. "Tell her to give me two minutes."
"You better come by then..."
"Oh? Is there a surprise party waiting for me?"
"We miss you~"
The way the pup's tail was sadly wagging made a heartfelt chuckle rise from her throat. "Okay, okay, I miss you guys, too. Just remember, no giving the parents more ammunition during the holidays."
"Ammunition, smamm-unition. The cuddle puddle's incomplete with a Shiori-sized hole in it, bau bau... And Nerissa's gonna give you another earful if you don't come up now..."
She didn't reply for a moment. She simply closed her eyes.
Closed her book.
Hummed.
"...alright then, maybe it's time to find out."
...
A Shiori-sized hole, huh?
There was no such thing as a Shiori-sized hole. She was amorphous. Yorick but a hundred times taller and even grosser. Slippery. Frustrating to work with. She couldn't fix anything.
She could only ruin them.
...
...yet, still, she rose to her feet. Snatched up their wrists, her arms moving without her volition.
She didn't know why. She couldn't make it. She wished the twins could just let her go and make a run for it. Take the chance to get out of here. She wasn't going to get out. The gods wouldn't allow it.
But they only gripped her back tighter.
A blob formed in her throat. She wanted to sob. Everything, everything they'd worked towards, was shattering around them. Couldn't they see that? Couldn't they see that they still had a chance to go, to get to Nerissa and Biboo and live happy lives without this cold introvert who spent all day reading in her stupid little library about all the things she'd fucked up and let loose on their lives? Didn't they want a warm spot in between them instead of a freezing, disgusting ink stain that sucked the energy out of everything?
She couldn't even fix Biboo's arm...
...
"...are you two... holding on?"
Vibrations. Because she couldn't see. Her golden eyes were filled with sunlight.
She chose to interpret them as nods.
One step. Turned into two.
Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight, nine, ten.
They were running.
Sprinting.
She still couldn't see, but she was pretty sure Shadow was flying above them. Staying behind as it all crumbled, every flap trying to match every step they took.
A little token of encouragement.
It felt like an eternity. The ground was trying to fall out from under them. They had to drop down a few times.
But they kept running.
They needed to build up speed.
After all, she couldn't fly.
Feathers. Weak imitations of ones. Splattering against the rocks, the rubble around them. Ink burst, bubbling, spreading, circling around the hounds, pulling them closer to her.
The twins' legs left the ground. Yet four... six... eight took their place.
They needed to go faster... or they wouldn't get far enough.
Wings tried to flap. It was a sticky, inorganic motion, one that could never match the elegance of Shadow's, or Nerissa's. Like a rug being unfurled, waved through the air to get the dust out. The grime. Like that splattering across the room as she charged towards the opening.
It was getting smaller. It felt like a pinpoint now.
Their light at the end of the tunnel.
...
They erupted from the massive cloud of smoke.
She was... she was actually flying!
No, that wasn't it. She wasn't a bird, after all. She was a manticore. A giant, dripping, disgusting blob sailing off towards the picturesque sunset on the horizon, fighting against gravity through sheer willpower to keep the two girls in her arms from being claimed by it. It looked like a mockery of art. The most inelegant sight on the planet.
Yet the look Nerissa shot over her shoulder told her she'd never been more relieved in her life.