Luna planted her Stormblade against the square and breathed.
A1. Row 1. The finish line, and she was standing on it with blood on her blade and a grin splitting her face wide enough to crack the dried blood on her cheeks.
Then she looked back.
Nyx lay on the board behind her at C4, one hand pressed against the wound in her side where the Stalker's blade had carved through, blood pooled beneath her in a dark spread that had grown far too large while Luna was sprinting.
Her pink eyes were half-lidded and her breathing came shallow, but she was smiling at Luna with the same calm warmth she'd worn when she shoved her sideways and took the blade herself.
She'd made it to the end. Barely.
The Kaiju screamed.
A guttural, animalistic shriek tore from the creature's chest, stripped of every trace of the tactical intelligence it had shown throughout the match. Six burning eyes locked onto Luna through the dimensional barrier.
