The violent crash made every single one of them, freeze in the face of an entirely new danger.
Vesta and Sezel, their brief internal battle discarded like a useless trinket, snapped their attention toward the gate. The epicenter of the blast was somewhere in that direction, now obscured by a roiling, angry cloud of dust and debris.
Sezel's puppet had not yet retreated, and the world through its eyes was a chaotic, swirling mess of brown and grey.
From behind the dubious safety of the bushes, the three of them watched as the dust cloud, instead of settling, seemed to rise.
"What was that?" Vesta whispered, her voice a taut wire of tension. Her eyes were fixed on the mess.
"Felt as if something just fell from the sky," Shiki intoned, his knuckles white as he ground his teeth.
Sezel looked between them, a cold knot forming in his stomach. He hadn't been paying attention at all, lost in his own head, and the suddenness of the event had caught him completely off guard.
