The fight was over.
The Aftermath of the clash was full of chaos.
Especially, the scenery....
Tom sat on a rock, his shoulder wrapped in clean bandages. A herb paste was pressed on the wound, warm and bitter. The pain was dull now. He rolled his arm slowly. It worked fine. He let out a soft breath of relief.
Arlong was beside him. His left arm was gone, wrapped in thick cloth. Blood had stopped, but the bandage was dark red. He looked pale, tired, but his eyes still had a spark.
"At least…. I can still shoot with one hand," he said, laughing weakly.
Tom forced a smile back. "Idiot, you almost died."
Johan stood a little away from them. His body was full of cuts and burns. He had a scar across his cheek now, remained quiet. His fire still flickered at his hands.
Arlong tilted his head. "What's wrong with him?"
Tom looked at Johan, then lowered his eyes. He could tell. Johan wasn't hurt by the battle. He was hurt by something else.
After a moment, Johan spoke. His voice was calm, "She should be dead. Although, she's still breathing."
Tom's mind went back to that moment, when he checked Ghira's throat. The pulse was light, but real.
Johan turned to them. "Something is making her live. We might have provoked something outer. Be steady even in your dream, it could be an illusion."
"You mean…. she's tied to it?" Said Tom.
Johan nodded once. "Seems like to be. Maybe she's its vessel. Overseers are genderless, spiritless and mindless. They don't need mind or any feelings, they are omniscient and omnipresent above the cosmos. Luckily, they can't easily invade or insight into the our physical lands."
They all carried a silence for a minute. The thought was too big, too heavy, too disturbing, too horrible to think of.
Arlong broke it with a bitter chuckle. "So…. we didn't win?"
Johan looked at the wreck around them. The camp of Acurus Tiama was gone. Glass plains stretched forever. No tents. No guards. No life remained only just dust and ruins, beneath remained glass molten.
"No," Johan said. "We just bought time for setting up our builds."
Tom looked here and there, observing the horrible atmosphere. The herb on his wound stung. His face felt cold by the smooth air. He thought of Grace, Vera, Elior and everyone back in the bunker.
If Ghira was tied to the Overseer…. what would come next?
The three sat in silence, bandages fresh, their hearts heavy.
Arlong still smiled. "Well, we all are alive. That's enough for me."
Johan sat with his back against a half-shattered pillar, breathing slowly. His sword lay across his knees, the blue flames long gone. He wasn't laughing anymore. He was brainstorming, replaying the fight step by step.
He spoke, not to anyone in particular. Maybe for Tom and Arlong to hear.
"She wasn't just spamming fire," Johan muttered. His voice was steady, even with blood still drying on his lips. "The whole time, she was drowning us in fear."
Tom blinked, still wrapping his shoulder tighter. "Fear?"
Johan nodded. "Her bracelets. They carried a trait called "Fear Circulation". It spread like smoke in a small room. It crawled into our heads, made every thought heavier, every move slower. Our hands shook at the very beginning. That's why you couldn't think straight."
Tom looked down at the dirt. He remembered. The panic, the flashing confusion, the way every step felt wrong.
Johan turned his head slightly. "You…. rotated it, didn't you? Very impressive, that you managed to strategize every situation even in panic."
Tom didn't answer, just looked down with an ordinary expression.
"You dragged all that fear into yourself. Forced it to circle around you. That's why Arlong and I could fight with clear minds. That's why we had a chance at all." Johan's eyes narrowed. "You felt worse than us, but you carried it. That was your part."
Tom was not sure if it was praise or scolding.
Then Johan looked at Arlong. "You? Those arrows of yours? They don't fly like ordinary arrows. They bend physics to reach the target at any cost as far I've understood. No matter what — they hit. That's not normal archery."
Arlong chuckled weakly, his bandaged stump resting on his knee. "I never asked for this."
Johan's face didn't soften. "Your barrier too. That quantum wall…. it shouldn't have held against gamma radiation. Not that level of heat. Fortunately, it did. Without it, my brain would have rotted in less than a second. We'd all be dead. You took the radiation alone and kept standing."
Arlong lowered his eyes. It was a situation, Arlong argued to himself to throw a joke or not.
Johan leaned his head back against the stone. "I absorbed the flames. Every lick of her heat but the radiation?" His jaw tightened. "That went straight into me. Burned deeper than those flame ever could." He tapped his temple. "That's why my head won't stop ringing."
The silence stretched. Only the smooth wind across the glassy sand whooshed.
Finally, Johan's eyes slid back to Tom. "You're rough and unpolished. But if you master that Face of yours.…" His voice dropped lower. "….you could reach Uptie Three sooner than anyone expects."
Tom's breath caught. He didn't answer.
Johan looked away again. "Arlong too. If he finds a way to fix that arm…. if he keeps pushing…. he could reach Uptie Two, stage two. He's got the will for it."
Arlong grinned crookedly at that. "Guess I'm not done yet."
Johan closed his eyes, voice turning flat. "We didn't win that fight with strength. We survived it with pieces. Each of us gave something."
Johan pulled a cigar from a small tin he kept tucked in his boot. The end was chipped, the paper wrinkled from the fight.
Didn't matter. He stuck it between his teeth, clicked his fingers, and a spark of blue flame lit the tip.
He dragged the smoke in, slow, like the world wasn't broken glass around them.
His coat, burnt to tatters, slid off his shoulders with a lazy shrug. He tossed it onto the sand that was no longer sand but glass, the edges gleaming sharp. The only thing left on him was a yellow shirt, dirt-stained, torn at the elbow.
"Coat was heavy anyway," Johan muttered.
Tom stared at him, then looked up at the endless, ruined horizon. The realization hit him like an atom bomb. He almost got a heart attack.
"Wait...." Tom raised a hand, pointing out across the wasteland. "We're…. we're twenty thousand kilometers from the bunker!!"
Arlong blinked, then whistled low. "That's…. uh.… a bit of a walk."
Tom's eye twitched. "A bit?! That's— That's death! Unless we…." He stopped mid-sentence. A thought bulbed in his head. "My Face's speed is B rank."
He crouched, adrenaline buzzing back. "Galaxy-level. I can carry you two. Easy."
Before Johan or Arlong could protest, Tom hauled both onto his shoulders. He gritted his teeth, legs bracing, and then—
He took one step.
And immediately crumpled, his shoulder snapping under the strain.
"AAH—!" Tom hissed, rolling onto his back. Johan and Arlong landed like sacks on either side.
Arlong sat up, holding his bandaged stump, wheezing with laughter. "Oh gods, your Face! You looked like a hero for half a second."
"Shut up." Tom ground his teeth, clutching the new crack in his shoulder.
Johan leaned over him, cigar hanging from the corner of his mouth. He offered it, casual, like nothing was wrong. "Chill, take, smoke it. The world isn't going anywhere."
Tom shoved it away. "My lungs will thank me later."
Arlong flopped onto his back, staring up at the violet-tinged sky. "So, twenty thousand kilometers. Waypoint got destroyed. One guy with a broken shoulder. Another missing a hand. And our fearless leader here...." he nodded toward Johan. "....probably coughing up brain cells."
"Sounds like a perfect road trip trio," Johan muttered, pulling another drag from his cigar.
Tom let his head thump against the glassy ground. "We're doomed."
Arlong's smile faltered just a little. "What about her?" His voice lowered, pointing his chin toward the center of the ruined battlefield.
Ghira's body lay there silently on the glass.
Johan stood, walked to her, and crouched low. He pulled a sack from his pocket which was somehow much larger than it had any right to be. He opened it, its fabric black and shining with strange runes.
He stuffed Ghira's limp, mutilated form inside like a butcher packing meat. The sack swallowed her whole, no trace left.
When he slung it over his shoulder, the sight was grotesque and casual all at once.
Tom's jaw dropped. "You.… carry that around?"
"Comes in handy," Johan said simply. "Better in my bag than loose in the sand."
Arlong shook his head. "You're sick."
Johan blew smoke into the sky, expression unreadable. "Sick, maybe. But I am still alive, broda."
The three of them stood there, ragged, broken, their shadows long against the glass desert.
One missing a hand.
One clutching a shattered shoulder.
One laughing like the world was a joke only he got to juggle.
Behind of them, sealed in the sack, was the breathing body of a queen who should've been dead.
The sky above twisted, colors shifting violet and black, as if watching them.
None of them said it aloud.
They all knew that the road back would be worse than the fight.