The air cut his lungs like shards of hot glass. Saigo stood bent over, hands braced on his knees. Every attempt to breathe deeper resulted in a spasm in his chest.
The edges of his consciousness blurred, grew dim. Even the technique jokingly called the "Human Torch" technique in the clan the one that allowed him to withstand the dragon's unimaginable breath now seemed a pitiful spark in hell.
His own fire had been extinguished under the onslaught of the external inferno. He was burning inside and out, his skin blistered, charred at the joints, but he held on. He held on through pure rage and the last dregs of will, dodging the now endless kaleidoscope of death.
Fireballs huge, space-devouring, and small, nimble like wasps. Pillars of fire erupting from under his feet and from the ceiling, scorching the stone. Clones of pure flame throwing themselves into suicidal embraces. Dragon's breath incinerating everything in its path. And that was far from all. The Empress's arsenal seemed bottomless.
His shock was immense when, after managing to douse him in sticky, binding flame, she immediately sent a compressed pillar of water into his face.
The impact was monstrous, as if an icy battering ram had hit him. It threw him across the entire hall; he slammed into a cracked wall, knocking loose plaster debris.
"At least it put the fire out and I'm still alive," he thought, coughing hoarsely, spitting out water and blood, and raised his head again.
Katarina wasn't attacking. She stood, observing. The anger on her face had been replaced by... appreciative curiosity?
Yes, she was amusing herself. Having fully moved past her rage, the Empress had turned the fight into an experiment. Time and again, she hurled new and new spells at him, studying his reaction, his dodge speed, the limits of his endurance.
Her lips were slightly parted; a researcher's excitement burned in her large eyes.
"Yes, I underestimated him at first," she thought. "But now... he's almost spent, like a forgotten ember smoldering in a stove, and he's no threat now."
"The main thing is not to let him get close." Yet, every step he took, every stumbling attempt to close the distance, spoke to the contrary.
"With such power... and that scoundrel Linsi's money?" The thought of the artifact-laden fraudster boasting about killing the dragon now seemed absurd to Katarina.
"He definitely could have killed the damned lizard." This realization that Saigo was the one warmed her soul with a faint, unfamiliar warmth.
But something else didn't warm her. The realization that he was probably telling the truth, both here and back on the cobblestones.
"Married! Big deal?" she mentally snorted. "What a problem! Polygamy is legal in the Empire."
Of course, Katarina couldn't even contemplate sharing him with another woman. The very idea grated on her pride. But... on the other hand... "If he loved me as selflessly as he loves that one..." a rogue thought flashed, "...I might make a small exception."
"Hey!" her voice, ringing and mocking, echoed through the hall. "You still alive in there? Or have you turned to charcoal already?"
The answer came not in words, but as a precisely thrown cobblestone torn from a half-destroyed wall. Katarina lazily caught it in mid-air like a ball. The stone, glowing red-hot, sizzled in her palm, but she just rolled it between her fingers, studying it.
"Slow..." she drawled thoughtfully. "At the start of the fight, he threw them three times faster. Has he really run out of steam? Although..." She clenched the stone, and it crumbled into fine, hot dust. "...it doesn't matter now. We'll work on that later..."
And in that moment, he fell. He just fell, as if cut down, awkwardly, silently, collapsing face-first into the dust and ash.
"Hmm..." Katarina took an instinctive step forward but immediately froze. "A trap? Again?" The memory of her own severed arm, and the wild pain, flared brightly. "No. I don't want to risk it. But what to do?"
"KATYA!" A desperate scream, distorted by horror, tore through the roar of the fire. She flinched, recognizing the voice.
Marcus. He stood at the only surviving entrance, miraculously not blocked by debris. His appearance was surreal: a nightshirt, torn and soot-stained, one trouser leg (the other apparently lost on the way), and bare feet.
In his hand, he clutched his sword, holding it as if it were the only anchor in a collapsing world. His face was pale, his eyes bulging as if about to pop out of their sockets.
"Are you alright?" he exhaled, scanning her with a frantic gaze.
She nodded, not taking her eyes off the prone body.
"And your... appearance?" she asked automatically, noting the absurdity of his nighttime attire amidst the apocalypse.
He just waved a hand as if swatting a mosquito. "And your arm?!" he retorted, staring at the blazing ghost of a limb.
A heavy pause hung in the air. Only the crackle of flames and the crash of collapsing structures somewhere sounded. "One-on-one, Katya," Marcus finally thought, sheathing his sword. He stepped closer, staggering. "What about... the guy, by the way?"
"Oh, the guy..." Katarina gestured toward Saigo. "He hasn't moved for about five minutes..."
"Damn it!" Marcus lunged forward. Katarina, forgetting caution, rushed to Saigo after him.
"Saigo! Saigo!" Katarina dropped to her knees beside him, carefully but insistently turning him onto his back. His eyes were open, but his gaze was cloudy, unseeing, fixed somewhere on the infinity of the ceiling. His body was limp, like a rag doll. And she shook him, desperately, frantically, as if by force she could return life to him. "Wake up! Darling! Wake up!"
"Darling?" Marcus stood frozen, watching the scene with mute astonishment. "But you yourself..."
"Lovers' quarrels are just fun!" Katarina cut him off, not stopping her shaking of Saigo. "What are you standing there for?! Do something!"
Marcus helplessly spread his hands. "What can I do?! You're the mage here!"
"Umm..." she was distracted for a moment, looking at him with genuine bewilderment. "I don't know a single healing spell!"
"What?!" Marcus almost shouted, jabbing a finger at her chest. "Not a single one?! Wait?! What about then, at the Battle of the Blue Waters?! Who healed me then...?"
"I HAD A SCROLL!" she interrupted him. "And I used it!"
"Damn! Wait here! I'll get a healer!" He turned, ready to run through the fire and ruins.
"Saigo! Can you hear me?!" Katarina bent over the young man's face again, her voice trembling, her flaming hand gripping his shoulder helplessly. "Don't die! Don't die, I order you! Hold on!"
But Saigo could no longer hear her. Her words, her orders, the crackle of the fire, Marcus's shouts all of it dissolved, drowned in the wave of absolute silence and cold that washed over him. He fell through. Fell through the smoke, through the pain, through the remnants of consciousness, into a deep, starless, all-consuming darkness.