Final Prayer

Gabriel parried her blow with ease. There were sparks that buzzed around his limbs and sword but he didn't even use that stored power against her. He didn't even have to.

Anita could not accept this! Not when Gabriel was looking at her with a calm serene expression on his face. Not when her father's blood-drenched his blade and his hands. Not when he told her softly as her blade clashed into his, "Yield, Anita."

How could she?

She summoned her flames by raising her blade to the sky. A shower of red ravaged the land but Gabriel only calmly danced and wavered between balls of fire aimed his way, not even activating his magic to dodge them. "Anita," he called to her, "I need you to yield." There was a quiet threat behind his voice that Anita could not ignore.

"Gabriel…!" Her voice was pleading but she had nothing to say. She couldn't ask him why, when she already knew the reason. Tears pooled in her eyes as she cried, charging towards the High Paladin, her blade glowing red with passion fire.

Embers and sparks flew and cackled as their blades collided. "Focus more on your footwork," his voice brushed by her eye as his heel hooked under the ankle.

She yelped as she tumbled to the ground but quickly rolled back onto her feet. Eyes burning with passion she charged at him again, and again. Each blow was met with ease, each attack shrugged off and pushed aside.

"Your left flank is open."

"Too slow."

"You're too easy to read."

"You…" Anita began, panting heavily as her core strained from overuse, fatigue settling in her muscles much faster than normal. Words locked in her throat, for someone as chatty as she was she didn't even know what to say in that instance aside from a self-deprecating chuckle when she realized how their roles had reversed.

"Yield, Anita. I'm not giving you a choice here." Even his scolding tone wasn't as sharp as usual.

She couldn't beg him to spare her, she couldn't even curse him with hate, not even now when she was facing her own execution. Instead, all she could muster was a pathetic, "Sorry…" She inhaled deeply. A warcry wretched from her throat and with all her strength and will she charged at him.

"Are you stupid?" she heard him sigh by her ear, "What are you even apologizing for?"

The rush of battle all slowed, her body frozen in place. Everything turning colder bit by bit and even though she could feel the heat radiating off Gabriel's body, she couldn't retain any of it. Her swing was much too wide, not even coming close to slashing the High Paladin, her sword frozen in a fanned out position. She didn't have to look down to see Gabriel's blade piercing her gut. "Oh…"

Her strength faltered, limbs grew weak. Her sword dropped onto the grassy lawn as she fell forward head resting upon Gabriel's chest, listening to his heartbeat while hers grew stiller. The sword was withdrawn from her stomach sending a wave of numbing pain washed across her body. She coughed, her blood staining Gabriel's shirt.

Strong arms that held her and lowered her down onto the ground. Stars twinkled in a clear night sky, unperturbed by what was happening below them. Anita's vision began to blur. Was it because death was coming to claim her or was it just tears that fogged her view? Either way, she couldn't make out the expression Gabriel was making as he looked down upon her and only felt the way he squeezed her hand. But maybe that was just another conjuring of her imagination, one last wild dream before her soul was claimed by the sky. With the last her strength, Anita sent Solas one final plead, to at least let Luelle be safe.

Gabriel knelt by her side vigilantly until the final shallow breath was drawn from lips, chest still. He got up and wiped the blood off his blade with the sleeve of his blazer. It was already ruined anyways, he thought absently. He looked down at Anita's corpse. A sense of deja vu overcame him along with an irresistible urge to sigh again. Some things were inevitable.

A jolt down his spin snapped him out of his absent thoughts, Gabriel activated his resonance core. The mana was enough to burst away from a heavy gust of wind. The fist didn't connect with his face, but the shockwave was enough to make the whole world ring and bruise the shoulder it barely grazed.

Frode stood over Anita's fallen form. His hunched body and mournful gaze were reminiscent of the past. Gabriel tried as he could to ignore the feeling of guilt. His grip on the hilt of his sword tightened. "Why are you here?" he asked.

At first, Frode ignored him. He mouthed a quiet apology to the dead girl, "You should have stayed put, you idiot."

Gabriel waited. The ruby glow of Frode's eyes that shined against the dark of the night spoke of bad news. He already called forth his mana, letting it bubble and swirl within his veins. Crossing someone infected as powerful and crazed by an Earth Curse was always risky.

When Frode looked up, there was savagery in his eyes. He snarled like a rabid beast. That was all the warning Gabriel got before he was charged at. Even with speed enhanced by his mana, lightning screaming in his blood he was barely able to block the devastating blow of Frode's bare fist with the body of his blade. Every muscle in his body screamed on impact before he used an explosion of mana to bolt away.

Before Gabriel had even a second to catch his breath, Frode was onto him again at a terrifying pace. A blaze of a shadow against midnight was all Gabriel could glimmer before he had the chance to react. "You bastard!" the beast roared, "Why do you keep," he grabbed for Gabriel's side when the High Paladin shuffled away, clawing into the fabric of his clothes, "doing this kind of stupid shit!?"

Barely several moments passed and Gabriel was already panting, feeling the fatigue of mana exhaustion seep in. "Come here!" The Mad Dog growled. Punches degenerated into clawed swipes. Swings swung wide enough that Frode was tearing the ground and surrounding ferns into bits. He was growling, baring teeth like an angered animal.

With the insanity came even more strength and speed not even Gabriel could hope to match. "Frode!" Gabriel found himself shouting with grit teeth when his wrist gave when blocking an attack he knew he couldn't dodge. His grip faltered but he barely held on. He was running out of options. "Snap out of it already!"

But Frode was no longer listening, with red devouring the entirety of his eyes, not a single shred of humanity remained in his present state. He cried, voice gargled between wild movements. It was only a matter of time before Gabriel made a fatal mistake. A dodge not perfectly timed and he was grabbed and thrown into a decorative fountain that laid upon the lawn. The smooth stone shattered from the impact and Gabriel's breathe was knocked away all at once.

There wasn't even the time to blink back up at the sky and an immoveable wall pinned him to the ground, fingers digging so far into his arms his bones strained and cracked, muscles crying and torn. His sword was dropped from his grip and kicked away. Gabriel bit down against his own lips drawing blood. Droplets of drool trickled down onto his face and when Gabriel looked up he saw a face reminiscent of his childhood friend. Only it was a monster, snapping and growling at him, with strength and power beyond the bonds of humanly possible.

Earth magic was so saturated around them that Gabriel could hardly breathe without evoking it. He gasped, thrashed uselessly beneath an iron grip, "Get a hold of yourself!" he shouted helplessly, "Don't allow the curse to-"

His words were cut short when Frode leaned in and Gabriel felt even more trapped beneath the heat of the other man's body. He sniffed at Gabriel's face as would a dog, following some sort of scent down the line of his neck. All of Gabriel's muscles tensed, his breath came out shallow. He blamed the erratic beating of his heart on the dense Earth magic impeding his thoughts instead of the horror that trapped him in spot, memories of Syllo tearing apart a woman's throat traitorously appeared in his thoughts. A fire blazed in his blood, from the tip of ears to his heart and down to each and every one of his toes. He kicked at Frode's legs but the only reaction Gabriel was rewarded with was an impatient growl and a knee driven into his thigh.

A sharp hiss of pain left him, he clawed uselessly at the arms that held him down and reached the sword hilt that was much too far from his straining fingers. "Frode," Gabriel told himself he wasn't begging when he was, "Don't."

Red hot pain pierced Gabriel's shoulder and this time he wasn't able to hold back his voice. Frode's teeth sunk into flesh and Gabriel saw spots in his vision, sweat beading all over his face. There was a crunching sound and Gabriel's world blacked out for a moment. When it came back, in blurs of flashing light and color, it took him a moment to realize the weight that held him in place had lifted. He caught a glimpse of Frode's terrified face, the glow of eyes reduced to a pink color before he ran in retreat.

Gabriel remained on the ground, exhaustion tempting him to close his eyes and allow sleep to claim him. He looked up at dim stars and thought of Anita who saw this view in her dying breaths.