Again

One's knee struck Nino in the stomach, driving the air from his lungs. Before he could recover, Six's hammer crashed against his guard and sent him sliding across the Colossus's shoulder, his boots carving two trenches through the ancient stone.

One walked toward him.

"Is this it?"

Nino wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. Behind One, Five stood with another poisoned blade resting between her fingers.

"You were supposed to be untouchable."

Seven attacked before Nino could answer. His chain whipped across the shoulder, forcing Nino to deflect it, but Four's segmented spear came immediately afterward and tore across his side.

Nino dropped to one knee. One smiled.

"Zero." The name sounded almost insulting in his mouth. Something moved near the Colossus's head. One noticed first. "What is she doing?"

Nino turned.

Far ahead, Three had already left the hollow eye and was descending along the Colossus's enormous body in tremendous leaps, carrying Alicia and the children with her as violet Pulse flashed beneath her feet. For a moment, Nino simply watched.

One laughed.

"Look at that."

Three leaped from the Colossus's waist toward its leg.

"Even they know you've lost."

Nino said nothing.

"They're running from you, just like everybody always does."

Another leap carried them farther away. Farther from the battle.

Nino lowered his head. One raised his sword with both hands.

"It's over. But don't worry. I'll make sure those children are taken back to Mezi as prisoners." His smile widened. “And that poor blind girl can follow you to the execution ground. You'll die knowing you dragged every one of them down with you.”

Blood fell from Nino's lips and struck the stone beneath him. One's blade began to descend.

"Thank you, Three." Nino smiled.

One froze at the moment Nino's hand closed around his sword.

Pulse didn't simply flow or gather around him; it erupted from his body all at once, violent and overwhelming.

A pillar of deep violet light exploded from Nino's body and tore through the clouds above them. The shock wave struck first, throwing One backward and ripping Six from his feet despite the massive man crossing both arms to protect himself. Seven's chain snapped violently through the air as its owner was hurled across the shoulder, while Four drove his spear into the stone and still slid dozens of feet.

Five's eyes widened. The poisoned blade slipped from her fingers. Even the Colossus reacted.

Violet fractures raced through the ancient stone beneath Nino's boots as his Pulse penetrated its body. Chunks of rock tore free from the shoulder and rose into the air around him, suspended within the pressure while the wind itself seemed to bend away.

Nino stood. Blood still ran from his wounds. The poison was still inside him, burning through the channels of his Pulse with every heartbeat.

It didn't matter. For years, the Shadows had remembered Zero's strength. They had forgotten what it felt like to stand against it.

Five moved first. Six blades appeared between her fingers and flew at Nino from different directions. He walked forward and his sword moved once.

All six shattered. Five's breath caught and the opponent disappeared. Her eyes searched the empty space before, but he was already beside her.

The hilt of his sword struck her abdomen. Pulse detonated through the impact. Five folded around the blow and flew across the shoulder, crashing into a ridge of ancient stone hard enough to fracture it. She fell and did not rise.

Six roared and charged. His hammer descended with enough force to crush a building. Nino caught it with one hand. Six’s eyes widened in disbelief.

Nino twisted his wrist, tearing the hammer from the giant man's grip and sending it spinning into the clouds below. Before Six could react, a violet-covered fist struck the center of his chest. His enormous body collapsed.

Seven's chain wrapped around Nino's sword as Four attacked from the opposite side. Nino pulled, dragging Seven toward him so violently that his feet left the ground. He turned with the motion, forcing Seven into Four's path before driving both Shadows into the stone.

Two impacts shook the shoulder. Neither man rose.

One stared at him. His breathing had changed. The arrogance remained, but something else had finally entered his eyes. Nino turned toward him. One tightened both hands around his sword.

"Don't you dare look down on me." Pulse exploded around his blade. He charged.

Nino did the same. Their swords met, and for a heartbeat, violet light swallowed the entire shoulder.

One screamed as he pushed with everything he had. Nino looked past him. Arvendel was almost beneath them. His expression changed.

"LOOK AT ME!" One screamed.

Nino swung. For an instant, the sound vanished. One's sword shattered.

The strike continued through the broken weapon and struck him with a wave of Pulse powerful enough to launch his entire body from the Colossus's shoulder.

One disappeared over the edge. He fell through the clouds, his eyes widening as the world spun around him and the forest rushed closer.

"ZEROOOO!"

Pulse exploded from his body moments before impact, slowing his fall enough for him to crash through the treetops instead of being reduced to nothing against the earth.

High above, Nino had already turned away. One had finally gotten the fight he wanted. Nino no longer had time to finish it.

Arvendel was directly ahead. The bells of Arvendel began to ring. Not in celebration or to announce travelers approaching its gates. They rang without rhythm, pulled desperately by hands that already knew there was nowhere left to run.

People poured from their homes as the earth shook beneath them. Merchants abandoned their stalls, farmers left their carts in the streets and parents dragged terrified children toward the roads leading away from the village. Horses tore themselves free from their restraints and disappeared between the buildings while animals cried from barns and fields. Then another step struck the earth.

THOOOOOM.

Windows shattered. Several people fell. A pregnant woman carrying a basket dropped it and grabbed the wall beside her, staring upward as apples rolled forgotten across the street.

The running began to slow. One person after another stopped. Heads lifted toward the sky. And gradually, the screams gave way to silence.

The sky was gone. There was only the Colossus.

Clouds wrapped around its shoulders. Forests clung to portions of its ancient body, and every movement of its legs erased entire sections of woodland beneath mountains of stone. It was so enormous that the mind struggled to understand that what they were seeing was a living creature rather than the horizon itself moving toward them.

An old man slowly removed his hat.

"That's..."

His voice failed. Someone beside him whispered the word.

"A Colossus."

Its shadow reached the first houses. A mother pulled her young son against her chest.

"Mom..."

She looked down.

"Is it going to step on us? Will the hero save us again?"

Her lips parted, but no answer came. She simply pulled him closer, caught between the instinct to run and the desperate urge to pray.

Beyond Arvendel, horns sounded from the mountains.

Soldiers flooded the walls surrounding the ancient passage into Solvar as the earth continued to shake. Orders were shouted from tower to tower, but many of the guards had already stopped listening.

They were staring beyond the gates. A man emerged from the passage behind them.

He wore no helmet, leaving his sharp features exposed to the mountain wind. Dark brown hair, cut short at the sides, shifted slightly above a pair of steady amber eyes, while a trimmed beard followed the line of a strong jaw. He was tall and powerfully built beneath a heavy coat fastened at the shoulder, yet there was nothing rigid about the way he moved.

While soldiers rushed past him and shouted orders across the walls, he walked with the unhurried confidence of someone accustomed to being the strongest person in the room. Faint traces of golden Pulse drifted from his body with every step, subtle enough that he seemed almost unaware of them.

One of the captains immediately turned.

"Hero!"

The man continued toward the edge.

"Open the gates. Get everyone from Arvendel through the passage and move them deeper into the mountains."

The captain hesitated.

"There's no time. That thing will reach the village before they can—"

"Then move whoever you can." The Hero stepped onto the wall.

Another soldier approached him.

"And the Colossus?"

The Hero looked toward the valley.

"I'll stop it, like always."

The words came without hesitation. Then he saw it. His next step stopped. For several seconds, the Hero of Solvar said nothing.

He had heard the reports. He had felt the tremors. He knew a Colossus was approaching.

None of that had prepared him for the mountain walking toward Arvendel. The confidence slowly disappeared from his face. He watched one foot descend and erase a section of forest larger than the fortress he stood upon.

His eyes moved upward, past the waist, past the chest, until the rest of the creature disappeared into the clouds. For the first time since stepping onto the wall, the Hero of Solvar took a step back.

The captain stared at him.

"Hero?"

Pulse gathered instinctively around the Solvar hero’s arm, but he didn't move.

He calculated everything — distance, mass, speed, time, how much Pulse he could summon, even how much courage he had left. His jaw tightened as the answer became painfully clear: there wasn't enough of any of them.