Chapter Text
The next evening is much colder, and Leo can’t doze off, not even for uneasy sleep. He wishes he had a pillow, or the option to call for a hot bath to help open up his sinuses. His head cold is worsening. Icy wind blasts through the broken window above his bed. If the Hoshidans intend to keep him alive and safe, they’re doing a piss-poor job of it.
An explosion startles him.
Leo jumps to a sitting position, praying that he did fall asleep and had a brief nightmare, then a second boom hits his ears. A string of shouts follows. He scrambles to his feet, heart pounding and hands itching for a weapon. There’s nothing in the little room he could use, not even a lamp or candelabrum he could use a bludgeon.
He rushes for the doorknob, determined to blast it off even if he doesn’t have a tome. Magic is always with him, weapon or not, though he cannot focus enough power to defeat a living enemy (or a Faceless) if he runs into one unless he wields a tome or scroll. He will not be a sitting duck. The flimsy lock crumble under the command of his magic, and he bursts out into the hallway.
Once outside, he can’t even decide which way to go. The clank of swords directs him away, towards the left, hoping that he can avoid outright fighting until he finds a weapon. Of course, he runs into a dead end. He curses, head whipping about as though he can hope for a secret passage, then whirls around and goes back the way he came.
Myrrha is at the door of his little prison, flanked by a pair of ninja. They’re on Leo before he can start explaining himself, twisting his arms behind his back.
“Did you plan this?” asks one of the ninja as Myrrha opens her mouth.
“No,” says Leo. There’s another bang, followed by the sound of bricks toppling over.
“Faceless haven’t been seen in years,” says Myrrha. “Then you come babbling and golems rise from the earth once more.”
“I have nothing to do with it,” says Leo, ignoring how the ninja tightens the grip on his arm, putting traction on his shoulder joint. “Kill me if you must,” he adds, certain that they won’t if they’ve got any wits about them. He’s their only lead.
Myrrha stares without flinching through another explosion, but the ninja’s grip on Leo’s shoulder tightens. He refuses to balk at the pain. A chorus of groans, out of synch, permeates the air. The Faceless are by the stairs.
“We fight,” says Myrrha, reaching into her cloak. She produces a worn fire tome and starts handing it to Leo.
“What are you doing?” demands the ninja trying to rip Leo’s shoulder out of its socket.
“Taking a calculated risk,” says Myrrha. “The horde is nearly upon us, and he’ll be easier to protect if he has the means to defend himself.”
“Who says we’ll protect him?” says the ninja standing beside her.
Leo spots a green, mottled leg making it to the hallway. “I have a right to defend myself,” he says, wrenching away from the ninja holding him. His shoulder threatens to slip out its socket with a flash of exquisite pain, but the ninja lets go at the last moment, confirming Leo’s suspicions that someone has ordered that he not be hurt. He wastes an instant hoping that it was Takumi before remembering that Takumi’s current situation is only slightly better than his.
A second Faceless pushes at the first, moving faster than such things should be capable of. It punches the first one in the back so hard that its fist breaches the neck and erupts from the first creature’s mouth.
“We have no time for this!” Myrrha thrusts the fire tome in Leo’s face, then rips the air around the Faceless with raging lightning.
The Faceless coming up the stairs vanish in a haze of screams and purple smog, but the one that attacked and killed one of its brethren merely roars. Leo’s eyes flit about the hallway, focus on a chandelier just over the beast’s head. As the ninja fall into nervous stances, Leo aims at the chandelier. A swift clank as the Leo’s magic fire rips through the metal chains, and the chandelier falls on the Faceless’ head.
“What are you—” The more witless of the ninja pair glares, but the other one leaps at the chance, quite literally.
A shuriken lodges in the beast’s left eye, and the ninja falls on it with knives as it screeches.
“Come on!” Myrrha, grabbing Leo’s hand.
He wrenches his hand away, but he does follow her, sidestepping the fallen monster as it starts to vanish in a foul purple cloud. The ninja follow, one of them quickly jumping in front of them to provide some modicum of cover for the combined magics, and the other staying behind them to cover their backs.
It’s not so different than fighting with Nohrians, when it comes down to it.
They’re out of a narrow, winding staircase in a matter of minutes, having cut through a horde of Faceless of varying strength. Myrrha’ magical fires are nothing to be scoffed at, nor is the lightness of her feet. Despite himself, Leo starts to fight in tandem with her, as though he doesn’t need to remember that he doesn’t know who she is and she might turn on him at any moment.
Maybe being with Takumi for. . . an undetermined amount of time, apparently, has softened him more than he realizes. Or maybe it’s the way that the Hoshidans’ suspicions melt away under the monstrous onslaught. The ninja lend him a knife soon enough, and although Leo finds its short reach dangerous, it’s quite a helpful weapon for fighting inside a house.
“We should get outside!” shouts Leo.
Not even the heat of battle can make him forget the raspy ache to his throat, or the way the cold seeps through his thin clothes, all the way to his bones. With his luck, a mundane fever would kill him before one of the monsters got to him.
“We have cover here,” responds Myrrha, blasting an incoming Faceless.
“They’ll overwhelm us,” says Leo.
As if to punctuate the statement, a giant clay beast with a medallion for a face punched a hole through one of the outer walls. The ninja beside Leo launches a shuriken that bounces right off its nose. Unperturbed, the monster attacks a group of Hoshidans near the wall it had just crumbled.
“What in the world. . .” says Myrrha.
Leo has no idea, but saying so will hardly help matters. “We must find the source,” he pleads with Myrrha. “Unless you believe someone inside the keep has betrayed you, then it will be outside, possibly in the woods.”
Myrrha spares as much time as she can staring at him. “All right.”