He didn't move.
For a heartbeat, she couldn't make sense of it. Loki was there, watching the bull on its way to her—still. When she focused, his body said the rest: feet set, blade angled to guard his own line, not hers.
'Of course,' she told herself. 'That's the right call. Even if he saves me, he will die. If he dies first, I die next.'
But something small and unreasonable had rooted itself anyway, fed by the way he'd moved through the dungeon for her. A soft, treacherous thought:
'I thought he'd come.'
She called herself an idiot.
She didn't mind dying—she'd made peace with risk the moment she stepped into GFS, where death was the norm—but colder truths crawled up from beneath reason and shook her resolve.
'It'll hurt unlike anything I have felt before. Many of my bones will break if not all. What if...I don't wake up? What if something goes wrong? I...don't want to die.'
Death was scary.
Without noticing, she squinted against the charge, and a thin tear gathered at the corner of one eye. The world shrank to horns, heat, and the drum in her chest.
The impact never came.
Something darker than the blue fire cut across her vision—a shadow shouldered into her, clean and hard. One arm hooked her waist; the other planted and shoved, and she went sliding sideways. Stone burned her palms; breath shocked out—unbroken.
She turned in time to see the rest: Loki stepping into the path she'd just vacated, head down, hand rising in a measured beat, timing himself to the charge.
…
A minute ago her face—laughing at his bad joke—had lit the room. Now the face in front of him was smaller, lashes half-lowered, a single bright tear holding on.
His body moved before the math finished.
[Shadow Blink]
Space folded; he hit the ground in front of her. One arm hooked her waist, the other shoved her clear in the sliver of time left.
His brain caught up in a snap.
'She's safe—but if I die, she dies next. Do something,' so his eyes started looking for a way.
The bull was closing. The dagger was near its other eye.
'That's it.'
His hand moved before the thought finished: he rolled his wrist, lifted the point to the only soft place left.
The dagger was in position.
The Minotaur's skull came full force.
Loki met it.
The charge carried the dagger in—buried it to the hilt in the Minotaur's other eye. In the same breath, the horns punched through his ribs and slammed him into the wall; the impact rang the stone like a cracked bell. Heat blasted past. Chains rattled. Blue fire stuttered in the sconces. Haeun skidded to a stop, safe.
He didn't.
One last thought tried to surface—Good. It's blind; she can finish it—then everything tore away.
…
Ashen Hollow
Blue fire went to black, then to the gray of Ashen Hollow's sky.
[You have died]
[50% TLE/NTLE has been lost]
Loki ignored the text and ran.
Boots hammered road, then dirt, then roots. He cut back lanes and broken fences, taking the straightest lines his body knew.
The instant a shadow was thick enough, he burned [Shadow Blink], reappearing ahead. Branches whipped his coat; breath rasped. Cold scraped his lungs clean and sharpened him.
'I did everything I could. She'll finish it.'
Her face flashed in his head—white bob, cool eyes, that small surprised smile—and something lurched.
"Fuck," he hissed, and pushed harder.
'Hold on, Haeun.'
He hit the dungeon mouth at a dead sprint and never slowed. The first pit trigger—he was already long-striding the safe stones he'd mapped earlier.
Arrow corridor—he counted the ratchet, slipped the first volley, shouldered the second into his plate, and kept going.
The swinging blade sighed out—he dipped under it, felt wind on his hood. The spiked log slammed from its track—he took it high on the shoulder, let it skate, and drove through.
Every turn, every trap came where he remembered; he ran the maze like a line drill, burning [Blink] the second it cooled, eating the gaps with speed and anger.
Blue from the boss room washed the hall ahead. He hit the threshold and braked hard.
"Haeun!"
Haeun sat against the far wall, knees up, head tipped back, eyes closed. His chest locked for half a second—then he was already crossing the stone, dropping to his knees, arms around her shoulders, pulling her in like the room might try to take her again.
Her breathing was steady. No broken bones. Pulse, calm. No wounds that mattered.
He exhaled—sharp, then long—like setting a heavy pack down. "...Good."
He slid his back to the wall and eased her so her head rested across his lap. The blue fire hummed. The chamber finally felt empty in the right way.
Time slipped.
Haeun woke to warmth under her cheek. Not stone—steadier. She opened her eyes to the line of a black coat, the edge of a gauntlet. She looked to the hood.
Dark. No eyes. Nothing inside the cowl but shadow.
Her breath hitched—then two gold points bloomed, like lamplight in a cave.
"Oh. You're awake," Loki said, voice low. "Good. I… might've dozed off a bit too."
The knot under her ribs loosened. She let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding. Seeing those familiar gold eyes, she settled—calm returned.
She didn't move. He didn't shift her.
After a quiet moment, she asked the question that had waited for her on the edge of sleep.
"Why did you do it?"
He said nothing to that question because he himself did not have the answer. He had decided not to sacrifice himself for others again. He pictured anyone else in that lane—he wouldn't have moved for sure. He pictured Haeun there again, and knew he would move, every time.
'…Why?'
She waited without pressing.
"I don't know," he said at last, honest and unadorned.
"I...see," she murmured, and let silence sit a little longer.
He was the one who broke it.
"Did you get the loot?" The pivot was plain, almost clumsy—but true. He didn't have the words she might ask for next.
She didn't push. She drew a breath, sat up carefully, and began to tell him what happened after he fell—the last Rupture, the way the bull's weight finally sagged, the light breaking into motes, the room's blue fire holding steady while her hands stopped shaking.
Outside the shut gate, the dungeon was quiet. Inside the quiet, two people caught their breath.