"Aisha! I know you can move now, you've been too damn quiet behind your rock!" Keiser hissed, his voice cutting through the howl of wind.

He turned toward her position, where her barrier still held, a ground shell half-swallowed by dust and smoke. Even through the ringing in his ears, he could tell she was still there, crouched low, thinking.

Then, with a sharp exhale, Aisha finally moved. She straightened, her blonde hair whipping in the hot wind, her eyes narrowed into that sharp scowl he'd missed and dreaded in equal measure. The blood on her temple had dried to a dark stain, but new flecks glistened where she'd brushed it away with the back of her hand.

Keiser's gaze dropped, her right hand was slick with fresh blood, dripping down her wrist, the skin torn open as if she'd jabbed something straight through her palm. The once-smooth shield now bristled with jagged spikes.

She must've done it deliberately. Cut herself to counter whatever rune had pinned her in place.

"You'd better cooperate now, Aisha," Keiser muttered, low and hard. "Or I won't have a choice but to something drastic, after everything these people've said."

And since they were effectively alone in the pit... the Saint's red fabric had hauled the others up and out of immediate danger, leaving the rim of the crater crowded but distant. Fewer idiots to get in the way.

Keiser had questions he knew she'd dodge if given the chance, so he'd find the answers himself, by pressure if words wouldn't come. He didn't care how furious she looked. He'd seen that glare before and it didn't change his mind.

"You'll eliminate him you mean?" Aisha snapped. Her voice was sharp, the ringing in Keiser's ears swelling with every shout that rose from above.

"What are you doing?!" Lenko's shrill voice cut in from where he was secured, panic spiking through it. "She'll kill him!"

Keiser let out a slow breath. "I'll eliminate a threat," he hisses under his breath. "And I won't hesitate, if I deem you one, Aisha." He said it quietly, but there was no mistaking the meaning.

For a moment they just stood there, framed by smoke and flaking stone, as if this were some awful, familiar Friday night instead of the edge of a disaster.

The pit coughed and spat dust, the air tasted of iron and hot sand. The building around them shuddered, walls groaned and ground cracked, but they were rooted, just some unfortunate ones in a tableau of imminent violence.

Keiser's eyes flicked to the rim, to Olga's younger brother, to the princess of Hinode, to the young beast girl, and the others. He thought of the reports he'd filed, these witnesses that stacked up against Aisha. He thought of the prince in the pit.

"You always duck the hard question," Keiser said, softer. "So here's one you won't dodge... Why? Why is this happening? Who made you do this, and to what end? If you talk, maybe I'll trust what you actually planning for the Gambit."

Aisha's jaw tightened. The blood on her temple gleamed anew in the dust, the slit in her palm showed dark and wet. She looked every bit the mage who'd damned herself to solve impossible problems. She opened her mouth, then closed it again, expression shuttering into silence.

Above them, the shouts rose, pleas, orders, accusations, all folding into the unending gust of the mana storm. Keiser could feel the pressure increase, a vibration through the soles of his boots.

The sacred landers' incursions or simply 'subjugations', the dumping of corrupted mindless beasts onto Sheol's pass the border, the endless expeditions that took everything from the knights and left nothing but grief, those seasons had hardened him.

They had taught him when to trust a rune and when to trust a blade.

He kept his voice low. "Talk. Or don't. But know this, if you become the danger, I will do what the kingdom asks. I will end it."

Aisha's eyes flashed. He thought she would spit in his face. Instead she drew a slow breath and let out a ragged, humorless laugh, half-defiance, half-broken.

Keiser turned back to the pit. Whatever choice he made next would have to be quick, and in a situation like this, quick often meant bloody.

Keiser crouched at the edge of the pit, every muscle coiled. The air below hummed with heat, smoke, and the stench of something burning. He was about to slide down, start what would no doubt turn into another bloody 'subjugation', when something under his boot gave a faint tremor.

The dagger.

He glanced down, the weapon still twitching faintly beneath his heel. With a grimace, he leaned and plucked it up. The hilt was warm.

Strange, curling runes glowed faintly along the blade's spine, runes he didn't recognize, but their pattern was too deliberate to be ornamental. That explained how the thing had come back to attack him earlier, turning in midair after he parried it.

He turned it over once more, then shifted his gaze toward Aisha. "They said you were controlling their people," he called over the rumbling pit. "Let them go, Aisha."

Her head snapped toward him, eyes flashing like flint. "Why would I do that," she snapped, "when I have to---"

Keiser cut her off, raising the dagger and pointing it straight at her neck. "Because they won't trust us, and they'll interfere with what I'm about to do. And I don't trust you right now either."

She froze, expression hardening, hands flexing at her sides. Then, finally, she grit her teeth and hissed a breath through them. "...Fine."

He didn't know if she actually released her hold, if there even was one, but the air shifted. Somewhere above, a ripple of commotion broke through the howl of the wind.

Keiser tilted his head back, squinting through the rising haze toward the rim. The Saint's red fabric, shifting in a strange, defensive motion. There were shouts, panicked, overlapping, different from before. Someone had woken up.

Olga.

She was on her feet now, braced on the tilted platform, her face pale but eyes sharp. Her bow was not with her as her brother clung to her, wide-eyed. The Saint herself looked startled, her red fabric hovered midair, ready to strike if the archer turned against them again.

Keiser frowned. Even from here, he could see something had changed on the one who was carrying Olga before, on Diego's stance, not anger, not confusion, but a kind of wary sorrow. The old mercenary's gaze wasn't on anyone but down.

Following his line of sight, Keiser's eyes landed on another figure bundled in the same fabric near Diego's feet. His expression was… somber. It was the kind of look knights gave when they'd recognized a corpse and had to burn it before anyone else had.

The air cracked again, another wave of heat, another rush of unseen mana from the pit. The smoke curled upward, swallowing the top rim, and Keiser could feel the vibration under his boots.

Apparently the prince was getting restless.

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