Holding Everything

Chapter 20: Twice

Kou

Mo's panting is rasped and heavy, she wipes the blood from her mouth and smirks, glaring holes into Lillya as she catches her breath; Lillya stands in front of me, feet planted to the ground with fresh cuts all over her visible skin, I lay on the ground in astonishment, still trying to make sense of everything that just happened.

"Finally the little bitch woke up, was beginnin' to think you would just give up and let yourself rot here, princess. But," she smirks again and readies her spiked club, extending it outward toward Lil and pointing it at her, "now that you're fair game, I have no reason to hold back on you." In the next instant she lunges forward, swinging the club once she's within reaches.

"Watch out!!" I yell, but instead of evading Lil bends her knees slightly and blocks her left side with her arms, I hear her grunt as it makes contact, blood trails down her arm from the spikes and I stumble to me feet. As Mo swings the club back for another hit I step in between in order to shield Lil.

"Idiot!!" In the next moment she grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks me back just in time for her to block the next hit. The spikes are lodged into her left forearm after she pinned me down with her right hand against my chest; she glares down at me as she fights the pain I'm sure she's feeling. "Do not get in the way, idiot."

"I'd listen to her, you're in no position to fight me just yet, neither is she but she stands a better chance since she makes number two." Mo holds up two fingers and retracts the goop into her palm, indicating the fight is over for now; she smirks and cracks her knuckles.

"Alright you three, that's enough, you'll have plenty of time to fight once your missions begin for real." Gloria claps her hands twice to get our attention, walking up calmly as if the didn't just spill blood; I look over at Lil whose arm is still bleeding. "Mo, take her to the healing room to have that looked at, Kou; we are to speak." Mo takes Lil away and Gloria turns to me with the same cold expression as before when she implied Lil was to 'sleep'.

"I thought you said she was going to sleep." I say in a weakened tone, she laughs alittle making me look at her with confusion.

"I said if she didn't accept her duties she'd sleep."

"Implying she had already lost is what freaked me out; I really thought I lost her."

"You have feelings for this girl?" She asks, raising an eyebrow with a pleased expression that makes me uncomfortable.

"N-No not at all, I just don't like the thought of losing her, or anyone at that matter all because I'm too weak to protect them." I say while glancing down slightly, wallowing in my own self-pity. Gloria laughs a little harder as if to mock me and looks down at the shattered glass from when Lil broke her way through.

"Beating yourself up over it won't do anything, but I can tell you this, you are more important to me than all three of them, they can die but I need you alive." Her eyes turn cold as she says this, shivers run down my spine at her words; making me realize that she could have them killed if she wanted to. She walks up to me and stares at me, then hands me an object the turns and walks away muttering so low I barely hear her, "Times are changing, time to prepare for the-" just before she finishes her statement she disappears, making me wonder what she has planned.

I squat down and look at the shatter glass once more, seeing the blood along the sharp edges, the memory of Lil suddenly waking up and crashing through the glass and blocking Mo's attack on me begin to rerun through my mind. "She honestly looked so badass, I had no idea she could do that, it was almost, inhuman or something." I pause and play the thought in my mind if she has somehow been, upgraded, in a sense since she is now awakened. I drop the glass I picked up and stand back up, looking at the object she handed me, it's the White Limbo book grandpa showed me before sending me here; after a moment I look around and realizing there isn't really an exit.