Mouth Wide Open All the Way Down the Throat

Kyrielight stumbles into the shadow border, the master in her arms. It's a horrible sight; their blood shines on the black of her armor, their face is pale as a sheet, their breath is labored.

"Get Nemo nurse!" Goredolf yells behind him, knowing fully well they didn't need his input to do so, but damn it, damn it, what can he do, what can he do?! His friend This idiot who has never been rewarded Their last hope to survive is dying on deck, what can he do?!

Meunière hurriedly smacks things off a desk to free space. Sion comes to help Goredolf and Kyrielight lay the master down, and she winces. "This is bad. Their spirit core is damaged. They won't last long."

"No shit!" Goredolf snaps. "Do you have anything better to earn them a few extra seconds or-"

He's so riled up that it takes him a few seconds to understand what Sion just said.

"... Their fucking what is damaged?"

Kyrielight looks at Sion. Sion looks at Goredolf. Goredolf looks at Kyrielight.

The demi-servant is the first to break eye contact, focusing on the master on the table.

"You didn't know?" Sion looks dumbfounded. Then she whips her head around, to the rest of the staff. "You didn't tell him?!"

"Tell me what?!" He- he has to have misheard. He has to be mistunderstanding something. It can't- they can't-

The master of Chaldea screams, and suddenly none of this matter anymore.

"It hurts." They breathe out, "it hurts, it hurts, it hurts."

"I know, I know, Senpai-"

"You're not allowed to die," Goredolf adds, grabbing their arm. "You hear that? You don't have permission to die. Don't you dare pass away on me, advisor-"

Suddenly, their hand closes around his wrist. Their fingers are trembling. Their grip is weak.

"I'm scared." And it's during these moments, when fear and pain paints their face, that it truly hits Goredolf that this is no timeless hero, no steel-forged mage, no prophetized savior. They're a person. They're a human. Like him.

"H-hey, you're gonna be alright. I won't allow you to die. You hear? I won't-"

Their fingers tighten. Their gaze shift. They're no longer looking at him. At first Goredolf thinks that they're losing focus; but quickly enough, the truth becomes clear.

"I don't want to die." They plead, to someone, to something,

right

above

Goredolf's shoulder.

"I don't want to die. Please."

Goredolf opens his mouth. Mash reaches out to the master. The door opens to let Nemo nurse through.

The master of Chaldea howls.

It a sound from the bottom of their lungs. It's a sound from the bottom of their soul. It's a sound Goredolf can hear and taste and see, loud and bitter and a profound blue one could just drown in.

Pain suddenly stabs his wrist. Goredolf violently tears it away from the master's grip.

They don't seem to notice. They roll on their front, supporting their weight with their forearms. They're trembling all over- as if something was crawling under their skin, something immense and ancient that leaves ripple in its wake. Blood is dripping down from their chest, and something is dripping down from their mouth. Something black, that sticks to their lips, like oil. Or gasoline.

Their entire body curls, like a cat about to pounce. A high-pitched noise joins the screaming. Scratching. Scratching on the table. The master's nails digging into the table, leaving bloody trenches in the wood, and-

the back of their uniform rips open, bone-white spikes tearing their way through, a lionfish's spine.

The screaming stops, for a second, just enough for them to catch their breath. The silence is almost more painful to Goredolf's ears.

But another second, and they're screaming again. Their eyes are wide as saucers- one eye, two eyes, three eyes, four eyes, another pair blossoming right under their first one. They throw their head back, and their mouth opens wide, wide, wide- all the way to their cheeks, all the way to their ears, all the way to their throat, their teeth growing sharper and sharper the closer to the collar they get-

and suddenly, it all collapses. Their mouth snaps shut. The screaming ends. The master falls facefirst onto the table. The spikes fold themself back into their spine. Their throat sews itself closed. Their eyes close and dissolve under their skin again.

Goredolf finds that he cannot move. The entire scene seems frozen in time.

He fully expects the screaming to begin again. He expects this body to twist and juts into something unfathomable. But none of it happens. Instead, the moment is broken by a very quiet:

"Can't walk. B' my legs."

The master abruptly stands upright. The movement is so rough it barely seems to be coming from their own will- more like someone had grabbed a leash and tugged. Still panting, they tumble off the table. Their limbs are stiff and clumsy. One step. Their whole upper body falls forward before being forcefully dragged up. Two steps. Now their head and shoulders are hanging behind them, their arms like dead weight. Three steps. They look less like a walking person than like a puppet at the mercy of invisible strings.

"I'm good. I'm good. I can do this." They don't seem to be speaking to anyone in particular. The front of their uniform is ripped and bloody- but through the torn seams, Goredolf can see that their wound is completely healed. Pristine skin covers what was once a front view of their guts, barely tainted blue by the faint mark of clawed handprints.

"Oooookay." Their mouth drags onto the first syllable. Their gaze is unfocused. They may be healed, but that did not make them immune to pain. "I can keep going. I can keep going."

For a single, brief second, their eyes meet Goredolf's.

He knows this feeling. He is intimately familiar with it. His relationship with the office lady from outer space is nothing like his relationship with the master of Chaldea- it involves more skin and less clothes for a start- but Goredolf would recognize the sensation of being watched from behind someone else's eyes anywhere.

"I thought you were a Caster." Says Sion, at last.

The Foreigner servant blinks, closing weak fingers over Kyrielight's hand. "Whuh?"

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