By Etro, he cursed, could she be more stubborn when it isn’t the problem this is? His voice struggled to find the correct words to say; his body moved on instinct to survive. Oh, how sardonic he sounded as he simply laughed at those words. No longer was he going to concern himself with keeping such a perfect image in front of her. If she wished to struggle, to be stubborn and force him to move her himself, then she would suffer the consequences of raising his hand.
“Then die with me, because I’m not leaving until I’m positive you’re far enough away to where I don’t have to worry about you.“ Fingers twirled the cards currently in his grasp between the gaps before tossing them forward to the ink-like shadows beginning to pool just near the door. Light explosions followed, bursts of flames that articulated upwards into puffs of smoke. He hissed as he noticed the spark jump up, begin to burn and crackle against the wall and its articulate decorations that would only aid in making a bigger mess of things.
Best made plans always failed under pressure, after all.
Blond crown shifted from side to side as he looked around the immediate vicinity and was, again, saddened to see the girl in white still standing about idly and waiting for him to leave. There was no way. There would be no leaving before her, to leave her without some sort of guard, especially when she always had presented herself to be rather, for lack of better terms in his mind, useless upon a battlefield. He, at least, could strike and move and avoid with ease, but she was at a disadvantage. Sandals never made for good running, and a short dress would only be an inconvenience. Time was already running slim and if they didn’t hurry, they would both—
“Naminé, get the fucking hell out of my room.” He didn’t have time for this anymore! The smell of smoke burned at his nose and eyes, and already he knew those creatures were inching closer, closer, closer to them with each passing millisecond and soon would just as easily be upon them. He didn’t recall much of the next few moments, simply that he’d run over to her, grabbed her wrist and dragged her to the window and simply didn’t care if she got stabbed with the glass shards upon the floor because at this point… They weren’t going to have hearts to feel the pain with, much less care about it later. Once he let go, he pushed her towards the window, but not hard enough to make her fall through it. Even in this adrenaline crazed state… he could recognize that a few cuts on her feet wouldn’t compare to a gouge in her back. “Now!”
And for the first time in a while, he turned his back on her. His sleeve ran across his face, picked up the droplets of sweat that had started down in the rising temperatures and the rush of an ambush. Everywhere he looked in that room was grey clouds, black puddles and yellow beady eyes. Those slender, phantasmal points scratched and clawed at his ankles, but with a single twist of his hips and his knee locked up, the insect-like Shadows were instantly kicked away and against the far wall.
Too bad there were more of them than there ever would be of him.
The thumping in his chest accelerated and became a throbbing pain in his head. There was too much going on, too little time to think, not enough air to breathe and he wasn’t sure if the cool feeling dripping down his face was because he was stuck in the smoke and could no longer really tell if his eyes burned or had been burned, or if it was just perspiration anymore. All he could do was grimace and turn around briefly, to look out the window and get just a breath of fresh air. Once he felt the ankle biters return, it just became like clock work for a few moments. His wrist would throw a card down as he struggled to breathe and maintain his own balance, and for a just a second, the dealer would see light as his one card multiplied into possibly a hundred, entrapping his small area and ridding it of any puppets that remained inside. The shells of beings would always continue to come, though, and finally… he was pressed into the window. The sharp, fractured edges pricked at his back through his jacket and with a deep, desperate inhale, he knew he had to run, to retreat, to fall back strategically… something that involved leaving that room.
Or he’d fail… at everything.
Frustration was palpable and radiating off of him and she knew that her stubbornness was not helping the situation in the least and that she should, truly and sincerely, just follow his directions. Yet she could not bring herself to, already set in the idea that he had to leave either before or with her, and she would not step a single foot out of that room without him.
Logically she knew that she was overreacting, that her insistence could get them both in major trouble, that no matter how much she was determined that she was helping she was making things worse—but she could not help it. To her, Ace was someone precious, he was her friend and not someone to leave behind, he was the person who swore to protect her and was keeping that promise right then and there, even as he cursed and yelled and snapped at her, and she did not dare move an inch without him. Yes, she did indeed know that many of her attempts to help others ended up in their harm or her own, but that would not stop her.
Because she thought she was doing what was right.
And while she was not so stubborn as to not admit that—
She was stubborn enough to stick with it.
So her mouth set in a line and her eyebrows furrowed as he grabbed onto her hand and dragged her closer to the window and she stumbled slightly and braced her hand against the window pain and whirled around to shoot him a look because she could feel the burning pain in her left foot that certainly signified that she had gotten cut. Of course he had not done that on purpose, but he was clearly losing patience and she opened her mouth before shutting it with a click, glancing at the Heartless and at the darkness and her mouth set in a determined line.
There were two people in that room—one with a heart, and one without. The Heartless would go after him, they would go after Ace, because he had a heart and she did not—she did not have one for them to be attracted to. Rather she was simply something that was in their way, a little hindrance to deal with, and as much as she wished to be able to explain that to him in that moment there was no time. No time to explain the meaning of her existence and how she existed, why the Heartless would not go after her first unless she got in their way, because that all had to be explained later. For all the abilities that she possessed, she could not stop time and she turned towards her friend again and watched as he skillfully wielded his cards and pushed the creatures back and she couldn’t help but huff.
There were only so many options. To perish in that room or to go first, neither of which she was particularly keen on, or to force Ace out of that window. The Nobody knew that he was as stubborn as she, if not more so, but this was a situation of desperation, of life or death, and he already looked exhausted and tired and she felt a pang of guilt because she could not help, could not lend her aid in one way or another because she was just so useless in combat. That she knew, of course she knew that much, but she was useful in one way in this battle—
And she was intent on being a decoy.
Within that room the Heartless were not very powerful, and could not cause her too much harm other than a few scratches, but they could do far more harm to Ace. Which meant that she had to round on him, she had to turn on her heel and look at him with a bright look in her blue eyes and a frown on her face as she grabbed the young man’s arm and dragged him closer to the window, knowing that the glass could not cut his better covered feet. A whirlwind of thoughts followed but there was only one way to go about this and she tried to sound as stern as possible, though she knew that she sounded frantic and desperate, as she spoke.
”Go, Ace!
It’s not safe for you here and you need to get out—
I’ll be right behind you.
Just trust me!”
The plead for trust was, perhaps, a finishing blow as she tried to twist her body so that she stood in front of him and was a veritable human shield. The Heartless could scratch at her but would not drive their claws straight through her body. Not yet, anyways, so long as he just got out of that window and she followed along after him. Naminé would not, could not, allow it any other way.
”Go!”
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