Warnings: blood and violence

A series of thuds startled Minseok awake. His body ached from kneeling against the cave floor, and his aura at once burned and crushed him, draining his strength. Strong light streamed into the cave, so it was probably daytime now. It was still dark the first time he had woken up, so Minseok had watched through gray colors how Hayong would use her knife to cut and chip his aura away piece by piece. Each stab felt like a steel beam ramming through his chest, and every slash bled his strength as if she had slit opened his skin to leave his flesh and veins bare to the world.

He had passed out for maybe the third or thirteenth time when he felt the presence of Tongza and someone else, someone neither angelic nor demonic. Forcing his eyes open, Minseok squinted towards the newcomers. Even before his eyes unblurred, he smelled blood and panic.

“M-Minseok hyung?”

He knew that voice. They had met and ate together, and he heard the shy laughter and saw the little glimmers of interest that Luhan had stared at for the whole dinner.

“Sehun?” He asked, his voice raspy and gritty, probably from screaming.

“Yeah, it’s me, Minseok hyung.”

He felt hands on his shoulders, helping him sit up, cave jabbing into his knees. The hands on his shoulders trembled.

“Sehun, are you hurt?”

“N-No. Luhan, Tao, and Kai protected me.”

“Tongza! You’re bleeding in your aura too! What happened?”

“Pests, but I handled them. I brought the true neutral. Are you ready?”

Minseok shook his head to clear it and looked up. Tongza was limping, and pieces of his aura were also floating away, although not as much as Minseok. Red also smeared across his robes. Hayong shifted, and Minseok saw her put away her aura knife, reaching for Sehun. He jerked forward in vain, but a voice boomed from outside, halting everyone.

“Tongza, you traitor!”

 The ground shook, and Minseok hunched his body over Sehun as much as he could as the roof of the cave cracked and flung away. Wincing at the light, he saw an angel, the same one who also had her angel pulled from the mission—Commander Haaka?—flying above them, power quivering in the air. She dived towards them, snatched Tongza from where he stood, and threw him out to mountain clearing outside the cave. Then on the side, a head poked out of the walls. And Minseok knew that sandy brown and thought he was hallucinating.

“Luhan?”

The professor dashed in, but instead of heading towards Minseok, he sprinted in and swung a kick straight into Hayong’s middle, making her stagger back. She had been trying to grab Sehun in their confusion, and that realization surged a wave of strength in Minseok. Tongza was kept busy, and he was the only with aura to contend with Hayong’s weapons. However his human friends got here, he needed to protect them.

Gathering power, he froze the rock encasing his legs and shattered them, ripped free from the ropes. He groaned at the burn in his chest but shouldered through and pushed Sehun towards Luhan. Hayong rolled up then, a knife appearing in her hand. Her lips stretched back inhumanely, and her grin matched the deranged glint in her eyes.

She struck first, and Minseok blocked her hand, only for her to make a slice towards his other side. He blocked; she swiped. He aimed his kicks and punches, and she slipped out of the way. 

All the movements lit a chain of pain through him, and when his movements lost their vitality and became too sluggish, Hayong caught him. She grabbed his neck and slammed him into the ground, digging her nails into his throat. Raising her knife, she carved it down from his collarbone to his hipbone, and he couldn’t even gasp as a thick strip of his soul peeled away. His struggles grew weaker as pain and cold numbed his senses. Darkness raced in, and he wondered last minute if the scent of static in the air came from the last embers of his consciousness.

Something fizzed in the air, and suddenly the pressure lifted from his throat. Minseok gasped and coughed, turning over and gagging into the rocky floor. His ears ringing, his vision too bright to comprehend the dots, Minseok could barely make out two figures clashing in the cliff above, but he knew this aura—the sharp junctions of sparks with the flexible bands in between.

He rubbed his eyes, groaning at the grating energies within him, but he caught sight of Hayong and the other, and hope swelled in him when he recognized Chen’s leather jacket and his graceful movements. Relief distracted him so much that he heard Chen call out to him too late. Hayong dove forward, and he saw a blur.

Wind rushed him, and the scream echoed from behind. Whipping around, Minseok watched in horror as Hayong’s hand sank into Luhan’s chest, Sehun having been pushed out of the way.

“Luhan!”

Minseok staggered forward and dropped. His limbs had numbed, and only the screeches of the two auras in him registered feeling in his body. But he saw Hayong’s face pale in alarm and pain as she tried to yank her arm back. Pieces of purity grappled at her being, and she jerked and shouted, only for Luhan to grab her shirt, keeping her in place.

“Chen, whatever the you’re doing, do it now!” 

Lightning crackled and flashed, but as Chen dove down, Tongza popped out of the ground. He caught Chen’s fist, locked his arm with his own, swinging him into the gravel. The rock under them elevated into a platform, and Tongza rode the ground out to the clearing, dragging Chen with him.

Cursing, Minseok forced his head up, to move his heavy limbs, and jumped onto Hayong’s back, capturing her in a headlock. He ripped her away from Luhan and rammed her into the nearest wall, just as his friend slumped to the floor.

“Take Lu out of here, Sehun!”

He ground his heel into the back of her ankle, making her cry out, and hauled out the last pieces of aura and froze her limbs to the wall, starting where her elbows touched the rock. Minseok didn’t let go until Hayong had been immobilized. Then he crumbled to the ground. The top-open cave filled with only his gasps and Hayong’s grunts to move. Outside, the terrain crashed, and lightning charged the air. And inside of Minseok, that foreign aura mashed the insides of his head, bludgeoning, turning his vision black.

~~~~~

Sehun shielded Luhan’s head as debris-filled wind blasted them. He quickly gathered the professor in his arms and ran as fast as he could, flinching when something boomed behind him but not daring to look back. Another crash shook the earth, and the ground slipped out from his feet like a pulled rug. He tripped down a steppe, rolling into the grass. Groaning, he crawled to Luhan and cradled his head, checking him over.

He had run far enough for the three supernaturals to appear barely bigger than his thumb. Pillars and boulders and jagged rocks littered the once-clear clearing, and lightning flashed in mid-day, hissing in the air even at his distance. A short sprint away in the other direction was a tree line, and Sehun picked himself and Luhan up to at least make it to the first of the white-barked trees.

Panting, he looked down and didn’t know whether he should be relieved or panicking at the fact that Luhan had a hand pass through him. He had fainted, but there was no wound. No blood, no tear in his shirt—was the injury something that he couldn’t see?

He remembered when Luhan had gone to take a shower that he had asked Tao how guardian angels worked, and the angel showed him the little deer mark that connected Tao to his guardee. Tao had said that in the most extreme cases, Tao would be damaged rather than Luhan. Was this one of those cases? Then was Tao alright? What did that Hayong lady even do?

Sehun looked back and saw rocks flying from one direction to another, dust billowing. His hands tore at the other in anxiety. Minseok hyung was still there. Was he okay? He hadn’t been bleeding from what Sehun remembered, but he looked so weak. He made ice appear out of nowhere, froze and broke the rocks around his body, and ripped out of that rope with his bare hands, so he probably had more power than either he or Luhan did but…

Another crash made him flinch, and he shivered. They were on some mountain it seemed, and the sweat beaded up on his forehead and neck chilled him even worse under the biting wind. The grass at the edge of the tree line had some height though it was yellowing. Looking around, Sehun spotted a cluster of rocks and moved them to there, hoping to block the wind a little. As he tucked Luhan in his lap and rubbed his hands and arms to keep him warm, panic rose in Sehun’s chest.

All those people were protecting him. They were sacrificing themselves while he just stood there, got kidnapped, and ran away like an idiot. He was shaking. Even now after running, his hands trembled, and the harshness of his breathing couldn’t be masked by the blow of the wind. What should he do? Did he wait for the fighting to stop or Luhan to wake up? But Minseok hyung looked to be in terrible condition.

He would win against that Hayong lady, right? She looked deranged with the way she snapped her limbs and attacked Minseok hyung and laughed while she did it. Sehun gripped his hands to keep himself from breaking his skin. Should he stay here? He and Luhan seemed safe here, but worry gnawed at Sehun as Minseok hyung’s image flashed in his mind. Maybe it was stupid considering that demon lady was after his soul but—

Sehun pulled off his sweater and tugged the main body over the professor’s torso, tying the sleeves in a small pillow for his head. He instantly shivered at the mountain chill, but he stood up and ran back towards the cave. As he neared the clearing again, he kept low, stuck to the walls and behind boulders. His heart felt close to beating out of his ribcage, and it nearly did when a rock flew in his direction, and he dove out of its path before it could crush him. Gulping down a mix of terror and relief, Sehun ducked his way to the cave.

The Hayong lady was frozen to the wall, growling and struggling when she saw him. He quickly crossed to the other figure on the ground.

“Minseok hyung, wake up!”

He shook his shoulders, patted his cheeks, and as the panic pumped through him, he slapped the man. A groan sounded from him, and Sehun couldn’t believe that worked.

“Minseok hyung, are you okay? Can you hear me?”

“Ugh, Sehun? You need to run…”

“I can’t just leave you. Where are you hurt?”

“Aura. Not physical.”

Minseok hyung groaned again but more in pain, and he curled in on himself, clutching his chest. Sehun cursed. How was he supposed to help when he couldn’t see what was ing wrong?

“Tell me what to do. What do you need?”

The earth shook again, and Sehun covered them at the wave of dust blowing into the once-cave.

“Have to take it out,” Minseok hyung mumbled.

“What?”

“Aura… that’s not mine. Take it out— aura container—”

He started writhing, pain slicking him in sweat and groans. Sehun gripped his hair, internally running through every profanity in his head. What in the grid was an aura container??

Another quake of the earth made him flinch and hold Minseok hyung closer. Wait, the two outside—the lady angel and Chen-shi, they were on their side. Telling Minseok hyung that he would be right back, he sprinted out and searched the skies.

The angels were in the air, slinging rock formation and pillars and bending the earth in ways that Sehun didn’t think were possible, but he needed Chen-shi. Could he fly? Where—