"Oh, I can see that."
He moved around her next sweep toward the ruined bench, keeping his injured wrist tucked against his chest. Above the seat, the abandoned portal widened again.
Nyx caught its edges with spatial force before it could reach Kaiden’s back. The opening buckled inward, exposing a stretch of dark passage beyond the garden, then strained against her hold.
"Someone’s keeping it open from the other side!" she called. "Kai, move away from the bench!"
Kaiden stepped clear as Aria moved along the walkway to cover him. Nyx squeezed the portal narrower, her pink hair lifting around her face with the effort.
Kaiden released Envy and chose Wrath, driving off his back foot as a swordsman rushed to block his path to David.
Stone burst beneath his boot. The man barely got his shield up before Kaiden punched through its center, crushing the arm braced behind it against his breastplate.
"AAAGH!"
Kaiden seized the screaming man’s armor and dragged him close enough to see his face.
This fucker had run past Yunohana bleeding on the stones to finish the job. He still had his sword raised, still thought he might get it into Kaiden’s throat.
Kaiden drove his fist through the breastplate. Wrath detonated inside it, blasting blood from the neck opening as the sword fell from the man’s hand.
He hurled the corpse into David’s escort, knocking the front rank off their feet.
"Shoot him!" David stumbled behind another shield. "Fucking shoot him!"
Kaiden’s bloodied face turned toward him, and David flinched so violently that his back hit the man behind him.
"Then help us!" his defender shouted, struggling to hold the shield up with its broken straps. "You’re a fucking mage!"
"I-"
David looked down at his empty hand.
Oh. Right.
"[Arcane Lance]!"
He shoved his palm past the shield and fired, then fired again, shouting the spell’s name as though it might help him remember what to do.
Alexandra caught the first lance against a barrier beside Kaiden’s head. He ducked beneath the second and rammed his shoulder into David’s defender, driving both men back along the pond.
"Aria!" he called as another caster aimed at his exposed side.
Moonlight punched through the caster’s mouth. Aria sent her next crescent over Kaiden’s shoulder, forcing David to throw himself behind the men still standing.
"Keep going, Kai. I have you."
Alice dissolved into golden light across the pond and swept into him, her dark halo forming above his head. Strength surged through his aching arms as her Conduit settled into place.
<I’m with you, Big Brother!>
Her first beam burned through the wrist of a man raising his sword behind him. Kaiden heard the weapon strike the paving and drove on, trusting his sister to finish its owner.
With Nyx occupied at the portal, the enemy casters turned their fire toward her. Alexandra raised a barrier in front of Nyx while Bastet poured solar flame through the gaps between the enemy shields.
"Get out! Get out of the fire!"
The men surged sideways, armor glowing around their legs, and Calypso met them with a sweep of her axe. Luna flashed through the gap she opened, lightning snapping between the burning plates as her Stormblade found the casters behind them.
"You wanted to shoot someone, huh?!"
Kaiden heard her furious shout over their screams. Minutes earlier she’d been arguing about the dragon she wanted on his kimono, indignant that the girls had rejected her suggestion.

"Thorne! Get us out!"

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