"Damn it."
Normally, in this kind of situation, Zephyr would've won.
But pain pulsed through every nerve in his body. The attacks he'd suffered were small— light, even— but they had been too many.
Too frequent.
They had piled on him like a thousand needles, and now they weighed down his movements, numbing his senses.
Still, he was lucky— Noctis wasn't doing much better.
While Zephyr hadn't landed many strikes, the ones that did connect were catastrophic.
Noctis's body was torn open in places. Heavy wounds. Deep cuts. His Aether was the only thing preventing him from bleeding out, tendrils of darkness snaking across his skin to seal the gashes.
'How is he doing that…?'. Zephyr was honestly stunned.
Even now, he could see it—how the shadows bled from Noctis's body, wrapping his wounds, suppressing the flow of blood. Not healing, but stabilizing. Sustaining.
That level of control... it was too clean.
Too suspicious.
