The Captain dropped to his knees the second the statue crumbled, his claymore slipping from his fingers and hitting the tiles with a clang.
His arms hung at his sides like dead weight, his chest heaving while his vision swam at the edges, and the mana that had been flowing through him moments ago felt like nothing more than a faint hum buried under exhaustion.
He looked down at his hands, at the blood crusted between his fingers and the trembling that would not stop, and realized he had nothing left.
'How long has it been,' he thought, his breath coming in shallow gasps, 'since I ran out of mana in a fight?'
The answer sat heavy in his chest, ten years, ten years of holding back, of suppressing his real level, of fighting at half capacity because pushing harder meant remembering what happened the last time he gave it everything.
He raised his head, his eyes scanning the ruins until they found Helen, who was still fighting.
