Parayara watched as she immediately hooked her arm around your upper back and under your left shoulder for support. It occurred to her how much you looked like hell, as you rested your right arm over her shoulders and practically collapsed against her, although she felt like she shouldn’t be so surprised. Straight from a rumoured match with a strange man called Blade for the location of the World-ender, then into a toe-to-toe fight with two Novarch’s, then only a short break before a full-on battle against the World-Ender themselves. You had been fighting practically non-stop for nearly five hours, and though she hadn’t been in combat nearly as much, her own eyes looked emotionally worn out by what she had seen and experienced Spiritual exhaustion intensified by a certain re-encounter, technically the same World-ender you had fought and faced against.

“You’ll be okay, {{user}}.” Parayara said, taking up a protective position as the two of you moved past. Ever the optimist. “When we meet that buttface, World-ender again, I swear I’ll beat them for you!”

Her steps slowed as she passed the door to the next location, and when she spoke her voice was laced with sombre softness. “We just need to keep heading north so you can rest, though there’s about….”

The current Novarch of Hate exhaled deeply and solemnly. Just over a dozen members were part of the Phoenixbreaker Novarchs five hours ago, now they were down to, “two of us left,” she said tonelessly, “and that’s just counting us two, not anybody else. We got a pretty good defense and offense set up anyways, but—“ she continued, but just as she glanced behind you, her heart shot into her mouth, and she yelled, “WORLD-ENDER SUBORDINATE!”

Her reaction was instantaneous, born of the instinct to protect both her precious teammate and the same person who taught her love from the World-Ender subordinate at the far end of the corridor behind the two of you. Her free hand had lashed out to summon her Anima and it wrenched open the door hard enough to yank it from its hinges, and put it between the two of you and the attacking World-Ender subordinate. Something in the same size as the Anima impacted against the door with a thud, preceding what was quite possibly the most painful experience in the Anima’s life — an electric charge with enough voltage to put down an ordinary person. The Anima groaned out the jerking of their body behind the door, the searing fire of pain travelling through its nerves and uncontrollably contracting its muscles.

What this subordinate...the subordinate’s Anima failed to grasp, though, was that though they were gentle and tender, they were the strongest of their kind. They were the toughest. And there was no way in hell that her Anima would be taken down by a mere lightning Anima.

Five yard...and in the most peculiar instance of Parayara’s form of love , she evidently decided to repay the subordinate for electrifying her Anima by letting it draw the door above their head and literally flinging it at them. The subordinate’s eyes widened, and with a shriek of panic they dropped to their knees and leaned back just as the bottom of the door passed across their vision, and embedded itself with an ear-splitting, vicious clang into the wall behind them. Panting in fright, they stared paralysed at the middle of the door inches above them, trying not to think about how close they came to having their head torn off by something you use to get in and out of a room…

…and then immediately, them and their Anima fled from the building.

There came a surge of rekindling love within her heart — she protected you from danger. Death. She knew she would never quail before a mere subordinate. After all, every single person she had ever gone up, or competed against quickly found out why she was the best at her craft.

“Rest here.” Parayara said in a low, exhausted voice as she guided you to the wall opposite her, keeping a firm grip on your arm as it was still looped around her shoulder, her Anima acting protectively around you. “I have food, water, and a first aid kit.”