Amber frantically tried to do as she had been advised. The distortion Naze had left seemed to react to the power she threw towards it, but she couldn't help but feel that she should be doing something to stop whatever was happening to Cinder. The students were starting to back up nervously, and she wanted to join them. The air was filling quickly with demonic energy, but that wasn't what had her worried. What had her worried was the growing sense of a presence. A terrible, overbearing presence. It felt like part of her mind was being pushed back further and further as the presence grew stronger.

She was able to keep from being too distracted, but she could feel the presence working its way into some of the minds around her. If she had the power to spare, she could help them, but if there was a chance to bring Naze back, she had to take it.

"Be strong! Paladins, guard the others from her influence! Something else is coming, be ready to fight!"

Shouting was all she could do. After all, Naze would know a way out of this. He had to.

Cinder was on her feet by now, and she seemed different than she had been before. Her movements were slow, and although they were no less exact; it was like she was a marionette. A smile covered her face, and her eyes were rolled back in her head. The very air around her seemed to be splitting apart, revealing something horrifying and monstrous that tugged at the soul of every being that looked upon it. From the corner of her vision, she couldn't make out any details, but she didn't need to in order to know that holes to the demon's realm were opening up, intent on swallowing Vale- maybe even all of Remnant- whole.

She shut her eyes for a moment, reminding herself that she had to focus. The light she flooded the distortion in gained a new brightness to it, and it, too, seemed be splitting some layer of reality apart, but which one, Amber hadn't the slightest idea. What would Naze leave in his place, if not himself? And what kind of place did a Lich flee too?

She blocked out the noises of the students, and of Cinder. They needed Naze.

Ruby could feel the waves of power pulsing through the air, rocking her down to her very core. The demon protected her from the brunt of its effect, but she could still feel it. Disembodied hands started to emerge from the warped reality around her, grasping in desperation for anything they could find. In the midst of this, Cinder continued to grow and change, though she was barely visible now.

Ruby's body hunched over, and she made Crescent Rose ready. For a second, Ruby didn't know what was about to happen. Then, as she started moving forward, the shock fully processed of what the demon was having her do.

"Are you insane? You called for them to back off! We'll get torn apart! Why not just wait for Amber to-"

The voice in her hood cut her off, saying, "Damaging the vessel now is the only option left, unless the Lich arrives soon and does something to suppress its emergence. We might buy time this way."

Ruby's thoughts sounded indignant as she asked, "'Might'?"

The only response she received was, "It's a calculated risk," before her semblance activated, and she shot towards Cinder at full speed. A part of her wanted to fight and try to pull back, but that would only put her in more danger.

Time seemed to slow as the hands closed towards her. Translucent fingers passed mere centimeters away from her skin, so close that she could feel the crackling, corrupting energy practically pouring from them. Her body dodged away in moves so precise that it felt as though she was a leaf in the wind, evading and ducking every set of twisted fingers that stretched towards her. Her demon was careful to keep her eyes straight forward, and she was glad for it. She was sure that nothing good would happen if she were to catch any wayward glance of the holes the hands sprouted from.

As she closed in closer to Cinder, her scythe raised, and an unearthly focus settled in her mind. Her vision almost seemed to blur, afterimages of things that hadn't happened yet sliding into her brain like she was being slipped information from the future. The presence of the demon that moved her was almost unbearable now. It felt like her thoughts were being smashed out of her head. Her mind was sure to break soon if the demon kept this focus.

She showed no outward signs of this stress, though. With a blank expression on her face, she brought Crescent Rose slashing down into Cinder's shoulder.

She didn't react at all. The blade sunk in nearly up to its base, it must have struck countless organs on its way down, but Cinder simply didn't move. She didn't even look at Ruby. A chill ran up her spine as she pulled Crescent Rose back out, readying for another swing.

One of the afterimages split her vision, too vibrant and lifelike to ignore. She saw herself, being grabbed from behind by one of the hands, her body twisting out of her control as her will was stripped away. She ducked, rolling away and turning to swipe at the hand. Crescent Rose cleaved through the immaterial flesh like it was nothing, the severed part fading out of existence, and the stump retreating back through the rift it emerged from. Countless others descended down on Ruby, from all directions, and she knew that her time was quickly running out.

With a deft precision, the demon driving Ruby forward shifted Crescent Rose into its war scythe form, and brought it arcing towards Cinder's neck. The flesh seemed more vulnerable than ever. She made no attempt to protect herself, only continuing to twitch and tear everything around her apart. The blade of Crescent Rose bit into her skin, slicing through muscle and spilling blood from her arteries. What was meant to be a beheading strike failed to separate her skull from her spine, however, in spite of all the force her body could muster going into the blow. The blade simply came to a halt when it hit her spine.

For a moment, the demon hesitated. It didn't feel like it was at a loss, only that it was waiting. Cinder's boiling blood continued to spill out of the wound, and after a moment, she started to move again.

It wasn't the kind of blisteringly fast counterattack or devastating blast of demonic energy that Ruby had been expecting. Instead, Cinder lifted off of her feet and into the air, dark light enveloping her body. Ruby didn't know what was happening, but the thing looked rather troublingly like a cocoon.

The rips around Cinder widened, and more hands spilled out. She could hear gasps and screams from the surrounding students as the ring around Cinder was forced to widen again. Voices called out to her, but she couldn't hear them over the deafening presence watching her, commanding her.

That presence only seemed to grow stronger as the situation worsened. Hands darted towards her from every angle. Her body jerked violently as it was pulled to spin Crescent Rose, arcing wildly around her. To her amazement, not a single one managed to push through. The onslaught didn't stop, though, as more hands sprouted from the rifts. Ruby's eyes flicked back for a moment to look at Amber. She was still blasting the spot that Naze had disappeared, just as she had been told.

A single hissing breath of annoyance pushed from her teeth as she turned back, the demon whispering in her ear, "She certainly takes her time. At this rate, the egg with hatch. Something else must be done."

They dodged the next wave of hands, being forced back a few feet by the sheer volume of incoming attacks.

"There could be another way to bring her down, but it would require a much more intimate connection, and you would be put at much more significant risk. I don't suggest we use it now, but on the occasion that it becomes necessary, I will need your full cooperation. You are willing to do this, correct?"

The voice echoed in her mind with deafening volume, making thinking more than a little difficult. The thoughts she did manage to create were fragmented and incomplete, but she was able to form a response.

"Yes."

There was no reply as she continued to banish the hands back to their realm of hell, and she could only watch as she continued to fight. The visions in her head started to become jumbled, Ruby couldn't tell the future from the present anymore, or the present from the past.

In every vision, though, there were commonalities she could latch on to. The cocoon Cinder was raveled up in started to expand, pushing out and becoming slightly more transparent. At its heart, Cinder was just barely visible, a small silhouette amidst the twisting light around her. At the center of her chest, there was something that drew Ruby's nearly shattered attention. It wasn't a heart, it was too large for that. Giving the thing a particular shape would have been hard even if she could focus, but she could still register that it was moving, and that it made her feel very uncomfortable.

From inside the cocoon, a deep, penetrating roar bellowed out, followed by another wave of demonic power. The ground shuddered, and Ruby was fairly certain that she fell down, but it quickly became impossible to tell as her senses were overwhelmed.

Yang watched Ruby collapse, then felt a wave of demonic power slam into the rest of the crowd. Most students were already doing their best to not snap and go crazy already, even with the protection of the Paladins, so Yang didn't know how much more they could take. It was strange, but she actually felt lucky to be dead. At least her mind could go mostly unclouded in the face of something like this.

She could feel the gaping hole where the connections to other undead had been, left by Naze's disappearance. Her body felt less responsive than usual, but she was sure that she could still fight. The question was whether or not she could really stand up to Cinder. In spite of her urge to, she knew that charging her down would be a horrendous idea. She needed to help Ruby, though, that much she couldn't ignore.

She exploded forwards, using Ember Celica to kick off her charge, a burst of bright yellow dust exploding from the gauntlets. She could hear voices shouting out after her as she parted from the group, but ignored them. All that mattered was that she get Ruby out of the way of those hands. They were reaching towards her, and while she had managed to get out of their immediate range, they were stretching towards her, the constantly twisting and writhing fingers were getting disturbingly close to Ruby.

Her feet thundered against the soft ground as she bowed her head, watching the hands carefully. As she got closer, she could feel the presence in the air grow thicker and thicker, until it even started to interfere with the powers keeping her own body animate. She felt her limbs start to grow numb, and for the first time in a long while, she was aware of the void pulling at her soul again. She could only grit her teeth, and keep herself focused.

As she closed the final few yards from Ruby, she dug one heel into the dirt and let herself tip over, sliding to a halt next to her unconscious sister. She didn't remain halted for more than a fraction of a second before grabbing a fistful of Ruby's hood, and taking off in the same direction she'd come from.

Ruby trailed behind her, and for a second, Yang felt a grin sliding across her face. Then she felt something wrap around her leg, tripping her. She pitched forward, pulling Ruby close to her chest, turning to absorb the impact.

It was good that she didn't need the air that was knocked out of her lungs. Immediately, she started to struggle against the grip of the hand, but her leg started to go numb almost instantly. Kicking and fighting quickly proved to be hopeless, as the limb stopped responding to her efforts altogether. Even worse was the fact that she could feel the numbness spreading quickly from the leg into other parts of her body.

With a grunt of annoyance, she fired a barrage of shots using Ember Celica, but the dust rounds did nothing against the barely physical adversary. The rounds didn't even detonate when they hit. Instead, they slowed down slightly, before passing through their target entirely. Yang brought her metal hand up, focusing as best she could on the emotion of anger, what they'd made her sister do, how close she'd come to being snatched by Cinder.

A ball of fire roared to life between her fingers, and she lobbed it towards the hand as hard as she could. It didn't quite explode when it hit like she had hoped it would, but it did seem to disrupt whatever foul force kept the hand together. She felt its grip weaken and threw her arm back, digging her fingers into the mud and pulling herself away as hard as she could. With her other hand, she still held tightly to Ruby, making sure she didn't slip away.

The hands kept coming towards them, and Yang's legs didn't show any signs of recovering. The numbness didn't stop moving through her, either, and she knew it wouldn't be long until she couldn't move at all.

She tried to think about what options she had as she pulled herself thought the mud. Ruby stirred slightly, making a small mumbling noise and putting a hand on Yang's arm. It sounded like she was trying to say something, but Yang couldn't make out what.

"It's okay Ruby, I've got you. Come on, we're almost there!"

They weren't remotely close to the line of students and Paladins, but if Yang could get Ruby back up, she might be able to make it on her own. That was all that mattered, really. Yang didn't care if she got paralyzed, or worse. As long as she could make Ruby safe, she couldn't complain.

Ruby muttered something again, and this time her head turned to face Yang.

"Get away."

It almost made Yang stop and stare at her sister incredulously.

"What? Ruby, you're a little messed up right now. Just help me get you-"

She felt Ruby's arm wrap around her waist, and opened her mouth to speak. Before she could, Ruby stood, taking Yang with her as though she was nothing but a ragdoll. Yang found herself put in front of Ruby's face, and she noticed that something was definitely wrong. Ruby's eyes were a distorted shade of blue, and seemed to reflect something that Yang couldn't quite place. It seemed to constantly shift, and when Yang thought she saw a face, it was gone the next moment, replaced by more twisting nothingness.

"Yang, please, just trust me."

For the briefest second, Yang could see her sister in those eyes. The words were gentle, and her gaze was soft, almost pleading. Then they hardened again as the strange force overtook her body again. With one fluid motion, Yang was flung away from Cinder, back towards the students. All she could do was yell, and try not to land face down, wondering just what it was that had gotten to her sister.

She hit the ground, bouncing slightly before coming to a rest not too far from the front lines of students. She could crawl if she tried, but what would be the point? She would just wind up inside the Paladins' Holy protection, and lose what little power she had left.

All she could do was watch Ruby, but laying on the ground unable to move made her aware of something else. It was faint, but the necromantic energy in the air was growing more erratic. Though it was still almost smothered beneath the magic Cinder was giving off, she could feel the powers of death starting to shift, working to push the demonic power back.

The power radiated from the spot Amber blasted with Light. Something was starting to happen, but what it was, she couldn't tell. The air seemed to be bending, almost to the point of snapping, and she couldn't help but compare it to the holes in reality Cinder created. There was something familiar about it, though, she just couldn't place what.

Jaune's fingers tightened around the handle of his shield as he watched Yang hit the ground with a thud audible even at a distance. He couldn't help but cringe. She had to have broken at least a few bones, he was sure.

The fog in his mind started to cloud his thoughts, and he shook his head to remind himself that he had to stay focused. He felt Pyrrha touch his shoulder, and glanced over to find her giving him a frightened look. Her mouth hung open, like she wanted to say something, but couldn't quite find the words.

She didn't have to. Jaune felt the same as her.

"It's fine. We just need to keep holding out. Amber has got to finish doing whatever it is she's doing soon, then we can hit back. She just needs a little more time."

He looked directly at Cinder, who was now nothing more than a faint black shadow in the midst of the twisting light around her. There had to be something he could do. He couldn't just sit back, and let Ruby take the brunt of stalling the demon.

Whether it was because she knew him so well, or if she saw it on his face, but Pyrrha squeezed his shoulder, saying, "Jaune, wait! You don't really think that you can help, do you? I mean, Ruby said-"

He cut her off.

"I have to try."

His voice sounded bitter, almost angry. He didn't mean to, but he couldn't stop himself. He started to walk forwards, pulling what was left of his shield up to his chest and bringing his blade into a ready position. He didn't care how outmatched he might be, he had to fight. He wasn't going to simply sit back and let someone else risk their life on their own like this.

He wasn't more than a few steps away from the line of students before he noticed that Pyrrha was at his side, glaring forward, her shield and spear at the ready as well. Jaune felt an anxious know in his chest loosen slightly. If there was anything that could help set him at ease, having a friend by his side was it.

From the opposite side of the ring, he saw someone pushing their way though. His pace slowed for a moment, before he saw Nora's head above the crowd. She managed to get through the wall of students and Paladins, Magnhild in hand. Her eyes locked with Jaune's for a moment, before a smile crossed her face, and she pulled Magnhild up with the kind of giddy expression that had always made him feel extraordinarily nervous in practice fights with her. Ren emerged from elsewhere in the crowd, a solemn, serious expression on his face.

Weiss and Blake both stepped forwards as well, bringing their weapons to bear on Cinder. More than enough ferocity was burning in their eyes to convince Jaune that they wouldn't falter, no matter what kind of force they found themselves against.

Ruby was standing still now, glaring at Cinder. Her face was completely hidden by her hood, and by what quick analysis Jaune could make of her, she seemed unharmed.

The further away from the others he got, the heavier the presence in his mind felt. He had expected it, but it was almost overpowering. It wasn't like what Nora had done to him when she was a demon, it was far more potent than that. He could feel the power worming through his mind, changing around his thoughts and making it far harder to focus than he'd thought it would. Still, he fought on. He could still feel Amber's energy and blessings flowing through him, and he wasn't about to let them go to waste. She just needed a little more time, and there was no way that Ruby was going to be able to-

Something ahead of him exploded. A blast of light blinded him almost instantly, forcing him to bring a hand up to cover his face. He could feel his exposed skin grow hot, his fingers blistering and burning on the sides facing the burst.

Just like the heat burned through his skin, something else shot through his mind. He tried to lower his hand, but found that he couldn't. He was completely paralyzed. The confidence he'd had moments ago was gone. His blood felt like ice water in his veins, and he started to sweat. He tried to speak out, to say something, maybe he could get someone to help him.

A voice crept through his head, not unlike the way Amber's had at first, but this one carried with it a kind of wrongness. It reminded him of Cinder's voice, only more insidious.

"Come now, Cramus! Surely you realize this is a lost cause! I've berated your intelligence before, but now I really think you're making it too easy for me." There was no response, other than the ground shaking in what Jaune could only assume was the thrashing of the thing Cinder was engulfed by. "Now I suppose you think you'll pull this world into your own little corner of Hell, do you? Fine then, try. Let's all see what the might of the Arch-Demon Cramus can do against a human puppet, a newborn god, and a wizard dead for eons!"

The voice started to laugh, and Jaune recognized the voice. It was warped, almost too much to be who he thought, but something about the laugh made him certain. It was Ruby.

He felt some modicum of control come back to his body, and stiffly lowered his arm. His eyes took a brief moment to adjust to the sudden change of lighting, but when they did, he found that Ruby was now hovering several feet off of the ground, her arms out to her sides in a taunting pose. Her cape blazed with light, but it wasn't a comforting kind. It was harsh, and for the life of him, Jaune couldn't figure out what color it was. It seemed to be in a constant state of flux, never staying the same for more than a heartbeat.

It billowed out behind Ruby, many times its original length, flaring up in a fierce windstorm that only seemed to affect the cape. By the angle the cloth took, Jaune couldn't help but liken the display to wings. They did seem to flap, but he wasn't sure it was only his imagination or not.

Jaune could see the hood of Ruby's cape. It covered the upper half of her face entirely. For a second, he thought Ruby was totally blind, but it didn't take long for him to realize who the 'puppet' the voice had been referring to was.

Crescent Rose was still clutched firmly in her hand, and she didn't show any sign of turning on the crowd, but still, Jaune's whole body was nearly numb with a dull sense of panic. Something had to go wrong, but he didn't know what.

Without any hesitation, Ruby rushed forwards almost faster than the eye could see. Time around her seemed to slow as she started to carve her way through the forest of disembodied hands, slashing whole clusters of them into nothing as she passed. Ruby appeared to simply shrug off the intensity of the demonic presence she was now so close to. How she did it, Jaune couldn't process. Even at the distance he held, moving was nearly impossible.

He could hear the sounds of bewilderment rise from behind him as well, as students and Paladins watched in awe. Ruby's body was little more than a blur as she charged the Arch-Demon down, Crescent Rose destroying everything that came close to touching her almost instantly. She closed the final stretch of distance, now within arm's reach of the glowing cocoon, and swung the scythe in a wide arc, planting it as firmly as it could be in the ethereal shell. For a moment, it seemed to do nothing. Then both large wing-like strips of cloak seemed to take on a life of their own, turning inwards and stabbing into the dark light, digging as deeply in as they could.

Almost instantly, the color of Cinder's cocoon started to change, becoming less stable and breaking apart. The light in Ruby's cape seemed to grow slightly dimmer as this happened, before Cinder started to react. A long, amorphous arm stretched from the cocoon, several times the size of Ruby, and swiped at her. She managed to leap backwards quickly enough to dodge the attack, dragging Crescent Rose with her but leaving the wings in. They continued to pump whatever corrosive energy they held into the cocoon, and gave Ruby a way to swing around the arm, striking into the body with even greater force. Once Crescent Rose dug in a second time, the wings shifted again quickly, burrowing into the hole just as they had the first. The area around that would started to wither and die, but another arm emerged, swinging at Ruby in tandem with the first.

Two arms were significantly more difficult to evade that just one, and Ruby was forced to detach from the cocoon fully. She retreated, blown back by the same invisible breeze that kept her cloak aloft. Crescent Rose gouged out a large chunk of energy, but it flowed back into the hole, mending the damage before any advantage could be taken.

At the center of the cocoon, something was starting to form. Exactly what it was, no one could tell, but it was gradually growing darker and darker, increasing the presence of the demon. If Jaune had to guess, it looked like something was forming around Cinder herself, bringing the demon that controlled her closer to their world.

Ruby renewed her attack as soon as she could, bringing Crescent Rose swinging around for a third time, but the demon anticipated the blow. Before she could even touch it, both arms swung in on her, closing around her in a way that looked as though she was going to be crushed. Her momentum stopped, her body freezing in midair before rushing back towards the ground. Ruby wasn't fast enough, and the limbs slammed against one-another, with Ruby caught in the middle. The force of the impact was hard enough to be sickening, even from a distance.

Seconds seemed to stretch beyond their natural length as the crowd watched their strongest fighter crushed. The arms continued to push against each other, adding insult to injury as whatever was left of Ruby was no doubt ground into nothing. Screams rose through the audience, loudest of all from the rest of team RWBY. Yang's cry of rage was the loudest of all, the chords in her throat tearing as she roared wordlessly.

At the center of the demon, Cinder looked like she was starting to disappear. Her body was dissolving into the energy around her, filing out the form that leeched off of her. It was impossible to know just how much of her was left. No matter the answer, they knew that they were nearly beyond hope.

Amber made some unintelligible noise from behind them, and Jaune turned to glance over his shoulder. His eyes widened again when he saw what was happening.

It looked like Amber was tearing open some kind of portal. It hung in the air without any defined form, but it was clear that it was getting bigger. Amber had stopped feeding it power, and was now staring at it with an unsettlingly startled face. For a short moment, all attention turned to the portal. The portal brought with it a presence, but this was different than the demon's aspect. This one seemed more direct, making the air stale and pushing back against the demonic influence.

The portal widened, and a chill started to run through the air. Jaune recognized the feeling. The hair on the back of his neck prickled, and he found that he couldn't look away. Whatever the portal opened to, it was difficult to make out. Something writhed against the edge, trying to push its way through. It was a dull color, almost translucent, like mist, but the way it writhed made it seem like there were more than one. Faces, half-formed and shifting around, pressed against the invisible barrier that held them back. Their eyes darted around wildly, and Jaune realized that they looked like people.

The portal continued to grow, now about large enough for a person to squeeze through. Jaune saw something moving through the ghastly pale figures, and felt himself draw in an involuntary sharp breath. Even at a distance, the skeletal visage of Naze had an impact. Bright blue burning eye sockets seemed to pierce through him for a moment before roving across the rest of the crowd.

After what seemed like an eternity, Naze drifted towards the opening. As he came to the edge, he put a bony had out, and pushed it through into the air. A small amount of smoke started to rise from the ancient marrow, but whatever he was testing for seemed to be acceptable, as there was no hesitation as he moved through. The air cooled, and Jaune suddenly felt like he was going to be sick.

.

Naze glared at the growing demonic form with some degree of surprise. The situation had gotten out of hand, to say the least. He could sense the barrier between worlds deteriorating rapidly, bringing Hell much closer than he would have preferred. But he could take advantage of this, too. If the demon thought that Hell was the only realm that mattered, it was going to be sorely surprised.

The exterior of a few of his bones popped and crackled as Holy magic was overpowered by his necrotic presence. He could feel Amber behind him, the constant outpour of the Light interfering slightly with his own power. It would be of little importance, though. Amber seemed to have diminished herself slightly with all the effort she'd expended opening the portal, but her strength would come flowing back soon enough.

Cramus's budding form was smashing a second, weaker demonic presence. For a moment, Naze wondered where it had come from, then he recalled Timor's deal. He was likely trying to buy time for Amber to call Naze back. The amount of demonic power emanating from the being was large, but not quite a constant enough flow to be a demon. He must have chosen a host from the students. From between its arms, Naze saw a bright flash flair out, fluttering like a piece of cloth. He recognized it, even in such a twisted form.

Ruby was an interesting choice for the Arch-Demon of fear. Perhaps not quite what he had expected, but it did make some sense. She would have felt a great deal of fear as she watched the chaos of the battle grow around her. Maybe even more so than most others.

Regardless of the reason, Ruby had been chosen. The power flooding from the cape was evidence enough that she wasn't channeling the demon directly, indicating that she wasn't in too deeply. She could still be saved, though it would take a certain degree of effort. It was an amount of effort difficult to take in the midst of a battle.

He put his staff forward, pointing at Cramus and summoning a burst of arcane power. It cut through the space between them, lighting up the sky like a second sun. As the power hit the glowing body Cramus had begun constructing for itself, bonds were torn apart, demonic energy breaking apart as its structure was blasted.

Naze aimed for its arms, and it wasn't more than a moment later that the energy within the limbs was withdrawn back into the main body, leaving Ruby to fall back to the ground. Her body was limp, but her cape shot out, two wing-like protrusions jamming themselves into the ground then straightening to hold her up. Crescent Rose was still clutched loosely in her hand, though it was clear that she wouldn't be swinging it anymore.

She didn't look too injured. One arm jutted out at an odd angle, and there was a steady trickle of blood from her head, but there were no signs that she was dead. Naze shifted his aim to the demon's main body, but shifted his gaze behind him. Amber seemed to be pulling herself together again, which he knew would be a boon in the fight.

He spoke out, hollow voice splitting through the noise of their surroundings as it echoed unnaturally in the heads of those who heard it. "Amber, your help would be greatly appreciated."

She shook her head, and her eyes slowly started to focus as she looked towards the Lich.

They stared at each other for a moment, before Amber seemed to jerk back to full lucidity. Naze pointed towards the demon, saying, "You'll do more against it than anything else. Weaken it, and I believe I can banish it back to Hell."

Amber nodded, saying, "Right!" before turning her attention to the thing that had brought so much pain into her world. Without hesitation, she rushed forwards, Holy light spilling out of her front. As the energy slammed into the demon, Naze turned his own attention back to the portal he'd come through. Spirits writhed against the thin barrier he'd made, trying their best to burst through and rejoin the world of the living. They howled and wailed mutely, screams held by the thin membrane that now separated the world of the living from the world of the dead.

Each one had a fixed glare on what remained of Cinder. Naze hadn't had time to turn as many to his will as he could have, but it was a small price to pay. A flood was a flood, and if Amber brought Cinder low, overwhelming her wouldn't be an issue. He needed only drop the barrier.

He began to weave a shield around himself of necrotic magic, protecting himself from the cascade of holy energies Amber conjured. The crowds of students was forced to avert their eyes from the blinding display, even Naze found it difficult to retain his gaze.

A scream of ear-shattering volume exploded from the demonic mass. It was almost instant that blood began leaking from the ears of the students as they fell to their knees, covering their ears and shouting wildly at each other. Amber didn't relent in her attack, though. She continued to push forward, both hands out, bearing down on the beast with all of her might. The golden glow she gave off now was nearly blinding to Naze. He could just make out that the energy coalescing into a body for Cramus was starting to break apart. He redoubled the power of his own shield, and turned his attention back to the portal he had emerged from. With a small flick of his mind, the block was gone, and spirits rushed forth into the material realm.

Author's Note:

Dear god, it's been a while. But hey, I'm back. Remember to leave a review! And again, this comes less than 24 hours after an anon tells me to hurry up... Weird.