Tristan quickly rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding the glistening axe as it cleaved through the air beside him. He unsheathed his sword, confusion rippling through him as he tried to understand why Garfield was attacking; the strange haze that had clouded his vision before had dissipated, and with it gone he could finally see the raw fury etched across Garfield's face, the furious gleam burning in his now crimson eyes.
"What's going on with you?" Tristan demanded, his blade leveled at his deranged comrade.
Garfield's breathing was ragged, his chest rising with an almost feral cadence, and he kept tilting his neck from side to side as though compulsively cracking it. His eyelids drooped in a half-closed daze, and sweat streamed down his forehead in trembling lines. He murmured something—barely audible at first—but as moments passed, the whisper swelled into coherent words.
"I will not let you hurt my sister!" he roared, the desperate longing to protect bleeding through every syllable.
His shout jolted Amelia awake. She shot to her feet, immediately summoning La Glace, fearing some unseen threat that Garfield was combating. Her shock deepened when she realized his hateful glare was fixed entirely on Tristan.
"What is happening?" she asked, her voice edged with unease.
Tristan himself had no answer, and Garfield refused to give him a chance to speak, darting forward with startling speed—for someone with such a massive body, he moved with the eerie lightness of a feather. Tristan dodged the vertical arc of the axe and countered with a forceful kick to Garfield's stomach, pushing him back. He hesitated to retaliate further; he did not want to harm his friend, yet Garfield's intent was unmistakably murderous. Saliva dripped from Garfield's mouth in thick strands, like that of a ravenous beast on the hunt.
Amelia prepared to intervene, but Tristan lifted a hand and shook his head, a silent signal commanding her to stand down. She stopped, tension gripping her as she watched.
Tristan began circling Garfield, his eyes narrowing as he tried to decipher what had driven his friend into such violent madness.
Through Garfield's eyes, Garfield saw only an enemy—an encroaching darkness swallowing both Tristan's form and the image of Garfield's father.
"They're trying to take your sister away from you. Stop them," his father's voice urged him from the depths of the hallucination.
Garfield now perceived a shadowy figure clutching his sister, holding her hostage in the dark fog of his mind; rage boiled in his veins as he bellowed again, "I will not let you hurt my sister!"
With a snarl, he conjured stone spears the size of grown men and hurled them toward Tristan with brutal force. Tristan reacted swiftly, dodging several with sharp sidesteps and shattering the others by striking them down with the Star Divider, embedding the fragments deep into the sand. But his focus on the incoming barrage caused him to lose sight of Garfield himself—and in the next instant, Garfield was suddenly in front of him, as though he had teleported, his fist clenched as he drove a punishing blow into Tristan's stomach, sending agony rippling through his core. Tristan doubled over slightly, clutching his abdomen as pain detonated across his midsection.
Garfield followed with a vicious knee to Tristan's jaw, snapping his head backward.
Garfield was pouring all his power into every strike, and if Tristan continued to hold back, he risked becoming a casualty of his friend's deranged fury. Forcing himself through the pain, Tristan halted the backward recoil of his head and instead surged forward, delivering a brutal headbutt that caused both men's foreheads to split, blood running freely down their faces. Staggering, they drifted apart, unsteady and barely able to maintain their footing.
But as Tristan regained his balance, he tightened his grip on his blade—and then a notification rang out.
[Emotional Strength Activated.]
An immense surge of power coursed through him, elevating his strength to a level befitting a two-star warrior, and it showed, for as the two regained their stances, their weapons collided in a relentless clash. Blow after blow, steel met steel—Garfield's axe grinding against Tristan's sword—the ringing impact and the shower of sparks testifying to the deadly seriousness of their duel.
But not every clash favored them; in one miscalculated exchange, though they each managed to parry, neither executed a full block. Tristan's sword cut into Garfield's shoulder, blood spilling from the wound, while Garfield's axe grazed Tristan's left cheek, carving a crimson line that trickled down his face. Garfield didn't even flinch at the injury, his pain dulled or perhaps wholly consumed by the monstrous rage controlling him.
He fought like a beast incapable of feeling anything but fury.
They pushed away from each other, exhaustion burning through their bodies, yet neither willing to surrender.
"I will kill those who threaten her. Stone Wolf," Garfield growled, and a massive stone wolf with a serpentine body erupted from the earth beneath Tristan, its cavernous maw opening to swallow him whole.
As the crushing jaws began to close around him, Tristan was moments away from being devoured—but Amelia intervened, summoning layers of ice that froze the beast's maw open. Tristan used the ice as a springboard, launching himself out of the creature's throat.
Garfield's breathing grew heavier still, his exhaustion undeniable as sweat dripped from his brow and darkened the sand beneath him. Tristan was also fatigued, though not as severely as Garfield.
Tristan trudged forward through the shifting desert sand, his footsteps sinking with each step, while Garfield mirrored him, his stride heavy, both men converging like gladiators marching toward the inevitable climax of their battle. They shouted as they closed the distance, voices raw and trembling with what strength they had left.
The moment they reached each other, Garfield raised his axe and brought it downward, but the strike lacked the force it once held, giving Tristan the opening to sidestep. With a swift motion, Tristan kicked the axe deeper into the sand, trapping it momentarily and preventing Garfield from lifting it quickly.
Turning his blade so its flat side faced outward, Tristan summoned the last of his strength and brought it down hard onto Garfield's skull.
Garfield staggered, vision splitting into doubles, his balance evaporating as dizziness overtook him. His massive frame collapsed into the sand, sending a cloud of dust billowing upward.