'This isn't good at all!' Sombra thought, her violet eyes gleaming like lanterns in the gloom. 'These two managed to inflict a lot of damage on Reaper in such a short time... though it seems they aren't exactly unscathed either.'
Sombra surveyed the scene before her, desperately trying to formulate a plan—anything that could extract her from this predicament. She didn't know why she was here, where Moira was, or why Heroes were swarming the area, but she knew that if Reaper was in such a state, the situation had to be dire.
Even after she'd manipulated the lights to grant Reaper an advantage, things had devolved to this point.
Two Heroes now stood facing a clearly injured Reaper. The absence of his mask only amplified Sombra's concern. Scanning the room for anything useful, she only saw various discarded weapons.
'Why would anyone carry swords?' Sombra wondered, raising a hand forward. 'Never mind... no time for that now.'
Suddenly, a large, transparent screen of dark purple materialized before her, a flurry of glowing violet letters flashing across its surface. Approaching the screen, she quickly began to manipulate it, the display shifting at speeds almost imperceptible to a normal human.
But not to the world's greatest hacker.
'Moira will owe me a raise for all this!' Sombra thought, gritting her teeth as the pain in her abdomen intensified with every passing moment. Running after receiving treatment from a doctor, who had inexplicably died, was proving to be a terrible idea.
But if she wanted to escape undetected, Reaper could not be defeated or captured.
'Hold on for a few more minutes...'
The mercenary eyed the heroes, and the heroes eyed the mercenary.
For both sides, it stretched into an eternity, each analyzing and calculating the other's next move. The slightest misstep could now mean defeat, as the tables had irrevocably turned.
Yet, to the world outside their silent standoff, it was merely a fleeting second.
And then, it began.
Faster than time itself could measure, Lena vanished and reappeared directly in front of Reaper, striking him with such blinding speed that his brain couldn't even register the pain.
Legs, arms, chest, stomach... every part of him was struck without mercy, by a velocity that would effortlessly humiliate light.
In the next instant, Reaper slammed hard into the wall, the sheer force behind Lena's combination of blows creating a sizable crater around him.
"GAAAH!!!" Reaper's entire body screamed in agony. Every muscle, every bone, every nerve in his form was wracked with relentless pain. Even after his many years as a mercenary, he had never experienced such overwhelming torment.
And through it all, he felt no fear.
Despite feeling his breathing cut off for seconds at a time, despite feeling his bones shatter into pieces and grind to dust, despite feeling his vision rapidly dimming, inviting him to be consumed by the encroaching darkness—
Reaper felt alive.
Staggering like a revenant, Reaper faced Lena once more, this time with a wide, eerie smile. Without him realizing it, a strange black aura began to emanate from him, enveloping him in its cloak of darkness.
The ominous shroud awakened a primal fear in both Mirio and Lena, making their hair stand on end.
"That was a good hit, girl," Reaper spoke with an unsettling amusement. His arms hung limply at his sides, bones broken and unable to move, and his consciousness seemed to briefly waver. "A very good... hit."
Lena simply stared at him, taking a long, ragged breath. She could feel her power rapidly draining from her body. '5 seconds...'
Reaper spat onto the ground, allowing the blood pooling in his mouth to flow out.
"Now..."
Reaper looked up at Lena. His eyes were completely black, utterly devoid of light or life, almost as if there were no eyes at all.
Only Death and Darkness.
Lena took an involuntary step back as a primal terror wrapped around her like a shroud, like a lullaby sung by the most ancient of beings—a song one would hear at the end of every life in this world.
"Let me show you what True Death is!"
Reaper's body exploded into a black mist, consuming the entire hallway and everyone within it, including himself. Unlike his usual jet-black mist, this one was a smog so dense and dark it seemed capable of devouring stars.
Lena looked around, but there was nothing.
Just darkness.
She tried to hear something, but there was no sound.
Just silence.
"Welcome to my personal hell," a sinister, yet strangely sweet voice murmured, as if inviting her to listen to it for all eternity.
Lena froze at the sound.
She hadn't even realized that the five seconds had already passed, and that exhaustion was beginning to overwhelm her body.
BAM!
Suddenly, the deafening sound of a gunshot echoed in the oppressive darkness, and an extreme pain exploded in her leg, preventing her from succumbing to unconsciousness.
A hand gripped her hair tightly, preventing her from falling to her knees and forcing her head up to watch as Death stared directly into her eyes, as if marking her fate.
"It would be too bad if you fainted now, wouldn't it?"
BAM!
A brutal punch connected squarely with Lena's stomach, making her vomit all over the floor. However, the darkness consumed the vomit instantly, as if the surrounding void was a black hole.
"You know, no one has ever hurt me this badly in my entire career as a mercenary."
BAM!
Another punch connected with Lena's head, sending her to the ground like a sack of garbage. She didn't even have the strength to get up.
"You were the first to do this to me. If it wasn't for my Quirk, I would have bled to death, you know?"
BAM!
A vicious kick connected with Lena's chest, knocking all the air out of her lungs.
A hand grabbed her hair again, forcing her to stare at Reaper as she desperately tried to catch her breath.
"You earned your merit, you know?" Reaper growled, his eyes narrowed. "After so many years... I felt what Fear is again for the first time!"
With an angry shout, Reaper grabbed Lena's skull and slammed it to the floor in a brutal, cynical motion.
BAM!
At this point, Lena was on the verge of passing out from the severe injuries. She could feel how several of her ribs were broken, how part of her skull was bleeding as blood flooded her left eye, her lips were shredded, and her mind was working overtime to try to find a way out.
But her mind could only focus on one thing.
The Fear of Death, the feeling of helplessness, the taste of despair.
It was all forming a whirlwind that, along with her other experiences, was sending her into her biggest panic attack to date.
So as Lena's mind quickly faded into panic, with her last bit of strength she thought:
'...re...coil...'