Eva barely managed to escape from the restraint of Milo's prosthetic, narrowly dodging the Prototype. Dashing away, she summoned the Stone Blade.
"Why are you doing this!"
Milo looked at her
"You left me for dead in that cave!"
"I didn't leave you for dead, you were dead!"
Normally, Milo would've stopped and questioned what would've happened, Eva was sure of that. Yet he didn't, instead he charged at her once again. The Prototype clashed with Stone Blade. Milo was not fighting like he normally would, his prosthetic was not even attached to him and yet he was flawlessly controlling it, forcing Eva to make small yet fatal mistakes that would spell her end if she did not have the Stone Shell attribute.
Eva did not retaliate with the intent to kill, how could she? This was her best friend... her love. The sole reason she felt welcomed at the Academy besides her power. Every time she had the opportunity to damage the chest, the heart, take off a flesh limb, she refused. Milo was left with only lacerations that could be healed with basic first aid and some time.
Milo let out a low growl of frustration. Eva's eyes widened as the familiar whirr of a thruster began.
Milo and his prosthetic began a furious assault. Milo threw the Prototype straight at Eva, as she deflected it, his prosthetic grabbed it and delivered a charged slash directly at her neck. Milo followed up with a knee to her stomach, retrieving the Prototype from his prosthetic. Milo then began a series of deadly slashes, each one aimed at the small cracks in Eva's mantle. Eva had been so caught up blocking and dodging those that she did not realize where the prosthetic was before it was too late. The roar of the thruster echoed from behind her, and a furious punch met her back, nearly shattering it in two. The mantle barely held together, multiple cracks surfaced at the back of her plackart.
Milo only then stopped his assault, a breathing mess, his heart was somehow faster then before. The wound on his chest was being slowly filled with a metal vaguely familiar to the material that made up Carmen's Masterpiece.
Eva desummoned her helmet, a somber smile across her face, she coughed up blood and bits of her own lungs. Milo had did a number on her, however Milo was not unscathed himself. Multiple lacerations appeared all along his armor. His cape was tattered and ripped, it now only reached his upper back with multiple different holes in it.
Milo stood over Eva. Prototype raised over her neck. He looked into her eyes, the indifferent digital blue slits that served at his eyes seemed to blink. Milo then slowly stepped back. Eva let out a sigh of relief, which quickly turned into a gasp of worry as Milo began to drag her up the stairs.
'What is he going to do now?'
****
Milo looked at Eva, and something in his stomach told him to stop, to reason with her, to get her out of here before he did something he regretted, and so he did. He felt as the armor of Carmen's Masterpiece resided in the wound in his chest, slowly integrating and taking the functions of whatever flesh, nerves, or vessels were there.
'Flesh is no longer my home... I really oughta work on that once I get out of here'
Milo limped past the platform, and stared at the gateway. This was his way out, his ticket out of here. He looked down at Eva, unsummoning his helmet.
"You have a lot of explaining to do when we get out of here"
"I augh... I bet I do"
Milo set Eva gently on the gateway. He watched as she returned from this harrowing nightmare, it was Milo's turn now. He took a step into the gateway, and was swallowed by the bright light.
***
Cassie sat in the void between dream and reality, slowly shaking and crying. She had done it, she had betrayed Sunny, and she could only hope that if push came to shove Nephis would come out alive.
That was until she was saw another vision, after having witnessed it, her soft cries turned stopped, and she bore a relieved smile on his face
***
Sunny stood over a half dead Nephis, having his world shattered as she uttered Sunny's True Name.
His body moved against his will, and he entered the gateway. Finally escaping the Forgotten Shore after a year and two months... yet he wanted nothing more than to scream into the empty void he found himself in.
***
Nephis shakily got up from the ground, it was over, she could no longer return to the Waking World for ages to come. That was until she heard a scream below her, echoing throughout the chasm of the stairway of the Crimson Spire. The scream came from a familiar yet unfriendly voice, it was Caster, who by all intents and purposes should've been dead, Sunny had killed him, so how was he still alive?
Nephis wasted no time sprinting to the Gateway, even as her leg broke she tumbled into its grasp. The gateway shone with its brilliance, swallowing Nephis whole before the Crimson Spire inevitably collapsed.
***
The strings of Fate were not happy, they were very angry, after a millennia of inevitably some measly being who did not belong in this universe had managed to unravel their plans with the help of another transmigrator. The strings were flexing in frustration, this was not how it was supposed to go, yet fate had changed. Fate slowly began to unravel from this point forward, and it was all thanks to a certain E and her machinations.