Was he able to see me now? 

Dragan kneeled down right beside me and attempted to touch me, but his hand went through, so he retracted it with confusion on his face. 

“At first I had no clue what was happening but at that last hit, I suddenly saw you,” he explained with his eyes trained on Lu. The homunculus was laying on the floor, seemingly unconscious. 

“That was Ivo’s barrier, wasn’t it?” 

The pain in my body intensified, but I managed to nod weakly in response to Dragan's questions. 

"Yes, it was Ivan's barrier. I'm... Rêve," I whispered, my voice strained. It got progressively harder to speak for me with the way my whole body hurt.

“I kept an eye on you in case you got attacked…, but there was not much I could do in my current state” After I finished coming clean, I let my head rest on the floor, as I had no energy to look up the whole time.

Dragan eyed me with suspicion, but quickly regained his focus. 

“So did you have something to do with my brother’s recent secrecy?” His voice had a slight cold edge to it. It reminded me of the way Ivan had talked during our first encounter.

I nodded weakly, unsure of what else to say to him. I didn’t need to think long, when I heard a noise from the other side. Our dawdling had given Lu enough time to awake again and I regretted my lack of quick thinking. We should’ve used our chance earlier.

“You should hide yourself from them, until Ivan appears. If you run back to your master now, I don’t think they will be able to catch you!” 

I chastised Dragan and cautiously tried to move into another position and failed. Not a single muscle in my body listened to me. It was also alarming how faded out my pain felt, soon enough I’d lose consciousness. I wanted Dragan to be safe before that happened.

To my surprise, he stayed still and watched me with sympathetic eyes; a clear contrast to the cold way he had spoken before.

“I don’t think I should leave you.” The concern in Dragan's eyes only made me feel guiltier for being so pathetic in this situation. 

“I’ll be fine,” I managed to press out with steely determination alone. “Just find a safe spot and hide until Ivan arrives.” Somehow I had expected that convincing Dragan would be easier than this. You really could tell that Ivan and Dragan were brothers with the way they were both equally stubborn.

“I can’t just leave you like this,” he argued back and stood up, facing Lu, who turned their head to us. Instead of running away, Dragan went into a defensive battle stance and shielded me. He really did decide to protect a dying ghost instead of taking care of his own safety. 

I tried to appeal to his sense of self-preservation once more. “Please, leave me here and hide.” A boneshaking cough left my throat and I coughed up some blood. “It’ll break Ivan’s heart if something were to happen to you!”

Dragan pointedly ignored me and kept his eyes on Lu. 

The white-haired homunculus stood up as well and readied their trembling blood claw. “I don’t want to…anymore, but I-I have to finish this or else…master…will…punish me!” Lu’s voice was hoarse and trembling, different from their calm disposition from before. 

Their desperation was heart-wrenching, and I could feel their internal conflict. The seemingly calm and cold homunculus was reduced to a stammering and afraid child.

There were a lot of details left out in the novel and this was one of these details. What had their creator done to them to reduce them to this? Even through all my pain, I still felt appalled. They fought us head-on, all while their creator sat safely in the back!

After some hesitation, Lu ran towards Dragan and took a big swing. The plum haired teen stood still and anticipated the attack. 

With practiced ease, he did a sidestep, dodged the attack, got hold of Lu’s arm and threw them onto the floor.

I couldn’t believe my eyes at first, because Dragan made it look so easy. Before Lu could counterattack, he straddled the significantly smaller homunculus and twisted their arm with the claw, so they were left unable to attack.

Was it over? 

In their panic, Lu mumbled something under their breath, but I couldn’t make out the words properly, until they got louder and more frantic.

“I don’t want to do this anymore…!, ” they pleaded to Dragan in a hysteric voice. I had a very bad feeling in my gut and tried to look over to where Lu’s master was supposed to hide, but before I was able to turn my head, something happened. 

Red drops clung to invisible threads in the air and Dragan was thrown off the homunculus. It happened so fast, it took me a moment to process everything.

In an act of surprising defiance, Lu managed to use some of their power to get Dragan off themself before the threads hit them both. Razor sharp threads were now coiled around Lu’s throat, arms and legs, drawing fresh blood. 

Like a puppet, Lu was held up by the bloodied threads, while their body was slowly moved against their will.

An eerie voice of a woman rang out to all of us and my eyes followed the direction of the voice until I spotted her. “My, my… what a naughty and disobedient little doll this is.”

Above the rooftop of a house sideways from us, stood a blonde woman in a dark lace dress and top hat. Contrary to all of us, who were wounded in some kind of way, she was pristine and unhurt – the puppetmaster pulling the string from behind.

Her fingers wiggled rhythmically while she controlled her magical threads.

“Looks like I need to take care of this myself.” She did a motion as if pulling something towards herself and promptly Lu was shoved in her direction. 

More blood was staining the threads and Lu cried out in pain. My heart sank, and I looked away to see what Dragan was doing. He was starting to get up again after being thrown around, but kept struggling to even get to his knees. 

Without saying anything, he turned his head towards me and tried to motion to something with his eyes. I followed his gaze and saw it : his ankle was red and slightly swollen. 

Lu’s last act of defiance had spared him from getting hit by the threads, but he twisted his ankle instead. We were out of luck now.

Sh*t! Were all our efforts for nothing?

Ivan, where are you? Time was running out for us.

The heels of the blonde woman clicked against the rooftop when she took a step forward. 

“Let’s put an end to this, I’m growing tired,” she said and manipulated her threads. Under more cries of pain, Lu raised their claw and was puppeteered towards Dragan’s position.

Lu’s movements were much more fluid and elegant now, almost indiscernible from their normal movements. Their white hair swang back and forth from the fast movement. Dragan was unable to dodge or parry the incoming attack. 

I opened my mouth to scream something to him, but only more blood was coughed up. 

“I’m sorry,” Lu mumbled, when they stood in front of Dragan. Tears were streaming down their face as they looked down to Dragan. He averted his eyes quickly and raised his hands above his head to protect it.

I clawed at the ground trying to move, but my body was too battered. All I could do was pray now. 

Lu’s hand was forcibly swung down towards Dragan’s kneeling form and a scream left my raw throat. 

Magical crackles filled the air and made all parties divert their attention for a mere second.

Purple light illuminated our surroundings and a voice cut through the confusion, clear as day.

“That’s enough. I won’t let you hurt my loved ones any longer.”

Everything happened in rapid succession.

The sounds of snapping strings echoed in my ears. Lu, no longer held up by magical threads, tumbled forwards and got caught by a quick witted Dragan, before they both fell to the ground. Countless magical daggers were spread all across the street, either cutting threads or surrounding the puppetmaster. 

I could finally breathe in peace and tears of relief filled my eyes at the sight of the man in front of me. Amidst the center of evaporating purple light stood Ivan. 

With a swift motion, Ivan conjured golden magical chains and used them to restrain the disorientated and dumbfounded puppetmaster, who had tried to run away the moment she sensed danger. 

“You’re a cowardly and lazy woman for letting your creation do all the dirty work” I couldn’t see Ivan’s expression, as his back was turned to me, but his words were dripping with venom directed at Lu’s creator. It brought me relief to know we felt the same about this.

He turned his head towards Lu, who sat on the ground with Dragan. 

“Stay put and I’ll guarantee your freedom from this woman.” 

With that he turned around to face me, his eyes quickly ascertaining the situation. When his gaze fixated on me for a second, I felt guilty for ignoring his warnings. 

But there had been no other option! If I hadn’t stepped in at that moment earlier, Dragan would’ve died for real!

His gaze softened, when he spoke to me. “Can you hold out for one more minute? I need to do something real quick, so we can end this farce.”

I nodded, and Ivan took off immediately. 

In a speed I had never seen before, he zoomed past Dragan and me and jumped onto the roof, where Lu’s creator stood, as if it was the most normal thing to do. 

“Let’s talk for a bit~ I have to pay you back for your service☆.”

He roughly grabbed the woman by her arm and whisked her away into a more secluded corner, where we couldn’t see them anymore.