Ten seconds. I think ten seconds, it felt like ten, the second attempt… that’s how long I managed to hold out until I was flung off my feet once more, writhing, squirming, fighting not to pass out in the dirt. 

Third try, and it felt even shorter than that. Seven? Five? I just remembered the pain, the stabbing, the falling, before I even had the chance to tell myself not to. The bright blue sky would burn at my retinas, but I couldn’t keep them close – it was dangerous to close them. Open, they have to stay open. I had to stay awake.

I remember one gloomy, lazy day, months and months ago between jobs, using the last of my internet before it got cut just browsing away at random, and I recall spending a whole hour just watching videos of people getting tased – morbid curiosity, I suppose. 

The way the victims’ bodies would just immediately seize up, muscles clamping, the way it looked as if all air had been sucked out from their lungs… some of the comments gave first-hand testimonies, most of the time they claimed it felt like getting stabbed. 

I don’t know if this… thing… I’m doing was in any way similar to that, but, whatever this was, I think I much rather the taser. 

Barely half an hour had gone and passed, and I was already wiping sweat from my chin, my forehead, my throat parched, my mouth dry… now that I was deliberately forcing my way through, I’m expending more of myself in one attempt than I’ve had before in five. 

As for the fourth try, there wasn’t one… I couldn’t even stand up straight anymore…

“Master,” Ash’s voice sounded like an echo in murky waters. I barely heard her, and much less, with her hands on my shoulders, lowering me to bent knees, I couldn’t even feel her. “I fear you’ve exhausted much already.” 

I couldn’t turn around to look at her as much as I wanted to, I knew the effort alone would surely send me tipping over the edge, so I stayed keeled over, my hands the sole pillars in the dirt keeping me from collapsing. 

Though I couldn’t see it, her gaze felt like a weight on my back growing heavier and heavier. Switch our places, have her the one phasing in and out of consciousness here, and there’s not a doubt in my mind that I’d be begging for her to stop. 

But she wasn’t, as much as she was tempted to I’m sure, she kept that urge buried deep. 

“Try again,” She whispered, and faintly, I could feel her pressing her hands against my back. “You’ve yet to succeed, you mustn’t stop.” 

Then suddenly, stemming from her touch, I felt a strength gradually seeping its way inside me, returning to me my breath, my composure… my magic. 

That’s right, she can share her mana if she wishes. an ability unique to her kind, only at her expense, that is… as her wavering breath would imply.

“This is the most I can do for you, as little as it may be,” She spoke in a quiet sorrowful tone that yearned for more, then, slowly, I felt her hands, her warmth, part away. “I will be near, I’ll always be near, Master. Now, once more, raise your head if you would… and try again.” 

The pain was still buzzing, tingling, every move I made it lingered and flared, always there, nevertheless, I rose to my feet, steady, rose my arms, steady, and tried again.

“Thanks, Ash.” 

And so begins a newly added element to the barrier-breaking process. 

The moment I was on the brink of exhaustion, of magical depletion, Ash would be there to replete my reserve, taking a fragment of my burden and making it her own. 

With her aid, I manage to endure this painful game of trial and error for another two hours. I stopped keeping track of my attempts, I didn’t pause to think – I just did, again and again, and again. 

It became a grueling battle of attrition, a battle I clearly wasn’t winning, every inch deeper through was another level of pain to bore through, and gradually, it was becoming too much… but still I refused to concede.

Again.

Somewhere, sometime by noon, I noticed I had garnered an audience of sorts, a pair of eyes peering through the blinds upstairs, pale, white, like murky clouds.

How long Adalia has been by the window watching me, I didn’t know, but I suspect she’ll stay watching for as long as it takes.

Then, from somewhere a little less subtle, the front door swung open, and Sammy emerged from the depths, and down the steps, properly groomed and properly dressed, and carrying a small bag slung around her shoulder.

Her face was tightened in all kinds of tension. A mixture of anger, frustration, guilt, and worry made for a rather somber look in her bright blue eyes.

“Going… somewhere?” I heaved, stumbling back from another butchered attempt, trying to stand steady. “You don’t wear those clothes at home.”

Sammy clenched the leather strap of her bag, almost struggling to keep her gaze towards mine, as if it pained her to even look at me.

It probably does.

“I can’t stay here,” She murmured, her voice lost of its usual fervor. “Not with you doing this and certainly not with her not doing anything about this. I… I can’t stand this…”

“So you’re leaving?”

“I don’t want to,” She said, slightly reproachfully. “But if I have to watch you fall over in the grass, not moving, thinking that you’ve died one more time, I swear I’m gonna…”

The front door suddenly slammed shut with an explosion of sound, the wooden beams of the porch rattling from the sheer force – except there was no wind, there was no force, nothing aside from Sammy, and the intensity within her eyes.

“And I know you, big bro, when you’re dead set on something, you’ll even die just to make it happen,” She continued on, readjusting the strap. “I wish I’m exaggerating, but I know I’m not. You’ll just keep hurting, again and again – and what can I do about it? Worry? Complain? Cry? If I do, would this all stop? Would she listen?”

If she was genuinely asking me, then she didn’t exactly give me a chance to answer… or rather, she already knew the answer.

“No, of course not,” Sammy shook her head. You’ll just tell me the best thing I can do is to sit back and do nothing while you continue to do everything.”

“Sammy – “

“And you’d be right, alright? I know you’re right, I’m not telling you to stop. In fact, don’t stop, alright? Keep going,” Sammy blinked, and the look in her eyes softened. “But just know I’m not leaving for my sake, I’m leaving for yours. Because if I stay here, if I have to keep seeing you in this much pain, do you think I’m really just gonna sit by and do nothing?”

She’s thought this through, it seems. More than I expected she would. And she’s right. Though she’d be the last to admit, she was always the hasty one when it comes to acting on her emotions.

Especially family… especially me…

What a considerate little sister she was. Almost brings a tear to the eye.

Although my arm muscled felt as if it had been replaced with bricks, I managed to lift it high enough to give her head and hair a good ruffling, albeit a little clumsily.

“Be home soon,” I simply told her with a smile. “Dinner’s on me.”

“I’m holding you to it, then, it’s a promise now,” Sammy warned. “If I come back, and you’re still out here… I’m going to be very upset with you.”

“Consider me warned.”

“You will get this done, right?” She asked, and for the first time, she allowed a bit of her apprehension to resound, intentional or not. “By then, by today. You will break this stupid thing, won’t you?”

Suddenly, it’s like she was eight again, and we were lost in the forest, in the dark, and she was clutching my hand tightly, tears welling in her eyes, looking to me for assurance, for comfort.

And just like back then, I gave her a smile, a look, letting her know that there was absolutely nothing to worry about.

Your big brother’s got this.

“Consider it broken,” I told her. “Just leave it to me, Sammy.”

“Yeah, ’cause who else can I leave it to?” She said sarcastically, but that look of uncertainty still lingered in her eyes. “Don’t… just don’t hurt yourself too much, alright?”

Now, just where have I heard that before?

After readjusting her shoulder strap for the last time, Sammy finally shuffled past me, marching away out into the open road, briefly passing Ash by as she did.

“Take care of my brother, Ash, please,” I heard her plead from a distance. “Take your eyes off of him for a sec, and he’ll voluntarily jump off a cliff for some stupid righteous cause. So make sure I see him again in one piece, will you?”

Ash heeded her request and bid her farewell with the same courteous bow, and with that, Sammy was gone, presumably to be with a friend again distracting herself the best she could 

But knowing her, she’ll eventually just wind up worrying over the fact that she wasn’t worrying enough, and in turn, end up simply worrying herself even more.

She’s just considerate like that.

As for me, well… got a promise to keep, don’t I? 

I raised my hands, took a deep breath.

Time to try again.