Mikleo hears the slave’s voice ringing throughout the room, as well as the sound of a sword unsheathing, and it really doesn’t take a genius to realise that the slave didn’t manage to stop the other assassin. He’s not surprised, at the very least. Mikleo knows the slave’s opinion in killing; he’d rather let his enemy stab him than do the stabbing himself.
He has to make do. In less than a second, Mikleo manages to change his grip on his dagger and deliver the finishing blow to his opponent. The assassin was no match for him; a hit on the stomach and the dagger cleanly slicing through his throat finishes the work, and Mikleo turns to meet the sword that he knows is coming for him, changing yet again his grip on his dagger to catch the blade that he knows has made the beeline straight to him.
But there’s no blade coming for him, instead, Mikleo finds himself staring at the slave standing in front of him, the slave’s arms outstretched to protect him. The blade that’s meant for Mikleo is sticking out Sorey’s back, blood pooling around it and staining his white shirt red.
Mikleo isn’t hit in any way, but he feels as if the wind’s knocked out of him.
The assassin tries to pull the sword out of Sorey, wiggling the blade to pull it out and perhaps stick it into the right person this time, but Sorey doesn’t let him. Instead, he leans into the assassin, his hands gripping the blade tight, as he forces the words out.
“---You’re not...going...anywhere.”
Those words are enough to spur Mikleo into action.
He runs straight to the assassin, and he pushes him away from Sorey as hard as he can. The assassin stumbles back and picks up the nearest weapon he can get his hand on: a lost dagger dropped by one of his fellow assassins. Mikleo hears Sorey crumple to the floor, the blade left within him clinging against the ground, but Mikleo doesn’t look back, his eyes trained on the assassin that dares try to kill him.
The assassin makes the first strike.
Mikleo takes a step back and catches the blade with his own, the assassin’s dagger hissing harshly against his ear as he pushes it away from him with his own dagger. He throws the dagger off the assassin’s with enough force to make the assassin stumble for a moment, and Mikleo takes a quick step towards him, his dagger ready to finish him off with one strike, but his enemy recovered faster than he anticipated.
A hand hits Mikleo across the face, and then another, and he easily falls to the floor. He hasn’t even managed to push himself off the ground when he feels the assassin on top of him, and a hand gripping his left hand so tightly, he yelps. The assassin harshly slams his hand on the ground once, twice, thrice, and when Mikleo tries to retaliate to punch the assassin with his right hand, he catches it with his free hand with another death-like grip. He hits Mikleo’s left hand against the floor for the fourth time, and then for the fifth time with so much unforgiving force, and Mikleo groans, finally letting go of his dagger.
He tries to lift his hand to take the dagger again, but the unbearable pain that shoots across his hand makes him stop, and he can no longer feel his left hand. It’s easy to tell what the assassin did with how his wrist has started to discolour and swell: he broke Mikleo’s wrist.
With his left hand useless and right hand caught in the assassin’s grip, Mikleo can’t fight, and he can only watch with coiling contempt as the assassin takes his abandoned dagger. Sorey’s limp body is only just a few paces away from him, and it’s honestly annoying to think about it: that he’d die with the Rolance slave he hates so much, and knowing that Sorey died trying to protect him.
The assassin raises the dagger, and when Mikleo thinks it’s going to pierce his throat, like how he sliced the same dagger across the throat of the other assassin he fought, he hears a loud voice booming from the hall outside and into his room and swords being unsheathed. The assassin promptly stops.
Zaveid and two men burst into the room, swords unsheathed and Siegfried ready to fire in Zaveid’s hand, and Mikleo takes the chance to snatch the dagger from the startled assassin’s hand. He ignores the hissing pain that forces him to drop the blade again, and he makes a clumsy attempt to kill the assassin right there and then. The blade only pierces through the assassin’s shoulder, however, and he hisses before standing up, the blade stuck to his shoulder.
There’s a deafening sound that echoes throughout the Prince’s residences: Zaveid firing his gun, but apparently the assassin is impossibly hard to hit, and within seconds, he’s gone, escaping by breaking through the stained window that depicts the Shepherd’s mural, leaving in his wake two dead suspects, a broken wrist, and a dying slave.
Mikleo is beside him a few seconds after, looking at his injuries, and by Maotelus, Sorey won’t last any longer than this.
“Get Edna,” Mikleo orders, his right hand cupping Sorey’s face. He can feel breath coming through Sorey’s mouth, but it’s so weak and he’s deathly pale, his lips a dangerously shade of purple. Blood pools around Sorey’s limp body and stains Mikleo’s pants, and Mikleo knows it’s only a matter of time before he’s gone. He doesn’t take any more time to take off his own nightshirt, ignoring the terrified gasps from the soldiers at the sight of his scars, and he presses it firmly against the stab wound.
