Her real hands were covered in a thin layer of ice. Forcing her fingers to clench sent shards flying around. Her carapace was undamaged. It was stronger than a little ice could hope to damage. But this happened before to a much lesser degree. Just a little frost after she had attacked the demon-eyed hunter had her recoiling in pain.
Either her healing was keeping her from feeling much of it or she was in enough pain that a little frostbite was barely noticeable.
The knight was still putting up a fight despite his immobility from the ice and webbing. A good amount of that was because of Genoa’s golem. While it kept him busy, it failed to do anything more than that. His armor could take the beating. There were only light dents in the metal. Nothing fatal or even mildly significant.
Between catching the golem’s fists on his sword, he alternated between hacking away at the ice and slicing through the more restricting threads. The only way he managed to move fast enough to get so much done was because of the unnatural speed that his armor carried him at.
Trying to sneak another two globs of blood beneath the large frozen claws wound up with them being frozen again. Eva wasn’t yet suffering a headache from the blood loss—or if she was, she couldn’t tell because of all the other pain—but so long as her attacks weren’t working, she wouldn’t be doing much more of it.
Best to save her strength.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure what she should do to help in the fight. Her flames didn’t seem very likely to work any better than her blood. While they wouldn’t freeze, she doubted that they could do more damage than Genoa’s golem. Rushing in and fighting with her bare hands was completely out of the question. Even putting aside the fact that his armor hurt to touch, she was still in enough pain that she would be a liability, not an asset.
Eva grit her teeth, boiling in frustration. What was she supposed to do? Throw rocks at him? He was armored enough that a ten ton golem couldn’t significantly hurt him. She couldn’t even do that anyway as the ground had turned to glass.
Glancing towards the dormitory, Eva blinked straight through the glass entry door. If she couldn’t fight out here, she could go find Juliana and see if she had made contact with Nel.
The second she tried to take a step, a crash of glass both echoed and exploded around her. Shards of glistening glass tore through her raw flesh and bounced off her carapace. Eva stumbled, only to be caught by a pair of cool hands.
“I cannot allow you to leave until I have resolved my quandary.”
Eva spun around, just about falling over again in order to get out of the doll’s grip.
Her face was placid and neutral. Not a hint of anger could be found in her features. She didn’t even try to stop Eva from slipping out of her fingers.
“I thought we resolved it,” Eva said, trying not to cough. Her throat was dry enough that coughing would only make things worse. “Remember? No crime committed so no reason to chase me down.”
Glancing over the doll’s shoulder, Eva frowned. The knight was starting to break out of the ice. In a few moments, he would be free to start hounding down Arachne once again while avoiding the golem.
“Besides, I’m not leaving. I’m going to find some way to kill that hunter.” Eva paused for just a moment while the doll glanced back over her shoulder. “But perhaps if you might be willing to lend a hand, I wouldn’t need to go anywhere.”
The doll stilled. More than normal, anyway. She turned back to face Eva after a moment.
Her lips were curled downwards in a shadow of a frown.
“It is a human.”
“A human that is standing in the way of your job. And besides, he tried to kill you. And the rest of us.”
At least, Eva was pretty sure that they had tried to kill the doll. She had been standing within the glassy area of the courtyard. More towards the edges, as Eva had been standing a decent way away and she was relatively certain that she had been at the very center of the beam. But the doll had still been within its radius.
Her outfit was barely singed, however. The leather was still leather-looking and her skin and hair were perfectly normal.
“He won’t see a difference between demons and dolls. As soon as Arachne gets killed, he’ll be coming after the both of us. Might be hard to do your job when your head is cut off.”
The doll turned back to the hunter, her slim frown turning more into a scowl. “I see,” she said after a moment of thought. “You must accompany me.”
Eva grimaced behind the doll’s back. She was having enough trouble standing on her feet as it was. Running around while two sword-wielding maniacs were fighting did not sound like something all that survivable.
“I’ll be upstairs,” Eva said. When the doll turned her scowl on Eva, she quickly made up an excuse. “There is another hunter. The one who launched that bright beam. Something needs to be done with her before she launches another beam. I’ll need to find her.”
