Jimon should have gotten some satisfaction out of this, she supposed, some relief at knowing they’d taken a step closer to the end of this nightmare, maybe even some dark impulse punching the air in triumph at being the one to draw first blood. But she wasn’t feeling any of those things. As the sharpened edge of the sword sank into Kurt’s flesh, she only felt sick. Sick that she’d allowed herself to become the instrument of someone else’s evil agenda once again, sick that she was inflicting pain on a man who’d done absolutely nothing to deserve it, sick that this was their only way out.
She wanted to throw the sword down, shut off the energy streaming from her eyes, and raise a white flag in surrender. Let them kill her rather than continuing with this twisted pantomime. Give up, leave Kurt to walk out of here alive and lead the school in the exemplary way he always had. He was more important than her, that was the steely truth of it. Jimon wasn’t selling herself short, she knew she had skills to offer, but Kurt was far better suited to leading their community out of this than she was. So perhaps she really should fall on her sword. Literally.
But there was still a chance they could both return to the pits and that meant now was not the time to give up hope. They could do this. They would do this.
Trying to ignore just how shaken she was by the move she’d had to make, Jimon deliberately shut off the flood of cryogenic energy she’d been pumping out, purposefully allowing an extra second to tick by before she attempted to fly outside Kurt’s range. Tit for tat, it was only fair, and it would excite the audience further. They sounded lustier than ever now they could see Kurt’s blood dripping into the dirt, and when the tip of his sword slashed across the flesh of her leg, they cheered even louder. The crowd had been satisfied.
Kurt was so smart, she couldn’t help marvelling in the moment. He’d aimed his strike perfectly, avoiding any major arteries and any possibility of delivering more than a superficial wound. The man was a professional and she counted herself lucky to have been paired with him. Putting on a show, she grimaced and let out a cry, swaying in the air before landing heavily on the ground and clamping her hand over the wound, making sure her fingers became coated in her own blood so the baying audience could see it better.
Miraculously, their efforts were enough. As they both staggered, attempting to regroup in case they had to draw this out even further, their handlers lurched out onto the field of battle. Silver and Nightcrawler had demonstrated they were fighters capable of delivering spectacle and engaging the audience, and they’d spilled blood in the process. Better to get another show or two out of them before allowing one of them to fall. Roughly, the handlers took a shoulder of each of them and began dragging them off back to the pits. Jimon should have felt happy, she knew. Relieved. And some part of her was. It was just difficult to focus on their success through the thick bile of shame caught in her throat.
But they’d survived. They’d debased themselves but they’d survived. That had to be what mattered.