Crimson blood scattered into the air before splattering across the brown earth and the green grass below. Blue felt the world slow around him as pain struck his mind in that instant, yet he did not truly register it. He knew he was injured, he could feel it clearly, but he did not react to the pain itself. He had been wounded far too many times, on far too many missions, to flinch or falter at every sensation of agony his body had ever produced.
But although he did not react to the pain, he reacted to something else entirely: the injury itself. Not because it was deep or fatal, by his standards, it was nothing more than a wound. But at that very moment, it should have been impossible. The Tenth Sun had injured him. His mind ground to a halt as shock crashed through his thoughts, his perception freezing as reality asserted itself in a way he had not anticipated.
