The boss staggered. Not much. Just enough that I noticed.
His arms were up, taking blows instead of throwing them now. Blocking what he could. Over and over. He wasn't pressing. He wasn't chasing.
At first, I told myself this was how it always looked at the end.
I'd seen fights like this before, not on this scale, but in spirit. Where someone staggered before the end came.
They could only raise their guard as best they could and wait. Where they started taking hits instead of giving them out. That's the point where a fight stopped being a fight and turned into a countdown.
This looked like it. The boss wasn't pressing. He wasn't trying to control the fight. He was just enduring. Letting the woman crash into him over and over again.
Anyone else would have been finished already.
I thought I was watching him lose slower than anyone I'd ever seen.
The fight returned to the street below when the woman struck, and the ground they were standing on collapsed.
From up where I was, I thought I saw something in the boss' hands.
The thing in his hand was small enough that it shouldn't have mattered. Something that size shouldn't have drawn attention in the middle of a street being torn apart.
It had no presence. It was just there. A little of nothing sitting in his palm, like space had been removed.
I tried to guess what it was. A weapon. A spell. Some last trick. But I couldn't be sure.
I didn't know where it came from. I didn't see him make it. One second it wasn't there, and the next it was.
The woman was on him again, laughing.
"Oh? Is the wound bad? Don't worry. I don't think you'll have to worry. You won't get a chance to patch it up," she said cheerfully.
She punched him in the faceplate. Once. Twice. Three times.
Each hit rang like metal struck with a hammer.
He dropped to one knee.
This is where it ends.
Then the boss spoke just two words.
"Catch this."
He threw the ball.
I didn't have better words for what happened next.
The space between his hand and her body just vanished.
She disappeared from where she was, and then she was somewhere else, embedded in a wall halfway down the street.
The impact came a heartbeat later.
It wasn't the sharp crack of explosion I had expected. It was a deep and heavy thump that rolled through the street like an earthquake.
I felt it chatter my teeth and rattle my ribs.
Of everything I'd seen that night, the axes, the buildings breaking, the strikes, the flying bodies, that single attack was the worst of it.
Walls father down the street buckled and collapsed without ever being touched. Windows blew out in waves, glass spilling into the road like rain. Dust rolled through the street in a thick cloud.
The boss stayed where he was for a second longer. That must have been what it was like when he stopped holding back.
Then he went over to the wall where the woman was.
He pulled her out, along with some stone.
It seemed that she was out cold. Her head lolled to the side.
The boss threw her to the ground and wailed on her.
One punch that drove her into the ground, and then the next.
Again and again, a one-handed strike, and then a two-handed strike from over his head.
With each strike, the boss grew, and so did his armor, until he was back wearing the giant one he usually did.
For a moment, I wanted to look away. I had already seen enough violence tonight in more forms than I liked. The deliberateness only made it worse.
The boss was in complete control. There was no change in his posture or speed. Each strike came down with the same measured force, spaced evenly, like he was tenderizing her for the end.
Something that had to be done, not in anger, as a punishment, or as an outburst. It was work.
Then it seemed that he was finished. There was blood on his fists, but it dripped away from the armor.
He reached down, grabbed the knife still stuck in his side, and pulled it free with a wet sound.
Blood poured out. He didn't react.
He picked up the woman by her hair with one hand.
He put the knife to her throat and pressed it against her skin.
And he stood like that for a moment.
Everything went quiet.
If the boss wanted to, he was unbeatable.
He held himself back, without his armor and without magic, and this woman, who could have torn through any woman or man alike, was no match for him.
That's why he was the boss.
The knife was at the woman's throat for a while, but the boss didn't cut her. Instead, after a few intense moments, he lowered it and threw the woman away.
He straightened and looked around the ruined street, with broken buildings and bodies that weren't moving and others that could only groan.
His helmet turned toward me, already knowing where I was, even though I was hiding and had moved my spot more than once.
"It's over," he said.
What could I even say if I decided to speak?
Are you hurt?
I just nodded. "If you say so."
"Today's work is done," he said.
That was dismissal.
I looked back once, over my shoulder, at the street.
The woman lay where she had been thrown, next to a few others and broken weapons.
I realized then that, for all the destruction, I hadn't actually seen the boss kill anyone. Bones shattered. People thrown. Buildings crushed. But death?
I couldn't say for sure.
Maybe that was the point.
I turned away and walked.
No one stopped us. And nobody followed.
After traveling some distance together, the boss paused before turning away.
"You did well tonight," he said. His voice was steady, the same as always, but there was something else under it. Something close to consideration. Maybe I was just imagining things after what I had seen tonight. "Not just tonight. Over the years."
I didn't know what to do with that.
"There are things I regret," he continued. "Our first meeting, among them."
His helmet tilted slightly, not quite looking at me, not quite away. "Under different circumstances, we might have stood on equal ground. Not as employer and worker. Not as someone watched and someone watching. "You would not have feared me. And I think we might have been friends."
"I don't fear you," I said. "I respect you. And if not for how we first met, I might have still been a low-life and been dead already."
"Really?" He asked. "…That's good to hear."
Then he turned away. "Go home."
He disappeared.
That was that. The end of the night.
That was my cue to go home myself.
No work, no stress.
When I reached my door, I realized that I was still carrying the giant coil of rope.
It hadn't had any use during the fight. Just like I hadn't, but that wasn't my job.
I went inside and locked the door three times. I lay the rope on a table. Maybe it'll see some usage later, when it's really needed.
Some dust flew from it when I dropped it on the table.
It wasn't a pleasant smell, but I wouldn't deal with it right now.
I went to my bedroom and sat on the edge of my bed for a long time before I lay down. My clothes also smelled like dust.
But there was also another smell. Blood.
I had a splatter of blood across my shirt. I didn't know whose.
There was also some on my hands. I wiped them on my pants without thinking.
Then I lay in bed, a routine that didn't change no matter what happened.
Usually, I don't dream, but tonight I had a dream.
It was darkness. I knew it was a dream because there was something instead of the usual nothing.
The dream woke me. It wasn't something I'd seen or heard but felt.
There was a weight, not a lot, but it was there, on my chest.
And there was something on top of me. My mind fumbled for explanations as I lay there, half-awake, telling myself it was a dream and that my mind was playing tricks on me.
I didn't move and barely breathed.
But I smelled blood. I could feel something warm and wet.
Blood. Fresh.
My eyes open slowly.
It was a monster.
Blood-streaked skin. Manic eyes, one swollen nearly shut. Part of the side of the mouth was ripped open. Fewer teeth than I remembered.
Breathing hard.
"Oh good," she said softly, smiling despite the blood, her wounds, and her missing teeth. "You're awake."
She moved her face closer to mine, drops of blood and drool landing on my face.
"Where is he?"