[BL] I Didn't Sign Up For This-Chapter 95: In Which We Run Out of Time (And Sleep, And Patience)

Chapter 95: In Which We Run Out of Time (And Sleep, And Patience)

Two days left.

Eleven rifts remaining.

I knew these numbers the way you know your own heartbeat, constant and inescapable, counting down to something that would either save reality or end it.

We were standing in what used to be a textile factory in Mumbai, the thirty-eighth rift pulsing angry and purple-black in the center of the production floor. Around us, fifteen coalition hunters from Seoul and Tokyo cells were fighting seventy enforcers while trying not to collapse from exhaustion.

They’d been here for four hours before we arrived.

Four hours of channeling their power at a rift they couldn’t close, trying to weaken it enough that when we finally showed up, we’d have a chance. Four hours of fighting enforcers that kept materializing, holding the line, rotating positions when people got too tired to stand.

The rift looked fractionally less stable than usual, edges flickering in a way that suggested the hours of assault had done something.

"How much?" I asked Mara through the comm.

"Seoul cell reports approximately two percent weakening," she said. "Maybe three if we’re being optimistic."

Two percent didn’t sound like much.

After two days of this strategy, two percent was the difference between closing a rift in ten minutes versus twenty, between five injured coalition hunters versus fifteen.

Two percent was everything.

I summoned the spectral blade and moved toward the rift, Azryth covering my approach with practiced efficiency. Around us, Tokyo and Seoul hunters maintained the enforcer line with the kind of coordination that only came from doing this too many times in too few days.

The anchor points appeared through my X-ray vision, nested three layers deep but visibly weakened from hours of coalition channeling.

I struck the first anchor.

The blade cut through easier than it should have, the pre-weakening doing exactly what we’d hoped. Behind me, someone from Seoul cell called out a warning about an enforcer getting close, but Ryota’s blade was already there, eliminating it before I had to divert attention.

Second anchor. Strike. The rift screamed, fighting back but not as hard as it would have without the weakening.

Third anchor appeared.

One of the Tokyo hunters stumbled, exhausted from hours of channeling, and another immediately stepped forward to take their position in the defensive line.

I struck the core anchor with everything we had left.

The rift collapsed inward, imploding with enough force to rattle the factory windows. Every remaining enforcer got sucked back through before it sealed completely.

Silence, except for heavy breathing and someone quietly crying from exhaustion or relief or both.

"Thirty-eight," Mara announced. "Eleven to go."

I sat down where I stood. Around me, coalition hunters were doing the same, fifteen people who’d been fighting for four and a half hours finally able to stop.

Ryota appeared with water bottles, distributing them to his team before offering them to us.

"Your people have been here since what, six AM local time?" I asked, accepting the water gratefully.

"Five-thirty," he corrected, sitting down heavily. "Seoul cell started the channeling, we arrived two hours later to reinforce and help with enforcers."

"That’s insane."

"That’s the only strategy that works." He drank half his bottle in one go. "Every hour they channel before you arrive is time you don’t have to spend. Faster closures mean fewer casualties."

Through the binding, I felt Azryth’s exhaustion mixing with mine, a bone-deep weariness that went beyond physical tiredness into something that felt permanent.

"How many today?" Azryth asked quietly.

Ryota’s expression went carefully neutral. "Three serious injuries. Berlin cell lost one this morning, spine broken by an enforcer strike. She’s alive but won’t walk again. Two from Seoul cell are in medical, should recover but need weeks."

The weight of that settled over us.

"I’m sorry," I said, inadequate but necessary.

"Don’t be sorry," Ryota said, his voice tired but firm. "We all knew the cost when we signed up for this, reality ending is worse than broken spines."

One of his hunters, a woman whose name I’d learned and forgotten in the chaos, spoke up. "São Paulo cell lost someone yesterday. Berlin lost another today. We’re down to maybe sixty percent of our starting force across all cells."

"But we’re still here," another hunter added. "Sixty percent of us closing rifts is better than zero percent watching reality tear apart."

"Next target?" Ryota asked, changing the subject before grief could take hold.

"North Atlantic cluster," I said. "Iceland and Greenland. Close both and three more collapse automatically. Gets us to forty-three total."

"When?"

"Thirty minutes," Henrik’s voice came through the comm. "Berlin cell is already at Iceland, started channeling ninety minutes ago. Tokyo cell, can you portal to Greenland?"

Six hands went up out of the fifteen exhausted hunters sitting around us. Six people volunteering for more.

"Seoul cell will send four to supplement," one of them confirmed. "Ten total for Greenland."

"That’s not enough," I said.

"That’s what we have," Ryota said simply. "Everyone who can still stand has been rotating for forty-eight hours straight."

And that was the reality of the past two days.

Not enough hunters, not enough time, not enough rest, just people pushing past reasonable limits because the alternative was unthinkable.

***

The night after the arbiters’ revelation, we’d closed six rifts.

That sentence made it sound simple. Six rifts, six successful closures, moving steadily toward the goal.

The reality had been coalition cells arriving at rift locations hours before we did, channeling until they couldn’t stand, fighting enforcers that materialized in increasing numbers, holding defensive lines while we did the actual closing work.

Mediterranean cluster had been the cleanest. Rome and Athens both had five-hour pre-weakening windows, coalition support was fresh, closures were textbook.

Singapore had been where it started getting bad. Tokyo and Seoul cells had been channeling for three hours in oppressive heat when forty enforcers materialized. One Berlin hunter had taken a hit meant for Mara, evacuated with broken ribs and a concussion that would take weeks to heal.

Cairo had been worse. São Paulo cell channeling for six hours in a hundred-degree heat. Fifty enforcers, one suicide bomber. Azryth had shielded the coalition line and taken burns across his entire back that I’d felt through every nerve of the binding.

Vancouver at two AM had been Seattle cell fighting for two hours straight before we arrived, exhausted but holding.

We’d closed six rifts that day. Four coalition hunters had been seriously injured. We’d collapsed for three hours and started again.

***

The first day after the Arbiter’s revelation had been seven rifts and the deaths started.

São Paulo cell lost someone in Rio. Three suicide bombers detonating in sequence, one getting close enough to the channeling team that a hunter named something I didn’t catch had thrown himself in front of it, taking the full blast.

Berlin cell lost someone in Lagos. An enforcer strike that should have been blocked wasn’t, spine broken, permanent paralysis.

Moscow took four hours to close because the anchor points moved every three seconds. Berlin and Moscow cells had been channeling for eight hours, and half of them couldn’t walk by the time we finished.

Sydney, Stockholm, Lima. Each one harder than the last. Each one costing more.

We’d closed seven rifts that day. Two people had died or been permanently disabled. Dozens more injured badly enough to be pulled from rotation.

We’d slept for four hours and woken to Mara telling us we had to move faster.

***

Day two, today, five rifts so far.

Bangkok, Melbourne, Seoul again, London, Mumbai.

Each closure following the same brutal pattern: coalition cells arrive hours early, channel until exhausted, fight enforcers, hold the line while we close the rift, evacuate the wounded, portal to the next location.

Thirty-eight down. Eleven to go, two days left.

And people were dying to make it possible.

***

We rested for twenty-seven minutes in the Mumbai factory before portaling to Iceland.

The volcanic field was exactly as terrible as advertised, heat shimmering off black rock, sulfur thick in the air, Berlin cell looking like they were about to collapse from heat exhaustion after ninety minutes of channeling.

"Two percent weakening," their team leader reported. "Maybe three. The rift’s fighting back harder than any we’ve seen."

Eighty enforcers materialized the moment we arrived.

"Veyrith knows we’re close to the end," Azryth said, his power manifesting despite visible exhaustion. "He’s defending the remaining rifts with everything he has."

The fight was chaos, but controlled chaos, the kind that came from coalition hunters and demons who’d done this too many times to panic anymore.

Berlin cell, exhausted from channeling, joined the defensive line without hesitation. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

I moved toward the rift, blade active, X-ray vision showing anchor points nested four layers deep instead of the usual three.

"Four layers?" I called out. "Really?"

"Adapting!" Azryth shouted back, incinerating enforcers with methodical precision.

I cut through the first anchor, the pre-weakening making it possible where it shouldn’t have been. Second anchor, third anchor, working as fast as exhausted muscles would allow.

One of the Berlin hunters went down, an enforcer having broken through. Ryota was there immediately, eliminating the threat and pulling the wounded hunter back to safety.

Fourth anchor appeared.

I struck with everything we had left.

The rift collapsed, sucking eighty enforcers back through with a sound like reality screaming.

"Thirty-nine," Mara’s voice came through, strained. "Ten to go."

The wounded Berlin hunter was being treated by their team, alive but out of commission.

"Greenland?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"Coalition team has been channeling for fifty minutes," Henrik confirmed. "You’re cleared to portal."

We portaled to Greenland.

Sub-zero temperatures, ten coalition hunters who’d been weakening a rift for fifty minutes while fighting enforcers in conditions that would have killed normal humans.

We closed it.

The rift collapsed, the cluster destabilized, three more rifts in the North Atlantic sealed automatically.

"Forty-three," Mara announced. "Six to go."

Around us, coalition hunters were collapsing into the snow, too exhausted to celebrate, too relieved to care about the cold.

Ryota was checking his team, making sure everyone was accounted for, alive, and functional enough to continue.

I looked at Azryth. His face was drawn with exhaustion, the burns from Cairo still visible on his neck where his shirt had shifted, his hands shaking slightly from power expenditure.

"Six rifts," I said. "Two days."

"Three per day," he agreed. "We can do three per day."

"We’ve been doing five."

"Then six should be easy."

It wouldn’t be easy. Nothing about this had been easy.

But we’d do it anyway.

Because forty-three rifts were closed. Because coalition hunters had bled and died to make it possible. Because something ancient and terrible was waiting for us to fail.

And we weren’t going to fail.

Not after coming this far.

Not after so many people had sacrificed so much.

"Next target?" Ryota asked, his voice hoarse.

"South Pacific," Henrik said through the comm. "Two rifts, both standalone, then four more scattered across Asia and Africa."

"When?"

"Six hours," Mara said. "Coalition cells need time to get in position and start channeling. You two need to rest or you’ll collapse before we finish."

"Six hours," I agreed, because she was right and arguing would waste time we didn’t have.

We portaled back to the safehouse.

Six hours to rest.

Six rifts to close.

Two days to save reality.

Simple.