The end is near

Terrence. According to Sal, we're getting close to whatever endgame the big guy has planned.

We got in a fight against a couple of other servants earlier today. Apparently, they also specialize in explosives. I can't really detail the entire fight, but these fuckers had strapped some C4 to the top of one of the buildings (somehow) and set it off. This caused several chunks of wall to fall down toward us. I thought we were fucked for maybe a second and a half, but then Sal didn't something we weren't expecting.

As if on instinct, he raised a hand into the air, and all the larger chunks that could've actually killed us froze in place. We were pelted with a few harmless bits of rubble, but nothing serious. He then turned his attention to the servants we were fighting. With a motion of his hand, the chunks of rubble were sent flying, ramming right into those guys, killing them instantly.

Sal stood there for a few seconds, panting. He had a horrified look on his face, and seemed to be processing what he had just done. He started whispering something to himself, over and over again.

"Are you okay?" Justin asked.

"This isn't my home," Sal whispered, a it louder this time. "This isn't my home. I shouldn't have any power here."

He suddenly shifted into anger, and raised his voice, shouting out loudly.

"This is not my home!" he exclaimed.

The ground beneath us trembled, and a large crack violently appeared on the wall behind us. Sal turned to it, looking scared.

"No, no no no no no...," he said.

Then he just vanished.

"What was that about?" I asked.

"He just needs time," Justin said. "Which we don't have much of right now..."

"What do you mean?" I asked, turning to him.

My question was pretty much answered as soon as I looked at him. In the chaos, I had failed to notice that he was kneeling next to Algeria, applying pressure to a wound on her stomach. I kneeled down beside them, unsure how I could help.

"How did this happen?" I asked, panicking a bit.

"Sal didn't stop all the rubble," Justin said. "She got hit with a jagged shard of it."

"What do we do?" I asked. "We can get her to a hospital, right?"

"I don't think there's time for that," Algeria said. "Losing a lot of blood here..."

"The last hospital we saw was a ways back," Justin said. "We'd never get her there in time, especially with Sal taking off on us like that."

"Well, what can we do?" I asked. "We don't have Ciel with us, and I don't know how to stop-"

Justin wordlessly placed a hand on Algeria's forehead. For a second, I thought he wasn't reassuring her, but then he smashed her head into the wall, knocking her out.

"Dude!" I exclaimed. "What the fuck?"

"Well, now she's unconscious," he said. "Which means she's out of the tournament. Which means she'll be sent back to the normal world, where she can get some proper fucking medical attention."

"Still, though," I said.

"Well, sorry for making a split second decision that may have just saved your girlfriend's life," he replied.

"She's not my... you could have knocked her out gently or something...," I said.

"Gently isn't something I'm good at," Justin said.

One of the card people showed up. She had on a mask bearing the ace of diamonds symbol. She took a look at the damage that had been done to the terrain and shouted "What the fuck did you do!"

I immediately pointed over at our dead opponent's and said "They did it!"

She snarled angrily.

"I don't get paid enough for this bullshit...," she said.

"Can you get our friend here to a hospital or something?" Justin asked.

"Yeah, sure, whatever," she replied. "Like I don't have enough shit to deal with..."

A bunch of other diamond masked people showed up, and the ace started issuing orders to them.

"You two, get these bodies out of here," she snapped. "You, deal with the unconscious chick. And you two, help me clean this shit up."

They got to work. Two of them took the bodies of our opponent's and disappeared with them. Another one took Algeria and vanished as well. The ace and the remaining two diamonds began making some hand motions, causing all the rubble to float up off the ground and move back into place. The cracks began melding together, and in a couple of minutes, all the damage that had been done to the building was repaired, as if the C4 had never detonated at all. Then they all vanished. I'm pretty sure the ace shot us a dirty look before leaving. Hard to tell with the mask, but she definitely gave off that feeling.

"I don't feel very good about this," I said.

"Hey, we got her help," Justin said. "There's no point dwelling on this."

"Not what I meant," I said, raising up Algeria's gun and her little case of special bullets. "I mean I feel bad about stealing her shit after you knocked her out."

Justin cracked up at that.

"She is *not* gonna give you any action after that stunt, bro," he chuckled.

"She's not my girlfriend," I said.

"Whatever, man," Justin said. "Let's go try and find Sal. We're on our own until we do."