Die. Respawn. Repeat.

Surprisingly, it doesn't actually take much effort to convince him. Tarin gives me a single sharp nod, interrupting my thoughts on what the best means of convincing him will be. "Okay. Raid happening. Need fight. Explain how we die?"

I'm a little thrown for a moment, mostly from how quickly Tarin seems to accept it all. "I... didn't see most of it. I was fighting." I pause, and think back to what happened. The spears the crows were using failed — and judging by how the furniture here resisted Mari's shout and I didn't, even with Tough Body, I'm guessing the basis of their fighting comes from Firmament enchantments. "But before the Raid started, something happened with Firmament. All the enchantments broke."

Tarin's gaze almost pierces me. "All?"

I hesitate. "I don't know if it's all, exactly," I hedge. "But the furniture stopped... working. And the spears you use broke apart." I remember the spear I'd seen next to one of their fighters, little more than a pile of disparate parts.

Tarin makes a disgusted noise. "Of course. Only way to beat crows. Cheating."

"You said you wanted to train me," I say, trying to move the conversation along. We have time, still, but I can't help but feel like it's ticking away. What if the harpies just appear on top of us, no matter where we are? "Can we run and train? If I can get strong enough to beat them, I can stop the raid."

"You?" Tarin scoffs. "You think you stop raid by yourself? Crows can fight."

I stare at him. My mind involuntarily flashes back to the end of the last loop — at the image of their bodies scattered haphazardly on the ground, wings torn off and necks broken.

"You died," I say. I hadn't seen Tarin's body for myself, and I'm sure they can defend themselves, if what I've just seen of their abilities are right. I'm not sure how they were defeated so quickly. But the raid only ended because all of the crows died.

"Because raid cheat," Tarin says, crossing his wings in a remarkably human gesture. "Now we prepared! We know. We can fight. Crows do not run."

I don't know how to respond to that, either. It's stupid, I want to say — they're signing a death sentence for themselves. Even if I take him at his word, he's putting too many people in danger.

Mari comes to my rescue, smacking her husband on the head with a wing. "You not run, but children need run." She considered it for a moment. "We hide them. Far away. Harpies raid here, will not get to children. You tell us more about your Trial. Integrators did not tell us much."

"You need to train me." The words escape my mouth before I think much about them at all; not a true response so much as it is an expression of where my thoughts keep ending up. No matter how many strategies I come up with, it circles back around to the same thing.

I'm weak.

I'm stronger than I was, but that doesn't mean much in the face of what I have to fight. I have no idea what the true scale even is. I don't know what a rank S monster would look like, or how it would fight. I don't know how much power the Integrators can wield.

In the face of all this, I find that I have trouble letting go of the idea of protecting the crows by myself. It seems entirely reasonable that they should help me in the fight, that I should work with them to protect their home, rather than put the entire thing on my own back. I'm not sure why I'm so intent on doing it by myself. If they have to fight...

I shouldn't be worried. If they die, they come back. They don't have the option to give up like I do — as long as we succeed, no death should be permanent for them.

But that seems like too much of a risk to take, still. The Interface is more than willing to break the rules, and it has enough power to remove the village entirely. If it wants to remove specific individuals, I have no doubt it can

.

"Of course we train you!" Tarin interrupts my thoughts. He seems almost offended by the idea that he won't. "Hestia is ours, yes? We passed Integration! Trial is an honor, but Trial destroying planet."

He's already told me this, but I focus on his words. "You went through Integration?"

"Of course!" Tarin puffs out his chest, then deflates a bit. "Well. Not me. Other heroes. One crow, six others."

There's so much I want to ask. Their planet has been through Integration, and this is the reward? Do they all have access to their own Interface? I haven't seen Tarin or any of the crows making use of an interface, but maybe it isn't all that obvious — I've never seen what it looks like from the outside.

But the questions, it seems, will have to wait. "No time for questions!" Tarin says, as if reading my mind. He nudges at me to put down the scythe I'm still holding and clutching like a lifeline, and I put it to the side, vaguely embarrassed; then he pushes me out towards a small clearing set aside beside his home. There are little wooden training dummies set up there, and I wonder how I didn't notice them before.

They're not... particularly aesthetically pleasing. More a lump of leaves in the vague shape of a crow. But I've seen what the crows can do with their Firmament, so I imagine there's more to it than meets the eye.

"Hit!" Tarin says, pointing. "Need to see what you can do."

No time like the present, I suppose.

I could spend more time trying to convince them to run, but it feels like a waste of time. If I fail, I'll have wasted all the time in this loop trying to make that plan work. I could still earn some credits by fighting the harpies as they fall...

...but this is going to be the route that earns me the most, regardless.

My resolve firms.

I have time. I'm going to make the best of it.

I don't have any Strength skills, so as far as power goes I'm nearly baseline human; I didn't walk into these training grounds in any of my previous loops, so I can't make use of Temporal Echo. Second Wind is a waste to use, and there's an ache at the base of my skull that tells me using it is a waste of time.

Tough Body puts me above baseline human, though, and that means I can be... a tiny bit reckless as far as self-injury goes.

I dash forward, putting on as much of a sprint as I'm able — leaning forward until my weight nearly tips me over entirely. Right as I reach the pile of leaves masquerading as a training dummy, I turn my sprint into a flying kick. It's a bit of a clumsy move, but I'm confident it's enough to break several planks of wood. Without Tough Body, I'd be worried about breaking my foot. The pile is no doubt Firmament enforced...

...it is not.

My kick blows apart the pile of leaves like I just kicked at an actual pile of leaves, only with the full force of my weight and sprint attached; I land in a sprawl on the ground, tumbling a few times and groaning.

At least this will be good for Durability. It doesn't hurt as much as it should, with Tough Body reinforcing both skin and bone, but it's not a pleasant tumble nonetheless.

I glare back at Tarin, who grins back at me unrepentantly. "Must learn!" he barks at me. "You sense Firmament, yes? You not sense Firmament in practice dummy?"

I pause.

I... had not.

"Your Firmament weak," he continues, and this time it doesn't sound like an insult; he strides over to me and gives me a firm poke in the chest with a wing. The feathers don't bend like I'd expect. It feels like he's poking me with a steel rod. "Because your Firmament unstable. Is strange. Is abnormal. But abnormality good. Means you sensitive to changes in Firmament. Means you should sense this."

There's a thrum in the air again, this time gathering into his arms — I start to bring my hands up to my ears, expecting him to shout, but it feels different. More directed. It feels closer to what the harpies do with their screams.

It's nothing more than a feeling, but I dodge out of the way just in time. Tarin's shout doesn't do anything more than blast a small puff of dirt into the ground, but he still stares at me with a look of distinct satisfaction.

"Pah," he says. "I gave you warning."

"Barely," I mutter.

"But good!" Tarin grins at me. "Good reaction. Will save your life."

It's already saved my life several times. I hadn't realized that being able to sense Firmament was special in any way, and now I wonder what's the default for all these other species. Earth doesn't have Firmament, as far as I know, unless the arrival of the Integrators changed things.

Tarin shakes me out of my thoughts before I can dwell too much on it. "Too much thinking!" he declares. "You have something special, yes? Firmament out of balance. Keep it that way. Bad advice for most, maybe good advice for you. Depends." He gives me a critical eye, looks me up and down, then nods. "Better to try."

I have no idea what any of that means, but I don't have time to ask any questions — he suddenly launches himself at me, so quickly I barely have the time to react. He's spry, for an old crow. Firmament sings underneath his wings, and I have to duck and roll to avoid them slamming into me.

I wonder if he knows how durable I actually am.

He doesn't seem to care, though. The old crow seems delighted at the fact that I managed to dodge, and spins around, flaring his wings to halt his momentum. One flap sends him flying towards me again, his talons only skimming off the dirt this time — he's somehow even faster than before.

I need to fight back.

Running and dodging is only going to work for so long, and he looks like he intends fully on speeding up for as long as I keep managing to dodge him. He seems like exactly that kind of mentor figure, anyway.

How do I catch him off-guard?

I need something that he hasn't seen before. I need something he doesn't know I can do. Second Wind is out — my skull throbs at the idea of using that skill — but Temporal Echo...

Not here. I can't use it here.

But I can lead him away.

I throw myself out of the way of his wings, the tips of his feathers missing my neck by a hair's breadth; I can't help but grimace, imagining what that might have done if it had actually hit my neck. Nothing good, probably. For all that this is a spar, it's still dangerous... Maybe they have healers.

I'm angling towards the edge of the training area outside his hut. There's an area nearby filled with the energy of Temporal Echo, which strikes me as something I could perhaps use to navigate. If I can use it to trace my path...

A thought for another time.

I fail to dodge the third attack. I feel him gathering it, but by the time I'm able to react to it, he slams straight into me; the hit is lighter than I expect, but it's still enough to send me flying a few feet into the air. I roll a few times, intentionally bringing the old crow closer to Temporal Echo.

Come on...

There's an audience, now. I'm vaguely aware of the crows that have gathered to watch; they've all kept a respectable distance away, thankfully, or I'd be a lot more worried about fighting openly like this. As it is, I don't have the time to spare a thought for them.

Tarin throws himself at me again. He isn't even varying his attacks — he's testing me, trying to see how long I can go just dodging. Trying to see how resilient I am.

Or maybe he's calibrating. I don't fail to notice the way this attack is a little slower than the last. It's just within my ability to dodge, and I desperately twist myself out of the way.

Doesn't matter if I'm off balance.

I can feel the threads of my past clearly, here, and Tarin's directly in my path. This is where I remember trying to run out of the village, leading the two harpies I was fighting away.

With a thought, I push on the skill, and Temporal Echo burns.