Gida stopped to catch his breath. He looked around. "Haruna!! Where are you?!"
"I'm here." she said, appearing next to him.
Gida nodded. "Stay close."
Haruna put her hands on his back. "I will."
Makoto watched the two of them from a distance. "When'd the two of them get so close?"
Gida looked up. "Julie!! What's the situation?!"
Julie flew overhead. "The forces are dying down! Your summons and Jive's clones are doing a good job of keeping them away from us!"
Gida relaxed into his base form. "We need to draw the Demon Lord towards us. I doubt we'll be able to do that until we're deemed a threat worth squashing."
Haruna looked out into the distance, but she couldn't see anything beyond Jive's clones and the booming explosions. She tugged at Gida's clothes. "There's something else coming. I can sense it."
"From where?"
"I don't know… its presence is closing in on me from all angles… it's suffocating."
Inky looked around. "Bloom? Where did you go?!"
