Before you can make a choice, Rolf makes a move!

You clench your obsidian encased fist, the gauntlet sparking with power as your anger starts to rise. You should strike her down. You should make her pay as much as her master, ending her as you plan to end him. You should gather your rage and cut down the dwarven squire who dares to stand in the way of your **** and is foolish enough to defend a man who has abused her so much. You know this to be so (or at least your anger and the gauntlet's influence lead you to believe it to be so), but...you can't. You can't bring yourself to strike out against her. You remember her being the only one to be kind to you during the trip here and the trek through the wilds of the island. It is true that she must have known as well as anybody else what your fate would be, but she, at least, had felt guilty about it. She had even spoken out to try and have your life spared.

In the end, there is simply too much knight within you to allow you to cut down an unarmed woman...but it seems Rolf has no such compulsions as, while you've been agonizing over what to do, he has recovered his breath and his weapon and made his move. That move being to swing his battle-axe at the back of Asta's neck, obviously thinking to cut right through her and at you while you were distracted. Fortunately, you noticed his movement at the last moment and you find yourself moving before you even realized you had meant to.

"LOOK OUT!", you yell as you move to shove Asta roughly aside with your gauntleted hand. Your other hand goes over Asta's shoulder to grasp the weapon she had slung across her back, a longsword, and pull it free. As soon as your bare left hand comes into contact with the dwarven steel, you feel agonizing pain as though you were grasping a burning brand. It seems not only your gauntlet reacts to the presence of dwarven runes, but your very flesh. It makes sense as the dark magic of the gauntlet had been seeping into you probably from the moment it had taken possession of your right hand. Instead of the violent reaction of the gauntlet, though, it seems your flesh is more fragile and is effected in a much more painful way.

But you can take pain. You'd already felt the pain of dying, had you not? What worse pain than that could there be? That is what you tell yourself as you grit your teeth against the agony in your hand and push the dwarven squire bodily to the ground while drawing her blade from it's sling in the same motion. The movement makes it so that your appropriated weapon clashes with the axe as Rolf swings it. You are only barely able to do so and had little chance to put all your strength into the defense, however, and the dwarf's strength and momentum pushes the longsword towards your chest. You manage to keep the blade from cutting deep, but it's edge does cut a shallow vertical line into your chest. Worse yet, the dwarven rune-blade burns your bare skin there as well, the skin of your chest blistering and burning with the contact along with your left hand still grasping the hilt.

"Die, you damned whelp! Die like you were supposed to!", Rolf growls at you, trying to put more muscle behind the axe he presses against your borrowed blade.

The dwarf is strong, it is true, but you manage to keep him from pressing his attack. Instead, you exercise the advantage you have over him. One he seems to have forgotten. That advantage being that, while he only has one hand to use, you have two. And it is that second hand you put into use as you clench your steel-encased fist and swing it at his face. He doesn't even have a chance to react, the attack coming from his newly acquired blind side, and your fist catches him full on, slamming into the side of his face and snapping his head to the side.

That moment is when his strength wavers and you manage to push his axe back with a grunt of exertion. He is pushed off balance by this and by your punch and you press your advantage, still pushing past the burning pain in your hand in order to wield the dwarven longsword. You bring it up and then swing down, the blade cutting through the air towards Rolf's shoulder. Your swing is true and strong, hitting his shoulder solidly...but, unfortunately, dwarven steel protects Rolf as well as arms him as his chainmail shirt protects him from a deep wound. The sword breaks through some of the steel links and cuts shallowly at the skin beneath, but not enough to be a debilitating wound.

Rolf sees this and he starts to grin in triumph...until he sees that, once again, you have something he lacks. Namely, a second hand encased in a powerful dark Artifact. It is that hand you swing again, bringing it up and then swinging it down. Not at Rolf, however, but at the very blade you are wielding. In a moment of quick thinking, you slam the dark steel of the gauntlet into the shining mithril of the dwarven longsword lodged in Rolf's chainmail. And, as it had been when you had met Rolf's axe with the gauntlet, a violent, explosive reaction results.

With a flash of magic against magic, your gauntleted hand is sent flying up and back. You feel your tortured shoulder finally give out with a sickening pop that causes white hot pain to spark there for a moment before your arm goes numb. But that sacrifice is worth it since, as you expected, the sword had also been violently sent in the opposite direction. Which meant it went down into and then through Rolf's shoulder with magically explosive ****.

Rolf gives out a guttural and agonized cry as his right arm is severed at the shoulder, his arm falling to the ground still clutching his axe as a gout of blood sprays from the wound. The longsword also goes clattering to the ground as you find yourself unable to keep a grip on it with such powerful **** driving it downward. It is a relief to let it go, however, as your left hand is blistered and bright red as though you had stuck your hand in a fire and you don't think you could take the burning pain of holding the sword any longer. It had served it's purpose, though, and, as Rolf stands there with blood spilling from the wound where his arm had once been, you know you don't need it to finish the dwarf.

You snarl as you lift your foot and kick the stunned and critically wounded dwarf in the chest, sending him falling backwards onto the ground with a thud and a wet splash of crimson from his wound. You move to stand over him, fire in your eyes and savage satisfaction in your expression as you place your foot on his throat and start to slowly press down. Rolf looks up at you, his eyes wide and his skin already growing pale from the massive amount of blood he is losing, and he feebly slaps his stump at your ankle to try and keep you from stomping down on his throat.

But he can't stop you. He is defeated. All you have to do now is put your weight down on your foot and break his neck and watch the light fade from his eyes. That's all you have to do.