The pair sat back-to-back. Both were aware that a loss of support would render the other powerless to stop from falling over. Kyoya's exhaustion didn't take its time setting in, either, a result of having totally burned away what little was left over from their duel in the arena.

Stagnant air was finally washed out by the evening's wind. It cleansed the beachfront of the wounds incurred just moments before. While calming, he shivered in the winds' suddenly icy grasp. Whereas it had only been a bit crisp earlier, now it was wrapping around him like the coils of a frigid snake.

"You're cold," Lyric murmured. She worked herself up to her feet, then called forth the Advent Glaive. The Seraph jabbed her weapon into the ground right behind him, giving the boy something solid to use as support.

He tilted his head to take a look at his arm—sliced open, horribly bruised, and still seeping with blood.

So little as talking took effort than he could ever imagine, but before he managed, Lyric spoke again. "Easy. It feels like you're all burned out."

The girl struck her fingers along the ground next to him. It caused sparks break away from each run. Crackling hisses and sizzling followed the formation of a lace of pure, cyan lightning strung between her hands. "Bite down on your coat."

"W-what—?" He stammered, sending his gaze back to her.

"Bite down. On the sleeve of your coat."

While the demand sounded absurd, the intensity in her radiant glare was clear. With that in mind, he used his free arm to pull off that side of his coat, then worked the sleeve up to his mouth. The Miscreant rolled and twisted the sleeve until it could sustain the pressure of his jaws.

"I'm so sorry, Kyoya..." She brought the controlled laser over to his wrecked arm, and in an instant, the boy's eyes ran wide. His teeth locked down even harder on the cloth while she set to work.

The raw, searing electricity scorched his arm and ripped into the softened area around the gash. Tears formed and rolled freely down his cheeks, with the Miscreant practically screaming through his makeshift gag.

Even being as gentle as she could, her instrument was just too extreme. It tore across his open wound and left charred skin in the wake of the rolling beam. She guided it across the last curve of the gash, then finally broke the thunderous cauterizer apart.

Kyoya let off rapid, intense breaths while the last of his burned skin began to cool. He relieved the tension in his jaws and threw his head back to rest.

The Miscreant used his free hand to wipe his eyes and cheeks. At the very least, he could finally move his other arm again.

"...And you wonder why I want to stick around."

"Not as much, anymore." Lyric sat back down next to him. Her gentle breaths suggested that she'd already recovered enough to handle the both of them. "We'll need to have Alex tend to that once we get back. I cut off the bleeding, but if we don't get some actual recovery magic on you soon, it's gonna get yucky."

He acknowledged her statement with a gentle nod. Further silence ensued as the scene around them embraced normality. At long last, ambiance returned to the wilderness and restored morale en masse. Still, though, the lack of strength to so much as move inspired another round of great regret.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

However, one part of this eluded him more effectively than the rest.

"I can barely move, but... I don't know if I've ever been so comfortable...—"

Being so pitifully weak should've driven him to a tearful lament. Yet here he was, resolute still.

He thought back to the moments of watched Lyric continue to fight with virtually zero mobility. It took the sight of her being brutalized just for him to break free of a control spell.

That alone served as a revelation that even if he could rival the Seraph's power, he couldn't possibly match her resolve.

After her display of unyielding courage in the face of such a threat, he was left to reflect—left to wonder if he really could even hope for a chance in the world she planned to confront.

All of the thoughts tore apart his pride, but the fact remained that something about it was comforting. Wearing this overwhelming weakness, the faults so wistfully highlighted in the wake of this struggle, had revealed something completely different to him.

It was a recognition of comradery—shared strife, validated by vulnerability in its purest form.

Up until this point, it was gritted teeth and clenched fists, through and through. Yet, here he sat, sapped of energy, only allowed to sit upright by the support and approval of the one he'd come to call his partner.

Even after taking as brutal of an onslaught as she had, Lyric remained. Alone and proud she stood; an unshakable force that absolutely would not allow either of them to fall any further.

There was a humbling shame that accompanied his soul in this moment.

The Seraph cut through their silence after a while of mutual thought. "You know we're gonna have a lot to talk about when we get back, right?"

He opened his mouth to speak, but a rasped, empty husk of a word was all that found its way out. The Miscreant persevered, though, eventually breaking through his fatigue.

"Yeah."

Inch-by-inch, Lyric shifted to her side, taking careful measure to prevent him from falling over until they sat shoulder-to-shoulder. They faced the beach from where they sat, at last able to fulfill the conditions of their agreement outside the Galleon.

"I come out here when I've got a lot on my mind... Suffice to say, there's a little more than a lot, now—I was hoping to show you this without nearly getting assassinated, and everything."

"You and I both... I'm a little surprised you aren't more worried about making me tell you what that was about, though."

Lyric's eyes closing was followed by a light sigh, after which she addressed the comment.

"Believe me, I'm fighting a lot of it: I'd just rather we had a chance to appreciate what we came for. You deserve it, whether or not you think so."

His better judgement disagreed entirely.

"You had some kind of poison running through you, and all I had going against me was a flimsy control spell... but you kept getting up, while I just stood there. Don't tell me I deserve something—"

"Shut up, dude."

"...What?"

"I said shut up, you dunce."

She pulled her knees in and stared onward. "Don't forget that you snapped out of it. When I was on the ground, watching you go ballistic just because she put me on the ropes..."

Lyric lowered her stare to just in front of them. "I couldn't even land a hit, but there you were, doing what you do..." She shrunk back towards the glaive with the end of that admission. A tender gale swirled around them and kicked up fallen leaves.

It was bittersweet, the revelation that he wasn't the only one ridden with guilt over their encounter.

However, a familiar amber shine soon found her eyes. "...but, the more I watched you fight, it felt so redeeming, seeing that I had somebody there who would have my back... After all, that's the ideology of Hope."

Kyoya rested with that.

What he'd been guided to view as weakness, as inability, she was able to reform into a might that could only be achieved in the company of another. Now, he was warmed by it, soothed in the fact that Lyric found so much purpose in what he would once have denounced.