Arylos looked out across the war-torn Sentoraya from the window of a ruined shop as the snow of ice and ash continued to fall like a ceaseless rain. It filled him with a deep pain as the darkened sky cast shadows across the dead city, filling the air once more with a haunting silence as the soldiers and volunteers left for the sanctuary of the mountains. The search was over; those who were now found alive after the fight were considered dead. Anyone who continued the search would join them in a few months' time as the poisonous air killed them from the inside out. As he looked out across the wasteland, he could feel the faint sting of the distant radiation bite his skin. It was faint, weak enough that Iris couldn’t feel it, but he was still aware of it, and it was enough to awaken a deep fear in him.

“We shouldn’t stay here long,” Arylos said aloud as he looked down at his arm, the deep black scar running along his forearm now burning from exposure with the sickness.

“We’re not far now; I’m not turning back yet,” Iris said as she came up beside Arylos and gazed out across the ruined city. “I left Helion back there, and we need to see what happened to Rikio and Subaya.”

“If they’re not in the camps with us, then there’s no point in searching for them,” Arylos said in a soft growl.

“Can you really be okay with that?” Iris asked in a stern voice as she wrapped her arm around Arylos’s back. “What if they’re still alive out there. Don’t we owe it to them to offer what help we can?”

“Even if all we can do is bury them?” Arylos asked in an angered tone as he clenched his fist.

Iris sighed and leaned her head against Arylos’s shoulder. “If you didn’t help me, I might have ended up bleeding out in the woods. Sure, I wouldn’t want to die, but I wouldn’t want to be left out there and forgotten. I wouldn’t want to be tossed in a lake after some guy was finished with me.”

Arylos softened up a little bit as he gripped his spear with both hands to keep himself steady. “You’re worried about Myrra, the Arkin from Torasu.”

Iris sighed as she rubbed her head against Arylos’s bicep, uncomfortable memories coming back to her. “I could have ended up just like here, honey. If you didn’t stop Yokubo, who knows what could have happened. Maybe I could have ended up just like Myrra.”

Arylos carefully pulled Iris closed and kissed her scalp, offering what little comfort he could provide. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he assured softly.

“Something already has,” Iris said softly while pushing away from Arylos, wiping her eyes out of the instinct of crying. “You said it yourself; my lifespan has been cut in half. What more is some more time out there if it means finding closure, if not for them then for us.”

Arylos lowered his head as he reached out for Iris’s hand, holding her hand tight and yet gingerly as the strength in his arm failed him. “I should have told you to stay away,” he said in a soft shameful growl.

Iris chuckled softly and lifted Arylos’s chin up to look back at her. “I made my choice a long time ago, not just yesterday when I chased you into the snow. You already died on me once; I’m not about to lose you again.”

Arylos nodded slowly and reluctantly, prompting a proud smile from Iris as she turned her attention back outside. “We’re not far now, so let’s go,” she said as she pulled Arylos gently along back towards a hole in the shop’s wall. The two of them gingerly stepped over the crumbly threshold and back out into the street as Arylos’s skin began to sting as if a cold breeze was biting him, only he knew it wasn’t the cold. As the two continued forward, Arylos continued to look back towards the corpse of the Eikon far off in the horizon and wondered just how far the radiation could spread.

“We better move quickly; it’s still strong here,” Arylos said sternly as he quickened his limping pace, using his spear to keep balance only so he could maintain speed.

“Enough to kill us?” Iris asked as she slowly sped up to a fast walk.

“Not for a few years, but we shouldn’t stay around here,” Arylos said as he matched Iris’s pace as they ran down a familiar street; its cobblestone roads crumbling under their feet as they ran past leveled houses. “We’re almost there; hopefully there’s enough left to hide in,” Arylos continued with panting breaths, feeling the pain rack his crumbling body.

“Worst case scenario, there’s the basement,” Iris said as she steered down another street, coming upon a familiar neighborhood. “Was our house third from the main road?”

“Fourth,” Arylos said as he stopped and stared at a destroyed building, fourth down from the main road. Arylos recognized the path he installed himself, the stone and wooden walls, the ruined rocking chair he made for Iris now crushed under the awning. Arylos watched the skeleton of his house as its pillars barely stuck out from the snow. Their rooms were nothing but a ruined mess, resting in a bed of wooden and stone refuse.

The house wasn’t just destroyed, it was demolished.

Arylos took ginger steps forward as his jaw hung. He felt a pain in him that he used to not recognize, but now he could feel it as a human and understood it. The house that he called home, where he made his memories, where the impossible magic of love took its hold in him. He felt the need to cry, to howl, to roar, and yet he couldn’t make himself make a sound; the pain and rage within him hurt him so deeply that he couldn’t even bring himself to call for vengeance.

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“Our home,” Iris whispered softly as she walked up next to Arylos, voicing the lamentation that he couldn’t bring himself to let out. She slowly approached the steps, gingerly stepping over crushed beams as she stepped into what was once their foyer. Within the ruins, she could see the ruined fragments of her bed and the burnt corpses of her stuffed animals. She looked around through the ruins and came next to the ruined spire of the staircase, resting her hand against the splintered and burnt wood. She turned around and frantically looked around as she began to break her mind free of her sadness. “Helion?” she called out as she continued looking around.

Arylos slowly approached the foyer as Iris continued looking around, moving deeper into the ruin while calling out the sentient sword’s name. Arylos took a turn and recognized the stone fireplace, a part of him wondering if the torotsu was underneath the collapsed roof. He turned around and went deeper into the ruin, gingerly climbing over the splintered beams and shattered glass. As he walked towards the back of the house, he recognized the library from the scorched parchment that was scattered everywhere. Arylos gently knelt down and reached for the various pages, many with Titanic writing swirling around them like dancing elves as the writing broke up along the torn pages.

As Arylos sifted through the ash and parchment, he found a small blue and gold charm, damaged and stained black. His hand shook as he gently held the charm close as tears involuntarily came to him. His tears slowly broke out into gentle crying as he held the charm to his chest, cradling it gently as memories of the life he lost came to him like a torrential flood. Slowly, a burning pain in his left arm took his attention from the charm and he used it to pull himself back to reality. As he looked down at his arm, he saw the black cracks in his skin begin to spread and his skin turn pale and begin to flake like dry shale. The horror shook the sadness from Arylos as he realized that they had been exposed too long.

Arylos took the charm and jumped up, looking around for Iris and saw her kneeling down and digging in the snow. “IRIS! GET THE FUCK INSIDE!” Arylos shouted at the top of his lungs. As soon as Iris turned her attention towards him, Arylos felt the joints in his knees pop loudly as they gave out, sending the Titan into the snow and ash. Arylos struggled back up as he saw his skin continue to crack as the stinging pain he had ignored became a clawing agony that dug into his flesh like knives. Arylos tightened his grip on the charm, letting go of the spear as he tried to push himself back up. As he tried bringing himself up, Arylos came to his side, setting a sword’s scabbard down in the snow and began to pull the groaning Titan up as black blood began to ooze from the cracks forming in his skin.

“What’s happening to you?” Iris asked, panicking as she rushed to stop the bleeding.

Arylos took deep breaths as the muscles in his throat burned in agony. “Too…much…” was all he could get out as blood poured from his mouth.

Iris frantically looked around for any solution as her eyes locked onto the staircase once more and she recognized a door that was all but collapsed inwards and blocked by rubble. She reached for the scabbard and pulled Helion out from it, bathing her in a deep blue light as lightning danced across her skin and began to turn her hair silver and her eyes blue. Once the sword was out, she howled loudly and pointed the tip of the sword at the door as the lightning built into deep blue flames that erupted from the sword with a mighty force, knocking the rubble aside and blowing a hole into the staircase.

Without warning, she grabbed Arylos and dragged him into the doorway and down the stairs as the Titan continued to bleed out. Once he was at the bottom of the stairs in the basement, Iris made a slashing motion with her sword as a blast of lightning and fire erupted, striking the stairway above and bringing the ruined staircase down on the doorway, sealing the two of them in.

With the doorway sealed, Iris turned her attention back towards Arylos who began to cough violently as he corrected himself. She panicked while using her blue flames to light the basement against the crushing darkness. Before she asked, Arylos raised his hand indicating that he was fine.

“What happened to you?” Iris asked softly, still panicking from seeing Arylos reduced to a decomposing mess.

Arylos groaned as he lifted himself up to rest his back against the stone wall, taking deep breaths as he tried to heave air into his collapsing lungs. “We’ve been…outside…for too long,” he wheezed out as blood began to pool around him.

Iris looked down and saw the dark cracks running up Arylos’s arms and followed the cracks as they continued across Arylos’s body. She saw that as his chest moved so he could breath, blood poured out of cracks in his chest that stained his clothes. Iris gently rested her hand on Arylos’s chest, feeling the sound of him wheezing rumble in her hand. “What can I do?” she asked softly, wondering if Arylos would be fine as the slow realization that he won’t came to her.

Arylos let out a sickly laugh as his fingers twitched, gently tightening his grip on his old charm. He slowly shook his head and he gave her a soft smile, accepting the imminent death of his body. He groaned as he leaned his head back, bathing in Iris’s blue light as he wondered how much time he would have left.

All the while, Iris continued shaking her head, not believing that she was out of options. “No!” she shouted as she reached for something in her pocket. As she took her hand out, Arylos felt surprised to see his old dreamcatcher in her hand. “I won’t lose you again,” she said angrily as she frantically pulled one of the stone-like feathers off of it and handed it to Arylos. “These are your feathers. You said it yourself, they have a lot of magic and power in them. Tell me that you can use this to repair yourself.”

Arylos looked at the feather as the red glow under the stoney surface contrasted with the blue light of the Templarian hybrid. He looked back up at Iris and shook his head. “It is…only temporary…” he said in a soft breath.

“I don’t care!” Iris shouted while coming closer to Arylos and putting the feather in his hand, closing his fingers around it. “You gave me this relic of your people, but you are the gift that I wanted. I don’t care if it makes you last another second, I will have you stay with me.”

Arylos glanced at the feather and looked back up at Iris, weighing the risks, but he already knew them. He already knew not only what would happen, but he knew it was the course he wanted to take. It would buy him days, maybe weeks at most, but she was right; days are better than nothing. He tightened his grip on the feather, feeling the sharp stone chew into his weak skin. Before Iris could react, the feather cracked and broke open as red and black flames consumed Arylos’s hand as an orange light shone from under his skin and lit up his tattoos. Arylos groaned as the flames continued to grow as their heat welled up in his throat and behind his eyes as the flames grew within him like a violent inferno. Arylos watched as the cracks in his skin shone a bright orange and runes began to glow along them as his mind went blank.

Until he lost himself, adrift in a sunless sea as his body fell silent.