“To think that you of all people would come to me for medical help,” Thoth scoffed to a seated Arylos while he bandaged the Titan’s broken and bleeding hand. “Of all people, of all things; I never thought I’d live to see the day,” Thoth continued while shaking his head.

“You might as well get used to it then; I don’t think this is the first time I’ll have to come to you,” Arylos said with a soft voice as he watched the Templarian bandage his hand.

“No thank you, I’d rather you not continuously hurt yourself,” Thoth said while tearing off the roll and tying a small knot to keep the bandage in place. “Speaking of, are you going to finally tell me what happened to your hand?”

Arylos eyed the Templarian with his otherworldly burning eyes before looking away, his silence saying enough. Thoth sighed and lifted Arylos’s hand to examine his work. “We’re all entitled to our secrets,” he said as he eyed the cracked skin up Arylos’s arm, leaving deep fissures in his skin that formed new tattoos in his skin. “These are new though; they’re not like the branded ones you have.”

Arylos looked back towards his arm as Thoth examined the Titanic runes. “That they are,” Arylos said simply.

“Oh come on, allow an old researcher his indulgence,” Thoth complained, wanting to know more about the otherworldly writing.

“They are for the Titans to read, and I’m the only one left,” Arylos said in a deep voice that held a hint of sadness.

“Then why did you make them?” Thoth asked, squeezing for any answer he could get.

“I didn’t,” Arylos remarked while he looked at the writing, reading the words that were branded into his skin.

“How is that possible?” Thoth asked in disbelief. However Arylos looked at the Templarian and simply shook his head, silencing any further questions Thoth might have until all he could do was sigh and gather his bag of bandages and tinctures. “I guess that’s another secret you’re entitled to,” he said with a sigh.

Arylos nodded and looked down at his hand and slowly clenched his fist, feeling the knuckles pop in and out of place as his splintered bones tried to realign. He then looked around at the small tent that made a makeshift medical room and felt the shame once more come to him that he could never shake. He held his staff firmly and with popping knees, he got up from the low cot and stepped away, leaving Thoth behind as he moved out into a large area of the caverns where other doctors and nurses scurried around, many with thick masks as they walked into certain tents that were darker and marked by a Kaiyumian word in red ink that didn’t help Arylos’s shame. As Arylos walked past, he saw some of the nurses collect bedding material that were covered in red and black stains.

He continued forward, looking down at his broken hand and the cracked markings around his wrist and forearm as he calculated how much time had passed since the attack. He shuddered as he realized that the timing fit and he had to force the thoughts out of his head. Out in the cold of his shattered mind, he could only feel the pain as it dug its claws into his back.

As he walked forward, he saw one similarly marked tent that no one had approached recently and Arylos stopped right before the slit in the tent. Even in the cavernous air, he could smell the stench of disease and rot, yet it was not death yet. With a heavy sigh, he tried to step away from the tent yet he couldn’t take his eyes off of it. For the first time in a while, his mind was empty and he even ignored the dull stinging of his injured hand. He could only hear the steady ticking of time in his head; joined by the blissful sound of silence.

“Arylos?” he heard a woman’s soft voice cut through the silence that brought him back to reality. He looked over almost excitedly and locked eyes with Iris, the warmth her brown eyes gave him was suddenly cold and harsh even though she wore concern on her face. He found himself conflicted before looking away, feeling an anger inside himself but this time for himself.

“Arylos, are you okay?” Iris asked, slowly approaching the Titan as he turned away from her. He shook his head as he resisted the urge to look at her as she came closer. Iris gingerly reached out but could not bring herself to touch Arylos as she wondered what to tell him, ultimately pulling her hand away again.

With a soft grunt, Arylos moved away from Iris and closer towards the tent and pushed through the folds to go inside with Iris following closely behind. As the Titan ducked under the low entrance, he locked eyes with a man laying on a cot with thick net drapes hanging from a beam above the cot. Yet inside the enclosed cot, Arylos could see the man’s yellow and red skin that slowly turned black in places and naked save for a loin cloth that covered his pelvis. Iris looked on and saw the blisters and burns and she had to cover her mouth as it looked like he had been dead for weeks and slowly decomposing. She saw areas of the man’s skin that had peeled away leaving exposed muscle tissue.

Yet the corpse gasped for air like a great weight rested on his chest.

“How is he alive?” Iris found herself instinctively asking Arylos as she covered her mouth.

“Acute radiation sickness; his body is decomposing while he’s still alive,” Arylos answered with a soft growling voice. “If you had gotten as close as I had, this would happen to you.”

“Then why isn’t it happening to you?” Iris asked softly while slowly approaching the wheezing man before Arylos grabbed her shoulder suddenly, silently telling her to keep her distance.

“Because this body is already dead,” Arylos answered as he pulled Iris away and stepped in front of her. He watched the man from behind the netting and shook his head and Iris could see tears roll down Arylos’s cheek. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Arylos said in a shuddering breath before turning away and walking towards the exit of the tent, walking out with Iris right behind him as he rubbed his eyes with his broken hand as it shook violently.

“Is there something we can do to help him?” Iris asked softly as she recollected herself.

“No, there is nothing we can do for him nor anyone else affected,” Arylos said as his voice shook. “Everything the Eikons touch will die and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“There has to be something; you’ve healed my wounds before,” Iris pushed forward while trying to find any answer that would work.

“Even if I can heal his wounds, they will only come back and kill him later,” Arylos said as a deep growl of irritation came to his voice.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“He’s right,” Thoth jumped in as he approached from behind carrying a box of tools. “There are even Templarian medicines that can ease his pain, but doing so requires applying oils and tinctures to his already burnt skin that will cause incredible agony. Then, if we subject him to that cruel and unusual punishment, the damage will manifest again after a few weeks.”

“So there’s nothing but to sit around until he dies?” Iris asked in frustration.

“There is something we can do, and thankfully our friend here volunteered,” Thoth said as he set his box to the side and opened it. Iris watched as Thoth took out a tool that seemed foreign to her and flipped a switch as a barrel slid open in the device. He then took out a small container filled with a glass phial that contained some kind of orange energy inside and put it into the barrel of the device. He then released a lever on the device and the barrel snapped closed and the device hummed to life and lit up with an orange and blue light before Thoth lifted a switch on the device.

“He’s one of the few to agree to it and the first I’m helping,” Thoth continued while approaching Arylos with the device and handing it to him. “I figured you of all people would want to help. He was one of the scouts that were searching near Vortex’s body so you know what has to be done.”

Arylos growled and looked towards the device with burning eyes, examining the Templarian device before letting out a sigh and taking the device in his broken hand. He turned towards the tent and with a shaking sigh, he re-entered the tent with the device to his side. He sensed Iris coming behind him and turned around, blocking her from coming in.

“Stay out here until I’m done,” Arylos instructed in a low voice that carried sadness.

“He’s right; you won’t want to be in there,” Thoth added while resting a hand on Iris’s shoulder before she could say anything.

Arylos nodded towards Thoth and closed the folds of the tent to keep Iris out before turning back towards the dying man in the cot. Slowly, Arylos approached the cot and pulled away the net curtain standing off to the side of the dying man’s body until he could feel the stinging of the radiation coming off of him as it tore at Arylos’s own cells. He watched the man, examining the exposed muscles of his face where the skin had torn away as the bizarre appearance reminded Arylos of the undead.

The man gasped as he slowly turned his head towards Arylos and watched him with slowly moving eyes where the white flesh had turned yellow and black. “Who…are you?” the man asked in a raspy voice.

Arylos took a deep breath as he kept the device to his side. “Arylos,” he answered as he tried to keep his voice stable.

The man looked at Arylos before his eyes widened and a smile slowly came to him as his rubbery skin crinkled and tore. “The hero,” he whispered with awe.

“No, no,” Arylos said while looking down and shaking his head. He looked back up at the man as his lips quivered, unable to contain the tears he was fighting against. “I’m anything but that.”

“Yet you saved us,” the man said slowly while taking heaving breaths.

Arylos took a shuddered breath as he tried to steel his nerves. He then flipped a switch on the device and it hummed to life once more with a high-pitch whine and Arylos could feel energy pulse inside it. “I’m so sorry, and nothing I say will make it better,” he said as his hand holding onto the device began to shake. “May I at least have your name so I can commit you to memory?” he asked softly.

The man smiled once more as he wheezed for air. “Only if you tell me what ails you,” the man said slowly while twitching his fingers, gesturing for Arylos to come closer.

—

“Kujou Kagasue, one of the scouts of the initial search parties,” Thoth told Iris while collecting a board of paperwork from the tent and reading over it. “Received deep radiation burns followed by lethargy when he was taken in. When his latency period passed, he began to cough black blood. He didn’t wear a mask at the time so the ash got into his lungs and burnt his lungs from the inside.”

“That’s possible?” Iris asked in shock as she watched Thoth read through the papers.

“Imagine inhaling smoldering embers from a fire pit; that’s almost exactly what he went through,” Thoth explained while removing the papers while taking out an ink stamp and stamping various pages with his seal. “And that’s just his immediate symptoms. His radiation sickness eroded away a lot of his skin and his organs have started shutting down. Realistically, the poor bastard had maybe a few more days before he ultimately succumbed.”

Iris thought to herself for a moment before finally working up the courage to ask. “I was exposed too; is that what will happen to me?”

“It depends on the level of exposure, but if you’re not rotting in a bed right now like Kujou, then no; that won’t happen to you,” Thoth said while getting the papers in order and setting them to the side before turning his attention to Iris. “You’re probably already in your latent period which means once it kicks in for you, it will be lethargy, coughing blood, fatigue and nausea, followed by an illness based on which organs begin to fail first as your body mutates and dies. It will be painful, yes, but not as painful as Kujou if that’s any comfort.”

Iris lowered her head as she rubbed her hands together. “And there’s no cure, right?”

“No, only relieving some of the symptoms until the body dies,” Thoth said while shaking his head. “It even affects Templarians. Radiation sickness like this can cause damage that prevents us from reincarnating, or if we do it limits how many times we can do it before we show mutations. Realistically, if I had radiation sickness, I wouldn’t reincarnate again; the risk would be too high to make it worth it.”

“Aren’t you and people like Bellona and Moviron putting yourself at risk though?” Iris asked, wondering if her Templarian blood could help her.

“In a way; our bodies can handle it better but to an extent,” Thoth explained with a sigh. “Our bodies are already equipped to tear ourselves apart and start from scratch so the damage of radiation sickness doesn’t hit us as hard, but it still takes its toll eventually.”

Iris nodded and looked towards the tent ahead. A part of her began to debate telling Thoth what Bellona told her; that her sickness was already starting to show. She wondered if Thoth would know of a way to help her, but she could already tell that based on what he was saying, there was no help for her. She couldn’t help but wonder what she could tell Arylos when the day came, if she could even tell him.

BANG

A sudden and sharp boom cut through the air from the tent and Iris could see a flash of light come from inside. She rushed forward but Thoth grabbed her arm before she could go inside. “Trust me, you won’t want to go inside,” he said softly, trying not to scare her.

“Why not?” Iris asked while trying to break free from Thoth. Before she could get him to let go, she saw Arylos walk out of the tent with his head hung low and the device down by his side. She looked at him and she could see pain on his face as he fought back against tears that made the edges of his eyes red. She watched him slowly lift the device in his hand and examine it closely, deep in thought as he admired the machinery.

“I only loaded it with one charge,” Thoth explained cryptically, catching Arylos’s attention while letting go of Iris.

Arylos looked back down at the device and looked back to Thoth and approached him, setting the device down next to him. “Of course you would,” he said with a scoff as he turned away.

“Arylos? What happened?” she asked as she slowly approached Arylos.

Arylos looked at her and she could tell there was a burning anger just behind his eyes that he struggled to contain. “I helped,” he said in a deep growl before moving away from Iris and walking away, not giving her a chance to keep up.

Iris stammered as she looked between Thoth and the distant Arylos before turning around and rushing into the tent against Thoth’s instructions. As she walked in, she saw Kujou in the bed but this time the tent was silent with his wheezing breath vacant. She slowly approached the net curtains and saw Kujou’s face and gasped once she saw a hole in his face and fresh blood splattered on the wall and pillow behind his head. She heard Thoth come up beside her and let out a sigh as he examined what happened.

“What happened?” Iris asked softly as she tried to put the pieces together.

“As Arylos said; he helped,” Thoth explained while rubbing the back of his neck. “When you’re in that much pain and so close to death yet so far, all you can do is pray that some merciful god will come to you and end it all as painlessly as possible.”