Based off the idea of what if the Barians retained remnants of their death wounds upon remembering their past lives.
Durbe can't explain why he could decipher the ruins of the hero, or why he woke up with mauve gashes cutting across his chest. It took a few minutes to convince Mizael that really, nobody had attacked me and he sits before the throne, trying to remember where they came from. When he runs his fingers across the lines, each one of them aches and he can recall pleading with someone, but their faces are blurry, and only the disappointment remains. His reflection taunts him with frailty, and he tries not to think about the ruins and everything that came with it.
They hardly ever see Vector, but when they finally catch sight of him mumbling to himself on one of the floating stones, there's a tremble in his voice and a thin, wide hole running straight through his abdomen. The hole has cracked the golden crest on his chest, and if Durbe craned his neck at the right angle he could see the reddish glint of the rocks on the other side. Vector looks at the deep gash and laughs, saying it doesn't hurt at all, and look, look what I can do, as he digs his claws into it and scratches at the inside until he bleeds. It's okay, it doesn't hurt at all, and he lets out a broken giggle before Mizael has to hold him back to stop him from tearing his chest open.
Alit returns shaking, and gnawing at his nails, responding to any questions they throw at him with a harsh growl. The only one to finally make him speak is Durbe, who simply says in that calm voice of his, "What did you see?" Alit blubbers for a bit, before he sees recognition in Durbe's eyes, and then he's clutching at his throat and chomping on his tongue, because he's a proud warrior of the Barian World, and fear has no place in a warrior's heart. Still, he can feel cold steel lingering on the back of his throat, and when he spots a thin line across his neck the next day, he has to choke back his tears.
Mizael still refuses to believe he was human, one of those pathetic lowly creatures whose sacks of flesh they have to don as a disguise. He is proud and will not fall for such accusations, even when beige indents start tearing through his flesh. They aren't too deep or too wide, but there are so many that Mizael can't even count them all. If he stares too long at one, it burns, as if trying to dig deeper into his body, and he rips his eyes away.
From deep inside his stomach, Gilag can hear the echoes of pon, pon as the little raccoon cries, unsure of whether to be happy or sad. He doesn't know where the memories came from, or why his armored skin is slowly melting away and charring black. There are slashes across his armor, and it makes him look weak, like he'd just stumbled out from an inferno, but paired with every thought of revulsion was one of acceptance. He had just been acting, of course, so it couldn't have been real.
As the leader, Durbe is the first to find out the truth, and as he stares at the dying landscape of their home, with one of the garnet spires falling in the distance, he thinks of his departed leaders, and of Kamishiro Ryoga and the boy's sister Rio dueling in the ruins, and wonders what sort of wounds they'll have marring their bodies when they finally remember their true forms.
For the sake of their world, they won't fall. Dying leaves far too many scars.