"Shark?" Yuuma picked him up and cradled him in his lap. There was dust in Shark's hair, scratches on his face; blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and left dark, ominous blotches on his clothes. His eyes were clear though. Changed back from his stone Barian form, he felt too light in Yuuma's arms.

"Yuuma." Shark's voice was rough. He coughed. "You found me, huh?"

"I promised I would," Yuuma said. He wiped some of the blood and dirt off Shark's face with the hem of his vest. Around him, the landscape was wrecked, burn marks and craters everywhere. And there was no one else around, even though Don Thousand had said there were Barians fighting him, plural.

Shark started to cry then, silently, and Yuuma cried with him. His tears dropped down into Shark's face, rolling through the dust of battle and dripping down onto his neck. He took Shark's hand.

"It's okay," Yuuma said, even though he and Shark were the only ones left, and there was nothing okay about any of it. He wouldn't make Shark cry anymore. "We can go back now."

"Will you do something for me?"

"Anything."

Shark squeezed his hand. "Kill me."

"Shark!"

"If you kill me…the last of Don Thousand's power will leave this world." Shark closed his eyes, but there were still tears falling down his face. Yuuma clutched at his hand o hard it hurt; maybe if he just held on, Shark would forget he'd ever asked for anything so awful. "Everyone will come back to life."

"Will you?" Yuuma asked. Shark shook his head, and he grit his teeth as he did; even that small movement seemed to cause him pain.

"No." Shark managed a smile. "But you won't remember."

"What?"

"It'll be like I was never even born." Shark promised him, still giving him that tiny smile that had always been Yuuma's alone, and Yuuma's heart broke for him, because he had already lost everything. It would have been his right to rage and grieve and be comforted, and instead he was offering himself up.

"I don't want to." Yuuma whispered.

"Please. Yuuma." Shark tried to sit up, and he crumpled back down and Yuuma held him tighter, laced their fingers together, anchoring him to life for a little longer. "Just do it."

"But…"

Don't go, Yuuma thought. Don't leave me behind. Even if I forget you, it won't be the same. If I win and you die, then…what was the point of…

"Please?"

Yuuma's shoulders shook as he sobbed, great heaving sobs that made him feel like he would shatter into pieces. He let go of Shark's hand, laid it gently down on his stomach, and tugged the Key still around his neck, dead and cold, off.

"I'll make it quick," he promises, and he pressed the point of the Key against Shark's bare white throat with a trembling hand.

"I know." Shark opens his eyes. He is still smiling, and his eyes are bright blue, the only left in the grey and ruined world, it seems. "I believe in you, Yuuma."

There are words choking him, a thousand things that Yuuma wants to tell Shark before it's too late, but they tangle together and he cannot say a word. So he pushes down with the Key's sharp end, while Shark lies perfectly still in his arms, until the blood began to flow, until everything is red and he loses the blue of Shark's eyes, until the world starts to tremble.

He clings to Shark's body as the world falls apart.

"Is something wrong with him?" One of their classmates asks. Kotori shrugs as Yuuma stares off into the distance, eyes glazed over. Yuuma has these moods sometimes, at school or at the plaza or in the hospital; he'll get morose and look at nothing until it passes.

"He says there's something missing," Kotori says slowly. She looks again at Yuuma's face, at the tears he's hurriedly wiping away before they can fall. She wonders what exactly it is.

"Are you okay?" She asks once their classmate is gone. Kotori touches his shoulder.

Yuuma tugs at the Key around his neck as he answers.

"The blood won't come off," he says, and Kotori stares; there's no blood anywhere, and yet there must be: there is pain in Yuuma's eyes.