Yuan stared.
And stared. Until Mithos got fed up.
"For Origin's sake, is it truly that astounding?"
The covert Renegade leader tore his gaze away from empty eyes. "I was under the impression that you desired the Cruxis Crystal alone."
"And you would be correct." Mithos' lip curled. After all these years, the malevolence on that boyish face was still unnerving. "Then Kratos showed how desperate he was. You should have been present; it was quite the spectacle! Lloyd will prove effective collateral. Besides, as the son of that host body, I must confess that it would be interesting to see whether he can cultivate Kvar's Angelus Project further."
Millennia of schooling his expression before Mithos kept Yuan from sending all his hard work down the drain. This was not good.
At least Lloyd was still alive, as he had suspected. If he wasn't, Kratos might go off the deep end and who knew what would happen then. But with the boy like this, he would be averse to moving even a toe out of line. Yuan was not going to be able to persuade him to release Origin under these conditions. Neither would Sheena cooperate with him.
After four centuries of scheming, everything was moving so speedily. His old soul was barely able to keep up; fortunately, his body was perpetually youthful when dealing with hiccups such as these.
One step at a time. Retrieve the key crest from either Mithos or one of the Renegade bases. Free Lloyd. Lift the seal and obtain the Eternal Sword. Subdue Mithos. Easy.
He was not going to fail.
For Martel.
So, he forced a smile when Mithos draped himself over Lloyd. "Ah! Isn't this a family reunion? My teacher's son, who may as well be my nephew; and you and Kratos used to be as thick as thieves, brothers in all but blood!" A crazed light came into his eyes. "Yuan, my brother!"
His eyebrow twitched at that last quip. Dear beloved, when would this nightmare end?
Mithos' eyes changed.
"You know, I'm actually serious. If my sister had… If everything had gone as it should have, I think I would have been accepting of you as an older brother. Maybe even happy."
Yuan stared at him. His jaw refused to move.
"Well, that's all ruined now," Mithos said with a sardonic smile. But Yuan could see hints of the boy he had once known, lonely and regretful—though they were evaporating quickly.
"You are in a surprisingly good mood, considering that the Chosen escaped," he observed, wary.
"I get to spend time with my nephew," he giggled. "And they'll be back. Won't they?"
Yuan folded his arms in response.
"Although, they may take quite a while, since they will want to treat the Chosen first of all," Mithos continued. "Perhaps I should take matters into my own hands." He looked at Lloyd thoughtfully.
Yuan stifled a shudder and swept away, allowing his navy cape to flare out behind him. He ignored the quiet snicker behind him. With all this nonsense going on, he was allowed this much, surely. Kratos could have his infuriating indifference (though there wasn't much of that lately), Yuan his theatrics, and Mithos his… childishness.
The sight of bloodied chips strewn across the normally immaculate flooring stopped him in his tracks. He gawped at the smashed-in wall and then began to follow the crimson trail.
He found a purple-and-white lump in the corner.
"They got away."
Silence.
"Without Lloyd."
More silence. Kratos' back hunched further.
"How long are you going to mope around like this?"
No answer. Yuan was getting exasperated with him. "Pathetic. Won't even fight tooth and nail for your own flesh and blood." He pressed a palm to his eyes. "At this stage, I'm surprised that I expect any more of you than I do the dirt beneath my shoes. I can't believe I once called you my best friend. Best man at the wedding, my foot."
"Think what you will."
"I will," he snapped. "You're a coward."
Kratos rose almost lethargically. "If it saves Lloyd, so be it."
"Saves?" Yuan mocked. "If this is what it means to save him, then the meaning of the word must be significantly different from my understanding."
The man stiffened.
Yuan sighed sharply and fixed his eyes on the ceiling, his features blank. Perhaps it was time to take a different approach. Sensitively, like the man he used to be. Like the better man he was—like they all had been—in better times. When Martel still laughed and spread hope on the dust of her angelic wings. She was an angel, through and through, and the mana wings she had been granted through the Cruxis Crystal only cemented that.
"We all fell into depression when Martel died." He stopped for a moment. How was it, these long centuries later, that his throat still tightened at the mention of her wondrous name? Her eyes came to mind, as verdant as the earth she loved; her hair, green as the foliage of the flourishing Great Kharlan Tree. "It was like light itself had died, all hope for human and elven reconciliation snuffed out. We could feel our dreams crumbling to dust. And I—"
His throat closed up again. He swallowed and tried again. "And I thought I would die without her. So I understand how you felt."
"You don't."
Yuan's head snapped up. "How dare you!"
Kratos glared at him. "No, you don't. You were engaged, but you had not yet given yourselves to each other."
There were no tears in the man's eyes, but Yuan could feel the mana warping in grief, tortured interiorly and rippling all about him. And it was getting steadily stronger. "You didn't have a child, the proof of your love, and you didn't experience the terror of a parent watching their child fall to their death."
Kratos took a shuddering breath.
Yuan was shaking.
"You don't know what it is to be a father who failed."
He collapsed again.
Yuan might have exploded. His face was hot as Efreet's shrine, yet his hands were as cold as Celsius herself; his heart pounded as though Volt had electrified it. He could barely even muster a word. If he had been able to, he would have screamed profanities at him until all the angels in Welgaia curled up and died.
At least you married her.
At least she became yours and you became hers.
At least she bore you a child—one who's still alive, at that!
It took him much longer than usual to get himself under control. But finally, instead of hurling expletives and whatever else, he said in a low, carefully controlled voice, "Perhaps I don't. But you're failing him right now by doing nothing."
The only response Kratos gave was the clenching of a fist.
"I'm done here."
He had tried to give Kratos a chance. Another one, after he had botched it so spectacularly fourteen years ago. People could change. This Yuan knew very well. Yet Kratos would not.
Yuan should have known.
"Let me get this straight. Lloyd's exsphere is actually a Cruxis Crystal?!"
Sheena was aghast. Zelos leaned back against the bedroom wall, awaiting the inevitable clamour of voices.
"That makes a troubling amount of sense," mulled Regal.
"But… he's never… He couldn't even lift the sacred wood that Presea was carrying!" the brat insisted. Mortification yet bloomed in the boy at the memory.
"A valid point; I had attributed Presea and Colette's overwhelming strength to their Cruxis Crystals," said Professor Raine, "but I posit that Lloyd's has not yet fully developed."
His voluptuous hunny fell silent for a second before opening her mouth again. "He did feel… stronger than before, when Zelos and I fought him."
Heads turned toward Zelos for his input. It wasn't like he had that much more to add. Nevertheless, Zelos was never going to pass up a chance to throw in his two cents. A grin formed. "Yep. Faster, too. But no wings, you dig?"
Raine's lips were thin. "It will be difficult to track the rate of its growth. It may be exponential with his key crest confiscated."
"Which means that we must help him as soon as possible. I do not wish for anyone else to undergo what Colette and I did," Presea finished. Miss Angel flinched.
She was sitting on the bed, with everyone gathered around. It squeaked as she shifted. She had collapsed soon after their escape from Welgaia; Regal had transported her the rest of the way. The gruff dwarf had commenced his work on the rune crest the minute the mana fragment had been handed over.
"Are you feeling a bit better now?" Sheena asked softly.
She looked down at her intertwined fingers. "Yes."
Silence filled the room as Sheena pondered what to say.
"Colette," she tried, "you don't have to lie to us."
She glanced up, making a quizzical noise.
"You don't have to feel better for us. You don't have to hide anything. Okay?"
Colette began to shake. Her smile wobbled; her chin quivered. "But… everyone's done so much for me. The least I can do is be cheerful."
Zelos crept out of the room, sensing that he wasn't wanted. The others tagged along, save for Sheena, Colette, and the brat. They assembled downstairs and Regal began to fix lunch.
"So what now?" he said, blunt as ever. It was easier to focus on the next goal. He didn't want to think about how much it hurt.
Lloyd was gone because of him.
The Professor cupped her cheek, underlining her modest cheekbone. "One of two things: we either recover his key crest or craft him a new one. If we can find any spares, that would be ideal, but we did destroy all of the ranches."
"You mean you blew them up," the brat retorted.
Raine whacked her brother upside the head. He glared at her sourly.
"We do not know where his key crest is," Presea stated.
"That is a major setback," Raine acknowledged. "It could be anywhere on Derris-Kharlan for safekeeping. Pronyma or one of the seraphim could have it. I would wager the latter; Yggdrasill seems too invested in Lloyd and would want it kept close."
He had been there when Kratos had made that stupid offer. Zelos could have done something. Said something. Anything.
Zelos conceded that yes, he'd grown fond of the boy. It was hard not to. He was slow and impetuous, driven by instinct, yet acting with unconstrained optimism. Trusting to a fault.
Naïveté was both a blessing and a curse.
"We could ask Yuan if he knows. Or he could have some at his bases."
Prof nodded. "That would make our task much more straightforward. If he lacks the necessary intel, I propose that we simply have a new one constructed for him. It would be too cumbersome to rely on the first plan otherwise."
"Then we will need to have more inhibitor ore extracted," the little one said. Another venture into the Toize Valley Mine.
"Should be a simple enough matter. But can we afford the time taken to detour?"
"We have no choice. Altessa doesn't have any here, and last we visited Dirk his store had run out after we sent all the people from the Iselian ranch to him."
They lapsed into silence, leaving Zelos alone with his thoughts.
"Zelos? You have not spoken a word since the beginning of this discussion. Frankly, it's quite perturbing." Raine's eyes were narrowed. In concern? Hope flickered for but a moment.
"Don't you worry about me, my dear professor!" he exclaimed. She raised an eyebrow at him.
Just then, Mithos burst in with buckets full of water. "You're back!" he cried, beaming. "I saw the footprints outside. Where's Genis? Is Colette okay?"
"Hold your horses, kid," Zelos snorted. His face contorted into something resembling a sour lemon.
It sure was annoying to have the boss of Cruxis breathing down his neck all the time.
"Genis is upstairs with Colette," Raine told him. "They will be fine, physically speaking." Her shoulders slumped.
Mithos blinked. "Physically? Why? What do you mean?"
She grimaced.
"Lloyd was captured," Presea said plainly when it became clear that the Professor was not going to respond. The flawless way in which Mithos' expression rearranged itself gave Zelos the chills.
He was a pretty good actor. Almost as good as Zelos himself.
But it was enough for the others to trust Mithos, and not enough to trust Zelos.
Zelos woke to the grumble of his belly. It was pitch black aside from the weak beams of moonlight through the windowpane. He hadn't eaten enough at dinner; taking advantage of the break, he had wandered into the forest to report. He'd gotten back scarcely in time to swipe leftovers from guilt-laced faces.
Sheena's eyes had bored into his back until the tree line had blocked them.
The dull pounding he'd fallen asleep to kept going. For someone who slept so readily and snored so loudly, Lloyd seemed alarmingly well-adapted to pulling all-nighters for his projects.
Well, it was impossible to accuse the guy of not having enough grit.
He rolled out of bed, footsteps soundless on the wood. Genis snored away, mumbling barely below the threshold of his hearing. Regal, sitting in the shadows by the window, spared him a momentary glance.
"Can't sleep?" Zelos asked, careful to keep his voice low. Regal only smiled sadly.
"It's a beautiful night. Just like…"
He trailed off, eyes filled with the bright moon, and said no more.
Zelos exited with a two-fingered salute. In the next room, a mattress creaked under the shifting of a hunny's weight. There sure were a lot of people awake tonight. Too much brooding about the past. It made the air thick. Smothered hot crimson on wintry white.
He padded to the kitchen. A simple sandwich would do—exactly enough to tide him over until it was time to break the fast. Maybe a bit of shredded tuna if they had any.
Something moved along his vision, dulled by the darkness. "You okay?"
"Yeah," Zelos replied, a practised grin falling into place. "Could use a bite."
"Oh."
Zelos shook his head and chuckled. "Don't be like that. I said I wasn't hungry earlier, and now I am. Simple as that."
Lloyd tugged at his bangs, the slightest touch of maroon shimmering between brown in the uneasy light. An unusual tell for him. It was staggering, sometimes, how alike the two were and yet so different. He could always decipher what Lloyd was thinking—the boy wore his heart on his sleeve, yet Zelos could never gauge him.
Zelos changed the subject. "How's Presea's key crest coming along?"
Lloyd's face was caught between satisfaction and displeasure. "Almost finished. Altessa says we're going well. Just a few things to iron out…" He crossed his arms and tapped his exposed bicep absently. He had ditched his jacket sometime after supper. If Zelos didn't know himself to be such a handsome hunk, he'd be envious. "I think it'll be done before dawn; maybe I can catch a few hours to nap."
The redhead eyed him, but Lloyd did not notice. He didn't even look like he needed sleep. Zelos clapped a hand on his shoulder before moving past him for some grub. "It'll come out fine. Don't worry so much."
Lloyd's eyebrows rose in surprise before a smile tugged his lips upward. "Yeah." With that, he turned and headed back into the smithy. The clatter of metal resumed.
The kid was strong. Stronger than he was. No wonder everyone followed his lead.
From the moment they'd met, Zelos had been inclined to think him a fool. Not that the Chosen of Tethe'alla had a lot of room to talk, given his antics, given the façade he presented to the world. But a teenager, wet behind the ears, had declared war on Cruxis and had earlier been on the run from the Renegades (though now they were tiptoeing around a truce, which Zelos knew would be broken as soon as Yuan thought he could get his mitts on Lloyd). No way Zelos would throw his weight behind a group that had no chance at victory. It was amusing to watch them stumble around clueless. Though he did admit that they did a disturbingly good job at throwing spanners into the works.
And they'd wormed their way into his heart without his allowing it. When had that happened?
It was getting harder to sit on the fence.
The rune crest was complete.
"Good," said Zelos. Tabatha and Altessa were still monitoring her condition. "Those crystals didn't suit her angelic complexion, anyway."
Genis gave him a look that could curdle milk. "Really?"
"Oh, yeah! That shade of green was really not—"
"Zelos, leave it," the Professor cut in.
He sighed unhappily. Nobody around here could take a joke.
Sheena rolled her eyes. "Well, anyway, I'm glad Colette's resting now." She gave a small, sad smile. "Lloyd would have been over the moon."
Was she…?
Yes. She was.
Zelos should have known.
Swallowing the sudden lump in his throat, he piped up. "He will be! Once we get him back!"
He wasn't sure how much of it he was saying because he actually wanted Lloyd back to normal, laughing and saying a bunch of things he hadn't thought through, and how much he was saying merely to maintain the pretence of beingpart of the group.
Huh. Part of a group. Zelos had never thought of himself that way before. He'd always operated solo. A one-man show. Or army. He had been fine with that. He liked it that way. He had never imagined it would change.
There were a lot of things Zelos had experienced over the past few months that he had figured he never would. Being genuinely liked was one.
Really it was just Lloyd, wasn't it? Maybe Sheena. The others seemed to simply put up with him because Lloyd did.
But Sheena liked Lloyd, and to her, Zelos was just the annoying, shallow flirt who didn't know when to quit and who hit on her for the sake of it.
"Where's Mithos, anyway?" Sheena asked.
"He said he had to get something from Ozette," Genis replied, his forehead creased in worry. "I told him to let us accompany him, but he insisted we stay here with Colette…"
What was he up to tonight?
A sharp rap on the window diverted their attention. All eyes swivelled to the pane to catch a glimpse of blue.
Someone said, "Yuan."
Chairs scraped and shoes scuffed and shuffled as the companions made their way outside. As soon as they assembled, Genis took off like a mana cannon.
"Where's Lloyd? Where's his key crest? What's Yggdrasill planning and why Lloyd? What's the E—"
"Calm down," Yuan snapped, peeved. "If you want your questions answered, present them one at a time."
Genis scowled, but it was Regal who took over. "Do you know where Lloyd's key crest is being kept? Do you have it?"
Yuan flicked his hair over a shoulder. Raine's gaze followed the long, glistening strands involuntarily. A girl would kill to learn the secrets of his hair care.
"I don't have the key crest. Yggdrasill does. And he wouldn't tell me where it was." He frowned. "But from the sounds of it, it's probably somewhere on his person. Or maybe he's destroyed it and won't spill."
"Well, that puts a damper on things," said Zelos, stretching.
"We will have to make a new one, as discussed." Presea frowned. "It would be tough to take Lloyd's key crest from Yggdrasill himself. Unless you have spares?"
"I do. You will have to give me a day to have one fetched."
Regal looked at Yuan, his expression neutral. "What is he going to do with Lloyd?"
"For now? Nothing. He's happy just knowing that you know. Everything's under his control, as far as he's concerned." Yuan's brows furrowed briefly before relaxing as a small smirk took its place. "Which means we have time."
"Colette will want to rescue Lloyd," Presea reminded them.
"That's true, and we all want to," Sheena started. "There's no way we're not going back for Lloyd. But we're not equipped to take him back right now."
"I hate to admit it, but you're right," Genis interrupted. His fist was balled up; Raine rested a hand on his shoulder to placate him. "We don't have the resources right now. We need to make him a key crest. We have to break into Welgaia again while avoiding the big shots. And I'm pretty sure we still don't stand a chance against Kratos."
"Kratos won't stop you," interjected Yuan, much to everyone's bewilderment. Before someone could open their mouth and continue along that trajectory, he said, "Your group will look after the key crest. I will keep tabs on Lloyd and Cruxis."
"No, you won't."
Yuan spun on his heel, his swallow blade out in an instant. "Yggdrasill?!"
The leader of Cruxis stood a few metres away with a self-satisfied smile, yet anger writhed behind his eyes. "Yuan. I don't know if I should be surprised or angry with this betrayal. Disappointed? Though, it's really Martel you should be apologising to."
"This isn't what she wanted!" he averred. "None of this! If only we weren't so blind to it from the beginning!"
Yggdrasill's countenance twisted in fury. "What do you know of what my sister wanted? Nothing! I—"
"Please, give Lloyd back to us!"
The two seraphim turned to Colette, shocked that she had the nerve to disrupt their argument. The others stared, amazed that she had awakened already and had opened the front door without their realising.
Yggdrasill, recovering quickly, narrowed his eyes and stalked toward her. "Like I said earlier, a life for a life. Simple, no?"
"No!" yelled Sheena, stepping in front of Colette. Presea joined her, pointing her axe forward.
"What's going on?!" a gravelly voice barked.
Behind Yggdrasill, Altessa and Tabatha had appeared at the entrance to their house, too. He ignored them, keeping his gaze on the two women. His hand ignited.
"Do you know how many millennia I have been waiting for the perfect vessel? Don't keep me waiting. Don't get between me and my sister."
When neither budged, he thrust his hand forward, unleashing a huge fireball that sped towards them. They readied their guarding techniques, hoping it would be enough to quell the flames, but a stocky figure tackled them to the ground before they could perform them.
A scream of agony ripped through the air.
"Altessa!" Raine fell to her knees beside him, already weaving a healing spell. His hand came over to his side and came away warm and dark. Her magic lit up the dusk and dwindled just as quickly. It was happening all over again.
"My healing arts cannot even save one single life?"
"MASTER." Tabatha moved towards the dwarf, and Yggdrasill's eyes fell upon her. His fist began to glow a dazzling orange again.
Genis had been viewing the scene with quiet horror, but now he snapped his head up and glowered at Yggdrasill. "I hate you!" he shrieked again. "How could you do this to everyone! To… to Lloyd!"
Yggdrasill straightened, his face blanketed by the night. Finally, with a tone bleached of emotion, he said, "If you want him back, you know what to do. If you don't, well… I'll have the Chosen sooner or later. And Yuan—don't bother showing your face in Welgaia ever again."
A bright light encircled him, and when it ebbed, he had disappeared.
There was a musical instrument in the dust, unnoticed by all but one.
A/N: Constructive criticism is an artist's best friend.
