"Phew!" Yarne cried as he wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his arm. "Another day, another battle successfully avoided!" He proudly placed his hands onto his hips. "Those bandits looked like a pretty nasty bunch! It was a good thing I got out of there before I could become a casualty of war! Wouldn't want to get my entire species extinct over something as small as this skirmish, am I right?"

He then noticed a couple of Shepherds running frantically past him. He frowned as he curiously wondered what all of the sudden fuss was about. After all, the battle was over, right? They had won, hadn't they? "H-Hey!" Yarne called, cupping a hand around his mouth as he did to better resonate his voice get the Shepherds' attention. "What's going on?!"

"It's Ananias!" one of the Shepherds quickly replied. "He's been hurt!"

Yarne's eyes widened as he let out a small and horrified gasp. "Wait, what?" he asked incredulously.

The Shepherd quickly nodded. "Yes! The front lines suffered a heavy assault! There were many casualties, but Ananias seemed to have gotten the worst of it! We need to take him to a healer, and fast!"

Yarne's mouth hung agape in guilty disbelief. "Oh gods, what have I done?" he murmured. He then used his superior Taguel speed to run towards his gravely injured friend. "Ananias! Ananias!" He then let out a horrified gasp upon finding and finally bearing witness to the horrible consequences that his actions had caused his red-clad companion. "Oh gods! Ananias!"

He slipped past the numerous concerned Shepherds surrounding Ananias' tattered and blood-covered body and quickly knelt down to check up on him. "Ananias! Ananias! Speak to me, man!"

Ananias coughed up a bit of blood before letting out a long and painful groan and hoarsely and weakly muttering, "I'd rather not."

Yarne simply shook his head as he continued to study the terrible shape that Ananias was in. "W-What happened?!"

Ananias simply shook his head as he grimaced in pain. "They had a good front line offensive," Ananias tried to explain. "It was a do or die formation. Everyone in the front lines was lucky to have even made it out alive."

"S-So you're going to be alright then?" Yarne asked hopefully, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Ananias peered down at his own body for a moment before breathing heavily and looking up at the sky above them. "I'm not gonna lie, Yarne. I don't feel too good." His eyelids slowly began to drop. "I think... I think I'm starting to get a little dizzy." He then tightly shut his eyes for a moment before blinking rapidly a bit, turning towards Yarne, and asking, "But what about you, huh? Are you alright?"

Yarne nodded. "Of course I'm alright! I... I...," Yarne lowered his head and shook it shamefully, "I barely had to fight at all."

Ananias nodded as he continued to breath heavily. "That's good," he said quietly. "At least we were able to help you preserve your species today, right?"

"Well, yeah, but I didn't exactly want this either!" Yarne cried, teary-eyed and sobbing a bit at the prospect of possibly sending his friend to his own death. "You've got to hang in there, man! The healers are going to be on their way any minute now!"

"No offense, Yarne, but I don't exactly feel like I'm going to last that long," Ananias muttered. "I think I lost a little too much blood." Ananias was slowly beginning to close his eyes.

Yarne's heart practically stopped out of panic. "Ananias?" He lightly shook on Ananias' shoulder. "Ananias?!"

"Yarne," Ananias weakly mumbled, "were you... satisfied... with your service?"

"Yes! Of course I was! Now stop talking! Your condition will only get worse otherwise!"

Ananias' face muscles slowly started to relax upon hearing everything Yarne had to say to him. "Thank... Yarne. I was finally able to be an Anna. At least, just this once."

Yarne violently shook his head. "No! I take it back! I'm not satisfied with my service! I'm not satisfied at all! Just because I convinced you to take the front lines for me doesn't mean I wanted you to die!" He let out a sniffle. "Live, damn it! Live!"

"Yarne!" one of the Shepherds cried. "The healers is here! You need to get off of him and let them do their job!"

"This is my fault!" Yarne muttered as he let the healers tend to Ananias' wounds. "This was all my fault!"

"Hey man," Yarne sheepishly greeted as he visited the heavily recuperating, but awake and alive Ananias at the Shepherd's makeshift infirmary, "how you holding up?"

Ananias looked himself over for a moment before simply shrugging his shoulders and truthfully answering, "Barely." He let out an exasperated sigh. "At the rate I'm healing, I won't be able to replace you again for the next battle."

Yarne held his hand up to silence him and shook his head. "That... won't be necessary."

Ananias' eyes widened in surprise. "Why not?"

Yarne heaved a heavy sigh as he placed his hands onto his hips and eyes Ananias' badly bandaged state once more, as if to reaffirm how seriously this was to himself one more time before saying what he felt needed to be done and said. "Let's just say that, as much as I want to preserve my species... I realize now that it wasn't worth it to lose a good friend over it. I'll be taking over your position at the front lines from now on. You stay where you usually were and stay safe, alright?"

Ananias let out a tiny gasp of surprise before nodding his head understanding. "If that's what you want."

Yarne smiled and nodded. "Yeah, that's what I truly want. I realize that now."

Ananias let out a small chuckle. "If you say so."


Author's Note: And with that, Yarne's supports have officially completed. Hope you all liked them! That only leaves Laurent and Brady left (in that order) before we can start with Fates supports! Until next time!