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[Sieghart opens his mouth to return the greeting with a small wave when stardust assails them from above:]
In all the years you've fought monsters and demons alike, you have never seen so much blood.
The ashen smoke and stench of burning flesh assail your senses as you navigate the burning ruins that you once called your home. What was once a warm refuge attended by your brothers is now a hellish purgatory with their bodies strewn everywhere. Nary a one utters so much as a cry while the fire claims their limbs, burning all evidence of their once immortal existences away. Every step you take lands your feet in a puddle of their blood, welled in the cracks of the stone floor, and your gait grows increasingly desperate the farther in you go.
Hoping against hope for a response, you rattle off as many of their names as you can and shake the ones who are still relatively intact by their shoulders, ignoring how weak your voice sounds against the roaring of the flames.
You cough into an excoriated arm that was damaged by a collapsing pillar you passed earlier. The divine blood coursing through your body patches the excoriation until there's naught but a faint scar to indicate that it was ever there. Your wide-eyed gaze snaps to a pile of your brothers' unresponsive bodies. You don't understand. Why haven't they healed like you yet? Why won't they get up? Why won't they wake up?
Finally, your breath hitches when you come upon Graham, crumpled on the ground, with the fire raging all around him. Throwing yourself onto your knees, you gather his body in your arms and shield him from the scorching heat, only to find that his chest neither rises nor falls like all the rest.
"N-no!" Your vision blurs and voice cracks as you give him a despairing shake. "Get up! Wake up! Please!"
But Graham doesn't open his eyes. Your dearest friend, who saved your life with nothing but kindness in his eyes when he found you, a lonesome stranger on the verge of death, is gone. Everyone is gone; the fire is just meant to bury what's left of them. Now all that's left is you.
The unbearable pain that pricks your eyes, chokes your throat, and sears your skin falls to the wayside as you hold Graham's corpse close and wail in a terrible combination of grief and rage.
Who could've killed the Highlanders? The question rattles harshly in your mind, piercing the deafening howl of the flames. Whoever it was, you'll kill them. You'll tear them apart. You will get revenge.
If only you hadn't been so careless.
Your chest tightens. Although you scream yourself hoarse, it does nothing for the agony that splits your heart as you weep at once. You can't breathe. You don't think you can even live with yourself. The grief, the rage, the guilt—they hurt. They hurt so much that you think you may just go mad from it all.
This is your fault.
If only they had never saved you that day. If only you'd died right then and there, alone . . .
All of this is your fault.
It's your fault. Your fault. Your fault, yourfault,yourfaultyourfaultYOURFAULT—
In all the years you've fought monsters and demons alike, you have never seen so much blood.
The ashen smoke and stench of burning flesh assail your senses as you navigate the burning ruins that you once called your home. What was once a warm refuge attended by your brothers is now a hellish purgatory with their bodies strewn everywhere. Nary a one utters so much as a cry while the fire claims their limbs, burning all evidence of their once immortal existences away. Every step you take lands your feet in a puddle of their blood, welled in the cracks of the stone floor, and your gait grows increasingly desperate the farther in you go.
Hoping against hope for a response, you rattle off as many of their names as you can and shake the ones who are still relatively intact by their shoulders, ignoring how weak your voice sounds against the roaring of the flames.
You cough into an excoriated arm that was damaged by a collapsing pillar you passed earlier. The divine blood coursing through your body patches the excoriation until there's naught but a faint scar to indicate that it was ever there. Your wide-eyed gaze snaps to a pile of your brothers' unresponsive bodies. You don't understand. Why haven't they healed like you yet? Why won't they get up? Why won't they wake up?
Finally, your breath hitches when you come upon Graham, crumpled on the ground, with the fire raging all around him. Throwing yourself onto your knees, you gather his body in your arms and shield him from the scorching heat, only to find that his chest neither rises nor falls like all the rest.
"N-no!" Your vision blurs and voice cracks as you give him a despairing shake. "Get up! Wake up! Please!"
But Graham doesn't open his eyes. Your dearest friend, who saved your life with nothing but kindness in his eyes when he found you, a lonesome stranger on the verge of death, is gone. Everyone is gone; the fire is just meant to bury what's left of them. Now all that's left is you.
The unbearable pain that pricks your eyes, chokes your throat, and sears your skin falls to the wayside as you hold Graham's corpse close and wail in a terrible combination of grief and rage.
Who could've killed the Highlanders? The question rattles harshly in your mind, piercing the deafening howl of the flames. Whoever it was, you'll kill them. You'll tear them apart. You will get revenge.
If only you hadn't been so careless.
Your chest tightens. Although you scream yourself hoarse, it does nothing for the agony that splits your heart as you weep at once. You can't breathe. You don't think you can even live with yourself. The grief, the rage, the guilt—they hurt. They hurt so much that you think you may just go mad from it all.
This is your fault.
If only they had never saved you that day. If only you'd died right then and there, alone . . .
All of this is your fault.
It's your fault. Your fault. Your fault, yourfault,yourfaultyourfaultYOURFAULT—
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