•Comatose•

•Chapter One•

One with greyed skin, arms and legs disproportionate compared to its body, while a set of gravely damaged horns lay beneath it.

The other...

My comrade.

Both of their bodies skewered on the jagged spears, an alarming amount of blood pooling under them both.

My heart raced as I finally broke out of the trance I'd found myself in, quick to move my feet. Each fast stride leading me closer to Arthur, who hung limply from the spikes like a puppet tangled in its strings.

A thick spike pierced through the thigh of his right leg, while the other hung limply, other smaller spikes spearing right through his lower and upper abdomen. One sliced a gash on the side of his chest deeply but not enough to expose bone. One in each shoulder and one cutting a gash into the juncture of his collarbone, nearest his left shoulder.

"A-...Aya." A low voice grumbles, and I shift to see Sylvie with one eye open, the other shut and crusted over in dried blood.

"Sylvie?! Hold on, I'm gonna get help." I hush her quickly as I summon a communication scroll from my dimension ring.

"Virion Eralith." My voice wavers as I say the commanders name until finally, his face appears in the scroll.

"General Aya, report." His tone is taunt and serious as his eyes narrow in on me with mild concern.

"The mission is completed. Olfred was a traitor and I eliminated him. I-I need you to send as many emitters and you possibly can." My voice wavers once more as my eyes shift up to look at the boy who I thought of as a younger brother.

"What happened?!" The urgency in his voice makes me flinch. I didn't even realize I was crying.

"I-it's Arthur. He dispatched and took on a high retainer along with his bond, they are both mortally wounded. I need emitters here, now!" My hands shook as my composure completely falters and falls away. My heart skipped several beats as Sylvie groans while slightly shifting.

I could hear the Commaders voice, along with others and the sound of footfall in the background as he turns his attention back to me.

"Listen Lance Aya, I need you to find your composure and calm yourself. Now is not the time to have a mental breakdown. Get Leywin and Sylvie to the nearest gate!" With that, the scroll starts to disintegrate in my hands as panic seizes my mind.

How the fuck am I supposed to move them?!

"I-I can...move. Aya, destroy that re-retainers core. I'll catch papa's body.." Sylvie whispers weakly as I snap myself out of my headspace. Nodding to her, I race over to the retainer, using mana to lift me away from the ground to hover over his body. My twin daggers manifests in my hands after I'd summoned them from my ring. Patiently, I waited for Sylvie to work her way into position, her large, draconic, clawed hand resting beside her papa, ready to catch him swiftly.

After she nods with narrowed eyes, I turn my attention to the retainer below me. Reinforcing my blades with mana, I instantly plunge both blades into his chest, caving in bone as I went with a grunt until I hit gold.

My blades dug deeper and deeper into his core, feeling it crack until it caved in, and a blast of blackened mana leaves it. I quickly move away, not taking any chances with getting hit with the blackened mana.

Suddenly, the forest of jagged spears start to crumble away into nothingness, and I look over to see Sylvie catch Arthur as gently as she could.

Rushing over immediately, I pull gauze from my ring, packing it into the gaping wound in his right thigh tightly, before wrapping more gauze around it. Quickly after, I tear a long piece of my shirt away and fasten it tightly just a few inches above his wound, stopping the blood from flowing too freely.

After wrapping the rest of his wounds as cleanly and tightly as I could, I picked him up bridal style from Sylvie's hand, taking to the air once more.

"Sylvie, can you move?" I asked quietly with tears brimming my eyes once again.

"Yeah, I'm right behind you." She whispered lowly as light envelopes her body. When the light dissipates, she's in her human form. Slowly, she takes to the air behind me with her hand clutching what remained of my shirt.

"If you feel like you're gonna pass out, just hop on my back, Syl."

"I-I'm not that weak. I'll make it."

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