Darius's horror was eclipsed by Amoroth's.
"No!" she screamed, struggling with considerable strength against Pride's grip on her elbow. He kept dragging her and his shadeborn away from the ward. Sara moved, but with hesitant, dumbfounded steps. He hadn't heard her breathe yet.
Balthazar was laughing again. The peals of his rejoicing frolicked among the blackened graves and took flight throughout the marshland. Though he remained partially veiled by the fog, the gore dripping from his upheld hand was clear. Cuxiel lay unmoving in the shadow of the tomb and its guardian angel.
"Who's next?" Envy called as he wiped Sloth blood upon the front of his ruined suit. He vanished into the Realm and reappeared at the ward's extremity. He swept his fingers upon his wounded shoulder and extended them toward the barrier.
Darius's heart was racing with sorrow and rage. He could feel its rampant beat echoed with Sara and in Amoroth, both women terrified and confused and so full of ire it poured from their eyes in veritable rivers.
Pride took Lust's hand and placed it upon Sara's wrist.
Her lavender eyes, narrowed in agitation, rose to meet his impassive gaze.
"Take her and go," he said in a voice lacking all inflection. "Do as I say, Kyra."
Amoroth wanted to deny him. He knew that. They'd always argued and fought and had never gotten along. But, this once, she didn't disagree with him. She looked at Darius with hate written upon her face, then looked away as her hand tightened upon his shadeborn. "Dammit!"
"No—Darius!"
Sara's thin, fragile fingers hooked themselves in the hem of Pride's shirt and pulled it taut. Darius freed them, one by one, and allowed his hand to linger upon hers before Amoroth jerked his shadeborn farther away.
Wordless, he met her furious, demanding gaze as Sara fought Amoroth's retreat.
He didn't want to see her die. King above, how he envied and cherished that inferno waging war inside her heart. That rage, that pride, that arrogance—her. It had always been her. He'd been a bleak, aimless monster until he felt her fire beckoning from that dark warehouse in Verweald.
Finding that raven-haired woman dying on the floor, he'd seen the mirror of his own defiance and vengeful thirst in her vivid cyan eyes.
Outside Verweald General, she'd stopped walking. She'd directed that blazing look of hers upon him, and had said, "Just do it. It's fine."
But it hadn't been fine, because the Sin of Pride had known then that he didn't want to be the one to douse her fire. He would have done anything to see it burn for just one more day.
So he promised her vengeance. A vengeance he knew, in his heart, he couldn't attain.
He didn't want to be a creature who sacrificed his purpose to escape his demise. He'd rather die knowing where he belonged.
"You know," came Balthier's jaunty call. He'd torn a passage through his ward and, together with Danyel, was walking through it. Darius detected a faint limp in Envy's left leg, and the barest trace of fatigue in his darkened eyes. "You could kill her, Amoroth!"
The Sin of Lust paused and tilted her ear toward Envy.
"She is my host, of course," Balthier explained as he came to a halt a few yards from Darius. He was having more difficulty breathing than he let on. "After she and Pride picked off the rest of the cult present for my contract's formation, my bond fell to her. Go on, Amoroth. Kill her. Flee. You may have enough time to get away before I'm returned to the Pit."
Amoroth hadn't moved, her hand still on Sara's wrist as the mortal girl fought to be liberated. Darius held his breath. He knew he'd kill Lust if she dared move toward Sara—but would he be swift enough?
The frozen rain still fell from the black sky above. The Sin of Lust turned just enough to glare at Envy with a single, watery eye. The vitric loathing emanating from her scowl was enough to shrink Danyel and send a shiver through Darius.
"Go fuck yourself."
She ran, forcing Sara to match her stride. Within moments, the fog swallowed their bodies whole and only the rapid patter of their feet on the road remained.
Balthier sucked air through his teeth in a displeased sound and began to move. Darius stepped to the middle of the road, blocking both Envy and Greed from pursuing the two women. Balthier smirked and adjusted his stance.
"Fine," he crooned. "You first."
He dashed forward.
Darius blocked Balthier's blow—but didn't retaliate. He swung around Envy, surprising him, and darted straight for Danyel. The younger Sin backpedaled and avoided death, but Darius fist collided with his chest with enough momentum to obliterate bones. Greed crumpled and rolled, screaming when Darius broke his leg with a single, downward thrust of his heel.
He vanished.
"Coward!" Balthier fumed, his claws singing through the rain and air as they swept toward Darius. Pride dodged, hopping on tired feet with his knees bent. "Useless, craven, coward!"
They hurtled into the Realm and spiraled across the moors. Balthier was slowing, drained from his conflict with Peroth—but Darius was equally overtaxed by his battle with Sethan. He slung blow after blow toward Balthazar to little effect.
He'd always considered the Sin of Envy to be a monster—a villain, an evil counterpart to himself and Cuxiel. But, as he fought his ancient enemy and his vitality flagged, Darius realized Balthazar wasn't a villain: he was a black hole. A cosmic anomaly, an event horizon. He consumed, devoured, and destroyed without bias, with impunity, and endured all that dared rise against him.
It was possible to reason with a villain. It was possible to eradicate a villain.
It wasn't possible to stop or reason with an event horizon.
Balthier's fist smashed into Darius's jaw, pulverizing bone and stunning the Sin of Pride. His second punch sent Darius crashing into the earth, his body bouncing and rolling in the wet brush. Tired and wounded as he was, Darius tried to rise and fight—but Envy landed atop him, howling his victory, and drove his knee in Darius's middle.
Envy's talons pierced flesh and muscle to curl about Pride's bones. Darius felt his ribs splinter below Balthier's persuasion, and the pain alighted through his nerves. His lungs filled with liquid, shortening his breath, as Pride struggled against the restraint.
In tearing into Darius's flesh, the other Sin further tore Pride's shirt. The flimsy, bloodstained fabric gave way and from its folds tumbled a single silver ampoule tied to a strap of leather looped about Darius's neck.
Balthier caught the ampoule in his other hand.
"How pathetic," he derided as his fingers tightened upon the fragile glass. "Your sentimentality disgusts me."
The ampoule creaked in Balthier's grip. Snarling, Pride used what strength he retained to twist and break Envy's wrist. The mana ampoule fell from his slack hand to the wet grass below.
White flakes of frost and sleet gathered upon the sodden mire around them, their growth expedited by the voracious expenditure of energy being perpetuated by the two Sins. The pure snow was tainted red by Pride's blood.
Agony tore through Darius's fury as Envy's hand plunged further into his chest, tearing through Sethan's shallower injury as his talons sought Pride's heart. Darius choked when Balthier's claws sliced through the soft tissue of the beating muscle, then jerked free.
"Good riddance," the Sin of Envy spat as he rose. He didn't linger. Darius had never mattered that much to him. He stumbled past Pride into the coming dawn and Darius didn't move. He couldn't.
The snow was so fragile, so cold. It clung to the Sin's wavering lashes in wet clumps. Darius's energy slipped from him and receded into the demanding pull of Balthier's hungry aura. He'd always imagined dying to be an agonizing affair, having toiled against it for so many eons, but death wasn't an unpleasant sensation. In fact, death felt warm and inviting, like being encompassed by small, familiar arms.
Darius wanted to fight against their hold, to demand life, but a voice whispered to him with entreating words that called the Sin out of the darkness and into the light. He stood upon death's cold porch, and the door had finally swung open to admit the ancient, bitter creature.
It's like...Darius thought as he embraced the warmth and crossed that threshold. His vision blackened, and his lips parted with his final breath."...going home."