Chapter Text
After 33.550.336 cycles, after witnessing the worst of the worst, having unfathomable quantities of blood on his hands and seeing the horrors, Phainon did the bravest thing once he realized Amphoreus had become a real world. Instead of mingling and celebrating with his fellow Chrysos Heirs and perhaps apologizing for killing them over and over again, Phainon simply decided to run away and hide.
From the looks of it, and for reasons he didn’t know nor cared about, Phainon had materialized later in the real world. Perhaps it was the influence of fusing with Iron Tomb, or perhaps it was simply because the Genius Society that had worked tirelessly to ensure Amphoreus became real were having long debates about whether or not Phainon was worthy of being “revived” or not. For some unknown reason, someone had decided that Phainon was worth saving.
So now here he was, in some abandoned building just outside of Okhema, cowering away like some criminal because he wouldn’t dare face the others. He sat on the very corner of the run-down building, hugging his knees to his chest and fighting consciousness. His wounds had been throbbing since he had arrived, the torn flesh of his back was clearly infected, leaking pus and soaking his already torn and dirty shirt.
Every breath scraped through Phainon’s throat like rusted metal.
The fever had worsened sometime during the night, or maybe several nights had passed already. He couldn’t tell anymore. The broken windows of the abandoned structure only showed him shifting shades of gray and orange, and his thoughts drifted in and out like a drowning man clawing for the surface. He didn’t know how long he had been there, a few hours? Days?
His back burned.
No, it rotted.
He could smell it now beneath the blood and dust. Infection. Sweet and sickening.
He pressed his forehead harder against his knees and bit down on his sleeve to silence the noise threatening to escape him. A groan. A cry. Something weak. Every time he shifted, the wounds from his torn off wings would scrape against the wood behind his back, causing another flood of agony to fill his mind.
Pathetic.
After all the things he had endured, after all the worlds he had destroyed with his own hands, this was what finally broke him; not the endless cycles, not killing his friends again and again until their deaths became muscle memory, not watching Amphoreus drown in despair over thirty-three million times.
A fever would be what finally took him out.
His vision blurred. The world swayed. Phainon blinked slowly, unfocused eyes tracing the warped floorboards beneath him. The fever dragged at his mind like chains through mud, heavy and relentless, and for one terrifying second he thought he heard footsteps outside.
He froze, silence followed. Only the howling of the wind slipping through shattered glass could be heard. His pulse hammered anyway.
They found you.
The thought came instinctively, viciously. It didn’t fill him with the relief he would have felt in any other circumstance, not with hope of perhaps being finally rescued. It filled him with fear, unease. Because if they found him, they would look at him, and they would feel pity. They would feel pity for their killer. They would see what remained.
The Hero of Amphoreus.
The Deliverer.
The butcher.
His fingers dug harder into the fabric around his knees until his hands trembled. He squeezed his eyes shut as the flashbacks haunted him again. He could still see them dying.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Hyacine screaming when he defeated her. The screams of pure anguish and pain would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Cipher trying desperately to run away from him, to escape, only to be constantly caught by Flame Reaver, always two steps ahead of her. The worst part was that he had enjoyed doing so. Phainon had come to enjoy toying with her, giving her the false sense that maybe she had managed to get away from him, only to be grabbed and brutally slammed against a wall.
The others screaming his name, cursing him, begging him.
And every single cycle ended the same way.
With Phainon standing alone in a dead world soaked in blood. And in every cycle, he would look around at the chaos and pain he had created before haunting another version of himself, rendering himself insane. Every time he was killed by another version of Phainon, he would feel the excruciating pain and anguish all over again, the realization that he was Flame Reaver, the horror of all the blood soaking his hands, the visions of countless killings.
A shudder crawled through him. His stomach twisted violently, bile burning his throat, but there was nothing left inside him to throw up. Just dry heaving and pain. “Stop…” he rasped weakly into his sleeve. The memories didn’t stop. Somewhere along those thirty-three million cycles, the deaths had stopped feeling real.
That had been the worst part.
Not the horror of driving his blade through his closest friends.
Not the guilt of realizing he was behind their demise.
It was the ease. At one point, the killings just became… ordinary, a routine he had to follow. He distanced himself emotionally from the people he was mercilessly slaughtering. It just became a hunt for the Coreflames, and that was it. His hands had eventually moved without hesitation, the way he learned exactly where to strike each of them to make it quick, the way he memorized their final expressions so well he could predict them before they happened.
Monster.
He was a monster.
His breathing hitched sharply.
No.
Worse, he had become a machine built for ending worlds.
And now Amphoreus was real.
Real skies. Real people. Real lives.
No reset.
No cycle.
No absolution through repetition.
If he faced them now, if he saw even one of the Chrysos Heirs standing alive before him Phainon didn’t think he could survive it.
The fever surged hotter.
His body lurched sideways before he could catch himself, shoulder slamming into the wall hard enough to burst sparks across his vision. A broken sound escaped his throat despite his efforts to suppress it. Pain exploded through his back. The infected wounds where his wings had once been felt molten now, flesh swollen and raw beneath ruined bandages that had long since fused to the skin. Fresh pus and blood seeped down his sides.
He could barely move his left arm anymore.
That was probably bad. A detached part of him almost laughed at the thought, perhaps this is what he deserved. After all the pain he had caused, why would he deserve anything else other than more pain? Did a part of him really hope that he would be welcomed with open arms? No, he wouldn’t. Anyone that would have seen him would’ve instantly screamed in terror and probably have him locked down somewhere, with no food or water until he reached his final resting place.
The thought should have terrified him.
Instead, it only made him tired.
Phainon let his head rest limply against the wall, breath shallow and uneven. The fever dragged him deeper with every passing minute, blurring the edges of reality until he could no longer tell whether the cold against his skin came from the wind or from death inching closer.
Maybe this was fine.
Maybe this was justice.
A weak laugh nearly escaped him at that. Justice. There had been no justice in the cycles, only necessity, only survival bought with oceans of blood. His eyelids fluttered shut.
A creak. It hadn’t been imagined this time. The sound of wood bending under weight echoed from somewhere below. Phainon’s eyes snapped open instantly, pushing himself further against the wall and not bothering about the way his back burned.
His body moved before thought could follow, instinct honed through millions upon millions of deaths taking control. His right hand twitched toward a weapon that no longer existed. Flame Reaver was gone. The motion sent agony ripping through his shoulder and back hard enough to make his vision blacken.
Footsteps, approaching him. Someone was inside the building. Panic seized him so violently his stomach twisted.
No.
No no no.
He tried to stand too quickly and nearly collapsed immediately. One knee buckled beneath him, and he caught himself against the wall with a sharp gasp. His body was too weak, too slow. Fever burned through his veins like molten lead.
The footsteps stopped.
Silence stretched.
Then a voice drifted through the ruined hallway. “…Phainon?”
His blood turned to ice. His breathing staggered. His mind supplied memories instantly, brutal and vivid.
The tiny second of betrayal on his eyes, his body collapsing when he blade tore out of his broken spine, the light fading from his eyes over and over and over again. Phainon felt bile claw up his throat. “Don’t,” he rasped immediately, voice cracking apart. “Don’t come closer.”
The hallway remained silent for a moment.
Then the footsteps resumed.
Panic exploded through him again.
“I said STOP!”
The shout tore itself from his throat raw and broken. He shoved himself backward despite the agony, dragging his ruined body further into the corner like a wounded animal trying to escape a predator. The figure emerged moments later through the doorway.
And the world stopped.
Mydeimos.
Alive.
Real.
Not a corpse. Not another hallucination painted by guilt and fever.
Alive.
For one horrible second, Phainon could only stare at him. The memories hit him all at once. His blood across his hands. The way he had challenged him. The sound he made when he struck him down. His chest caved inward. “No…” The word escaped him like a prayer. “No, you shouldn’t be here…”
Mydeimos froze upon seeing him. The reaction on his face wasn’t fear, that would have been easier to bear. No, what crossed his expression first was shock. Then horror. Not at him, at what remained of him. Phainon saw his eyes flick downward toward the infected ruin of his back, the blood-soaked bandages, the way his entire body trembled from exertion alone. His expression tightened sharply.
And somehow that hurt worse.
Pity.
He recoiled immediately.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
His voice came out jagged, trembling with something dangerously close to desperation.
“Don’t—” His breathing hitched violently. “Don’t do that.”
Mydeimos took another cautious step forward. “Phainon…”
“I told you not to come closer.”
“You’re dying.”
The bluntness of it almost made him laugh. Instead, he looked away. Shame filled every inch of his body, all the way from the marrow of his bones to the tips of his fingernails. There wasn’t a bigger feeling than shame and disgust at himself right now. “…Good.” he said, hugging his own arms tighter. He hissed at the action and looked down, there was another gash running across his chest that he hadn’t noticed before. Blood had already soaked through his shirt, the cloth starting to painfully stick itself into the open wound.
The silence afterward felt endless.
Then, quieter: “You don’t mean that.”
His jaw clenched hard enough to hurt.
Of course he would say that. Of course he would still look at him with that unbearable softness after everything he had done. At the end of the day, there hadn’t been a single cycle in which Mydei had stopped him. Every time they dueled, Mydei still told him to not hold back, to give the prince a “proper death”, calling him a coward for hesitating. He spat at Phainon in one of the cycles, telling him that if he respected him as a warrior, why was he holding back? Why would he deny the last prince of Castrum Kremnos an honourable death? Did he see him unworthy?
“I killed you.” His voice hollowed. “I killed all of you.”
Mydeimos said nothing.
“I remember every single one.”
The words began spilling out before he could stop them now, fever and exhaustion ripping apart whatever barriers remained inside him. “I remember how you sounded.” His breathing shook. “I remember how Cipher tried to run. I remember the exact look on each of your faces every time I—” His voice broke completely, he tried swallowing hard, but it did nothing to steady him. “At some point…” he whispered, horrified by the confession even now, “it stopped hurting.”
Another step toward him.
“I learned how to kill all of you faster. More efficiently.” His fingers dug into his arms hard enough to bruise. “I memorized it. I memorized all of it.”
“Phainon—”
“I enjoyed hunting Cipher sometimes.”
The admission dropped between them like a corpse. He wanted him to recoil, wanted him to finally understand what he had become. He wanted Mydei aware that, at one point, he had enjoyed the slaughter.
Monster.
But Mydeimos still didn’t move away and it terrified him more than hatred ever could. His breathing started to come apart entirely now, ragged and uneven as the fever surged hotter beneath his skin. The room tilted violently around him. “Why are you here?” he asked weakly. “Why would any of you want me alive after what I did?”
At that, something finally cracked across Mydei’s expression.
Not fear.
Not disgust.
Pain.
Real pain.
“Because,” he said softly, “you were suffering too.”
Phainon stared at him like he had spoken another language. The words simply did not fit inside his mind. “No,” he whispered immediately. How could he say that? Especially after what he had just confessed. Was he insane? Did Mydei really have that little self-respect now? What happened to the real Mydeimos he knew?
“Yes.”
“No.”
His voice sharpened suddenly, panic bleeding into it. “You don’t understand.”
Thirty-three million cycles.
Thirty-three million worlds drowned by his own hands.
Thirty-three million versions of himself driven insane.
There was no forgiveness for that.
No redemption.
No absolution.
“I became Flame Reaver willingly by the end,” he admitted quietly. “Do you understand that? I stopped fighting it.”
The confession hollowed him out.
He expected revulsion.
Expected silence.
Instead, Mydei knelt carefully in front of him despite the blood, despite the filth, despite him.
And gently, so gently it nearly shattered him, he reached toward his face. Phainon flinched violently, almost bumping his head against the wooden beam behind him. “You’re burning up,” he murmured, a cool hand feeling around his cheeks and forehead.
Phainon’s eyes stung suddenly.
“No,” he said again, weaker this time. “Don’t…”
Mydei’s hand paused but did not retreat.
“You came back alone,” he said quietly. “You hid yourself in a collapsing building while half-dead from infection.” His expression trembled faintly. “Does that sound like someone proud of what they did?”
Phainon’s throat tightened painfully. “I don’t deserve—”
“No,” Mydei interrupted softly. “Maybe you don’t think you do.”
His fingers finally brushed against his forehead properly.
Cool.
Gentle.
Real.
“And maybe none of us know what to do with all that pain yet,” he whispered. “But you don’t get to decide alone that your life no longer has value.”
Something inside him broke.
Completely.
A strangled sound escaped his throat before he could stop it. His entire body curled inward violently as years; millions of years of horror, guilt, exhaustion, and grief finally collapsed on top of him all at once. He covered his face with his trembling hand.
Suddenly, every ounce of strength he had left him all at once, and Phainon collapsed into Mydei’s arms, sobbing loudly while still clawing at his own arms, no doubt breaking skin and dirtying his shirt further.
Phainon couldn’t breathe.
The sobs tore through him violently, wracking his fevered body hard enough to reopen wounds that had barely begun clotting. Every inhale scraped raw against his lungs, every exhale broke apart into something humiliating and desperate against Mydei’s shoulder. He tried to pull away almost immediately out of instinct alone, hands pushing weakly at fabric and armor.
Mydei didn’t let him go. “It’s alright,” Mydei murmured quietly.
No it wasn’t.
Nothing was alright.
Phainon dug trembling fingers into his own forearms harder, nails breaking skin beneath torn gloves. “I can still hear it,” he choked out.
Mydei stilled slightly. Phainon barely noticed. His thoughts were unraveling now, fever and guilt dragging everything loose from where he’d buried it over millions of cycles.
“Your spine.”
The words came out broken.
“I still hear it every time.”
Mydei’s arms tightened around him by reflex.
Phainon laughed weakly then, something horrible and fractured. “You told me.” His voice shook violently. “You trusted me enough to tell me your weak spot.”
A memory surged forward with merciless clarity. Mydei standing across from him beneath a red sky. It had been right after coming back from Castrum Kremnos, right after seizing Nikador’s Coreglame. He had been smiling despite the pain of seeing his home in ruins. Laughing, even.
“If I ever succumb to madness, I want you to kill me, Deliverer.” Mydeimos had said suddenly.
Phainon had been momentarily taken aback, eyes widening in shock at the statement. “M-Mydei! That’s too much. I-I couldn’t possibly—”
“Listen to me, Deliverer,” a warm hand had cradled his, so gentle and so comforting. Phainon wished he had closed his fingers around it, wished he hadn’t allowed Mydei to pull away, but it had been just to get his attention. “If I ever turn my back on the Flame Chase, I want you to be the one to end me.”
Phainon had stared at him with teary eyes. How could he say that so casually? Alas, the determination and sheer trust in Mydei’s eyes made him nod his head. There wasn’t anything Mydei said that Phainon wouldn’t do, even if it was the most painful thing he would ever do.
“I want you to stab me in my 10th thoracic vertebrae,” the hand that had been holding Phainon lifted, guiding it to the spot on his lower back. Mydei allowed him to feel the spot, pressing against it gently. “That’s my weak spot, and the only way to kill me.”
And that had been all.
Like a fool.
Like someone who trusted him.
Phainon’s stomach twisted so hard he nearly retched again.
“I used it,” he whispered, the confession scraping his throat raw. “Every cycle after that, I used it.” His fingers curled tighter into Mydei’s clothing now instead of clawing himself apart. “I knew exactly how hard to drive the blade in.” His voice trembled uncontrollably. “Exactly what angle would shatter it fastest.”
Another flash.
Bone giving way beneath Flame Reaver.
The sound.
A wet crack followed by sudden collapse.
He remembered the way Mydei’s body always jerked when the vertebrae snapped. The way his legs stopped working instantly afterward. Sometimes he still tried to keep fighting anyway, dragging himself forward with his arms while blood filled his mouth. Phainon squeezed his eyes shut so hard tears forced themselves through anyway.
“You still looked relieved sometimes,” he whispered hoarsely. “Like you were glad it was me.”
Mydei inhaled slowly.
Phainon couldn’t stop talking now. “It got easier every time.” There it was again, the horrible truth he could never escape. “At first I hesitated.” His breathing stuttered. “The first few thousand times I couldn’t do it cleanly.” He sounded disgusted with himself. “But eventually I learned.” A pause. “I learned all of you.”
The fever made everything distant and strange around the edges. The ruined building swayed softly in his vision. He could feel Mydei’s heartbeat through the thin shirt beneath his cheek, steady and warm and real.
Real.
“I hate that part most,” Phainon admitted weakly. “Not that I killed you.” His voice cracked. “That I became good at it.”
Silence stretched afterward except for his uneven breathing. Then Mydei spoke quietly near his ear. Phainon’s body trembled violently again, though whether from fever or emotion he no longer knew. His skin felt unbearably hot now, sweat soaking through the remnants of his clothes despite the cold air slipping through the broken windows.
Mydei seemed to notice immediately. His hand moved carefully to the back of Phainon’s neck and froze. The infected flesh there radiated heat.
“... Titans, Phainon.”
Phainon barely heard him. The room was blurring again, spinning so fast he was starting to get dizzy. His thoughts drifted strangely, fragments overlapping each other.
Burning skies.
Blood-soaked hands.
Mydei collapsing again and again and again.
“I didn’t want you to see me like this,” he murmured faintly.
Mydei looked down at him immediately. “Phainon.”
“You should’ve hated me.” His eyes fluttered heavily. “Would’ve been easier.”
A sharp ache crossed Mydei’s expression. Instead of answering, he carefully reached for the filthy bandages hanging loose around Phainon’s torso. The moment fabric shifted against the ruined wounds on his back, Phainon gasped sharply through clenched teeth. The bandages were fused to infected flesh. Mydei swore under his breath.
“…How long have you been alone?” he whispered, still holding onto the bandages.
Phainon couldn’t answer properly.
Did time even mean anything anymore after thirty-three million repetitions?
“A while,” he muttered vaguely.
Mydei looked furious for a brief second. “You’re septic.”
Phainon blinked sluggishly and shrugged. “Probably.”
“You could die.”
Another weak laugh escaped him. “That keeps coming up.”
“Phainon.”
There was genuine fear in Mydei’s voice now. That realization pierced through the fever haze enough to make Phainon look at him properly again. He shouldn’t look like that, not over him. Mydei should stand up and leave Phainon there to succumb to his own injuries once and for all.
It’s what he deserved.
“…Sorry,” Phainon whispered automatically.
The apology nearly seemed to break something in Mydei. His jaw tightened sharply before he exhaled hard through his nose. “Stop apologizing.” he said, voice probably rougher than he intended.
Phainon’s eyelids drooped heavily. The warmth around him was becoming difficult to resist now. His body ached everywhere, exhaustion dragging at him so deeply it felt carved into his bones.
Mydei noticed immediately. “No,” he said quietly, adjusting his grip on him. “Stay awake.”
Phainon frowned faintly. “Tired.”
“I know.”
His voice sounded farther away already.
The fever pulsed hotter. His thoughts became sluggish and fragmented. Mydei’s hand brushed carefully through filthy pale hair, trying to keep him conscious. Desperation was starting to lace Mydei’s voice. Phainon swallowed thickly.
“Mydei…” His breathing hitched unevenly.
A tremor passed through him then, full-body and violent.
Mydei’s expression changed instantly.
“Phainon?”
No response.
Phainon’s eyes had lost focus again, pupils unfixed as fever dragged him somewhere far away. “Mydei…” he whispered deliriously.
“I’m here.”
“You trusted me.”
The devastation in his voice was unbearable.
Then suddenly his body went limp.
Completely.
Mydei’s stomach dropped.
“Phainon.”
No response.
The prince immediately grabbed his face carefully, checking for breath first.
Still breathing.
Shallow.
Far too shallow.
His skin was burning.
“Phainon!”
Nothing.
Panic hit hard and immediate now.
Mydei pulled him closer instinctively, one arm supporting the back he could no longer safely touch. Up close he could smell the infection clearly now beneath blood and sweat; rotting flesh, fever, sickness advanced far beyond what it should have been.
How long had he been hiding here alone like this?
How long had he been waiting to die?
Mydei clenched his jaw hard enough to hurt. “No,” he muttered fiercely, tightening his hold on the unconscious man. “No, you don’t get to disappear after all this.”
Phainon stirred weakly at the sound, brow twitching faintly in pain before going slack again.
Alive.
Barely.
Mydei swallowed hard and carefully pushed himself to his feet while keeping Phainon against his chest. The movement drew a broken sound from the unconscious man as the ruined remains of his back shifted. Mydei’s expression twisted.
Titans.
The wounds looked worse up close. Infected deep enough that red streaking disappeared beneath torn skin.
If he didn’t get help now.
No.
He would.
He had to.
Mydei adjusted his grip carefully beneath Phainon’s knees and shoulders, lifting him fully despite the blood soaking into his clothes. Phainon’s head lolled weakly against his shoulder, breathing ragged against his neck.
Small.
That realization struck unexpectedly.
Phainon had always seemed larger than life somehow. Impossible to move. Impossible to shake. But now he weighed almost nothing, as if the cycles had hollowed him out from the inside. Mydei looked down at him for one long moment before turning toward the doorway. Then, with Phainon unconscious in his arms and dawn beginning to creep faintly across the ruined horizon outside, Mydei carried him outside, where a few other Chrysos Heirs were scattered around the ruins looking for Phainon.
“HYACINE!”