Messy, crimson stained white hair stuck to the mud-caked face of a boy whose face was almost as sharp as Arthur's. The constant smirk on his face was replaced by a worried frown and his eyes immediately stopped glowing.
"What are you doing here?" He asked quizzically, pulling my back to my feet.
However, his words seemed to enter one ear and escape out of the other.
"Where's Arthur?" I asked, getting a little uncomfortable.
"Oh yeah, he-" he looked back and then down the cliff. "-he's about to die."
The nonchalance in his voice made me double take on what he said.
"He what?"
"He's dying. Are you deaf or something?" He grumbled and then jumped off the cliff.
Wait, wait, wait.
Arthur? He's dying?
This has to be a joke, right?
Someone like Arthur can't be-
The denial of a thought where Arthur can be pushed into a dying spot became almost impossible as Michael jumped back up with Arthur, his arm flung around Michael's neck.
I didn't need sunlight or some major light source to tell what was wrong with him.
His entire body was bleeding. His hair was dishevelled, the neat curtains that were parted in the middle before he left now messy and sticking with blood to his face.
"Make way." Michael grunted as he dragged Arthur.
I was petrified in place. I couldn't move.
A gnawing sense of an icy claw gripping my heart made me shudder and broke the silent stillness that I was imprisoned in. I stole a glance back.
The back of Arthur's white shirt was stuck to his skin via a huge red blotch that covered almost the entirety of his back. And beyond that cut in fabric was his wound.
A sheen of golden aura was enveloping the deep gash, putting further emphasis on the moving, slimy, sticky thingy that stuck to his wound.
Creepy! What the hell is that?
Arthur slipped against the wall and then took a knife out. The knife turned squishy and then coiled like a ring around his index finger.
"Arthur…" I tried calling out for him, like I used to. However, the golden aura that made his features visible rendered me silent. His skin always had been pale, and pristine. To an extent that it made even girls around him in our school envious.
However, right now, in this moment, it was far from the one they envied.
He looked like a—God forbid—corpse.
His eyes were unfocused as he his head dizzily wobbled sideways before shaking and locking his pale eyes on me.
"I see you've gotten a change of clothes." He spoke through clenched teeth and a forced smile, his voice oddly meek.
He was never a boisterous person, however, the way he talked was enchanting. It was humble, yet it wasn't subservient to anyone. Defiance and humbleness were an odd mix; however, he wore that timber like a glove.
And exactly due to that, hearing him talk in such a powerless way made a tremour of pain go through my chest.
"Arthur…" was all I managed to reply with.
"Oh God, not this romance anime reunion. For fuck's sake, do something. If you can't then…" he paused for a quick second, "…I don't know, jump off the cliff and kill yourself!"
The urge to talk back to this brat welled up in me, but seeing Arthur in such a state drowned out the thought. Disregarding him, I crouched down.
"What happened to you?" I asked, trying to reach out for him. Placing my hand on his knee, I inched a little closer, hoping to touch his face.
It was a childish impulse, I knew, but even now I was having a hard time believing Arthur was in such a state.
As my hand inched closer, he jerked back, albeit subtly and my hand recoiled on instinct. His chest rose up, stayed like that for a while as he watched me with wide eyes, before slowly breathing out and looking down.
"I need your help." He spoke, his voice slightly quivering.
"Y-Yeah." As if tripping over their feet, my words came out much more jumbled than I had intended them to be, even though it was just a word. I shifted, removing my hand from his knee as painfully pulled himself and sat straight against the wall where I had taken rest after throwing my guts out.
Arthur turned on his side and started to unbutton his shirt. "I need you to remove the symbiote from my wound."
His words turned the gears in my mind, but they failed to make sense of anything.
"Symbiote? Like the black spiderman?"
"That's what I was thinking."
Surprisingly, for the first time, I could agree with this unbearable guy.
The world must be ending!
Realising it was not the time to brood over movies and references to them, I coughed awkwardly and mentally sent a note to myself to stay focused. Looking back at Arthur, he was exchanging a deadpan look between me and Michael, before raising his brows and shaking his head.
"Uh, as I was saying." He spoke after an uncomfortable pause. "The infection in my wounds. It's alive." He spoke through another strained breath.
I tried to get close to him, however, just like every time before, he shook his head and raised his hand.
"I don't know what he did—" he paused and then looked up at Michael, as if realising something, "—most likely a contractual vow with their God. Maybe… Its output was decreased in exchange for the flames to become alive. Might be more since its never a fair deal…"
"I don't understand." I managed to speak amidst the mumbo jumbo that was my mind. Thoughts and ideas of different natures tangled with each other, overlapping, branching, and soon enough I was not only miles away from the answer I searched for in his question, but I had totally lost track of the original thought. "But there are no flames."
"Intangible concept." Arthur's breath strained as he tossed his shirt over Michael. The shirt landed over his face.
However, much to my own surprise, he only inhaled sharply through his nose before slowly removing it and holding it in his hand.
"Flames burn you. The symbiote is burning my skin and everything on the inside." His index finger started to glow. Before I could make sense of the cryptic yet simplistic wording, he stabbed the Arcanum imbued finger in his back, over his shoulder.
A small spark of azure lightning cracked and then went inside, like a worm digging its way down, writhing its body along the way.
"The process will be slowed from the lightning." He then looked up at me. "Rest is up to you."
I stood there for a while, his words echoing inside my ears.
"But Arthur…" I was at a loss for words. "…I can't. I don't know how this whole symbiote thing works, or what even the physiology of it is about."
"Then brute… force it. I—we don't have much time. Since it is alive and is about to eat away at my organs, it's also connected to Ed. He'll find us as soon as he is in range."
Michael shifted and turned around. Without looking back, he spoke.
"I'll be on the lookout. Don't fuck it up, girl. You have one job."
Saying that he walked to the edge in a dramatic fashion and then jumped off.
I slowly turned around.
The night was bright, and the moon was right above our heads. It looked much larger, much closer than ours. And the light it casted was dull. Again, in a total contrast to ours. As if the sun that was illuminating it was unable to totally lighten it up.
Taking a determined step towards Arthur who was now laying on his stomach, I walked over to him.
As I sat beside him, I wasted no breath and started to use Arcanum.
I didn't have much knowledge about Arcanum. I mean, I did, but not as much as Arthur. Or perhaps anyone who was a member of this whole secret family Syndicates thing. My usage of Arcane Arts was very intrinsic. Based on intuition.
He said I had a talent for magic.
As I focused on Arthur's back and my magic illuminated his pale back, I was finally able to see.
While the skin on the back is typically thicker, and there is usually more subcutaneous fat and muscle tissues there, not allowing any visible vision of the network of veins, it was a much different case for Arthur.
A lot of branched veins that seemed to sprout from each other, like the roots of a seedling had turned black and were now closer to the skin, pulsing. As if alive.
I mean, blood flow makes it look alive. However, it was like totally charcoal black. As if his veins had been burned.
It must hurt.
A tremour went across my chest.
He must be in so much pain.
With my hand aglow, I slowly reached out for his back.
A searing hot, golden aura manifested only for a fleeting second before vanishing as Arthur immediately looked back. "Are you hurt?" The worry etched on his face made it look like he didn't have supposedly alive, alien, symbiotic flames inside him, eating away at his organs.
"I'm fine. Turn around and don't look back again." I reprimanded, keeping my timber sharp and castigating, but only to a reasonable extent.
"Hmm." He hummed in response and turned his head away.
His body was trembling and burning with high fever.
Or perhaps it was the flames.
He always had this subtle aversion to direct skin-to-skin touch.
I helped him a lot in his chores, however, over these past 2 years, I don't remember accidently touching him and him not panicking over it. Almost as if he has a phobia.
I have to do this. Quickly and efficiently. In a way that his condition is cured and I don't make him more uncomfortable than he already is.
I let out a deep breath and then pressed my Arcanum imbued hands with all my might against his back.
My Arcane Art—although I don't know much about it myself—has something to do with Sealing.
I can seal most of the things.
Rooms' locks, crack in cupboards, broken walls. Formation of a tangible dome to seal things inside of them. Broken bones, torn muscles. Dislocations. Separations.
And while I could only restore things, I could unseal as well.
Even though I can't do much as of now.
Arthur once said since I was too passive, I only unlocked the support category of the applications of my Arcane Arts.
But that wasn't exactly right.
Arthur always had this tendency to bring harm to himself. As I grew tired of him inflicting injuries on himself, I slowly, over the course of the past 2 years, unlocked multiple healing properties.
My technique's potency is directly proportional to my knowledge on the sealing and unsealing of the said object. If I want to correct a dislocated bone, I need to know about that joint. How it works. If it's broken, I need to know exactly how it's oriented and what its composition is.
While it sounds hard, it gets easier over time since you can just cram the details provided by modern medical knowledge. However, something like this was very intricate.
There are movies about such things, but these do not exist. There is no data or anything to go off of.
My hands pressed forcefully against his back and I closed my eyes, my fingers feeling as if they're sinking in a doughy amalgam of flesh brewing in flames. Almost as if it was losing its solid structure.
Decaying.
More and more Arcanum slipped from my primary node and a shaky gasp escaped me. I was a bit unnerved, however, I didn't let it to overpower me.
Like ushering students to fall in line during an assembly, I constricted the other pathways where any last bit of Arcanum could escape from and focused solely on pouring Arcanum into my hands. Reaching out for even the morsels, I reached out for them and poured them all into his back.
The white sheen of my Arcanum sparked and fizzled against the black-grey symbiote. It writhed and hissed, as if threatening me. I almost recoiled, but I reminded myself that if movies' logic applies, these can not attack me on their own. And I am sure Arthur won't allow it to take over as well.
Besides, the purpose of this was to disintegrate his organs.
The revision of my thoughts made my hair stand on their edge.
I remembered; Arthur can die. I have to hurry.
Filtering out the thoughts from my mind, I, once again, focused on the task at hand.