Trying to Save my Favorite Character from His Tragic Fate

Chapter 161: Home

Kyrie's painful memories incessantly continue to spawn inside his mind. 

[I am sinking]

He surveys the arena around him, and there is no one. Everyone has gone into their positions to strike the witch. She is no longer sane. Her eyes are vacant and unfocused, as if she no longer sees anything from the actual world. She continues to scream from time to time like she is reliving something from the past.

Kyrie squints his eyes at the effect of using chaos energy. For a moment, he sympathizes with her because his heart is also rattled from meeting his father again, and he is still unable to recover completely. Tears finally appear from the witch's eyes as she commands those orbs to strike at the point of her finger. 

Kyrie takes a deep breath and holds it once he sustains the weight of impact from those orbs meeting the shield. His feet sink into the concrete of the ground, breaking it apart from the weight of shouldering all that orbs at the same time. His bones are churning, and his shoulders threatening to slip backward, surrendering to all the overwhelming pressure that simultaneously pressed onto him. 

[A few more seconds.]

The entire sky in his eyes gets slowly consumed by the darkness and closeness of the orbs. The flying figures towards the witch get slowly blurred out as the orbs condense.

[Now it is time to let go]

[Huh?]

Kyrie finds himself unable to move since his body is locked at every joint. The pressure that he is exerting to keep the orbs from crushing him to death makes him breathless. As if all the energy gets used to holding up the shield, he couldn't breathe properly. Kyrie panics for a couple of seconds, but he quickly restores his focus. He looks around the shield to see where it is sustaining less weight so that he could quickly shift to unlock his body. 

[There is no one around.]

His mind starts to fog along with his vision. 

[I-I can't breathe.]

[I]

[I can't breathe]

The shield cracks and the sound helps him snap back to reality. His lungs burn from the exhaustion, and the skin on his hands peel. Kyrie groans as he continues to squeeze every bit of energy.

[It's too overwhelming I can't hold it anymore]

Kyrie's vision turns white all of a sudden, and he sees the world tilting along with his body that gave up on him. 

[I]

[I lost?]

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"KYRIE!"

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"Kyrie."

Many voices calling for him resonate in his ears, and Kyrie quickly opens his eyes again. The tilting world suddenly stops tilting. Warmth pours into him, but this feeling is not only in his heart. He turns his head slowly to see the answer for the warmth around his waist and back, the gentle hold to his cold body, and the breath against his nape.

"Ian?" Kyrie quietly whispers because he is afraid he is wrong. He is afraid that who he is seeing is just an illusion.

"Don't shoulder everything yourself, idiot," Ian gently murmurs into his ears.

Kyrie's exhaling breath shakes. The shadow cast from the orbs suddenly disappears, and the sunlight penetrates through the shield, magnifying the brilliance of his surroundings. The sky has never looked so mesmerizing with its vibrant, clean blue. 

In Kyrie's eyes, the world showers in light as soon as Ian comes to view.

The shield breaks into pieces like shattered glass, and the wind sweeps the shattered pieces up into the air. As it flies higher, the pieces melt into nothingness.

Kyrie feels his shakiness from his core extending to the tips of his hair. He twists his body encased in Ian's arm so that he can face Ian properly. Kyrie cups Ian's face, and the touching of warm skin helps him realize that he is not hallucinating. Ian is truly in front of him. 

[Ian.]

With tears in his eyes, Kyrie closes them, letting the tears flow down. He draws Ian close, fitting his lips on the other. He doesn't mind his messy hair sticking to his tear-stained face. All he can think of is that he yearned so dearly the person he called home.

He missed Ian. He missed Ian to the extent that he could feel all his body throb in pain. 

[Yes, Kyrie He is truly here.]

Kyrie has to even confirm it to himself. What is he going to do now? He has fallen in love again. Is there a limit to how many times he will fall in love? 

Watching Kyrie's tears, Ian frowns in concern. Yet, his heart is glad, touched, warmed. 

"Welcome home," Kyrie brightly smiles, lifting the corners of his lips so widely that it feels a bit foreign since he hasn't been this happy for so long. 

Ian pulls Kyrie into his arms, squeezing Kyrie as if he wants Kyrie to become one with him. He buries his nose into Kyrie's shoulders, and the familiar smell and warmth overwhelm him.

"I am home."

He is now where he belongs. Ian has terribly missed Kyrie, and his obsession with watching the sky after going out of the gates has come to an end.

Ian notices Kyrie place his chin on the shoulder, and slowly Kyrie slumps into his arms, putting all the weight against his body. Ian perceives that something is amiss when Kyrie continues to turn limp. 

"Kyrie?"

Kyrie does not respond.

Ian feels a sudden tug in his heart and pulls Kyrie apart. Kyrie tilts back as if his body has no longer any strength to resist gravity. Ian quickly kneels while placing Kyrie's head back to rest on his shoulder. Blood strings from the corner of Kyrie's lips. 

Ian panics, cupping the cooling cheeks. He lifts his head to look for Imogen and soon finds her descending with Laurel by her side. Her sword emits black smoke that is evaporating from the blood. She whips her sword, sliding the blood off the sword, marking a streak of blood to the ground. The tattoos on her left arm slowly fade from the wrist to the tugged sleeve. 

"Imogen!"

The urgency of the voice brings everyone's attention. Laurel pales, watching Kyrie unconscious, so she quickly rushes to his side while bringing Imogen with her. Laurel panics as she searches for any fatal wound but finds none. 

"Why did he faint?" Laurel watches Ian search at Kyrie's body as panicked as she is.

Out of the three, Imogen observes Kyrie calmly and kneels next to Laurel. She reaches out to grab Kyrie's wrist but quickly gets stopped by Lin. Lin appears so suddenly that Imogen flinches. 

Lin reaches into the inner pocket of his coat and takes out a potion. When he plans to feed it to Kyrie, Ian pushes his hand away.

"Who are you?" Ian frowns at the elf who suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

Lin surveys Ian's uneasy face and smiles, "His father."

All three get shocked hearing Lin proclaiming to be Kyrie's father and looks at each other to see if one of them knew. 

Imogen studies the potion, "Stabilizer?" 

Lin nods, "My idiotic son has taken way too many mana stones even though he has been strictly warned not to."

He pours the potion into Kyrie's mouth, "This will do for the meantime He will be coming with me since I know best about mana poisoning, or else all his mana channels will burst."

Ian picks Kyrie up and quickly follows the elf through a portal. Imogen quickly frowns at the portal and watches the elf with suspicion in her eyes. Lin smirks at Imogen but decides to ignore her on the journey into his elven city. 

The elf silently ponders at Imogen's display of power. She has teleported all those orbs away into an unknown location in a blink of an eye, and with another blink, slew the witch in cold blood.