"Already? Can he see the future, at this point? That was not in the plan, what can we do?"
"Unfortunately for you all, I've replcaed every art of my humanity with ways to retaliate. Strategies are the only thing I've put in my brain. So the moment you entered the Structure, you essentially sealed your fate."
Ashnael struck first with all his might, wounding Helios as much as he could, piercing through the skin. Every physical contact inserted extreme pain in his now infected organism.
Ismael exploded his entire face, a blow so destructive that the smoke separated the two groups.
"Amphelise is not here! Ismael, where is she?"
"I don't know, Ashnael. I think she went to the battlefield."
The hooded Cardinal had ran into the center and was pushed way back by the weight of Amphelise's body thrown at him. And falling back on the hard floor, he realized the body was headless.
"She's already ressurected, don't worry. Keep going. You're doing amazing, Ashnael."
Ismael threw himself in eyes closed and took him to the ground, diving his war knife into his heart. Gathering his wits and will, he screamed at him "I SACRIFICE."
Once again, there was a burst, but not of his face but his heart. Helios still rose and sliced his throat, yet Ismael was still standing, pushing through with not a care in the world, took away the knife to apply the Brand of Yael onto him, his body, mind and soul now corrupted.
"We call this a victory, Helios!"
The military man kicked his neck, tearing everything apart in a devastating blow of fire. Ismael woke up on the circle, ready to fight back.
Genova caught him in her arms.
"It's happening. We're free wheeling this mission, we're going back and forth. He's close to dying. We did it."
In front of the tunnel, they both sat next to each other against the wall, Genova had her head on his shoulder and from the left side of the glassed walls of the Structure, the bright yellowish morning sun pierced through the growing trees. For over half an hour they remained as such.
"We should go back."
"Ismael, we died five hundred sixty-four times."
"We have to keep going."
"Just today."
"I don't really remember that, it's all vague."
"You've lost the notion of time, it seems."
"Yeah, maybe. I've lost my entire being to this hell."
"Let's make it a paradise, then. Just you and me."
"Everyone else?"
"They're calm, they're sleeping. The temperature today is insanely high."
"You know, Helios means sun."
"I knew that...I'm tired, Ismael. I feel like even in death I would be tired and sleepy. Exhausted in the afterlife."
"You wouldn't feel anything. You'd rest."
"No, I...how do you even do that?"
"What?"
"Hope. You keep your hopes up regardless if you're dead or not. It's scary."
"What else can I do? Despair? That would be embarassing. All I can do is push forward. Heaven is never back in your memories, it's always at the end of the line, and when you reach it, you can peacefully rest."
"Do you really believe that?"
"Absolutely not. Just tryna help."
"What are we, Ismael? Humans? Or..."
"Yes. We are. Nothing else. Well, I'm a Cardinal, now. But yes. You are. Say, I thought we were close to killing Helios, what happened?"
"Ismael, that was...three months ago."
The disbelief on his face was easily readable, Genova woke him up from his confusion.
"What are you saying? Genova, what the hell did you just say?"
"I said that was three months ago. It really was."
"So is he injured? Is he dying?"
"Ismael, I think we underestimated what a Nephilim can do. We really just come outside to die. No plan, no strategy, we just go outside and die."
"Anaïs?"
"I don't know. Probably somewhere back at the school, maybe. Ruin absolutely gave up, but something is holding her from dying."
They fell asleep next to each other, for days to come, when Ismael woke up he carried Genova to the couch and covered her of a full purple-ish black blanket and when he returned to the lobby before the tunnel, he crouched and held his head in his hands on the temples.
"Three fucking months? No, no, no. This has to be a joke. How long since we entered Perseus? Years? What the fuck do we do now? If trying out thousands of times each is not enough, where do we go? What is the next step? If we did try every possible thing, what can we do? Are we doomed to live here and millions of times?"
"Ismael, son of Helios. You wonder how many times you will die, look at the wall. All of your individual deaths are written here. You died four thousand times. Ashnael died eleven thousand times."
"How is Helios still alive?"
"A Neph-"
"Stop saying that! Stop it. Make it stop. I get it, we can't die, but neither can he. So do something, Anaïs."
"You don't understand. This is your fight."
"Give me billions of lives and come to the battlefield."
"You have to do this."
"Come with us."
"You have to do this alone. No one can go anymore."
"Theigon?"
"Not a sign."
"No advice at all, huh?"
"Die. Die billions of time and win."
I remember. I remember the bench, the sun radiating my skin in a scorching hot summer. My friends playing around while I evade in my memories or whatever it was. And Genova was there, staring at the sun.
"Wake up, Ismael. It's been five years. You have to win."
"I don't remember a single death anymore."
Anaïs had made an inside bench for the lobby, and when he was sitting on it, right above him was the amount of times he had died. The numbers were small, now. To let enough space on the wall to fill every death.
"Ismael. Go back to war."
"I can't even remember one single death. How will I defeat him?"
"I'm not the one fighting, you figure it out."
"What if I can't?"
"We'll write your total amount of deaths on the entire wall, it's not like anyone else is still fighting."
"How many times?"
"Go back to the battlefield, Ismael."
I remember it, I remember the bench. The heat, my friends, the happiness I felt at that moment of pure ignorance. If I had a choice, I would have decided to stay in Cressenie and live a life of slave. Not anything could make it up for what's beyond Helios. And I'll never kill him.
I don't remember anything , now. It's been too long. I think I got close, today.
Somebody kill me.