Ismael had pulled a knife and inserted it in his forehead. At first, becausenof latent, passive trauma; then, he understood it. Anaïs had called Ruin and Piper to see for themselves the potential victory of Ismael.
"Anaïs, I have a feeling that...all this time, I had the answer, but couldn't quite reach out to it. It's inside. The way out, the key to kill Helios. It's here, I've noticed it before. I've fought him too many times to not know how to kill him."
"Then jiggle it in your brain. You can die billions."
"I'm not sure I want to feel pain anymore."
"Of course you do", Anaïs replies, forcing the blade into his skull.
Ismael asked for a red marker to write with contrast on the wall that now was entirely comprised of his own deaths. He saw the numbers and with his left hand, moved the knife into his brain to stimulate the memory part. With his right hand, he was drawing a red line, like a labyrinth.
"It's close. It wasn't this way. It wasn't this, specifically. More like...this. It's like remembering a word you haven't used in ages. A technical word. Of a precise lexical field. I almost have it."
"Ismael, you can die and retry! Stop torturing yourself like that, it won't help!"
"Of course it will. If I die, the numbers change, and my whole equation is lost."
"Are you any close?" She whispered, worried.
"Yes. Very."
Ismael suddenly stopped, rendered immobile like a statue.
"Did you get something?"
"I know. I can kill him now. I'll write it in case my memory fails me again."
He grabbed Genova's head, passed his hands in her hair, waking her up from a deep slumber.
"One last time. I have it this time."
She slowly turned to the wall, to indicate how many times he thought he did.
"I know, I know. But I've got it this time, I remember."
"Kill him, Ismael. Kill him."
"I will."
Anaïs takes the simple sheet of paper and reads Ismael's final strategy.
"What does it say, Ana?"
"It says I was right. Right to believe in him. I tortured him for so long, forcing him to go back sometimes hundreds of times a day. And he found it. He found a way to get us rid of this monster, forever."
"Well, where is he? I can usually see him when he leaves the den."
A noise made him turn around at a speed that would decimate a normal person's neck. In this moment he fell for the illusion. The rays of sunlight shining against his black and white jacket, the wind blowing silently. A cold breeze in the calm of the green and lit up forest.
"Where is he? They all gave up, knowing I'm the strongest thing in this world."
A bullet pierced his skull, making him lose his balance for a second. He looked towards the source of the shot, couldn't see anything. Faint steps approached but Helios couldn't determine the origin nor the exact placement.
"You're not immortal, Helios. Your ego just took over. We could have been a nice family, but...who cares. You're dying today."
"Why can't I see anything?"
"When I sacrificed myself to destroy your head, my Sin took my memory, my ability to remember. To remember that I could control your senses, now. As well as your heartbeat. Pretty cool, right? But not enough for a Nephilim. Not enough for you. At the end of the day, your Nephilim blood is about ten percent of your entire blood stream quantity in your body. You adapted and used it to perfect your humanity. Admirable, but not something that will keep you alive forever. Right now, your sight is gone, and when I talk, you hear me kind of everywhere. For me, it would have been temporary, bur for you, it marks the end. The X marks the spot. You die here and today."
"You couldn't even notice that you had control over me this whole time?"
"Magic comes at a cost. Here, you use it, you forget. And even then, this wouldn't be enough, so I thought, maybe align with Theigon. Not by talking, but by creating an opening. He saw you started to show some real basic human difficulties. To see, hear and breathe. He shot you, I responded. It was a conversation, but since you fight alone, you could not possibly know. It's easy when you're insane. What's really crazy is that I had you in a checkmate this whole time and didn't know. I had won and kept playing."
"You had faith in a companion?"
"A viper. It's utterly insane that you've lived probably centuries in this place and you couldn't see a snake staring at you this whole time. I was not the only sniper in the Cardinals, but everyone else giving up on killing you was the final blow, for ypu to only focus on me and nothing, no one else."
"You know I'm going to try again, right?"
"Of course. Once last time."
"All right. Your dad is going to teach you an important lesson about survival and being humble as a man. I want you to take notes."
"I will."
Helios jumped in the right direction, and with a bit of regret and compassion for the man who killed him billions of times, he said, without screaming, "In the name of Yael, I hereby burn my sin and sacrifice Helios, his five senses, his brain and his heart, to the Dragon God."
Despite the astonishing, sharp sound of the explosion, not a single tree nor leaf was burned. Only a young man who had killed his father remained. When Anaïs, Ruin, Piper and the residents of the Structure arrived at the scene, they saw a man with long blond hair, smoking a cigarette he had found inside of his black and white jacket, staring at the sky.
"Ismael, is that you?"
Ismael turned around, manly tears flowing from his eyes, yet no additional facial expresssion.