[ Strike it down, he says in a desperate voice, just moments after that awful yelp echoed through the cold air. Guilt surges acid through Flynn, threatens to deaden his limbs. Strike him down, he says, which means that he failed, that there is nothing of Nehan left in this creature, that Flynn couldn't work fast enough to find a way to bring him back. If he'd been more successful—better at research, or faster, if they'd subdued him earlier or had some clue—
But thinking of what-ifs will not help him here, not with visions beginning to swim in front of his eyes, possibilities that could never have been. Flynn swallows around his own heart and thinks about Yuri and Diluc and their bloody hands, taking the burden of the world onto their strong shoulders. He thinks about Yuri's quiet voice in the stable, the way he'd been afraid to take Flynn's hand, and he turns his blade to its lethal edge and nods, dizzy and afraid and pushing through it anyway. He has never taken a life in this way. Not a life he knows, certainly, but if there is nothing of Nehan there then they must protect the town, and so—
And so.
Strike he will, in concert with Ives and Diluc, with all the power in his limbs. There is no arte to support it: there is only muscle and shame and the awful knowledge that he is doing what he must, that he is following in Yuri's footsteps and Diluc's after him, and that this will likely change something in Flynn.
He turns his blade on the smallest head, because he is near it and because he can spare Ives and Diluc that burden, and he does it as cleanly as he possibly can. ]
no subject
[ Strike it down, he says in a desperate voice, just moments after that awful yelp echoed through the cold air. Guilt surges acid through Flynn, threatens to deaden his limbs. Strike him down, he says, which means that he failed, that there is nothing of Nehan left in this creature, that Flynn couldn't work fast enough to find a way to bring him back. If he'd been more successful—better at research, or faster, if they'd subdued him earlier or had some clue—
But thinking of what-ifs will not help him here, not with visions beginning to swim in front of his eyes, possibilities that could never have been. Flynn swallows around his own heart and thinks about Yuri and Diluc and their bloody hands, taking the burden of the world onto their strong shoulders. He thinks about Yuri's quiet voice in the stable, the way he'd been afraid to take Flynn's hand, and he turns his blade to its lethal edge and nods, dizzy and afraid and pushing through it anyway. He has never taken a life in this way. Not a life he knows, certainly, but if there is nothing of Nehan there then they must protect the town, and so—
And so.
Strike he will, in concert with Ives and Diluc, with all the power in his limbs. There is no arte to support it: there is only muscle and shame and the awful knowledge that he is doing what he must, that he is following in Yuri's footsteps and Diluc's after him, and that this will likely change something in Flynn.
He turns his blade on the smallest head, because he is near it and because he can spare Ives and Diluc that burden, and he does it as cleanly as he possibly can. ]