The pressure vanished first.

  Rami noticed it before anything else- the sudden wrongness of the air, like a hand lifted from her chest that she hadn't realized was there. Her breath caught, magic flaring instinctively, rippling outward unchecked.

  No resistance.

  Her eyes widened.

  "Paro's Authority..." she whispered.

  It was finally gone.

  She ran back toward the shaft entrance, she had a scuffle with the remaining magma-knights earlier and thankfully she had survived it.

  'They ran away for some reason...'

  Her eyes searched for his presence until-

  She found him.

  Rami skidded to a halt.

  For a heartbeat, her mind refused to assemble what she was seeing.

  Naro was on his knees near the entrance of the shaft, his sword was buried in the ground in front of him, his weight leaning on it like a crutch.

  His armor was half-melted, cracked open in places where you could see the blisters on his skin.

  And his left side...

  Her breath left her in a broken sound.

  "No," she said, already moving. "No, no, no-"

  She dropped beside him, hands hovering uselessly for half a second because she didn't know where it was safe to touch. Blood soaked the stone beneath him, steaming faintly.

  His arm... was gone.

  It wasn't cut it seemed, something pulled it by force.

  She knew who of course.

  Naro swayed.

  "Rami," he rasped, voice barely there. "You're... here."

  He smiled weakly. "I'm glad- OUUUCH"

  Her hands had slammed against his chest and shoulder as healing magic poured into him in a wild, panicked flood. Light crawled over burns, stitched ruptured flesh, forced torn vessels to close.

  Too fast.

  Naro gasped sharply, body jerking as pain spiked instead of fading.

  "I'm sorry ! I'm sorry !" Rami choked, pulling back just enough to regain control. Tears fell unchecked, sizzling as they hit the hot stone. "I can do this. I can— I can."

  She forced her breathing to slow.

  His body felt... different. Denser. Anchored in places it hadn't been before. The Authority clung to him like a second skeleton, holding things together that should have collapsed already.

  But she could tell it did not heal him at all.

  Rami adjusted and guided her magic instead of forcing it.

  She knit what could be knit, eased shock, calmed the frantic feedback tearing through his nerves.

  After a while, the bleeding slowed. His breathing steadied from ragged gasps into shallow, painful pulls.

  But the arm...

  She tried.

  Guardians, she tried.

  Magic poured into the ruined shoulder with no results. Her magic wasn't as strong as the Rune Of Life.

  A missing limb could not be healed.

  Her throat tightened painfully.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered, forehead pressing briefly against his uninjured side. "I can't... I can't fix that."

  Naro let out a small laugh.

  "Yeah," he murmured. "Figured."

  That broke her harder than if he'd screamed.

  His remaining hand stopped holding the sword and instead held her closer

  "Don't worry," he said in a tired but reassuring voice. "I have something planned for that anyways."

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Naro's gaze had turned to the shaft- or what was below it briefly, then looked at her.

  "Hey... Have I ever told you those scars make you look cool ?"

  Her hands clenched in his armor.

  "You idiot," she said, voice cracking, anger flaring sharp and helpless. "Do you really think it's the time to-"

  Her words collapsed into a sob.

  She felt it then— the way his body was holding itself upright through sheer refusal, the way every breath was borrowed time. The Authority wasn't sustaining him anymore.

  It was just delaying the fall.

  "Naro," she said urgently, magic shifting to stabilize rather than repair. "You have to lay down !-"

  His hand went to pat her head.

  "I'm okay," he said with closed eyes and a brighter but weak smile.

  Then his knees buckled.

  Rami caught him just in time, magic flaring instinctively to soften the impact as he collapsed against her.

  'Heavy... He's so heavy !'

  The moment she had him, the tension drained out of him completely, consciousness slipping as his body finally accepted that it didn't need to fight anymore.

  "Naro?" she whispered, shaking him lightly. "Hey, Naro, stay with me !"

  His head lolled against her shoulder, breath shallow but steady.

  "Oh, you just fell asleep." Rami exhaled deeply in relief.

  She held him there on the ruined stone floor, still making sure that the magic wrapped around him like a thin, trembling shield healed most of his wounds.

  The process would be slow however, as she saw that Naro didn't have her staff on him.

  She assumed it had been destroyed in their fights.

  Rami was quite fond of it.

  The Rune of Life that Spike carved on it had saved her life and Naro's multiple times on their journey.

  Not to mention her own mother had carved some runes on them, it was as if she was still close to Rami- despite being so far.

  Tears streaked down her face as the cave cooled around them.

  Her hands wrapped around Naro tighter.

  'At least I still have you. I know you won't die.'

  Her fiancée was a stubborn man after all, he would find a way to survive in any situation.

  The only thing that worried her was...

  She cast her gaze to his armless side.

  'How broken are you going to be after all this is over ?'

  She held him even tighter.

  "I don't want you to leave me," She finally admitted. "I want you to give up on this journey and stay with me in the village until everything's destroyed.'

  It was selfish, a small part of her that she had hidden quite well from him.

  But it was still small compared to the part of her that wanted her dying world to be saved.

  No matter what.

  At some point... She was tired too, tired of the everythings happening around her.

  Her eyes became heavier by the seconds until-

  Snore...

  They both slept in Paro's grave.

  ———————————————————————————

  In the morning, Naro had woken up earlier than her.

  The wounds did not hurt as much, well if there was any.

  Rami seemed to have kept her healing magic on him the whole night.

  He was worried about how low her magic reserves were but he was also very thankful.

  That being said...

  'She's really holding me tightly... But I have things to do here, sorry !'

  As much as he wanted to stay with her and sleep with her the whole day,Naro had multiple experiments in mind and so:

  'Slowly... And surely....'

  He crawled away from her grip— a difficult affair as she had two arms around him while he had only one.

  The thought still pained him.

  'Don't think about it ! You'll get a much better new one !'

  '...Hopefully.'

  As he finally managed to get out of her gorilla-like grip, Naro saw her stir.

  'Damnation !'

  Rami's hair was tousled, and almost grey from the ash, her twin braids were messy too.

  Her eyes screamed exhaustion yet they somehow seemed a bit lively.

  "Mmm... ? Where... Are you going," she groggily and poutily said, still half-asleep "come back..."

  The sight of it almost killed him on the spot.

  'AAAAAAAAAAAAAA' Naro screamed internally, but on the outside he was a perfectly calm individual.

  'Cute ! She's so cute like this- NO ! FOCUS !'

  He had something more importa- no ! Something that needed to be done !

  Guardians know what would happen to him if he labelled her less important than anything. She would find out one way or another and get mad at him.

  He couldn't deal with an angry Rami ! That's a death wish and everyone at the village knew that !

  Naro cleared his throat and talked in the softest voice he knew:

  "I'm sorry Rami, but I have something to do," he continued "I promise it won't take long, I'll come back as soon as I can."

  Her tired eyes narrowed.

  "Where ?"

  Yeah, he couldn't lie to her.

  "I'm going back to the shaft where Paro's corpse is, I will then cut one of his arms, experiment my new-found power on it and see if I can have a new one ! If I can't then I'll find a way to transport it back to the village and I'll ask someone to help me with it !"

  Rami blinked twice.

  "Oh ? Is that so... have fun."

  She went back to sleep almost immediately.

  Naro let out a big sigh of relief and stood up.

  He took his now Obsidian-Magma-like sword then walked back into the shaft.

  "Thank the Guardians she's still sleepy. I think if she was really awake I would not have been able to move.."

  Well, actually...

  Naro could probably do it without much effort. His prime enemy was the guilt of doing it.

  "Normally I would never leave her behind like this too but... for some reason I don't sense any danger nearby, no steps around where we slept too."

  He descended the shaft much quicker than he had before.

  What happened to the remaining Below-Magma-Knights ? Why did they seem to leave the both of them alone ?

  Naro did not know, did not want to know and honestly couldn't have cared less.

  'I'll think about it later.'

  '...'

  'Probably.'

  Some time later, he was already in front of his deceased uncle.

  Or what was left of him anyways.

  Paro's body was cracked all over , his spine damaged from Naro's relentless attacks.

  But his arms remained in top condition... Mostly.

  Naro's gaze softened.

  "Hey, I'm here to tell you that I've always wanted to meet you one day. It's a shame it had to come to this."

  He sighed, his expression becoming sadder.

  "Compared to the other Guardians I honestly respected you the most," "even if you were absent in my life, I can tell that all your actions were for the benefit of your kingdom and Gaon as a whole."

  He continued:

  "If you didn't do what you did all those years ago then Kresha itself would've been a wasteland and coming to fight you would've been much harder and so—"

  He bowed.

  "Thank you. Before coming here I managed to see the beautiful land you preserved by weakening your Authority," He said with a small smile "and I managed to have the most relaxing time I've had with Rami even with the hardships that were to come."

  Naro walked and now stood on Paro's left side.

  "Even if you can't hear me... Thank you. For everything that you've done."

  He raised his head and his sword with it.

  "The stars will remember you, I promise that."

  The sword whistled in the wind and struck Paro's left upper arm and met no resistance.

  Was it because Paro was a shell with no authority ?

  Or was it because the sword and Naro himself had grown stronger ?

  'Both. It's both of those.'

  He then sat near the gigantic arm and put his palm on it.

  He breathed deeply.

  "Shrink."

  And then— an indescribable pain came with the order.