Epani’s plan was flawless. She had spent the last couple of hours slowly explaining everything to Arkadin and the three mortals who happened to be present. The plan was simple enough. They find out Kairos’s location via an advanced form of echolocation, they establish a link with the Allbirther to get a guaranteed location on the Whenvern, then, in a swift action, Epani would teleport Yisini to safety then swap Kairos and Arkadin’s places, forcing the Whenvern to take over the power of death and decay, powering him up and allowing the Whenvern to kill the Voidborn who was giving them trouble, while also returning normal time back to the universe.
Somehow the Panelix had worked out every last detail, aside from one. Executing this plan would most likely kill Arkadin.
“So we are not doing this plan…” Epani sighed as she delicately put everything away. “There has to be another way.”
“I don’t have a problem with dying though!” Arkadin protested for the seventh time. “If it means saving Yisini, if it means saving Kairos, if it means this universe not literally collapsing in on itself, I’ll do it!”
“You cannot be serious…” Epani sat herself down. She was visibly upset, bordering on tears. She glanced over at the three mortals, two adult Rethavok and a very strange Skyavok, then decided to ask them what they thought. “All-Ksa Kayel, Gath Tsoriou, Six-Touched Retvik of the Dessaron… Do you have thoughts on this matter?”
“Six-touched?” Retvik replied with a question. “What does that mean?”
“She means you’re one of the few unlucky fucks who has had genuine contact with all six of us stupid deities!” Arkadin growled. He wasn’t growling specifically at Retvik though. The Thantophor was in a huge amount of pain and was unable to properly push past it. “Sorry… It’s damn hard to think straight when my own corrosive blood is eating me alive…”
“No worries…” Retvik turned back to Epani. “I do not think it is up to us to decide.”
The Panelix tutted. “I wanted an opinion from you all.”
“Yes, but this is beyond our comprehension.”
“What are the chances of all this actually working?” Kayel suddenly butted in. “Like, it will work, right?”
Epani nodded. “Kairos was designed to be able to contain at most three of the four fundamentals. Now we know what we are dealing with, we will be able to better retaliate and defeat this Voidborn. We were caught off guard. That will not happen again.”
“So, like, 99% chance of it working?”
The Panelix hesitated. “Probably… closer to around 75%. But we are in… a mess right now, with little time to prepare many options. Especially since we have spent the last 8.9 hours trying to remove that device from Arkadin’s body and have heard nothing from Kinisis and Kenon.”
“What if it fails?”
“If it fails…” Arkadin muttered. “Well, either the universe collapses and we all die anyway, or I throw myself out of the universe to stop this ticking time bomb from going off and we all die anyway because Epani can’t manage the universe on her own. At minimum, we need to save Kairos so we have two functional deities here.”
Kayel crossed his arms. “You really don’t care about having to die?”
“Not really.”
“Why?”
“Because the universe is more important, obviously!” Arkadin snapped. “We are running out of time! This device is killing me anyway, so I might as well sacrifice myself so everyone else can actually live their lives rather than… whatever happens if we don’t do this…”
“So you are willing to go through with my plan, brother?”
“Yes…”
Everyone turned to Arkadin. They all noticed that he suddenly didn’t seem very confident.
“Is there…”
The Thantophor waved a hand dismissively. “I’ll do it. Just give me like 10 minutes, please…”
Epani sighed, then took the hands of Gath and Retvik and led them out of the room. Kayel though remained where he was, waited for the others to properly leave, then stepped forward and awkwardly placed a hand on Arkadin’s side.
“Did you not hear what I just said?” Arkadin tutted.
“Yeah, I did. But I don’t think you should be alone right now. You’re scared, stressed and hurting. You shouldn’t be alone at all.”
Arkadin sat down, feeling rather tired and sick of it all. “I’m not scared. I just thought… things would be… different… That I’d die on my terms. Do all the things I wanted to do. Cross some things off my list. The sensation of having my skin melt but on the inside really isn’t helping matters.”
“You’re having doubts?”
“Well… yeah…” Arkadin finally admitted. “I have been lying. I am a bit scared of dying. But I have no other ideas and… I…” Tears bubbled beneath Arkadin’s golden eyes. “I don’t want to die.”
Kayel tilted his head to one side, then wrapped his arms around the Thantophor, embracing him and hugging him tight. Arkadin hesitated, then slowly hugged Kayel back.
Eventually, Arkadin let go and pulled away. “Thank you…”
“No…” Kayel sighed. “Thank you. Thank you for risking yourself for everyone else…”