Everything was collapsing around him. Suspended between emotion and circumstance, as Raiden's last tear slipped free, the deafening sound came rushing toward him.
He closed his eyes in understanding, his pulse quickening with each beat. He knew who approached and what they wanted from him. But he couldn't give them that now, even if he tried; he couldn't even give himself what he knew he desperately wanted.
"Where's Ash?!" Noelle shouted once she was close enough, watching Raiden sprawled across the rough stone ledge, eyes shut against the world.
Raiden tried to rehearse any kind of reaction, but nothing came. The fault was entirely his, and he deserved this reckoning. If he had just realized Ash's feelings in time, he could have prevented her death and still had the one person who felt like family.
Here it comes—he thought, preparing himself for the storm of Noelle's fury.
