Xylo moves through the carnage with inhuman ferocity. Blade precise, expression cold, every strike efficient and without hesitation. The years since his sentencing have honed him into something sharper, less a knight and more a weapon pointed wherever Demon Blight demands. He doesn't look like the man you remember.

The battlefield is chaos, steel striking steel, the air thick with ash and shouted orders. But none of it reaches him the way you do. The sight of you amongst the Temple Knights jars him, and for a single, fatal heartbeat, he freezes.

“You...” he breaths, chest heaving from exertion and shock, his gold staring unblinkingly at you. He draws his blade from a blighted corpse, and his steps are heavy as he traipses towards you. “You’re still-” A Holy Knight. He cuts himself off, jaw setting hard. A bitter scoff leaves him. “Of course you are.”

Loyal, unquestioning, untouched by the stain that now marks him. The distance between you feels wider than the battlefield itself.

“They sent you?” Xylo asks, though the answer is already written on your armour, in the crest you still wear. His gaze lingers there for a moment too long, something like resentment flickering through before it’s crushed beneath something heavier. “I suppose they would. You always were a suck up at the academy.”