With anxious urgency, Vorden directed Shiro to find someone with a healing ability, copy it, and meet them downstairs in his old apartment, a secure space no one else could access. Gripping Sil's arm, he absorbed the teleport ability, and placed the other hand on Raten's shoulder, together they vanished, reappearing instantly in the quiet solitude of the abandoned secure apartment below.
Raten helped Vorden to support Sil into the bedroom and to lay on the bed. Sil lay there half asleep, he took in ragged breaths, his chest rising and falling in a shaky rhythmless sequence.
Quietly stepping back out into the barren living room area, pulling the door to slightly behind them, Vorden turned to face Raten. Keeping their voices low, attempting to limit the echo of the blank walls and the empty room to a minimum, Vorden spoke while his eyes glossed over and his expression grew blank.
"He looks rough, but I actually think it's all mostly superficial— at least from what I can see. Nothing he can't recover from."
Raten nodded with a furrowed brow, looking at the door he replied with strain in his voice. " Where is Shiro?"
"He will be here soon, I don't think we have any cause to worry, not yet anyway." Vorden simply tried to calm his brother's nerves.
A short time later, Shiro arrived, breathless but determined, immediately rushing to Sil's bedside and channeling healing energy toward Sil, who began to stabilize. The battered warrior began to look more like his usual self.
Albeit far less vibrant and seemingly drained of the warm glow that typically encompassed him and his immediate vicinity. Once he felt mended well enough to walk, he insisted that he could do the rest himself. He thanked Shiro with a genuine and regretful depth in his eyes.
Once he had fully healed his physical wounds and injuries Sil showered and he did so slowly, emerging refreshed but still visibly haunted. He sank onto the couch, eyes clouded with tension and urgency.
A soft beeping chimed throughout the hollow apartment. Vorden glanced at the source, which he assumed as it seemed to be coming from the direction of Shiro, that it was his communicator alerting him to a notification of some kind. He glanced down at his communicator, and a grimace found its way to his face.
That had been the third time since Sil set off for the shower that Shiro had received such an alert and subsequently dismissed it without further action. Each time his facial expression grew increasingly burdened.
Vorden watched Shiro out of the corner of his eye as he rested his face against his hand, slumped forward, eyes distant as if he was someplace else completely.
Raten and Vorden exchanged a glance, wordlessly communicating a wealth of information, per usual. "Shiro—" Vorden addressed his overworked, adoptive brother. Who flinched slightly as if he had been lost in thought and Vorden's words ripped him back to the present without warning, leaving him startled.
He looked at the source of the voice, needing a visual confirmation to tell apart the three men currently in the room with him. That is, without more than just his name to go on, he lacked the variance in tonality, and cadence, procity, and annunciation one would need to differentiate one set of vocal chords from the other two identical sets.
Wide eyed and questioning he looked lost as he faced his brothers. "Hmm?" Shiro hummed in response.
"Shiro, if you need to be someplace or have to attend to business elsewhere for the time being, don't feel obligated to stick around here. Raten and I will fill you in when we have all the information and are ready to decide what to do next." Raten nodded in agreement and Shiro looked in Sil's direction.
He opened his mouth as if to protest, but Vorden quickly continued. "I know that you have a lot on your plate, and all three of us don't need to be here right now." Vorden reached out a steady hand and firmly grasped Shiro's shoulder. "Sil is ok."
Again he looked like he wanted to argue, but at that exact moment his communicator chimed once more and after a lingering pause, he let out a very large sigh. "Vorden— he was dead. We thought he was dead." Shiro pleaded.
He looked back at Sil, tears welling in his eyes. Barely holding it back from breaking he managed to say with his trembling voice, "I'm scared that if I leave, we'll lose him again, this time forever!" At that Sil finally showed signs of life again.
"Shiro, I am ok, I was never in trouble. You musn't let Blade fall into disarray. I trust our entire family legacy to your capable hands for a reason." Sil stated clearly and as if it was a matter of fact.
Shiro gulped quickly, and straightened upon hearing Sil's surprisingly heavy words. "I understand Sil." Shiro stood up and lingered only a moment, before he gave a nod to Vorden and after one last look at Sil, to which Sil replied with an encouraging nod, he was off. He left the apartment in a hurry, pulling up a message on his communicator as he did so.
After Shiro was gone, Vorden took a seat across from Sil. Raten remained standing behind him, arms folded, stoney faced and still as on edge as ever. They both looked expectantly at Sil, and feeling their eyes prying him open, hoping for answers, he finally took a deep breath and began.
"I need your help," he murmured quietly, voice edged with desperation. "We have to save Bliss."
Vorden stared incredulously, eyes narrowed. Anger and disbelief coiled through him. "Why on earth would you want us to save Bliss, what does she even have to do with your supposed death?"
Sil's gaze hardened, resolute beneath layers of lingering pain. He lifted his chin defiantly, meeting his brothers' eyes one by one. "Because despite everything she's done—despite the mistakes, the manipulations—she saved me. She's why I'm alive. And now she's paying the price. I can't let her die for that."
There was more there, hiding under the surface. Some detail or aspect that Sil was keeping from them. The idea of Sil keeping secrets from them two specifically, both greatly concerned and painfully cut at Vorden.
There was a time when it was impossible to keep secrets from one another, so they naturally just never did. An aspect of their dynamic that Vorden had thought still prevailed to this day. He had reservations about anything where Bliss was involved, but the added anomaly of Sil hiding things gave Vorden a very uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.
The room fell silent, charged with conflicted emotions, lingering doubts, and quiet resolve. And they were no closer to answers, in fact Vorden had even more questions than he started with. With this revelation, he simply sighed, and sat back, ready for the answers.