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The training area was empty, as he prefers it.
Diluc moves through the form with measured precision - foot placement exact, weight balanced, blade cutting cleanly through the in a controlled arc. The strike lands where it should. The recovery is smooth. Breath in. Breath out.
Again.
The rhythm settles in. Predictable. Contained. If he keeps the sequence perfect, nothing else intrudes.
Again.
A faint pull registers at the edge of awareness as he turns, the scar along his forearm tightening beneath the wrap. He adjusts his grip by a fraction, compensates without breaking stride. The blade does not waver.
Again.
The next swing stings sharply enough that his breath hitches. He exhales through it, eyes narrowing in focus rather than alarm. Pain is information. He has always known how to work around it.
Again.
The skin gives under strain. Warmth seeps down his wrist, dampening the leather of his glove. The sensation is duller now, blurred at the edges, as if his body has decided it is no longer worth interrupting him.
He does not look.
Stopping would mean acknowledging the limit. Limits are negotiable.
Again.
Again.
Each repetition is cleaner than the last. He corrects a slight hitch in the follow-through, refines the angle of his shoulders, perfects the distance of the step. By the time the tremor reaches his hands, the form is flawless.
That is when something inside him empties.
Not pain - there is too much distance for that now.
Just the sudden absence of direction.
The sword slips from his grasp and hits the floor with a dull ring. Diluc remains standing for a heartbeat longer, staring at the space where it had been, before his knees finally bend. He sinks to the floor slowly instead of falling, controlled even now, hands resting uselessly in his lap. Blood has soaked through the wrap, dark and tacky, but he only watches it with mild curiosity.
When Adelinde arrives, it’s all clear at once.
The blood. The posture. The vacant stillness.
The way he is sitting too still, eyes unfocused, shoulders tensed in as if bracing against something that has already passed.
She approaches slowly.
This is not the first time.
It is not even the second.
“Diluc,” she says gently, already kneeling beside him.
There is no response, but no resistance either when she reaches for his injured arm, when she loosens the ruined wrap. The wound has reopened along the old scar, angry and raw, edges pulled apart by strain. She remembers tending it like this before - after he returned home, feverish and shaking, insisting he was fine even as his body gave out beneath him.
She cleans the wound with practiced care, movements economical and sure. Her hands know the routine. Clean. Pressure. Bind.
She does not comment on how long it must have been hurting, or how many times he must have felt it split before stopping. The answer is etched into the way his gaze drifts past her shoulder, the way he seems only half present in his own body.
That is what breaks her heart.
Not the blood. Not the damage.
But the ease with which she knows what to do. The quiet certainty that someone must do this for him now, because he cannot.
She binds the injury, ties it off, smooths the cloth flat. Only then does she look up at him.
His eyes are open, unfocused. Exhaustion sits like a weight too deep to lift.
Adelinde swallows.
“All right,” she murmurs, voice steady despite the ache in her chest. “It’s done now.”
Diluc blinks slowly, as if the words traveled a long way to reach him. His head tips back, exhaustion hollowing him out until there is nothing left to hold himself upright.
Adelinde shifts closer and stays there as the emptiness gradually loosens its grip, until the moment passes.
And when it does, she turns away just long enough to press her fingers to her lips, mourning, quietly, the fact that she has had to do this again.
How she wishes she didn’t know how to do this so well.
But she does.
So she stays.