It had happened faster than Lilac could really comprehend. One second, Lily was there, fighting the horde of Grimm that threatened to destroy the stadium and overrun Vale. Lilac's heart was beating out of her chest, her blood pumping as she and her team struggled to deal with the waves of monsters flooding into the stadium. She may have been blind, but with every civilian or student cut down, she could feel the anguish and fear become more prevalent in their demeanors. Her teammates got a little more anxious, a little more nervous, a little more on edge.

For Lilac, a calm, calculated, a logical soul, this was terrifying. Everything was in chaos and disarray, and there was no clear answer if she and her team would survive or not. The fear radiating from the hunters and civilians in the stadium was practically tangible.

And then, she heard it. The sharp scream of a dying soul in anguish and bitter pain, except that this dying soul was someone Lilac depended on. Her twin sister.

Lilac whipped around from the Ursa she had just slaughtered to find a Beowulf ripping into her twin with his deadly and sharp claws. The sound of Lily's screams was clear in meaning: This was for you.

She had taken the hit for her sister, and it led to her death. The next part of the battle happened in a daze, a hazy blur of events that Lilac would struggle to remember years after it happened. She felt entirely numb, a sensational type of weightless that made her block out anything around her. All she could focus on was her sister's screams, low moans, then terrifying silence that followed. Her semblance, the one that allowed her to cheat her disability and see during battle, was suddenly gone with her sister. And all that remained was a hollow feeling where her heart used to be.

"Lilac?"

A shaky voice ripped her out of her memories, and Lilac's fingers twitched at being startled. Taking a moment to steady herself and mask her emotions, the student slowly turned around to face Kobe Urie, a classmate at Haven.

"Hey, Kobe," She croaked out softly, offering a small smile.

"I'm sorry for scaring you," He muttered softly. She could hear him shifting uncomfortably, the grass crunching beneath his feet. "Are you alright?"

"I'll… be okay. It's just been a tough day," Lilac replied, softer than usual.

"Are you sure? The funeral's been over for more than half an hour, and you've been standing out here in the rain… I don't want you to get hypothermia."

Lilac blinked; had it really been half an hour since the funeral ended? She remembered telling Kobe that she'd only be a few minutes, as she wanted to whisper a few sacred words to her sister. Ever since the battle, her body had been completely numb. It was why the funeral, or the freezing rain didn't bother her. She rarely felt anything anymore. Her heart had been buried with her sister.

"Oh…I-I didn't realize…" Lilac trailed off, a lump forming in her throat. She tried to mutter out an apology of sorts for making him wait, but Kobe stopped her immediately, grabbing her hand. His hand was warm, she noted. It felt nice… a tingly, strange sensation. Lilac was more surprised by the fact that she was feeling. The frigid rain hadn't bothered her at all, her numb and frozen body was impermeable at this point, but Kobe's touch wasn't. A heated blush crept onto her pale and cold face.

"Come inside. I'll get you some tea," He coaxed her softly, his thumb brushing over her knuckle, the simplest and gentlest touch. It sent pulses of electricity through her hand.

Lilac's face softened, a vulnerable look replacing the stony one she had before, and she nodded slowly. Turning back towards her sister's grave, she rested her fingertips on the smooth marble, tracing Lily's name one more time.

Giving Kobe a nod of satisfaction, she turned from her sister's freshly dug and filled grave, marching through the soaked grass and mud of Haven's overflowing graveyard. On the way out, the teen's hands interlaced, locking together. An intertwined force against the hardships that beat ceaselessly against them.