1.

“Let me get this right. You want me to sell my apartament, quit my cushy job, spend every thing I have on a van, and what? attract fucking kids to it with fucking sweets?!”

“Nah nah nah Darzi, listen here; it'l amazing. Us two on a journey of adventure and fine friendship and..” - Tennin rattled on while Darzi looked to the sides.

“Fine! Fine! You had me at “us two”… How long will this trip of your's be?”

“Forever?”

“What, just us in a shitty van… forever?”

“Sounds perfect to me, don'tcha think?”

“and you think we will both stay sane? For more then a week?”

“One of my old mates sells weed… I think…”

…

… Darzi's eyes narrowed - “let us be off then…”

Tennin smiled, and extended his arm, the hand rolled into a fist. Darzi bumped it.

2.

“What the fuck is this Darzi, why are there eight pairs of shoes here! These is where me comics are suppose to go!”

“In my defense half these shoes are from you…”

“That's just cause your shoes were falling apart.”

“…and you stole my only good pair.”

“But my comics…”

Darzi rolled his eyes. Later that night a grey van departed, follow by five pairs of shoes tied by their laces, marked only by a simple sign: “Happily forevered”

3.

At first Darzi and Tennin argued a fair bit.

Tennin preferred using a map.

Darzi preferred using the GPS in his phone.

Tennin didn't like the voice of Darzi' phones' GPS.

Darzi insisted on using it.

Tennin threw it out the window.

Darzi could no longer play candy crush and was sad.

Tennin tried singing to beat Darzi's boredom.

Darzi tried to jump out the moving van.

But soon after that it wasn't Darzi and Tennin, it was just them.

and then they laughed. and then they drove. and then they fought, but for once; not eachother.

4.

Losing something important is hard, confusing at first. Losing it all at once makes you panic. Thats why when Tennin awoke, twitched his eyes up and let out a breath of foul moonshine, he was confused.

In front of him was a hand, five fingered, human, his own. But a confusing one at that, as this was Tennin's right hand, one he himself hadn't seen without a gauntlet in years. He sat upright, causing his head a whirl.

Looking left - mud. Looking right - mud. Looking forward - muddy ditch.

The mud soaked man faintly nodded to himself, many times he had joked about waking up in a ditch. But this was quite serious, Tennin was missing his dignity, his faithful companion and his weapons. Weapons which helped him defeat, and were capable of defeating the most powerful beings in existence.

This was no laughing matter, Tennin gathered or his strengh and stood up; or tried to, his head wouldn't let him, he dropped back down.

A couple of breaths and another attempt.

Upon poking his head from his muddy confines he was instantly relieved. For before him was Darzi, a small man swinging around his large blade with a gauntleted hand, not to expertly.

Tennin commended himself for letting Darzi fight using a gun, just as the grown man in question threw himself off balance with a failed swing and fell onto his bum.

It took Tennin three attempts to find a foothold to hoist himself out of the slippery mud.

“You are going to hurt yourself, that's no toy!” Tennin exclaimed as he finally managed to crawl out of the ditch.

“What, with the gauntlet? Isn't it just for show?” Darzi asked as he made clanky-metallic sounds with his gauntleted hand.

“You know that crushed Sammael's skull?”

“Ew… ew, ew, ew!” Darzi shook the gauntlet of his hand; Tennin narrowly saved it from falling to the ground and placed it in it's rightful place; upon his hand.

“So why am I waking up in a ditch, might you explain it, and it eludes me why my holy armaments are in your hands?” Tennin struck an intimidating pose, as intimidating as a pose made by a mud covered and half naked man can be.

“I chucked ya in there for a good laught. You've joked about it too much.” Darzi laughed for a moment, he would've laughed longer if he wasn't immediately tackled into the mud.

That was the closest Darzi came to being killed by Tennin's hand.

5.

The bullet flew right past the empty cans.

“You're shit” stated Tennin while sipping a beer.

“That's because you've gotten me drunk. Again!”

“It's because I hope you finally become good at something; drinking or shooting!” Darzi turned red.

“I would like to see you tr…” Darzi ducked as a can exploded into light and molten metal fizzled in the mud.

Darzi picked up the gun he dropped in fright as his companion took another sip of his beer. “Using magic is cheating.”

“I never had an oponent complain of that, it gets the job done just fine.”

“What if you can't do that? Hmmhm! What then?”

“Then I do this.” Before Darzi could react a pebble flew at him with alarming speed. Tearing a hole through the armpit of his shirt.

“I liked this one…” Stated the shocked man as he poked a finger through the hole.

“I will put more holes in you if you don't hit those cans, try again.” This time - a can was thrown of a nearby fence.

“Fuck yeah! Darzi gonna be popin' yo ass!” Exclaimed Darzi as he pointed his weapon sideways and shook it back and forth. The gun of course; fired.

The bullet hit close to Darzi's feet causing him to jump back in surprise.

“The key to combat is to check yourself before you rek yourself!” Tennin leaned back as he let at a bellowing laugh and fell backwards together with the cheap lawn chair.

6.

“You sure we can't keep this? Like that's a couple good watches right here, or a couple hundreds pints. They surely don't need it” - asked Darzi as he pointed at a group of bloody corpses.

“Darzi, as always, this will go to the chamber, and some of it back home, to help the angels”

“oi common now, we could have like a good dinner, or something proper to drink, anything but more of your 'brew'”

“The 'brew' rejuvenates and body and spirit, it's a masterful concoction which took me years to perfect.”

“But I always get fucked as soon as we start drinking it” Darzi complained as Tennin grinned.

“You'll get used to it, maybe.”

Darzi pursed his lips, unimpressed. “But we can keep some of this money, go to a restaurant maybe?”

Tennin paused packing stacks of money into black bags and looked at his companion while raising a brow. “Like on a date?”

“No! I meant it more like, you know; food, guys, drinks, steaks and…”

“So you wanna spend this money to go on a date and get food and drinks. Or we could send it back and hope it saves lives. You know what i'll choose and thats coz…”

“Coz we've already got eachother.” They said together.

7.

Tennin scrambled, even his skill was not enough for the whirthing mass he had come to share the street with. The fight was not going in their favor. The van had already exploded, took quite a few with it.

James and Nathan were already dead, splayed across the fine arches of new Paris.

There was little for Tennin to see between the mixture of magic flashes and spays of blood being produced infont of him. Yet he raveled in it, felt how every swing ended a life; but improved the world.

It was as perfect as could be. It wasn't grey to Tennin, it was black and white; these were the enemy, and they would soon die. The warrior could jump, roll, swing and cut, to him; this was pleasure, and for once, it didn't have to guilty.

This could've continued for hours; Tennin swirling around with not a care in the world, alone in his joy.

But he wasn't alone.

…and therefore chance wanted him to make the greatest mistake, dodge instead of parry. A rusted pitchfork, the crowd was armored with whatever they found, drifted past the paladin in an excruciatingly slow motion.

Straight into Darzi's chest. Both their eyes widened as their gazes met, and their faces grimaced as if they felt the same pain.

Darzi coughed crimson as Tennin cushioned his fall.

“Remember the first guy we buried?” Darzi coughed up more blood.

“Shh! Shh! Don't move! I can do this! I can do this!”

“We never took his watch…”

A tear fell upon Darzi's chest as he let out his last breath. Soon after; so did Tennin.

Therefore death claimed them. For it was not Darzi and Tennin, it was just “them”.