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Death wasn’t something new to Shino.
For as long as he could remember, death was a friend. He grew up on the streets for the first few years of his life, beating people up for money. Despite the advancement in most of the country, the impoverished streets of the East were ridden with disease. Every other person was sick with something, and it always smelled foul. Shino had been immune to most of these ailments, for reasons he did not understand until he discovered he was a wizard.
Even once he was taken in by the noble Blanchett family, Shino stayed close to death. He would run around the nearby woods which he would soon call his home, killing monsters that threatened the family. Every time a plague or epidemic would raze the East, Shino was one of the first to volunteer cleaning up the dead. After all, what good would it do to allow the nobles to deal with the maggot-filled corpses that piled upon the streets?
Shino spent years within one of the most dangerous forests in the East, making sure travelers weren’t killed. He didn’t waver in the face of creatures with gnarled faces and razor sharp teeth and big bodies that appeared almost impossible to cut through.
On occasion, Shino would get thrown into a tree hard enough to see stars and in worse cases, black out. He had his share of being pounded into the ground and nearly split open by bloodstained claws. Every time he brushed with death, he would get back up.
Death was all around him, no matter what he did. From that squirrel that had peacefully passed away to that bandit whose throat he slit, Shino always was in the presence of it. Even after he was summoned as a Sage’s Wizard, he didn’t waver in the face of his own death. Even as curses threatened to ravage him, even as he bled crimson after a changed Heathcliff attacked him, even as he was nearly bitten in two.
The first time he shook in the presence of death was when he faced the Minotaur. Maybe it was because he knew there was no way he could win, maybe because he had more people to protect than just Heathcliff. As blood gushed out of him and he lost consciousness, he accepted that he might not ever wake up again and felt a bone-chilling terror. He had failed to protect, and his death would mean nothing.
Even so, Shino did not steer away from danger. He allowed himself to be put in dangerous positions to prevent others from getting injured. He managed to kill the Minotaur, and everything went back to normal. After the stint with the mythical monster, everything seemed to pale in comparison. The constant presence of death disappeared, the dark cloud lifted, and Shino experienced life without true peril for the first time in seventeen years. He knew he could depend on others to protect him should something go awry. He was safe.
Until now.
Shino had experienced being lost in total darkness once, during the Minotaur fight. That time, it had called to him as he weakened, enveloped him like a warm blanket until the forest brought him back. This time, it was different. It was cold and unforgiving, and made his stomach churn. Despite the presence of Faust, he felt alone. There was an environment around them, wet and cold, but they could not see.
The anxious feeling in his gut only grew when Nero found them, bleeding out and barely coherent. Shino could physically feel his chest constrict as the older wizard, who had been so strong, fell against Faust.
As the monstrosity that Nero had labeled Heath rose before them, fear seized his gut and he felt lightheaded. He could not feel the presence of Heathcliff Blanchett in the mass of black.
Almost like a familiar friend, the feeling of death returned to his side.