[ Silence as Joshua comes clean about how much blood he coughed up. Fuck. He hasn't seen Joshua coughing up blood since but they haven't exactly been in each other's shadows all the time. Has he been hiding it? Is it far worse than he thought? ]

Joshua...

[ His voice is strained. It's not anger, just severe worry. His can be stopped right here and now, he merely needs to stop using magic and Ifrit. But the more it rips at Joshua's lungs, the less likely his brother will ever recover.

Until he's dead from it.

And Will couldn't remedy it, but that's not shocking because- ]

Because you have no aether.

[ He remembers what Will and Joshua told him about the attempt and how it had just 'flowed back out'. He stares down at his hand briefly, then back up at Joshua, brows knitting together. ]

... I have plenty of it, though. I am not just Ifrit, after all.

[ Shiva, Bahamut, Ramuh... even Ultima, the alien feeling of it pressing into his skull always. ]

Can I try something?