Kiros Dragonia

On family, look-alikes and shards

Kiros had been approached by a nobleman from Eulmore, who claimed a close friend had been deceived by someone pretending to be Hikari. The alleged imposter's hair was much longer, but it's a detail that would have been easily forgotten by those who weren't made aware of Hikari's death a year before. Appealing to Kiros' need to defend his sister's honor, the nobleman (actually Emet-Selch) solicited his aid in taking down the imposter.

He tracked down his mark and her entourage, ambushing them in eastern Amh Araeng. When the alleged imposter's Red Mage companion called out to her and addressed her as "Hikaru," Kiros winced, sore that the woman would go as far as to even imitate his sister's name. Despite his use of sand traps and flash grenades, Kiros was overpowered and his gunblade knocked away, forcing him to draw Hikari's sword Parallel Excalibur as a backup weapon. Both Kiros and Hikaru loudly demanded to know where the other got their Excaliburs, with Kiros blasting Hikaru's as a well-crafted replica. As he was not very skilled with normal swords, he once more reached his limit and withdrew, reclaiming Lion Heart as he fled.

He ambushed Hikaru's party a second time, but did not expect her to have her full squadron this time. To make matters worse, one of her allies, Valkyrja, was completely unaffected by Kiros' grenades, and pinned him down. As Hikaru wanted to know what was driving him to pursue her and, more importantly, why he was so insistent on her being an imposter, she decided to keep Kiros as a captive rather than cut him down. But her repeated attempts at questioning him were met with either biting snark or contemptuous silence, and having to appoint two people to keep watch over him at any given time took a considerable toll on the party's overall strength.

When confronting Titania, Hikaru's party found the Lightwarden to be considerably stronger than anticipated, to the point where it became necessary to order Valkyrja and Cerol to release Kiros and come inside to help. Having overheard Valkyrja's side of the linkpearl conversation, Kiros could have easily taken his returned weapons and fled, but instead follows them inside the castle to assist. Though she wasn't sure why Kiros would choose to help, Hikaru nonetheless welcomed his assistance as her co-tank. He noted that Hikaru's motions in combat near-perfectly matched Hikari's, finding it as unnerving as it was easy to synchronize with.

After slaying the Lightwarden, Kiros was considerably more amenable to talking, relaying the story of the Eulmoran nobleman who had hired him. When Cerol found it odd that a Eulmoran citizen would actually leave their heavily-fortified paradise to travel to the Crystarium (which, to the Eulmorans, was enemy territory), Kiros began to realize that the story fed to him was likely a lie, or at least one told in bad faith, but refused Hikaru's offer to buy out his contract. He agreed to cooperate with her, if only to learn the truth behind his client and why he was hired to assassinate the woman who resembled his sister.

Yet Kiros still kept his distance from the party, Hikaru in particular. Though Hikaru and Hikari could not be any more different in terms of personality, and that Hikaru's hair was much longer and that she preferred blue rather than white, Kiros struggled to separate the two in his mind. It was only after learning about the existence of the Source and its shards that he began to consider that they were, in fact, distinct individuals and that Hikaru was an otherworldly counterpart of Hikari.

The search for Amh Araeng's Lightwarden required going to Twine. Kiros was concerned that the townspeople would reject the party because of his presence, but found that the people there had largely forgotten him. He wandered away from the party, heading to the lichyard to carve Hikari's name on the family gravestone and smear clay over the names of his parents. Kiros considered leaving Parallel Excalibur behind but could not bear to part with the last tangible reminder of his sister. As he got up to leave, he realized Hikaru had followed him.

"Tell me about her. She meant a lot to you. Enough for you to dance in an Ascian's palm. So, I want to know about her, the sister whose face I share."

Kiros gestured at the direction of the inn, not wanting to have this conversation out in the open. Yet even when the two of them were alone in an inn room, he could not find the words and stared awkwardly at Hikaru's boots. Mildly frustrated with him for clamming up at the last minute, Hikaru instead attempted to willingly induce an Echo vision by taking Kiros' hands. In doing so, she unwittingly drew Kiros into the Echo vision, which manifested as a Magitek projector displaying the full recollection of the day Hikari died. After the recording ended, and after a lengthy uncomfortable pause, Kiros recalled how Hikari often got on him for being such a pennypincher even though the two of them were doing rather well in terms of coin. Perhaps if he hadn't been so stubborn and let her buy him new gear much sooner, he wouldn't have tripped when the two of them fought the Sin Eater that raked Hikari's back. When recalling how Hikari pointed at Longinus just as she started bleeding from her eyes and mouth, Kiros broke down. Though Hikaru wasn't the sort to comfort others who were in distress, she oddly felt compelled to do so for Kiros.

The experience changed him profoundly. The next day, Kiros was not only far more forthcoming about Twine, its mines and the operation of the trolley, but he was actually making an effort to talk to the rest of the party. He was even able to poke fun at himself for being clumsy with a miner's tools as a child, recalling a story in which he dropped a sledgehammer on his toes. He insisted on being part of the foray into Malikah's Well, revealing that the Dragonia Mining Company used to own it before Sin Eaters attacked Twine. But after slaying the Lightwarden dwelling at the bottom, Kiros noticed Hikaru began to look somewhat sickly, not unlike Hikari right after she was raked by Forgiven Narcissism. When the party retook Eulmore, Kiros spotted Hikaru ducking out to go vomit white bile over a handrail outside, but wasn't sure how to go about approaching her about it.

The Extended continuity changes the ending of the base Shadowbringers campaign, in which both Hikaru and the Exarch are taken after the events of Mt. Gulg. Kiros was about to take off and look for Hikaru by himself, fearful of a repeat of what happened to Hikari, but Yoshi convinced him to stay and hammer out a plan with the rest of the party. While preparations were being made, Kiros ran into the bartender of the Wandering Stairs, who remembered him and Hikari from a year ago when she asked if they would take a pictograph of the two. The bartender apologized for having taken so long to get a print made and handed it over. Kiros quietly thanked him for it, tucked the printed pictograph into his coat and left, looking like he wanted to cry.

Just before entering the phantasmal simulation of Amaurot, Kiros and the rest of the party encountered Emet-Selch, who pushed the Exarch over to them and declared that he had a more interesting captive: "Hemera's reincarnation." When the party pursued him into the burning gates, they were scattered throughout the simulation, with Kiros being dropped alone in the middle of the city as it was during the Final Days. He was the first to reach Hikaru at the simulation's edge, where she was attempting to fight the fellbeast Therion with only a bent metal pipe. Kiros returned her Excalibur and the Aegis Shield, and the two went about fighting Therion on their own at first. One by one, the rest of their party members arrived and joined the fight.

When Emet-Selch assumed his true form, Kiros took his position at Hikaru's side, unwittingly addressing her as "sister." Hikaru raised an eyebrow at the utterance but brushed it off as something being said in the moment.

On vengeance and oaths

In "The Maligned Father," Kiros' Shadowbringers postgame story, he asked Hikaru to help him take down Forgiven Narcissism. The Sin Eater had been spotted wandering near the Inn at Journey's Head, where Kiros had originally planned to bring his sister when she was wounded. Upon approaching, Kiros had his first Echo vision, in which he was witness to a conversation between his parents. His father was especially scathing when talking about how much he hated Kiros and how "useless slough ought to be disposed of." The vision also gave disturbing insight into the unspeakable things Kiros' father did to Hikari, and why Kiros happened upon her fervently scrubbing her underwear during the night.

Piecing things together, Kiros realized that Forgiven Narcissism was his father made into a Sin Eater, and that it had been targeting him specifically during the original battle. But when he rushed into attack, his blows were parried near-effortlessly. Hikaru then pulled him back behind a nearby boulder, suggesting that they take advantage of her resemblance to Hikari to hold Forgiven Narcissism's attention while Kiros circles around and attacks from behind.

Kiros noticed that Longinus was reacting to the Sin Eater's presence. While he knew the spear to be highly potent against Sin Eaters, it was flaring and vibrating quite strongly here. Unwrapping it from its concealing fabrics, Kiros decided to use both Longinus and Parallel Excalibur when performing Blade Destroyer, plunging both into Forgiven Narcissism's back.

"You wanted to be rid of me? Yet you struck down the child you favored instead. You should have aimed better, fiend."

After slaying the Sin Eater, Kiros realized that Longinus no longer made him feel nauseous or give him flashbacks. He was able to wear his Dragoon armor once more, having also set it aside after Hikari's death.

When confronting Elidibus during 5.3, Kiros once again accidentally addressed Hikaru as his sister. When the two had some time alone afterwards, Hikaru brought up such utterances, suspecting there is probably some underlying significance to them. Kiros confesses that he had started to feel a bond with her, not in a way that would make her a replacement but rather as "family previously unknown." Being an only child herself, Hikaru didn't know what it was like to have a sibling, but at the same time, she too felt that there must be something meaningful about their meeting and connecting like this, and the two thus declared each other "shard-siblings."

Kiros immediately launched into his second request: he wanted to go with Hikaru when she returns to the Source to return the Scions' souls to their bodies. With his birth family gone, and otherwise not having many lasting connections there, Kiros wanted to hold onto the new connections he had finally brought himself to make. While Hikaru had been able to bring her party members with her to the First, bringing a flesh-and-blood native across had never been attempted before, but there was no reason not to try.

On new homes and occupations

In Patch 5.4, Hikaru insisted that Kiros come live in House Dragonia with her, but she found it odd that he wanted to work, claiming that there was no need for him to do so because the Grand Companies' stipends and her Scion and Skywind Company salary are more than enough. Hikaru eventually relented; at the very least, a job would be a good opportunity to learn more about the Source. Aurica, the engineer in charge of Valkyrja's maintenance, wrote a letter of introduction for Kiros to take to Stephanivien of the Skysteel Manufactory in Ishgard, as she used to work there and was sure that her old boss would take him on as a trainee machinist. Thus began the events of "Headshots and Headfire."

However, Stephanivien was occupied with preparations for a secret joint operation, and so he called over his second in command Numair to handle the intake and training in his place. Though Kiros had never handled a gun before, it wasn't that much of a difference from his gunblade. When Numair eyed Lion Heart intensely, Kiros demonstrated its use on a nearby targeting dummy.

During a training mission in Northern Thanalan, in which Kiros and Numair were to look for any Magitek devices that could be repurposed for the Manufactory's use, the two were ambushed by a number of Magitek Vanguards and Predators from what should have been the vacated Castrum Meridianum. The units had their Garlean Empire emblems scraped off, replaced with the number < 0 >. Numair asked Kiros to buy him some time and ran off with tomephone in hand. A few minutes later, Numair returned with Cruise Chaser, having rebuilt and reverse-engineered it from the salvaged remains bought from Garlond Ironworks. Taking Kiros into the cockpit, Numair proceeded to swat aside and blast away the rogue Magitek.

What was supposed to be a training and salvage mission became the two of them investigating who had set up shot inside an abandoned Imperial facility; even the Immortal Flames soldiers that they questioned were sure that the Garlean Empire had recalled anyone who was still there after Operation Archon. Though Kiros could have gone to Hikaru for help, he wanted to handle this issue himself, not wanting to impose on her while she was attending to a separate operation in Werlyt.

Kiros and Numair broke into Castrum Meridianum, and discovered that it was being staffed by soldiers wearing armbands bearing the number < 0 > but otherwise wearing Garlean equipment. The two of them came up against the leader (Ralse quo Herdin) and chief engineer (Zeirkain mal Mordecai) of what they called the Nul Legion, a faction of Garleans who had washed out of the imperial army but still fought for Garlemald's interests. When Ralse boarded the Pyracantha Magitek Custom, Numair summoned Cruise Chaser again, this time with both him and Kiros operating in tandem. They were able to damage the Pyracantha enough to force Ralse and Zeirkain to flee, with an Immortal Flames squadron arriving soon after in response to the commotion.

Despite the rather unusual circumstances of their meeting and early interactions, Kiros was happy to have made his first close friend. It was a much different feeling compared to having connected with Hikaru and her party, but one he enjoyed all the same.

Shortly before the beginning of Endwalker, Kiros and Numair would find themselves up against the Nul Legion again while gathering potential upgrade materials for Cruise Chaser, and when Numair was captured and taken to Castrum Solus in Azys Lla, Kiros led the rescue operation. With help from Aurica and Valkyrja, Kiros piloted Cruise Chaser and broke into the pop-up fortress (by literally blasting a hole through the wall) before Ralse and Zeirkain could put Numair on an airship to Garlemald. Kiros and Numair would pit Cruise Chaser against the Pyracantha, Ralse's new Magitek unit.

The dog who captured his heart

Ever since he was a child, Kiros had always wanted a dog. However, dogs were rare on the First, as the Flood of Light caused them to nearly become extinct, and the few that remained were exclusively bred in Eulmore. On the Source, however, dogs were considerably more plentiful.

In Endwalker, after Kiros and some of the party members followed Hikaru and Yoshi to the moon, he met Argos, a dog familiar. Immediately smitten, Kiros was compelled to fervently pet Argos, who was happy to have the attention. When Kiros became frustrated with the Loporrits in Bestway Burrows, he went outside and spent several hours petting Argos. Alas, he could not bring the dog with him, as Argos was bound to the moon for purposes yet unrevealed.

Kiros would meet a past incarnation of Argos in Elpis. Unlike the present-day version, this Argos was somewhat wary and pulled away when Kiros reached out to pet him. But when Kiros bested Venat in a duel, Argos was far more receptive and allowed Kiros to pet him just as he had done on the moon. Sensing Kiros' fondness for dogs, Venat asked him if he had considered creating a dog familiar of his own, only for him to reveal that he cannot use magic.

In the postgame story "Pup of Gold," Kiros received a letter that Venat had penned shortly after he, Hikaru and Valkyrja left Elpis, but had the Loporrits hold onto for over a thousand years until the resolution of the second Final Days. In the letter, she instructed Kiros to go find Argos on the moon, where the dog familiar would lead him to a means to create a dog familiar that did not require having magical aptitude.

Kiros traveled to the moon and the Watcher directed him to find Argos near a cave southeast of the sealing brands. As the letter alluded to, Argos beckoned for Kiros to follow him into the cave, where he dug up a scroll bearing a ritual that would create a duplicate familiar. Unsure how to go about it as, once again, he could not use magic, Kiros realized that he only needed to channel aether into Argos, who would self-replicate. Within a few minutes, Kiros was holding a newborn puppy-sized familiar that resembled Argos, one that he could take home with him.

In Dawntrail postgame, the Argos puppy familiar would become the workaround needed for Kiros to use the Pictomancer job.