Xel nods nods. "I don't know if anyone but L-sama Herself in Her own Person could protect me from Zelas-sama if I saw her. You could, probably. But from the others, he can and will."
"Not my doings, just my feelings," he sighs, and shrugs. "I don't know. I've seen him be taken over by the piece of demon inside him, Iago-san; it's pretty bad. And he's been fighting it since he was a baby without anyone but Mikeru-san, including himself believing he could ever win. So he's a little inclined to give up and let it rule him."
"Oh, you have my heart," Xel tells him, after relaxing from a distressed peek at his expression to check if all this means he'd miscalculated. "I'm a one-man dog, Iago-san, you should know that. Why now..." he shakes his head and shrugs again. "I don't know, ne. Because I've been wanting to be able to for long enough that I convinced myself? Because you've been the waking and not the nightmare for long enough that it sank in that you're only yourself? Because I miss you like death every morning? Because there's a point where you have to trust the earth below you to hold you up, and it would be better to fall and die than test every step? I don't know, ne," he repeats. "It's just that I can."