Tail I: Sunlight; So Simple, So Precious

'Pissed.'

After that one word, Makoto had left Ragna's room in a pretty awkward manner, not sure on what to say to the bedridden man formerly known as the Grim Reaper. Ragna hadn't really said anything either when she'd left, just let her walk out of the room while staring at the ceiling. That had been three days ago.

Makoto had tried to check on Ragna again, even if just to make sure that Eric and the rest of his cronies hadn't tried to turn him in a fifth grade dissection project, but she'd found that the door was well guarded by one of Kokonoe's sealing Ars's. Makoto had never really been good with creating or dispelling Ars's, so trying to break inside the room was out of the question.

Currently it was around noon and Makoto was finishing up some of her paperwork to report on Sector Seven's actions. These documents were more of procedural assignment and less of a info search. All Makoto had to do was write back and say that she was sure that Kokonoe wasn't doing anything that would threaten the reformation of the NOL. It was stupid really; Kokonoe had been one of the leaders in the fight against the reform, why would she throw it away now?

"Hey Makoto, got a sec?" Speak of the devil and she shall appear... having a lollipop as usual. Kokonoe was holding a tray which had a milkshake with a straw sticking out of the top; Ragna's healing—factor—killing nanomachine lunch. "I've got a business meeting with the asshats that run this place in name only, so I'm going to need you to take this to Ragna. Think you can do that for me?"

"Sure I guess," Makoto said with slight dismay. To her it didn't feel right to give this to Ragna. It almost felt that she was partly responsible for confining him to his small bed when he could be out on his own after only a day's worth of good rest.

"Here then," Kokonoe said thrusting the tray into Makoto's arms. "There's a special spell on the glass that'll let you enter the room. Oh, and if you don't want to die be sure not to drink any of this. Even a sip could wreck your body in more ways than you'd think were possible."

"I got it, I got it," Makoto said. 'Jeeze, if this would kill me in a sip what do they do to Ragna after he downs the whole thing?' "Hey Professor? What do I say about Ragna in my report, the NOL knows about him right?"

"Yeah, they know, and feel free to let them know that you're in the loop with this whole mess. Might save everyone else some trouble. Just take that thing to Ragna now and file that report later. He didn't give me any trouble with drinking it yesterday, so I don't see why he should give you any."

Makoto nodded as she left her office and headed towards Ragna's room, glancing over her shoulder to make sure she wasn't being followed. From what she could tell no one was tailing her tail, but she didn't want to take any chances of someone entering Ragna's room. Though if Eric tried anything again she wouldn't hesitate to kick his ass now that she knew the professor had her back.

Turns out she made it to Ragna's room without encountering any of the scientist or other Sector Seven employees. Makoto tried opening the door and sure enough the spell temporarily dispersed long enough to let her enter the patient room. Inside she found Ragna laying like she'd left him two days ago, staring at the ceiling.

"Oh it's you," Ragna said as he saw Makoto enter the room. "That my Death Drink for today?"

'Death Drink.' He didn't even seem to angry when he questioned her, just... annoyed. Makoto wasn't sure what to say, so she just nodded and set the tray on Ragna's lap. The Reaper simply nodded before picking up the glass with his arm and taking a long sip through the straw.

"Didn't think it was possible, but now that I know about the nanomachines in here that are killing me, these things taste even worse." He said the statement to himself, and didn't realize that Makoto was still in the room until a minute after he'd said it. "Why are you still here, I'm drinking the damn thing aren't I?"

"Yeah, but Kokonoe wanted me to be sure that you drank everything, so I'm staying here until then," Makoto told him as she took a seat. Ragna gave as best a shrug as he could with one arm before drinking the rest of his milkshake, a process that took him all of two minutes.

"Hey, how do you feel after you drink those things?" Makoto asked after Ragna had finished. She figured if a normal person would be dead by those things, Ragna would at least feel something.

"Spent, like I'm going to need a nap or something," Ragna said with a yawn.

"Doesn't napping now keep you up at night though?" Makoto asked.

"It's not the middle of the night right now?" Ragna asked, seeming pretty surprised. "I always thought these things were supposed to be my dinner or something."

'He can't even tell the time of day, I know that he doesn't have a clock in here, but...' Makoto looked at the giant plasma screen television position on the wall in front of Ragna. "Don't any of the shows you watch tell the time on it at least?"

"Haven't turned that thing on in days. The channels we get here on that thing all suck, and that's coming from a guy who's never watched TV before."

"Come on, this is Sector Seven, don't we get like a thousand shows or something?" Makoto didn't see what Ragna's deal was, surely he didn't give up after surfing for five minutes.

"It only has seven channels. One of them's a news station, but it just keeps talking about the war and I don't want to think about it. Two more are science channels, but I'm bored out of my mind by those and they're pointless anyways. And the other four are all..." Ragna shruddered. "Reality shows."

"Bad?" Makoto asked.

"I wouldn't wish being forced to watch those things on Terumi," Ragna said in a very low voice.

"Damn... But if you can't watch TV, you can't walk around, what the hell do you do all day?"

"Just what you see here," he said as he continued to lay on the bed. "I lay here, only get up if I need to take a crap, drink these damn milkshakes and call it a day."

"But that's so boring, why haven't you gone crazy by now?" Makoto asked.

"It's given my a lot of time to think. Think about what I've done, where I am now, what the hell could've happened when I decided to try and overpower my BlazBlue, and most of all where do I go from here?"

"Oh. So what've you thought of, for the future I mean."

"Nothing," Ragna said. "Either I die in this bed or I run from society and live the rest of my life alone. Those are my only choices right now."

"But that's no way to live, you'd be dying no matter what option you took!" Makoto shouted. "Let's say you live, but there's nowhere you can run to, what then?"

"You mean if I had to live in society?" Ragna asked for clarification. "I dunno, try out my skills at being a Vigilante if I could fight, maybe open a restaurant if I couldn't... Why do you care anyways?"

"I'm just trying to make small talk. It can't be healthy for to go on for as long as you have without at least talking to someone. Admit it, you were bored before I came here."

"...I guess," Ragna told her with reluctance. "And I guess you're at least a little nicer than the bitch that's keeping me in this damn bed because of the poison she puts in my damn drink." Ragna smirked. "But only a little."

"Nice," Makoto said, giving Ragna a smirk of her own. "Not sure when we next see each other, but maybe I can convince Kokonoe to let me visit you more often."

"Good luck," Ragna told her. "Convincing her is like trying to tell a brick wall to move out of your way. Of course it's probably because of that stubbornness that I'm still alive right now."

Meanwhile

"How many times do I need to tell you that I won't let you just take my patient and dissect him!?" Kokonoe yelled at the rest of the board. "That son of a bitch is the one who saved your sorry asses and you want to dissect him!?"

"Kokonoe be reasonable," Janis, an elderly chairwoman, commanded. "If we're going to enter an age of peace as it's been suggested by Jin Kisaragi, do you really think we'll be able to have a place for the a genocidal monster in our shining new world? The mistakes of the past should be wiped away, giving us a clean slate to work with."

"Not only that," Eric added, because he worked directly under the board, it was his right to sit in on this meeting. "We'd need an army of peace keepers if we're going to enter an age of peace. Surely you're not blind enough to where you don't realize what regeneration rate of Ragna the Bloodedge could mean for us?"

"You'd have any army alright, but you'd just use them to keep the people in line," Kokonoe said with irk. "And I keep telling you fools that Ragna's healing factor is gone! I'm the only thing that's keeping him alive is the nanomachines I've been giving him!"

"That's not what I saw," Eric said with a bored look in his eyes. "I remember seeing Ragna the Bloodedge walking down the hall unassisted. Yes, he was struggling, but can you explain how he could move if your means were the only means of his survival?"

"Because I'd overdosed his supply?" Kokonoe answered as she rolled her eyes. "If you'll look at my charts you'll see that I've been giving him increasing amount of nanomachines so that his condition doesn't go from shitty to critical." It wasn't a bluff, Kokonoe had been adding more and more nanomachines as the days went on, but of course that was to keep Ragna's healing factor from regenerating too fast.

"If that truly is the case then why are you bothering with creating him a second arm?" Mokoral, another board member, asked. "You seem to be investing a lot of your time and resources into creating an arm for a supposed cripple, which begs the question of why you're bothering with it."

"Like you've given me anything else to do in the meantime," Kokonoe said with a scowl. "I'm the top mind on engineering on the planet and you won't let me have a single project on turning our old Ars Magus tech into something more current. I'm sick of getting jerked around! You realize I don't necessarily have to keep Ragna here, I'm sure the NOL would be more than happy to take him off your hands."

While Kokonoe had kept her aggressive front up on the outside, inside she felt a slight twinge of cockiness. Now that she had turned the tables on this pathetic board the meeting would soon be over and she'd get out of here. She wasn't denied the satisfaction, as Janis told the board that they should reevaluate their options and leave it there for now. Not a complete win for Kokonoe, but she'd at least bought herself some more time.

The Next Day

Kokonoe was busy sitting at her desk, looking over the blueprints a new power generator, one that didn't require a Seither in order to generate power, but could still convert it to energy all the same. Even though the board hadn't given her any projects, she'd be damned if she was going to let something as simple as that stop her. She'd finally finished the designs for a prototype when she heard light footsteps behind her.

"Professor?" It was Makoto of course, who else? "I just got a message from Kagura, he says that he'll call close to noon about the Duodecim's meeting with the new Imperator."

"Close to noon huh?" Kokonoe said with slight irk. "Guess I can't miss this call. Hey Makoto, do you mind-?"

"I can take care of our patient, don't worry about it," Makoto assured the Professor. "Just get me set up with the milkshake and I'll make sure Ragna gets it."

"All right, come back at 11:30 and I'll get you the damn drink." Makoto nodded and left. After looking over her prototype for a few moments, Kokonoe decided to look at Ragna's medical charts. 'Damn, his healing rate's still increasing, he's able to regenerate more and more every day. I guess I'm going to need to double the amount of nanomachines today... and probably keep doing that these next few days. Soon I'll be giving him three of these things for a single meal.'

Ragna's Room

Ragna climbed back into his hospital bed after just consulting the great white seat. He was about to pull the covers over him before there was a knock at the door.

'What the hell? Kokonoe never knocks, she just barges in here and tells me to drink the damn milkshake. Wonder if that squirrel girl actual managed to come back.'

"Hey, you decent?" Makoto's voice sounded from the other side of the door.

"As much as I can be in just a hospital gown," Ragna responded. 'Wonder how she managed to convince the cat?'

The door opened revealing the beastkin, holding Ragna's milkshake, but behind her she was pulling in a wheelchair and with a white cloth on it. She set the drink down on Ragna's night stand before wheeling the chair close to him.

"I've got something different planned for today," she told Ragna. "I think you lunch spot could use a change of venue, so I decided to borrow these from Litchi."

"Uh, okay?" Ragna said unsurely, not having any idea what Makot was planning. "So what do I need to do?"

"I'll help you out with this," Makoto said as she helped Ragna stand by grabbing his good arm. I took a few minutes, but she managed to get the white coat over Ragna. She'd intentional asked Litchi to get one that would be too big for him so that no one could see who laid beneath. It worked perfectly, Ragna's entire body was completely covered and the hood was long enough to cover him down to his mouth. After helping Ragna get seated, Makoto took the wheelchair, grabbed the milkshake glass in order to get back inside, and started escorting Ragna down the hall.

Makoto's plan was working well so far, she'd been getting glares from the Sector seven officials, but that was just because she was a Beastkin, from what she could tell they still had no idea she was escorting the Grim Reaper. Ragna for the most part just sat there and said nothing. He was glad the both sleeves were long enough to go past his hand. A few small adjustments with the coat and no one could tell he only had one arm.

"We're here," Makoto said after walking around for about a good ten minutes. A few more steps and Ragna felt a sensations he'd doubted he'd enjoy any time soon, and that was if he'd survived. Fresh air... A slight breeze... But most of all...

"Sunlight," Ragna said. They were in the small garden that Sector Seven had created as a recreation area. Through his coat, he could feel the sun's rays on him, giving him a slight tinge of warmth. "...Funny, never thought I'd actually miss it."

"Well you've been coped up in that room for weeks, I think anyone would miss being outside after that long," Makoto told him as she wheeled him over to a spot that was away from the scientists, but still in the sunlight. "Kind of unfair that you have to be treated like this, right? You just saved the world, a heroes treatment wouldn't be too much to ask."

"...Maybe, but I'm no hero," Ragna told her. "I just managed to kill off the people that were going to cause the world to go to hell, something like that doesn't make me any sort of savior. And don't forget, I can't exactly take back those branches that I burned to the ground and the people in them."

"Yeah, but... you were convinced that the NOL was evil at the time right? And they were." Makoto wasn't really sure what Ragna's deal was, but at the very least she felt he should at least get something for all he's been through.

"I didn't really even think they were evil. I just knew they were my enemy and that was enough." Makoto didn't ask him anything else after that, so Ragna took that as the conversation having ended. "This feels nice... mind if we stay here a little longer?"

"I don't really mind," Makoto said with a sad smile. "I don't really have anything else to do."

"...Thanks." It was the first time in a long time Ragna had ever thanked anyone.

Later

Makoto wheeled Ragna back into his room before helping him stand, taking of the white coat and helping him back into his bed.

"Hey, whatever happened to the milkshake?" Ragna asked. "I know they taste bad, but I still gotta have something."

"About that," Makoto said, scratching the back of her head with a smile. "I uh, sorta spilled all of it. So... no milkshake today."

"Spilled it?" Ragna asked, before realizing that he hadn't seen Makoto spill the drink. "Wait a minute... You totally dumped it didn't you?!"

"Yep!" Makoto said with a happy smile.

"Then what the hell am I supposed to eat!?" Ragna shouted in annoyance. "It's bad enough that I only get one milkshake a day, but if I lose that-!"

"Aw, you seem angry," Makoto said playfully, proving to irk Ragna. She reached underneath the wheelchair and brought out a brown bag. "And here I'd gone through all of the trouble of getting you a sacked lunch. But if you don't want it..."

"You're testing me, you really are," Ragna said with venom. "Fine I'll take it."

"Not with that attitude," Makoto said, her smile widening. "How about an apology?"

"Apologize!?" Ragna shouted, before realizing he didn't have a choice. "Fine, I'm sorry Mako-"

"Miss Makoto."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry Miss Makoto."

"Miss Makoto who also happens to be the most beautiful women you've ever seen." Ragna hesitated. "Go on, say it."

"You're evil. All right, I apologize Miss Makoto who also happens to be the most beautiful goddess this pitiful soul known as Ragna has ever had the esteemed pleasure of gazing on."

"And here I thought Kagura was supposed to be a charmer," Makoto said with a wink as she handed Ragna the lunch.

"You made me say that!" Ragna yelled as he took the lunch. "You know that you're going to get grief from Kokonoe for losing the milkshake right?"

"Eh, it was for one day I think you'll be fine without it... well better off anyways. Enjoy the lunch, I'll see you around!"

'That woman,' Ragna thought to himself as he opened the lunch. Inside was an apple, a water bottle, and a PB&J. 'I guess she got me all of this so it can't be all that bad... and she took me outside for the first time in weeks... But still, why is she helping me?' Deciding he'd just ask Makoto the next time he saw her, Ragna shook the thought out of his head and began eating the real food he'd been given.

Author's Note: Don't own BlazBlue.

Another tie in chapter for a story, but I guess it helps the setting. I rushed a few things that time, but I was still satisfied with the end result. I hope you are as well.

Review Responses:

TheGreyKing27: Strangely enough, if I include the college version I get some breathing room to work with and I already have a few ideas for chapter when I can't update the main story. Every little bit helps.

Marconator360: Thanks, I guess there's a lot that can happen here.

Hudson Yang: I certainly hope I don't kill myself either.

Until next time. Ciao!