Chapter Seven: Wicked Splinters
Trust is perhaps the most fragile, fickle, and fleeting of the many emotions. Like a mirror it is difficult to craft with accuracy and still something that is easily shattered. Once broken it may be able to be put to some level of use but it will never be the same. Even if one manages basic repair there will always remain even the tiniest of cracks visible in the surface. Mocking the onlooker who can never again be reflected in the same way.
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"You are coming right?"
Yuka's question was a bit of bad timing for Kagome. She hadn't yet seen Lezard sense the incident the night before. She didn't know if he still wanted to attend the pizza party at the park.
The girl was relieved that her friend had no way to sense the warmth leaking into her cheeks as flashes of the provocative actions Lezard had taken the night before came to mind. When she paused even for a moment to consider she could still clearly remember the sting on her lips and the pressure and warmth of him pressing against her with abandon.
"Kagome? You there?" Yuka seemed to think they might have been disconnected.
"Yeah, I just don't know." That part was honest at least. "Lezard wasn't feeling well last night so I don't know if he'll still want to come and I don't want to just leave him as he just got into the country."
"When did I get good at this lying stuff?"
"Someone other than you is sick?" She sounded amazed. Years of Grandpa's tales about her wildly fluctuating health had left an effect. "That's a first. Maybe you should avoid them so you don't catch it. You don't have the best health yourself."
"I think they might have caught the cold Souta had but he got it from me so I should be okay." Kagome frowned a little at just how good at lying to her friends she'd gotten over her year in the feudal era. "I'll try to make it if he can't but it depends on how he's doing."
"I understand." Yuka answered, as if she hadn't really expected Kagome to come along in the first place. "You guys are welcome if you want. Tell Lezard I hope he starts feeling better. Bye Kagome."
She settled down the now warm receiver and glanced warily at the door that lead to the den. Walking in on him if he was still sleeping seemed pretty stupid in the case he was being all insane and seeing things that weren't there again.
"I can't ask him if I don't open the door though...what if he's sick again? Normally he's awake before me and ready before I even get downstairs..." She was chewing her lip as she fought over what course to take.
The clock chimed a gentle noon and it seemed as if she would half to check to make sure he was okay. She approached slowly though and took a deep breath before knocking, hoping he'd just tell her to go away or answer and just been reading.
Her anxiety was justified when after a second, louder series of knocks he still failed to answer. "Great..."
She opened the door, glad when he didn't assault her, but the concern for him returning instantly as she gasped at his figure on the bed.
He was nearly naked, only parts of sheets covered his unmentionables and she wasn't sure if he was even clothed beneath those. His skin was a wicked lobster colored red that mixed with deeper oranges and browns where blisters seemed to wrap his form. Almost nothing but his face retained the normal paleness of his appearance, his violet eyes were closed but she couldn't imagine he was all right. It looked as if he had third degree burns covering his whole body.
"What the hell was he doing?" Kagome said it out loud out of a need to hear a voice, even if it was her own. His chest was barely moving but at least he was breathing. He had to be in an incredible amount of pain. "Once he's fixed I'm gonna beat him. What was he thinking burning himself like this?"
She winced once she moved closer, the poor lighting with the drapes drawn hadn't allowed her to make it out against the rest of the red before but the long wound on his chest had reopened at some point and was bleeding some sort of black ichor. It was amazing that he was alive at all in the horrible condition he was in.
It wasn't until paper crinkled beneath her feet at her approach that she even noticed what a poor state of disrepair he'd left the den in. The bed's comforter was on the floor, on top of several ripped up pages that seemed as if they were from published book and notebook alike. Strange symbols had been scribbled all over almost any sort of open surface...the papers on the floor as well as the walls and she wasn't even sure how he'd gotten it on the ceiling in his condition.
Her spine shivered as she blinked in disbelief at his chest. Her irritation at the disarray of the den replaced by dread. That was why she had felt something akin to Naraku when he had arrived...there was a aura almost exactly like those of corrupted jewel shards from within the freshly opened wound on his chest. It made her heart skip a beat.
Only after she concentrated did she manage to notice the aura was just slightly different than that of the shard but it still was amazingly similar and the outline of the dark energy was shaped like a splinter which was longer than the shikon jewel could have been in any fragment but didn't make her feel anymore comfortable. It was as if it was part of whatever had cut across his chest had broken off and embedded itself in his body.
"It must be why he keeps getting sick and is going sort of crazy." Kagome reasoned, frowning at the horrible aura that came from the thing. It wasn't too deep but he wasn't normal, something about him let him live through things that she wouldn't come close to surviving. "God...first aid kit...I took splinters out of parts of everyone when we were traveling."
She dashed off for the bathroom, already familiar with the supplies she'd need. It was never so close to the chest or lungs when she'd helped her friends...or as large...but she didn't have much of a choice...he'd already said a normal doctor wouldn't be able to treat him and she couldn't risk telling anyone of her double life as a priestess. As long as she got the strange piece out then she should be able to finally heal him and have it stick.
At least, that was what she truly hoped.
His skin seemed to be holding onto warmth as if he had a horrible fever...the burns were so gruesome she did her best not to touch him while she tried to look at where she might be able to get at the sliver of something wicked within his wound. The flesh around the wound looked very weak, as if it was decaying slowly even as she watched. She pulled on some rubber gloves that came with the kit and then picked up the surgical knife she'd sanitized in the kitchen and while the surroundings weren't exactly as clean as she'd prefer she was afraid if she waited he might not last much longer.
Leaving the house was looking far less likely.
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Even in unconsciousness he was aptly aware of the pain coursing through everyone of his damaged nerves on his skin and deeper into his chest. Lezard only saw flashes of his past as well as his present and even various flicker's of dozens of possible futures he'd witnessed within the philosopher's stone.
None of the images were things that failed to mock or haunt him, as if his mind was punishing him for his physical pain by inflicting extra jabs to his psyche. Lenneth refused him over and over again, that tended to be the main theme of his visions.
Though it wasn't merely that, it was seeing countless tiny mistakes that might have changed fate in the many times he'd traveled the time steams and dimensions. It was as if the Lord of All Space and Time was denied the one thing his heart was truly set on possessing. He had lost track of the number of times his beloved Valkyrie had managed to make his icy heart melt upon sight and then shatter at her repeated refusals.
One doesn't have to show pain to feel it. His unconscious torture was a tribute to that concept, all anyone watching him would see was a mostly serene expression. Was he to become some colossal joke? Even if he had removed himself from the strands of mortality, would his struggle to attain his Valkyrie even be possible after that blonde bitch had absorbed her soul?
It was impossible to know what other realms she may still exist in, or even if he would be able to find an escape from the one to which he'd been banished.
The thoughts turned, repeated, paused but then replayed again. A void of frustration within his black heart, though the whirlpool of despair was banished when agony seemed to inject itself into his chest.
Violet eyes shot open but his hands refused to move at his will, he couldn't even see past the dots dancing merrily in his blurry vision as he did his best not to scream. He vaguely heard someone murmuring but what he couldn't tell. He wasn't certain if someone intent on trying to get information from him had finally caught up to him or not...but likely they were just as content to simply torture him. It wasn't as if he'd failed to rack up enemies in his countless trips through time.
It seemed an eternity before he could finally make out a brunette woman that had a pair of metal tweezers going at least an inch into the wound on his chest. It was another minute or two before he remembered how he'd gotten there and who she was. "Saving me again?"
When she flinched a bit and he gasped at the pain, he wanted to howl but it seemed as if a belt had been wrapped around his lungs and tightened whenever air left without much leeway to let it back in. "Perhaps not."
There was an intense and uncomfortable pressure, it felt as if she was going to push the metal instrument into his heart or lungs and finish him off herself. He could only vaguely notice the sting of the tears sliding along his face. Then it all vanished with a final and nearly unbearable sucking sound. He heard the clink of whatever it was before he realized she was pulling something free not trying to cut him open slowly.
Then there was an amazing moment of calm, the storm of suffering cleared with a seraphic breeze as a familiar golden glow encased his body. His breath returned to him and the burning slowly subsided to a nearly perfect comfort. If he hadn't already been asleep (however a poor rest it had been) likely he would have wanted to keep his eyes closed out of a pure desire to hold onto a rare feeling of complete tranquility that accompanied her spell.
She slumped at the side of the bed when she was finished, less able to resist the lure of sleep than he after all of her activity with magic when she was still such a novice. Lezard settled a now pale again hand on her head, petting her hair softly. The necromancer was having a rare moment of true appreciation for her work.
Her face was prettier when she wasn't constantly troubled by the petty details of her life, relaxed and carefree, it made her appear younger. She was cooler than usual though, a sign that she'd started to push the limits of the magic she should call on in a given period of time. Her dark hair and bangs framed her face well and her skin was a just a bit more fair than he had originally believed from other observations.
He took the gloves from her hands, they still had a little blood on them which he was well aware was his. Otherwise his body was clean of any proof of his previous pain but the thin white scar which he could only assume he'd always wear after being the subject of a strike of Odin's blade.
"Speak of the devil..." He noticed the writing on the ceiling and the papers before his gaze was drawn to the thin black line of metal. "They really were trying to make sure I wouldn't survive...they left a piece of it in my chest when they cut me..."
It explained all of his issues, the failure to react well when he cast, the constant reopening of his wounds day to day. It was one of the more wicked abilities of the heavenly blade, to lessen itself to make certain it's target would perish even if they were to manage to escape.
He frowned some at the random writing he'd left on the walls and ceiling, it was a sign he had been extremely close to death...he'd been writing back out the formula to recreate the philosopher's stone...it didn't bode well that he hadn't finished the spell before he ceased to be able to move...if the girl hadn't been there...he would have died again...
He pulled her up from the uncomfortable position she'd fainted on the floor with. Replacing her where he'd just taken the bed and covering her. Keeping her warm in the first stages of overdosing on magic would help her revert to normal faster. It wasn't a dangerous point...but if she hadn't realized the problem and fixed it then, he likely wouldn't have had many days left. "What will I do with you?"
It was a odd question from him, but he felt indebted for the first time in a very long time to another person. He got dressed as he considered options of doing something for her for the many times she'd rescued him the past few days.
Then he heard her muttering and knew it was likely nightmares, that wasn't uncommon for magic overdosing either. "Inuyasha...no...please don't show me this again...I don't want to watch it anymore..."
Perhaps brew something to make the fellow she loved return her feelings once he'd gotten the portal open again? It wasn't something that would work on his dear Valkyrie (not that he hadn't tried) but a regular mortal would be easier to fall prey to a love spell than a god.
End Chapter
Whew, that was actually a difficult chapter to write. At least Lezard's finally gonna be able to really start recovering without his wounds haunting him. Poor Kagome all having nightmares about Inuyasha.
-Nera
To my reviewer:
minaseiko1 - Yay my one big fan! You always keep me coming back when I'm wondering if anyone actually reads this story. Though I think you might be the only one. Yes the kiss was awkward for sure. I already has some plans for the next chapter but it depends on how I'm feeling after dental work tomorrow if I'll feel up to working on it soon or not. Thanks for all the awesome feedback!
