The group of five that remained in the clinic continued chatting happily for quite a while. With X contributing more, any sense of tension that hung in the air seemed to be briefly suspended. It was a pleasant atmosphere, and a huge comfort to everyone in the room. Having these sort of peaceful, even joyful, moments seemed like a huge privilege.
Briefly zoning out from the conversation, Kris' eyes wandered around the room. She didn't have any idea what her allies were talking about at that moment, and all she could make out was the occasional laugh from one of the Hoenn Dexholders. Her mind wandered through the same various topics she had run through several times since the game begun. These thoughts mainly consisted of potential plans to escape the island, how Gold and Silver were doing, and whether or not they would be able to form a good plan. Even though she tried not to show it, Kris' mind was constantly filled with those kind of thoughts.
Almost as soon as she started zoning out, however, her thoughts were quickly interrupted. Usually, it would be due to Emerald or Ruby trying to recapture her attention, but this time, it was something completely different. It even caused the other four to cease talking.
The doorknob of the entrance was rattling. Someone was trying to open it.
At that moment, all the peace and lightheartedness in the atmosphere evaporated. X proceeded to blow out the candles that were nearby. Ruby instinctively moved in front of Sapphire, watching the door intently. Emerald wasted no time in grabbing his shotgun, which was on the table. He aimed it towards the door, prepared for a potential enemy.
Kris slowly rose from her seat, unsure of whether or not she should walk towards the front door. In the end, she stayed standing, poised beside Emerald, who remained seated upright and tense. Everyone in the room remained silent, and stared at the door. A few seconds later, it finally opened.
A girl with her hair bundled into two long pigtails stumbled in the door, her right arm soaked in blood. She was cradling her daypack in her free arm, head down. The girl appeared to be breathing heavily, as if it was a struggle to do so. Leaving the door open, she dropped her daypack onto the floor.
Emerald immediately put the gun down, his concentrated expression turning to one of panic. Kris immediately ran over to the girl, putting an arm around her shoulder.
"When did this happen to you?! Come with me", she instructed, beginning to walk towards the third door.
"Um... A few hours ago, I think. Who's following us?" the girl asked in return, her tone soft.
Kris looked over her shoulder. X remained a few feet behind her, following them uncertainly. She ushered him forward, hoping to get all the help she could obtain for this girl. They entered the room, which was shrouded in darkness. X flipped the light switch on, illuminating the room much more effectively than the candles managed to do.
"That's X. We're all allies here, so you don't need to worry. The most important thing right now is treating that wound. Are you in any pain right now?" Kris asked.
"It's been throbbing for the last while now. It doesn't hurt as much as it initially did, at least."
Once they approached the table in the center of the room, Kris helped the girl sit up on top of it. X hurried in after them into the room, and stood by the table. After that, Kris rushed to retrieve one of the many first aid kits stacked up nearby. She carried one over, and opened it. She pulled out a few cotton balls, and a bottle of disinfectant.
"X, can you roll up her sleeve?" she requested.
Nodding, the black-haired boy gently lifted the sleeve, peeling it away from the wound. After the difficult bit was over, he rolled the sleeve upwards, until it was rolled past her elbow. The of three of them looked down at the wound, curious to see how bad the damage was.
It had stopped bleeding at some stage, and there appeared to be dry blood surrounding the messy line. The wound had yet to scab over, leaving a chance for it to be disinfected. Kris let out a sigh of relief at that, while the younger two winced at how gaudy the cut looked.
"I have to warn you, this is going to sting", Kris warned. After receiving a consenting nod, she turned to X. "Could you hold her arm out? And try talking to her while I disinfect this. She'll probably need to distract herself."
X bit his lip, feeling uncertain of his social skills. Nevertheless, he complied with her first request, and held the girl's arm out. Kris opened the bottle and dabbed some of the liquid onto the first cotton ball. When she pressed it against the top of the cut, the girl let out a small hiss. X took that as his cue to begin distracting her.
"What's your name?" he asked, struggling to find anything better to open with.
"Faitsu. I'm from Unova", she replied, clearly trying to keep her voice steady, as Kris ran the cotton ball down her arm.
"Um... Anything else you want us to know? Tell us what happened before you woke up in the classroom."
"Nothing in particular... My two classmates and I were invited to watch the Pokemon World Tournament, along with a few of our seniors. We were taking a bus to the arena. The blonde girl fell asleep all of a sudden, and then I must've drifted off too. It's not a very exciting story", Faitsu explained.
"Me and my friends were invited on an outing too. I wouldn't consider any of this exciting, though", X said, trying to find a way to reply.
It was strange; he found himself opening up to this girl more easily than he expected. Then again, it must have been simple, given the fact that they both possibly felt the exact same way about this death game. It was easier to talk to people when he was certain they could relate to his situation.
Kris tried to hide a smile. X was clearly beginning to open up more since their conversation, which relieved her immensely. While she still didn't believe that he trusted her idea of escaping fully, she was certain that he was beginning to trust his ability to talk to people.
Her main concern, though, at that moment was treating the girl in front of her. Given the fact that Faitsu said she had been wandering around the island for a few hours, all Kris could do was hope she disinfected the wound in time. If she didn't, things could get messy at a later stage, but at least she had taken the safety precautions that were needed.
Discarding the cotton ball, she reached into the safety kit for a needle and roll of thread. Faitsu looked at Kris and flinched, upon seeing the sharp needle. The older girl wanted to reassure her that everything would be okay, she knew that it had been years since she had used a needle and thread, and it hadn't been for stitches. While she assumed it would be easy enough to grasp after her work on clothes, the amount of time that had passed since she used the objects worried her.
"A-Are you okay?" Faitsu asked hesitantly.
Kris looked up, unaware of the fact that she had been staring down frustratedly at the needle and thread. Before she could answer, X suddenly reached over and took the objects out of her hands. Both girls looked in confusion at the boy, but he didn't let go of the essential equipment.
"I never stitched up a cut before, but Shauna taught me how to patch up holes in clothes, using these. I could try it", he offered quietly. He looked a little down after mentioning Shauna's name, but Kris quickly tried to fix that.
"Sure! How kind of you. I'll hold her arm out", she said, taking a hold of Faitsu's arm.
The young girl let out a small whimper when X first pierced her arm with the needle. He barely took any notice. His full concentration was poured into the smooth movement between the needle and her arm, slowly closing up the cut that Black had caused. Faitsu didn't let out another sound as the process continued, and instead watched him with fascination. Kris appeared to be doing the same.
For the first time since X had joined them at the clinic, he truly did look calm, even content. At that moment, nothing else seemed to matter but the process of patching up something that had been damaged. It began to occur to Kris that, if they got off the island and helped X to get through the trauma of his past, he would be completely passionate about helping others, in the way he was helping this practical stranger. Kris felt ashamed that she had completely underestimated how sympathetic he could be.
Just before X could ask for a small pair of scissors to cut the remaining thread away from Faitsu's stitches, the door to the room burst open once more. The trio snapped their heads in that direction, only to see Sapphire, Ruby and Emerald standing there. Sapphire stood at the front, still holding onto the doorknob. Ruby was clutching her shoulder, and Emerald was almost hidden behind her waist.
"Is she alright?!" Sapphire asked. Faitsu looked over, surprised.
"I'm okay. Were you worried?" she questioned in return.
"Well, yeah. You just burst into this place with blood all over your arm. We had to check on you after a while, y'know", Emerald cut in, talking as if their concern was the most obvious thing in the world.
Before Faitsu could reply, she flinched a little upon feeling X cut the remaining thread out of her arm. After the other three saw him do so, Ruby walked over to the table, examining the younger boy's work.
"You're pretty good at this! Are you familiar with stitching items?" he said, sounding impressed.
"Just a little", X mumbled, looking a little embarrassed.
Ignoring the scene between them, Kris reached into the first aid kit, and pulled out a roll of gauze. As the others continued chatting, she began to bandage Faitsu's arm. The young girl also remained quiet, but there was still an awful lot Kris wanted to know.
"What weapon did you-" she began, but was quickly interrupted.
"A machine gun. Sorry, we had to check. It looks pretty scary", Sapphire cut in.
Faitsu frowned upon hearing that the other three had looked through her bag without permission, and Kris didn't look too happy to hear that either. Still, neither girl scolded her on it, and instead, continued to talk.
"Okay, we need to establish something important. Who did this to you?" she asked sternly, giving the girl's arm a gentle tug.
At first, Faitsu didn't reply. She kept her head lowered, and bit her lip. Everyone else in the room grew quiet, watching her. It had been something that had bothered them ever since she rushed in, and they had been more than a little curious about the answer.
"N. He's decided to kill. He tried to hurt me, but I ran away. I didn't want to kill", she answered softly, pulling her arm away from Kris and hugging herself.
No one in the room was surprised to hear that N was playing the game. They almost expected him to. N and Lance had been brought into the game to help kill the others, and although none of them said it, they all believed that the murders so far had been caused by those two.
"How did you escape?" Ruby asked, leaning in.
"I pointed my weapon at him after he cut me, and he backed off. I don't know why he thought I'd be able to fire it, but I'm just glad he ended up leaving me alone, in the end. Then I just kept running until I ended up here", she said, refusing to look at any of them.
"That means that he's probably still out there somewhere. Faitsu, I don't mean to worry you, but if he finds out you came here, he'll try and attack all of us. I want someone to operate as lookout. There's a balcony up above, so one of you will stay up there for... an hour, let's say, and then we'll switch. Faitsu, can we use your weapon for lookout duty?" Kris said, turning towards the young girl.
"Go ahead."
"Thank you. Remember; if any of you see N, try to maim him. Or, kill him on sight if you can, especially if he's a threat to all the other people on this island", she continued, sounding more than a little uncertain about the last part.
Then, there were a few minutes of silence. Everyone in the room was waiting for somebody else to take initiative in lookout duty. After hearing the last part of Kris' instructions, everyone was a little hesitant. It would be difficult to bring themselves to kill, even if N had done some horrible things.
"I can do it. X, please keep an eye on Faitsu's arm, in case anything happens", Kris instructed.
She stood up, and began to walk towards the waiting room once more to retrieve the Ingram. Before she could leave the room, though, Faitsu suddenly sat upright, ignoring the sharp bolt of pain that ran through her arm after putting pressure on it.
"Wait! I need to tell you something, if you're going to let me join you", she called out. Kris halted in her tracks and turned around.
"What is it?"
"The thing is, I... I used to be a member of Team Plasma. I foolishly believed in everything N said, and thought there was no better human being than him. This game taught me that I was wrong about all of that, and... I just can't believe I blindly trusted him for so long", Faitsu confessed, her tone growing shaky.
Everyone stared at her for quite some time, and Kris had completely forgotten about lookout duty, for those few seconds. Many of them were torn between whether or not they could trust her, but they had to wonder if she really was lying about no longer being on N's side, considering the fact that she had willingly told them something so dark.
"Hey, that takes a lot of guts to confess, right? I can't see any reason why you'd lie about something like that, and I dunno why you sided with him in the first place but you still told us. That's a pretty big sign of trust, huh?" Sapphire said, breaking the silence,
She walked over to Faitsu, and laid a hand on her right shoulder. The younger girl flinched at her touch, due to the fact it was her bandaged arm. Sapphire barely noticed, and continued talking.
"Besides, why would'ja lie about something like that?" she asked, looking down at the bandages covering her cut.
"So, you're really not associated with Team Plasma anymore? And you want to escape with us?" Ruby asked, also approaching the table.
"O-Of course! I don't want anything to do with Team Plasma or N ever again. I understand if you won't forgive me for my past, but if you can trust me, nothing will make me happier", Faitsu replied.
"We won't hold any grudges over you! Why would we? You've received a horrible wakeup call, but a wakeup call nonetheless. We'd be happy to help you get out of here, too", Ruby reassured her.
Kris smiled, watching the scene from the doorframe. She was relieved to see how open everyone had become to trusting one another, especially after the young girl had revealed such a dark secret. The brunette looked over at her with wide eyes. As if to reaffirm Ruby's claim, Kris nodded her head once, and then left the room to go find the Ingram and begin her duty as lookout.
That nod from Kris had sent Faitsu over the edge. She gripped the ends of her shorts, and bit her lip. Lowering her head once more, she made no attempt to prevent herself from crying. Tears had been threatening to fall since she revealed her secret, and after everyone gave their trust to her, she began to cry. She sobbed softly, her shoulders shaking.
"Oh, um... Could one of you get a tissue?" Ruby asked awkwardly, taken off guard by Faitsu's sudden emotional display.
Emerald ran over and retrieved a tissue from a box lying on the counter. He walked back over and handed it to Faitsu, who received a few soft back pats from Sapphire. She shakily raised the tissue to her eyes, dabbing them gently. It didn't stop her from crying, though.
As the others began to comfort her, she continued crying. It wasn't for the reasons they conjured, though. It was difficult to stop crying due to her frustration over how much they miscomprehended why she was so upset, but mainly, it was due to the fact that they had so blindly believed that N had been so brutal. At that very moment, even Kris was preparing to kill him.
I'm so sorry. I can't believe they all have such a warped perception of you, my Lord. How can they all believe such blatant lies? They're horrid. I'll take all the pleasure I can in killing them, I promise, Faitsu thought, continuing to sob, and hug herself. Ruby and Sapphire went on comforting her calmly, while X and Emerald watched.
17 Remaining.
