... I'm naturally rambly, at midterms season, and write as stress relief. M'pretty sure this qualifies as 'out of hand'. Explosions were minimal, too...

Welp, hope it's enjoyed anyway! Huge thanks to everyone who leaves feedback.

It's around what little remained of the Fox's Sin Ban that the Commandments reconvened once more, all of them damaged to some extent or the other and more than a little wary of any more sudden intruders.

Among them, Drole and Gloxinia were some of the worst off, having had to fight an (at the time) relatively fresh Meliodas by themselves before the rest of them had arrived. Though Drole's Heavy Metal had saved both him and Gloxinia from taking too much damage from the interferer's twin's (?) Crazy Hunt, they certainly hadn't escaped unscathed, not after the Full Counter that had rebounded Monspiet's full-powered Hellfire Phoenix into a damned inferno.

But even they, hurt as they were, were nothing compared to Melascula, who was currently a twisted, once-again charred husk of a figure lying limp in one of Drole's arms, only barely kept alive by her lone remaining heart, as still as she had been since the first interloper had broken her neck and crushed her hearts. Zeldris, for his part, could not blame her, feeling a stab of sympathy at the sight of her when he finally caught up with the rest of them.

Losing even one heart, he could now attest, was absolutely painful. Losing five at almost all at once? He couldn't even imagine. He wouldn't be surprised if it took her at least a month to recover without aid.

Yet more reason to seek vengeance against the other clans and their constant interference. Their retribution against his brother was an internal matter; no one outside of the Demon clan had any right to intervene. Yet they did anyway, as if they had any stake in the matter. Damned fools.

"Where are they?" he demands upon landing.

"The two who fell from the sky have long left this place," Drole replies. His renowned magical eye seemed distant. "With Meliodas in tow."

Although he'd expected it, the reply makes his teeth grit, makes that familiar rage rise in his throat. He quashes it down. This was not the time for it. "And the first one?" he asks. "I saw you all in combat with him," he says, looking to where Fraudrin, Monspiet, Derieri, and Grayroad were all resting, regenerating, with Grayroad, in particular, looking exhausted, as she had been since two of her hearts had been destroyed. "What happened?"

"He... took us by surprise at first, Sir Zeldris," Fraudrin is the one to reply, head hung in obvious shame. "But we were saved when Sir Estarossa arrived."

His gaze lands on his brother. "Where is he now?"

"Dead," was his answer, looking very bored. "I dealt with him myself. Quite frankly, I can't believe it took you all so long to kill one pesky human," he adds, looking contemptuously from Fraudrin, Derieri, Grayroad, then, finally, with particular disdain, to Monspiet, who was currently sealing back the gigantic gash in his chest from when Ban had come close to destroying his last heart. "That human was barely more than a gnat."

Derieri looked furious but Monspiet held her back before she could say a word. "He took us by surprise and we underestimated him," he says simply. "It won't happen again."

Estarossa's expression twisted in amusement. "You underestimated him?" he says, disbelieving. "I'd say that you were all just—"

"Enough, Brother," Zeldris cuts in, flashing him a look. "We were all taken by surprise," he says pointedly. "Otherwise, I'm sure you yourself wouldn't have failed in realizing the first of our vengeance against a double of someone you called a 'barely more than a gnat'." Estarossa scowls but doesn't protest. "Regardless of how it happened," he continues. "Meliodas has escaped us once more. As has his... double. Monspiet, you're our foremost magician. Do you know what opened that portal?"

"I'm afraid I've no idea," he replies, frowning slightly, tugging contemplatively at the ends of his mustache. "It resembled nothing I'd ever seen before. Generally speaking, matters regarding portals would be more of Melascula's purview. However..." his gaze wandered to her broken form in Drole's hand. "I will do my best to investigate its origins until she awakens."

"Why wait? Can't you just heal her again, Gloxinia?" his older brother suggests, looking supremely disinterested. "You can do that much, can't you?"

The former Fairy King looks at him with cold eyes. "... I'm all out of Droplets of Life. I won't be able to use it for a while," Gloxinia says. He didn't need to say it, the as-you-well-know was evident in just the set of his shoulders. "Sorry," he adds, looking to his injured fellow Commandments with some semblance of sincerity.

"It's no matter," Zeldris cuts in. "Peronia will handle her recovery. For now—"

He suddenly pauses.

"I almost forgot..."

He reaches out to that thread of magic connecting them to some distant land, to the eye he'd felt watching them, grasps, then makes it burn.

Back in Liones, Gilfrost only barely manages to break the spell connecting them to the battlegrounds at Vaizel when his whole spell orb explodes, its shards ricocheting with enough force to crack through solid rock. King was only barely able to call forth Chastiefol's Guardian form in time to protect himself, his sister, and those around them, and it's Griamore, of all people, who managed to protect the rest, having unconsciously summoned a Long Shield around him and everyone else during the moment he'd cried out, terrified by the sudden noise and sight of the explosion. Gilfrost looked at the shattered remnants of his spell orb from behind the summoned shield with fear in his eyes. If he hadn't broken the connection in time, he knew full well he might've died right then and there, killed by a demon from hundreds of miles away.

"S-such power..." he breathes, his pulse pounding loudly in his ears. "Monsters, they're monsters—!"

Zeldris let himself savor the slight satisfaction before turning his attention to his fellow Commandments once more.

"For now, we draw back," he declares. "We will need to rest and recover before we can resume our takeover of Britannia, our pursuit of vengeance. We weren't unscathed in this scuffle but we have not been defeated, not for long. We pull back now but only to recover more of our strength. We have much work to do but for now... we will need to rest. Let's go."

The ruined Vaizel, the labyrinth, they leave it all behind, disappearing on dark wings as dawn washed over Britannia once more.

"It's a good thing the Boar's Hat was parked nearby," the emotions remarked as he set his body down into his bed, not at all minding bloodying the sheets. "I'm not sure where else we could've gone if it had been far."

There was no reply of any kind. Meliodas—his body of this time—was still unconscious. Now that he has the chance, he steps back to study him critically, to get an idea of what he was going to have to do.

... If it weren't for the faint rise and fall of his chest—or, rather, the bristling of the blades impaling it, he would've thought it was a corpse being prepared for embalming and not someone still alive.

He sits down next to his own unconscious counterpart with a sigh. "But it could've been worse," he tells himself aloud, both himself as in himself and the one sleeping beside him. "I was dead at this point! And dying really hurts, I can remember that much," Then he pats himself on the head, the one lying on the bed. "You're safe now, don't worry. We'll get you patched up."

Meliodas was no doctor, no healer (and his emotions were the same) but he wasn't a stranger to first-aid either. And pretty much anyone could tell that the swords in his chest had to go before he could really get started.

So he grips one of the swords impaled in his unconscious body and pulls.

And pulls.

And pulls.

...

He sags to the ground, out of breath.

"... I'm just tired," he mutters to himself. "I'm weaker than I would be if I had my body but I'm not weak. I'll... just deal with those later," he decides aloud, looking at the swords with some frustration before looking decisively away. "For now," he says, instead. "I'll just take care of you." He briefly thinks back to how this had gone back in his own time, before his own death and revival had led to him skipping through actually experiencing the recovery process. "There's a lot else to take care of. I'm... pretty sure you broke your everything."

It takes a few hours but, by the end of it, Ban's in bed, with food and enough Aberdeen ale to bathe in ready by his bedside for when he woke up, he's eaten some actual, delicious, non-Purgatory food (without crying, of course, he'd deny it before the entirety of Liones if he had to—even if that ripe, fresh apple had been everything food from Purgatory was not and had been absolutely amazing), which he'd washed down with his favorite Bernia ale, he's got extra medical supplies at the ready, and he's mostly satisfied with his work

Now, the body on the bed looked... better, at least. He'd done his part to at least wash off all the blood and grime from the battle, and disinfect what wounds he could see and reach. The broken arm he'd set with a splint, with salve-soaked cloths arranged over all the bruised flesh, and the stump... well, there wasn't much he could do but tie it off to at least stop the flow of blood. There ultimately wasn't much he could really do. A lot of damage, from what he remembers, was internal, brought about by blasts of magic and physical blows that, while unable to break through his skin, had left their mark all the same. In the aftermath of the battle, even under his rudimentary care, he'd become feverish. The only thing he'd been able to do for that was to arrange some cooling cloths and force some fever solution down his throat. He really hadn't done much.

"Well, by this point, I was already dead, back in my time," he says to himself, with some measure of acceptance. "At least you're still alive. It could be worse. Really."

His one remaining heart was beating a mile a minute but it was miraculously undamaged. His body —Meliodas—was still unconscious and his injuries were, quite frankly, almost ludicrously severe, but he was still alive, with one heart still in good condition—if, admittedly, now getting overworked. All things considered, it could've been worse.

"Our darkness can fix a lot of this just on its own," he tells himself as encouragingly as he can. He's not quite sure which one of him he's trying to convince but it helps. "And Ban's got his Gift and Elizabeth already has her healing magic under control. You'll be fine. I'm pretty sure."

The tourniquet-ed stump seemed to look at him with accusation in its exposed bone.

"Probably."

He wonders where the arm went. As likely as not, it was probably destroyed in the explosions earlier. Now that he was thinking about it, could a druid's healing magic even regenerate whole limbs from almost nothing like this? He's never seen it do anything quite that extreme and he can't quite remember just how much Elizabeth had unlocked of her goddess powers...

Well, that was gonna suck.

"Well... Ban's Gift should be able to help out with that..." he muses to himself. "Probably. Stick to the bright side. You're the one with all the positive emotions here..."

It was an odd feeling but, somehow, he could sense, well, himself inside the person next to him. What little of himself was there, anyway. He was Meliodas, of course, and so the person on the bed was him in a sense, but... by this point in time, a lot of him had been shaved away, as his curse had intended. He'd almost forgotten how much of himself he'd already lost by this point in time. He hadn't really, fully realized until now but, by this point in time, there were more of him, his emotions, his soul, in Purgatory than there were in his body. All those years, all those decades, and he'd only barely had a fragment of his own soul. The part that let him feel emotions, at the very least. His heart, as it were.

It was a wonder he could feel anything.

Then again, he thinks, when the alternative was so much worse, how could he afford to do anything less? He remembers now, by this point in time, every emotion he could still feel, good or bad, he'd embraced with all that was left of his heart. He could think of nothing worse than reverting to how he'd once been, before he'd met Elizabeth, when he'd done nothing but allow the darkness in his blood to consume as it wanted, doing nothing but slake his bloodlust regardless of his own thoughts on the matters surrounding them, mindlessly following objectives set without a care for how little he thought them worth following. He'd been a tool until Elizabeth made him a person. He couldn't go back to how he used to be, not ever.

"You'll be fine," he tells himself. "Ban saved me and, now, you. You didn't have to lose even more of me, this time. Once you get back on your feet, you'll have a long road ahead, but you won't be alone. You've got the rest of the Sins behind us, fighting for us. Elizabeth, too. They won't let you go that way, not now, not ever."

Then he pauses. Has to take a deep breath.

"As long as you don't do anything stupid, at least! Honestly, it's bad enough that our dad takes more and more of me away when we die but then you go and use Assault Mode?!" He shakes his head, the memory of the incident still all too clear in his own mind, that feeling of rage and despair spiraling out of control, that need to get moremoremore power, reaching deep for a power he hadn't touched in actual millennia then—

—Finding himself in Purgatory, Meliodas' emotions in their entirety, having been forcibly ejected from his body the moment Meliodas had called on Assault Mode.

"You know what happens to us when you use it," he says accusingly, despite knowing that it wasn't this him who'd done it, but that him. "When we use it, we... you lose yourself. Me. Just using our darkness—it's hard enough to keep it from overwhelming us as it is and then you call on Assault Mode?!"

He doesn't mean to but caught up in his own emotions, he accidentally knocks over the basin with the water and washcloths he'd used to clean the blood off of his own body, spilling them all over the floor and staining it red. The sight of it makes him release a sigh he hadn't known he'd been holding, making him aware of just how tense he'd become. He forces himself to relax.

"... It's not that I don't understand," he continues. Because of course he did, he was his complete emotions, he felt the desperation, the rage, the fear, the despair even more keenly than the Meliodas who had ejected him, even in just the remembering of the incident. He knew why it happened, could remember how it felt to have his every instinct scream at him to break out, to save Elizabeth, already awakened to her memories, doomed to die in three days, and out in the presence of someone who could eat souls. "It's just..."

He stops. Takes a deep breath.

"You—we really should've remembered that the Sins were there, too," he says quietly. He bent to tidy up what he'd spilled, wiping away the bloody spillage before drying the floor with the remainder of the washcloths he'd brought. "We should've trusted them to keep her safe. That she could keep herself safe. We don't have to do everything by ourselves, not anymore."

"I guess I can't really preach too much," he has to admit to himself. "It was my fault, too. I was as much of a part of calling on Assault Mode as anything—I was you at the time. Part of you, anyway. Part of him. He—I panicked, I called for more power... I just didn't mean to call for that."

He finally stands, the floor now mostly clean, the basin full of washcloths balanced at his hip.

"But now, you know. So you don't have any excuses if you end up repeating the mistakes we made," he tells him, remembering what Ban had told him about what his own body had done in the hours after he'd been ejected, that damned idiot. "You're pretty stupid without me, you know that?"

As he had been from the very beginning, his counterpart remained unconscious. One might say he was sleeping like the dead. Still, he manages a small smile at himself as he bent to readjust the cooling cloths on his forehead.

"You're going to be fine. We'll tell you everything."

The unconscious Meliodas does not respond, of course, but something about the silence brings him peace, nonetheless.

Without saying another word, without needing to say another word, he dutifully does what care he can for his counterpart, relishing that he doesn't have to worry about being attacked by monsters even once as he does so. It's the first time in actual centuries that he's truly felt... safe, and, once he's done all that he can, he looks out of the window, notes the changing skies, then looks at his own sleeping self with some longing.

Hawk Mama would keep running without the need for supervision, Ban was still snoring in the room above, and his own still-unconscious counterpart wasn't in any immediate danger. If it were just for a little while... he could probably get some sleep, too.

Merlin has to admit, she'd done a pretty poor job of "house sitting", as the Captain had called it, but in her defense, her body was currently a literal stone statue. She's more than willing to bet that more than one would agree that trying to find a cure for such a malady ought to take precedence over "house sitting" something built on Hawk Mama, a creature that could somehow eat an attack straight from the Commandments' premier hellblaze manipulator without even flinching. Besides, the Boar Hat was already enchanted with spells to keep out intruders with hostile intentions. She was sure it could survive her taking the day to try and break the Commandment's curse. Her incredibly cleverly placed 'CLOSED' sign could handle the rest. After all, it wasn't like they were strapped for funds and there was no way she was going to waste time or energy serving customers in her current state.

Certainly, she's willing to admit that didn't excuse her not realizing there were three, unexpected new presences in the bar until several hours after they'd arrived and that Hawk Mama was on the move and had literally travelled over a hundred miles since she'd last checked on what was happening downstairs but, at the very least, she feels she could be understood. Somewhat. Most likely.

She was certain Escanor would, at least.

The three had to be accepted presences if her warding had allowed them to enter the Boar Hat without so much as alarming her, as they would've if they were (illiterate) customers, and they were obviously non-hostile given that the seemingly-unattended establishment had not exploded since she'd last checked in on it but, just to be safe, she turns Aldan invisible as she goes through the tavern. The bar area itself looked to be mostly unchanged... though there did seem to be more bloodstains than she remembered. (Howzer must've been the one to mop before they left)

It's upstairs that she gets her first real shock.

"Captain!"

Aldan is by his side in a flash, her best diagnostic spells half-casted even as she did her best to do the same thing by eye. He looked frankly horrific but by the sound of his breathing, the sense of his presence, he was obviously still alive, even if the sight of six swords sticking out of his chest was, to put it mildly, a little worrisome. Someone had obviously given him medical attention, going by the bandages and cooling cloths, but going by the absence of the afterglow of druidic healing magic, it hadn't been by her Big Sis Sis—rather, Princess Elizabeth's hand, nor even from Hendrickson's. Whoever had done it didn't even seem to be present; she couldn't sense anyone other than Meliodas in the room.

He was... well, fine was grossly overestimating things but he certainly wasn't in danger of dying at the moment. Aside from the obvious, the six swords piercing six hearts, the stump where his right arm had been, and the multitude of bruises painting his skin, majority of his bones were damaged to some extent or the other, he'd lost quite a lot of blood, and all that damage he had taken was severely overstraining his system. While all demons were born in such a way that they could survive so long as one heart remained, that certainly didn't mean that their bodies could easily adjust to the sudden destruction of vital organs. Her spell told her that without healing magic, he'd be out of commission for the next few weeks, and that was assuming he'd wake up and reseal off the worst of it with his darkness before long. The only good thing her diagnosis reported was that he was not in any danger of dying in bed. He was in absolutely terrible shape.

She tries to remove the swords only for them to spark malevolently on contact with her magic, making him hiss, pained, as they did. She stops immediately.

"What in the world happened to you..?" she asks, before fully realizing that he couldn't answer. "I thought your plan to go after Drole and Gloxinia was reckless but I didn't think they could..."

It's when she goes to survey him from the other side of the bed that she gets her second shock.

"What in the world?"

On the floor next to the other side of the bed was a makeshift nest of pillows and sheets, and on it was another Meliodas, this one dressed in unfamiliar clothes, wrapped up in blankets, and evidently fast asleep.

She hadn't fully recognized it until just now but there were two presences in the room, not just one. This... double, while his aura unmistakably that of her fellow Sin, was somehow... less than that of the Captain she knew (though, oddly enough, it was also more), and with the Captain—the one she was sure was the Captain who'd left for the festival—in his current state, she'd initially mistook their combined, weakened presences as that of just... Meliodas. One Meliodas. Of whom there ought to be only one, of whom there were somehow two. In fact, by all appearances, he'd been the one to care for the one on the bed

She extends a wisp of magic out through Aldan to survey the second one. His tattoo as the Dragon's Sin was clear on his left arm, and she could recognize the magic that branded it there as her own. It really was him. Meliodas. Just as the one on the bed was also him, somehow. They were both Meliodas. This was certainly... interesting.

And she'd sensed three presences earlier. These only accounted for two. Though she was loath to leave either of them, she goes up to the next room, leaving only a simple charm that would alarm her if one were to awaken.

In the room where Gilthunder, Howzer, and Griamore had been staying in was a man, asleep, snoring, tucked into the room's one bed as if he were a child. It was—it had to be Ban but something was definitely different about him. New clothes aside, he looked more or less the same but his aura...

The sense of his presence had always been strong, of course, he was one of the Seven Deadly Sins after all, but never to this extent. Even while he was unconscious, she could sense that he was shockingly powerful, at a level she didn't think possible for honestly anyone to achieve in the short span of time since she'd last seen him, when he'd resigned from the Seven Deadly Sins. It was still, recognizably, undoubtedly Ban but the difference in power was just exponential. Curious...

Another wisp of extended magic and she could see sense his tattoo as the Fox's Sin clear as day at his waist, recognize the magic that left it there as her own. Despite how impossible it seemed, the two were indeed Meliodas and Ban. Impostors or magical clones might be able to trick Hawk Mama's sense of smell, might've even been able to bypass her security spells, but she knew of nothing that could replicate the feel of her magic like that. In fact, as far as she knew, such imitation was impossible.

Despite herself, a smirk curled over her lips.

Very interesting.

This bore further investigation...

In the skies over Vaizel, a serpentine blue creature with scaled wings was circling the still-smoking battleground as the sun rose high and a moon appeared like a heat haze in the sky. After the preparations for the festival that had disfigured the land and destroyed its home, it now spent its days scavenging for scraps whenever it spotted an area absent of other living beings. It had been very loud here earlier, what with the fighting from the festival but the 'festivities' were over and the participants were all gone now. And the creature could spot something small and very shiny down by one of the many bodies the 'festivities' had left behind.

It dives, plucking the pretty thing into its beak, the object slotting neatly against its beak and shining brightly in the sunlight. It might've lost its home (and all the shiny things it had collected) but with everything it had regathered, it could finally get started on rebuilding anew.

Then the creature is yanked cruelly to the earth by some invisible, inexorable force, landing in the palm of a large, rough hand, and held over an amused-looking face.

"Rude~"

Sharp red eyes were staring at it with derision. The hand holding it began to squeeze.

"Don't you know not to take what isn't yours," Ban mock-lectures the monster he was holding. "I'll be taking this back." He plucks Lostvayne out of its beak, leaving it to squeal and protest in his grip before, without any further ado, he squishes it in its entirety, the creature exploding in a burst of gore in his fist. He shook his hand clean without sparing it a second thought. "The Captain'll kill me if I lose this~" he says idly to himself, twirling Lostvayne once, twice, thrice, before stopping. "And there's two of 'em now, somehow."

Ban pulls himself onto his feet with a grunt, new skin still sore and sensitive. The Commandments were long gone and he, freshly regenerated from what felt like less than a piece of skin. Even he'd half-thought he was a goner for a second or so after getting beaten down so hard. No matter, he was already back to normal, if maybe a bit cold. Damn them, he was only borrowing those pants.

"Now to get back to the others and find out what the fuck is going on..."

"Indeed, Ban."

He fairly leapt out of his skin. "Who the fu—"

High overhead, poking out upside-down from the apparent moon, was a familiar, irritatingly neutral-looking face that stared at him with a discomforting intensity. "It is I, Gowther, the Goat's Sin of Lust, here to fetch you, my precious comrade-in-arms," he says, his voice beautifully, woodenly emotional. Then, with a tilt to his head: "And you are naked. I am appalled."

He stares right back. "What the fuck, Gowther? How'd you even get here?!"

"I am here to fetch you. King and I have been scrying through here for signs of your presence, as well as that of your double and the Captains, for the past three hours," he explains. "And I came here through King's dog."

He only looked more lost. And annoyed.

"Wha..? Y'know what, fuck it, I'm not even gonna question it. Just get me outta here. And get me some pants while you're at it."

"Will do."

The sun is high in the sky by the time he wakes up and the sight of it was beautiful enough that he laughs upon seeing it. He'd half-expected everything to have just been a dream but, no. This was real. He was really in Britannia, after all that time. He was safe.

... well, as safe as anyone could be in a place still plagued by demons who all hated him as a traitor, and with the Ten Commandments, who all personally hated him as a traitorous backstabber, still on the prowl,

Safe enough, anyway.

His counterpart was still asleep but that wasn't unexpected. To his relief, the fever had broken at some point while he'd slept and his remaining heart didn't seem as overwrought as before. He wasn't in good condition, mind, but he was better, at least. As soon as Ban woke up, as soon as they reached Elizabeth, he would make a full recovery, he was sure. But first... he had to get rid of the swords.

He can do this much. He's sure of it. He's had plenty of time to get back his energy, he's eaten (delicious) real food, he's gotten some proper, restful, non-Purgatory sleep—hell, he'd even snuck in a hot bath before he'd gone to sleep and he felt amazing right now. He's awake, fresh, strong, and lively. He can do this. He knows he can. Using both hands, great determination in his eyes, he grips one of the swords impaled in his unconscious body and pulls.

And pulls.

And pulls.

And pulls!

...

He sags to the ground, out of breath once more.

"... now, this... this is just embarrassing," he mutters to himself. "No body or not, this is just pathetic!"

Then, suddenly, the impaled swords all flew out of the body of their own accord, as simply and easily as sliding pins out of a pincushion. It was done so smoothly, Meliodas didn't stir even once.

"Captaaaain, it's not a sin to ask for help you know," Ban complains, in sing-song, from his spot leaning by the doorway. The emotions hadn't so much as sensed his presence but Ban'd been there since he'd been woken by the sound of the emotions struggling with the swords not two minutes past. It only took the immortal one hand to hold all six of the swords. His other hand was nursing one of the bottles of Aberdeen he'd left for him. "I told you y'can call me if you needed anything!"

As if to prove his point, the extracted swords disintegrate into dust in Ban's hand, leaving the bandit looking bemusedly at it.

The emotions grumble as he puffs out his cheeks. "I didn't think they'd be stuck that hard." Then he turned to look up at him. "You were asleep when I last checked in on you. How are you feeling?"

"Back in perfect shape! I told ya, all I needed was a little nap." He saunters over to the bedside, snagging one of the chairs from the little table set nearby as he did so, expression turning serious. "How's he doing?"

"Not great," he sighs in reply as he pulls himself off of the ground, dusting himself off as he did. "But it could be worse," he says. "I'm made of pretty stern stuff!"

"Don't I know it~" Ban sets the chair by the bedside and settles down next to his friend's unconscious form, looking him over as he did. The Meliodas of this time, he was battered, bruised, and beat to shit but, miraculously, he was alive. Because he got him out. Somehow, he has to smile. "... At least I got to save you in this world, Cap'n."

"Hm?" The emotions were looking at him from the other side of the bed, damped cloths in his hands. Now that he was able to, he was cleaning out the stab wounds on his chest properly. "Ban, were you saying something?"

"Nooothin'~"

"Okay..." The emotions gave him a strange look before letting it pass. "Now, I'm made of pretty stern stuff, but without some kind of healing magic, he's going to be out for a while."

It didn't take a genius to get the hint. "Right, riiight. Here we go..." Ban cracked his knuckles once, took a deep breath, then held his hand out over the body. "Gift."

Power exploded outward from his hand and into the body in a rush of warm light, both reminiscent of the attack that had so weakened his father in their ultimately disastrous last fight and yet completely different. Gentler, somehow. His Gift was not exactly a proper healing spell but a direct transfer of his own lifeforce that could temporarily grant others his powerful regeneration, something feasible only through his own immortality and, even then, only in short bursts lest he fully lose it. Years of travel together after he'd discovered the ability told the emotions that he was giving a lot right now, enough to risk the loss. It wasn't exactly unexpected but he felt touched, nonetheless.

It is after a seemingly endless couple of minutes that Ban breaks off the connection, panting, pale, and sweaty after his exertions. "Well?"

... Despite it all, the body looked mostly unchanged.

"... well, the lights looked pretty," he says, at last. He doesn't fully mean to but he looks at Ban with something of a question in his eyes. Not a trace of suspicion but certainly questions. "Are you sure you're feeling alright?" he asks, concerned. "There's no reason why that shouldn't have worked. You're not sick or anything, are you?"

"I'm immortal, Captain. I don't do sick." He looked to his hands with some frustration. "This is my first time doing this with someone as beat up as this guy," he points out, though he seemed to be trying to convince himself as much as anyone. "Maybe it just... needs more time or something."

"That could be it," he acknowledges. "It's hard to know for sure without being able to check for sure though..." He studies his counterpart with a critical eye, particularly noting the still-open wounds on his chest. He's seen Ban regenerate from literal pulp before but, now, it wasn't even closing simple, albeit deep, chest wounds. Maybe the problem was with himself? He knew all of the Commandments and their capabilities, though, and he didn't know of any Commandments being able to stop healing like this, and it was certainly not one of the Commandment curses...

"Just gimme a few minutes to catch my breath, Captain," Ban finally says, his tone of seeming nonchalance. "I probably just didn't do it right the first time."

He only looks doubtful. "I don't think you did anything wrong..." he says. "I think maybe my—his bo—no, Meliodas, here..."

He blinks.

"Actually... I have an idea." He reaches out to place a hand over the unconscious Meliodas' chest. At Ban's inquiring look, he explains: "Meliodas, this one... he doesn't have much of me left. It's not as bad as with the Meliodas of our time but he's pretty far from complete. I'm his complete emotions, all the missing parts of his soul. Maybe, if I try to sort of... fill in what he doesn't have for a moment, I can see for myself if he's healing alright. I can see if I can't... Empathize."

At the moment he said that last word, there was something like a rush of magic where his hand met skin, the emotions' palm becoming luminescent where it made contact with the body, who stirred feebly about before settling down once more. In contrast, the emotions' eyes snapped wide open, pupils shrinking down to black pinpricks against bright green. His lip quivered and his breathing turned shaky. Without much more of a warning, he fell onto his knees, shuddering, hand still glowing where it seemed to be stuck to his past self's skin.

"... ow."

Ban was on his feet in that same breath. "What is it, Captain?!"

"That really hurts!" For the first time ever, his voice came out as childish as he looked, rather startling his friend. "Damn, I forgot how much having a body hurts! Ugh, my hearts... Is that really how it feels to have your hearts grow back in?! I really should Elizabeth for fixing my body for me before I got back— Oh, bones, bones owowowow—" He flinches backward away from the body, landing with his back against the wall, staring ahead at himself, obviously shaken and still shaking. "Phew... Well, it's working, at least. It was just... focusing on the hearts first. Oww..."

"And you doubted me." Despite this, relief was clear in his own eyes. "You okay, there, buddy?" he asks, walking over to offer him a hand.

The emotions wince and close his eyes as he lets himself get pulled back onto his feet. "Enough," he says vaguely, rubbing at chest. "It's wearing off fast, now that I'm not, agh, empathizing. He's recovering," he reassures him. "But he's been hurt so bad, even your Gift's getting stretched thin. And I'm—my—his body's not exactly used to having your kind of regeneration, after all." He frowns, the pain finally fully fading from his expression. "A lot of it could be fixed if he'd just wake up and use his darkness..."

"S'not like we're in a rush, Captain," Ban points out, going back to his seat and leaning it back against the wall, looking out at the window. "We're already heading over to the princess as we speak. She'll fix him up easy. And besides, according to you, it's not like my Gift isn't doing anything. Relax."

"Maybe." His expression remained doubtful, however. "Still, I don't like the idea of me—him being an invalid right now, the Commandments are still out there..." His gaze dropped once more to survey his counterpart critically before his expression changed into something more thoughtful. "I might have an idea," he says, putting his hand on his chest once more, brows furrowing, continuing to mutter under his breath: "I'm most of a soul missing a body, he's a body missing most of a soul. I should be able to do this..."

"Y'sure you're not just gonna keel over again?" Ban asks him, looking skeptically at him over his now open bottle of Aberdeen. Despite his words, there was a thread of concern in his eyes. "Really, Captain, we're in no rush."

"I just wasn't expecting it earlier," he says reassuringly, flashing him a brief grin. "This time, I will be. Now... Empathize."

The initial wave of pain is as awful and disconcerting as it was before but, this time, he knows its coming so he knows to grit his teeth and endure it. He holds on and lets himself fall into it, accepting the sudden, overwhelming physicality of it all as nothing more than something to be expected, Skin and bones, flesh and blood, as a soul from Purgatory, he'd lacked in all of those since he'd been ripped from his body, his own current body being nothing more than a materialization in the shape of his being. It's different, having an actual, physical body, much more intense, more real, and though it's definitely overwhelming, in the end, it was exactly how it should be. The pain and the pleasure, it all came together with being alive and there was no reason why he should ever want to be anything less, not when it was in the world of the living that Elizabeth and the rest of the Sins could be found.

Meliodas opens his eyes.

He isn't standing over the bed anymore. Now, he was in the bed, wrapped in bandages, his whole body one giant ache that didn't seem to want to stop. He was no longer a disembodied soul manifested in the physical world. He was... whole. He was Meliodas, body and soul. He was as he should be. Or... close enough, at least. It wasn't quite right, he could feel where this Meliodas had enough of a soul to overlap with his being, feel the consciousness of the Meliodas of this time dormant under his skin, but it was still him. It just wasn't... the right him, not quite.

For now, that would have to be enough.

"I haven't done this in a while..."

He inhales once, deeply, relishing the feel of air entering his actual, physical lungs, holds it in until he can feel the darkness roiling in his blood, then exhales.

The demonic transformation activates with a snap of will, darkness rising from his veins to seep out of his pores and moving automatically to cover the worst of the damage even without his prompting. Without having to look, he can feel his demon mark burning on his forehead. It's been a long time—centuries, even—since he'd been able to do this, when he was part of a body that was his own, but it was something that came as naturally as breathing. He was a demon and darkness was literally in his blood. He lets it envelop him, letting it flow into the abrasions, the burns, the broken bones, the bruises coating the entirety of his left arm—then releases.

Immediately, his wounds close, his muscles reattach and repair, and his bones reset and reseal. It wasn't everything—a demon's darkness was mostly meant to enable a demon to resume battle and wasn't good for the finer details—but it was a good start. A very good start, in fact. He could already feel the still-active Gift taking care of the rest.

His body aches when he tries to sit up, so he doesn't, but he still manages a grin when he looks up at Ban, wide enough that his cheeks hurt a little, that small pain wonderfully pleasant. "That's the worst of it," he declares, tugging off some of the now unneeded bandaging. "Your Gift is working great, Ban!"

Who, in turn, was staring openly at him. Going by the Aberdeen now slopped over his front, he'd spat out his drink. "You're... possessing yourself?"

He blinks. "I guess you can say that..." Even now, he can sort of sense him, his counterpart's consciousness, through that was deep under, through a haze of pain and darkness, a miasma that threaded throughout his being that felt alien and was cold to the touch. Somehow, it reminded the emotions of his father. "I'm just filling in. He's still pretty out of it but at least his body will recover faster like this."

It takes a mild effort to disconnect himself and when he does, he finds himself standing over Meliodas once more, the body unconscious but now looking much better-recovered. He himself felt nothing but a fading echo of a physicality he lacked as a manifested soul. "I'm pretty sure I can only do it with my—Meliodas, though."

Ban whistles through his teeth. "That looked really fuckin' creepy, Captain," he comments.

"Pfft. You're the one to talk, eh, Sir Undead Ban."

"Kaa, I'm not that kind of undead..."

Neither of them noticed the sudden flare of magic that lit up the Boar Hat from the outside, fired out by a glowing orb floating at the tavern's lookout.

It's only hours after the Gilfrost's spell orb had exploded that they finally get some semblance of calm back in Castle Liones, after Slader finally gets Griamore to stop crying, after Elizabeth was finally able to explain the situation to the very concerned guards and Holy Knights who'd come running for the rooftop at the sound of the explosion, and after Escanor had been preemptively knocked out by Gowther's Blackout Arrow and sequestered off to the nearest large, empty, disposable structure, a move that King had to very quickly explain was standard procedure for them as noon drew near. By then, Gowther had returned with a (clothed) Ban in tow, Slader had left with Griamore to report to King Baltra, Elaine had fallen asleep on Chastiefol by a vigilant Elizabeth's side, and most of the other festival participants had wandered off to explore the castle. King couldn't sense any ill-intent so he let them be. This wasn't their business, it was theirs.

Of course, it was then, just as they'd all finally settled down to actually discuss what to do next, when what had looked like a firework while it had been streaking its way across the skies then changed course to head straight at them like some kind of magical missile.

Because of course. This was what their lives had become.

King had Pollen Garden manifested around their motley council the instant he noticed it coming but, somehow, that magical bolt pierced straight through his barrier without so much as slowing, splitting at the last second into seven streaks of light, one of which headed unerringly towards the princess—

—before stopping several inches from away from the hands she'd protectively raised in front of her head, floating before her as heatless, harmless spark that resembled a tiny white star.

"Princess Elizabeth," Merlin's voice rang out loud and clear. "Arthur, Gowther, Hendrickson, Slader, Gilthunder." Everyone rushed to gather around the sparks as they came to a stop in front of the people whose names were called, with only Slader's continuing on down the stairway, save Gilfrost who only looked at them with something close to scorn. "... and Sir Hawk. I hope my messages find you all in good condition. I know something happened at the fighting festival. I expected something would," she adds, voice becoming wry. "Though I certainly didn't expect to go downstairs and find two captains in the Boar Hat—"

(Elizabeth's eyes visibly widen and, without meaning to, her hands clench tight around the table's edge. "S-Sir Meliodas is in the Boar Hat?!"

"Sounds like it," Hawk says. "Hey, that means those two really are on our side! Mama would never let—"

"Both of you! Shhhh!")

"—or Ban, for that matter," she continues. "And yes, impossible as it may seem, both of them are the real thing. I can assure you of it—"

("I told you~" Ban drawls, looking to Gilfrost with some smugness. "I was sure of it."

Gilfrost, who'd looked sour ever since Merlin's voice had rung out, only scowls back. "We can't be sure about that," he grouses. "We don't know anything about those two."

"You might not but I'd know my own best friend when I see him."

"Ban!" King looked frustrated. "Shut up!")

"—though I myself am still not sure how it happened. In any case, if any of you saw what happened, I would appreciate a full report. I would ask the Captain but he—the one who entered the festival—is... indisposed at the moment."

(Many flinched.)

"The second Captain and Ban have treated his wounds and he's in no danger but he's still recovering. For the time being, it serves my purpose to ensure that the two remain unaware of my presence."

Then, after a brief pause, in a more reassuring voice: "Don't worry, I'm watching over him. The Boar Hat is heading back to Liones as I speak. Meet us at the castle. We'll be arriving in a few hours. If you're already there, stay put. If not, find a way to get there as soon as you can. Stay safe. I'll see you all soon."

The white stars flicker and fade, leaving them all staring in complete silence for the first time since the orb's explosion.

Then, finally, King is the one to break the silence.

"Well... I guess that's that."

Until Merlin arrived, they were going to have a few hours of respite.

So the Commandments are heartbroken, Meliodas gets attacked by his feelings post-self-care while said feelings gain possession of a fun hat trick, one Ban gives great get-well-soon presents, Merlin's ready to eavesdrop, and there's chaos at the castle. Also, unintentional music references. Fun stuff.

If all goes well, next chapter ought to be up on March 8. What will be there? The most exciting part of any time travel fic...

Conversations! Merlin is fascinated.

Anyway, all feedback's much appreciated and have a nice day.