-17th of Mazecus, 6th month of year 3245-

A few weeks had past and the brothers let the spell book fall from to the back of their minds. They sat in the front room on stools behind a long counter waiting for walk-ins and appointments. Very little was scheduled today. No company of soldiers outside, no infants on their way in, or elderly on their way out, and no surgery. Not that surgeries in the frontier were planned. What people did need were treatments for allergies now that the late summer weeds were coming into season. Sporadic. Mundane. Routine.

Resting their elbows on the front desk, they read through the new books from the Order of the Lady that Recovery Girl had requested for their studies. Shigeo and Ritsu turned the page on their respective books and sighed deeply. It was a boring day.

Ritsu glanced up when he heard the hard gallop of horses and the clatter of a wagon being dragged behind them. The few people milling about in the street in front of the clinic stopped to stare. There was shouting as the wagon drew closer and it interested Shigeo enough to look up sleepily from his book. People scattered as a flat bed wagon drove up recklessly and skidded to a rough halt in front of the clinic. Horses huffed and danced in place, stomping the dirt, still agitated. Two men leapt down from the sides.

Both brothers froze, not processing fully that the men carried weapons, but wore no uniforms. They were disheveled, dirty and sweaty and their faces were drawn into tight, grim frowns. A girl wailed in the back of the cart out of view as the two men carried in a third man on a litter improvised using a cloak and some tree branches. It was soaked in blood.

Blood... Right.

Ritsu and Shigeo sprung up from their chairs, the eldest led the men to the exam room while the younger sprinted to the back yelling for Recovery Girl. Shigeo directed them toward the exam table, his hands shaking. He tried to ignore the full body tremble he had as he started to set up everything Recovery Girl would need to treat- Shigeo hadn't even look at the wound yet.

The room was hot and the smell of blood permeated the air and seeped into his pores. Shigeo turned slowly and approached the table. Yet he couldn't pull his eyes up from the floor.

"It's okay you don't have to look kid. What are you eleven? Twelve?" The voice was strained but clearer than Shigeo expected, "Really, there isn't much you can do for me now."

It was enough to make him look up at despite the permission the patient gave him. The blood rushed from Shigeo face so quickly he thought he might faint. The man was younger, mid to late twenties, light brown hair slicked with sweat and blood as he nervously swept his hair back with one hand, while his other held his abdomen together.

"I said you didn't have to look, and you looked." He gave Shigeo such a sad, apologetic expression.

Shigeo observed his deathly pale face, his clammy skin and dilated pupils. All that and his strange alertness in spite of his injury struck Shigeo as signs of shock. There wasn't much Shigeo could do, he couldn't even treat the shock without risking further injury to the wound and aggravating the bleeding.

Ah, yes the bleeding, Shigeo thought numbly and found the sterile packing cloth and attempted to stem the bleeding. His movements got faster as each cloth he put into the wound was dyed red and soaked in blood immediately. Shigeo knew how much blood was in the human body, but it looked like so much more when it was pooling in places it wasn't supposed to be.

"Hey kid, breathe," The man said gently, even through the pain. He touched Shigeo's forearm, leaving a three finger smear of blood.

Shigeo's magic prickled under his skin while the red marks felt heavy, pinching Shigeo in between them. He squashed down the rising tide of emotion and magic and kept packing. Shigeo needed to let the pin eat the magic building under his skin, dwelling on his thoughts was only going to get him into trouble. Sparing a frantic glance, Shigeo acknowledged Recovery Girl and Ritsu as they entered the room. Recovery Girl didn't address Shigeo, her focus was on the wound.

When she spoke her words were sad, "Arataka what did you do this time? Did having that girl under your wing teach you nothing?"

Ritsu started gathering clamps and suture materials and placing them on the table while Shigeo kept packing. The blood was smeared up past his wrists now and he was going to run out of cloth soon. Fortunately Ritsu brought him another basket, and Shigeo stuffed away his anxiety with each cloth while Ritsu set up the station for Recovery Girl.

She seemed so still among the frenzy of the two boys. Shigeo watched out of the corner of his eye as the man's calm facade started to crack.

"I know you know what this looks like…. What this is." He said with a finality that made the hair on Shigeo's arms and the back of his neck raise.

"I don't know how you are still alive." Recovery Girl said dismally.

"Healing charm, she used it so I could make it here." He scoffed like the girl outside had spent their grocery money buying the wrong items and now he had to suddenly rework his plans for dinner. As he spoke his voice started to drift, "I don't want her to see this. I- I don't want the kids present. Can you-?"

"I understand." Recovery Girl didn't argue, and she put a hand on Shigeo's shoulder, "You can stop now."

"Wha- what?" Shigeo shook his head and kept packing.

She grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the table, "Stop! There is nothing we can do for him."

Magic swelled in him like wave and she had a curious expression on her face looking at him. It took the bead a second to catch up with the surplus energy and Shigeo's magic mellowed. Shigeo's emotions couldn't seem to do the same.

"Go, leave the room and wash yourselves up, I'll handle it from here." She told them kindly but she had a firm grasp on their arms as she pulled them from the room.

The girl was sitting in one of the chairs, her short black hair in wet clumps. She was praying frantically, squeezing her hands together so forcefully her forearms shook. As the door opened, she leapt up and walked towards Recovery Girl. She didn't seem to register the boys, nor Shigeo's bloody hands and clothes. Not that he looked much different than her in her blood splattered padded armor.

"I- used that charm it's the only thing I had! Please tell me it's enough! I tried to dodge I swear… he didn't have to-" Her words broke apart as Recovery Girl met her anxious ramblings with a cool, somber expression, "It was enough wasn't it?"

"Go now. I have to talk with her." Recovery Girl said quietly to them, her eyes and voice were so severe the brothers fled the room. Whatever she had to say it was going to be a very difficult conversation. As they exited she turned to the girl, "Tome I'm sorry-"

The brothers started toward the backyard well. Shigeo was numb, or maybe he had too many emotions he'd crammed down that were trying to force their way through him at the same time. He wanted to turn around and run back into that room and try harder, but, at the same time, Recovery Girl gave him permission to rid himself of the responsibility.

Shigeo couldn't. That man would rather die alone in that exam room than have that girl watch him go in such a painful manner. Shigeo still could feel the gentle touch and words as he tried to protect him from the same trauma. The sadness in his eyes when he had failed.

Shigeo hadn't thought of all the people they might not be able to save. Injuries too grave and illnesses too great for thread and medicine. Recovery Girl had never shielded them from the possibility, but Shigeo felt the failure intimately and he didn't know why.

He was a kind soul but, there was nothing that Recovery Girl could do. Shigeo stopped a step away from the screen door as the memory came to him and his shame suddenly made sense. He turned on his heel toward his room, I can't let him die. I can't- I can't. Not if there is something I can do.

"Shigeo?" Ritsu called after him, but Shigeo tuned him out.

Shigeo, with bloody hands, started shuffling through the papers looking for the sigil. It had been weeks since they decoded it. Shigeo had given back the book, but he'd kept the sigil. Getting rid of it had crossed his mind many times, but it was beautiful and something deep inside him always convinced him to hold onto it for one more day.

Ritsu slammed the door open, his eyes were wide. The room was scattered with papers smeared in bloody fingerprints.

"Brother what are you doing?!" Ritsu started to collect the papers off the ground.

Shigeo had a face washed clean of all expression, but his eyes were drowning in anxiety.

"I can't- I can't find it!" Shigeo tore through the room, books clattered to the ground and Ritsu could only imagine what it sounded like though the thin walls, "Here!"

Ritsu didn't need to think too hard to realize what Shigeo had just grabbed. His brother forced open the side door on their room and stepped through.

"Shige wait!" Ritsu followed after and his blood froze as he watched his brother remove the pin and set it on the counter with one hand and place the sigil on the dying man's chest with the other. "You can't! You'll expose us both!"

"I can't let him die." Shigeo looked up, his veil fell looser on his face, dipping down on his right side but a second later it, and the hair on his head, began to float upwards. His irises were red like liquid rubies and burned with intensity of a fire, "Not if I can do something."

"Stop!"

Shigeo didn't listen, it was too late, he had already removed the pin. His magic freed at last from the unrelenting siphon of the gem, roiled viciously inside him. He pressed his hand down on the sigil, but nothing happened. He didn't know what it felt like to draw from the Healing Root and use its energy, and his vast stores of magical power pressed against his hand but stopped, held back by Shigeo's own lack of understanding. All the spells he cast in his classes were usually destructive, breaking, forcing and melding. Healing seemed to only be comprised of creating. An inkling of terror in the back of his mind, that he was somewhere he didn't belong, playing with magic he wasn't meant to use, started to stain his thoughts.

Please… I can't have exposed myself for nothing. Please work. Shigeo squeezed his eyes shut, trying to imagine what it would feel like to close a wound, or restore blood to the body.

Shigeo couldn't imagine such things, but he could feel a gentle but steady pressure of someone's hand on his. It was cool and soothing, and it made him think of water. The thought of the rushing, flowing, cycling of energy. He thought of how his magic entered that cycle and intertwined with the energy in the man. He opened his eyes as the lines of the sigil glowed brightly through his fingers like lines of sunlight.

Ritsu rushed forward and Shigeo flinched, thinking Ritsu was reaching for his hand, but Ritsu went to the man instead. It became a race between Ritsu and Shigeo as he cleared the abdomen while Shigeo closed it. The sigil pulled his magic from his body, but Shigeo had so much to give as hope overwhelmed his nerves. Shigeo's Root entangled with the man's Root and Shigeo's magic flowed from his very core into the wound.

Although, just as Shigeo was getting started, Recovery Girl burst into the room. He was startled by the sudden noise and seeing Recovery Girl's shocked face. That small terror in the back of his mind that he was playing with forces beyond his understanding expanded into a vast black mark that colored his reasoning at the sight of Recovery Girl's blanched and furious face. Shiego pulled away from the sigil and the spell forcefully. He felt a cord of his magic pull, snap, and whip back into his body. A weird sensation overcame him as it lashed around wildly inside him. He lurched forward and the room blurred around him. He felt his insides twist like they had turned to mush and someone was stirring their hand vigorously inside him as the spell rebounded. Shigeo stumbled away from the table and he had visions of black silk and a single outstretched hand.

"Brother!" Ritsu grabbed Shigeo to steady him.

Recovery Girl's expression rapidly changed from anger to horror as she realized what Shigeo and Ritsu were doing. She didn't address either of them, moving as quickly as her legs could take her to Arataka. Ritsu heard her curse in a word she has never used around them before as she finally started using the suturing tools Ritsu had set out for her.

He placed a hand on his brother's chest, feeling the rapid, and shallow, rise and fall. His brother's hair rose around his head like it was caught in a current. Shigeo's his eyes and skin glowed, back lit by the surge of magic in his body. Shigeo looked up at him with a desperate plea in his eyes.

Ritsu settled his brother against the counter a little rougher than he could have liked, sacrificing gentleness for speed as he searched for the pin. He grabbed it and pressed it into his brothers hand. Shigeo gasped, his eyes shooting open like he'd been stabbed. Ritsu watched the glow fade and his brother's irises darken.

"Can you stand?" Ritsu asked.

Shigeo shook his head, his face was pale and his eyes listless.

"Is he still breathing?" Recovery Girl asked over her shoulder.

Ritsu's voice trembled, "Yes."

"Good, get up here and help me save this man. You're brother is going to have to fight through this one on his own." She snapped, but the worry on her face was terrifying to Ritsu, he didn't want to leave his brother's side, "Ritsu! Get me the forceps now!"

Ritsu found himself following her orders like his body had entered a stress induced trance. Ritsu and Recovery Girl worked overtop of Arataka and Shigeo. Neither Shigeo, or the man, were focused on much. They stared with glassy eyes into empty space, breathing occasionally.

Shigeo stirred first about ten minutes later, pulling himself into a standing position. Ritsu nearly knocked him over reaching for an instrument Recovery Girl demanded.

"Get him out of here, lay him down in bed, and return right away." She snapped, that anger back in her voice.

"Is he going to be okay alone?"

"The fact that he didn't die on the floor just now means that he will survive this." She said with a clinical steriality that stunned Ritsu.

Her words didn't seem to stick fully, rebounding off the shock that blanketed his brain. So he brought his brother to the futon and laid him down. Shigeo's hands were still damp with clotting blood, smearing brownish-red marks across the futon. Ritsu didn't get a chance to clean his brother off before Recovery Girl was yelling for him to return.

Shigeo slept because he was tired. His dreams were dark and it was a relief to wake from them. His eyes opened to see Ritsu placing his hand on Shigeo's upper lip just under his nose. Ritsu mouth dropped into a soft 'o', as Shigeo's eyes opened, it was more relieved than embarrassed.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Shigeo sat up, mostly okay. He was still tired, but he could stand.

Ritsu pressed down on his shoulders, forcing him back into bed, "Wait Shige, don't get up."

Shigeo found himself fighting against the pressure until Recovery Girl entered the room, holding the bloody sigil, and snapped, "Lay your ass back down Shigeo! I would expel any other apprentice from the Order without a second thought for a stunt like that, do you understand? If it were not for your unique situation- Okay, just… You have a lot to explain right now, because you need to convince me that expulsion won't be unnecessary."

Shigeo didn't have words to defend himself, but he did have a reason, "I couldn't just let him die. Not when I could do something."

"What you did was so unbelieveably stupid I don't know how to even explain it to you!" Recovery Girl yelled, "Do you know why there are so few people with Healing Roots?"

Shigeo and Ritsu shook their heads no,

"Because most of them die before the age of twenty-five doing what you just did. You tried to heal a man with no components and no knowledge of how to detangle your Root from your patient! The spell rebound rate of healing spells is so high and you leapt in head first with no protections and no exit plan!"

"I didn't know." Shigeo said quietly.

"I know that! I should've taught you about healing spells once you brought that stupid book to me. Of course you'd try to use one." She leaned on her cane, her tone regretful, "I failed you and it almost got you killed. Did you have a healing root this whole time? I never asked because I thought it didn't matter. You shouldn't have been able to cast any of those spell anyway. I know neither one of you came from the medical house at the academy. Excuses… It sounds so stupid now."

"I don't have a Healing Root, because I have a Tap root." Shigeo said cautiously, "I'm a True Sorcerer. I am not limited by Root types and I don't need components to cast spells, except when I am wearing this gem. So when I removed it I didn't think they would be necessary."

Recovery Girl stared at Shigeo for a long time. It was so different than how she looked at him before, the surprise, the wonder, and the clear change in how she perceived him. Shigeo felt a thread of sadness latch itself onto this moment as it was etched into his memory.

"So that gem... it was to hide your Root classification, not control your magic?" She asked, and Shigeo could see her perspectives changing and he didn't know how to stop it before his powers alienated him from another home.

"I- I still have an unstable Root, but no, it wasn't the main purpose of that gem." Shigeo said, he couldn't watch any more and lowered his gaze.

"Alright, If you are going to do this again, I'll at least have to teach you what I know. It's been a long time since I could use magic, but maybe you can avoid dying next time." She said, chin held high with a determined glint in her eyes, that distant analytical look was gone and replaced with a warm, but stern, expression Shigeo had come to know, "That doesn't give you permission to use any healing spell in the clinic without my approval."

"I- You are going to let me stay?" Shigeo asked tentatively.

"This is your home," Recovery Girl, "It would be wrong of me to kick you onto the street because of my mistake. I will teach you what I can about Healing Roots."

"Did you used to have a Healing Root?" Shigeo sat up and Ritsu was too shocked to stop him, "Why is it gone? You could be using it everyday here."

That sad look crossed her eyes again, "I used to have one, yes. My connection was broken a long time ago."

"How?" Ritsu asked, intrigued.

She looked at Ritsu, the sympathetic look in her eyes caught Ritsu off guard, "I was sick for weeks and I nearly died. When I got over the fever and body pains my magic was gone."

Each word was a heavy stone that pressed heavy on the brothers lungs, forcing the air out. Ritsu took shallow breaths as he listened to her describe his own condition.

"Catastrophic Root degeneration? You had that too?" Ritsu asked, feeling a sense of solidarity.

"That's the story. A genetic disease that destroys Roots is what the Empire tells everyone, but that's not true." She told them, their faces were washed in confusion, "It is the work of one man, and he flexes that power of his from time to time to remind others to stay in their place. Sometimes he'll destroy the Roots of friends or family members to keep someone under his thumb. He did that to my teacher at the medical school when I attended the academy. He took my magic as a warning to her, and she smuggled me out of the capital the moment I was healthy enough to walk."

"There is no disease?"

"No, the genetic bit was to help explain the randomness of its appearance." Recovery Girl told them sadly, "also why entire families might come down with the illness."

"Who?" Ritsu got up and left his brother's side. His eyes were dark with anger, fear, and an old aching despair that he never lost, "Who did this to me?"

"The Emperor." She told him and Shigeo watched Ritsu stumble away like she'd struck him in the chest.

Ritsu had hatred and fire in his eyes, but his body drew into itself in fear. Quiet permeated the room. Each person lost deep in thought until Recovery Girl spoke up.

"Have you two thought about names?"

"What?" The brothers latched onto the question to pull themselves from their wayward thoughts.

"You two saved your first life today. It's time to pick names and give them to that man in there." She said and the tension in the room eased slowly, "I think you have until morning to decide. He'll be out for a while between that spell and surgery. Ha! To think in five months you'd walk your way out of the mist. Don't think for a second that means you're done with your schooling."

Recovery Girl left the room with a slight chuckle while the boys could only stare at the door as it closed behind her.