Author's note: Hi everyone, sorry for the delay on the chapter. But I'm currently on holiday in California :D! Been fun but also been busy, both on the trip and preparing for it. Just in case anyone was wondering why I disappeared off the grid :P. I had fun writing this one though so I hope you enjoy the belated chapter too :).
The first thing he became aware of was the darkness. An all-encompassing black void that he floated passively in. No feelings and no thoughts consumed his mind, just a base awareness of being in that blank nothingness.
Then, gradually, he started to feel pain – a dull pervasive ache all over – that grounded him slightly. Focusing on the discomfort he realised it seemed to be strongest around where he thought his chest was. A slightly sharper pain every time he breathed.
Wait, he was breathing?
Yeah, he was. Strange he hadn't noticed that till now.
Then the darkness pulled him down again.
He could hear voices. At least he thought they were voices. They're soft and indistinct but they're there, fading in and out with the darkness.
Sometimes they got real close and he could almost make out the words (along with something that felt like a light touch against his fur), other times they're further away, soft and continuous like a running river.
And sometimes there was no sound. Just empty silence with nothing to try and keep the darkness at bay. He hated those times the most.
He was starting to get restless. He wanted to do something. Anything. But he couldn't. He felt so tired. It was strange, he wasn't used to feeling this tired. But tired or not, he wanted to do something – anything really – to escape the mind-numbing nothingness he'd been floating in and out of for what felt like an eternity.
He wanted to move, to talk, to see. He wanted to wake up.
The knowledge that he was asleep came as a strange shock. Could it really be as simple as that? Just, open his eyes and escape the darkness?
He tried to open them, but all they did was twitch. Apparently it wasn't that easy.
But he was still restless and he really wanted to wake up so he tried again, putting more effort in this time. With more energy than he would have thought possible, he eventually forced his eyes open.
It was dark and it took him a bit to realise his eyes were, in fact, open. Slowly, the dim blue light allowed him to make out the outlines of the room. He could see the end of his bed, and the shape of the door across the barren room.
It took another bout of inexorable effort but finally he managed to turn his head to find the source of the light. Several machines met his sight, each rhythmically synced with the continuous beeping he recognised from his blurry dreams.
A slight movement and the soft sound of breathing drew his eyes past the machines only to stop in surprise at the sight of the black and white female currently asleep in the chair by his bed.
Haybai. He struggled to move his hand, trying to reach her, but it was taking so much energy. More energy than he had in that moment. With resignation, he stopped and let the weariness carry him back under.
The next time he gained awareness, it was a lot quicker. The sensation of consciousness, touch and sound steadily returning together. He revelled in the feelings for a while, content with something other than the overwhelming exhaustion he last recalled. But soon the restlessness set in and he decided to take another attempt at wakefulness.
It was still unreasonably difficult to return to the land of consciousness but it was also noticeably easier than last time. After a few moments, he managed to open his eyes.
The room looked the same as the last time he saw it: bare of much more than his bed and the cluster of beeping machines attached to him. However, it was much brighter and instead of Haybai, it was Nemr sitting by him.
"Hey," the greeting he managed to force out sounded like a combination of a dying raptor and a frog gurgling nails but it was at least audible enough to cause the striped yordle's head to whip around in shock.
The shock quickly faded into elation however with a cry of "You're awake!"
"Heh," Kennen managed a small grin, "first time I've heard someone so happy to say that."
Nemr sent him a humorous grin before turning to check the medical machines. "How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Ugh," Kennen responded despondently, the question and his movement to follow the older yordle's path causing the pain in his chest to flare up as his breathing grew strained. Once the pain subsided he answered, "Like a herd of Shagyaks stampeded over me and then back over just to make sure."
The other yordle snorted at the analogy.
A yawn forced its way out of the young ninja. "And tired," he added. "Why am I so tired?"
As his eyes flickered closed without his permission he managed to mumble a garbled, "this sucks," before succumbing once more to the void.
He was floating again. Floating in the dark emptiness, as the outside sounds and sensations flitted in and out like a dying spinning wire, almost close enough to grasp but not quite. And all the while the restless energy built. Surging and swelling under the surface, trying to find a way out. Demanding he move, turn, do something. But he could not. Even the burning energy unable to overcome the perversive exhaustion pushing him down into the smothering void. It was beyond infuriating.
Then, after what seemed like an eternity of the fatigue and energy fighting one another, the energy won out and he felt himself steadily rising to consciousness once more. As his senses sharpened and the voices around him became distinguishable, he could feel the fog of tiredness recede further than ever before towards the back of his mind.
Finally, he opened his eyes to the welcome sight of Nemr and Haybai talking to Chirik. As he stirred Haybai absentmindedly turned, only for her pale face to light up with joy at the sight of him.
"Kennen!" Her and Nemr's elated faces were only visible for a brief second before his sight was filled with an up-close look of a furious, furry face. The usually hyperactive yordle sat absolutely still, quite content not to be on the bad side of the grouchy Vastayan as the medic went about checking his vitals.
Finally satisfied they turned back to him and promptly cuffed him over the ear.
"Ow!" Kennen yelped. "What'd I do?"
"Of all the stupid, irresponsible- I told you not to use your arm. But did you listen? No! Redamaged the shoulder. Almost couldn't fix it this time. Not that it was my priority when I found you. It's a good thing you're so lucky or you'd be dead by now – and not by my hand."
Slightly confused due to his fuzzy memories, but far from eager to anger the muttering medic, Kennen let them continue. Only to jump in surprise when they turned back to him, "Now!" their fuzzy face softened. "I'm glad you're alright. How are you feeling?"
"Umm, tired. And my chest hurts. And my limbs feel sluggish. And ache. But not as bad as last time… I think."
Chirik nodded. "As expected. Good. That means you're healing fine."
As the furry medic jotted down a few more points, Kennen found the courage to ask the question that had been plaguing him since he'd awoken in this strange room. "Soo… what happened?"
All motion stopped as three sets of eyes lasered in on him with unblinking, incredulous looks.
"You," hesistantly, Haybai broke the oppressive silence, "don't remember?"
The downed yordle shook his head, his face scrunching in thought as he racked his brain for what could have possibly occurred to draw a response like this. "Everything's kinda blurry at the moment. I… The last thing I remember… I was staying the night in the infirmary. Why was I- my shoulder! Chirik had to heal my shoulder after… after… " his eyes went wide as he remembered, "The assassin!"
In a burst of unthinking panic he lurched upright, only to fall back onto the bed with a cry as searing pain flared into vengeful life like snakes tightening around his chest. A sharp stabbing agony shooting across his lungs and causing the hyperventilating yordle into a frenzied panic as it constricted his breathing further.
Instantly, the other occupants sprung into action; the two older ninjas pinning their comrade down with practised ease as the medic turned the young yordle's attention to them. "Easy. Breathe. You're alright. You're alive and you're safe. But you need to breathe."
"Shen! Akali!" Kennen barely got the words out around his frantic breathing.
"-are alright," Chirik cut him off. "They're fine. As are you. Now you need to slow your breathing. In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four…"
Forcing himself to take slow, meditative breathes, Kennen felt his heartrate drop and his panic recede until he found himself wilting back into the mattress. His chest was still on fire and his panic was far from over but, as Chirik checked the state of his pulled stitches, he was able to gather his thoughts enough to ask, "How am I still alive?"
Haybai's hand had moved from restraining to stroking the back of his own, further reducing the tension within him as the medic answered.
"Luck mostly. Akali got to you just in time to stop you from fully bleeding out before I could get you stabilised. And even then it was a near thing."
The yordle nodded numbly, shock settling over the panic at how close to death he'd come. Forcing his mind away from the thought, he asked, "And the assassin?"
"She got away," Nemr's quiet voice held an angry edge.
"She's made a couple of more attempts at Shen and Akali but they've been able to hold her off reasonably well," Haybai expanded as Kennen's curious eyes locked onto her. "However, they haven't been able to catch her. In fact, I don't think they've seen her for the last couple of days."
"Couple of days?" his eyes widened. "How- how long have I been out?"
The elder yordles exchanged another sombre glance before Chirik sighed.
"You've been in a coma for two weeks," they told him bluntly.
"What?! But that- I don't-" Shock and disbelief filled the ninja as he tried to reconcile that fact over the jumble of disjointed thoughts and feelings fighting for dominance too fast for even his quick paced mind to keep up with.
Two weeks! He'd been in a coma for two weeks! How was he still alive? He didn't feel dead. But if he'd really just woken up from a coma why wasn't he in the med bay? It'd been two weeks. Were Shen and Akali okay? Where were they? Actually, where was he? Why hadn't the assassin tried for him again? If he'd been unconscious for two weeks then surely she would have tried to kill him again. Wouldn't she?
The more questions he asked and the more he tried to rationalise the fact, the less things seemed to add up. Add to that the sad hesitance he could feel permeating the atmosphere like a smothering blanket, just pushed him over the edge.
He narrowed his eyes at them. "What aren't you telling me?" The question came out more accusatory than he'd meant it to, causing Haybai to flinch but he was too fed up with the situation to take it back; the fear for himself and his comrades, the impatience of healing, the uselessness of his current state and the obvious secrets causing him to push on. "If I've been out of commission for two weeks why hasn't the assassin tried to kill me again? You can't possibly tell me you've held her off for that long or that she hasn't attempted it again. Because even if you stowed me wherever we are to try and keep me away from her, it would have been easy for her to just follow one of you to find me. So why hasn't she?"
Dead silence filled the room and no one would meet his eyes. The tense silence stretching as thin as his patience before Nemr let out a long breath and met his accusatory gaze.
"That's because," his quiet voice held an abnormal note of hesitancy. "In order to stop the assassin going after you again, she couldn't know you survived. Kennen, everyone thinks you're dead."
The room was dark but that didn't seem to bother Kennen as he slowly stepped through another practice kata.
A combination of Chirik's magic and the yordle's own fast healing meant his injuries had healed already. Though, he thought with resignation as his hand unconsciously rubbed at his chest, he would always have the scars.
Shaking his head he forced himself to continue with the exercise, quickly shifting through a roundhouse into a butterfly kick. His body performed it perfectly, but his heart wasn't in it. Instead, his thoughts wandered back to the knowledge he could still barely wrap his head around – even now.
Even after a whole week of being mostly conscious it was still a hard concept to grasp. Even harder than the knowledge that he'd very nearly died; harder than the fact that he'd been in a coma for two weeks. For three weeks everyone had thought he'd died.
It was an eerie thought, but one he could not shake. Sure, there were a few who knew the truth. Chirik, Haybai and Nemr continued to visit him and he knew that Shen and Akali were being briefed on his recovery. But everyone else in the Kinkou, everyone else in his life, thought he was dead.
The worst thing about that realisation though were the questions that came with it. Had people grieved? How had they taken the news? What was happening now? What were they doing about his position? Were the Kinkou the only ones to know? Did… did his family think he was dead?
His breath hitched at the thought of his mum, dad and little brother mourning his passing.
The next set of punches were choppy and forceful as he tried to shake that train of thought loose; instead turning his thoughts forward, though that did little to ease his already sour mood.
The assassin had been unusually quiet lately. It had been three weeks since she'd launched her last successful attack and over a week since she'd last been spotted. Nemr had told him some ninjas thought this was a sign that she'd given up, but Kennen was not so naïve. Thankfully, neither were Shen and Akali, who had continued to stick together and avoid him.
But the longer she remained missing the more he worried for his two teammates. The assassin had already proven to be very skilled and very clever. And Kennen worried at what her extended absence could mean. However, even if she did attack his partners, it wasn't like he could do anything about it. Until he had fully recovered he couldn't even hope to help should something happen.
This helplessness and uncertainty was slowly driving him insane. If Haybai and Nemr weren't around to keep him company (especially when he was bedbound), Kennen was sure he would have gone crazy by now.
As if on cue, a soft hand came down on his shoulder after a particularly aggressive side-sweep.
"Kennen-san," Haybai's soft voice pulled his attention, "are you okay?"
Letting out a deep breath, he forced the small tendrils of electricity dancing across his hands to recede before turning to her. "Yeah, I'm alright." He gave her a small smile.
An eyebrow rose above dark eye patches, telling him she didn't believe him, but thankfully she didn't press. Instead she returned his smile before responding, "Good. Because you have a guest."
Head shooting up in shock, his body soon relaxed when he caught sight of the lean, blue ninja standing just inside the door.
"Shen!" Kennen's face split into a huge grin.
"Hello Kennen," the Eye of Twilight nodded in greeting. "How are you feeling?"
"Well enough to kick some assassin butt," the yordle's stance widened in anticipation.
"Good," Shen moved closer, "because I have a plan."
Ahh! I'm so excited! Only 1 or 2 chapters in this arc left. I will warn, I may be late on the next chapter. You know, cause of the holiday and everything :P. But I'll try to have it up as close to 3 weeks as I can :).