-Chapter 3-

The first thing Jeanne saw when she came to was blackness, but then, after awhile, light started shining through, making the blackness grayness. Cautiously she opened one eye. The brightness intensified into sheer brightness. She squinted just to see. After letting her first eye adjust to the change in light, she tried to open the other. Nothing happened. Her other eye was the one that had been slashed. Apparently it had taken some serious damage, more serious than she thought at least, because it was stitched shut and had a cotton patch over it. Right about now, she must look like a pirate. She looked around with her one good eye.

She was at a hospital. She was hooked up to I.V.s and other cord-like structures, including an oxygen tube. That's right. Not mask, tube. There was a machine breathing for her. Meaning she couldn't breathe herself. That meant she was in much worse condition than she first thought. What had happened to her? How had she gotten here? Where did the demon go? Yanuzui, that was his name, wasn't it? All her limbs were in casts, like something you'd see only in a cartoon. There was also a salt solution in a bag hanging diagonally from her head. She felt soreness and pain all over her body. Especially around her lungs and the area below her stomach.

A nurse came in before Jeanne had enough time to completely analyze her situation and condition. A doctor soon followed. Noticing that Jeanne was awake, they walked over to her.

"Do you feel any pain?" the nurse asked.

Jeanne rolled the eye that was open. The last thing she needed was doctors and nurses...

The doctor slowly and carefully pulled the oxygen tube from Jeanne's throat. Immediately Jeanne felt a pretty decent amount of pressure being put on her lungs and diaphragm. There was a whooshing sound as she sucked air in on her own for the first time in...how long had she been here again? She grunted, seeing if her vocal cords still worked and hoping she hadn't gone mute. Nope. She could still speak. At least that was good... As for the rest of her, not so much, as she was to soon find out.

"We have some...disturbing...news to tell you." the female doctor said, gloom lingering in the room now. "After looking over an x-ray of your uterus, I have to unpleasantry of telling you that you are unable, from now on, to have children. You had somehow been pierced right through it. The resulting damage was too much."

Jeanne was horrified. Unable to have kids? That was like saying she wasn't a girl anymore! How could this have happened? Wait...of course. Yanuzui the demon. He'd pierced her stomach, or so she thought. He'd probably meant to do that, but missed and instead pierced her womb. He'd pay dearly for that...once she got out of here, anyway.

"Not just that, but the damage wasn't just contained to that one part of your body. However, you sustained severe internal bleeding, which could've taken your life. In fact, if the ambulance hadn't gotten to you when it did, you'd be dead by now. On top of that, you had your chance of survival lowered greatly by a break in your hip bone. Your femur broke through the bone somehow and ruptured your liver. Luckily, though, your liver wasn't damaged enough to cause too much harm to you. In fact, your liver has already healed. But you may not be able to move any of your joints for some time." she continued.

All Jeanne could do was stay put and let everything soak in. It was horrible, what Yanuzui had done to her. She could've died!

"Each of your limbs was broken by the time the ambulance got to you. Luckily, your spine and nervous system are okay and were only very slightly harmed. However, the damage doesn't stop there. You sustained a huge, gaping gash in your stomach. It literally tore your stomach muscles and your stomach itself. But we've taken care of this problem, so you don't need to worry. Just don't eat anything greasy or solid for awhile, to give it time to completely heal. Your hands were pierced as well. But no major bones were hit, and as a result they should be completely healed by next month at least. And you also have seven broken ribs. One of them pierced your right lung. Luckily, though, it avoided tearing it. We've also taken care of your lung. There was extremely minor damage to the brain. You simply popped a few capillaries. They'll be healed in no time. The rest is small stuff. Cuts here, scrapes there, nothing too serious. But I do want you to know that use of your hands may be difficult even when they are healed. One of the reasons is your finger. Something happened to it and it was crushed. You may never again regain full use of it."

The nurse bent down and whispered something into the doctor's ear.

The doctor turned her attention away from the nurse and back to Jeanne. "And I forgot to mention your eye. I don't know quite what you went through, but your eye was torn right through the middle. I've never seen anything like it, to be honest. There's a ninety percent chance of you being blind for life in that eye. We don't know for sure yet, but when it heals, we'll all find out."

Jeanne was just about in tears. Why did all this have to happen to her? She was a good person who served God! And then to be told all this at once... It was just too much! Out of character, she asked where Yanuzui was at.

"Yanuzui?" the nurse asked. "Who is that?"

The doctor got up and left, followed by the nurse. Jeanne heard voices outside the door. The doctor came back in and unbandaged Jeanne's other eye. She gently took out the stitches and told Jeanne to keep that eye closed for a few minutes.

"You have a special visitor, Kaitou Jeanne." the nurse kindly said. With this comment she opened the door to reveal this "special mystery visitor".

It was Kaitou Sinbad.

Hoarsely, she asked, "What are you doing here? Why aren't you in jail yet?"

When the nurse left, he answered her. "I broke out. I got injured as well, but your injuries were so serious, you got knocked into a coma. Mine are all healed up. Yours aren't I see."

"How'd you get in? They only let family in, don't they?"

"Easy. I convinced them I was your boyfriend."

Anger rushed through Jeanne's veins. "But you aren't my boyfriend! I don't have a boyfriend!"

"They don't know that."

This was all Yanuzui's doing! The sooner he was sealed, the better off she would be. She forced herself to sit up, ripping off the electrodes that were attached to her body and that were monitoring every heartbeat. It wasn't an easy task when you just got off life support... She wobbled around, placing a concerned look on Sinbad's face. She rolled off the bed by accident.

A nurse came running. When she saw her on the ground, she immediately knew what had happened. "Ah, Kaitou Jeanne... You're so stubborn." She conveniently was carrying a wheelchair with her. She set it up and helped Jeanne into it. With every limb in a cast, it wasn't going to be easy to move around. She had to have someone help her. As soon as Jeanne was in the wheelchair, the nurse left to leave her and her "boyfriend" alone together.

"Boy, Sinbad..." she looked up at him disdainfully. "You must be so proud of yourself right now. Did you come here to gloat or brag?"

Taken off guard by this comment, he had only moments to reply back. "What are you talking about?"

"LOOK AT ME!" she screamed. "That was you who sent the demon, wasn't it? Well, look what he did to me. You've sent the right one to do the right job. Go on and brag, but next time will be different. I'll kill the demon, not just seal him. And you're going to watch. And when I do kill him, it'll be me who's bragging."

"Woah, woah, woah! You think I came here to brag? And you think I sent the demon? I'm not in cahoots with the devil! I keep telling you that! I came here only because I got concerned about your health! I've been visiting every day since you got here!" he yelled in his defense.

Jeanne continued to glare at him. "And I suppose you could give me one good reason why I should trust you?"

He reached around to the back of his head and itched it. What could he say to answer that? Was he supposed to say, "Yeah, I'm Chiaki and I've always known you were Maron."? Of course not! She'd have his head by the time he got started!

He heard Jeanne sigh and her breathing started to even out until it was a very steady breathing pattern. Was she sleeping? He tilted her face up a bit and: yes, she was sleeping. This whole event was no doubt very strenuous on her body. Deciding it was best to let her sleep, Sinbad gently kissed her forehead and walked out of the hospital room.

An entire three hours passed before a scream was heard coming from Jeanne's hospital room. Sinbad rushed into the room, and as he did, he rushed into chaos. The nurses were there futilely trying to calm a terrified Jeanne. One of them kept telling her it was the anesthetics that were making her delirious. But obviously Jeanne denied it. Others were holding her down as she struggled. Another was helping the first nurse try to calm her down.

She sees something we can't... Sinbad thought, almost second-nature. "Hey, there's a patient in need of medical assistance in room 23! He's in critical condition! Please hurry! He'll need all of you! Please help him! Hurry!" he yelled to all the nurses. And it worked, too! Every single nurse dashed out of the room and started down the stairs to the said room. Good luck to them... That room was on the first floor!

Jeanne still cried. Something was frightening her. As to why she struggled and gave the nurses trouble was completely unknown. Immediately, Jeanne put her broken arms up, as though she was shielding herself from something. An invisible force soon pushed against her arms. She pushed back until the bed actually broke from the pressure put on it.

Sinbad strained to see what Jeanne saw, but couldn't find a single thing. He knew something was there, but what? Could it be the demon? If so, then this only meant he'd found her. And in turn, that meant she couldn't stay here in the hospital. If she did, she'd surely die.

Jeanne rolled over. She kicked her legs up and tried to do a flip. She succeeded and dodged just by the skin of her teeth. However, she couldn't really stick the landing. She could stand, but not easily. And her body was weak from all the surgery and treatment the doctors had given her, not to mention all the damage her body had taken. Already her breathing was getting heavy, yet she'd hardly done anything.

Sinbad, hardly thinking at the time, jumped over to grab Kaitou Jeanne. He leapt effortlessly out of the building and ran towards his friend's apartment. His friend had told him to watch the place and make sure it was kept tidy. It was the perfect cover-up since his friend was out of town for a few weeks. Something about his mom's business trip and no one to look after him.

At his friend's house, he had to clean while waiting for Jeanne to wake up. It had been an unfortunate turn of events for Kaitou Sinbad... First, he went to the hospital, then he got arrested as soon as he was healed, then he found out Jeanne had gone to the hospital in way more serious condition than you'd ever see on TV, then he had to break out of jail, then he went to see Jeanne only to find he had to kidnap her from the hospital! Why did this stuff always happen to him? There were plenty of other fellows out there who'd give their soul to be a mysterious Kaitou like himself. But noooooooo... It had to be him! His thoughts and cleaning were interrupted by a small grunt.