-Chapter 4-

Sinbad looked over to where Jeanne was just waking up. Her unharmed eye opened and glanced at him. She obviously didn't want to move her body just yet. Sinbad assumed it was from all the pain he knew she had to be feeling right now.

"What happened, Sinbad? At the hospital, I mean," she asked.

The healed Kaitou sighed in relief; for a second there he thought she had amnesia. At least now he didn't have to worry about that. And at least now he could properly explain what happened, as far his knew.

"Well," he began, "I don't exactly know when you arrived at the hospital. By the time I learned you were still alive, I was in jail. I broke out to see if you were okay, and after learning which hospital you were at, I ran to see you. I convinced the nurses you were my girlfriend, and they believed me since we were both Kaitous. Once I walked into the room, there were at least four different nurses swarming you. They left only to let me have some time with you. Back then, you were almost always covered in blood. They said you were in such bad shape, you most likely wouldn't survive. They couldn't move you enough to clean you off, so they hooked you up to life support and hoped for the best. It was only after about a week that they told me you were in a coma."

He stopped, as if forcing unwanted memories to surface. Then he started again. "It was scary, actually. They told me your heart stopped beating four times, and they had to resuscitate you. More often than not, I would come to see you only to find your bed dripping in blood. The police never came by, to my knowledge. And then finally, by some miracle, you woke up from your coma."

"Why was I in a coma? And for how long?" she asked.

"The doctors said your injuries were so severe your body couldn't sustain itself alone. Whatever happened to you caused too much damage, and it threw you into a coma. As for how long, I'm not really sure. I just know it was a long wait for you to finally wake up," he answered.

Jeanne scowled at this new knowledge. Where did she go wrong? She always had a plan. She always sealed the demon. She never really got hurt. She always succeeded! What went wrong? And how? And WHY?

Stressed out, she pulled her arm up, and used her cast to make a lovely little indent in the couch Sinbad had set her on. No more resting. No more hiding. Yanuzui would die, and that was final. He wasn't going to die if she just sat here and waited to be destroyed.

She sat up and tried to stand, holding the edge of the couch for support. With casts on both her legs, it wasn't easy in the slightest and it took alot of effort just to stand up, let alone walk. Ignoring Sinbad's commands to stay put, she wobbled over toward the door and let herself out, slamming it shut behind her.

Kaitou Sinbad soon followed, grabbing her from behind and trying to stop her. Naturally, he had to tolerate her squirming and harsh will to be free. But this was Maron, only in a different form. She tried to act tough. But she had gotten herself in a very dangerous situation where she'd ended up getting hurt so badly it threatened her life. Her squirming wasn't going to help; she should know this.

He grew concerned when she started panting. She began to stop struggling as much. Either that, or she was beginning to weaken already. If that were the case, then her condition was more serious than expected. She wasn't supposed to be at his friend's house, she needed to be at the hospital. For now, though, he knew she had to tire herself out so she couldn't resist going back. After all, whatever had scared her at the hospital would surely be gone by now.

Jeanne was getting very weak. She already knew she wasn't at full strength yet, but she didn't know it would be this bad. Taking into account that the casts were heavier than they should be, she was wasting energy by trying to get away from Sinbad. But...she didn't want to get hurt. Sinbad was the one who summoned Yanuzui in the first place, so if she gave out here, she would die.

Her wounds that had been sewn back together reopened, and blood became quite visible through her hospital gown. She grunted in pain, but tried her best to shrug it off. She could tend to this later, when she was out of Sinbad's grasp. After that she would find and kill Yanuzui. Then she could see Fin, and tell her of her accomplishment.

Without knowing it, she opened the eye the nurse had told her to keep shut. She used this advantage to try to glare Sinbad down, a last-ditch effort to escape.

As soon as the stronger Kaitou saw Jeanne's injured eye, he couldn't help but let go of her. It was horrendous to find her eye without color, and with a long jagged scar running through her pupil, cornea, and iris. It was an eerily murky light grey. What they had told him had been true...Jeanne was blinded in that eye for life. Anything to her left she wouldn't be able to notice without turning her head so her other eye could see it. That eye in particular stared at nothing, it only moved with her other eye, the one that hadn't lost its vision.

There was no doubt in his mind she knew she was blind in that eye.

In a flash, or what seemed like a flash, Jeanne had made her way over to the stairs, which she was now attempting to walk down. It didn't take a genius to figure out what a bad idea this was. If she lost too much energy, she would pass out and fall down the stairs. It could break her neck.

Acting quickly, Sinbad took advantage of her blind eye and approach her left side silently, swiftly. She obviously didn't hear him.

He grabbed her again and this time, managed to avert his gaze from her eye. The demon that did this to her...it was far stronger than he could've ever anticipated. This creature was definitely too much for Jeanne to handle alone. Furthermore, it seemed to have an intent to kill her, not to possess someone. He knew this only because it had attacked her again in the hospital. But now that she was gone, so should the demon.

Kaitou Jeanne began to slide down, even though she was trying her best to hold herself up. The strain she was putting on herself was enormous. It was quickly draining her.

Eventually she felt dizzy and weak. The girl knew she was on the verge of fainting. She relaxed and felt Sinbad shift her onto his back. He was carrying her somewhere. Right now she didn't care what happened next. Her eyes wouldn't stay open for her, and slowly closed.

When she woke up, she was back at Nagoya Hospital, the hospital Chiaki's father owned. But at least this time she wasn't in the Intensive Care Unit. She had been assigned a regular hospital room, with only an IV connected to her.

A nurse came in and Jeanne looked over to see her.

The nurse noticed her eye. She quickly made her way over to Jeanne's bed and put one hand over her good eye. She then proceeded to wave her other hand over Jeanne's face. The injured eye didn't follow it. It showed no eye tracking movement whatsoever. The nurse turned Jeanne's head over toward the window, where the sun was shining in, while still keeping a hand over her good eye. The bad eye's pupil didn't retract. It showed no response to the light.

"I'm sorry to say, Kaitou Jeanne," she said as she removed her hand from the Kaitou's face, "but you will never be able to see with your left eye again."

"It's okay. I already know," Jeanne replied.

"Please try not to escape this time. I know you want to get out of here, but you aren't healthy enough yet. You still have a little ways to go before you can be running about again," the nurse told her as she walked out.

After eventless hours, she was almost ready to go back to sleep. Just staying awake too long was tiring. But she didn't get the chance to fall asleep; Sinbad walked in at that precise moment. Access was floating right beside him, looking innocent as usual.

She glowered. "Why are you here?"

Sinbad shrugged; Access floated above her head.

"I want to know what happened to you. What put you in this condition?" Access asked.

Jeanne noticed he was staring mainly at her blinded eye; that was probably what he really wanted to know about. Both of them knew her eye would slow her down when trying to seal a demon. Anything to her left wouldn't be seen unless she used her good eye to spot it. With Miyako on her trail, and the police keeping a constant eye out for trouble, she couldn't help but wonder what her next mission would be like.

Jeanne answered vaguely, her voice resembling a snake striking out at its prey. "Your demon."

Access looked over at Sinbad, who shrugged again. "She never really told me. She might not remember what happened; I don't really know."

Jeanne resisted the urge to growl. "Don't worry about my memory!"

"You remember?" her rival Kaitou asked.

"Of course I do, right down to the end!" she hissed back.

No doubt in her mind she remembered. That kind of pain wasn't the pain one would likely forget. Well, maybe she didn't actually remember the end of it...she just remembered hitting the ground with such force. And then there was nothing. She'd woken up to find herself at a hospital, not really knowing how she got there nor how long she'd been in there.

"Could you tell us what happened?" Access asked politely.

As much as she wanted to swat him, she restrained herself from doing so. They sent the demon, of course they would know! They were probably just teasing her, playing with her. Inside they were probably laughing at her for being so weak. Yes, the evasive yet legendary Kaitou Jeanne had failed to defeat a demon. Yes, the strong and unbeatable Kaitou Jeanne had been hospitalized. And yes, the strong yet graceful Kaitou Jeanne had been so badly injured she had been thrown into a coma. She had lost, and they knew it.

The pair had a serious and concerned look on their faces, as if they actually cared what happened to her. It was a good thing she knew differently...

Egh... Whether they cared or not, it didn't change the fact that right now they had the upper hand. They knew she was weakened. They knew she didn't have enough energy to seal, let alone run away from, their viscous demon. It was Yanuzui's fault for what happened to her, but since they were the ones who summoned him, it was also their fault. That demon had been born to kill, and they had chosen just the right one for her death. But if they thought she was going to sit back and watch as she slowly approached her demise...they were dead wrong.

She smirked, confusing the other two. "I won't lose."