CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

~ Lux's Condition ~

The azure skies were clear and glowed brightly. The sun's beams were dazzling. Birds flew in small groups; their chirping was lively and pleasant. Stretching as far as the eye could see was greenery, in every direction. It would seem the Bladebreakers and the Blitzkrieg Boys have walked into an endless, picturesque arrangement of formal and landscape gardens. So far, the two teams have toured through quite a few formal gardens with flowers in every color of the rainbow arranged into elaborate, symmetric designs. They've also toured quite some landscape gardens on the estate that were decorated with beautiful fountains, sculptures and gazebos. The tour guide, or the butler who is in charge of the estate is a spectacled man in his fifties dressed in black formal attire with greying hair, a well kept mustache and a small beard. As he leads the group through the estate grounds, he tells the history behind the various monuments and sculptures as ordered to do so by his master.

"…and this here is the oldest landmark on the estate. This was made some five hundred years ago by a talented artisan in the family…" he goes on, caring very little of the group's interest in the mansion's history.

Ray stops and looks around as the butler continues to speak. He was still in awe at how extravagant the Alfhild's main estate is and at the history of the Alfhild family. Max, equally in awe bumps into him lightly by accident, not having noticed that Ray had stopped.

"Oops, sorry about that," Max apologizes.

"No problem" Ray responds. He then catches sight of Tyson, Hilary, Kenny and Daichi. The four of them are so flabbergasted by the estate's grandeur that they have not started a fight since they began the tour. The group had only arrived here some hours ago. They had gotten to Stockholm the night before and had stayed at a hotel in the city for the night.

Looking around some more, it would seem even Tala, Bryan, Spencer and Ian are impressed by what they saw. The only one in the group in sight who does not appear to be in awe is Kai who, as the heir to Hiwatari Enterprise, has a couple of estates himself, albeit none not as rich in history.

Ray then looked over to Lux. While most others were enjoying the view and curious to see more, she was not much more impressed than Kai was. In some ways, this was understandable. It was more than just that Lux had lived with Kai at his mansion or that this whole place now belongs to her. While the latter did impress her when she had been informed of it earlier, the amount of knowledge she possessed of this world altogether was limited to the nine months of memories she has. Presenting a mansion to Lux would not be very different from serving haute cuisine to a small, young child. Just as to the child, gourmet and street food are both just food, to Lux, the mansion and any normal house would have just been a place of residence; the difficulty of preparation, or in this case, construction, expenses and design are not known to her.

Lux looks around and spots a small pond. Quietly, without disturbing the others, she wanders there and gazes into the pond. The entire scenery here was very beautiful and Lux loved the way the place looks very much. Beyond her liking of the place however is the familiarity it carried in almost every place she has stepped foot in so far. It certainly felt as if she had been here before. Both Ventus and her butler have said this is where she lived before the incident in Russia. The photos of her when she was young is strong evidence that she did in fact live here in her childhood; she even remembered seeing some parts of the mansion in the photos from before. However, she still could not recall even the slightest thing about her past.

Lux turns to see that the others are continuing along on their tour. She did not want to continue with them. She watched them go and then sat down on the grass by the pond. A gentle breeze picked up the ends of her hair and caused some ripples to appear in the water. Lux watched the water's movements without expression. Today she had just learned the names of her mother and father and ascertained that the name on the little book and card she was given nine months ago at the airport in Russia is indeed her real name. She takes out the little book and opens it.

"Lux Alfhild…" she reads outloud the name printed on it. She looks up from it and continues gazing at the pond.

...

The butler continues showing off the gardens and grounds to the group of guests his masters had brought home. Kai, turns to see that Lux is no longer following them. In fact, the girl was nowhere in sight. Believing she must have strayed from the group somewhere in the last place they were at, he leaves the group quietly to go look for her. As he does, a maid approaches the butler from the direction in which they were heading. Kai stops to see what is going on She tells him something quietly and then the butler and maid turn to the teens, searching for someone.

"I don't believe she's here." The butler tells her.

"I see…" the maid looks around, unsure what to do next.

Pretty sure that they were looking for Lux, Kai approaches the maid. "Are you looking for Lux?"

"Ah, yes," the maid replies politely. "Master Ventus has asked me to bring her to him at the main library."

The group remains quiet; no one knows where she had gone.

"I think she was still with us when we were looking at that five hundred year old sculpture in the landscape garden." Ray recalls.

Remembering that it wasn't very far away, Kai sprints off to go find her.

...

The way back to the sculpture did not take long. Kai looks around the place and notices a small pond some distance away. Before it lay the golden haired girl that he had been looking for. Relieved that she was fine, he approaches her calmly. As he approaches her, he notices she seems to be asleep. For some reason she is holding her passport but that isn't what matters now. He is going to have to wake her up.

"Lux," Kai calls her as he gently scoops her into his arms. There was no response. Then Kai notices something odd. She was breathing rather irregularly and her body seems rather warm. He then thinks to himself, 'Is she tired from traveling?'

Kai shakes her gently. He then calls her name again, "Lux, wake up."

The others have almost caught up now and are approaching them quickly.

"Kai, you found her?" Max shouts from the distance as he comes up with the others.

Kai was in no mood to bother replying. He pressed his hand gently but firmly on Lux's forehead and then felt his own forehead. There was no doubt about it; the girl definitely had a fever and it was a very high one. He picked her up in his arms as gently as he could and ran. There is only one person he knows of who might know what is wrong with her.

Tyson and the others watch as Kai ran off towards the mansion carrying Lux in his arms.

"I wonder what's gotten into him…" Tyson wonders out loud.

"Look closely, Tyson, he's carrying Lux off to the mansion as fast as he can," Bryan points out. "…and we all know Lux can walk."

"Yeah, what are you getting at?" Tyson asked, feeling as if Bryan was insulting his intelligence.

"It means something must be wrong with Lux." Ray explains to him.

"I wonder what could have happened to her…" Hilary shows her concern for her friend.

...

Ventus sat at a large, well-furnished desk. Behind him, the setting sun casts a vivid orange glow through the room's main window. The other walls in the room are lined with towering shelves, all filled with a variety of books. There is even a second level to this room that is filled with just as many books as the level below it if not more. On the screen on the laptop on the desk, a popup appears followed by a small ringing. Ventus turns to it from the window and presses a button on the keyboard of the laptop. A figure in a purple hood shows up on the screen.

"Yes?" Ventus asks the figure.

"I have removed the Urchin's body from the altar." Traumgeber reports.

"Good work. Now lay low until I give you further orders." Ventus tells him before closing the window.

Right after he does, the door is kicked open rather violently. Kai walked in hastily right after with Lux in his arms. The sight, a cause of concern to Ventus, prompts him to get off his seat to receive the two who just entered. Kai sets her down onto a couch in the room.

"I found her laying…by the pond in the back…" Kai says while still catching his breath. He had ran all the way from the pond and up the stairs as well. "She has a very high fever."

"I guess it's about time then…" Ventus says as he goes over to summon a servant.

"About time for what?" Kai asks as Ventus rings a bell on the wall.

"See, I've told you before that Bizmark and Dr. Vaniard did a number on her body…" Ventus begins explaining. "A number of substances introduced into her system were meant to enhance her physical performance. Some were meant to accelerate her learning speed as well."

"And?"

A servant appears at the door. Ventus turns to her, "Bring the medication to me."

"Some of the substances used naturally occur in the human body while others do not." Ventus continues. "The ones that did naturally occur would normally not be a threat. However…"

Lux stirs a little, causing the other two to turn to her. She begins to open her eyes a little. Kai holds her hand in his and gently brushes some of her hair from her face.

"…in Lux's case, there is an unnaturally high concentration of these substances in her body. On top of this, most of the other substances that do not normally occur in the human body are toxic to normal humans beings and cannot be processed in the liver."

The servant reappears carrying with her a small kit. She handed the kit to Ventus and then at Ventus's signal, left the room.

"As you know, too much of anything is usually not a good thing." Ventus sets the kit onto the desk and opens it. "In Lux's case, all of this should have resulted in a very severe case of poisoning and death."

Ventus takes out a needle and carefully attaches it onto a plastic tube. He then pokes into a small bottle containing some transparent liquid with it and slowly extracts the medication from it.

"Remember the nanomachines I told you about?" Ventus asks Kai as he continues to prepare the medication.

"What about them?" Kai asks.

"Those were what kept her alive all this time." Ventus, now finished, walks over to Lux. "They mostly just accelerate healing, but that's precisely what they do whenever she goes to sleep each night."

Kai watches as Ventus takes Lux's hand from him and gently began to inject the liquid into her.

"The extra substances remain in the body and cause her to feel extremely sick. The nanomachines are what restores her health each night and maintain her so she does not feel sick or die from poisoning." Ventus finishes the injection and seals the wound with a band-aid. "The down side is that her condition is stable only if there are enough nanos in her and so she must receive an injection of them at least once a year. I only have a small stash of them here that I stole before Lok broke out of the lab with the remaining supply of them. I have the formula for reproducing them, though, so if needed, I can have more of these produced until I find a way to restore her to normal."

Kai watches as Lux closes her eyes again to sleep. However, she soon opens them again, wide and bulging as she begins to experience an unbearable pain throughout her body. She rolls off the couch she had been laying on and curls into a ball, her screams loud and horrific. Kai is shocked by her sudden condition but soon gets over it and tries to hold her to calm her down, but in vain.

"It's a side effect of replenishing the nanomachines. Her old nanos do not immediately recognize her new ones, so they behave erratically and cause her pain for a while." Ventus tells him. "Pain medications and tranquilizers alike have been used to try to reduce the effect but in the past, they've only been shown to make it worse for her due to interaction with the nanos."

"Make…this…go…a..away…" Lux begs Kai weakly as she shakily grabs onto the bottom of Kai's pants with one hand while she clutches her body with her other hand. Her nails are digging into her own skin and her normally cheerful voice was desperate. "…please…."

Kai turns to Ventus. Knowing what Kai will ask of him, Ventus says, "There is nothing I can do to make the pain stop; she will have to bear with it until the nanos synchronize fully. If the nanos were given to her at an earlier time, she'd have had a better time with the synchronization but the last time I tried to administer the nanos, I was interrupted."

Kai turns back to the girl on the floor. "How long will she have to endure this for?"

"Usually about a few hours" Ventus tells him. "The synchronization itself is not what takes long; its the need to heal any damaged tissue that was caused by the initial contact between her old and new nanos that require time."

Lux begins to relax. It would seem she has fallen unconscious from the pain.

Ventus then bends down to pick his cousin up from the ground. "Come, let's take her to her room. During the next few hours you should be careful not to let anyone or anything wake her up or she might be in pain again."