The third update...

I smiled, glad that I'd finally run Luke's morphine-addled brain into a corner it couldn't quite find a way out of. -Kairi

"You have much to learn in the art of Energies." -Kairi

Chapter 6.8 - Conflicts and Sidequests
Part 61

I was jolted awake by Seth, who apparently wanted to get down off of Twilight. I nodded just once and slipped down from the liger's back, looking around. It was dusk, and I noted that a camp had already been built for the human members of our little war party. Reighn, Dark, Luke, Ion, and Natalia were already wandering over there. Reighn was limping, favoring his left leg and using Twilight's grandmother as something of a crutch.

I ran over and slipped under him, figuring a human crutch would be easier on him. Reighn looked down at me and smiled.

"Thanks..."

I forced a smile in return and helped him over to the camp fire, where the two of us sat down. Sorylle approached us shortly, laying down and letting Dark and Natalia lean back against her. Twilight did the same for me and Reighn, before growling at me and nudging my elbow. I reluctantly opened a connection, not quite willing to lay down a telepathic field after the events of the day. I was still exhausted, after all, and had no doubts that I would end up eating my dinner and then falling asleep immediately.

*The western Clan Queen has requested an audience with you tomorrow morning. She's also invited every Alpha of her family, the eastern Clan Queen, and every Alpha of her family,* he told me. *All of the humans here are invited as well.*

I frowned. *Why do you sound like you're dreading it?* I asked. Twilight grumbled something unintelligible before shifting slightly.

*You'll find out tomorrow.* With that rather cryptic utterance, he cut the connection off, and I forced down a yawn.

"Alright..."

"Here," Luke's voice brought me out of my half-asleep state. I blinked at the bowl of salad that was being held out in front of me before realizing that I was supposed to take it and eat it. Once I'd gotten that far, mentally, I was able to actually perform the action.

"You okay?" Reighn asked, having noticed how out of it I was. I shrugged, going back to stabbing my salad with prejudice. He didn't say anything for a bit, just working on his own food. He was about half-way through his (mine was almost gone) when he dropped his fork and hissed. A spasm had his left knee knocking into my right knee, and I grunted.

We glanced at each other before sharing a grimace. "You should probably..." he started. I just nodded.

"Yeah..."

I stood up, helping Reighn to scoot over, and then flopped back down on his other side, where my already-abused legs would be less likely to get hurt any more than they were.

"Um..."

We looked up, noting that the rest of the group was giving us strange looks. I forced a smile. "My knee needs reinforced again," I started.

"My leg is still acting up," Reighn added.

"Less pain for the both of us," I finished.

Dark nodded, understanding what we were talking about now, and while it took the others a few moments to figure it out, they did so quickly. I finished my salad and handed the bowl off to Seth, who was slated for dishes duty, before relaxing against Twilight and closing my eyes.

Rather than immediately allowing myself to go to sleep, however, I slipped onto the second plane, focusing first on my knee. Then I started healing the rest of the scratches on my body.

Two infected spots caught my attention, and I realized a moment late that they had been the wounds from Danté's shots. The one in my arm, which had been the one the bullet had hit, was worse than the one in my left leg. That one was quite simple to clean and start healing, actually. But even a glance told me that my arm was going to be a mess.

Infection had set in almost immediately, it looked like. Not only that, in stopping the bleeding the way I had, I'd actually made a bit of a mess out of the muscle there. I'd have to tear into it before I could heal it properly, but doing that before I cleaned out the infection meant I could send the infection through my body. At the same time, if I didn't open the wound back up, it would take magic, not a trick, to clean out the infection.

I scowled, trying to make up my mind. Risk the infection spreading and making even more of a mess, or exhaust myself anyway?

I sighed and reached out with the earth, sun, and wind Energies I needed and focused on what I was doing. I needed to be as precise as possible...

"Hey, Kairi?"

My hand slipped, a cut opening down my arm, and I scowled when I saw the trails of infection spreading. I slipped back into my body to glare at Seth, who was looking at my arm in shock.

"What?!" I spat. Seth stepped back, hands coming up in an 'I surrender' position.

"I was just gonna ask if you wanted seconds. We had quite a bit left over," he said. I growled, and judging from the shocked looks I was getting, it hadn't been a pretty comment. "Or not..."

"I had a wound there that got infected and now it's in my bloodstream because I wasn't able to reopen the wound properly," I said in a low voice. "And now I have to work twice as hard to clean the whole thing up as I would have if I'd just used magic instead of trying the trick."

Seth flinched. "Sorry..."

"'Sorry' doesn't cut it this time. And if any of you bother me again before I come back off the second plane, I will personally see to it that you are roasted and eaten."

Seth turned and made a beeline for the other side of the campfire, while Reighn edged away from me slightly.

I slipped back out of my body and turned back to my arm, muttering curses under my breath the entire time, already collecting up Energies.

Suffice to say, by the time I was done, I was quite happy to simply return to my body, flop over, and fall asleep.

I woke the next morning to Reighn cautiously shaking me awake. I glanced around. The sun was just coming up. Which meant I'd been a lot more tired than I'd thought. I forcibly shrugged it off and stood, stretching and glancing around. Seth, it seemed, was avoiding looking at me, and I sighed, walking over to him. I noted that the dark brown cloak was sat off to the side on a log.

Seth glanced up at me, flinched, and turned back to the fire he was trying to bring back up to a full blaze. I absent-mindedly waved a hand through a few fire and wind Energies and sent them flying at the fire. It went from attempting to burn to the desired intensity in just a moment, and Seth sighed, letting his makeshift poker drop to the ground.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly. "I shouldn't have snapped at you like that."

Seth looked over at me before turning back to the fire, preparing our breakfast quietly. "Your arm okay?" he asked. I nodded.

"Yeah. It just took a lot more energy than I'd have liked," I said. I looked over at Luke, who was also still asleep on his back. Bandages wrapped around his torso and one of his shoulders, and I frowned, standing and walking over. I sat down next to him and slipped out of my body again, feeling through the gashes and cringing.

Like my arm, his wounds had gotten infected. In fact... Luke was running a low fever already. I sighed and dropped back into my body, looking around for the man who had woken me. I spotted him next to Sorylle and Dark.

"Reighn?"

He turned, giving me a curious look, and I waved him over. "What is it?" he asked. I sighed.

"Luke's wounds. They're infected. They were never properly healed, so I can cleanse them without too much difficulty. But it would be easier if the bandages weren't in the way," I said. Reighn nodded, and he and Dark, who had followed after a moment, lifted Luke carefully into a sitting position, Dark holding him there while Reighn unwound the bandages.

A little bit of red had bled through them overnight, but as Reighn unwrapped the second layer, a thin line of sickly yellow started to form around the red, the yellow getting wider as he came to the lower layers.

The claw marks themselves were a dark red where blood and pus continued to seep out. Unfortunately, right around the lacerations, the skin was a very bright red, with a yellowish discoloration spreading from there. I made a face, knowing this wasn't going to be pretty... or comfortable for Luke. In fact...

I reached into my bag and pulled out my morphine, finding a fresh needle and filling the syringe with about a third of how much I had to inject every day to fight off the pain from my miasma-wrecked body. It would be more than enough to keep Luke numb without him being unconscious much longer than he would have been.

"Ouch," Dark muttered. I nodded once, unable to help but agree with the quiet statement.

Once Luke was dosed, I slipped half onto the second plane and started pulling together Energies. Mostly water, but some of the other five as well. Then I went to work.

By the time Luke came to, I was mostly done. He looked at me with bleary eyes and tilted his head to the side.

"What are you doing?"

"Cleaning out the infection."

Luke blinked a few more times.

"Why is everything numb?"

"Because I gave you morphine when I started, since I knew you'd be in a lot of pain otherwise."

"Why do you have morphine?"

"Because my body's a wreck."

"Why is your body a wreck?"

"Because I forgot about something mildly important when Asch, Sync, and I started visiting the passage rings."

"What did you forget?"

"The miasma."

"What's the miasma got to do with anything?"

"The seventh fonons in the core are contaminated with it."

"Huh?"

I smiled, glad that I'd finally run Luke's morphine-addled brain into a corner it couldn't quite find a way out of. I finished cleaning the infection out right about then, and after mopping up the clean blood that was flowing out of his wounds now, I started setting them to heal. Unfortunately, the imprints from the infection made healing him fully almost impossible, which meant that Reighn and I had to wrap him back up.

While Reighn was finishing that up, I flushed the remaining morphine from Luke's system. The redhead shook his head a bit to help clear away the fog, and he looked up at me with clearer eyes.

"Heh... sorry."

I shook my head. "Don't apologize. I knew you'd be out of it when you came to the minute I decided to dose you, so I was prepared for that. Those are going to scar though. Nothing I can do about that now," I said. Luke looked down at his mummy-wrapped torso and sighed.

"It could be worse. I could have had to fight off the infection the old fashioned way." I smiled and nodded, and noted Ion walking over. I wondered idly where he had been all morning. After all, Natalia was still asleep on the other side of camp.

Or at least, she had been. Sometime while I was working on Luke, she had woken up and started helping Seth with our breakfast. Seth walked over a moment later with two plates, handing them to me and Luke, before heading back to the fire and grabbing another two for Dark and Reighn. Ion sat next to Natalia to eat his own breakfast.

"Don't forget that we're meeting with the two queens this morning," Dark said before digging into his food. I just nodded, devouring mine at a faster clip than I usually would. I was rather hungry, it seemed... Huh... Maybe I should start paying more attention to my body's needs...

Once I was done, I glanced around, and realized with a sinking feeling that it was my turn to deal with the dishes. I grumbled under my breath and stood, leaving my plate behind and heading off to practice artes.

I started drawing sixth and second fonons together. I'd mastered Holy Lance with and without Energies, so I was hoping I'd be able to pull off Cluster Raid now. I was using Energies this time, though, because I didn't want to risk being too low a level for pure fonons. I had a feeling I was high enough, but I didn't want to risk it.

I felt the fonons reacting even as I prepared to shape them, and I smirked. "Rain down, o crystals of light! Cluster Raid!"

My smirk became a wide grin as the arte formed perfectly. It was rare that I managed the field of fonon arte on the first try, but I'd gotten very lucky this time.

"Care to learn another fifth-fonon arte?" Dark asked, walking over to stand next to me. I shrugged.

"Why not?"

He chuckled, then started explaining the arte he had in mind. It didn't take me long to realize that it was Witches' Circle.

Of course, the two of us practicing meant that Reighn and Seth ended up joining in, and while I started in on Witches' Circle, Seth spent that time practicing Gravity Well, which was leaving behind earth-based fields of fonons.

After a blue Witches' Circle landed in one of those and I felt an odd twinge, I had Seth unleash the next one a bit closer, while I loosely gathered up some fifth fonons.

Another Gravity Well deposited a field of fonons, and I stepped into it and started casting. Sure enough, the second fonons collected up into me, and Dark made a startled sound.

"Careful, you don't know what that'll do!" he yelled.

I just smirked. Witches' Circle was based on a spell circle, which meant that a second-fonon based spell circle would result in... Yep. "Come forth, o ancient ring of ritual! Stone Gate!"

Eight gilded stone pillars rose from the ground from the points of the pentacle and triquetra. A ninth shot up from the center. Blue fire danced between those pillars before they all faded, and I crossed my arms and smirked at Dark.

"You have much to learn in the art of Energies," I stated. Dark sighed, shaking his head in exasperation before giving Seth a pointed look. The Jedi-dressed replica chuckled and started charging up yet another Gravity Well, while I started in on attempting a Stone Gate without the field of fonons.

Might as well help with that. Besides... Stone Gate felt more correct than Witches' Circle anyway.

Fun Fact: And herein we find Kairi's most recent arte, proof that Dark really only half knows what he's doing mucking around with her spell circles.

Her current arsenal consists of- Sapphire Riot, Icicle Rain, Demonic Star, Infernal Prison (all holdovers from Re:ARitA), Cluster Raid, and Stone Gate. She's got two left, and one of them you all should already be able to guess. (And that's discounting the two Forbidden Artes Reighn is going to teach her, though one she's not getting until Book 3...)