Day 27 Chapter 22
- Location
- Around here
[X] Plan Help! Help!
"Limiti Esterni!"
You'd like to believe that your team is doing their best to whittle down the enemy's forces, but from this position – taking shelter in a bunker, only poking your head out to blast an approaching familiar or two before retreating – it's hard to get a good idea of the flow of battle. So while Saki and Mirai sound like they're doing a good job of blasting away, especially at those big birds, you really don't have any way of knowing for sure; and that's put you on edge.
The injuries your teammates have sustained, Mirai and Niko especially and Niko especially especially also have you on edge, doubly so because unlike the battle, you can see the toll their injuries are taking on their bodies.
Mirai lost her foot, and for some reason her regeneration module isn't working. Niko thinks it's the high concentration of ambient Grief in the air that's interfering, but all that technical stuff goes way over your head so you don't know. What you do know is how Mirai's injury is affecting her performance in battle. Because of the rush job Niko had to do in reattaching her foot, Mirai is unsteady on her feet, and needs to lean up against the wall of your shelter to keep her balance. She leans out just enough, pointing her wand out the window and letting loose a roaring jet of flame, and the act almost causes her to stumble. She catches herself, and quickly retreats behind cover, breathing heavily. When Saki, who is still lobbing balls of lightning at the enemy, isn't looking in her direction, Mirai reaches into her pocket for a Grief Seed, touching it to her Soul Gem which is already quite dark; unusually so for how short a time it's been since the last time she cleansed it just minutes ago.
Niko is another story entirely. Her entire shoulder was torn open by one of the tiny flying gremlin familiars, and you can see down to her bone where she was opened up by their razor-sharp claws. Her outfit is stained red with blood, and you can see thick fingers of black reaching up her neck and shoulder and down the length of her arm from the Grief that's infected her injury. You remember those stupid gremlins; Sidonia sent an entire swarm of them against your team when she tried to siege your base last week. You saw how their claws, slick with Grief like the rest of their tiny, bat-like bodies, infected the wounds they dealt to Saki and Mirai, and how their injuries had to be opened up again in order for the Quintet's nurse to properly heal them. Niko can't even close her wound up or else she'll just trap all that Grief inside her body.
"I'm fine," Niko says to you. She sounds more like she's trying to make you believe that she's fine, rather than sounding actually fine herself. "I shut off the pain receptors in my arm and shoulder, so it doesn't actually hurt." But she's still breathing heavily, and when she thinks you aren't looking, Niko touches a Grief Seed to her Soul Gem, the same as Mirai did.
You're the team leader. It's your responsibility to keep your teammates safe in battle; and right now you're not doing a very good job of that.
"Akemi, it's Kazumi. We're in a really bad place right now, and we need some backup so we can clear out and get medical attention. Who's available?"
"Oriko and Kirika, maybe," Akemi replies. "It's well past when they'd have gotten out of school, so hopefully they can be there shortly. I'll contact Nurse Ortensia and see if she can get there as well." That's good; Mikuni and her older nurse cousin were exactly the people you were hoping for. "How… How bad is bad?"
"Mirai lost her foot to one of those screaming ones with the lasers, and Niko had to put it back on manually 'cause her regeneration's not working properly. Niko herself is even worse; one of those tiny bat-gremlins got her shoulder. She's bleeding pretty bad, and she's got Grief crawling up her neck and-"
You can't say any more. You're going to have nightmares for weeks because of how bad Niko looks.
"Kazumi, I'm going to be okay."
Niko doesn't sound okay.
"Knowing Oriko, she's already making arrangements to head your way now," Akemi says to you. "If not, I'll still need to contact her about mobilising Nurse Ortensia. But she's still closer in any event, so she'll probably be there first."
"Okay."
"Just hold out until she and Oriko can arrive."
You'll try your best. "All right everyone, Akemi's sending Mikuni and her nurse cousin to reinforce us!" you say to Saki, Mirai, and Niko. "Let's just try to hold out until they get here, okay?"
"Easier done than said!" Saki replies. The sound of ball lightning beign thrown from her riding crop almost drowns out her voice as she says "I could do this all day!"
"Maybe, but Mirai and Niko are in pretty bad shape." You don't even have to gesture to the injured pair; their own performance speaks for themselves. Mirai is unsteady, and lists to one side as she tries to angle her weapon out of the window to launch another flame attack. She stumbles, and just barely catches herself before she can fall onto Saki. "If you want to stay behind and help Mikuni and her cousin fight, I won't stop you-" You'd even stay behind with Saki, since you're not injured and are handling things just fine. You make a beeline for the window, and tap Mirai on the shoulder in order to make her tag out for you. "Limiti Esterni!" "-But Mirai and Niko need to get out of here so they can receive medical attention."
"I know that!" Saki's grunt as she flings a ball of lightning out the window only helps emphasise her words, but despite her boasts moments earlier, she too has to pull back, tapping a Grief Seed to her Soul Gem as she breathes heavily. "Okay, maybe I'm not doing as hot as I thought," she finally says. "It's… Really getting to me; all this Grief in the air. It's making it really hard to breathe."
"I know." You feel lucky; you've got more mana than Saki does, more than four times the amount she has, so you aren't feeling the effects of the ambient Grief nearly as much. But you are still feeling it. You lean your head out of the window just enough to where you can see Lancer. She's draining you at a much faster rate than she normally does. Which is terrifying, because she's never actually managed to make you feel drained before. There must be a lot of Grief in the air to make you feel this way.
To be on the safe side, you join Saki in touching a Grief Seed to your Soul Gem. You feel the Seed slowly drinking up the blackness in your Soul, until it's had its fill and you store it away in your pocket.
Where the heck even are your pockets, anyway? This outfit's way too skimpy!
"Stella Orizzonte!"
A beam of bright gold slices through the sky above you, climbing over the limited visibility given to you by the windows, and you see it slice clean through one of the massive birds. The other familiars turn their attention towards the source of the blast and swarm. "What was that?" Saki asks, lobbing a ball of lightning at the massive bird familiars as they reposition themselves. "Was that our reinforcements?"
"Who else would it be?" Niko asks. She clutches her arm just a little less tightly, and you can hear her breathing relax by just a little bit. With her good hand, she touches the wall she's leaning against, and more windows open up along the rear wall. "Go check it out," she says, to no one in particular.
You volunteer because you're probably in the best shape of anyone on your team, and you stick your head out of the window. There's a blinding flash of light that overtakes your vision, and when it clears, you see Mikuni and her older cousin standing there, victorious. "Wow, that was fast."
"Oh, it was nothing, Kazusa-san," Mikuni says. "Caren-san just happens to have an affinity for dealing with these pesky things, that's all. Now-" Mikuni gives her cousin a nudge with her elbow, and says "Caren-san, would you please attend to their wounded?"
Mikuni's cousin rolls her eyes, but she advances towards your shelter, knocking on the solid concrete wall to be let in. Niko presses her hand to the wall, opening up a door for her to enter through, and you pass Mikuni's cousin as you head outside to survey the damage.
Well, there's a lot of dead familiars and a lot of Grief lying around. That can't be good for the environment.
"I hope our arrival was well-timed," Mikuni says, giving you a slight bow. "How are things going, Kazusa-san?"
"They could be going a lot better," you say. "Mirai and Niko are both messed up pretty bad. I hope your cousin is working on Niko right now-" You put just enough emphasis into your voice so that Mikuni's cousin is sure to hear you. "-But maybe you could take a look at Mirai's leg, if you're not doing anything else?"
"Certainly."
Mikuni follows you inside – as does Lancer, who makes herself visible when she steps inside the shelter after Mikuni – and you point her to Mirai, who has slumped back down against the wall with her injured leg sticking out. "It's about time," Mirai says, earning her a less-than-satisfied look from Mikuni at her dismissive tone. "Uh, I mean, thanks for coming to save our asses. I'd probably still be leaned up against a wall trying not to lose my balance if you hadn't shown up sooner." Mikuni nods her head, and Mirai asks "What was that beam of light we saw just a second ago? Was that you?"
"Yes." Mikuni nods her head, and shows off the silver device strapped to her wrist, which compresses and slides back underneath her sleeve as soon as she's done showing it off. "It's a variation on my standard Parafulmine, but it's built to work with the weapon Tohsaka-san made for me, streamlining the process and making something that's less powerful, but easier and faster to deploy." Mikuni lets out an awkward laugh, and she adds "I'm still workshopping the name, I'm afraid to say."
"Less talk-y, more…" Mikuni's cousin stops herself the instant she realises that isn't going the way she was hoping. "Whatever. Oriko, how's the pink one looking?"
"That depends," Mikuni says. "Niko-san, you were the one who repaired Wakaba-san's leg, right?" Niko, sitting there while Mikuni's cousin paws all over her, nods her head. "Right. Well, her leg is lopsided; it looks like the regeneration module was able to regrow just enough of her leg before stopping that it's causing an imbalance to her gait, and-"
"I know that already," Mirai snaps. "Just tell me how you're going to fix it."
Saki shoots Mirai a nasty glare. "Be polite, Mirai," goes unsaid. "Unfortunately, Wakaba-san, the best way to fix this is going to be cutting your foot off, and then reattaching it at the proper length." Mirai's face goes white, but Mikuni continues before Mirai has a chance to protest. "I know, it sounds cruel, but I promise this will only take a second. My Uruz rune is specialised for healing, and in fact I originally learned it in order to have an answer to severed limbs."
You'd rather not ask what Mikuni has been through to where that's something she's seriously had to consider. Something probably happened to either her, Kure, or someone else they're really close to. "Just turn off the pain receptors in your leg, and I'll have this done in no time."
The silver blade deploys itself again from underneath Mikuni's sleeve, and she readies herself, lining up on Mirai's leg with surgical precision. But before she can bring her blade down, Mirai pulls back, screaming "Do no harm!" Mikuni stops, and looks at Mirai. "What about 'Do no harm'?" she asks. "How's this supposed to help me if you're cutting off my leg?"
"The Hippocratic Oath doesn't mean what you think it means," Mikuni's cousin says. "It means we're not supposed to cause undue harm in the course of treatment. But something like this, where causing some form of harm is necessary in order to prevent greater harm, is acceptable. Why do you think amputations were a common treatment for horrific limb injuries for so long? Why do you think they remain common when there's no other hope of the limb in question ever getting better?" Mirai says nothing, and Mikuni's cousin continues. "It's because if the limb isn't removed, it could just make things worse for the patient, or hinder them unnecessarily if it isn't removed. So shut up and let my cousin chop your foot off. It'll go faster if you don't squirm."
"Niko-san, I'll need you to turn off Wakaba-san's regeneration module, if you don't mind," Mikuni says. Niko nods her head, and – with her right arm back to normal now – reaches into her pocket for her phone. A few quick button presses later, and Niko gives Mikuni a thumbs-up. "Thank you."
You don't look. It was bad enough seeing it the first time.
[ ] Wat do?
"Limiti Esterni!"
You'd like to believe that your team is doing their best to whittle down the enemy's forces, but from this position – taking shelter in a bunker, only poking your head out to blast an approaching familiar or two before retreating – it's hard to get a good idea of the flow of battle. So while Saki and Mirai sound like they're doing a good job of blasting away, especially at those big birds, you really don't have any way of knowing for sure; and that's put you on edge.
The injuries your teammates have sustained, Mirai and Niko especially and Niko especially especially also have you on edge, doubly so because unlike the battle, you can see the toll their injuries are taking on their bodies.
Mirai lost her foot, and for some reason her regeneration module isn't working. Niko thinks it's the high concentration of ambient Grief in the air that's interfering, but all that technical stuff goes way over your head so you don't know. What you do know is how Mirai's injury is affecting her performance in battle. Because of the rush job Niko had to do in reattaching her foot, Mirai is unsteady on her feet, and needs to lean up against the wall of your shelter to keep her balance. She leans out just enough, pointing her wand out the window and letting loose a roaring jet of flame, and the act almost causes her to stumble. She catches herself, and quickly retreats behind cover, breathing heavily. When Saki, who is still lobbing balls of lightning at the enemy, isn't looking in her direction, Mirai reaches into her pocket for a Grief Seed, touching it to her Soul Gem which is already quite dark; unusually so for how short a time it's been since the last time she cleansed it just minutes ago.
Niko is another story entirely. Her entire shoulder was torn open by one of the tiny flying gremlin familiars, and you can see down to her bone where she was opened up by their razor-sharp claws. Her outfit is stained red with blood, and you can see thick fingers of black reaching up her neck and shoulder and down the length of her arm from the Grief that's infected her injury. You remember those stupid gremlins; Sidonia sent an entire swarm of them against your team when she tried to siege your base last week. You saw how their claws, slick with Grief like the rest of their tiny, bat-like bodies, infected the wounds they dealt to Saki and Mirai, and how their injuries had to be opened up again in order for the Quintet's nurse to properly heal them. Niko can't even close her wound up or else she'll just trap all that Grief inside her body.
"I'm fine," Niko says to you. She sounds more like she's trying to make you believe that she's fine, rather than sounding actually fine herself. "I shut off the pain receptors in my arm and shoulder, so it doesn't actually hurt." But she's still breathing heavily, and when she thinks you aren't looking, Niko touches a Grief Seed to her Soul Gem, the same as Mirai did.
You're the team leader. It's your responsibility to keep your teammates safe in battle; and right now you're not doing a very good job of that.
"Akemi, it's Kazumi. We're in a really bad place right now, and we need some backup so we can clear out and get medical attention. Who's available?"
"Oriko and Kirika, maybe," Akemi replies. "It's well past when they'd have gotten out of school, so hopefully they can be there shortly. I'll contact Nurse Ortensia and see if she can get there as well." That's good; Mikuni and her older nurse cousin were exactly the people you were hoping for. "How… How bad is bad?"
"Mirai lost her foot to one of those screaming ones with the lasers, and Niko had to put it back on manually 'cause her regeneration's not working properly. Niko herself is even worse; one of those tiny bat-gremlins got her shoulder. She's bleeding pretty bad, and she's got Grief crawling up her neck and-"
You can't say any more. You're going to have nightmares for weeks because of how bad Niko looks.
"Kazumi, I'm going to be okay."
Niko doesn't sound okay.
"Knowing Oriko, she's already making arrangements to head your way now," Akemi says to you. "If not, I'll still need to contact her about mobilising Nurse Ortensia. But she's still closer in any event, so she'll probably be there first."
"Okay."
"Just hold out until she and Oriko can arrive."
You'll try your best. "All right everyone, Akemi's sending Mikuni and her nurse cousin to reinforce us!" you say to Saki, Mirai, and Niko. "Let's just try to hold out until they get here, okay?"
"Easier done than said!" Saki replies. The sound of ball lightning beign thrown from her riding crop almost drowns out her voice as she says "I could do this all day!"
"Maybe, but Mirai and Niko are in pretty bad shape." You don't even have to gesture to the injured pair; their own performance speaks for themselves. Mirai is unsteady, and lists to one side as she tries to angle her weapon out of the window to launch another flame attack. She stumbles, and just barely catches herself before she can fall onto Saki. "If you want to stay behind and help Mikuni and her cousin fight, I won't stop you-" You'd even stay behind with Saki, since you're not injured and are handling things just fine. You make a beeline for the window, and tap Mirai on the shoulder in order to make her tag out for you. "Limiti Esterni!" "-But Mirai and Niko need to get out of here so they can receive medical attention."
"I know that!" Saki's grunt as she flings a ball of lightning out the window only helps emphasise her words, but despite her boasts moments earlier, she too has to pull back, tapping a Grief Seed to her Soul Gem as she breathes heavily. "Okay, maybe I'm not doing as hot as I thought," she finally says. "It's… Really getting to me; all this Grief in the air. It's making it really hard to breathe."
"I know." You feel lucky; you've got more mana than Saki does, more than four times the amount she has, so you aren't feeling the effects of the ambient Grief nearly as much. But you are still feeling it. You lean your head out of the window just enough to where you can see Lancer. She's draining you at a much faster rate than she normally does. Which is terrifying, because she's never actually managed to make you feel drained before. There must be a lot of Grief in the air to make you feel this way.
To be on the safe side, you join Saki in touching a Grief Seed to your Soul Gem. You feel the Seed slowly drinking up the blackness in your Soul, until it's had its fill and you store it away in your pocket.
Where the heck even are your pockets, anyway? This outfit's way too skimpy!
"Stella Orizzonte!"
A beam of bright gold slices through the sky above you, climbing over the limited visibility given to you by the windows, and you see it slice clean through one of the massive birds. The other familiars turn their attention towards the source of the blast and swarm. "What was that?" Saki asks, lobbing a ball of lightning at the massive bird familiars as they reposition themselves. "Was that our reinforcements?"
"Who else would it be?" Niko asks. She clutches her arm just a little less tightly, and you can hear her breathing relax by just a little bit. With her good hand, she touches the wall she's leaning against, and more windows open up along the rear wall. "Go check it out," she says, to no one in particular.
You volunteer because you're probably in the best shape of anyone on your team, and you stick your head out of the window. There's a blinding flash of light that overtakes your vision, and when it clears, you see Mikuni and her older cousin standing there, victorious. "Wow, that was fast."
"Oh, it was nothing, Kazusa-san," Mikuni says. "Caren-san just happens to have an affinity for dealing with these pesky things, that's all. Now-" Mikuni gives her cousin a nudge with her elbow, and says "Caren-san, would you please attend to their wounded?"
Mikuni's cousin rolls her eyes, but she advances towards your shelter, knocking on the solid concrete wall to be let in. Niko presses her hand to the wall, opening up a door for her to enter through, and you pass Mikuni's cousin as you head outside to survey the damage.
Well, there's a lot of dead familiars and a lot of Grief lying around. That can't be good for the environment.
"I hope our arrival was well-timed," Mikuni says, giving you a slight bow. "How are things going, Kazusa-san?"
"They could be going a lot better," you say. "Mirai and Niko are both messed up pretty bad. I hope your cousin is working on Niko right now-" You put just enough emphasis into your voice so that Mikuni's cousin is sure to hear you. "-But maybe you could take a look at Mirai's leg, if you're not doing anything else?"
"Certainly."
Mikuni follows you inside – as does Lancer, who makes herself visible when she steps inside the shelter after Mikuni – and you point her to Mirai, who has slumped back down against the wall with her injured leg sticking out. "It's about time," Mirai says, earning her a less-than-satisfied look from Mikuni at her dismissive tone. "Uh, I mean, thanks for coming to save our asses. I'd probably still be leaned up against a wall trying not to lose my balance if you hadn't shown up sooner." Mikuni nods her head, and Mirai asks "What was that beam of light we saw just a second ago? Was that you?"
"Yes." Mikuni nods her head, and shows off the silver device strapped to her wrist, which compresses and slides back underneath her sleeve as soon as she's done showing it off. "It's a variation on my standard Parafulmine, but it's built to work with the weapon Tohsaka-san made for me, streamlining the process and making something that's less powerful, but easier and faster to deploy." Mikuni lets out an awkward laugh, and she adds "I'm still workshopping the name, I'm afraid to say."
"Less talk-y, more…" Mikuni's cousin stops herself the instant she realises that isn't going the way she was hoping. "Whatever. Oriko, how's the pink one looking?"
"That depends," Mikuni says. "Niko-san, you were the one who repaired Wakaba-san's leg, right?" Niko, sitting there while Mikuni's cousin paws all over her, nods her head. "Right. Well, her leg is lopsided; it looks like the regeneration module was able to regrow just enough of her leg before stopping that it's causing an imbalance to her gait, and-"
"I know that already," Mirai snaps. "Just tell me how you're going to fix it."
Saki shoots Mirai a nasty glare. "Be polite, Mirai," goes unsaid. "Unfortunately, Wakaba-san, the best way to fix this is going to be cutting your foot off, and then reattaching it at the proper length." Mirai's face goes white, but Mikuni continues before Mirai has a chance to protest. "I know, it sounds cruel, but I promise this will only take a second. My Uruz rune is specialised for healing, and in fact I originally learned it in order to have an answer to severed limbs."
You'd rather not ask what Mikuni has been through to where that's something she's seriously had to consider. Something probably happened to either her, Kure, or someone else they're really close to. "Just turn off the pain receptors in your leg, and I'll have this done in no time."
The silver blade deploys itself again from underneath Mikuni's sleeve, and she readies herself, lining up on Mirai's leg with surgical precision. But before she can bring her blade down, Mirai pulls back, screaming "Do no harm!" Mikuni stops, and looks at Mirai. "What about 'Do no harm'?" she asks. "How's this supposed to help me if you're cutting off my leg?"
"The Hippocratic Oath doesn't mean what you think it means," Mikuni's cousin says. "It means we're not supposed to cause undue harm in the course of treatment. But something like this, where causing some form of harm is necessary in order to prevent greater harm, is acceptable. Why do you think amputations were a common treatment for horrific limb injuries for so long? Why do you think they remain common when there's no other hope of the limb in question ever getting better?" Mirai says nothing, and Mikuni's cousin continues. "It's because if the limb isn't removed, it could just make things worse for the patient, or hinder them unnecessarily if it isn't removed. So shut up and let my cousin chop your foot off. It'll go faster if you don't squirm."
"Niko-san, I'll need you to turn off Wakaba-san's regeneration module, if you don't mind," Mikuni says. Niko nods her head, and – with her right arm back to normal now – reaches into her pocket for her phone. A few quick button presses later, and Niko gives Mikuni a thumbs-up. "Thank you."
You don't look. It was bad enough seeing it the first time.
[ ] Wat do?
