Chương 49: To Mend the Broken

Standing in the commandeered observation room, Charlotte kept her eyes fixed on the television Agent Cox had wired into the hospital's secure feed, her hands covering her mouth to stifle a climbing sob. On the screen, Ace lay completely still. Beside him, metal pins anchored Kellevra's arm into a traction rig. She let this happen. Her only job was keeping her boys safe, and she had encouraged this. They all had.

Letting Kurisu teach the other kids to control their elements was supposed to be a blessing, a perfectly safe solution. But training had resulted in this. Had they not known how to fight, they wouldn't have gone. Staying home would have kept them whole. Banning them from killing those goblins fell severely short; the weapons had to go. The dojo had to go. Every piece of that violent obsession needed stripping from their lives. No more training. No more fighting.

Through the speakers, Kurisu's voice wavered, recounting how spiders would be dropped in his box. Charlotte's breath hitched. If he doesn't have us, then he has no one. Her own boys had her to protect them, to pull them back from the brink, but Kurisu had endured those horrors alone.

"He was just a baby," she wept, the sound muffled by her palms. Gloria moved, her arms wrapping around Charlotte's shoulders, tears tracing paths down her cheeks too.

"It's horrible. Who could do that to someone? To a child?"

"You see?" Charlotte pleaded.

"He needs us, we can't abandon him." With a squeeze, Gloria stepped back, looking Charlotte in the eyes.

"I'm sorry," she answered, firmly shaking her head.

"What he's been through is horrible. It really is. But I have to consider my boy's safety first."

"He's a ticking nuclear bomb, you heard him. He loses control under mental duress and countries vanish? At best he's delusional and needs extreme psychiatric help. Name me one country that's vanished—" Roland's posture stiffened. He looked at the display before glancing at Steven, then Charlotte.

"Oh this just gets better and better! He's from the same place as all those things? What's next? Are you going to tell me he's the one bringing them here?" He crossed the room and grabbed Steven's shoulder, grip tightening until the veins corded along his forearm.

"Do you mean to tell me that boy isn't even human?" Wordless, Steven nodded, his jaw tight, his eyes wet as he stared at the screen. Roland, releasing him, stumbled back a step, his mouth open. Trembling fingers reaching out, Charlotte closed the distance and gripped her husband's hand. She turned back, looking at Ace's pale face and Kellevra's ruined arm. Her babies. She had carried them, raised them, and now they were broken. Yes, by Kurisu's hand, but it wasn't his fault.

He was a victim just as much as the others. She nodded to herself. She wouldn't lose her sons to this madness, and she wouldn't let Kurisu destroy himself, or them, in the process. Fixing Kurisu was the key to saving her own boys. If she could heal his mind, she could stop the violence at its source.

"It'll be alright," she whispered, her voice shaking.

"I'll take care of Ace and Kellevra. I'll take care of Kurisu. I'll make sure this never happens again, Steven. I promise. They won't fight anymore, and Kurisu won't hurt anyone ever again." Steven looked at the others.

"I don't suppose we could have the room?" he asked, but Cox and the Tetsuyas just shook their heads in response.

"Steven?" Charlotte asked, pulling her hands away. With a sigh, Steven scrubbed at his face before meeting her eyes.

"No," he said.

"He's done."

"What do you mean, 'he's done'? He's our son!"

"No, Char, he's not, and that's the problem. Roland was right, a thousand percent right. We let an unknown into our home, and it bit us in the ass, hard!"

"We signed adoption papers!"

"And I'm sure there's ways around that!"

"You don't understand. Just banning the killing of those goblin things wasn't enough. We have to ban all training and fighting. I know, and I'm sorry. I won't let them do any of that anymore."

"Damn it, that's not the point! Stopping our kids from killing monsters was the right thing to do. They're kids and, monster or not, beating a humanoid creature to death up close and personal? Yeah, that's some heavy shit they don't need. Kurisu, on the other hand, was obviously conditioned to kill. You could have let him, and it probably wouldn't have made a lick of difference."

"I can't believe this! Even he doesn't need to be killing creatures that were already unconscious, that's just execution!" Charlotte shouted.

"He's an orphan. He needs a home, people to love him and care for him, and take him away from all this violence."

"He almost killed Ace! Would have killed both of our sons and probably us if he hadn't been stopped!" Steven roared back. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"But he didn't kill them, the training saved—" Charlotte's mouth snapped shut. Steven let out a long breath.

"Yeah," he said quietly as he looked at her, the lines of his face softening.

"Exactly."

"Look," Agent Cox interrupted, stepping closer to the monitor.

"Subject Omega's moving." Kurisu sat up abruptly, swinging his legs over the side of the mattress. The bed frame screeched, followed by a rapid succession of pops and cracks. Ignoring the ruined restraints, he planted his bare feet on the linoleum, nylon straps now dangling from his wrists and ankles.

"Jesus dude, what are you doing?" Kenji hissed, jumping. Kurisu looked at his hands, then at Ace.

"I cannot undo the past," he whispered.

"But I can repair the present." An undersized hospital gown barely clinging to him, he stepped next to Ace's bed.

"Kurisu?" the boy asked, his voice trembling.

"What're you doing?" Pulling back the top of the hospital sheet, Kurisu slid a hand directly on Ace's bare chest under the plastic halo vest. Eyes closed, he drew upon his Chi, the force that linked all life.

"Don't," Ace stammered.

"Kurisu, don't touch me. Get away!"

"Get away from my brother!" Kellevra shouted, struggling against his rig. Kurisu released a slow exhale, sensing the focusing of Kōki from Kenji as the door burst open, hospital staff and officers racing into the room. Chi directed from his heart, he guided it in a warm rush down his arm. Life energy spilled from his palm, coursing through Ace's body to saturate the crushed vertebrae along the boy's spine. Back arching, Ace gasped, the sound dragging into a hiss.

The nearest officer reached to grab Kurisu by the arm as bone ground against bone, popping on top of one another.

"Fucking ow!" the boy yelled, flopping back down on his bed, four metallic pings ringing clear when the pins pushed out of his skull. He turned to scowl at Kurisu, while the officer's hand clamped around Kurisu's bicep with a snap. Ace's eyebrows went from drawn down, to crooked, and finally wide open as he looked at Kurisu.

"Do you mind?" Kurisu croaked in a raspy voice, his eyes bouncing between the officer and his arm, noting the liver spots on his now wrinkled skin. The muscle mass beneath had evaporated, and wisps of white hair fluttered into his vision as several locks fell to the floor.

"That is incredibly painful." When the officer finally let go, Kurisu saw his arm was misshapen. Though his Zanshin had already warned him of the break, the sight remained irritating. The injury itself wasn't the problem; rather, it would draw focus away from what he intended to do. He stood hunched, his spine curved, breath rattling in his chest.

"You just aged a hundred years," Kellevra whispered.

"What the hell?"

"Not finished," Kurisu rasped, shuffling across to Kellevra, the officer darting out of his path, eyes wide.

"If it is agreeable," he wheezed.

"Your injuries are less severe, so I will heal you after recovering my Shin." Kellevra just stared with his mouth open. After a nod, Kurisu dragged his feet toward Kenji, noting how every step was heavier than the last. Five steps later, tremors wracking his body, he reached the bed across from his. He raised his trembling hands and crossed his index fingers to form an 'X' shape." On Koro Koro Sendari Matougi Sowaka," he rasped.

Blue light flared around his withered fingers as he pressed the seal against Kenji's leg. The energy enveloping the dressing, the bones in Kenji's foot popped sluggishly into place while the mudra went to work, reforming the bone and tissue from the marrow out. Shifting as if hesitant, a few officers began to advance, but Kenji threw an arm out to stall them.

"No, leave him. He's healing it, trust me." Kurisu ground his teeth trying to stay standing as his vision blurred and the world wobbled around him. The light flickered and died as he depleted his shin. His legs gave out, and gravity claimed him, his hip hitting the tile floor with a loud crack. A second snap followed as his forearm landed next, leaving him in a broken heap lying motionless between the beds.

"Kurisu!" Ace shouted and ripped off the rest of the brace to scramble out of bed. Freezing in place as he stood on his feet.

"Holy shit! He's not moving!" Kellevra said, stuck in his ex-fix.

"I noticed." Ace said, turning to look at Kellevra before picking the groaning Kurisu up and laying him in his mangled bed.

"I hope your bed doesn't collapse on you, old man."

"Yes! He's walking. He's walking!" Charlotte cried as she smacked the top of the table with a bounce.

"Did you see that? He's walking! My baby's walking!" Roland and Gloria stood silent, mouths open. Their eyes glued to the screen where Kenji was pulling his splint apart. Agent Cox reached for his phone before stepping into a corner and whispering into it, checking his watch and scribbling notes. On that same screen, Ace stood beside Kurisu's bed. Stood. Minutes ago, Steven's son couldn't walk. They'd been told he'd likely never walk again, but here he was, standing next to the boy who had brutalized him.

Standing next to the reason he was never going to walk again. Charlotte bumped into him, both her hands squeezing his as she beamed up at him.

"See? I told you he was good! He'd never hurt them on purpose." She looked back at the screen, her eyes shining with tears.

"He gave everything to fix his mistake. Look at him, Steven, he's withered to the bone. It breaks my heart. He needs us now more than ever. But... that solves your concern, doesn't it? He couldn't hurt a fly now." And there it was. Did it matter that the boy could probably still throw lightning around like a football? Nope. Did it matter that he'd nearly killed them all days ago? Of course not. There was no way, in a million years, his wife would ever back down from this one.

Steven stared at the screen, his standing son, the crumpled form of the boy responsible.

"My God," he barely whispered.

"What have you done?"