Chương 58: Awaiting Discharge

"So, Mom," Ace began, still studying his chart.

"Are you sure we can't train anything? Like, what about just the casting side? No fighting. It's how Kurisu fixes stuff for us all the time. It's super useful. Plus the healing spell can get rid of colds and stuff too, I bet." Face scrunched in consideration, Charlotte asked, "Kurisu, are there any attack spells?" His throat felt like shredded paper as he pushed the words out.

"There are no offensive mudra that I am aware of. Only utility and preservation." With a shake of her head, she sighed.

"Fine. Fixing things and healing are reasonable enough, I guess."

"Next lesson, then!" Ace said, hopping to the floor in between the beds.

"A moment," Kurisu breathed before nodding his head towards the straps across his arms and torso.

"Would you mind removing these? Kenji healed my arms, so once I have my range of motion, I can heal my hips, and presumably the rest of Kellevra's hand. Then we should probably rest and start fresh after."

"Now, just hear me out," Ace prefaced.

"We could knock ourselves out practicing now, which will force us to rest, and then we start round two!" He unclasped the straps pinning Kurisu to the bed. Were they a new attempt at detaining him, or just to keep him from moving while his bones were broken?

"I'm with Ace on that one," Kellevra joined in.

"I haven't been able to do anything 'cause my hands have been stuck!"

"Count me in," Kenji added.

"It's probably the safest place ever to train up our Shin. Especially now that the cops are out of our face."

"It is unlikely to make a significant difference in your growth, but if you insist." Kurisu acquiesced. Index fingers crossed in the X of the Chiyu-in, he chanted,"On Koro Koro Sendari Matougi Sowaka." The blue light enveloped his pelvis. Grinding was followed by a squelch, and Kurisu saw Kenji grimace in time with his own, though for what he assumed was a very different reason. As the discomfort and ache of shifting bones and knitting muscle subsided, he let out a breath.

He lay there, that same white ceiling above him—not that he'd expected any different. Breathing in through the nose, and out through his mouth, he closed his eyes, thoughts drifting to his mother again. How she'd taught him his breathing techniques, and how to meditate. Was he thinking of her, and his home, more often recently? He'd never see her again—nor any of them, and that hurt. Why was he suddenly thinking about this?

"Well?" Ace's voice broke him from his musings.

"What is it?"

"Uh, weren't you going to heal Kel?"

"Ah, yes, of course." With a groan and several pops along his spine, Kurisu sat up for what felt like the first time in ages. Frowning, he stopped.

"How long have we been here?"

"Couple weeks?" Ace replied.

"Dad? Mom?"

"Week and a half. It's the twentieth," Steven answered.

"God, feels like years," Kellevra complained.

"On Koro Koro Sendari Matougi Sowaka," Kenji whispered, drawing all their attention. His expression screwed up as a single loud pop rang out, then five more smaller ones. His face red, bordering on blue, his hands shuddered as he struggled to maintain the seal.

"Oi, breathe, dude!" Ace closed the distance, patting Kenji on the back as if the boy were choking on food, eliciting a trembling glare from him. Finally gasping for air, sending spittle all over his bed that had Ace recoiling in exaggerated fashion, Kenji wrestled for control of his breathing.

"I think I might have punctured a lung." Through the haze of his own fatigue, Kurisu analyzed the other boys. Sitting on the edge of his mattress, Kenji held an empty pillowcase, tilting over just slightly. He'd been focusing on trying to hold the material rigid for as long as possible. Ace likewise sat with an empty pillowcase, repeatedly muttering the hardening mudra as quickly as he could, the pillowcase making a billowing snap every several seconds.

Head lolling to the side, Kellevra struggled to watch his brother, having insisted on at least that much in spite of the exhaustion from healing his leg.

"While it is necessary to push our limits, I do not recommend repeatedly pushing to the point of forced loss of consciousness," Kurisu said.

"I can handle it," Kenji replied.

"You said your Zanshin showed the mudra taking less energy to hold it longer than to recast it. How can you tell, anyway?"

"Yes, it appears that way, but Zanshin is not infallible. There are many variables that change our perception through it." Kenji drew a breath, his middle through pinky fingers interlaced into his palms at the knuckles, while his thumb and forefinger formed a diamond shape.

"On Kirikiri Basara Un Hatta." The material popped into a hardened board, glowing with a light blue outline. Kenji's eyes rolled back, showing just the whites. He shook, groaning. When he began to pitch over the edge of the bed he threw a foot out, catching himself before he could fall. Gasping, he swallowed mouthfuls of air.

"See? He said don't push yourself to the point of passing out," Kellevra mumbled.

"It'll be fine," Ace said, relaxing into his mattress.

"Any damage we do, we can just heal up with the Chiyu-in next round."

"While I am unable to disprove that, I do believe if such a shortcut existed, my clan would likely have taken advantage of it already," Kurisu tried reasoning again.

"I have never heard of anyone using these exploitive measures before." Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

"First, your people were samurai, probably saw it as dishonorable or cheating somehow. Second, how often did they sit around in a hospital, being IV'd literally every bit of nutrients they needed while having nothing better to do?" Kenji pointed out, sitting back himself.

"I suppose you do make valid arguments." Kurisu acquiesced.

"However, I still feel I'd be aware of it.""'I'd'?" Kellevra's head jolted up, miraculously alert.

"Yeah, what happened to 'then I will not use them'?" Ace said before the three started laughing.

"I am working on it.""'I'm.' Since you're 'working on it,' figured I'd help you out a bit." Kenji grinned, waggling his eyebrows.

"Arigatō."

"You never answered how you can see so much with your Zanshin," Kenji pointed out.

"Like, I see—or well, feel, or whatever—weird dots and prickles outlining everything and then heat for people and animals."

"I see infrared, like straight out of the movies," Ace reported.

"Can't see items at all, pisses me off."

"I can see the beds and stuff, anything that's somehow connected to the floor. It all looks like a black and green map with the squiggly lines that tell me how tall or high stuff is, but nothing in the air. The floor vibrates in weird ways to tell me if someone is throwing stuff, but I can't see anything in the air already," Kellevra said.

"Sounds like a topographical map," Steven provided.

"The lines probably mean elevation."

"I guess, for stuff on the floor, maybe. The sprinklers and fire alarms, though, start at the wall or ceiling." Kellevra shrugged.

"It's easy to read, like I was born knowing how."

"While feeling air currents from every angle," Kurisu began, "I am also aware of gray dots all around me. These gain and change color or ripple based on what something is, or how someone moves. I can feel the energy in something as if it pulls or pushes on me, and finally I can perceive the various energies within us all by the color, vibrancy, pressure, path, trail—""Okay, okay, that's enough, Luis.

'It was actually the first pair of boobs you ever touched,'" Kenji interrupted.

"We get it."

"You were the one who inquired. Furthermore, I have never—""What about the lava!" Ace nearly burst from his bed. Kellevra bounced up, not even attempting sleep anymore.

"Yeah, yeah! How'd we do that?"

"Lava?" Kurisu asked, brows raised.

"Mhm. We told you about it before. After you two were out, the spider came back for one more round. I smashed it with stone pillars and opened a huge hole to drop it in. After that, I crashed my pillars onto it and started to bury it," Kellevra recalled.

"Then, when I stood next to him to roast it and maybe make the asphalt gummy while he buried it, our energies mixed or something. It was like our auras were all combined and we did some synergy attack!" Ace finished, panting.

"We were even able to use it on you, when you were uh… crazy?" Kellevra sat back on his bed, looking down at his hands.

"Sorry."

"There is no reason for you to apologize. Fact is fact, and what is more, you were the victims." Kurisu nodded, his stomach sinking as the guilt flooded him.

"What you describe is yet another thing I am unfamiliar with."

"Some all-knowing master you are," Kenji snorted.

"My instruction ended prematurely. As such, there are many things I am unaware of or unskilled in. One other such thing would be Ki healing." Kurisu smirked, hoping the distraction would succeed. He didn't want them apologizing about his past as they always seemed to do. It worked.

"Another method of healing?" Kenji crossed his arms.

"What? Was healing really considered so valuable that they developed ways to do it with any energy?"

"Probably kept people from being stuck on White Mage all the time," Ace chuckled.

"You are entirely correct," Kurisu answered.

"Self-preservation is paramount in any civilization. And so on this topic alone, nations would rise and fall, with methods and teachings commanding the highest prices in any market. My clan treated our methods as compulsory learning for everyone."

"But you never learned how?" Kellevra asked, frowning.

"I had exactly two lessons on the subject. Enough to know that it is the most superior of our teachings on healing, and why."

"And those are?" Ace leaned his chin on his elbow, lying on his stomach in his bed.

"Can it regrow limbs? Resurrect people?" Kellevra inquired.

"Limbs, yes. Life, no. Nothing can be brought back once dead," Kurisu said.

"Can't Chi healing or mudras restore a limb?" Kenji had a hand in front of him, palm up, one eyebrow raised.

"No, mudra cannot. At best, they can sometimes knit lost limbs back to the person, but they cannot regrow a limb. Saiki can as long as the injury is fresh. In fact, this is why the method was developed."

"What do you mean the injury is fresh? What's the timer?" Ace asked.

"There is no timer; the healing must occur while the injury is active. When discussing the loss of limbs, there is a very limited amount of time to heal it or die, usually just breaths. As mudra are frequently too slow to heal the loss of an arm before the warrior bleeds out, the use of Chi was cultivated." Kurisu looked at the three—no, seven slack faces staring back at him. Apparently he'd said something even the adults found odd.

"What is it?"

"Do you know what a tourniquet is?" Steven asked.

"Tie off the stump and staunch the bleeding? People use their teeth for it all the time. Sure you need to intervene within three minutes, but that's long enough to tie off a lost arm. You make it sound like it takes seconds."

"That is because it frequently does. Were I to lose my arm in battle, I would likely expire before finishing the Chiyu-in."

"Can't make the X anyway if you're missing a hand," Kenji reasoned.

"My blood would spray out of my body before I finished the words," Kurisu corrected.

"Oh! The appointment last year. When you shot the vial across the room," Steven recalled.

"I guess it never really clicked."

"Of course. This is the case with strong blood. If I lose a limb, my blood will flee from my body almost instantly."

"If you can regrow limbs with Chi, why bother adding Ki healing?" Kenji questioned.

"Because Ki is even faster, and it can be used to fix prior triage.""'Prior triage'?"

"Sealing the loss rather than attaching or regrowing it," Kurisu explained, coughing off to the side before taking a sip of water and continuing.

"If I lack sufficient Chi to completely restore a limb, which is common as it takes a great deal, I would seal the cut to preserve my life. If perhaps there is one nearby who is incredibly skilled in the Chiyu-in, they might seal the injury. In either of these cases, neither Chi nor Shin methods of healing will ever restore the lost limb."

"But Ki can?"

"Precisely."

"But you don't know how to do it, so it's useless to us." Kenji sighed, slumping back.

"I no longer have a body fit for combat, so outside of my studies, my time can be spent meditating and practicing this, as it falls under the umbrella of healing, which we have been permitted to study," Kurisu rasped.

"What about that surge in my power during the spider fight? There was way more than just my Holy Ki going to work." The door unlatched, drawing their attention, before slowly creaking open, revealing a disheveled Agent Cox. His shirt untucked, his hair a mess, he stepped quietly into the room.

"Everyone." he nodded, looking around the room as he bounced a manila folder in his hands.

"Really?" Kenji groused.

"You mean we have to end the chapter on this guy again?"