Leon didn’t forget for a second that the culprits for the ambush attacks had still not been caught. Even though they hadn’t struck a second time, they still roamed around the base, blending in with the rest of the agents. He trusted the Anbieter’s plan to draw them out by launching an attack in the south, but he hadn’t thought that one of perpetrators would’ve hidden in his own room. Still, he was set on finding them. After taking a few seconds to ascertain if the intruder would pop out and attack him, he approached the door to his closet, knife in hand. He had already packed up most of his belongings, so there would be ample standing space for whoever was inside. He wasn’t planning on letting them stay there.
He thrust open the closet’s door, and an even stronger emanation of antiseptic invaded his sinuses. He remained unfazed, though. It was a lucky day if antiseptic was the worst scent he had to smell.
As the light entered the dark space, the person inside remained still. They looked straight ahead at him, hands at their side. One hand held a bottle of antiseptic liquid, the other held a roll of gauze. If their masked face was visible, Leon would’ve been seeing a blank, unfeeling visage. Their uncommon red hair was all it took for Leon to identify them.
“Vi?” he asked, taking a step back. The strange young woman was the Black Shield’s third strongest soldier after Jay and Meinrad. She wasn’t someone to be reckoned with. “Why the hell are you here?”
After a couple of moments of silence, the elusive 18-year-old spoke.
“I must leave.” she said in her characteristic, monotonous voice.
Leon could not just allow her to leave. She’d snuck into his room, took supplies that she wasn’t allowed to use and was trying to dismiss Leon once she was caught. He’d always thought of her as a very peculiar person, but now, he had the chance to confront her about it.
If she tried to kill me, I would’ve died a long time ago, Leon reasoned mentally. Maybe I can figure out what this is all about.
“Wait,” he said, putting his arm in front of the woman, preventing her from leaving the confines of the closet. “Can I ask what you’re trying to do here?”
“I have to go. I apologise.” she said blandly, trying to push him away.
“No, no. I’m not mad at you or anything. I just need to know what you’re using my stuff for.” he continued to block access out of his room.
“I never perceived you as being mad.”
She used both of her full hands to try and shove Leon away. However the boy, who happened to be the same height as her, did not budge.
“Stand still, please,” Leon beckoned. “You need those, don’t you? I can help you.”
“Help me with what?” Vi said, relaxing herself. Had Leon read her?
“Give me those and I’ll explain.” Leon said with his hands stretched out, ready to take back his property.
Instead Vi reached around him and placed the objects on the bed. Leon was puzzled, but it was acceptable.
“Well, I guess that works.” Leon shrugged.
“I would prefer if you spoke immediately.” Vi said, coldness in her voice.
“Ah, right. By the way you have most of your body weight on the right…” he said, making a rapid-fire analysis of her stance. “You have an injury on your left. Somewhere on your left leg, to be exact. And you’re using my supplies to treat yourself, is that right?”
Vi stared at the supplies on the bed, just behind Leon. The words were unable to leave her concealed lips for a few moments, but she was able to find her choice of language.
“Master cannot find out,” she muttered, her voice much more hushed that it had already been. “If he finds out, I can’t go to the south. If I can’t go to the south, I have no other way of serving him.”
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“I… don’t quite get what all that means. But I take it you’re talking about the Anbieter. You’re trying to hide your injury from him, aren’t you?”
Vi stood quietly, staring obsessively at the supplies she needed. Leon interpreted her silence as a yes.
She needs those things. I can’t just leave her hanging.
“Did you get shot in the ambush?” Leon asked, changing his direction of question.
A few eery moments later, Vi nodded slowly. So slowly, that it nearly made Leon shiver. But he couldn’t show his discomfort. He was a medic, and his feelings wouldn’t get in between him and his duty.
“You went a long time without finding help, you know,” Leon sighed. “I get your reasoning. But as amazing it is to see you standing almost normally, a bullet wound isn’t something that should be ignored. Let me see what you’ve done to it.”
Vi turned away from the bed, gazing straight at one of the walls in the room. Leon understood that she wasn’t going to leave the room without getting her supplies, one way or another. That only made him more determined to get her what she needed, regardless of how creepy she was.
He took the bottle of antiseptic and gauze in his hands, before turning back to Vi.
“I’ll leave you alone for a few minutes so you can take off whatever you need to. If you don’t wanna expose any part of your body, use the towels in the cupboard.”
Leon left the room and closed the door behind him and waited for his patient to prepare herself. Outside, he saw his colleagues, both medic and soldier, passing by as they hauled around their belongings. He returned waves and smiles, trying his best to not appear suspicious. In the midst of that, he hadn’t expected a hand to slap itself on his shoulder. He nearly flinched, but after seeing the face of the person it belonged to, he eased up.
“Oh, didn’t mean to scare you, pal.” Meinrad said, a grin on his face.
“Ah, it’s no big deal,” Leon shrugged. “What brings you here?”
“I was looking for Detlef and Klaudia. You seen them around?”
“Yeah,” Leon said. “They should be at the hangar.”
“The hangar?” the bulky, slightly older teenager said. “Ah, damn it. Klaudia told me to help her pack her stuff when I was done with mine. I tried looking for her at the infirmary, but I was out of luck.”
“She told Detlef to go to the hangar after the meeting was dismissed.” Leon told Meinrad.
Meinrad chuckled at the statement. “Don’t tell me she scared the guy to the point of becoming her pack-mule.”
Leon smiled awkwardly.
“Well, he didn’t really look scared. Hey, could I ask you something, Meinrad?”
“What’s up?”
“The way you say she scared him… haven’t you guys all known each for years? If that’s true, then shouldn’t he be used to her antics by now?”
“Oh, right,” Meinrad said. “I’ve known Klaudia since we were really young, but not Detlef. Klaudia and I joined the Shield a year ago, but Det came about half a year before us. We’re not from the same village, so I can’t say we’ve known him for too long.”
“I see,” Leon nodded. “That makes sense.”
“Yep,” Meinrad gave one of his friendly smiles that contrasted with his extremely masculine physique. “Well, I’ll be on my way to the hangar. Oh, and by the way, thanks for taking care of us while we were injured. You’re a great guy, Leon.”
“It’s the least we can do.” Leon beamed as Meinrad took his leave.
As soon as the coast was clear, Leon knocked on his own door, wondering if Vi had finished yet. A knock answered him instead of a voice. He surmised that Vi wasn’t good with words. He knocked once more and heard another knock back. He opened the door swiftly, entering it and shutting it just as quickly.
There, Vi sat upright in Leon’s bed. Her Black Shield-issued black coat, which was standard for its soldiers, was still adorned, and unsurprisingly, her mask as well. Her pants were partly folded beside her, and her boots were on the floor. A towel covered her lower body except for a corner folded away to expose her left thigh, wrapped in day-old gauze. To Leon’s surprise, it wasn’t done terribly, but evidently not at the level of a professional such as himself. Leon grabbed a pair of clean scissors from his cupboard and cut away at it until he saw the skin underneath.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Leon determined. “Seems like it was just a graze wound,”
Vi said nothing and gazed at the foot of Leon’s bed as he inspected the stitches she had put on herself.
“I wish I could say the same for the stitches. Although for an amateur, they did the job. You don’t need them anymore, the skin’s closed up.”
The woman did not make even a groan as the stitches were removed, even though most soldiers would at least be cringing if it were them. He wiped the area with a touch of antiseptic liquid and dabbed on some ointment before disposing of the discarded items. As a finishing touch, he hovered his palm just above Vi’s thigh, dispensing some of Stefan’s Utrium into it, connected to him through the ring via metaphysical means.
“You’ve done a good job taking care of that, you know. You won’t even need gauze. Although, for the next week, you should try to take it easy. Let the new skin get adapted before you treat it roughly. Check in with me after we reach the manor, so I know it’s healing properly.”
“I’m going to put my clothes back on.” Vi finally spoke, either ignoring or unable to understand Leon’s praise. Leon guessed it was the former, but he didn’t mind. He left the room as he did just a few minutes earlier, but didn’t wait to be allowed back in. Vi exited it on her own, but not without offering a word of reminder to the boy.
“Master shall not hear a word of this,” she said, whispering into his ear. He could almost feel the mask an inch away from him, the lack of life that oozed from it. “Or everything loses meaning.”