Book 3. Chapter 2
“Reencounters” Part 2
Her phone battery was dead, and her charger was under the rubble pile.
I’ll have to buy a new one! She thought between annoyed at having to worry about something like that at a time like that as her concern for the health of her maternal landlady increased as she listened to Sakura argue.
“Yes, yes, we are going there... stop nagging me at once! .... I’m going with a friend. I told you about her... yes, the one who was missing... stop nagging me! The faster I hang up on you the faster we’ll get there... And please, have something to eat ready, poor Kalysto must be starving!... Of everything, she eats everything and in abundance so have a whole banquet ready, who knows how long those degenerates kept her starving!... Yes...no...I’m hanging up, and stop threatening to tell dad everything I do!” As soon as Sakura hung up, she let out a prolonged sigh full of exasperation. “I swear, one of these days I’m going to beat him!... Or hire someone to do it for me!” Seeing that Kalysto didn’t laugh at her attempt at a joke, she frowned. “What happened?”
“My cell phone died. Do you have some minutes you can give me?”
“Yes, sure," she said, immediately handing her cell phone to Kalysto.
But Kalysto didn’t remember Natasha’s new cell phone number, which she had changed at the end of April, although she did remember her landlady’s number. However, no one answered.
“Can I use your internet for a few minutes?”
“Sure," she replied as she started the motorcycle and put on her helmet.
Two minutes after Kalysto entered her Facebook account and left her a message and sent her an email with Sakura’s phone number, Natasha called her and gave them the address of the hospital where they were.
“Kalysto, you are alive!” The teenager ran to hug her as soon as she saw her get off the motorcycle near the entrance of the hospital and take off her helmet, twenty minutes later. “You’re really alive! I can’t believe it!”
“Why are you so thin? Are you eating well? How’s your mom?” Kalysto questioned at the same time as she responded to the hug, relieved to see her safe and sound.
I’ll go look for a place to park the motorcycle. Which room are you in?” “Sakura interrupted them.
“Oh! Hi! Sorry, I didn’t see you!” Natasha apologized with her cheeks dyed red and her pretty gray eyes swollen from so much crying. “My mom is in room four hundred three!”
Less than five minutes later, after the initial excitement and joy following the emotional encounter, Kalysto’s heart squeezed at the sight of Mary Tanner, Natasha’s mother, lying on a hospital bed in a room shared with two other women and an elderly man. Mary’s face had lost what little color it had and her pretty gray eyes, the same shade as her daughter’s, remained closed as they approached in silence.
“What’s wrong with her?” She asked quietly as she took the hand of one of the few people who had ever really cared about her. Kalysto became even more concerned as she felt the coldness of her skin, and saw her lack of response. “Mana detection!” she whispered, making sure she wasn’t heard.
“We had no idea that a portal had opened. Mom and I were returning home from shopping when everything happened," Natasha told her as tears began to run greedily down her cheeks and she took her mother’s other hand, but still the older woman did not wake up. “First the monsters came," she continued, “and while we were trying to escape from them and get home quickly, a pterodactyl-like animal and a wyvern began to fight, destroying the surrounding buildings. In the end the wyvern won, but almost the whole block was destroyed and a piece of wall fell on us, my mom instead of escaping pushed me to save me, but the lower half of her body was trapped in the debris,” the young woman hugged herself, guilt blurring her face. “Kalysto, my mom is paralyzed because of me,” she sobbed, her face contorting under the weight of having survived almost unscathed while her mother lay prostrate in a hospital bed. “And to make matters worse, the doctors say she also suffers from this new disease, manna contamination, they call it. No one suffering from it has woken up so far.”
“It’s all right. Everything will be fine," whispered Kalysto, opening her arms to hug her after her skill had shown her the amount of broken bones and all the internal damage that still affected Mary’s body, along with small blue patches of mana, like veins that tried to connect, but were cut off halfway. Scattered in various parts of her body. “I think I can heal her, at least partially, but I’ll need you to cover for me and keep it a secret.”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“What are you saying? Are you serious?” Natasha asked with hope shining in her beautiful gray eyes, reddened from crying.
“Yes," she replied, turning to see Sakura standing near them, trying to respect their space and not interrupt them. “But I’m going to need you both to keep my secrets and sign a contract with me.”
“What are you talking about?” Sakura questioned, but Kalysto, instead of answering her, prepared both contracts, fearing that they would not work because the three of them were in another dimension and far away from the queen of the fairies. But when they both jumped in fright as soon as a notification window with the contract appeared in front of each of them, relief seized her heart.
“What the hell is that?” Sakura questioned.
Kalysto, on the other hand, smiled.
“Do you two trust me?”
***
“Sleep well!” whispered Kalysto after approaching the last of Mary’s three roommates and making sure to put them fast asleep so they couldn’t tell others about what she was about to do.
“Are you sure about this?”
“The problem will be the mana contamination. I will need a little more time to be sure she will be out of danger and that the disease won’t come back, but... let me try something first. Sakura?”
“You know you can count on me for anything, just never tell my brother the things you’ve seen me do while I’m drunk," the black-haired girl mentioned with some embarrassment before turning around and peeking out of the door of the room.
Kalysto frowned for a moment, not sure if she was referring to her exhibitionist tendencies but then remembered the number of times she had seen her throw up and had to help her clean herself up and then come home while Sakura lamented her unrequited love for Jessica.
“All clear,” she mentioned, closing the door and locking it to make sure that nobody interrupted them. “What do you need us to do?”
“Just stay where you are and let me know the moment anyone comes near or, in case the others wake up. Bless!” She blessed herself and then stood next to Mrs. Tanner, adjusting herself so that her face was facing the door, and spread her hands over Natasha’s mother’s broken knees as the other two women nodded in agreement. “Mana detection! Jhil Ezhil! Ezhil Purification! Jhil Ezhil!” Two rounds later, she could see the improvement inside her body. However, the mana veins were still there without dispersing. “Mana manipulation! Dispel Ezhil!” And this time as the golden light of her skills left her body, she concentrated the last skill so that it dispersed the mana inside Mary’s body, forcing it out, but the mana resisted. “Mana control!” she tried again, and this time while the tips of the mana veins were the only ones to dissolve, the mana began to come out little by little through the pores of Mrs. Tanner’s skin while several drops of sweat broke out from Kalysto’s forehead and the noise of the nurses outside her room began to increase.
“Where’s that light coming from? What’s going on?” shouted a nurse from outside the room as someone tried to open the door.
Natasha and Sakura looked at each other fearfully as they both leaned against the door, fearing it would be opened while the golden glow still wouldn’t go away.
“Come on, quick!” Kalysto muttered, as she continued to rush her mana to speed up the healing of her landlady while expelling as much mana from her weakened body as possible.
By the time the nurse managed to open the door, Mrs. Tanner’s eyes had opened and Natasha was crying at her side as she hugged her tightly.
The nurse, surprised by the sudden awakening of a patient who was supposed to be in a coma, quickly forgot about the problem of the door and called the doctor in charge of the case who began to check her after asking them to leave to examine her.
“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” murmured Natasha as she hugged Kalysto tightly, accidentally brushing the chains on her wrists. “What’s this?”
“Long story” evaded Kalysto, not wanting to talk about it and just when Natasha was about to lift the sleeve of the jacket to get a better look, Sakura intervened.
“We should go. My brother has been waiting for us for a while” Kalysto’s stomach took advantage of that moment to growl, calling the attention of the three of them.
“Haven’t you eaten?” Natasha was surprised, knowing how important mealtime was for Kalysto.
“The truth is, I’m starving," she excused herself. “Why don’t you call me when the doctor finishes examining her and tells me how everything is going?”
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Natasha worried, glancing at her covered wrists.
“I will be,” she assured her. “You know what number to call me?”
“Yes, I’ll keep you informed of what the doctor tells me,” she assured him.
As soon as they left and got back on the motorcycle, Sakura spoke again.
“Are you sure it is the best to leave her alone?”
“I think her mother will be fine. For now, I need to take these things off. I can’t walk around with these on,” she added with discomfort, making sure to keep them hidden, both the ones she had hidden under the boots of her pants and the ones she kept hidden with the black leather jacket.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure one of my brother’s men can surely help you,” then they both headed near the outskirts of the city, to a small building that belonged to her brother and in which there was a motorcycle workshop. “They have been looking for a way to create a weapon that can cut through the tough skin of the monsters, but they have not had good results,” the idea immediately caught Kalysto’s attention.
“How much money would your brother be willing to pay for a weapon that can kill them?”