“Brace yourself, this will only hurt for a moment” An aged old lady says.

The girl laying on the floor beside her nods.

Two shaking hands grab the dislocated foot and the part of the leg just above the ankle, for a second the hands of the lady stop shaking.

“Ha!” She shouts out as she forces the foot back into its socket with a resounding pop. The girl grinds her teeth for a moment but otherwise doesn’t react.

“There we go.” The arms lifted from the leg begin shaking once more, an uncontrollable thing by the looks of it. They move to pick up something from the lady’s bag - an assortment of bandages and medical supplies.

She proceeds to wrap the foot in several layers of cotton and padding before pulling out an exceptionally thick roll of bandages.

“You know, back in my day we didn’t have these fancy fiberglass tapes. Making a good cast was quite the effort for young kids like you who weren’t able to stay in one place and constantly got themselves into trouble, Hohohohoho.” She laughs as she pulls at the edge of the roll. “Stand still now, we need the tapes to harden in just the right shape…hmm?”

The lady nonchalantly snaps her fingers in front of the pink haired girl’s face, not getting much of a reaction.

“Well, this way I don’t have to worry about you moving your leg too much. Happens when you lose that much blood.”

She wraps the limb with surprising speed considering the tremor in her arms, going ahead and repeating the process with the girl’s second leg.

“Well, I believe that was everyone. Your little Machi has the heaviest injuries out of everyone here by far, make sure she does nothing but eat, sleep and relieve herself for the first week. I’ll come back in a month to check up on how all of you brats are doing.” She places one item after another back in her medical bag as she talks.

“Dear god, attacking the Bastion? How reckless can you lot be, Chrollo?”

“...”

The third person in the room looks up.

“I wonder that myself.”

“Hmph, here you go again with that spiritual garbage. You really ought to throw that junk in the piles.” She points to the Bible held in his arms. “It’s beginning to melt your brain into goop, making you take stupid risks. What am I going to do when all of you end up dead? Your group makes up for more than half of my income.”

“Would it be troublesome if you were to check up on another patient?”

“Another patient? I already treated everyone.” She tenses up. “Did you find another 'survivor'?”

“I wish… No, it’s a kid, too young to have been alive then.” He closes the Bible, putting it away and standing up. “Machi brought him with her. Before I moved her here to get treated she threatened everyone with death if she found him injured next time she saw him. For now I want to make sure that he’s not sick with anything serious.”

Leaving the room he makes his way to one of the adjacent ones, followed closely by the lady.

A single head turns to face them as they enter.

“How is she?”

“Unconscious at the moment though she’ll make a full recovery…” Chrollo responds, eyes roaming around the empty, run down room. “...Fei, where did everyone go?”

“Uvo and Nobunaga are outside, fighting.” Feitan goes back to the magazine he’d been reading. “Franklin followed them to make sure they don’t kill each other. Kairan went to buy groceries and Pakunoda’s sleeping in the other room.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“And the kid?”

Not lifting his head from the magazine Feitan points them to the corner of the room where a pile of rags is positioned.

Walking over, Chrollo grabs the edge of the rags and lifts them up, revealing what hides underneath. Dirty skin and ragged clothes, there sits Maximillian, eating porridge. Frozen mid action with a spoon in his mouth he watches the intruder with his large pair of brown eyes.

“Hi.” Gulping down his food, he decides to greet the man in front of him.

“Hello there.” Chrollo returns the gesture. “Feeling well?”

Maximilian nods.

“Could I bother you for a second? This lady next to me is a doctor and she wants to make sure that you’re healthy.”

Max raises an eyebrow.

“Someone I’ve never seen before wants to make sure that I’m well? Why not cut the nonsense and tell me when exactly I’m going to have my organs harvested?”

‘...’

‘What?’

A thunk resounds from the center of the room. Feitan had fallen on his side with his hands clutching his stomach.

“That voice… It doesn’t fit. Ha hah hah…” he desperately tries to hold in his laughter, barely managing to succeed.

“Ohohohohoho, the little Missy brought back quite the court jester.” She nudges Chrollo out of the way, getting closer. Max barely reacts, just shifting his gaze to her while keeping up an expressionless face.

“Well, you two seem to match each other in demeanor at least. Come on, up. I need to see if you carry any contagious diseases with you, it wouldn’t do if everyone here got infected while they’re still so badly injured.”

Max sighs, putting the bowl of food down on the floor next to him.

“Nothing enters or leaves my body or I’m going to stab you.” He rises up from his spot, moving the dirty blanket that had been covering him to the side.

“Hai…” The lady shakes her head. Her hands grasp at the stethoscope positioned around her neck, moving to present the object to Maximillian.

“Do you know what this is?” She asks calmly.

“Something used to listen to people’s hearts?”

“Yes. Although I want to use it to listen in on how your lungs are going. It’s the only thing that I’ll be using on you. You’ll allow me to do so without stabbing me, right?”

“...I will.”

“Oh, good.” She smiles in a way that is neither friendly nor malicious. Just a simple smile. “I’ll need you to remove the shirt you’re wearing, I can’t really hear anything through the clothing.”

Maximillian stares at her with his big brown eyes. His lips press together as if thinking about whether or not he can trust her, playing with the knife that he has strapped to his waist. The lady waits patiently for him to answer. Though, eventually, he nods.

“What Is your name, child?"

“Max.” he bluntly states as he removes the T-shirt from his shoulders. During their time conversing both Feitan and Chrollo had positioned themselves close to the duo, tensed up and ready to jump in at a moments notice.

The lady moves in with her stethoscope.

“Okay, Max. Take a deep breath.”

He breathes deeply, closing his eyes and feeling the air enter his nose. She places the instrument over his chest, the tremor in her arms stopping as she listens intently.

“Now, exhale slowly."

Maximillian sighs out of his mouth, his cheeks puffing up slightly. The lady pulls the stethoscope away, placing the device back on her neck.

"Your lungs seem fine," she informs him. "You can put your T-shirt back on."

While Max is clothing himself back up, the lady takes the opportunity to pull out a small flashlight from her bag, activating it.

"Are you feeling any pain when gulping or breathing?" She asks.

"No."

"If you'd open your mouth, please?"

Max sighs again, seeming annoyed. Opening his mouth and tilting his head slightly backwards he watches off the corner of his vision as the lady shines the light into his mouth and down his throat. Her frown does not go unnoticed by him.

"Could you show your teeth for a second?"

Maximillian contracts the muscles of his jaw, exposing his teeth to the doctor. She continues shining the light for a few seconds before turning it off and tossing it back into her bag. During it all, her frown only deepens.

"Your hand, please."

Maximillian hesitantly holds his hand out to her, wondering what could have gotten her so riled up. She inspects the limb for a short while before turning her gaze away, head shaking.

"Hai.. what has this world come to."

“Is it anything serious?” Chrollo steps up to ask.

“Serious? Well that depends on how you look at things.” She gestures to Maximillian. “From what I can see he’s a perfectly healthy child, no injuries, no rashes, no respiratory diseases… no malnutrition. The problem is that little Maximillian here is able to speak this well despite not being even three years old.” She glances at the child in question.

“Some of his baby teeth haven’t even broken through yet and the wrinkling on his hand is consistent with that of a child between two and three years of age.” She zips up her bag. “Think of that what you will.”

She turns to leave. Maximilian shrugs his shoulders as he watches the woman walk past him, his gaze following her as she disappears past the entrance. Picking up the bowl he moves to sit at his previous spot, taking a large gulp of the soup.

Feitan copies the gesture, shrugging. “He’s Machi’s responsibility, we can relay the information to her when she wakes up…”

Suddenly, the door is slammed open, its crash against the wall causing a thundering sound to spread.

“Kairan!” a voice echoes in from the adjacent room. “For fucks sake, I’m trying to sleep!”

“Sorry.” A man’s voice rises in response. The odd thing is, however, that the owner of the voice is not a human.

With a large step, a bipedal creature covered with yellowish fur walks in through the door, carrying half a dozen plastic bags filled to the brim with food products.

It turns its fox-like head to the trio consisting of Maximillian, Feitan and Chrollo.

“Yo!” It raises the bags filled with food up into the air “I brought us enough food for a feast!”