Wind blew over the worn grass, left behind from the clashing powers. Scattered over the field, laid the bodies from the aftermath. Crimson color painted loosely the plains with a forced silence. Only the blades of grass moved. Stillness had permeated through everything.

Moments became minutes before anything changed. A stirring started before turning into a low groan. They jerked forward taking in a sudden deep breath. Wide-eyed and covered in sweat, it felt as though they went through a horror-filled nightmare and woke just before their death. Once they realized they were alive, pieces started to fall back into place. “Yuki!” they shouted, as though it was an announcement or declaration.

It was Saki.

She saw her body covered in her own blood. Her body felt a little weak and her mind fuzzy, but no pain. The lack of pain, of any kind, made her quickly grab at her skin and limbs trying to understand. Nothing happened, all of her injuries no longer existed. “How?” Saki’s mind slowly worked through the process until she realized the reason. “Yuki!” She looked around to discover him quickly to her left, lying still. “Yuki!”

Saki dove in expecting him to wake up to her calling, but he made no movement. It drove home the implications quickly. “Don’t heal me, just to let yourself die!” She shook him trying to get anything out of him.

Nothing.

“No damn it, Yuki! NO!” She leaned down trying to listen for a heartbeat. “Come on! I promised you…” Tears started dripping down her cheeks. She pleaded to hear anything, just for a sign.

An echo, maybe not.

Saki’s eyes widened suddenly. She heard it. “Yuki!” she smiled, looking up towards his face. Her hands tightened up with hope. However, she felt something odd in her hand. “Huh?” She opened her hand up to look to see what she held, something she never remembered having.

Chapter 196 – Failed Expectations

“I’m not dead!” exclaimed Yuki, a little surprised himself. “Though I sort of wasn’t so sure this time…” His body felt sore and in pain, but he was awake. He patted himself to check for injuries, but realized that nothing happened. “Right, no arms…” The stumps of his limbs, his right sealed up with almost flesh colored metal, a little too white to be real. Cloth wrapped up the left with it soaked through with blood.

“Yuki!” shouted Saki, just before she fell upon him, hugging him tightly. “You’re…alive…”

“Ow-ow-ow!” Pain spiked up his body from Saki, even her light grip was too much for him. “As I’m reminded, by the pain I feel…”

Saki jumped a little and pulled back once she understood. “Sorry, I just wasn’t sure what these did!” She revealed the container she discovered in her hand earlier. “I just took a chance in hoping that you made them to heal yourself.”

Making sure everything was still in one piece, Yuki took stock of himself for a moment. He glanced over at Saki, noticing the item he created. “Yeah, I hoped you would understand.”

“I can’t believe you, Yuki! How could you take such a risk? What if I didn’t notice in time or didn’t wake up?!”

“It was the only option I had,” he answered, his finger scratched the side of his face, feeling a little sheepish against Saki’s barrage. He remembered a moment later he didn’t have a finger or even an arm and felt even more embarrassed. His arm lowered to his side. “Besides, I believed in you, Saki.”

The mood suddenly flipped around into a serious atmosphere. Saki found herself unable to say anything back to him. She shifted her eyes around a little in uncertainty. “Well, of course…”

Yuki laughed lightly until his chest told him to stop. “I’m glad.”

It took a few moments to pass before Saki felt ready to move forward. “Yuki.” She looked down at the container that likely held some medicine. “What was it that was in that pill? No normal pill could do all that for you.”

“Nanomachines.”

“Huh? I don’t think that sounds like medicine.”

“It’s not in the strictness sense of the term I guess,” mused Yuki. He grinned a little and started to catch himself with the lack of hands. He kept more still. “I knew nothing was going to fix me up from the modern medicine we have. All that could be done for me was decide which flowers to put on my grave.”

Saki leaned forward, almost shouting at him. “Yuki!” she berated, for his casual tone about his latest brush up with death.

“Sorry, but it’s true.” Yuki hung his head a moment to apologize. “I went with something beyond our technology,” he resumed, lifting his head. “Nanomachines. They’re machines too small to see, but perfect for fitting into the human body.”

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A bit of fear and confusion stirred around in Saki’s face. Her eyebrow turned and bunched up together with the wrinkles forming along the bridge of her nose. “So there’s machines inside you? And they fixed you?”

“Yup! I programmed them with biological repair functions to speed up the body’s recovery. Mainly in my case, they quickly closed up all of the wounds and open blood vessels to keep me from bleeding to death. It’s going to be a little while before I’m feeling better.”

The powerful little machines Saki held in her hand left her with an amazed expression, after Yuki’s explanation. She tucked them away into her clothes, feeling like they might be important to hold for later. “Will it fix your arms too?” Saki was uncertain how sensitive of a subject it would be for him, but she needed to know.

Confusion spread across Yuki’s face. “Eh? Of course not! This is science, not magic! It just aids recovery, it doesn’t grow things.”

She wasn’t sure if he was actually angry about the question or the fact that she didn’t understand the difference. It made her pull away a little. “…sorry…”

“I’ll get Ayumi to fix me up the rest of the way. If she wasn’t here I’d have planned for something different.”

The prompt of Ayumi’s name shifted Saki’s focus. She broke from Yuki to look around at the other battles. “It looks like Haruo is done, but it’s hard to tell. I think…they’re talking…” Her eyes narrowed a bit to squint trying to see him.

“Hmm?” Yuki tilted his head over his shoulder a little in the direction of Haruo’s battlefield. He strained his vision to see anything. “I can’t see anything more than a couple of figures. How can you even tell anything from this distance?”

“Huh? You can’t…” As her voice trailed off, she realized the answer. She looked back at Yuki for a moment. ‘We’re so different now…’ Her body was completely healed, but even before then she looked in worse shape than him. She knew how bad her condition was, yet she knew Yuki was closer to death than her. It made her pause for a moment. The way she looked at Yuki felt strange even though she didn’t want to do so. ‘He’s so much weaker than me now. I knew it before, but I never really thought about it until now. Can we even walk together anymore?’

“What about Ayumi?” Part of Yuki noticed the change in Saki and redirected her attention to something else.

“Hmm?” Saki perked up a little hearing Yuki say something. He repeated himself for her. “Oh, Ayumi, right. It looked like they were still fighting.” She turned her head back in the other direction to check out Ayumi’s fight. A moment passed for her to adjust her vision. “It looks like it is over…maybe…” The distance was still far and Saki had trouble making out all of the details. “No…someone’s standing over top…of her!”

Yuki sharply turned about only to regret it a second later. He groaned in pain and forced himself to take things slower. “She’s losing?” His eyes tried to see what Saki saw, but it was pointless. “Can you see what’s happening?”

“I think…” Saki stood up and began walking in the direction hoping that things improved. “She’s on the ground and that guy is attacking her. It doesn’t look like she can move.” Suddenly, something bumped into her shoulder. Turning around, Saki found Yuki standing, though not looking so great. She grabbed him quickly before he went any further. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

“I’ve got to go over there!” Yuki’s breath was long and heavy. It was clear standing was difficult for him even after all of the mending. He tried to push forward, but Saki was immoveable. “Saki!”

She stood her ground with him, needing to be stern. “You’re in no shape, Yuki! I’ll go and put an end to the fight!”

“I have to go, Saki!” he yelled, the effort took some of the wind out of him. It left him pausing to recover. “My body might be poor, but my mind is still sharp! The only reason I lost the fight was because my body failed me, not my mind!” There seemed to be a hint of desperation in his words. Even he knew it, but it didn’t stop him. “I won’t let something happen to you, again!”

“…Yuki…” Flashes of Vangelis went through her mind. She knew what he was talking about. It made her freeze for a moment. “…Yuki…”

“Besides, if I’m there I can heal her immediately.”

The determination in Yuki’s face made it difficult for her to deny him. ‘The longer we argue the worse it gets for Ayumi. We’re only losing time…’ She didn’t like it. “Fine, we’ll go together.” Saki extended her hand to Yuki, but then realized the pointlessness of it. Fending off her embarrassment, she turned around to face their destination.

They rushed off quickly as Yuki allowed. He knew he slowed her down, but he needed to go. ‘You’re always saving me. You’re always looking out for me. I’ve yet to do anything for you. Even if it is just once…’ Yuki pushed himself a little harder.

The closer that they got to Ayumi, the more anxious Yuki became. “What’s happening? Is she doing anything?”

“No…” She wanted to lie to him, but it was pointless. They both felt the same unease from the situation. The closer that they got the better view she had of the area. It became clear to her that Ayumi was being pummeled by her opponent with no chance to do anything. ‘She’s lost…’ They felt like strange words to Saki. The person she knew seemed almost invincible. She might have trouble or be challenged, but she always found a way out. It seemed she found the end of the road.

The sight Saki saw made her want to keep it from Yuki. She feared the words might be worse than actually seeing it. It could be worse for someone with an imagination. ‘We’re coming, Ayumi…’ However, it didn’t seem that time would wait for them. Saki finally reached the optimum distance for her sight to clearly make every detail out. It was worse than she thought. The scene made her stop. “…we won’t make it in time…”

‘This’ll end things here! I’ll have executed the traitor!’ The broom came down everything slowing. It seemed like an impossible moment for him. He never thought he would see such a sight. It had to be a dream. However, he had the chance to end things.

The closer the broom came to Eudokia the more seemed real. Each frame of time made things clearer.

It was real.

In the last frame, something smashed into him shattering reality and returning things to a dream. Chariton coughed up a massive amount of blood as he fell back. Everything inside him felt like it had been crushed. ‘What’s happening?!’ His eyes were still so filled with shock that he could not look. He just knew something ruined everything.

Peace shattered, destroyed. The last chance disappeared.

Chariton’s body tumbled and rolled over the ground eventually coming to a stop. Falling in the divergent direction was Yuki, his Field disappearing. Blood dripped over his back and head from where he collided with Chariton. Yuki came to a stop, finally on his back, looking up at the sky. “Ugh…that hurt more than I thought. I really shouldn’t try to be like Seiji.”

Saki appeared over at Yuki’s side helping him back up. “I can’t believe you!” she yelled, with mixed emotions on her face.

He laughed a little. “You’re the one that agreed to throw me.” A grin grew across his face before coughing up some blood. The sight frightened Saki. She gripped tighter to him, bringing him over to Ayumi.

“But to hit him with your head is just reckless! I wouldn’t have thrown you if I knew you’d do that!”

“I could cancel his power as I approached, it was the only way.” Yuki looked over at Ayumi, while Saki laid him on the ground. Ripples in the ground stretched out. A soft green glow erupted from all of the blades of grass surrounding them. “Check on the other guy too, please.”

“…Yuki…” Saki reluctantly obeyed. She walked over to see how Chariton’s condition was after Yuki’s attack and the healing he performed on him.

Alone with Ayumi, Yuki stared at her for a moment in silence. He stretched out his bandaged arm. A phantom hand appeared in his sight to connect the rest of the way to her. “…I protect you for now on…” Yuki smiled, but his eyes appeared a little melancholic as though his words closed a door permanently leaving him with only one choice.