43- Deja vu V.S. Ichi-go Ichi-e

8/2/5/4353 M.A.C - Niwut- noon

"So, what do you think? Should I test your father to see if he is a good fit for the consortium?"

Sarima took a moment to think over her answer, gaining a measure of approval from Doro.

"I'm not sure. He is pretty skilled and serious when it comes to work, but since my mother died, he has 'off-days'. Please go easy on him. I think he plans to test you as well. He was impressed when I showed him the binder, and he might be planning on making you his apprentice."

Doro smiled at the high praise, but this mention of "off-days" had him worried.

"Well, it's always nice to hear praise for one's work, but what do you mean by "off-days"?"

Doro's blunt question seemed to put Sarima off-balance as her steps faltered. Doro stopped and turned around, seeing Sarima standing a step behind, a complicated look on her face.

"I know you think your mom has a drinking problem, but if you compare her to my dad..."

A drinking problem? More like an Over-drinking problem, I'd say.

"My dad doesn't drink because he likes alcohol; he uses it like a medicine. After my mother died, he turned to drinking, but it wasn't as bad as now. He tried to keep his mind occupied by funneling all his attention into my brother's training. Then Addat got fed up and ran away..."

And here I was complaining to her about Mom enjoying her drink too much; I'm such an ass...

"Now he basically drinks himself to sleep every night. Some days, he'll wake up, and I get my dad for that day; other days, he can't get out and face the world without what he calls "a little liquid courage."... Those days can be bad."

"By bad, you don't mean...?"

Doro was worried, but he couldn't bring himself to finish that sentence, in fear that it would somehow speak it into existence.

"No! No, nothing like that. I am the one thing that really keeps him connected to the world; if anything, I am too precious to him. The last thing he's got to lose. When he gets bad, he loses his motivation and can't keep the tears and bad thoughts away, but if he drinks enough to chase them away, he gets too drunk to really do anything. He'll sometimes spend hours just staring into his mug while sitting in his chair, not reacting to anything I do or say."

"I...don't know what to say. Honestly, this is not great for either of you. He is your father, though, and it doesn't seem like his issues would stop him from keeping my secret. Even if we don't end up bringing him into the consortium, I'll think of a couple of things I could teach your dad; focusing on something new might help a bit."

Sarima let out a sigh as she started walking again. The journey to her house was a short one, but this conversation had lengthened it to the point where they might arrive after sixth bell.

"Thanks! Honestly if you could come around and work in his forge once in a while, that would already do a lot. Even if all you do is work on your own stuff. Addat was never really good at the job, and he liked to run his mouth, but I think Dad misses the company."

As the pair walked around the last corner between them and Sarima's home, she once again stopped in her tracks.

"What's up? Did you forget to tell-"

Doro cut himself off as he saw a look of confusion morph into one of utter panic on Sarima's face in a matter of moments. He turned to look at what had frightened her so and saw she was staring at a plume of smoke coming from a chimney on the roof of what he assumed to be her house.

"It's just smoke. Isn't it normal for a forge to let some out?"

Sarima started running towards her home as she yelled back at Doro.

"That's the kitchen chimney! I made lunch this morning, and even if someone was cooking, there would be no reason for so much dark smoke to come out from there!"

Doro's daily training showed its first fruits as he quickly managed to catch up to Sarima, a few dozen feet from her home, and then overtook her. He tried opening the door, but after failing for a few seconds, he concluded that it must be locked.

"Sarima, do you have the key?"

Luckily for an out-of-breath Sarima, she did not have to answer as her expression made it apparent that she had not expected the door to be locked.

"I'll break it down. Sorry! I'll fix it later. You go find some help while I clear the way. Quick! Go get someone strong in case we need them."

Doro infused energy into the locking mechanism and used [Phase Transition] to soften the metal. One kick later, the door swung inwardly without putting up much resistance. Until this moment, Doro had still been hoping that there was a simple explanation to the smoke and that he'd be greeted by an angry smith, annoyed at his front door having just been broken. He had no such luck.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Good thing I sent Sarima away...There could be things she wouldn't be able to un-see.

The room he walked into was not much more than a corridor with a shoe rack to one side, and although the air was still somewhat breathable, Doro could see thin whisps of dark smoke seeping out from beneath one of the doors, an acrid stench following it. Doro shaped a bit of the lump he carried around for practice and made a small edge to help start a tear in the sleeve of his tunic to produce a large piece of loose cloth, which he then hurriedly wrapped around his lower face. He took a deep breath and grabbed the door handle, but immediately regretted his decision as he let out a loud yelp and let go as fast as he could.

Damn it!

Doro's fingers were relatively safe from harm, but the metal doorknob had been hot enough that the center of his palm would most probably start blistering over in a few moments.

Doro repeated the actions he had performed with the front door, but this time the results were a lot more spectacular. The front door having been left wide open, opening the second door had changed the airflow inside of the room; a billowing cloud of dark smoke rushed past Doro, through the entrance, and into the street outside. Doro had managed to close his eyes just in time to avoid the smoke from blinding him, but the gust of hot air that accompanied it made his eyes ache as his eyelids did little in the way of protecting them from the heat.

Doro's eyes started watering and he opened them in a panic, afraid that he might have lost his sight for good. Everything appeared blurry at first, but his vision seemed to clear once more after blinking the tears away a few times.

Please don't be in there...

As his vision cleared, Doro could now see into the room, and what he saw was not good news. Amidst some broken pottery shards, a burly man sat unmoving on the floor, his back resting against one of the table's feet. The room was mostly made of sandstone, and the lack of carpeting had proved a saving grace as the fire had failed to make its way across the room to the unmoving man, but the heat and the amount of smoke that had escaped from the room made Doro doubt there was any chance that the man could still be alive.

Still, I have to try to get his body out of there if I can, for Sarima's sake.

Doro got down on all fours and slowly inched his way into the room while remaining as low as he could, but his eyes were already starting to water again.

Damn, my mask isn't gonna help for long. Also, I'm not going to be strong enough to drag him...

Doro was about to give up and turn around, hoping that whoever Sarima managed to bring back would get here before the fire spread further, but he heard something he could hardly believe. A wet cough sounded out from the direction of the unmoving man. Doro once more wiped the tears from his eyes and stared at the unmoving figure. Now that he was closer, he saw the smallest of movements as the man's chest appeared to inflate.

Ahoeugh!

It was unmistakable this time. Sarima's father was still barely alive, if unconscious. Doro was starting to struggle himself, his makeshift mask proving inadequate for this amount of exposure. Seeing that Sarima's father was still alive, all plans of retreating and waiting for help were thrown out of the proverbial window.

My arm muscles alone won't be enough, but if I make a metal hook, I can use my Abilities to get all my muscles into the task, and if that doesn't turn out to be enough, I should still be able to boost it by spending energy.

Doro reshaped the lump of metal that he carried around for practice into a wide hook with a small handle and slipped one end into the waist of the man's pants. He then put his back to the door and began pulling on the hook with both arms, bracing his legs against the table for support. As he had expected, this proved futile, and the man did not budge an inch.

Doro tried his new Ability and spread the load to all the muscles that weren't actively involved in the exercise. He started feeling some movement and gradually increased the strain until something finally happened.

Doro hadn't stopped to think his plan through thoroughly in his panicked state, and he hadn't taken into account that he had specifically chosen a softer lump metal to carry around for his practice. Sarima's father was proving too heavy for the hook, which had started to deform and straighten out rather than pull him along, but Doro hadn't noticed. Mistaking the change in tension for success in moving the man, Doro kept going until the hook straightened out entirely and lost its grip, all the force he'd been applying to it now sending him flying back.

Doro was launched a few feet backward and hit the back of his head hard against the sandstone floor. He tried sitting up, but he had trouble breathing, and a resounding headache was making it hard for him to focus on anything.

Doro swiped the back of his head with his hand and looked at it to see if any blood was on it. His light caramel-brown hand came into his vision, a few red specks on it, but nothing too alarming. That is until his brain caught up, and he noticed the color of his hand. He looked ahead of him, and his heart started beating faster than it had in a long time. This was Earth. He recognized some of the items that were strewn about haphazardly around him, but they weren't what had made him come to that realization. In front of him, battered and with her lower body pinned under rubble, was his cousin Megan, a look of horror on her face as she stared back at him, her lips moving but no sound registering in his ears.

Doro tried sitting up once more, but again, he struggled and felt as if he was pinned to the floor, breathless. Finally, he felt as if he had started regaining some clarity as his vision stopped swimming, his thoughts catching up and allowing him to register the words coming out of his cousin's mouth.

"Stop! You'll die if you try again. Let's just accept our fate; I don't want to spend my last moments watching you hurt yourself more."

Her voice was feeble and tentative, nothing like the force of nature she'd always appeared to be, but as Doro looked down at his chest, he saw the metal pipe that was poking clear through it, coming out the front of his three-piece suit. The bloodstain surrounding the pipe slowly expanded as more blood seeped into it, a blood flower blossoming from his life escaping him.

The memories of Ben's last moments, which had been sealed thus far, flooded into Doro's mind as the images of the explosion and subsequent collapse of the building, trapping and injuring them, took over his reality for a few moments.

Doro was back in his body, the back of his head in pain, but with no metal pipe sticking from his chest this time.

So, the last time I tried to save someone, I also failed and, furthermore, impaled myself in the process? Why am I always so fucking useless when it matters!?

The memories redoubling his motivation, Doro was intent on not letting another person die because he wasn't good enough to save them. Doro gave up all precautions and jumped back into the thick of it. No inching slowly while remaining low to the floor this time; either he'd make it, or someone would also have to carry him out.

Reshape! Harden! Pull!

Doro hooked Sarima's father by the waist again, but this time, he stood straight and faced the door, attempting to pull the man behind him. The fire had kept growing in the interim, and even with the new airway, smoke was starting to saturate the air to an intolerable extent. Doro could no longer see what was ahead of him, and the thick smoke had something in it that made his eyes feel as if they were burning; he kept pulling, following the faint current in the smoke toward what he hoped was the exit, his progress obscured from him by that very smoke. The pain grew worse, but he knew that if he closed his eyes, he would no longer have any idea where he was going, so he put his entire mind into his task in an effort to distract himself from the torment.

Pull!

Pull!

Pull.

Pull...

p-u-l-l...

Every breath was labor; every lung-full taking in less air and keeping more smoke. Doro's mind was trailing away, but his body kept moving. One more step and it might be enough; one more step and...

Doro's muscles started screaming as less and less oxygen made its way to them. His brain was also running on literal fumes at this point. His sheer determination was the only thing that had let him take the last two steps, but there was only so much adrenaline could do for him. Eventually, Doro tripped and lost his grip on the hook, sending him falling forward. As he fell, his body tilted to the side, his right shoulder taking the brunt of the impact as it hit the floor, his head following for a second impact moments after.

"Doro! Dad!"

Doro thought he heard something and tried to answer, but he couldn't manage to take a deep enough breath and immediately began coughing violently. He did not know whether it was the lack of oxygen or the repeated shocks to his head, but he found that he couldn't think straight anymore. His tension started to drop, and he could feel himself slipping away in a similar manner to when he'd been saved by Dhruvah. Only this time, if he fell asleep, he might never wake up.