Shudders: Retribution

Chapter 11 - The Partners

     Yama felt her fingers from her good hand lightly touch his facial wound but didn't make a move to stop her.

"Does it hurt?" She asked, her voice raspy from the pain.

"You should be more worried about yourself." He grumbled, almost finishing stitching her arm up from how deep he cut her.

"Yea but- I was worried!" She expressed which took him off guard. "You disappeared and I couldn't find you! I was scared you were-"

     She stopped herself. He was alive. She shouldn't focus on far worse outcomes. "I'm just glad you're ok..."

     She's worried about him after the amount of pain she was just going through? He handled himself in a fight against those three demons and had minimal injuries compared to what she just had circulating in her arm. Her priorities should be on herself, not him.

     But he could see her next to him inspecting his body for more injuries other than the cut on his face. She found a bruise on his neck from where one of the Elitists had jabbed him and then looked down to his forearm which had claw marks that weren't as bad as the cut on his face but still looked like it hurt.

      But with each injury she saw, her concern grew. "You'll help yourself too, right?"

     He wrapped the bandage around her arm, his red eyes moved up to meet hers. "You're that concerned about me?"

     She nodded like it was obvious. "We're partners, aren't we?"

     Partners? First the 'we's' now they were partners? How naive was this girl?

"We're partners now?" He couldn't help but find the thought ridiculous.

     A small blush appeared on her skin before she looked away. "Yea I- Do-Do you not want to be?"

     They'd been traveling together and she didn't have any plans to separate yet. With every place they scavenged, she did her best to help and wanted to be more of use instead a burden to him. She was dragging him into her problems after all. It would help if he saw her as a partner who helped him when he helps her so much.

      Yama had a snarky remark to use that disagreed with her but after giving it some more thought, it kind of made sense. If that's how she felt then so be it.

      He sighed and finished up with her arm, cutting the rest of the bandage off and letting her pull her limb into her chest. "I guess we're partners then."

     Hearing him say that made a grin appear on her face, genuine happiness for him actually agreeing. "Really?"

     When he saw her grin, he felt his heart beat just a little harder. Again that strange feeling returned that was beginning to annoy him now. What kind of effect was she starting to have on him? He's never experienced this before.

     He avoided her eyes and turned away to get up. "Sure- whatever."

     He muttered the last part quickly but she was too happy to notice. Having a partner now made her feel better about her situation. She was going to try her best to help him out whenever she can to repay him for all that he's done for her. And having somebody who watched her back did make her feel safer too.

      Together they got back to creating more distance between them and the farm. During that time, Yama had placed some smaller bandages on his facial wound and arm to ease the girl's worries after she brought them up again. She must keep forgetting that cuts on demons are different than on humans. They would've healed just fine.

     After they started to find solid roads and saw buildings of a small town up ahead, they were finally starting to exit the forest. It was still dense trees further off, but now they had a clear road to follow.