Ink Stained

20: shinobu*

死乃生

Pai didn't remember what happened.

She didn't remember anything that happened after she closed her eyes in a blink on the sight of Shin stalking towards the Onihitokuchi with his blades drawn, movements fluid and graceful as the most beautiful mountain tiger.

It was like she had just woken from a dream, one that was important and that she needed to remember, for some reason. She knew she needed to remember, she wanted to, but as soon as she woke up, whatever happened in the dream glided away between her fingers like a slippery eel intent on escape, shocking her every time she tried to grab a hold of it.

All she really remembered was the pain that radiated all over her body, pulsing from the point on her back where she had struck the metal crate after the Oni flung her to the side, feeling the all-encompassing pain all the way to the soles of her wet and cut-up bare feet. The back of her neck where the Onihitokuchi struck her with its poisonous serum was a sore ache that registered between every break in the waves of pain that were all she could feel.

And the exhaustion.

That was the worst part. Remembering how tired she was, sitting on the wet ground with her aching back against the crate and hardly able to lift her eyes to watch the whirling dance of Shin battling the Onihitokuchi. She knew that she could have ignored the pain, pushed it to the distant corners of her mind thanks to the adrenaline that had flooded her as she'd fought for her life. Pai felt that she could have perhaps managed to continue fighting to stay alive if she had a broken leg.

But she couldn't get past the draining, bone-deep exhaustion that made her limbs so heavy. It was like someone had taken her muscles and bones and woven them with lead. It was – too much, all at once, leeching onto whatever fighting spirit was left in her until there was nothing left.

Then there was a big, empty, dark blank. Beyond that, she remembered nothing.

She woke up, opening her eyes to a bright light overhead that almost blinded her with its intensity. She blinked, and then Kanou's face came into focus as he leaned over her, calling her name. It had sounded like he was very far away, instead of leaning over her.

She could feel the discomfort of something sharp and metallic wormed into the inside of her elbow, another poking into her hand. When she lifted her hand, she'd seen the needle of an IV drip taped securely over the back of her hand, same with the one in her elbow. Her stomach roiled uncomfortably when she thought of the end of the needle stuck under her flesh, digging into her veins.

She was in a hospital, and something had been very wrong with her. Pai almost couldn't believe it when she was told why she was there, what had been happening, but she couldn't deny the truth of it when there were hollow needles feeding liquid nutrients directly to her veins.

Now Pai tilted her head back against the wall, the magic of the boundary humming through her body and keeping her toasty. It was remarkably cold beyond the wall, thanks to the perpetual chill of the mountain. Worse yet, it was the beginning of winter, so everything would steady grow to be a hundred times colder now as winter progressed.

She liked winter, and how clean (when it wasn't sludge) and white (when the snow wasn't blinding her) everything looked – but she could do without the cold that made her hands and feet perpetually frozen blocks of ice...even when she was wearing heavy, sturdy winter boots that went halfway up her calves and two pairs of thermal gloves from UNIQLO.