Warning: Gore
The oil pours on his face, leaving behind red angry streaks which paint his face with blood, as shards embed themselves in his skin, some in his eyes and eyelids, with the last thing he sees being the shards glinting off the light of the ignited oil crimson and hateful.
Glass seems to hone in on his flesh, stabbing themselves in his neck, even with the sword having cut the bottle in half before it descended on his face, an instinctive reaction to any threat of the like, he can feel the shards in his eyes as he stifled a scream.
He's blind.
He can't see. He can't see. He can't see. He can't see.
Calm yourself down!
He can't see.
He reaches for the snow around him, as he picks up the cold fine ice and presses it to his chest, as the fire from the first bottle is extinguished, but the pain makes itself more evident now, searing, agonising, torturous, but he must move.
One of his hands was still holding onto his wakizashi, and he quickly sheathed that within the folds of his robe as he pressed his left hand to his face, in a bid to numb the pain, to do anything to numb the pain.
It hurt, it hurt, it hurt, as he pushed himself off of the ground and stumbled blindly into the night, hands running through the snow as he pressed the cooling substance to his face and used his sleeves and removed his scarf and threw it out into the wind.
The pain is scarring, stinging, and he can feel it burn and kill his skin, his flesh, reaching into his veins and blood vessels, seeping through the layers of his skin, and he can smell smoke, the scent of human flesh, and he wants to retch, but cannot because.....because he cannot open his mouth to do so.
A feral panic claws its way out of his heart, cold, and domineering as cold spreads from his left eye and he doesn't know what is happening, but he feels a pair of cold hands settle on his eyes which presses his hands harshly over his wounds.
It's the sensation of icy cold water being poured over him, as she dragged herselfoutofhisownburningheart.
IthurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsIthurtsITHURTS.
Fingers claw themselves out from his left eye.
They press into his bleeding, burning wounds, shredding chunks of his flesh muscle and tendons as they did so, prying out his left eye, pushing it out as Kyojuro falls down kneeling onto the ground, convulsing in the sheer agony.
Weak. Weak. Weak. WEAK.
The shards of glass are torn from his eyes, his wounds, as fingers, as colds hands wrap themselves around his throat.
He's blind, blind, blind and blind to her.
She might as well plunge a sword through his neck and remove his head.
The hands push him down into the bed of white snow, forceful and assertive, which causes him more pain as his wounds are aggravated. The oil sticks to his skin, clinging on and never letting go as his skin burns. It burns and burns, and burns. There are tears from his eyes, but in that moment, nothing matters. The claws dug into his flesh, the hot liquid covered clothes he wore sticking to his skin,
The same pair of hands, this time, he can feel it pull him up, and drag him, as he stumbles blind and wandering in the dark, as the dawn broke, he didn't know where it was guiding him, but behind those pair of hands was a frigid anger, saving and helping him out of sheer spite and necessity, and his mind can't function with the sheer pain he was facing.
But his body could.
His body would not stop especially since it meant that stopping meant that he would be unable to fight.
He would be unable to fight.
Get up.
Every step he takes is hell, but her hands pull him up and drag him across the terrain, numbing the pain to bearable levels as she harshly yanked the shards of glass out of his right eye, his cheek, his eyelids, his neck. Cold blood solidifies and freezes as it emerges from his wounds, and he feels so, so cold.
Keep moving.
He needed to.
Then the cold hands disappear and are replaced by that of warm, gentle ones.
A gasp of shock.
It's quickly reeled in.
"Kyojuro, everything's going to be fine, alright?" Masahiko-san's voice.
Kyojuro fell to the ground, blood staining his clothes in large patches, and onto his knees amongst the white snow.
Masahiko sets a hand on the fiery haired individual, scooping up snow in his own scarf as he pressed it against his burn wounds, and he finds frost coating and spreading from the blood and wounds on his face, resolving to keep it cold so that he would not have to feel more pain.
God, what happened to him?
He half guided, half carried the boy into the building, soothing him with a string of words, which he kept repeating until he had calmed down significantly.
Dawn was breaking, and with it, the heartless, blazing sun which would reduce him to dust.
Once they entered the front door of the house, he barked for others to aid him with Kyojuro, whose hands were pressed so tightly over his eyes that his knuckles were white, and he was bruising himself. Having long fallen silent, Masahiko grew deeply concerned as he took him to the medical room on the first floor, the other girls and even Yousuke as well as Hiromi stepping in to bring in water, towels, antiseptic cream and a soothing balm.
"Kyojuro, can you speak?" He asked him tentatively, as he brought him into the medical shower, and turned on the tap with cold water and setting him down in the tub, let the water run over his wounds.
These burn wounds, and what looked like open wounds made from broken glass that had been messily removed.
Kyojuro shook his head.
Yousuke came over and handed over several towels, to which he brought out a pair of scissors and began cutting away at his clothes, especially over his chest. There was no need to speak, only to work.
"I need you to remove your hands, is that alright?" He ran his hand over his, and Kyojuro flinched involuntarily at the touch, while he let it settle and waited until he had calmed down more.
And he did.
Gradually and slowly, as Masahiko helped him to move his hands away slowly, and he inspected the wounds on his face.
Over his eyes, was a layer of ice which spread down and seemed to coat over the substance which had previously be spilled on him, and i he were to hazard a guess, had to either be oil or alcohol that had been lit on fire.
The ice spread quickly, encasing his face in a thin sheet like glass veil, and moved on to his chest and back before it shattered, and with it, it removed traces of the oil or alcohol that had previously been on his skin.
This stuns Yousuke, and yet, Masahiko-san continues tending to Kyojuro, closing the tap now that the tub has been filled with water and using another hand to support and cradle his head. His movements are so soft, so gentle, filled with utter care as he used a towel to dry his face, and Kyojuro's fingers were wrapped around his wrist, a sign that there was pain to him.
And yet, with but three words,
"Everything's alright now,"
His fingers loosen their grip around Masahiko's wrist as he sets them down at his sides, while Masahiko-san softly combs the strands of his bright yellow orange hair away from his skin, and continues to dress his wounds, which slowly heal as the blisters and burns fade away slowly.
The two of them wait.
"Kyojuro-kun, can you open your eyes now?"
And with that sentence, he does.
Kyojuro's hands flew to his face, tentatively running over his newly healed skin cautiously, before they went down to his chest, eyes wide, breathing harsh as he turned and looked around.
"Kyojuro?" Yousuke asks him tentatively.
"Do you have a mirror?" A strange question to ask, seeing how he did not see him as a vain person in any way, shape or form. But he could see that Kyojuro's hands were shaking, and yet he took in a deep breath before he managed to steel them quickly, and steadying them, Yousuke passed him the small handheld mirror.
Staring into the silver, reflective surface-
Mismatched eyes meet his own.
Masahiko placed a hand on his head, and slowly combed his hair back with his fingers, as Kyojuro's hands shook once more.
And still he forced a smile back at himself in the mirror.
It wasn't hard to guess how he felt in that moment, but Masahiko-san simply patted his hair softly, and where the oil had burned it off, it simply regrew back in its usual shade and length.
"We need to save Fuyuko at some point in time!" Kyojuro brings up, while Yousuke shoots a concerned glance at him. He seriously was not going to explain what had happened to him before they found him tortured and bleeding in the snow? Fuyuko...yes she was a case for concern, but why didn't he care for himself?
Yousuke couldn't understand when Kyojuro went on to explain how Fuyuko had been treated, how he had saw her being hit by one of the priests, and that she was forced to fulfil the role and duty of a weather maiden, acting as a saviour and a light of hope for these villagers. Perhaps Masahiko-san saw something deeper, as he moved to the back of the bathtub and began using a comb to comb Kyojuro's wet hair, but he couldn't see anything behind those tinted goggles of his.
"But she cannot control the weather! I offered to bring her out but-"
"Kyojuro."
"But she wanted to stay! Stay even though she was being trapped here-"
"Kyojuro." He quiets down, as Yousuke looked at him. Kyojuro refused to meet his gaze, preferring instead to look away from him, pulling a towel close to himself and overs his chest.
"What happened to you?"
"I just got in a bar fight. Nothing major!"
"You got second degree burns in your face and chest. If you were not a demon, you might have lost your sight permanently. That's major."
Kyojuro looks down at the pool of bloody water he was sitting in.
"I got taken by surprise, that's all." Yousuke sighs, as he finds the drain and opens it up, letting the water drain out slowly before he closed it and turned the tap back on.
"By surprise? I find that hard to believe."
"I overestimated the trajectory of the bottle. That's it. Really!" Yousuke could grill him for more answers, but before that happened, Masahiko used a towel to pat his hair dry, wringing any water out of it before returning to comb the now dry strands.
"Are you cold?" Masahiko asked.
"No, not at all," Kyojuro replies instantaneously.
"Go and take a rest after this, alright?"
"Of course."
And so that completely throws Yousuke off.
The two of them spend the rest of the time sorting and finding new clothes for Kyojuro, who also took the opportunity to take a cold bath and rinse off any remnants of blood and oil. He seemed to be as cheerful as he used to, wearing that smile of his, but the two of them knew that that was not the case.
Masahiko gives him a pat on the head before sending him back to his room to rest.
"Why didn't you ask him what happened to him?" That's the first thing which Yousuke asks the man, who only gave him a small, patient smile in response.
"I don't want him to relieve what had happened to him. It's best to give him some space, since now he will refuse and deny the severity of his own wounds. He was more concerned over the shrine maiden than himself, because that's the kind of person he is." Yousuke looks at him with a soft gaze.
"He's a kind man, who does not want to burden others with his own problems."
"I see. Then I think I should investigate any incidents which took place in this village then. I think I'll be able to find something that way,"
"Be careful. This village hates foreigners and outsiders. And stay safe."
Explanation
- Kyojuro isn't incompetent. He can dodged a glass bottle flung at him with practised ease under normal circumstances, but this isn't one of the usual situations. This entire arc is not.
- The snow demon is pissed. Her goal in some ways, aligns with his own. Stay alive, and keep fighting.
- The eyes represent who's in control.
- As for his reaction, his best way of coping is to switch his focus. Or being in a state of denial.
-Having the snow demon's attributes mixed with his own body means that he is more vulnerable to heat at the areas which she regenerated his flesh and limbs for him. This includes both of his hands, and the wound which Akaza gave him. Each time he gets hurt, she replaces him with a part of herself.