Kael woke up with a start. The sensation of his body jolting up and down sent a massive spike of pain coursing through him.
A groan almost escaped his lips, but he forced it back down and spread his perception out.
Or at least he tried to.
A tremor passed through his body, veins popping on his forehead. Kael felt like his brain was about to split apart, his expression twisting greatly from the discomfort.
Only after a while did the feeling alleviate slightly. Kael tried to open his eyes, but could only successfully open one.
And as if that had opened the floodgates to his other senses, the sounds rushed in.
"Nathaniel, let me also carry him. He's too heavy for you." A soft voice pleaded, worry laced within it.
"No," another voice responded, this one masculine though immature, the speaker straining to speak between gasps.
Kael's hazy vision slowly cleared, and he found himself being piggybacked by a boy of small and gaunt stature.
Natalie's voice came from the front.
"Are you sure you can manage?"
Nathaniel didn't answer. Instead, he stopped and gasped for breath, his body trembling like a leaf caught in a storm.
Just when Natalie wanted to speak again, Kael parted his lips. His mouth felt dry and his throat raw and burning yet he forced himself to wheeze out through gritted teeth.
"How?"
He couldn't understand. Didn't Rachel try to kill him? Or had the Primordial Instinct activated, and he just wasn't aware of it?
'The latter might be the case. After all, my mind is too overwhelmed by using Godly Focus.'
A cry of surprise, then joy, pierced through Kael's thoughts.
Natalie quickly rushed to his side, her face covered in clear relief.
"Thank goodness, thank goodness, you're awake. I thought you would die."
Her voice broke at the end, and before Kael's eyes, the girl broke down into sobs.
Kael's figure was just that miserable. The only part of his body not covered in blood was his eyes. No, even his left eye was swollen so badly that his eyeball could not be seen, and the slight gap was sealed by a crust of blood.
It was a terrifying sight to behold.
Kael couldn't stop the grunt from leaking from his lips when he felt Nathaniel shift.
"Sorry, sorry." A low, breathless voice suddenly drifted into his ears. "I didn't mean to, but are you okay?"
Kael looked at the two kids before him, Natalie who already had her face covered in tears, her words coming out incoherently, and Nathaniel below him who was panting like a dog after a marathon.
He knew he couldn't get any answers to his confusion at the moment.
'What a night!'
The soft, resplendent light of the moon beamed down on them, illuminating their lonely figures.
Only now did Kael realize they were before the main building.
It seemed not much time had passed since he blacked out, and he knew they couldn't continue like this.
'There is no way the two can carry me up the stairs.'
Kael tried to climb down from Nathaniel's back, yet...
"ARRRRGH!"
A cry of pain tore through his lips. Spittle mixed with blood flew out of his mouth, and two lines of tears, belying the pain he felt, streamed down the sides of his face.
'It hurts! It hurts a lot!'
Kael could almost make out the sound of Natalie shouting in the background and Nathaniel asking if he was alright. But the sounds slowly grew distant, and not long after, darkness overwhelmed all his senses once more.
He lost consciousness.
His brain subconsciously shut down as a safety mechanism, retreating into darkness to escape the agony and protecting itself from an overwhelming trauma.
But how could it not?
Not much time had passed, and the few ENERGi units his body had recovered barely allowed Ember Regeneration to leave a dent in the catastrophic state of his injuries.
Just as Nathaniel was struggling to decide what he should do, and as Natalie broke down into even more of a mess, a purple light suddenly flashed before them, and two people appeared.
A wave of relief filled Nathaniel so greatly that he subconsciously relaxed, causing him to stumble forward from the weight behind him.
Thankfully, a frail-looking yet strong hand held onto him firmly before he could fall.
Principal Martin looked at Kael with a sad look on his face. A white gauze stained with a bit of red was wrapped around his bald head. Luckily, after drinking a rare health potion, his bleeding had stopped, but that did nothing to heal the wounds in his heart.
His eyes lingered on Kael for a moment before his gaze shifted to the ruins before him.
Even now, Ben was groaning on the ground, a pool of blood having formed beneath him. With the immense vitality of a First Order, such injuries couldn't threaten his life, but that couldn't bring back his two missing arms.
The principal's gaze shifted once more, his eyes falling farther away where a massive body lay without movement.
His face turned white, and the sorrow in his eyes visibly deepened.
At his side, Claire's pupils shook greatly at the sight.
The old man sighed again before speaking.
"Ms. Claire, you take care of Ben. Let me take young Kael upstairs."
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