Recovery
I closed my eyes, but it wasn't dark. Residual images tangled together—not light, nor shadow. Severed angel wings. Stone floors stained with blood. Bones charred white. Chunks of flesh snagged on shattered spear tips. My body lay amid it all.
Consciousness had nearly faded, but the pain left no gaps. I couldn't even tell if my heart was still beating, yet a ceaseless burning surged from the marks near my heart, my legs, my neck, my back.
Beneath my dimming awareness, my body twitched once more. I'd never meant to use it. Even if I told it to stop, it wouldn't listen. By now, this body was more stubborn than I was.
With eyes still shut, I thought: maybe hell wasn't the crimson sky, the seas of fire, or the angelic massacres. Maybe hell was me. The more I pushed to grow stronger, to move again, the first thing to shatter was always myself. "Endure" was starting to feel like nothing more than "rip apart endlessly." This ability, this power, this pain itself—it might be hell.
The thought flickered, then I dismissed it as meaningless. With every pointless notion that surfaced, some part of my body stirred faintly with another pulse of reinforcement. Like a monster feeding on useless thoughts, growing fatter.
Something tugged at the back of my hand. A pulling sensation. It was El.
She was dragging my body by force. It was already a wreck. One leg bent at an unnatural angle, ribs twisted inside out. For a human, even twitching a finger would mean screaming to death. Yet here I was, unconscious but feeling every agony crystal clear.
Like nails of fire driven into splintered bones. Like blades slipping into spots where blood had crusted over.
Still, I was being pulled. Inside the house.
"Haa..."
A faint breath. "So... heavy..."
A small, trembling voice. I couldn't see her face, but I knew. El. Her arms. Her clothes. The sound of dragging on the floor.
She was hauling a monster of a demon several times her size, gripping with both arms, inching forward. Unable to move me at once, leaving scrape marks on the floor.
A sharp intake of breath as she crossed the threshold. "There... done..."
She didn't let go until my body was fully inside the house.
"It's okay... it'll be okay..."
A whisper, trembling faintly. Comfort for no one in particular. With those words, her palm groped toward my chest.
Carefully, it rested over my broken ribs. In that instant, a subtle warmth spread.
Nothing like reinforcement. Not tearing and mending, but rounding off the sharpest edges of the pain.
Not fully healed, not properly aligned. Just enough to make the unbearable tolerable. The shattered bones didn't snap back, but they settled slightly under pressure. The searing around my heart dulled, like coated in mud.
"......?"
A voice rose from deep within: something about this was wrong. Not reinforcement. This was something flowing in from El.
El was breathing hard. Her palm shook rapidly. "Haa... better...?"
A little. Just a tiny bit.
Not gone, the pain or wounds. But it shifted from "constantly dying" to "not dead yet."
That sliver of difference hit me huge right now. When her hand lifted, the faint warmth snuffed out.
El collapsed inside the house, exhausted. We lay there in the same space. Monster and wounded child. Inside the threshold, in the same darkness.
I opened my eyes. How much time had passed? The burning smell had faded; blood still stung my nose.
I tried to move and gave up sensibly.
"......"
El, huddled against the wall, peeked out cautiously. Her left eye, red and dried wound.
"You're... awake...?"
The child murmured low. "...Yeah."
Her tone mixed relief, fear, disbelief. I breathed carefully, squeezing out one word. "Must've been heavy, but you dragged me."
"Uh..."
She dropped her gaze; the floor came into view. Inside the house. Space untouched by my blood. My arm, hooked over the threshold, had been pushed further in somehow.
"Why drag me inside?"
"You were too out in the open..." El said softly. "If I left you there... you'd die..."
I was speechless for a moment. Then a quiet, laugh-like sound escaped. "Good job."
She flinched awkwardly at that. "...The pain... less...?"
Then it hit me. That warmth from before. "That was you."
El nodded faintly. "Thought I could... so I tried..."
The power was weak. But unlike forcing out reinforcement, it didn't make my mind slip. Just shaved a bit off the jagged edges of writhing pain. Instead, a sticky fatigue clung.
"You awakened your ability."
I muttered; El's face stiffened. "Sorry..."
"No. Thanks."
El stared, expression unreadable.
I took a breath. "I'm Raksha."
El's lips moved quietly. "Raksha..."
"Call me whatever."
The original owner of this body, Raksha, was dead. I'd taken over the corpse, but my human name from before—no longer remembered. So. Just Raksha. This name's mine now.
"Raksha..."
She said it again. Voice trembling a touch less.
We stayed in that house a bit longer. Not fully recovered. Couldn't be. Reinforcement writhed on its own; the body's structure was long since warped.
But aligned enough to move. Outside, white lights flashed now and then. Scattered wires. Lingering angels. Turning fleeing demons into minced meat.
Danger flowed constantly, enough to keep my mind sharp.
"Raksha."
El called. "Yeah."
"Gonna... keep going out...?"
"If angels get close."
I said flatly. "They find this place, it's trouble."
El's lips quivered. "Alone...?"
"Yeah. Hide here."
She looked down. Inside the house. Untouched by blood.
"Could hide better outside..."
"No."
Words cut short. El's eyes widened in surprise. I held my breath, continued. "I said hide."
"Hiding... that's my job...?"
"Makes it easier for me."
Silly logic. El stayed silent a while. Then nodded faintly. "Okay."
Stray angels descended sporadically. Light lines stamped far off; lower angels swarmed in.
Two mid-tier angels swept the ruins, herding low-tiers. I dragged my wrecked body out to meet them.
A sensation repeated to nausea. Snapping bones. Twisting joints. One step gained by ripping and pasting flesh.
Light swords severed arms, spears pierced sides—I didn't retreat. Whenever their eyes turned toward El's house, I made more noise, drew closer, pulled their focus.
Angel corpses littered around. "You alone?" one mid-tier said. "Why's that side intact..."
As his gaze shifted to the house, I slashed his throat. Light and blood sprayed.
Three low-tiers reacted. Arrows. Daggers. Chains.
Body twisted on instinct. Sometimes failed to block, got impaled. I killed them all. No beauty, no heroism.
Days like that passed.
Bad luck today of all days. I'd just crushed the last low-tier easily, a bit from the house.
Through a cracked wall, a small left eye peeked. El. Watching me. Hand twitching below.
In that split second, another mid-tier flying from the opposite side spotted the gap.
"Ah."
The sound slipped out. "Survivor detected."
The angel chuckled low. "A demon still alive, huh."
His spear locked on El through armor gaps and blood. Body moved on its own.
"No."
Out of my mouth first.
Before he finished speaking, something inside shattered madly. Different texture from before. Heart. Spine. Legs. Arms. Smashed every sane structure, reattached solely for one burst of speed.
Bones exploding inward; body launched forward.
────Shuuuuk!
My body wedged into the spear's path toward the house. Tip sliced shoulder and ribs vertically. Blood and light sprayed, but trajectory veered. Spear tore empty air behind me instead of El.
Angel's eyes widened. "Wha—"
My dagger beheaded him. Once—half the neck. Twice—thick vertebrae. Third, head cleanly separated.
The binding force rose to mend the breaks. Pain erupted. I staggered in place, looked inside the threshold.
El huddled in the wall crack. Eyes flicked between me and the crumbling angel corpse, then stopped.
"......Raksha."
"You okay."
Mouth full of blood, I asked. "Yeah..."
True or not, didn't matter. "Good job."
As I spoke, my leg buckled with a snap. I collapsed near the house again.
Cautiously, she touched my chest once more. Warmer now, more natural. Pain's edges shaved a bit more.
"Sorry..."
I chuckled through the blood. "Heh..."
Over this power and body I'd called hell, a faint voice settled. "Nah, it'll all be fine."
Muttering that, I closed my eyes again. Whether hell was inside or out, didn't matter. I'd stake my life to save El, at least.