Return of the Fallen Volume 3 Chapter 57
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Author: Blue_Rat
ch57
Zetsu hacked up more blood, his voice turning hoarse from having the inside of his throat shredded by swallowing his own broken teeth. With a pained voice, he begged.
“Mercy, p…please.”
Although Nunully was a distance away, she still heard Zetsu’s plea and was left stunned. Kazuki on the other hand, hearing Zetsu beg for mercy, his mind flashed back to the cave. The images of all those villagers embedded into that slanted wall. Their consciousness robbed from them as their minds are tortured ad their souls were being devoured.
Kazuki reached into Zetsu’s mouth, surprised he could still speak even with a shield in his mouth. Retrieving his shield he placed it on his good arm and swung it down at a sharp angle directly into Zetsu’s nose, breaking it in one motion. Zetsu twitched in pain and tried to ask for mercy once more but more images flashed in Kazuki’s mind and he kept bashing away with his blunt shield.
In his head, he could see the villagers surviving off the bugs and drops of water that fell from the ceiling.
*Bam*
He bashed Zetsu again.
He remembered the filth they expelled to the ground.
*Bam*
Kazuki bashed his face again. At this point, Zetsu could no longer speak.
Kazuki remembered the odor and foulness from the tortured villagers.
*Bam*
Deep lacerations appeared across Zetsu’s face but Kazuki couldn’t stop.
He remembered his own mistake as well. He tried to show the villagers some semblance of mercy. He tried to end all of their sufferings in one go with a blue flame but he didn’t take into account the amount of moisture in the humid cave. His flame had reached the optimal temperature but he didn’t supply it with enough magical energy. The combined result of lack of energy and the wet atmosphere, caused his flame to drastically fall in temperature and weaken.
*Bam*
His flame cooled too rapidly and left many villagers burning alive. Kazuki’s failure to notice something as simple as a damp environment caused him to burn several people alive. The smell of burning flesh was something one could never get used to or rather you prayed to those above that you never got used to it. Kazuki felt disgusted with Zetsu.
*Bam*
As he continually bashed Zetsu’s face in. He realized that Zetsu wasn’t the only one he was disgusted with and that left him angry as well. All this anger though, he could direct it all towards one person.
*Bam*
“Ryuta that’s enough.”
*Bam*
Kazuki heard a voice beside him but he didn’t care.
*Bam*
“RYUTA! that’s enough!”
*Bam*
Kazuki ignored Retsu and swung his sword this time, cleaving Zetsu’s nose clean off.
Retsu grabbed Kazuki by the back of his shirt and threw him to the side. Kazuki rolled for about ten feet before he stood up. He clenched his sword and raised it, intending to relieve more of his anger. As he took a single step forward, Retsu roared in his face.
“BOY! OPEN YOUR MORTAL EARS! I SAID THAT’S ENOUGH!”
Retsu Gai’s voice rumbled in Kazuki’s mind. Kazuki shook his head and his thoughts cleared. He blinked a few times and looked at Retsu and then down at the sword in his hand. His adrenaline fading and fatigue setting in, Kazuki dropped his sword into the snow.
*Thud*
Kazuki’s hands were shaking as the pain he had pushed to the back of his mind came flooding forward. Kazuki gripped his left arm and grit his teeth.
*Huk*
His eyes fell on his left hand and the protruding bones jutting out and he couldn’t help but squeeze his left wrist with all his might. His strength threatened to break his own wrist but this new pain helped ease the pain in his hand slightly. Focusing on another pain somehow helped reduce the pain in his hand. Kazuki tried to send some ki into his hand to help speed up the healing but he felt completely drained.
“Let me see it.”
Nunully appeared at his side and reached over but Kazuki couldn’t help but wince slightly and pull back without her even touching it. Nunully puffed her cheeks.
“Stop being a baby and let me see already. Hurry it up we’ve got people about to turn blue over there.”
Kazuki saw Sam and Asuna unmoving and nodded.
Kazuki released his own wrist and felt waves of pain rush into his hand as the blood flow was released and allowed to pump back into his hand. Kazuki grit his teeth so hard he feared they may shatter. Nunully examined his hand and sighed. She waved her staff and created a thick ring of ice around Kazuki’s wrist then guiding the ring of ice it began to expand. When it reached the exposed bone, in one burst of force, her ice jammed the bones back into his hand unkindly.
Kazuki grabbed the handle of his sword and placed it between his teeth and bit down while clenching his opposite fist as tightly as he could. All in an effort to ease the pain. Kazuki wasn’t used to being so depleted of ki that he couldn’t even reduce his own pain.
“Sorry, it had to be done. but don’t worry, the hard part is almost over.”
Kazuki’s eyes widened.
(The hard part is almost over what does she mean by tha…)
Nunully’s ice without warning invaded Kazuki’s hand. She extended needles of ice that poked and prodded the bones, pushing and pulling them, placing them in alignment with the other bones in his hand. Ice pulled out and extracted all the small fragments that had chipped away and shattered in his hand. After removing them, her ice temporarily fused the bones together. Any blood vessels or muscles that were torn or ripped, her ice reattached them and wrapped around them like a bandage that held them in place.
Afterward, her ring of ice pulled back and she wrapped her hand in a glove of water. Slowly she rubbed her glove of water on Kazuki’s hand. Tiny drops of healing water entered into Kazuki’s wounds and sped up the healing process. The broken bones began to regrow and fuse together. All of the torn muscles and blood vessels started to repair themselves at an incredible speed. As a small amount of Kazuki’s ki came back to him, he witnessed Nunully’s ability first hand as he watched and observed all of the happenings under his skin.
Kazuki couldn’t help but admire Nunully’s skill. Like him, she had to have a very acute understanding of the way the human body worked and its structure to be capable of healing it so precisely.
As Nunully’s ice helped numb the pain and Kazukis felt her healing first hand, a sense of relief washed over Kazuki.
“Thank you Nunully.”
Nunully nodded matter of factly.
“Good, it seems you know when to be grateful.”
Kazuki raised a curious brow at her. Nunully realized she might have said something she shouldn’t have and lowered her head.
“Sorry, I…I meant your welcome.”
Kazuki’s brow remained raised before he laughed out loud.
“Hahaha, no, you’re right, I am very grateful. I like it when you’re more upfront.”
Nunully’s eyes landed on Kazuki’s, as she thought about what he said her heart fluttered a bit.
*Ahem*
Retsu lowered himself near them. His head circled around Kazuki before he got real close to Nunully and said.
“Half-elf, why does your heart become so strange and your breathing becomes rapid whenever you converse with the boy? I’m looking at him but I don’t see anything weird about him, so why do you get like this?”
Nunully’s eyes went wide and her heart sped up even quicker. Her face went bright red and the tips of her ears became pink as she froze in place. Retsu pointed his antenna at her face and shouted in surprise.
“Ah, that too, what is that? Your skin changes color as well sometimes. Is that a trait of half-elves? Ryuta do you understand it?”
Kazuki went quiet before flashing Nunully a teasing smile.
“Hmm, I wonder.”
By this point, Kazuki could clearly tell that Nunully had at least a small crush on him but for the life of him he couldn’t understand why.
(Why does she even like about me, I don’t get it.)
Kazuki really didn’t understand why Nunully liked him. All the characteristics he’s showed up til now were not really appealing. He knew it himself that his personality wasn’t the best. Add on top the amount of killing he’s done. Even just moments ago the brutality he inflicted on Zetsu, Kazuki didn’t understand how someone could be attracted to someone else that would do something like that.
These thoughts led to other thoughts and he wondered if Nunully wasn’t normal. Kazuki looked at Nunully’s face and he had to admit she was beautiful, almost angelic. At the same time, the possibility of a relationship hadn’t crossed his mind. The main reason being is that it felt rather weird since he had already slept with Nunully’s mother Lamia.
Kazuki pushed these thoughts out of his mind and turned to Retsu.
“Instead of asking us such odd questions, shouldn’t you be doing your thing and getting Zetsu under your control? Didn’t you say you needed 1-2 minutes with him immobile so you could subdue him? Why are you bothering us?”
Retsu Gai’s huge face busted out a large smile. Pointing at Zetsu’s twitching jittery body, he laughed.
“Bwahahaha, didn’t you make him completely immobile for me when you severed all of his legs. Add the fact that you busted his face to bits. Even though he was no longer capable of speaking, I could tell he was begging me to take him back to the clan. That criminal, he didn’t make the slightest movement to resist. Right now he is perfectly under my power.”
Kazuki and Nunully were left stunned. Kazuki pointed back at Zetsu.
“So, you are saying…”
Retsu answered before him.
“Yep, mission complete, bwahahahaha.”
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