The cold night air of Jarilo-VI should have been biting. Should have cut through skin like knives. Instead, it felt like a summer breeze against my face—pleasant, almost comfortable. The Russian's gift, I supposed. Small mercies.
My legs gave out.
"Whoa—" Phainon caught me before I hit the snow, his arm already supporting most of my weight. "Easy there."
"Sorry," I managed, though the word tasted like copper. Blood. My own blood, dripping from my nose in a steady stream that wouldn't stop. "Just... need a minute."
"You need more than a minute, Senpai," March's voice cracked as she appeared beside me, her hands hovering uselessly. "You're—your eyes are—"
I tried to focus on her face. Tried. But my vision kept fragmenting, splitting into geometric patterns that hurt to perceive. One March became three, became five, each reflection slightly offset from the others like a broken kaleidoscope.
"Senpai." BB's voice cut through the fog, sharp and clear. No tilde. No playfulness. "You need medical attention. Now."
"The... Stellaron," I forced out, trying to look toward Stelle. Trying to see if she was still holding it together. "Is it—"
"Contained," Dan Heng said, suddenly beside us. When had he moved? Time felt wrong, like frames dropping from a video game running on bad hardware. "Stelle has it secured. You need to worry about yourself right now."
Bronya passed us, carrying her unconscious mother with a strength born of desperation. Her silver eyes—so much like mine—met my fragmented vision for just a moment. Gratitude. Guilt. Grief. All tangled together in an expression I couldn't quite parse through the migraine splitting my skull.
"Sorry," I said again, though I wasn't sure what I was apologizing for this time.
Everything, maybe.
They found shelter in what remained of a Silvermane outpost—half-collapsed, but the walls that remained blocked the wind. Phainon lowered me against one of those walls with the kind of care usually reserved for handling nitroglycerin.
"Sorry," I muttered as my head lolled back against stone. "For the trouble."
"Stop apologizing," March snapped, though her voice wavered. "Just—just stay awake, okay?"
"Natasha's been contacted," BB said, materializing beside me. Her purple hair was unusually still, no bounce or movement to it. "She's on her way. ETA twenty minutes."
Twenty minutes. I could do twenty minutes.
Probably.
"What happened to him?" Aether asked quietly, crouching nearby. His golden eyes were wide with concern—the kind of look that said he'd seen people die before and recognized the signs.
"He forced an ability that was still locked," Dan Heng said, his tone clinical but tight. "The backlash is... severe."
"Severe is an understatement," BB muttered, crossing her arms. "You forced open a door that had three deadbolts, two chains, and a 'DO NOT ENTER' sign. What did you think would happen?"
"Sorry," I said, because what else could I say? "It... worked though. Sorry."
"It worked," BB agreed, her voice dropping to something softer. "You saved everyone. You idiot."
The world tilted sideways. Or maybe I tilted. Hard to tell when your inner ear decided to take a vacation and your vision kept showing you five different versions of reality at once.
Stelle appeared in my fractured sight, still cradling the contained Stellaron. The golden light of Preservation wrapped around it like a cocoon, stable and steady. She looked exhausted—fundamentally changed in ways I couldn't quite articulate through the fog in my head.
"Is he going to be okay?" she asked quietly.
"Sorry," I said, because apparently that was all my brain could produce right now. "I'll be fine. Sorry."
"That's not reassuring," Stelle said flatly.
Fair point.
Natasha arrived in eighteen minutes—faster than expected. She took one look at me and her expression went from concerned to professionally alarmed in the span of a heartbeat.
"What did he do?" she asked, already pulling medical supplies from her bag.
"Saved the world," March said, her voice small. "But his arm—last time it melted, and now his eyes—"
"His arm regenerated," Natasha interrupted, examining the crystalline ice structure with clinical interest. "Fascinating. The ice is functioning as a complete replacement, veins and all." She moved to check my eyes, shining a light that made me flinch. "Pupils responsive but uneven. Nosebleed ongoing. Signs of severe neural strain."
"He forced an ability past its safety locks," BB said, though of course only I could hear her. "Think of it like... overclocking a CPU until it melts. Except the CPU is his brain."
Great. Wonderful. That was exactly what I wanted to hear.
"Sorry," I mumbled. "Will I... recover? Sorry."
"With time and rest," Natasha said firmly, pulling out various medical instruments. "But you need immediate stabilization. Hold still."
I tried. Really, I did. But when your vision keeps fragmenting into impossible geometric patterns and your head feels like someone's using it as a drum, holding still becomes a theoretical concept rather than a practical one.
"March," Natasha said calmly, "I need you to create an ice pack. Dan Heng, support his head. Stelle—"
"I've got the Stellaron," Stelle said quickly. "I'm not putting it down until we figure out proper containment."
"Smart girl." Natasha worked with the efficiency of someone who'd patched up Fragmentum victims for years. "This will hurt."
It did.
Time passed in fragments. Literal fragments, because my perception of reality had decided to cosplay as a broken mirror.
The group chat members prepared to leave.
"Take care of yourself, Lancer," Aether said, offering a small smile that reminded me painfully of protagonists who'd seen too much too young. "Try not to die before we meet again?"
"Sorry," I managed through the haze. "I'll try. Sorry."
Rover—the Lord Arbiter—stood with her arms crossed, that perpetual wariness softened just slightly. "You fought well. Recklessly, but well."
"Sorry," I said. Because of course I did.
Phainon clapped me on the shoulder—carefully, like he was afraid I'd shatter. "Stay strong, yeah? And maybe next time, don't face-plant quite so dramatically."
"Sorry," I replied, then blinked. "Wait, you're the one who face-planted through the dimensional hole. Sorry."
He laughed. Actual, genuine laughter that cut through some of the fog. "Fair point. Get better, Lancer."
Frieren simply looked at me with blank eyes. "..." A pause. "Don't die. It would be inconvenient."
High praise, coming from her.
The dimensional portals opened—properly this time, no face-planting required. They stepped through one by one, returning to their own worlds, their own struggles. The system chimed softly with quest completion notifications that I couldn't focus on through the migraine.
Then they were gone, and it was just us again. The Astral Express crew, Bronya with her unconscious mother, and me slowly bleeding out my brain through my nose.
"Alright," Dan Heng said with the tone of someone taking charge because nobody else would. "We need to move him somewhere more permanent. Suggestions?"
"The clinic," Natasha said immediately. "I have proper equipment there. But getting him down to the Underworld in this condition..."
"Sorry," I said, though I wasn't sure why I was apologizing for geography. "I can... walk. Sorry."
"No," March said firmly, her blue eyes blazing with an intensity that would've been intimidating if I could focus on just one version of her face. "You can't. You literally collapsed ten minutes ago."
"Sorry," I admitted, because she was right. "Sorry."
"At least you're consistent," BB muttered.
They made it back to the Underworld somehow. I didn't remember most of the journey—just fragments of being carried, of March's worried face swimming in and out of focus, of Dan Heng's steady voice giving directions.
Natasha's clinic materialized around me like a video game level loading in piece by piece. Familiar smells. Antiseptic and old stone and the lingering tang of Fragmentum corruption that never quite went away down here.
"On the bed," Natasha ordered. "Carefully."
I was lowered onto something soft. A luxury, compared to collapsed Silvermane outposts and collapsing ancient superweapon facilities.
"Sorry," I said, because it seemed appropriate. "For the trouble. Sorry."
"Stop apologizing and rest," Natasha said, already working. "You've done enough for one day."
"Sorry," I said reflexively, then registered what I'd done. "Sorry."
March made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
The world started to fade—not dramatically, just a slow dimming like someone adjusting a monitor's brightness. My last coherent thought before darkness took me was wondering if BB would be mad that I fell asleep during her lecture about forcing locked abilities.
"Sleep well... Sane" her voice whispered, softer than I'd ever heard it. "You earned it. You absolute idiot."
The last thing I saw before unconsciousness claimed me was March pulling up a chair beside the bed, her expression set with the stubborn determination of someone who had no intention of leaving.
Then—finally, mercifully—nothing.
Just peaceful, dreamless dark.
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A/N: Apologies if there are any inconsistencies within the chapter, this one was done very quickly and is quiet frankly rushed.
Uni first term exams and final projects are starting to be due, so either the next 2-3 chapters will be really short or they will be delayed till like end of Dec to start of Jan.
Powerstones are always welcome, and any suggestions/commentary will be seen and considered.
Also, have a nice day/night/evening or morning!