The emergency ward had never seen anything like this.
"Code Zero! I repeat, CODE ZERO!" a nurse screamed into the intercom, her voice trembling as two blood-drenched bodies were wheeled in.
The sliding doors swung open with a violent hiss, nearly knocking over a medic who dropped his clipboard the moment he saw the state of the patients.
Zayne's body was shredded with sword punctures. Deep holes in his back oozed blood, and his left calf was nearly split open. Yet he was still breathing, barely.
Lesslion was worse. Half his torso was mangled, bone visible through torn skin. One of his mechanical arms was missing entirely, the socket leaking mana.
The blue core on his other arm flickered violently, it was thanks to it that he could remain alive till this point.
"Mana-boosted trauma kit, now!" one of the lead surgeons shouted. Another mage-doctor slammed his palms onto Lesslion's chest, the craked ribs were piercing outwards from his thorax.
The doctor keeping is plams on his chest sent a controlled pulse of healing mana through his body to keep his heart going.
"His core's doing half the work. We need to stabilize it before it burns out."
Five doctors worked on Lesslion, performing surgeries most humans wouldn't survive. They used enchanted scalpels, mana thread to stitch nerve circuits, "He shouldn't be alive…" one of them whispered, amazed.
Meanwhile, Zayne was rushed into the next room. A healer with bright green markings along her forearms hovered her hands over his back wounds.
"The blades avoided the viatal and fatal points, such precision that guy must be an assassin to leave him in such state. " she muttered. "But the mana strain... damn, nearly fried his organs."
They pumped cooling liquid through his bloodstream to suppress mana overburn while emergency surgeries closed his wounds.
Hours passed like minutes.
By the time the chaos settled, both men had been cleaned, patched, and hooked to multiple machines humming with mana cores.
In a dim, sterile recovery room, Zayne lay flat on his back, eyes half-open, face pale. Lesslion was propped slightly up, his new arm socket bandaged, a faint blue glow still pulsing beneath the gauze.
Across from them, in the third bed, a stranger sat silently, reading a book.Zayne blinked weakly as he squinted his eyes, trying to figure out who the person was, "...Who the fuck are you?"
The man didn't look up and continued reading his book, but then he spoke. "You both snore like ogres."
Zayne was going to laugh, but soon a nurse came in from the door with plates of food for the stranger who was close to the door. She kept the food near him, he closed his book and kept it on the table and asked,
"So, how did you guys come here?"
"A long story, and here see this," Zayne picked and showed his card, the boy's body was bandaged and pipes pierced his body, Zayne was confused and asked
"So what about you, a long story too? "
The person laughed, smirking as they replied, "No, not at all, probably just a crash—short and simple, heh." Zayne questioned, "Crash?" Just as the boy was about to respond, a gust of wind blew through the open windows, sending the curtains fluttering wildly.
A man sat on a chair near Lesslion's bed, his face close, revealing a burnt scar across his head. He was Garfin Montana, dressed entirely in black, sitting there with an innocent expression. Then, he spoke.
"MIO, also known as Mystical Investigation Officer, Mr. Zayne Blackthorn... The Blackthorns were more powerful than you," he glanced at Zayne "Are you the son of Clintmen Blackthorn?"
"Umm... Garfin... Garfin Montana, huh, leader of the top Fifteenth guild and head of the Montanas, it's glad to meet you!"
Sighingly, Garfin replied to him, "I'm glad one of the Blackthorns knows about me, haha"
"You have quite a sense of humour, Mr. Garfin. And yes, I'm Clintmen's son, but that doesn't change the fact that you and your brother have committed such henio--"
Garfin rose from the chair, stepped back, and said, "Enough. Speak only when you have proof of my crimes. Besides, I'm here only for him."
Points his finger at Lesslion and then walks back and whispers in Lesslion's ears,
"I know you are awake."
Lesslion's eyes snapped open in shock, his heartbeat pounding visibly on the monitors. Severely injured and barely able to speak, he let out incoherent noises and trembled with fear.
Seeing this, Zayne said firmly, "Garfin... that's enough. You can't just barge into a room like this! Step back right now."
Garfin disappeared without a word as Zayne turned back. Suddenly reappearing, Garfin jabbed a finger at Zayne's cheek and snapped, "I don't like your tone. Besides, this is my hospital!" He declared, "The M&M Healing Nexus!"
A sudden realisation struck Zayne, and he blurted, "Even so, you still can't enter this room!" He vanished again and reappeared in front of the person sitting on the third bed, eating his food.
Leaning in close, he said, "Pretty eyes you got there!" His face was so near the boy's that the boy blinked in surprise, startled and scared by Garfin's sudden appearance.
Garfin stepped back and said, "Sorry, sorry. Don't mind us, Mr... Enjoy your food." Turning to Zayne and Lesslion, he added, "So, what about you two now, mainly you, Lesslion," while pointing a finger at him.
Zayne responded, "He can't talk right now. Are you blind?" Garfin retorted, "Even if you guys were killed here, no one would dare question me." Lesslion's heart rate spiked on the monitors.
Garfin continued, "His voice, low and relentless, rolled through the room: "I don't want to make enemies of the Blackthorns. They've saved my life more than once." He paused, each word a knife's twist. "But you…"
Lesslion lay pale and broken, trembling so violently his teeth chattered. When Garfin's glare drilled into him, he squeaked, "N-No…" Before he could finish, a sudden gust rattled the windows, and the heart-rate monitor's frantic beeps crescendoed into a single, dreadful tone: "Beeeeeep—"
The flatline stretched into impossible silence. Machines held their breath, the hallway lights dimmed, and every soul in the room froze. Zayne's face was an immovable mask; even the stranger on the bed stared at Garfin without blinking.
Then Garfin appeared in front of the stranger and spoke, "You saw what I did, your eye tracing my movements." With a slight pause, he continued, "Who are you?" The stranger on the bed spoke
"My name is Vrit."