"Easy," Valeria said at once when she saw the tension ripple through his body again. "It's been less than two hours."
Leon only clenched his teeth harder, breathing heavily as fresh waves of itching and burning rolled through him, as if something were crawling beneath his skin. Sweat ran down his forehead, which he wiped away with a trembling hand.
"T-this…" he growled through gritted teeth. "What's wrong with me…? Why does everything itch… everywhere…?"
Valeria didn't answer immediately. She studied him calmly, the way someone who had seen this many times before would, then spoke in a measured, almost gentle tone.
"During the fight, you sustained an entire catalogue of injuries. Burns. Micro-tears in your muscles. Strained fibers. Overloaded joints. Minor ruptures in blood vessels," she listed without haste. "If you were an ordinary human from before the apocalypse… those injuries, especially the burns to your legs, would have meant death, or at best amputation."
