CHAPTER — CUT WHAT HURTS
Raiyo Zarake had spent most of his life learning how to cut people correctly.
Apparently this qualified him for medicine.
He objected.
"I'm not a doctor."
Aoikishi did not look up from Veydras.
"Neither am I."
Raiyo stared at him.
"You are currently inside someone's rib cage."
Aoikishi's hand remained phased halfway through Veydras's chest.
"That is an observation."
"It is also concerning."
"Hold this."
Aoikishi handed Raiyo a glowing line of damaged energy.
Raiyo caught it automatically.
Then looked at what he was holding.
"What the hell is this?"
"His left intercostal energy path."
Raiyo looked at Veydras.
Veydras lay unconscious.
Raiyo looked back at Aoikishi.
"You handed me part of his nervous system."
"Energy system."
"That is not better."
Across the room, Noctis opened one eye.
"No."
His voice was barely audible.
"It is marginally worse."
Aoikishi pointed at Noctis.
"See? He's awake."
Noctis closed his eye again.
"I regret it."
Raiyo looked around the room.
Caelia was asleep beneath three stabilization fields.
Ilyon had both legs now.
Thessa was conscious but silent.
Eris was behind a partition.
Yamiya sat beside Veydras's bed with her notebook closed in her lap.
Nyxus stood by the door.
Eating.
Raiyo pointed at him.
"Why is he here?"
Nyxus answered immediately.
"Emotional support."
"For who?"
Nyxus took another bite.
"Me."
Aoikishi snapped his fingers.
"Raiyo."
Raiyo looked back.
Aoikishi said, "Your Micro-cut already severs neural transmission."
Raiyo nodded.
"So?"
"So stop thinking like a duelist."
Aoikishi pulled his hand from Veydras's chest.
A damaged line of light came with it.
"An injury is not one thing."
Aoikishi held the line between two fingers.
"It is tissue damage."
"Signal."
"Blood loss."
"Energy loss."
"Inflammation."
"Pain."
"Shock."
"Secondary failure."
Aoikishi looked at Raiyo.
"You do not need to regenerate all of those."
Raiyo understood.
His expression changed.
"You want me to separate them."
Aoikishi smiled.
"Now you're being useful."
Kaosu entered through the doorway.
He had apparently recovered enough to be irritating.
Kaosu said, "That's new."
Raiyo did not turn.
"You're alive."
Kaosu leaned against the wall.
"Disappointed?"
Raiyo answered, "Surprised."
Kaosu smirked.
There.
Not normal.
But closer.
Aoikishi gestured toward Veydras.
"Pain first."
Raiyo drew one blade.
Yamiya stood.
Raiyo noticed.
"I'm not stabbing him."
Yamiya replied, "Your reassurance needs work."
Raiyo placed the flat of the blade near Veydras's side.
Aoikishi pointed.
"Pain is information."
Raiyo waited.
Aoikishi continued.
"Do not cut all of it."
"Why?"
"Because then he wakes up, thinks he is fine, stands, and his spine votes against him."
Nyxus raised his hand.
"Can spines vote?"
Yamiya answered without looking at him.
"Not yours."
Nyxus nodded.
"Fair."
Aoikishi traced two lines in the air.
"The nociceptive signal tells the brain something is damaged."
Raiyo followed.
"The same signal can contribute to involuntary guarding, motor shutdown, and shock when the damage becomes extreme."
Aoikishi tapped one line.
"Keep the warning."
Then the other.
"Sever its authority to shut down everything else."
Raiyo's eyes narrowed.
"That precise?"
Aoikishi said, "You brag enough for someone who claims to be precise."
Kaosu smiled.
Raiyo glanced at him.
"Enjoy it. He'll insult you next."
Aoikishi said, "He's right."
Kaosu stopped smiling.
Raiyo's blade moved.
Not through flesh.
Through relation.
A silver line passed over Veydras's ribs.
Something disconnected.
Veydras's entire body loosened.
His hand unclenched.
His breathing remained painful.
But it stopped fighting itself.
Yamiya looked down.
"He still feels it?"
Raiyo nodded.
"He just doesn't have to obey it."
Veydras opened one eye.
Everyone froze.
Veydras stared at the ceiling.
Then at Raiyo.
"You."
Raiyo waited.
Veydras whispered, "I hate you less."
Raiyo sheathed the sword.
"I'm exceptionally talented."
Kaosu said, "At being hated?"
Raiyo finally looked at him.
"You'd know more about competition in that category."
Kaosu opened his mouth.
Aoikishi pointed toward Noctis.
"Next patient."
Noctis opened both eyes.
"No."
Raiyo walked over.
Noctis tried to sit.
Failed.
Raiyo looked down at him.
"You're making this easier."
Noctis said, "I have watched you disable a man's nervous system for entertainment."
Kaosu called from the wall.
"It was me."
Noctis looked toward him.
"I know."
Kaosu frowned.
"Why did that sound insulting?"
Noctis looked back at Raiyo.
"Because it was."
Raiyo almost smiled.
Aoikishi showed him the next cut.
The feedback from Noctis's abandoned domain was still reaching him in microscopic pulses.
Infinite Ledger no longer required active maintenance.
But its collapse still remembered who had authored it.
Every fracture in its laws sent a receipt through Noctis's body.
Raiyo studied the connection.
"You want this severed?"
Noctis answered before Aoikishi could.
"Not completely."
Raiyo looked at him.
Noctis explained.
"If the authorship relationship disappears entirely, the remaining domain may resolve its pending entries at once."
Raiyo's expression flattened.
"Meaning?"
Noctis answered, "Discordia."
Raiyo paused.
"Right."
He adjusted the blade.
Aoikishi pointed to a thinner strand.
"Cut the physical feedback."
Raiyo followed it.
"Leave the legal ownership."
Noctis glanced toward Aoikishi.
"You understand ledger-domain architecture."
Aoikishi shrugged.
"I read."
Noctis watched him.
"That was not an answer."
Aoikishi smiled.
"I read aggressively."
The Micro-cut fell.
Noctis gasped.
Then went completely still.
Raiyo waited.
Noctis breathed.
Once.
Twice.
His shoulders lowered.
The gold leaking from his nose stopped.
Noctis looked at Raiyo.
"That was…"
Raiyo waited.
Noctis sighed.
"Effective."
Kaosu pushed away from the wall.
"Oh, he's never shutting up now."
Raiyo looked at Kaosu.
"I had not planned to."
The next hours changed Raiyo's swordsmanship.
Not completely.
He was still Raiyo.
He still looked far happier cutting a hostile object than touching a wound.
But the principles accumulated.
Micro-cut: Quiet Signal.
Pain remained.
Shock lost jurisdiction.
Micro-cut: Closed Distance.
Raiyo did not stitch torn tissue.
He removed the microscopic distance keeping viable edges apart.
Aoikishi or the body handled the rest.
Micro-cut: Dead Current.
When damaged divine channels leaked power into healthy tissue, Raiyo severed the leak from circulation.
He did not give people more energy.
He stopped them from losing what remained.
By the fourth patient, his movements changed.
Smaller.
Cleaner.
He stopped looking like a swordsman trying not to kill someone.
He started looking like someone who understood that surgery and murder could share tools while disagreeing completely about the intended ending.
Then he reached Eris.
And everything stopped.
She sat upright now.
Barely.
Aoikishi had repaired enough of her spine for that.
Her right shoulder was wrapped in white fabric.
There was nothing beneath it.
Raiyo stood beside the bed.
He did not draw a sword.
Eris noticed.
"Go ahead."
Raiyo's hand remained at his side.
"I don't know what to cut."
Eris looked away.
"Neither did he."
Aoikishi stepped closer.
Eris's face tightened.
"Did you find anything?"
Aoikishi did not answer immediately.
That was answer enough.
Eris closed her eye.
Aoikishi sat across from her.
"I repaired the fractures."
Eris said nothing.
"The nerve damage is stable."
Nothing.
"Your ribs will heal."
Nothing.
"Your left hand should recover almost entirely."
Eris finally looked at him.
"And the right?"
Aoikishi looked at the empty space beside her.
He had tried anatomy first.
There had been no arm.
He had tried history.
The past acknowledged that Eris once possessed one, but the relation could not be carried forward.
He had tried War.
War recognized Eris Mallicia.
It recognized her as a combatant.
It did not recognize a right arm as something currently belonging to that combatant.
He had tried instinct.
Her body remembered reaching.
It could not remember what reaching with that side meant.
Aoikishi had even constructed a temporary limb.
Eris could see it.
She could feel pressure where it connected.
But when he told her to move it, her nervous system treated the object like somebody else's weapon strapped to her shoulder.
Aoikishi said, "Discordia did not amputate it."
Eris's mouth twitched.
"I know."
"She attacked the relationship."
"I know."
Aoikishi continued anyway.
"The statement that your right arm belongs to Eris Mallicia no longer resolves correctly."
Raiyo's eyes narrowed.
Aoikishi looked toward him.
"There is no damaged connection for you to repair."
Raiyo understood.
"Because there is no connection."
Aoikishi nodded.
Eris laughed.
Once.
It sounded awful.
"I told you."
Aoikishi looked back at her.
"I can build you equipment."
Eris's expression sharpened.
"I don't want equipment."
"It could respond to your left-side neural commands."
"I said no."
Aoikishi stopped.
Eris's voice shook.
"I spent that entire fight learning how to use a body she kept breaking."
Her breathing shortened.
"Every time I learned…"
Eris swallowed.
"…she found something else."
Nobody interrupted.
Eris looked at the place her right arm should have been.
"She wanted me to stop being something that could fight."
Her remaining hand closed.
"She won."
Raiyo said, "You survived."
Eris looked at him immediately.
"Do not."
Raiyo went quiet.
Eris's eye filled.
"Do not make that into victory."
Raiyo lowered his head.
"All right."
Eris looked toward Aoikishi.
"When I can walk…"
Her voice nearly failed.
She forced it through.
"…I'm done."
Aoikishi asked, "With combat?"
"Yes."
Aoikishi nodded.
"Okay."
Eris blinked.
"That's it?"
"Yes."
"You're not going to tell me I'm needed?"
"No."
"That War needs me?"
"No."
"That I'll regret it?"
Aoikishi leaned back.
"You have had enough people deciding what your body is for."
Eris stared at him.
Aoikishi said, "If you never fight again, that decision is yours."
Something in Eris's face broke.
Not violently.
She lowered her head.
Her left hand covered her mouth.
Raiyo quietly stepped away.
So did Aoikishi.
Nobody called the tears weakness.
Outside the partition, Veydras was awake.
He had heard enough.
He looked toward his own hands.
Aoikishi stepped into the room.
Veydras rasped, "Can she recover?"
Aoikishi answered honestly.
"Some of her."
Veydras looked toward the partition.
"That is a cruel sentence."
Aoikishi pulled a chair beside his bed.
"Yes."
Veydras looked at him.
"You're not very comforting."
Aoikishi sat.
"I have other qualities."
"Name one."
Aoikishi smiled.
"Tomorrow I'm teaching you not to destroy furniture when you wake up."
Veydras closed his eye.
"I preferred you as a rumor."
Aoikishi leaned back.
"You'll get over it."
Veydras's mouth shifted.
Barely.
"We'll see."