Nightshift 44: M51-M60 Hallway
Sai changed quickly. Whether he was less emotionally stable that usual or not, he was far better off than he'd been the night before. He would perform the mission required of him tonight. It was nothing that should put anyone's lives at stake, and holing himself up would only decrease his ability to perform his duties later
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With an abrupt turn of the knob, Sechs opened the door wide to find the white-haired patient fearfully quivering on the spot as though awaiting something horrible to jump out and eat him. Oh for crying out loud... For a second Sechs felt the urge to give Kibitoshin heck for being such a wimp, just like how he'd snap at Elf and Zwölf for their cowardice. But what kept Sechs' tiny amount of patience secure was the fact that Kibitoshin didn't run away the night before (the twins would have scattered as soon as the mirror creature emerged) and he was actually a lot more useful than those dumb bunny girls. Sechs shoved down his annoyance with a heavy sigh and moved to let Kibitoshin in.
"Hey Kibito! Good to see you made it in one piece!" Sechs greeted with a hint of a curl on the corners of his lips. Without giving Kibitoshin a chance to reply, Sechs placed a hand on the back of Kibitoshin's shoulder and in a rugged fashion he then herded the nervous youth into the room.
"So did your little reunion with Trunks go alright?" the Replica asked once he had firmly closed the door behind him, he didn't want to risk giving some sick creature a chance to crawl into the room. Needing to keep the weight off his leg as much as possible, Sechs limped past Kibitoshin and heavily sat himself down on the edge of his bed.
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A fleeting look of concern crossed the Kaioshin's face before he sternly reminded himself that it didn't matter anymore, because he was here. All he had to do was work out how much energy it would take to fix him up and it would be okay. Now. How deeply had the glass penetra- ah, maybe he didn't need to think about that. The limp. All he needed to do was look at the limp for a diagnosis. Only, now Sechs was sitting do and he couldn't really tell. Oh, dear.
It was all very troubling, what with all of that calculation, and he'd never been very good at planning ahead. Fortunately Sechs was there to provide him with a welcome distraction.
"It went great!" he bubbled, clapping his hands together delightedly. All the ki energy in the world couldn't have given him that kind of glow. "I'm so glad you found him for me! I don't know what I would have done if Trunks had vanished, and, and... well, thank you so much!"
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Although... it did feel kinda good... Not as good as winning an epic battle of course, but helping out Kibitoshin was a victory nonetheless. It was the least he could do before he escaped this damn prison...
The minuscule smile on his lips faded as Sechs found himself struggling once again over what to say to Kibitoshin. Sechs' shoulders slumped into his habitual slouch as he awkwardly scratched at the back of his head. His face had better NOT be reddening up again or he'll be tempted to tear his own stupid skin right off his skull...
"Like I said before... No problem..." Sechs forced out in a mixture of a gruff cough and a murmur. "Uh, so... friends are that important to ya, huh?"
And with that stupid question Sechs proceeded to mentally stuffing his foot into his mouth.
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Kibitoshin managed to shut himself up again just in time to catch Sech's question, puzzling though it was. "Of course friends are important to me," he answered, bemused. Who didn't care about their friends? Then again Sechs always seemed so independent, like he didn't need anything in the world but his fists. But if even Vegeta couldn't go on without other people by his side, what chance did Sechs stand?
He rubbed the back of his neck with a self-conscious little laugh that came out a little more forced than he'd really intended. "I guess they're just extra important when you're as clumsy as I am and they look out for you. Just like you did last night." And there was no changing that, no matter how tough Sechs was. This time when he smiled it was every bit as warm as he'd hoped it would be. "I really appreciated it."
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Dammit Sechs, why do you have to be so stupid sometimes?! He thought by now after witnessing Armand's death or even Alita's emotional reactions over her friend Lou would have helped Sechs wrap his brain around what friendships were. He could do neutral truces with people like his Original or his roommate Will, but nothing close (except when combating an opponent which was the closest he'd get with anyone).
If what Kibitoshin just said wasn't enough to fluster the aloof Replica, the warm smile he wore only made the situation worse! Ah crap! He wasn't used to having someone being so nice to him! Sechs wasn't sure whether to feel disgusted or uplifted by the situation. He quickly turned his head away from his thankful ally. "Well uh..." Sechs mumbled as his frown became mixed with confusion. "...I'm glad you didn't run off last night. Some people I know would have been outta there pretty quick." Sechs then quickly added with a glance over his shoulder, "uh, not that I needed anybody at the time but, y'know..."
Unable to stand another moment of this uncomfortable topic, Sechs' brain scrambled to come up with something to hopefully distract Kibitoshin from his rather embarrassing reply there.
"Um... Hey! I wanna have a look at this 'ki' power you were telling me about before." Sechs turned back to face Kibitoshin and lifted his braced arm. "Here, let's start with my sprained wrist first, it's been a pain in the ass for days!"
After a few clumsy fumbles, Sechs undid the wrist brace with his left hand and teeth. Once freed from the restrictive splint, the Replica unceremoniously tossed it away into the corner of the room. Before he lifted his sprained arm for Kibitoshin to do whatever this 'ki' thing would do, Sechs paused at the sight of his limb. Holy crap... Compared to his left arm, the injured wrist was considerably swollen and tinted by residual bruises. What a weird reaction... Hopefully Kibitoshin could fix it. Sechs really missed using his right hand without any of that stupid pain...
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To what was probably Sech's dismay, his little admission only brightened Kibitoshin's smile all the more. It felt good to be needed- no, it felt great! And that it was by Sechs, well, that just made it worth all the more. So pleased was he that the Kaioshin didn't even notice the other's discomfort, or that he was being every-so-subtly distracted.
"Oh, right!" Kibitoshin laughed again, knocking himself gently in the forehead with his fist in remonstration and putting down his torch to free up his hands. "I totally forgot! Alright, lemme take a look at that "
Oh, my. From the forearm up Sech's arm looked perfectly normal, but down from that the wrist was swollen and a patchy plum purple that looked as though it must have hurt a lot. Kibitoshin was sure to be careful as he took ahold of it, resting it lightly in the palm of one hand and laying his other hand over the top. If he'd had it for days now the bruises and swelling were probably just superficial. Well, hopefully. With an encouraging nod he bit his lip and focused his energy.
At first there was nothing. Then suddenly he felt his hands warm as the familiar golden glow begin to envelop his hands and Sech's wrist and muscle and sinew began to re-weave itself under his touch. But along with it came that creeping fog in his brain and that tiredness in his body. The second he thought he might be done he dropped Sech's hand and sank back onto the bed, clutching his head.
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Disgruntled by Kibitoshin's bubbly glee over Sechs' (in his opinion, humiliating) words, Sechs scowled as he waited for the "ki" thing to start kicking in. When nothing seemed to happen, he was just about to angrily burst Kibitoshin's bubble when their hands suddenly became enveloped in a golden aura. At that moment any nasty words that were about to slip out of Sechs' mouth were instantly evaporated by the glow.
As he watched the impossible happen right before his widening eyes, the stunned Replica lost total awareness of how much his jaw was hanging down or how stupefied he looked. No way... He had his body fixed and tuned up many times before, but this was unlike any sort of "repair" he had ever witnessed. With his amber eyes fixated on the glow surrounding his wrist and Kibitoshin's hands, Sechs could make out flesh and sinew shifting under his skin. The awful swelling that had taken over his wrist gradually deflated while the unsightly bruising grew faint.
Having expected more horrendous pain from the healing, Sechs was surprised to feel otherwise. It was the strangest sensation the former android had ever experienced before... He had no words for it. He could only describe it as warm and well... pleasant? Almost like his entire wrist was being bathed in a stream of genial sunbeams. Wait... that can't be right... Back at the Scrapyard, the sun was almost always harsh when it blazed through the barren and polluted ozone that accompanied Tiphares above. Back then Sechs was a tad too busy hunting down fellow Replicas to just sit and soak up sunrays. So where did that image come from then...?
Sechs had been gawking at his wrist so intently that for a moment he didn't notice Kibitoshin's hands wearily withdraw. The Replica carefully lifted his hand up to his face but was still too wary to try flexing his fingers just yet. "Whoa! I don't believe it! That ki power of yours..." Yet his astonished words trailed off once he saw Kibitoshin slumped over on the bed. Blinking, Sechs slightly tilted his head to the side and muttered in a confused tone, "Uh... Kibito?"
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Was it just him, or was the ceiling spinning? It was kind of hard to tell, what with all those spots in the way. And it was almost impossible to hear what Sechs was saying over the sound of his own breathing, deep and laboured as though he'd spent the last twenty seconds running for his life instead of holding someone's hand.
Healing Sechs shouldn't have taken that much energy, just like trying to fix his stab wound on his first night should've have taken that much energy. What Kibitoshin could previously have passed off as a blip was suddenly a genuine disadvantage and suddenly the Institute was a much, much darker place. If he couldn't heal himself and he got injured, or if someone else got injured, or if...
He had to try and clear his head. "I'm fine. Really," he mumbled distantly, rubbing at the dim ache settling into his forehead. "I... I just need a few moments."
After a pause, he dared to lift his head again. The room lurched, but at least he didn't feel like he'd been punched in the gut anymore. Sech's wrist didn't look like overripe fruit either, and that was always a good thing, right? He tried to smile; so long as he didn't move too much he was okay. "Did it work? Does it still hurt?" he asked, breathless but otherwise still there.
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What was going on? Kibitoshin was all bubbly and happy just a moment ago... Now he looked like he just went through a nasty fainting spell! What happened? Wait... Didn't he mention that ki power had to do with mental and physical energy...?
Before Sechs could ponder more on Kibitoshin's tired state, his attention was brought back to his wrist. "Oh! Right! Let me try it out..."
Expecting the usual stiff and painful sensations to shoot up from his fingers and wrist, much relief came to the Replica when his hand easily closed into a fist with no trouble at all. His right wrist was finally fixed... no, healed! And with no technology or nanomachines present! The stupid brace that restrained his arm for the past few days couldn't hold a candle to such a recovery!
With a smile that grew larger with every moment, Sechs appraised his hand from all sides and painlessly flexed and bent his fingers. This was awesome! He could finally fight and wield his axe way better now! No more dumb brace or pain!
"AH HAH! Yeah! My hand's back to normal! Your ki power really worked!" Sechs exclaimed as he sportively plowed his right fist into the palm of his left hand. Sechs was so pleased to regain the full use of his wrist that he already forgot how drained out Kibitoshin was. He could barely hold his excitement--
"C'mere you!" Sechs cheered before he reached over with his repaired arm to pull Kibitoshin into a playful (yet not terribly gentle) headlock. With a gruff chuckle he then gave Kibitoshin's head a rough noogie. "You're awesome, man!"
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The breath held uncomfortably in Kibitoshin's chest as he watched Sechs flex and rotate his wrist and hand in the manner, suddenly feeling at once like an expectant father and a post-op surgeon. He'd never prayed much simply because he wasn't entirely sure who he would pray to, but... Please let it have worked. Please.
Before he had a chance to start wringing his hands, though, he could see the smile spreading across his 'patient's' face. Relief! Immediately he let out a long, deep sigh and let himself smile back again, even in spite of the fuzzy ache building in the back of his head. "That's great!" he chipped in, clapping his hands together. "I was really worried for a minute there, I-"
But what 'he' was had been lost to the air, because suddenly Sech's brand new arm was around his neck and dragging him down into a headlock. Well, he thought dizzily as the bedroom rushed past him, at least I did a good job on it... Well, at least Sechs was happy, even if the room was spinning on its side again for him.
Not that he was going to take it lying down, playful or not, of course! He was going to show that he could take a little rough-housing and then some!
"H-hey!" a little voice, muffled yet distinctly plaintive, called from somewhere around Sech's middle. "B-be careful! I bruise easy, like a peach!"
... damn it.
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To what was likely to be Kibitoshin's relief, Sechs just barely heard his muffled cry. Lifting his healed fist off of Kibitoshin's skull, the Replica gave out an amused chortle. "Aww! Does Peachy Kibby bruise easily?" Sechs teased with a devious smile. Somewhat loosening his hold on Kibitoshin, the pleased android fondly ruffled the healer's white hair. "Heh! Alright then! If you insist!"
Yet just before he released the easily-bruised Kibitoshin from his headlock, the Replica caught sight of something poking out from the (now messy) curtain of white hair. Upon closer inspection, he discovered a rather pointy ear. "Huh? Wait a second... What's up with your ears?" Sechs blurted out without much consideration towards his grappled comrade. Then on a silly impulse the Replica mischievously gave the unusually shaped ear a few flicks with his finger.
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Sechs let go in time to save Kibitoshin the trouble of trying to get him off himself- an idea which had been doomed to end in failure from conception, admittedly, but it might have been worth a shot. Straight after Sechs had let him go he suddenly flicked at his ears, playfully but just hard enough to justify the Kaioshin putting on a wounded look.
"They're pointed. What's so weird about that?" he explained reproachfully, smacking Sech's hand away like a sulky kitten swatting at a fly. What little genuine hurt there was in Kibitoshin's voice soon trailed away, though, and he gave a wistful sigh as he parted the tangled mass of hair out of his face. "They used to be bigger, though. Before I got here."
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The soft smack on his hand may have gotten Sechs to withdraw from tormenting Kibitoshin's ears, but it only added to the impish Replica's amusement. He shook his head with a chortle. Oh man, this guy was such a softy! It was actually more funny than annoying to Sechs and that was a first!
"I was just teasing, that's all!" Sechs chuckled as he released Kibitoshin from the playful stranglehold. Once his arm wasn't around the healer's neck anymore, Sechs was right back to observing and testing his newly cured hand.
"So you were different before you ended up here too, huh?" he asked as a hint of seriousness returned to his face. "Were you some sort of cyborg before?"
Yeah, a cyborg with healing powers without the use of technology and big pointy ears. The idea was kinda cute but just plain ridiculous, especially in a grungy place like the Scrapyard! The very image that accompanied that thought nearly caused Sechs to burst out into more gruff laughter. He gave out a little guttural snicker instead.
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Sweeping the rest of his hair out of his eyes, Kibitoshin managed a weak smile. Sechs was only kidding. He knew that. He just wished he wasn't so rough about it.
"Is that what you used to be? I was different, but I wasn't a cyborg," he said, tilting his head. Cyborgs were like androids, weren't they? Well, he'd seen and heard enough of those in his lifetime.
But just how was he supposed to explain what he was before? I'm the guardian of the universe. Oh, and I used to be purple. It was easy enough when he'd told Dory, since she'd just seemed happy enough to accept whatever he said, but Sechs, ah, probably wasn't going to let him off so lightly.
... oh, well. Here went nothing. Hopefully Sechs wasn't the curious type. "I was- well, am- a Kaioshin. I didn't look much different to how I do now, other than the ear-" He broke off suddenly, blinking but looking more bemused than hurt at being interrupted. Was... Sechs laughing? "Hey. What's so funny about that?"
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"Yeah, I was a battle android before I got dragged here. Had the Fizziroy body, one of the most powerful cyborg models in the universe..." the Replica's voice trailed off as he wistfully gazed up at the ceiling. Geeze, he was never going to get used to losing his original self! After a moment he brought his gaze back down and added, "I was so much more powerful too! This damn place would have been a smoldering pile of rubble if I wasn't taken out of my former body..."
Sechs listened to Kibitoshin's description of his past self with a hint of skepticism in his face. Kaioshin, huh? Never heard of that... Then his brief moment of suspicion evaporated from Kibitoshin's question. "N-Nothin'" Sechs replied with a barely repressed smirk. Heh heh, big ears...
Dragging his train of thought back to serious matters, Sechs' teasing smile shifted into a brooding frown. So Kibitoshin wasn't a cyborg before ending up here. With all the pieces of evidence being shoved into his face since he ended up here, Sechs knew at this point that it was useless to deny it all anymore. He wanted to believe that everyone was from the same place as he was, then it would have meant he wasn't too far away from his origins. It made the concept of escape feel close within his reach. Yet if there were people from other eras, planets and even dimensions...
Not to mention the icy power that the mysterious girl Evangeline displayed that one night, or Teisel's question about what "species" Sechs was... Along with all these clues and Kibitoshin's uncanny healing power, the institute's big puzzle was finally starting to take shape before him...
The Replica could practically feel his heart sink down all the way to his stomach. So Sechs was really, really far from the Scrapyard then. Damn it all... Yet something in the back of his mind felt that there must have been something good to gain from all this, but he just couldn't get his finger on it...
No longer skeptical towards Kibitoshin, Sechs instead held a glint of curiosity in his eyes. "So uh, what's a Kaioshin?"
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Wait, he was a battle android?! 'Cyborg' had been nice and ambiguous. Actually being an android, though... that was almost too close to home for his liking. But, even with all of his hang-ups and fears, he honestly didn't want to believe that Sechs was anything close to Gero's creations. Even #18 had turned out to have a soft side under the sociopathy- maybe Sechs was more like that than a bloodthirsty killer. Yes. That was how he wanted to think of him.
Kibitoshin smiled at Sech's answer, though not for any reason the android would have understood; even if it was horrible for both of them, seeing that it affected Sechs too made him just that little bit closer to the #18 side of things. So much so that he didn't even noticed that he was still smirking like a recalcitrant schoolboy hiding a slingshot under his desk lid. "The whole universe? Wow. That's... that's some body! I can see how that would come in handy here. Though, thinking about it, I could probably have done the same..."
Not that he'd have wanted to, of course. Landel had to be taken out, that was a given, but leveling the Institute would have been an appalling step to take. If there were people still inside, or if he misjudged it and used too much or too little power, or if... ah, it didn't bear thinking about! So much could go wrong!
All thoughts were soon redirected back to the conversation, however, as the question he had been dreading suddenly materialised. Oh, no... "A Kaioshin's... well, it's a type of spirit being," he began cautiously. "We live in heav... no, no... we live on another plane of existence. Our job is to make sure everything in the universe runs smoothly. Kind of like... like cosmic policemen."
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