Oh, hell. They were a step too slow.

The faint wisps of rosy cloud overhead, filaments of ice and little more, sublimated as the creeping purple of night was washed away by the furious blaze of a second sun, brought forth by the dying gasps of their titanic foe. Even through the cold of the early night air, even through the steel that hid the awestruck horror writ large across his features, Rudolf's skin seemed to burn beneath the wave of heat descending from overhead—fiercest, naturally, around the eyes.¹ Through his visor, casting his gaze up revealed naught but a field of heat and light. An apocalypse. The thousand scars upon the earth, said to be the source of each new lake in southern Edren— the ace in the hole for any Behemoth that judged themselves wroth: Comet.

Comet was falling upon them, and they had but seconds to act. Rudolf's mind raced, even as he dimly felt the winds whip into a spiral around them, beckoned by Izayoi's blade— slowly. Too slowly. Her gambit was obvious enough— shatter the stone as it fell, and pray pebbles falling upon you were more manageable than a boulder. As good an idea as any under the circumstances, but her labored breathing told the tale— even one of her hidden hews couldn't possibly be mustered at full strength. Not without help. Not without more time. They needed more, and in a hurry!

He planted the cursed sword into the earth, barely coaxing the frozen soil apart enough for it to stand and watch. Useless. Useless! Just thinking about it made him want to scream— having felt the one time its shell seemed to lift and allow it to strike true, he would almost wager that godsent edge against even this falling calamity. But he had grown no closer to breaking it, even after all this time— the damn thing was little more than a leaden weight. The Crane Wings, too, were of no help— fine for dispatching problems of flesh and bone up to a point, but he had mastered no part of them so mighty as to not snap in two the moment he brought them to bear against the wrath of the heavens.

What, then. Svalinn? Could the shield hold, or had he been too liberal with his employment of the profaned flames already?

A snarl on his lips, he held a hand aloft, as if his palm could bear the impact for this little village, before a cold voice clicked a tongue that may well have been his own. A bit callow, it implied, thinking it could ever be so straightforward at this point in his life.

It's a moot point anyway, the explanation came quick, as if each concept had been said ahead of time and was being stamped upon his mind like moving type.² The rebound would be liable to kill us if it shatters. If it holds, the surrounding landscape still won't be so lucky as the eight meters you might save.

The demon was right— Even to guarantee the safety of the Warriors, he couldn't necessarily muster the same for the militia. And then, maybe a mile or two a way if they were lucky in this terrain, the civilians, the birds, and Goug. They'd be likely clear of the crater itself, but the heat? The light? The wall of force, a hundred of Dhinas's hammers, sweeping in one long thunderclap across the ice? There was no chance.

He couldn't rely on a shield. He didn't have one big enough, even if it could block the sun. No weapons, no shield, not even the strongest of the dark magic his pact granted him. What was left that he could do? Even his materia was spent, with one torn apart at the seams for all the power it could muster, and the other inert... until...

The winds' velocity redoubled as Miina lent her innate talent to the vortex, desperately trying to bring it up to speed, to turn their dervish into a proper maelstrom. They began to howl. The others who still could were moving about. If he couldn't do anything about it, he had to at least stack the deck for those who could. It was the only way, right? This was the best course of action he had available. Right?

Couple things. First, remember where we are for a moment. The place they make these things by the bushel. Second, since I've already touched essences with it³, I'm not gonna need those extra seconds to figure out your favorite magic bean the way I did with Shield, either, so if that's what's stopping you—

The dull purple of the spent orb seemed to shine in his hands, as if basking in the fire that fell upon the township. He hadn't realized he had grabbed it from the pouch, but instead glanced to the shock of blond a little off to the side, astride his chocobo with journal in hand.

”I did tell you that you had good instincts, after all.”

A pulse of aether, as the purple glow ringed itself with a stark blaze of black, furious ink burning towards the stone's core. Rudolf focused his will upward, into catching, into pushing away and back into the falling star, as if bearing and deadening its weight wholesale. In hasted time, the purple-black sparks danced high above once more, even as the steam began to leak through the twin slits of his visor as heat burned at the ground below—

Then there's no time to waste. The only time any of us have... is what I buy, here and now!

And as one, they coalesced beneath the epicenter of the blaze, and the comet seemed to hang in the air, like so many of its smaller preludes. If this would hold, for even one crucial second, there was a chance that they could arrest its momentum or shatter it wholesale— and at least take this down from a calamity to a disaster!

---

---

• _{1. Your fault, not mine.}
• _{2. Think of it kind of like I have no unnecessary downtime that would be filled by breathing, or cadence modulation, or some other corporeal stuff of that nature. You're getting me in soundbytes. And? You're getting them quick. It's like an orchestra. Only I'm every instrument.}
• _{3. No homo. We didn't make eye contact, he and I— but I'm still going to miss him. He's been here from the start, taken part in every battle with us. For my vessel, it's good to think of it as a replaceable, compressed aether tool. Millions in circulation like it. But for me— A compressed aether friend, a warm, comforting presence just a little close to the sacrum. Only he and I have been on this ride the whole way through, pinch hit for this idiot time after time. Go now, warrior. Go into the great welcoming Dark. I'll take it from here.}

---

Esben had already turned his Chocobo around and started riding back towards the remainder of the militia before Ramuh was even finished with his attack. He swayed in his saddle for a moment as the ancient sage's form dissipated back into free æther, straightening and cursing under his breath as he saw the Blight-stricken Behemoth's final attempt to rain destruction upon them. It was a shame he didn't have the reserves of Cid, able to summon the Eidolons in with seemingly such little trouble as they unleashed their primal energies upon their foes...

Trying to do call upon him or Leviathan again so soon would almost certainly spell his own doom. Something unacceptable over such a comparitively-inconsequential matter as the Kirins were currently dealing with, compared to the greater scope of the mission. Luckily for him, he didn't always have to rely just on his own abilities, and his own strength. He slipped out of his Chocobo's saddle as it skidded to a stop near where the militia was just starting to break and run for cover, now that the Blight beasts had stopped their attack and a giant rock was falling from the heavens.

He knelt next to Éliane as Miina got up to go help Izayoi. At least the little Mystrel had worked quickly, she didn't seem to be quite so at risk of death as she'd looked just after being shot, which left him free to search through her pockets. "Where do you keep them...aha!" His hands came free, one holding a small orange-red orb, the other holding one steely grey. Fire and wind materia. "Sorry, Elly, need to borrow these—Sven!"

The Chocobo perked up, trotting over at hearing its name called. "Pull her a little out of the way, would you? Gently. She's already hurt."

He had to hope the Chocobo understood what he meant, as it bent its great beaked head down towards her. He ran out quickly, spotting Chisato where she had landed, and wordlessly came to join Izayoi and Miina. He could already feel the pair of materia growing warm in his hands, starting to release their æther as he pressed his will in upon them. The swirling winds above Izayoi and Miina sped up instantly, as the air overhead started to grow quite uncomfortably warm as the comet started to slow as it encountered Rudolf's gravitic manipulations.

---

The Behemoth was dead- or dying. Unfortunately for them, that didn't mean they were done. Far from it. As if to spite them, the monster was using its literal dying breath to summon down a comet that would devastate the local area if they didn't do something about it. Izayoi was the first to come up with a solution- a very Kirin solution. Hit it until it broke. She conjured her hurricane, bolstered by materia and Miina's control over the aether in the air. Esben joined in with some of Eliane's materia, and Galahad couldn't think of anything else but to do the same as well. He sprinted over to their small group and began pressing his will into his materia as well, for all the good it would do.

"I hope this works," Galahad grunted, "Otherwise this would be an odd position to die in."

He lifted his hands and empowered both his lightning and heal materia- he wasn't sure what good the heal would do, but more aether in the air for Miina to manipulate and use as she needed was a good thing right?

I can't dodge from this range---

All I can manage in the scant moments before the fist's impact is to yank my sword free from the blighted thing's body and try to use it as a brace to avoid as much damage as I can. If I become too injured, I can't assist in completing our mission, after all. It's the only thing that I can do.

I don't feel anything much, immediately. But I see the world twisting and running together around me, rushing past as the blow takes me off my feet. Then I ca register it.

The throbbing sensation shooting up through my whole body, assaulting my nerve endings.

The impact explodes through my back.

All the air leaves my lungs as I hit the ground, and my vision turns white for a few moments.

---Can I stand? Can I move? Before anything else, these questions play in my head.

If I can, then that means I can still help. Any other sensations, any pain, is secondary.

The Behemoth has refused to let go of life quietly and is seeking to take us with it, after all.

So I need to move. I need to force myself back onto my feet.

I can tell what's happening easily enough. I don't even need to listen properly.

I can move my right arm, and since that's holding my katana, that means I can still be of use.

I'll pour as much power as I have left into the blade, and release it. That should help with the countermeasure to the falling star over our heads.

I know I'm unsteady. I know that every motion is I make is punctuated by shaking. I'm certainly in no shape for more conventional fighting, even if I'm not sure how much injury I've actually sustained. But that doesn't matter.

I can do this much.

I raise my sword skyward---

To channel and control the effects of multiple separate materia all at the same time would have been a tall order for even a practiced, formally-trained mage. Gravity strained to slow the meteor down, even as Miina began to centralize and combine the effects of the various materia the Kirins were channeling. Multiple layers of wind and fire combined with time and lightning, concentrating into Izayoi's hurricane blade. With flame and levin added to the mix, the vortex began to combust into flame, Izayoi gritting her teeth as she struggled to control the stack of spells alongside Miina.

"All is ready!" Izayoi bellowed above the roar of her blade, blood spurting from her nose as she sustained damage from the strain of controlling so much aether. "Clear out of the way, now! I cannot promise there will not be backlash! With me, Miina!"

The cyclonic pyronado reached its zenith, and Izayoi screamed in pain as she struggled to swing the titanic strike, collapsing the moment the blow was loosed. With her greater control over the spellwork, Miina suffered even greater damage, the aftershock of channeling so much aether hitting her nerves with the force of the very hurricane she helped loose, causing her to seize up in agony and writhe on the ground.

Chisato's explosive blade strike surged up to meet the firey hurricane at the very apex of the strike, providing the last spark needed before it all rose up to collide head-on with the Behemoth's Comet.



The meteor shattered. Not merely into smaller, still deadly rocks. But into a shower of pebbles that came raining down over what remained of the village they'd just saved, the militia and fleeing villagers looking skyward in awe at the miracle that had just saved their town, thought to be doomed only moments ago. As the last of the party collapsed from the wounds and aetheric strain they'd all collectively suffered in fighting off the horde and the Behemoth, Goug's panicked voice could be heard as he approached on chocobo-back.

"Och, don't just stand there, ye kupo muppets! Help them! Get them tae a bed, a kupoing healer, whatever local quack ye bumpkins have out in these sticks! Move, kupo, move!"

___

Two days later, when next they came to, the Kirins would find themselves on the mend, laid up in the village headman's home. None of them were fully healed as of yet, being treated solely with herbs, poultices, and the local healer's low-grade Cure materia. But at the very least, they were treated to a hero's welcome and any amount of hospitality the desperately grateful villagers could give. It would be some days yet before they were well enough to move on further into the Skaellan heartland.

It was, in regards, the single most impressive feat of control Miina had ever pulled off, even with Izayoi's initial direction. The sheer force involved was far beyond what she could muster herself through any natural means, and the number of different effects weaved in... splitting her concentration thrice, four times over, more, attention flitting from one strain of aether to another...

Had this worked perfectly, she'd have probably started chewing out Galahad for adding healing energy to the mix. Yes, it wasn't focused properly, but materia weren't totally neutral sources!

But it didn't. She could see it moment by moment as the spell was released, the way it coiled and twisted wildly, wanting to dissipate into a raging release of power that would consume them as surely as the comet. The only thing to do before the backlash got them all was to impose order on it, ground it – well, the way most mages used proper catalysts constantly made more sense given the dangers of something powerful gone awry.

Because, of course, it didn't have anywhere to go but her and Izayoi. And which of them had twisted herself in so deep?

The agony was indescribable, her body alight from the inside. Controlling it, isolating it – hah, as if she had the thoughts to spare. Everything hurt, even places that shouldn't have sensation! Reflexively, the Mystral had tried to heal, pulling on what little was left to soothe the pain–

Yeah, the fresh scream showed how well that worked, everything lighting up afresh. Even when most of her body stopped burning, moments or minutes or even hours later, how she could know, the pain inside her skull didn't, and it only got worse if she dared open her eyes, or breathed too loud.

Fuck.

---

As it had turned out, trying to help the healing process along with more magic only made it worse, so despite the lack of outward physical damage, the red mage was just as laid up as the rest of them until things... started to work normally. Mostly normally; Miina was pretty sure from how numb everything felt that she'd burned out a lot of sensation with that. She could only hope that came back, but it wasn't the biggest problem, she would deal with any co-ordination difficulties it caused...

Nope, the real problem was her right arm. She must have been channelling through it the most, or maybe it was just the notion of controlling things with your dominant hand that got it the worst... either way, that went beyond numb to simply nonresponsive. Even dressing was a pain, trying to work out how to shove it in properly, let alone fastenings.

Well... maybe she could fix it in time, she didn't know all that much about healing in the grand scheme of things. She still had one functioning arm, and that would do fine for magic – the pain was still overwhelming if she tried, but diminishing – but... eugh, learning to draw with the other was going to suck, taking notes... hn, climbing too...

Fuck, she might as well see how Elly was getting on first, that should be healing pretty well, and she could at least give their healer tips. Once it stopped being so loud... hopefully whatever made her head hurt so much would go down like the rest of it, she couldn't deal with this every time she cast magic.

Black dust slipped through his fingers, shards of spent onyx caught in the wakewinds of the shattered star, the breaking of the heat dome they'd forged. By the skin of their teeth, they'd pulled this one out of the bag— taking them right up to their limits. Every last resource, every last gambit, every last desperate solution conjured in the moments where reality had pointed out the holes between them all. He watched it filter out into the rising night, leaving only the void in his grasp.

And so, the last, most ill-conceived vestige of "Rudolf, guy from Sagramore" leaves us. The mask is no more. How you feel, champ? Like a new man?

He grunted, as the first of the pebbles bounced off his helmet, and shifted the greatsword in his good arm overhead to shelter beneath as he stalked forward, towards the nearest of his compatriots— the two Mystrel, both completely overtaxed by the torrent of aether they'd tried to manage, and in Izayoi's case, the clash with Behemoth. But Miina had the worst of it, writhing in barely-controlled pain, as if struck by lightning, punctuated by breathless howling. While the specifics eluded Rudolf, he could parse that the mental feedback from trying to enact one's will upon so many sources of aether, each with its' own specific aspect...¹

He stood above the both of them, one arm finally allowed to hang limp, liquid fire coursing through it. Compared to that, his injuries were hardly anything to bellyache over. He could do nothing for whatever ravages aetheric rebound were enacting upon the two of them, but until the shower of stone abated... the least he could do was this.

For everything else? What was done was done. And it had gotten them out the other side.²

At least Goug wasn't keeping him waiting long.

---

Two days later, and the conclusion was inescapable— for all the Kirins' burns, breaks, and scrapes, Rudolf had gotten off light. A torn tendon or two in his arm, elbow a little out of joint, a few broken digits, and that was it. Whether he wanted to attribute it to his new armor or his physical resilience was hard to say— thus, splitting the difference was probably most accurate³— but there was one data point that needed nothing by way of speculation.

Two days and the Eos-aided ministrations of the local doctor later, and Rudolf was hale enough to mill about again, his surviving equipment in hand and his left arm at rest in a sling, while the triceps finished the steady process of reconnecting to tendon and bone. He spent the morning asking after where he might source a black pearl, finally following up on Isolde's cursebreaking advice. Eventually, he received his answer from the fishmonger: in the coming weeks, diving season was to begin, and a plethora of pearls from the warmer bays and coves that shaped the southlands' coastline would reach market. A spot of luck, for once— But he wouldn't hold his breath quite yet for finding a good deal, where life might have him get ahold of one the old-fashioned way.

Fitting that sentiment, by midday, the scar-laden swordsman could be found at the southern gate of what was left of town, looking over the carcass of the Behemoth with a thoughtful frown. Rot and blight had taken much of the mighty animal's flesh, true, but the skeletons of these things was made of far sterner stuff— and for all he had dispensed with his Sagramori facade since coming here, the time he'd spent among the hot-blooded swordsmen had still left an indelible mark upon him.

It was little consequence, waving away flies and managing the disposal of blighted flesh— they had felled a full-grown Behemoth. And even one half of either those jet-black horns, long and cruel as moonless night, would make for too proud a dagger when next he had the chance. It would be a thousand years in Himstus's crucible before he let this one slip from his grasp.

---

---

• _{1. Lightning wasn't a bad way to put it. The way aether and will interact between Mages, Materia, and Anima Mundi, what Miina was forced to try and wrangle into a unified channel for Izayoi was basically like volunteering to hold four branching thimbles of copper wire aloft in a storm, so you can pass current into a lake. Using your mind as a conduit like that is "very fun", the same way having an entire senate of people yelling at you is "very fun". You know, when you need to care about what they're saying. It's a good thing you had me handle your Gravity materia— if she'd mistakenly tried to add undirected free energy with a fifth flavor on it to the cauldron, the cauldron would have flowkirkenuinely (as the youth say) boiled over, all over you guys's stove.}
• _{2. Cope. Not seethe, I'll hand it to you, but it's cope. You can't answer my question.}
• _{3. I'm taking credit for it. Me and my cozy armor. Facts are malleable, but my agendas never waver.}

---

Esben grunted, stretching once before rolling out of the bed he'd been given. Alongside Rudolf, he'd been one of those least wounded in the fight, and had staved off the complete exhaustion until Goug and the villagers came out to get them all carried inside. In the time since, other than summoning Eos and Selene back as soon as he was able, he'd been doing little more than trying to relax and checking in on the others. It was a bit surreal, seeing most of them still recuperating and unconscious while he was up and about, given how, as things went, usually it seemed to go the other way around...

Pulling on a some simple clothes lent by the village headman, he left the room he'd been put up in to wander down the hall. He could hear Eos and Selene buzzing from room to room, where they'd been helping the local healer as much as possible—which meant just as much that they were freeing the healer and his apprentices up to take care of their wounded villagers as well as directly helping him with the Kirins. He'd heard some of them come by earlier in the morning, changing bandages, applying poultices; but with Eos and Selene there, they were just as quickly out amongst their own again.

He'd overheard them talking about some of the damage the town had sustained as well. The actual inn they had would need some repair and rennovation after the attack, though the damage wasn't terrible and the headman's home had been the inn in years past, anyways, so it wasn't an issue to use it as such for the time being. The healer's sickbeds were taken up by the more wounded of the villagers, those who'd been harmed by the beasts or struck by the Behemoth's lesser meteor shower.

Luckily for them, though, outright losses were minimal, and the damages to the town buildings could all be quickly repaired. They'd been given quite the break when the Kirins came to their aid. They'd already cleared away most of the corpses, as well, other than the Behemoth's own. He glanced out a window and saw Rudolf walking down the road towards it just outside of town. With his arm still in a sling, no less. "Can't wait, can you?" he muttered to himself. "I said I'd help, but you should at least give your arm more time to heal..."

He shook his head and continued along. The Kirins had been placed on either side of the headman's house—himself, Rudolf, Galahad, and a room for Goug if the Moogle wanted it on the east, Izayoi, Chisato, Miina, and Éliane on the west. He crossed the foyer, Eos and Selene finally noticing him and coming to hover next to him, stepped into the next hallway—

"Ah. Miina."

And deftly stepped out of the way of a thrust-open door before he could risk having his nose broken a second time. The little red mage looked a bit more disheveled than usual, between everything that had been happening to them, the time she'd spent resting, and the arm that hung limply at her side. He spared one obvious glance at it, before his eyes rose back up to meet hers. "I hope you're not planning on doing too much right now. I'd hate to have to put you back to bed."

The Mystral blinked once or twice as she nearly smacked a door into Esben. Oops, should have thought if anyone was around… well, he'd not walked straight into it either, so they were fine. And doing much…? She didn't have any obvious injuries to treat carefully, and the lingering pain was much less than if she set it off… plus it was omnipresent and disconnected from her physical activity.

She might as well do something, and take her mind off her actual problem.

Miina gave him a lopsided shrug, "T-T-Tired, b-but…"

Okay, her voice was pretty scratchy too, that had to be from screaming. It wasn't like she was much of a talker, so did it matter?

"C-C-Can't do magic rrright now, so…"

@The Otter

---

"Maybe you should drink some tea or water," he supplied after hearing her voice. "But so long as you're not trying to overwork yourself I can allow it." As they spoke, Selene and Eos foated over, trying to grab at Miina's limp fingers or the edge of her sleeve and lift her unresponsive arm. They'd already learned not to try and do anything magical to it on the first day, but that didn't stop the pair from being curious about it.

"What were you planning to do, anyways? I'd steer clear of Izayoi's room in your current state, she'd probably try ordering you to lay back down."

If it weren't for Miina watching them as they came over, it'd seem like she hadn't noticed the fairies, not moving or reacting in any way as they played with her arm. It for all appearances seemed healthy… aside from the obvious lack of response.

"Mmm… ch-check on Elly?" She offered, scratching at her collar with the other hand, "N-N-Never got to finish healing, um…"

It should definitely be fine – especially with those two fairies going around to finish the job – but that didn't mean she wasn't at least concerned about it a bit, or seeing how things had interacted with her attempts. Not that she could do anything… right now, Miina couldn't even check that all the metal was gone.

---

It was a perfectly reasonable thing for her to do, although Esben couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at her delivery. That the diminutive Mystrel was skittish at the best of times was only to be expected, but answering like she wasn't even certain that was actually what she planned to do and scratching at her collar the way she was made it seem like she had something to be evasive about. "What a coincidence," he replied drily. "I was just planning on doing the same thing."

Nothing to suggest that he had anything to be suspicious of from the red-haired cat mage. In truth, he knew he didn't, but he also couldn't resist having a bit of fun at her expense, either. "Good thing, I suppose. Need to make sure you aren't just using that as a cover to try and stare at her..."

Esben was treated to the distinctly odd sight of a half frantically gesturing mage, though her face was going about as red as her hair. "I w-w-wouldn't! N-N-Not when she's v-v-v-v… injured."

Of course, it went without saying that if she was uninjured, Miina considered it perfectly fine to stare at her. Really, the only woman she didn't seem to stare at any more was Izayoi… well, not in the same way, now she just seemed faintly annoyed? Though it was still fairly obvious why that would be, given they were related but the very apparent differences between the two of them.

"I'm j-j-just worried…"

---

"Careful, careful, you'll wake her and the rest up," Esben cautioned, expertly suppressing his urge to laugh at her expense. "That would make it even harder for you to indulge your voyeuristic tendencies. Let's go and check on her, shall we?"

Without waiting for a response, he strode on past the rapidly-reddening mage. Two doors down, three short knocks, crack it open a hair and talk just loudly enough to be heard, just quietly enough not to wake anybody up who was still sleeping—

"Are you awake yet, Éliane?"

---

Elly was, in fact, still not awake, although she was now less in coma rather than just sound asleep in recovery. The knock on the door and the question went unanswered.

That said, the pink-haired Skaelan was clearly the type that wouldn't take offense at being stared at, as long as Miina didn't pull a Shinji.

"I do n-n-not…" the mage spluttered, giving up and descending into frustrated half-mewling. Besides, Esben was right, it wouldn't do to go wake up anyone that was still sleeping… like, as it turned out, Elly. Which meant that she couldn't really… do anything; it was out of the question to go prodding around a healing wound to check on progress, and she couldn't analyse it magically without incapacitating herself.

Which would suck, and it'd probably make Esben mad.

…

Well, at least she was sleeping normally?

Now what…

---

No response at all. Still unconscious, then, although after as close a brush with death as she'd had it wasn't surprising. He'd been out for at least as long after having most of his ribs crushed by Reisa, after all. He turned to look at Miina, who'd ceased her mewling and was just standing there looking sheepish.

"Well. Shall we, or do you want to go check on Izayoi and Chisato instead?" Without waiting for her response he pushed the door open fully, stepping inside. The room was as simple as the rest; a bed, a nightstand, some empty drawers, a spare chair. He grabbed it, pulling it up next to the bed where Éliane was sleeping peacefully under the blanket.

He paused for a moment, listening to the sound of her breathing—focused for anything out of the ordinary, laboured, wheezing, anything that might suggest there was more deep-seated trauma for Eos and the village healer to try and work on—and watching her face and the rise and fall of her chest beneath the blanket. Satisfied for the moment, he reached out, gently pressing at her shoulder that peaked out from under the cover. "Are you still with us, Éliane? It's time to wake up."

"Umm…" Miina hung in the door, eyes flicking over at the sleeping woman and just as quickly darting away. Without being able to speed the healing along, was there even anything she could offer here? She really didn't have a good grasp on how wounds were meant to progress in a mundane fashion; the entire reason she'd learned and practised white magic was to avoid having to wait weeks for a broken bone to heal. That it was useful when working with other people was really just a surprising bonus…

But it meant her skills stopped at "check the gunner is okay". Which… well, Esben had that covered, didn't he? And for once intruding just felt really awkward.

"I'll check Ch-Chisato." And try and get food, apparently; that might take some doing when she couldn't carry it well…

With that, the redhead pushed the door closed and started working her way along the hallway. Not that there was a good idea who was staying where, maybe she should have asked?

Instead, she just started knocking the doors one by one. Hopefully, Izayoi wouldn't answer one, she'd probably be overbearing about this… or maybe annoyed that Miina hadn't held up her offer to control everything? Hard to say with her.

There is a considerable amount of protest from my ribcage as I rise to my feet, a throb running through my chest from the mere movement. My body, unfortunately, is not in good enough condition to pursue any further activity. If it were, I would not be sitting around idly. The others may need to recover, but if I were more capable of moving then there would be no reason to delay any operations on my part.

---I admit, it's frustrating.

Assoon as I am able, I'll consult with the others on anything that I can do while they recover. For now, I simply open the door. My body is wrapped from my waist to my chest in bandages in order to help hold everything in place as I heal. While it is somewhat awkward, when I see that in is Malina-san I feel no special need to cover myself further.

"What is it, Malina-san?" I ask her, scanning her briefly. I understand that she was fairly seriously harmed by the backlash of magic used to shatter the meteor, so personally I would think it would be best if she did not concern herself with matters such as myself, "Should you not be resting?"

The amount of bandages wrapped around the Viera's torso made Miina wince a little. Given that Chisato needed them as much as she did on a day to day basis, it seemed that even after several days and whatever magical attention had been dug up, she was still injured. If she could do anything right now, broken bones would be straightforward, but instead…

Well, they couldn't be too bad if the girl was already up and mobile, could they? Esben would probably be able to get Eos to help some more, once Elly was healed enough to be getting about herself and the mage was pretty sure she would be able to cast again before they healed naturally…

"Umm… c-c-can you dress? I rrreaaaaally need help b-bringing food up…" It wasn't like the ninja was underdressed to her; that covered more than her casual outfits did… but she'd gotten the impression that the others would be somewhat uncomfortable being seen in so little, for whatever reason.