[Volume 2 | Chapter 47: Back to Business]

June 19th, 418 E.V.

6:24 AM.

Acacia opened his eyes to the same ceiling he'd been staring at for days. It remained stark white with hairline fractures that he'd memorized like star charts. The analog clock on the wall ticked forward yet again. 6:24 AM. Too early to be awake, too late to fall back asleep.

His heart still raced from the nightmare.

Gio's sneering face. Todd's fists. Pierce's laughter. The Omamori burning. Unfortunately, his near-perfect memory preserved all the details with perfect clarity in his mind's horrifying museum. He could almost smell the rain mixing with blood and feel the courtyard stones against his broken body. Despite the ordeal happening over a year ago back when he was a second-year at Heinemann, it was practically fresh in his mind.

After this ordeal, however, he slowly became a lone wolf—rebelling against Gio and his goons. There was comfort in understanding that no one would save him and that his life ultimately had no meaning. If there was no meaning in one's life, one didn't have to believe that all of their suffering had a higher purpose or endlessly despair over when said suffering would end. By his third year, Acacia didn't mind crossing fists with his bullies. He would lose all the time, but it was simply a mental game.

After all, if he had somehow died from his injuries, then he would be freed from such a hell.

Acacia's hands trembled beneath the hospital sheets, echoing phantom pains from injuries long healed. But this morning, something was different. A vague recollection surfaced—of fingers intertwining with his in the darkness, steadying his shaking. A touch both firm and gentle, cool yet somehow warming. It had calmed, and anchored him to reality when his dreams threatened to drag him under.

Who had been there?

A nurse? Unlikely. They rarely checked patients before shift change at 7 AM.

He flexed his fingers experimentally, half-expecting to find the ghost of that touch still lingering. Nothing but his clammy skin greeted him.

Doubt I'll be falling back asleep at this rate. Not unless the good doctor comes in with his special cocktail.

The Irregular's gaze drifted to the window, where Windsor's predawn mists gathered like lost spirits against the glass. The city would be stirring soon, its great windmills already turning in the morning breeze. Life continuing its relentless forward march, oblivious to the boy lying broken in a hospital bed. That was the joke, really—that he kept ending up here, trapped between white walls and antiseptic smells, while the world spun on without him. An Irregular, caught in regular patterns of destruction and recovery.

Acacia closed his eyes, not to sleep but to remember how he'd ended up here. Again.

"Rise and shine, sleepyhead! It's another beautiful day to be alive!"

The cheery voice sliced through Acacia's half-conscious state like a scalpel, precisely targeted for maximum irritation. He cracked one eye open to find Dr. Amherst beaming down at him, the morning sun haloing his balding head like some deranged cherub.

"Funny, I was just thinking the exact opposite," the boy croaked.

"Ah, there's that sparkling personality the nurses have been raving about." The doctor chuckled, making a show of checking Acacia's vitals. "Your blood pressure's looking much better today. Heart rate normal. Oxygen saturation excellent."

"Any chance you could check my level of giving a damn? I think it might be dangerously low."

"Still registering on my sarcasm meter, so I'd say you're recovering nicely." Dr. Amherst's smile never faltered.

Eleven days since that fight in the warehouse. Fifteen days since his scheduled execution in Ocarina. Eighteen days since he was accused of murdering Gio. Acacia had been keeping meticulous count, scratching tally marks into his mental prison wall. The Windsor Medical Center had become his second home—or third, if he counted Pandora's residence (which he wasn't entirely sure he did since he only slept there like twice.)

He'd sustained more injuries than seemed fair for a human lifetime: broken ribs, punctured lung, fractured wrist, countless lacerations, contusions, and a concerning number of internal bleeds that Dr. Amherst had catalogued with more excitement than necessary…

"Fascinating case study," he'd overheard the doctor tell a colleague a week ago as if Acacia were a specimen pinned to a board rather than a person.

The recovery had been slow. Painfully so. Enhancement Thaumaturgy could accelerate healing, but even the most skilled practitioners couldn't simply erase the kind of damage Malleus and Nemesis had inflicted. The body needed time to rebuild itself, cell by cell and fiber by fiber. And an Irregular's body, lacking natural prana circulation, took even longer.

"But still… he was able to recover faster than most Thaumaturges, even skilled ones…" Dr. Amherst offhandedly muttered. The boy just thought he was on drugs; nothing unusual.

"Please tell me I can go home now," Acacia said, not daring to hope.

Dr. Amherst made a noncommittal noise as he scribbled something in his ever-present clipboard. "Hard to say. Your physical injuries are healing remarkably well considering the circumstances. However, there are... other concerns."

"Such as?"

"Such as the fact that this is your second hospitalization in under a month. We also shouldn't forget your seeming talent for finding trouble—or having trouble find you." The doctor's jovial mask slipped momentarily, revealing concern beneath. "Lady Kircheisen has been quite insistent about ensuring your complete recovery before discharge."

"Of course she has..." Acacia snorted. He hadn't seen Pandora ever since that embarrassing conversation a few days ago. According to the nurses, she'd been "indisposed" with "official business."

Translation: Whatever game of chess she was playing with Nemesis, the Bloodhounds, and that Helen Vessalius woman had entered a new phase, and Acacia wasn't invited. Not that he was surprised.

"I must admit, I am curious... how does a boy your age keep ending up in these situations? Lady Kircheisen being your guardian, your relationship with the Trafalgars, and you being a Wallachian refugee... and not to mention the Bloodhounds going after you."

"This feels like something I should be asking the IPA or Centrum Supremum officials or something."

"Touche." Dr. Amherst chuckled before frowning at the readout from the prana activity monitor, tapping the display with his pen.

"These readings are unusually low," he muttered, more to himself than to Acacia.

"Is that... a problem?" Acacia asked carefully, tensing beneath the white bedsheets.

The doctor shook his head dismissively. "Nothing to worry about. These bedside units are notoriously unreliable; they're calibrated for average readings, not the full spectrum. We'd need to schedule you for a full circulation scan at Central Medical in San Corona to get anything definitive, and that's hardly necessary for treating your current injuries. I'll just mark down 'low prana activity,' for my final notes, which is common enough after severe trauma. Your body is prioritizing physical healing over absorbing prana from the environment."

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Acacia relaxed slightly, quickly deducing that the hospital's equipment simply wasn't sophisticated enough to definitively identify him as an Irregular, and Dr. Amherst had little incentive to pursue such a diagnosis without absolute certainty. Even in Windsor, accusing another of being an Irregular was no small matter.

But still... that was too close, way too close, Pandora.

"You've had quite a few visitors," Dr. Amherst remarked, shifting topics with the capriciousness of a weather vane. "The Trafalgar family has practically adopted you. And that young man—Elias, was it? He's been quite concerned. Though considering his injuries... he should really be thinking about his own health at the moment."

Acacia winced. He didn't need the details. He already knew the hell Elias had gone through. His fault. His burden. Always. He had gotten the kind aspiring knight involved in this madness. If he could, he would have traded places with him in a heartbeat. Elias had a bright future ahead of him, unlike him, after all.

"They're just being nice."

"Mmm, and I suppose Lady Trafalgar brings homemade soup to all her obligatory acquaintances?"

Before Acacia could formulate a suitably cutting response, the door swung open to reveal a nurse bearing a breakfast tray. The smell of hospital food—somehow simultaneously bland and offensive—wafted across the room.

"Your morning feast, Your Highness! Eat up. You'll need your strength." Dr. Amherst winked outrageously.

"For what? More lying around uselessly?"

"Let's just say you may be receiving an important visitor later today. Someone who's been quite busy lately."

With that cryptic pronouncement, he swept from the room, leaving Acacia to contemplate the gray, gelatinous mass that allegedly constituted "oatmeal" in this province.

He seriously wondered whether he would rather eat the meal or starve, oh wait, his mother would have killed him if he wasted food. With a sigh of resignation, he scooped a spoonful into his mouth and choked it down.

Another day in paradise, indeed.

After a morning of compulsory physical therapy sessions—exercises that seemed designed to maintain the precise balance between recovery and torture—Acacia was finally granted permission to "ambulate within reasonable boundaries," as the buff woman of a physical therapist had so clinically phrased it. In normal human language: he could walk around the ward without setting off alarms.

Freedom... of sorts.

He moved gingerly through the sterile corridors whilst using one hand to trail along the wall for support. His body had begun the long process of repairing itself, but every step still sent tiny jolts of discomfort through his healing ribs. The hospital gown, which was essentially a flimsy barrier between dignity and humiliation, also rustled with his careful movements. Initially, he had no destination in mind beyond escaping the suffocating confines of his room but as he neared the east wing, a familiar figure caught his attention.

Elias Scryer moved with none of his usual dignity; his athletic frame was now hunched and cagey. Bandages still covered the left side of his chest where Malleus had pierced him with [Fiamma's Edge] and his complexion retained the pallor of a man who had gazed too long into death's face, which Acacia knew all too well. Despite these marks of suffering, there was something purposeful in his stride, a determination that transcended physical pain. Curiosity piqued, Acacia followed at a careful distance. This wasn't the Elias who had visited his room over the past days—that Elias had been all forced cheer and careful conversation, avoiding any topic that might remind either of them of the battle against the Bloodhounds.

This Elias moved like someone carrying an invisible weight, shoulders bowed beneath a burden only he could perceive.

The aspiring knight paused before a door at the hall's end: Room 307, not his assigned recovery room as Acacia grew to memorize his actual door number. The brown-haired teen glanced furtively in both directions before entering, his only distraction such that he failed to fully close the door behind him. Through the narrow gap, Acacia saw a single hospital bed surrounded by an set of medical equipment while monitors displayed vital signs in jagged green lines, IV drips delivered clear fluids through thin tubes, and a ventilator wheezed with rhythmic artificiality. Upon the bed lay a woman, still as sculpture.

Even from this distance, the resemblance was unmistakable. The same chestnut hair, though hers was streaked with early silver. The same fine bone structure that gave Elias his handsome features, though hers had grown painfully thin. She was beautiful in that ephemeral way of crushed flowers—a beauty preserved but separated from life's vitality.

"Hi, Mom, it's me again."

Elias' voice was soft, almost childlike in its uncertainty. He settled into the chair beside the bed, taking the woman's limp hand in his own. Her fingers were so thin they seemed little more than twigs wrapped in tissue paper.

Acacia's breath caught in his throat. So this was Elias's mother: the environmental scientist that Elias had spoken of in present tense, as if she were still actively working, still coming home to dinner each night, still living a normal life.

The lie made perfect, terribly perfect sense now.

"The doctors say I'm healing well. Almost good as new. Dad visited yesterday. He didn't say much, you know how he gets... but I think he was relieved. In his own way. Elias continued, adjusting the blanket across his mother's motionless while brushing stray hair from her forehead, and Acacia felt an almost physical ache at the tenderness in his actions.

The monitors beeped in a steady rhythm, neither acknowledging nor refuting his words.

"I wish you could have seen Zachary at Vanguard. Everyone says he was incredible—top of his class, perfect scores in combat trials, professors already marking him for Divisional Commander someday. Just like Dad wanted."

A pause, heavy with unspoken words.

"I got my acceptance letter last week. Starting in fall, just like we planned."

Elias's hands trembled slightly as he reached for his mother's limp fingers once more, interlacing them with his own. The gesture was familiar, a ritual of a son who had performed this act countless times before yet never quite grew accustomed to the absence of response.

"I met someone interesting. His name is Acacia. You'd like him, I think. He's... different. Sees the world unlike anyone I've ever met. He got hurt pretty badly too, but he's recovering now." He let out a low, bitter chuckle; a shadow crossed Elias's face, momentarily aging him beyond his years.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this, Mom. Zachary was the hero—the one who was going to change everything. I was just... I was just the spare. The backup plan."

His voice cracked like thin ice under too much weight.

"And now he's gone. And Dad looks at me and sees everything I'm not. Everything I'll never be. I'm trying, Mom. I swear I'm trying to be what he needs me to be! I'm trying to be like Zachary. But... I'm not him. I'll never be him. And it hurts. It hurts so much."

The mechanical whoosh of the ventilator continued, unmoved by his confession.

"You were right that day, weren't you? When you told Dad that Zachary was pushing himself too hard, taking too many risks. You said the war would burn him out before he ever reached his potential. If we'd listened to you... if I had supported you instead of siding with Dad... maybe things would be different now." Elias exhaled, a long, shuddering breath that seemed to empty him of more than just air. He fell silent for a long moment, his shoulders rising and falling with each breath. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped to a whisper so faint Acacia had to strain to hear it.

"They say you can still hear us. That somewhere in there, you're still listening. If that's true, then please know—I'm sorry, Mom. I'm so sorry. Somehow... I'll fix this, all of this."

The scene was too private, too intimate... and it drove all the air from Acacia's lungs. He had always sensed a carefully contained sorrow beneath Elias's cheerful exterior, but nothing had prepared him for the depth of guilt revealed in such a personal moment.

"The doctors won't say it, but I can tell they're losing hope," Elias continued after regaining his composure. "Two years is a long time to be asleep. But I'm not giving up. I'll become the knight you always believed I could be. Not Zachary's replacement, but a knight worthy in my own right. And when you wake up—because you will wake up—I'll have so many stories to tell you."

He stood then, leaning over to press a gentle kiss to his mother's forehead.

"I have to go now, but I'll be back tomorrow. Same time. I love you, Mom."

As Elias turned toward the door, Acacia hastily retreated, pressing himself against the wall around the corner. His heart hammered against his ribs, as if trying to escape the sudden tension that gripped him. He felt like an intruder, having witnessed something he had no right to see. The thought of facing Elias now, of pretending he hadn't just eavesdropped on his most vulnerable moment, was unbearable.

Footsteps echoed in the corridor behind him as Elias emerged from his mother's room and walked away in the opposite direction without noticing the other boy's presence.

Through the chorus of beeping machines and the steady rhythm of the ventilator, Acacia finally understood the true weight Elias carried.

The expectations of a strict, grieving father.

The legacy of a "perfect" brother.

The desperate hope for a mother's awakening.

And perhaps most bitterly, the realization that sometimes, no matter how brightly one's power burned or how pure your intentions, there were some wounds no amount of Thaumaturgy could heal.

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