CHAPTER 25 #2
“Don’t worry. I’m ready,” Kazuya added. When Shinji didn’t reply, Kazuya gently wiped his tears away. “I will save him. I promise.”
“You shouldn’t make such a promise…” Shinji whispered.
“I’m making it because I know I’ll be able to keep it. So trust me, okay?”
Shinji let out a strangled sound of agreement and when Kazuya walked away, he wrapped his arms around himself, waiting to see what was going to happen.
While the anesthesiologist remained outside the barrier of energy, focusing on the machines, Kazuya and Horiuchi stepped inside. The barrier shimmered and rippled around their bodies, then closed behind them.
Horiuchi lifted both hands over Teruo’s chest. Golden light gathered at her fingertips, like dust caught in sunlight.
The particles thickened, clustering together until they formed a suspended sphere between her palms. She lowered the sphere carefully and submerged half of it inside Teruo’s sternum while keeping the other half visible.
Shinji’s eyes checked the machines which the anesthesiologist had muted. They were unchanged, but the values still in the red. Shinji involuntarily took a step forward, but stopped himself. His nails dug painfully into his skin.
Horiuchi kept one hand on the side of the golden sphere and raised the other one above it.
At first, Shinji thought she was adjusting the energy, but his breath nearly stopped when he realized what she was doing.
A little white shimmer peeked from Teruo’s chest, rising higher with every second: Teruo’s soul. She was pulling it out of his body.
Shinji’s throat tightened. “What are you doing? Won’t that kill him?”
“It’s safe,” Horiuchi said. “As long as it’s inside the sphere, nothing will happen. How is he?” Horiuchi aimed her question at the anesthesiologist.
“All right for now,” she answered.
Shinji swallowed, but his panic didn’t ease. He backed up until his shoulders pressed against the wall. His clothes were drenched in sweat and he took off his suit jacket and tie, tossing them on the floor.
Teruo’s soul continued to emerge and Horiuchi raised the sphere along with it, making sure it remained inside.
It flickered faintly within the sphere, so small and dim, no larger than a marble.
It should’ve been thrice the size, radiant and strong.
Shinji’s vision blurred with tears and he slapped a hand over his mouth to stifle a sob.
He’d siphoned so much of Teruo’s soul. Everything was his fault.
“What have I done…” Shinji whispered.
“Hey, look at me,” Kazuya said. “We’re making great progress. Breathe.”
He nodded and took a long breath to steady himself. Teruo needed him.
Horiuchi rotated Teruo’s soul within the sphere. “I can’t see the second soul. Your mother did a good job blending them together.”
Shinji smiled sadly, part of him proud of his mother’s powers, while another part feared that she may have sealed Teruo’s fate.
Horiuchi lifted her gaze to Kazuya. “Do it.”
“Come closer,” Kazuya told Shinji. “Just at the edge of the barrier, but don’t come inside.”
Shinji hesitated a second before walking toward the bed. He could see Teruo better now, his face bathed in the fiery flames of Kazuya’s reiryoku with a tint of gold from Horiuchi’s sphere of energy. Shinji yearned to safely touch him again, to hold him without fear of hurting Teruo.
“Set it free,” Kazuya said.
Shinji pulled himself together and brought out his cold reiryoku one little tendril at a time. He shivered as it touched his sweaty skin. “Are you sure? I can barely contain it.”
“Don’t worry. It won’t pass the barrier without my permission,” Kazuya said.
Shinji stopped fighting it and released all of it watching as it surged toward the barrier, wrapped around it, wanting to get inside. It repeatedly struck the surface, searching for a way through, like it knew Teruo’s soul was out of his body.
Kazuya looked at Shinji’s energy for what felt like a long while before he extended his hand and let in a small thread that could pass through a needle. He guided the thread toward the golden sphere, steering it through.
“What are you planning to do?” Shinji asked, his voice frustratingly hoarse.
“Stitch it,” Kazuya answered.
Shinji stared at him. “I’m sorry?”
“I’m going to stitch parts of your spiritual energy into his soul.
This will fix multiple problems: it will replenish the missing part of his soul, it will stop your reiryoku from surging toward him, and will stop his soul from needing to heal you because a part of you will always be within his soul. ”
Shinji’s mouth fell open. “I don’t really understand how is it that my spiritual energy can do all of that.”
Kazuya carefully guided the thread toward Teruo’s soul and started weaving it in. “What’s the one thing that makes a Shinigami’s reiryoku so different than the rest of us?”
Shinji frowned. “We get our powers from the world of spirits when we die, and then return here with those powers if we’re resuscitated.”
“And what does the world of spirits have in abundance?”
“Souls!” Shinji gasped.
Kazuya smiled and nodded. “Precisely. Spirits are the souls of the dead. No better way to patch up a soul than with a Shinigami’s powers that contain the very essence of the spirit world.”
“I didn’t even know that was possible,” Shinji said.
Kazuya shrugged. “Neither did I. You can thank your mother. She’s got all sorts of interesting techniques in her journals.”
“But isn’t it dangerous?” Shinji looked at the way his spiritual energy was still trying to push through the barrier.
“Not according to your mother,” Kazuya said. “If you carefully stitch it into the soul, it will be where it wants to be, so it fixes the situation.” As they spoke, Kazuya let another thread through the barrier and steered it toward Horiuchi’s golden sphere and then into Teruo’s soul.
“Is this what my mother used when she healed Teruo’s soul?”
“No,” Horiuchi replied instead. “She couldn’t have possibly used it. Not in this way at least.”
Shinji’s head whipped to her then to Kazuya. “What? Then why on earth pick this one?”
“Because it’s more suitable to the situation,” Kazuya said as he grabbed another thread.
“Your mother blended two souls into one. I don’t have an extra soul.
I’m using a Shinigami’s powers as a stand in and out of all the techniques your mom had in her journals, this stitching one was the best. I’m adapting it, obviously, since our current situation has no precedent to study. ”
A shiver went down Shinji’s spine and he started to panic. It all happened so quickly that he didn’t have the time to ask Kazuya about the technique he chose. Now it was too late to stop it.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Shinji’s voice trembled with fear.
“Yes, it is.”
Shinji closed his eyes and rubbed his hands over his face. “Please, don’t take this the wrong way, but neither of you are healers. Maybe we should get a healer too?”
“Open your eyes,” Kazuya said.
Shinji did that and Kazuya had a smile on his face, then pointed down to Teruo’s soul. It was already shinier, fuller, and bigger. He could see the small threads of his spiritual energy slowly seeping into the soul and becoming one.
“I’m not a healer in name,” Kazuya continued, “but shape-shifters like me have a highly versatile reiryoku. And because I have over a century of experience, I can learn techniques that a normal healer would’ve taken maybe a year or more to learn.”
“I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean to doubt you.”
“You’re worried. I know. But I intend to keep my promise.”
Shinji held his eyes on Kazuya as he weaved the threads of spiritual energy within Teruo’s soul.
He noticed Kazuya used his own power like some sort of needle before gently pulling away.
With every small thread, Teruo’s soul became stronger giving Shinji hope that they’d made the right choice.
He had no idea how long it would take to fix all of this, but he decided to be patient and let Kazuya work.
Horiuchi sometimes turned the sphere around along with the soul to help Kazuya twist the threads around it. She threw a glance at the machines whose numbers were getting a bit steadier. The anesthesiologist was taking note of whatever was on the screen, but seemed unalarmed which was a good sign.
Kazuya pulled another thread from Shinji’s reiryoku through the barrier and continued to stitch.
Shinji had thought that perhaps he’d feel different, but it was just a mild sensation of depletion.
Though since he used his powers against Takeda, he figured it was difficult to feel anything right now.
When Kazuya stitched in another thread, Teruo’s soul started pulsing rapidly, and the thread came off. Teruo’s body arched on the bed.
“What’s happening?” Shinji gasped, slamming his palms into the barrier.
“I think it’s rejecting his reiryoku,” Horiuchi said.
“Yeah, I see it.” Kazuya pushed aside the thread for a moment. “That side might have the part of the soul belonging to the teacher. I don’t think it likes to share space.”
“But isn’t this the part that insists on healing me?” Shinji asked.
“Heal you, not share the soul with you,” Kazuya said.
“What are we going to do?”
“I have foreseen this. I’ll avoid that part.” Kazuya pointed upwards. “Try to rein in your power.”
Shinji dragged in a breath and forced his spiritual energy back again.
Sweat drenched his clothes and he tugged on his shirt to get some air.
Even Horiuchi was affected by Kazuya’s barrier of fiery energy as perspiration formed on her forehead, dripping down her face and leaving spots on her shirt, but she remained unmoved, holding the sphere steady.
Kazuya’s jaw tightened as he struggled to guide the threads of energy one by one, avoiding the section of soul that rejected them.
At some point, he seemed to split Shinji’s reiryoku into even smaller ones, barely visible to Shinji’s human eyes, but likely not a problem for a shifter like Kazuya.
He worked slowly and carefully, testing to see if Teruo’s soul was going to reject them again, but it seemed to work as Teruo didn’t have any other reactions.
Shinji had lost track of time as his eyes followed Kazuya’s movements. One loop after another, weaving the threads in one by one, each stitch securing another part of Shinji’s reiryoku to Teruo’s soul. It glowed with newfound strength and Shinji smiled.
“This is it,” Kazuya said as he weaved the last thread. “Looking great, if I do say so myself. Place it back inside,” he told Horiuchi.
She pushed the sphere back into Teruo’s chest and his soul descended within him. Shinji watched, his hands clasped together, hoping it would go in without any more incidents. The soul vanished and Horiuchi dispersed the sphere. She turned to the anesthesiologist who gave a thumbs up.
“So far so good,” Horiuchi said.
“Well, now for the real test.” Kazuya removed the barrier and all of them stared at Shinji’s reiryoku.
Nothing happened.
His spiritual energy hovered lazily around, completely disinterested in Teruo. Shinji guided a tendril closer to Teruo, to see if proximity would do anything. The values on the machine remained unchanged and his reiryoku wasn’t drawn to him anymore.
“It worked!” Shinji exclaimed. “I can’t believe it. It really worked.”
“Ah, so little faith,” Kazuya joked.
Shinji rushed to Kazuya and gave him a big hug. “Thank you. Thank you so much for helping him. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”
“You can repay me by living a good life,” Kazuya said.
Shinji pulled back and smiled. “We will.”