Work Text:
The resurfacing is slow.
Like rising through a boundless abyss of black water with his arms and legs tied.
Direction doesn't exist, time doesn't exist; just him, and the nothingness engulfing him whole.
He lets it; not because he wants to, but because he has no other choice.
In the world in which he has no form, no senses, and only consciousness, he's but a bottle floating in the raging ocean.
A bottle, with its message inside blurred, scrambled, and lost in time and space.
"......" He lets it be.
Nothing lasts forever, he says to himself as a feeble comfort.
He always wanted some time alone anyway, right? Some time for himself, in private. Might as well.
First, he gives himself a starter. What happened?
Then, he combs through his head... Right. He doesn't exist here.
Recollection is moot when there's nothing to recollect to begin with, isn't it?
He could've used a good sigh against that. Too bad the only thing he has control over is his own thoughts.
The thoughts with their logs started only... who knows how long ago, since he's been tossed into this darkness.
And so far, things have been too uneventful to go over.
"......" So what now?
As if it's answering his own semi-wallowing, a sound reaches him by where his ears are supposed to be.
It's faint, distant, and far from whole; just a thin, intermittent pinging that seemed to echo from somewhere inside his own skull.
A change of pace is always welcomed here. he snorts with his non-existent nose.
But then, something else follows.
Light, directly in front of him.
A sickly, diluted off-white gradually takes over the infinite darkness, his own little world.
There's pressure behind his eyes that has just come to be; his closed eyes, actually. Hard to tell the difference when it's all black.
"......" Not anymore.
Now, he can feel it; the slight sparkle in his mind when he regains control over the muscle of his eyelids.
He steadfasts, however. One thing at a time. And goes through the checking list.
The rest of the senses? Nope. Limbs? Fat chance. Breathing? He can feel it now, but it's out of his control.
Oh well. Looks like the line he told himself was in a literal sense, after all.
So Auburn pilots the only body part available to him for now and opens his eyes.
Time to go back.
One moment, there is nothing, the next, there is too much.
Sound reaches him first, the metronomic beeps from his left side, way too sterile to be welcoming applause.
Beat by beat, it chirps at him and invades his head as he grasps onto the reality that he just got thrown into.
His murky eyes say the view before him resembles the ceiling, but his brain is struggling to find a matching result.
Resorting to other parts of his body to glean more information meets a similar end; it's either not waking up or nothing.
He takes a sniff; the air smells like nothing, and his nostrils tinge with mild, pinpricky pain.
He blinks slightly harder to clear the blur; the ceiling comes into his focus.
It's a tile grid in a warm, ivory-white hue, with wide streaks of sunlight gently streaming through the window.
Dropped ceiling. Commonly seen in places such as offices, commercial buildings...
"......" And hospitals.
Now that beeping noise makes a lot more sense, it's a vital signs monitor then.
As much as Auburn wants to explore the reason why he's here, the rest of his body still doesn't feel like his own.
It lies beneath him like something abandoned. Heavy, inert, and threaded through with a dull, overwhelming numbness.
Arduously, he strains his neck muscles just to find out why.
Beneath his neck and shoulders is a sky-blue patient gown covered in a hefty yet pristinely white blanket.
Out from the right edge of the said blanket is what makes his heavy eyebrows frown even deeper than before.
There are things attached to him. A plastic tube tugged at his arm, piercing him, feeding into him.
Fuck. One wouldn't need to be hooked up to an IV bag unless they've been in bed for a long time.
Rising pressure forces a swallow out of him, but something scratched at his throat from the inside. It felt like swallowing dust.
Panic stirs, slow but inrefutable, rising from a place deeper than thought. Oh FUCK.
The beeps from the monitor quicken in an audible degree, deafening despite the volume has never changed.
Where is he? How long has it been?
And what in the continental fuck happened that he's in this state!?
A fire rages up from his spine, fueled by irrational panic and desperation that have been kept on a tight lid.
It powers him, and he powers through his seemingly dying motors and forces a movement from his arms.
Hands can still move, forearms feel like they've been infused with lead, but are operable. Just barely.
"!..." But his movement is immediately protested by another tug.
Something more forceful, more present, against his wrists.
More specifically, the leather straps wrapped around his wrists. With chains connected to the bed frame.
Great. Fucking fantastic. His hands slump onto the blanket in resignation.
There's a small part of him that wants to lift the blanket and see what's under, but that can wait. That has to wait.
He still needs to process what's going on before facing the possibility that he's lost half of his weight or is missing some organs.
Legs are still there, though. Because he can feel the same straps around both of his ankles. Nice.
"......" Nice, my ass. Auburn takes a hitched, bone-dry breath.
Physical restraint aside, the invisible weight on his limbs and the muffling in his senses still plagues him.
Just because he has the willpower to plow through that, doesn't mean it's not there, or that he has the juice to constantly do so.
He's now a giant piece of semi-paralyzed meat on an uncomfortably comfortable chopping block.
Alone, actually; this is a single ward. Took him long enough to figure that out by how quiet the rest of the room is.
"......"
It couldn't be, could it?
Everything he has experienced is all but a distant illusion confined to his head?
Everyone he has met, known, fought, befriended, and thwarted is all but false images conjured from his mind?
The places he has been, the sights he has witnessed.
The pain he endured, the laughs he shared.
Everything. Could it be nothing but a-
Click!
The ward door unlocks.
Auburn gasps mutedly, feeling every available fiber of his muscles tense up like a bowstring.
Franktically, he searches around for anything that can be used as a weapon.
Nothing. He can't even reach one hand with the other to take the needle from the IV tube.
Not good, he curses; the quickening beat of the vital sign monitor beeps is more annoying than ever.
Auburn braces for the worst.
It should've been two GOC-designated medical personnel in white scrubs, face masks, and notepads, ready to deliver him the news.
"Oh." But that's not what's entering his ward.
Under her nurse cap, her long, azure locks are tidied up into two braids, resting over her shoulders.
A pair of emerald eyes, sharp like an eagle yet tamed like a dove, complements her delicate appearance.
In her lithe, gloved hands is a tablet, and what appears to be a huge syringe containing a transparent liquid.
She's in an outfit that looks like a hybrid of a dress and an old-school nurse uniform.
And behind that look, a pair of avian wings in the same color as her hair, upright and well-preened.
The most important of all, he recognizes that look, he recognizes that face.
In his (now flooding back) recollection, he has definitely seen expressions with deeper smiles and milder gazes than he has now.
Aomori Mine, Captain of the Remedial Knights, greets him in all her glory.
"Heard a spike in heart rate." Okay, perhaps greet is a slight stretch given how she delivers the sentence.
"...Yeah," Sensei slumps into his pillow, seeing a familiar figure, a medical professional at that. "Had uhm, existential crisis in my lonesome."
Kivotos isn't just a distant coma dream.
His life as a Sensei is real. The time he spent here is real.
And the fact that he's actually, currently, absolutely and thoroughly tied to a hospital bed in Trinity is now real.
"......" Mine doesn't say anything as she approaches his bed, the side unoccupied by the medical equipment.
She places down the tablet (which is probably for his medical record) and readies the syringe.
One problem goes away, and another immediately takes its place: needles.
"Uhhhhm," Auburn makes a weak protest noise as he shuffles a little in his restraints. "Can I not?"
"No." Mine's reply sounds more like that of a certain Gehenner equivalent than herself.
"Unless you want to remain in this state?"
"Can I have a second opinion?"
"The second opinion is that you remain in this state, Sensei."
That shuts the adult up. "Fuck." Mostly.
All he can do now is turn away and scrunch his face in utter reluctance. Is his heart rate rising?
Meanwhile, the medical professional in this room lifts the blanket, finds his arm and the vein on it, and jabs the pokey steely bit right in.
People always say that slow is smooth, and smooth is fast; not in this case here, Mine is simply fast.
The whole process takes less than five seconds: locate a good spot, inject, push, and pull out.
"Done." She announces flatly, probably out of obligation. "It'll sober you up in a minute or so."
"Sober me up," He repeats in defeat as he unscrunches his face, except for the frown. "What happened anyway?"
Mine tosses the syringe into the trash can nearby, her dove-like wing retracts to her sides.
"Is that a rhetorical question?" What he hears in her tone only further deviates her from his impression.
Impatience, reluctance, a good bit of well-mannered anger, and... pity?
Just that alone is enough to make him feel bad. "Does it sound like one?" Sensei averts her gaze.
"No," The Captain practically hisses. "But I know you well enough."
What warrants this kind of response from her? Mine, of all people? Against him, while weak and bedridden?
Did he shagged one of the Remedial Knights in broad daylight or something?
He flattens his lips and prays for A, that's not what happened, and B, the medical water she injected him with to do its thing, quick.
Slowly, Mine marches towards the end of his bed-shaped confinement and starts tapping away on her tablet.
"......" And even through her gloves and the gained distance, he can still hear just how hard she's tapping on the screen right now.
Very not happy. In case the past few minutes of interaction didn't say that clearly enough.
So what really happened? Surely, the answers lie within, right?
The clock on the wall behind the pouting beauty says it's late afternoon, but not quite late enough for the sun to begin to set.
His body, now has mostly woken up, says that he didn't spend too long in this bed.
Not long enough to show any bad signs anyway; discoloration on the mattress, atrophy in his limbs, longer hair, etc.
So it's gotta be recent, he deducts.
"......" What happened earlier today?
Sensei wants to reach for his temple, but he's immediately reminded that the chains to his arms are like, an arm's long. Combined.
In fact, he can't even reach his own chest and scratch under the electrode pads. The itch has to stay, and he has no say.
Anyway... Playing with the absurdly thick and chunky chains with his fingers, he continues.
He flew to Trinity this morning by Schale's heli because it's less time-consuming and, by extension, more sleepy time in bed.
Then he went straight for the Tea Party; Seia is the hostess of the week.
As for Nagisa, she was (and hopefully still is) taking the mandated break.
Mandate made by the consensus made by him and her two other friends, actually.
And... what did they talk about again? The usuals, right?
Routine matters, miscellaneous matters, and several rounds of how many birds will be on that branch in 10 seconds?
He has never won that game against Seia before- No, that's not the point here.
"......" Sensei taps one of his index fingers on his own lap, combing through his memory.
What else did he discuss with Seia?
The next step of the Arius humanitarian program, and what needs to be relayed to Nagisa next week.
Neru wanted to pay her a visit; the question was, should they do this privately or diplomatically?
She needed new uniform (if one can call it that) sleeves because her birds perched on them a lot and their claws tore the fabric.
"Oh." He can't help but mutter out an airy exclamation when the last and far from the least matter comes to mind.
The health checkup. For all Trinity affiliates, including Schale.
And just how he did NOT want to participate in any of it as long as it involves needles.
"I went on full SERE mode." He snorts. "For how long again?"
As to react to his frivolous response, Mine flattens her lungs through her nostrils. "Several Hours. A whole afternoon."
"JTF and the Remedial Knights were working on full swing. Even the Vigilante Crew was brought in."
"Mhm," Auburn purses his lips jovially. "Pretty sure I wasn't spotted 'til the last moment, though."
"Seia-sama said that her long-tailed tit flock found you."
"Okay? But I don't think those tiny cotton balls with wings can knock me out?"
"She predicted where you would be, and had Hasumi-san snipe you with a tranquilizer."
"Ah."
The Captain of the Remedial Knights puts an end to their conversation by silence.
Which also serves as a segue to another topic. "We did several of the required tests when you're out."
"Such as?"
"Height and weight measuring, BMI, chest X-ray, and upper abdominal ultrasound."
"...How?"
"Some tape measures, a cargo weight, restraining straps plus chains, and a lot of elbow grease."
"Hot damn." He can sort of picture the scene and how chaotic it was. "Send the girls my regard, my apologies, and my thanks."
Mine's azure wings open again, the tip of her primary feather pointing upwards proudly.
She puts her tablet down next to his blanketed feet and returns to the adult's side.
Except this time, her steps are deliberately clear, and her brewing anger is further pronounced.
"You see," She says as she pulls on her gloves tighter and tries their fitness by opening and closing her fists.
"We Remedial Knights are very busy, and very short-staffed during this time of the year."
"Thousands of students and important affiliates have to be processed, within a couple of weeks."
"And then, Sensei, a man of utmost importance like you..."
She slams one of her palms next to the small space by his pillow so hard that it rocks the entire bedframe.
"You went on a grand escapade, jeopardized our event, and had to get Seia-sama's hands dirty."
"I had no other choice but to take your issues under my own control; do you understand what that means?"
"That means I'm the one who did all your checkups. All. By. Myself."
Mine hisses, closing in on the distance between her face and his. "Is there anything you have to say, Auburn Sensei?"
Uh-oh. The gust and shockwave from that slamming makes him blink. Sobering me up.
Hard to evade eye contact when she's in breath-feeling distance, and that's probably a good thing.
Mine is pretty. Even anger looks pretty on her for some reason, but no, that's besides the point.
The point is, his special eyes have finally woken up, and there's no way he can misread anything at this distance.
"Daw," It may be too risky to go straight for the tease, however, so he holds it in for now.
"You have my regard, my apologies, and my thanks then, Mine. You're the best."
Hearing the sentence she longs for, Mine returns some of his personal space in satisfaction.
"Good." She still tries to maintain the stern and bitter expression, even though that line has already given it away.
"And with all due respect, you're not a five-year-old anymore, Sensei." Mine fakes another pout as she crosses her arm.
"Exactly," He raises a finger, creating a tiny peak under the blanket. "It's a fear rooted so deep that I can't shake it off even in adulthood."
"It's just a needle!" Mine's assets get pushed upwards slightly as her crossed arms underneath tighten.
"You've been hit with pieces of metal that are bigger and sharper, at far more dangerous areas!"
"Then you'd know it's not about any of that."
"What is it about then?"
"Classified." Auburn does a zipping his mouth shut gesture.
But his hands are tied (literally), so it's just him moving his hand under the blanket and doing a silly shape with his lips.
"Wha-" And that, makes Mine feel the exhaustion of dealing with a 6'4" five-year-old with a slick mouth.
She uncrosses her arms and rests them on her waist instead as she does a little circle-pacing in annoyance.
"Aw c'mon," Sensei adds, trying to comfort the nurse-slash-doctor-slash-student-slash-mom he's been troubling with.
"What about this?" He offers an alternative.
"I go bother Sena instead, ask her for a copy of my blood test report for you, and call it a day?"
"Y'know, your equivalent in Gehenna? I was chained- hospitalized, under her care for a short while before."
"Funny you said that." Mine retrieves the tablet; he can now see a big, golden Trinity logo on its back.
"Sena-san has already sent me a digital copy of the medical report about the time you spent in Gehenna's ward."
She shows him the screen, and indeed, that's his name, office address doubled as home address, contact numbers, and Momotalk ID.
And a profile picture that looks like he's been drugged beyond belief and had his eyes pried open, just to take this photo.
Oh, Sena. He lets out an airy snicker. Could've just asked.
Upon hearing that, Mine swipes a page without even looking, and another page of... texts and numbers show up.
Acronyms followed by a bracket with a set of numbers on it, colored spectrums with an arrow mark...
Oh, the ones that are apparently not okay are actually bracketed in red and highlighted in a lighter red background.
"Red on BLLs and COHb! That means too much lead and carbon monoxide in your bloodstream!"
She even points at the corresponding boxes without looking, indicating how much she's been boring her eyes into them.
"I swapped all my rifles' suppressors with flow-through ones already." He mutters like a scolded child. "Shouldn't be a problem by now."
"Hah..." Mine flips the tablet back toward her and begins another tappity-tap spree. "Not to mention the yellow ones not highlighted..."
"I'll eat more apples."
"That won't work!"
"Mine..." Great minds are alike, and great medical professionals are also alikely difficult to deter, it seems.
"......" The Captain of the Remedial Knights says nothing as she turns to another page.
The true source of her brooding, the front half of the following page contains Sena's final assessments, comments, and anecdotes.
More importantly, other than the expected professional description, Sena also detailed how the adult reacted to her treatment in the latter half.
How he reacted to prolonged hospitalization, how he strongly, strongly rejected a certain pokey, steely medical equipment...
And of course, how he would evade certain topics, sweet-talk his way out of conversational pitholes, and use a hearty apology as a trump card.
It's impressive, even from the standpoint of equally capable medical personnel; Sena practically did a brief mental profiling on Sensei.
But what really caught Mine's attention is actually the things mentioned in the middle, only several lines long.
It's about his blood test and his pre-discharge physical examination; more specifically, the oddity Sena found.
His blood is unusually heavy, with an unknown substance taking over almost half of its content, undetectable in all equipment.
And a scar almost the size of his entire chest, which pattern does not match any trauma she has seen.
In the Emergency Medicine Department, field first-aid and clinical treatment are our specialization, Sena wrote.
We go through dozens of students every day, and I've seen various wounds in terms of size and types, for various reasons.
However, There are several inky dots before the next line begins, indicating the writer's hesitance in word choices.
Aubr The case of Auburn Sensei's chest scar is special and unprecedented in almost all aspects.
I have yet to be able to pinpoint the age, depth, and most crucially, the exact cause of such a scar with currently available information.
As anyone who has access to this report would know: Auburn Sensei isn't keen on talking about himself, after all.
But one thing is certain from a medical professional's standpoint, and assuming Auburn Sensei is a normal human being just like you and me...
"......" Mine grazes her thumb over the final and underlined line, and brings it to the center of the screen.
The conclusion that she witnessed firsthand, briefly analyzed with her eyes and hands, and has no choice but to agree.
...There is no conceivable way that he would be able to survive a wound that created such a gnar grievous scar.
"Boo-boo?" Meanwhile, the very topic of her reading makes himself known with a prod.
Mine snaps back, her wings perk up in a mild surprise. "...Huh?"
Half due to his calling, and half due to... odd (and probably freshly created) nickname.
"Excuse me? Was that at me?"
"Yeah?"
"...Why?"
"You're like a boo-boo that patched me up."
Mine gives him a look. Five-year-old.
Should she try asking? About what's under that sky-blue patient gown?
But if even Sena-san failed to extract anything out of Sensei, the outcome of her attempt is predictable.
Yes, he owes her a big one this time, and Mine has all the rights to use it to her advantage, but...
...But it's against her creed. There's a reason she's the leader of the Remedial Knights, Knights.
Integrity matters. Respecting his boundary also matters.
"Does that mean, uhm," Sensei glances at the IV bag; it still has around a quarter of it left.
"Does that mean I'm done? Like, if no blood test? And needles? Please?"
"No," Mine tries to suppress her smug smile without massaging her face. "You still have at least another IV bag to go."
"What's that for anyway? I'm not in a coma anymore."
"Like I mentioned, Sensei, it's for your BLLs and COHb. It's to wash them out of your system."
"And... how long will that take?"
Mine's wings preen with a gentle wave. "Until further notice." Until I say so.
"I'm going to start crying this building a moat," Auburn slumps into the pillow in utter defeat.
"Imma start crying so loud that Serina will crawl out of the walls to the rescue, and Hanae will come busting me out with her chainsaw."
"Feel free to try." For the first time since she entered the room, a smile finally blooms on her face.
Not exactly the kind of smile he'd like to see, though. "I'll beat them both to reach you. Promise."
"Ha-ha." Sensei strains his facial muscles through the incoming misery to put together what resembles a matching smile.
He gives his beloved student a quick squint before asking the next question, which may or may not set her off.
"You're not actually mad, are you?" Sad puppy eyes won't work on Mine anyway, so he doesn't even bother trying.
His guardian angel (?) walks away from him with a now slower pace and lighter steps.
Before continuing, she tucks the tablet into a small sleeve mounted at the far end of the bedframe.
"Couldn't be mad at you when I saw your face the moment I stepped in here."
He scrunches his face together for a millisecond in response to that. "Was it that bad?"
"Way worse than you made it out to be. You actually looked like a horrified child."
"Can I have a mirror to see how I look now then?"
"No. Because then you'll break it and use the shard to cut yourself loose."
Auburn can't help but grumble; there goes another of his escape plans. "Smart."
Mine returns a victorious smile. "I learned from the best."
She turns to the door of his comfy prison cell, and the gentle breeze brought up by her wing grazes his face.
"I'll come check on you after we wrap up the work today." If only her words match that.
"Wait, didn't you say you were busy-"
"-Bye, Sensei. Enjoy your stay~"
And just like that, the Captain of the Remedial Knight vanishes behind the wooden sliding door as fast as she entered.
As if the way-too-short restraints on his limbs are none of her concern. You gotta be fucking joking...
Within several seconds, he's left with his own devices again.
Alone, deprived of movement... senses have come back, though.
At least the floral scent in this room is nice, much like the majority of Trinity facilities.
Still, not much has changed since he snapped back to reality from the short coma.
Except this time, direction does exist, time does exist; and what's engulfing him whole is but a peaceful serenity.
He remains still; not because he wants to, but because he has no other choice.
"......" And that's okay.
Nothing lasts forever. Not the existential horror he put himself in, and certainly not this... imprisonment, for the lack of a better term.
Auburn lets it, as he takes a deep breath and shuts his eyes.
Hopefully, the next time he opens them, Kivotos will still welcome him with open arms.
Mine will be on his side, undoing his chains, setting him free, and...
"...Hhm." And oh, how he will deliver a hearty apology in the form of a whole world of teasing and trolling upon her.
The darkness enters his view again, but this time, he faces it with a smile.
A happy ending to this chapter awaits.