After All This Time

By the time she leaves the store, Mizuki notices how it's almost evening, or late afternoon at least. By the time she's done with Ether, she's sure it's going to be dark.

It isn't a detail she hasn't taken particular notice of but time passes twice as fast as it used to in the real world. It's been at least a month or two here, maybe even more yet a week could've passed in the real world. Heck, even a year could've passed but she'd never know. It's not an everyday thing to transverse into a video game world.

Mizuki drops by the house Ethel ran out from, trudging up towards the roof where she finds a room not much different from a workshop. There are wooden workbenches with tools of all sorts—metal gears and wrenches, at least three kinds of screwdrivers.

"George wants his clock fixed," Mizuki says to the empty room. From behind a table, Ether's head pops up excitedly. She holds the clock in her hand.

"I only have a few missing pieces but it's fixable. It's not that bad."

'Not that bad' she claims but the clock looks like it escaped from a war. "If you have a few chunks of iron or something, I might be able to fix this right now and you can pass it to him by the time it's morning!"

Mizuki's eyes widen in joy, knowing she has to have raw materials in her satchel from exploring and quests. Scavenging through her satchel, she manages to gather the right amount of ore that's required. With too much enthusiasm, she shoves them into Ethel's arms. "Please. Take it and work your magic. But don't set the building on fire this time."

"Be here next morning," Ethel smiles.

Mizuki nods, swiftly excusing herself from the place before she chokes up from the smokey smell in the atmosphere. True to her expectations, it's darker now that she's already on the way home. Mizuki quickens her walk into a scurry, rubbing her arms for warmth.

She pushes the door open and the first thing she notices is the back door being open. Mizuki freezes in place, her hand limp around the doorknob.

Very slowly, her gaze falls and on the ground, there's the silhouette of a man. Her heart stops. Partly because it's Hinata and partly because he's covered in a pool of blood. Holy shit, it's Hinata and holy shit, he's injured.

Mizuki pinches herself. She winces. It's bad that this isn't a dream.

Mizuki releases her grip on the door, very cautiously inching towards Hinata. Her footsteps are loud, probably louder than it's comfortable since there's only one other person in the room. She's partially not convinced it's even him.

Mizuki bends her knees slightly, urging him to look up by running a hand through his hair. Upon meeting the familiar coldness in his eyes, she knows too well that it's him.

Hinata looks like he's seconds away from death. Coldness morphs into sheer agony and the only thing that breaks Mizuki out of her intent stare is red at the corner of her eyes. Blood. A lot of it, from his forehead until his hands. His clothes are burned and ripped and he looks like he'd been wrangled.

Mizuki freezes. It's all she can do in this situation, staring wide-eyed and shocked. If she were anywhere close to her conscious mind, she might have noticed how her heart has stopped.

"Hinata…" Mizuki reaches a shaky hand towards his face and by this time, her trembling knees are against the ground.

"Hinata?" Mizuki feels him shake under her grip. It's not out of fear, rather because he's trying so hard to hold it together in front of her. Hinata has his head leaned over the floor, coughing hoarsely.

"Hhhh… I'm fine…" Hinata fumbles, knocking Mizuki lightly in the arm but it's a failed attempt in pushing her away. Mizuki forces him to look up and she's almost on the verge of tears. She doesn't want to accept it. Hinata doesn't believe it either. "I'm…" Hinata's voice wavers, and this time he's inaudible. "Fine…"

Hinata leans his head forward onto Mizuki. She inhales sharply, trying to push him off her because he's so, so heavy and the metallic stench of his blood is driving her mad.

Mizuki ventures till the Heavens for answers, any hint as to what she's supposed to do next. She starts to grow anxious upon feeling no movement under her touch, overly aware of the palpitations of her own heart and the lack thereof from Hinata. Is he supposed to have a heartbeat? Mizuki presses two fingers against his neck.

There's no pulse. 'Is there supposed to be a pulse?' Mizuki lugs him to the couch and half her shirt is drenched in sweat and blood and whatever else but she doesn't care because time is ticking and she needs to figure out what the hell she's supposed to do.

Praying to dear God or at least anyone who might be willing to listen, Mizuki hopes that the worst won't happen in her absence. She has to stand over him for a couple of seconds in reassurance that he isn't going to vanish into a cloud of pixels. A splitting headache makes her crumple. 'Shit, I need to find a doctor quickly.'

Mizuki gets a week of training done in the next five minutes as she runs at her quickest, knowing when and where to dodge so she won't get blocked on her way to the clinic.

It's on the street on the left of Garden Olive, a quaint store with misty windows and white blinds pulled over. Mizuki knows this because she's seen it on the map before and marked it in her memory for emergencies. This, though, might've been the least foreseeable circumstance.

"I think Hinata's going to die," Mizuki slams the door of the clinic open. The doctor spits out his coffee, eyes wide and with disbelief.