Chapter 8: Mixtures

"What do you mean the cells aren't receding?" Ai asked with a perplexed expression on his face, "You're a witch, the best witch I've ever known. If anyone can revert the process, it's you... So why can't you revert the process?"

"You think there would be a problem if I knew why?!" Moe asked, breaking concentration for a moment dropping her hands to her side in a slight sense of defeat, "I don't know what's going on. It's like... He's already undergone full transformation... But at the same time... He didn't."

"You're not making sense."

"Don't you think I know that?" Moe asked, worry now evident in her facial expressions as she reached her hand to her nape, gently rubbing it, distributing her body weight from side to side, continuously glancing back and forth between Sebastian and Ai.

"Let's not worry too much. We'll figure this out. We just have to observe him and his behaviours for now, and come to an overall conclusion on how to fix this mess," Ai said, getting up from his seat, situated a few meters before Sebastian's bed.

"Not worry too much?!" Moe asked as the tone of her voice rose with every word, "How am I supposed to do that? The white and black blood cells aren't supposed to coexist. We don't know what'll happen if we leave him like this!"

"Yeah, I know, so what do you suggest we do about it then?"

The room filled with silence for a short amount of time, Moe biting down on her lower lip while she clenched her fists, the feeling of powerlessness looming in on her for the first time in what felt like an eternity.

"I don't know," she whispered, her voice breaking between her words, "But he's my student... My responsibility... What if something happens to him?"

"Well I don't know if anything's gonna happen to him, but his vitals are telling me that he's quite fine now. And I'll trust that until the morning," Ai replied, resting a hand on Moe's shoulder, his face turning slightly toward her cheek, "If it makes you feel any better, I'll assign the best nurses I know to watch him okay?"

"Fine," Moe sighed, using her left hand to grasp her right elbow, slowly walking out the room, a hint of worry still present in her expression and movements.

Ai followed behind her but stopped for a brief moment, holding on to the hinge of the door as he turned back to look at Sebastian's unconscious body, "You are an interesting specimen young sir. Quite interesting indeed," he muttered to himself before leaving the room and closing the door behind him.

***

"Rise and shine sleeping beauty!" Thaddeus yelled, kicking the leg of Reinhardt who was fast asleep on the grass.

Reinhardt sat up from where he rested with a few blades of grass stuck on the sides of his cheek. He wiped his eyes before opening them, only to be temporarily blinded by the sunlight that greeted him.

"What is it?!" Reinhardt asked, annoyance present in his voice.

"What do you mean 'What is it'? We have a mission to complete. Now's not the time to be lazing around."

"Now's not the time to be lazing around," Reinhardt mocked, his tongue at the bridge of his lips before he rolled his eyes to the very words he muttered, "There's no need to rush anything, no matter how you look at it we'll be back in the city today."

"I'd rather solve the situation before anyone gets hurt due to your ignorance," Thaddeus growled, throwing Reinhardt's equipment at him, "Now, it would be nice if you were to get off your-"

Thaddeus' statement was interrupted with Reinhardt's index finger placed upon his lips. He placed the index finger of his right hand against his own lips, signalling to Thaddeus that he needs to remain quiet.

"What's the problem?" Thaddeus asked in a whisper, looking around them at the trees and greenery that surrounded the two.

"We fell right into their trap," Reinhardt scoffed, "We're surrounded... Around nine?... No, ten of them."

"How can you be so sure?" Thaddeus asked, his right hand against the hilt of the sword strapped to his side.

"Seems you didn't do enough research about who you'd be working with... Though I can't blame you. As far as you're concerned, being a lower rank means I'm an insignificant spec that can only hinder your performance huh?" Reinhardt snickered after asking this question, his snicker becoming a wide smile the moment he realized Thaddeus had no answer to his statement.

"Seems I hit the nail on the head," he thought to himself.

"Very well then. I'll trust your skills for now," Thaddeus said, admitting his mistake, "If you can help get us out of this mess, I'll file a request for another rank assessment for you."

"Ranks don't matter to me," Reinhardt said, unsheathing his sword, "As long as I get to kick ass, I don't care about much more."

He dashed forward toward a nearby shrub, sticking the blade of his sword in the ground and using his upper body strength to propel him upward. While in the air, he was face to face with someone who seemed to have been spying on the two, his arms outstretched as his nails seemingly grew taller.

"Why, hello there," he snickered, twirling himself in the air to push him closer to the person before him. His hand covered the face of their stalker, pushing him back, having both of them fall out the tree before the attacked could react.

Picking up Reinhardt's sword and pulling out his own, Thaddeus stood still as at least four hostile units charged toward him, his magenta amulet glowing brighter the closer they get to him.

"Rookie mistake," he muttered to himself while a magenta aura covered the blades of both swords and spread all over his body. Holding out both swords, he spun, making a total of four calculated slashes, one at each of the people who were approaching him. Despite them being a decent distance away, the slashes made reached of them as a physical manifestation of the aura previously on the blades.

Though they weren't badly injured, they were at least slowed down quite a bit with wounds that had the magenta aura spread from them.

"Time to submit," he chuckled, his eyes glowing the same colour as his amulet as he fixed his stance, preparing to fight seriously from this point on.

***

The area around him was blurry, and for quite a while, all he could see was a pixelated lump mixture of white and blue. It took a few seconds from opening his eyes for his vision to stabilize, a headache making its way to the forefront of his head the second he sat upon his hospital bed. Sebastian groaned, taking hold of his forehead just before looking around at his surroundings. While glancing around the place, memories of the night before continuously flashed before him. The fight he endured, the pain he felt... the leg he lost.

In a sudden shock of remembrance, he pulled away the covers, checking for his leg which was surprisingly present and functional. He sighed, leaning back in his bed, confusion taking over just before his room door opened. Doctor Ai stepped into the room, an initial expression of worry on his face, but he relaxed a bit seeing that Sebastian was up in his bed.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," Ai chuckled, closing the door behind him and resting his notebook on the very bed Sebastian laid in, "You gave Moe quite the shock, and as such, you gave me a lot more work, you know that?"

Sebastian furrowed his eyebrows, visibly confused from Ai's statement.

"What happened exactly?" he asked, pushing himself up on the bed so that he was now sitting upright.

"Ah, where do I begin?" Ai sighed, holding his hips, "Let's wait till you've had something to eat first. It's quite the long story."