Aceso: Goddess of Healing.

After that message from Erika, it seemed connection was cut off as she remained silent and that they couldn't hear eachother's thoughts anymore.

Curious about the whole ordeal Andre questioned the other two but they didn't know anything either.

The fact that Erika had to rely on unconventional means to contact them meant that it was a really grave situation. But well, Iris' abilities had massive restrictions on them so they wasn't surprised when connection cut off at the 5 minutes mark.

"Should we wait for her for a little bit?"

Andre wasn't knowledgable about Iris and what she could do so he wanted to know if she could re-establish the connection quickly. After all, he only joined this branch 10000 years ago, he was in the Americas before that.

"I think it might be faster for us to get back to the base and hear the information from them ourselves than to wait for them."

"Why?"

"Because telepathy especially among a group that's far away puts massive strain on Iris. She will also take too long to locate us. I've even seen her eyes pop and her ears rupture trying to locate Jean a long time ago."

"...Holy. No wonder why you don't use that often."

"Guys, stop talking and start moving."

And so, they started moving. They tried to take the paths with the least amount of Zirtues possible as Andre wasn't really suited for combat.

So, from 5 in the morning to 6 in the evening was all spent moving. And not long after that, they arrived at the base.

First glance might tell you that it was just a flattened area. But when Xander stepped on a specific area, the center of the area moved upwards, revealing an elevator.

Entering the elevator, they were quite disappointed to find that it was still under repairs.

***

The three stepped out of the elevator as it reached the first floor. And the first thing that greeted them was a startling sight: the entire floor looked neglected, cracks everywhere on the walls, and the machines were...still. The engineers were frantically running around, trying to fix things up.

"What the hell happened here?"

Aside from Andre, the other two also showed similar responses implying that this was very new. Maybe it was the thing that Erika had wanted to inform them of.

Looking around, they couldn't find Erika anywhere. So, they went to the place that first came to mind: Iris' room.

Following the gigantic arrows leading to the room. Aceso felt really bad for the girl. The first time she used her powers, she was paralysed for a week. The second time, she lost her sight and hearing. Then the third and most recent, she got brain damage.

Who knew what would happen to her this time? They quickly arrived at her room and upon seeing the door open, they all entered with bated breaths.

Upon entering the room, they saw Erika sitting next to a bed, she was holding a hand. Looking up a little, they saw Iris with all her hair fallen off and her eyes gone. Her throat was crushed and they did not know why.

Aceso, without wasting a single moment, dashed towards the bed shoving Erika away. She bit off her finger and crushed it, squeezing all the blood, flesh and bones onto the girl's injuries.

Her throat recovered a bit. However, nothing happened to the eyes.

'What now???'

She was frantically looking for ways to heal Iris but nothing came to mind. She could sacrifice a few more of her fingers but it seemed that it wouldn't be enough.

'Wait.'

Recalling something, she took out a Tree-IV from her pockets. Tore it to bits and scattered it around the throat and eyes. She bit off another one of her fingers and crushed it as she did before.

The others watched from nearby, hoping to learn something in the process but it didn't work, they were very amazed though. They wanted to help but couldn't do anything. Xander knew this best because of the three previous times, only through a healer would Iris' body heal.

The healing was supposed to be harder each time she used her powers but the sight before them said otherwise. By tearing a Zirtue into bits, she fused its cells with Iris', effectively healing her.

In minutes, the throat that was basically dismantled was normal again, but the eyes...

"Give me a Crab-II."

Xander quickly complied as he gave Aceso a large chunk of crab meat the got from battling a grade II.

Dividing the meat into two equal parts, she quickly inserted them into her two eye pockets. Sacrificed two more fingers and she prayed.

A minute passed and nothing happened, much to her prayers. Concluding that she couldn't do anything anymore to restore her eyesight, she tried to remove the meat from her eyes.

Iris could still get by with artificial eyes anyways.

However, the moment she touched the meat to pull it out, its color changed. From dark red, it slowly but surely turned white. And in the middle of that whiteness appeared a bright blue.

Aceso took a step back and within minutes, Iris' eyes were normal again, she also closed Iris' eyelids for her. But the work didn't stop there as she opened her head-cap and sprinkled a ton of Zirtue dust onto her brain, then sacrificing another finger. She then hoped for the best and took a few steps back.

"That was, crazy! I didn't know you could heal like that, Aceso."

"Well, looking at the eye sockets reminded me of Anastasia and how she healed her injuries, so I replicated that, didn't think it would work though."

She also wanted to ask Erika about Iris but...she was sleeping, yes sleeping.

"Okay, this atmosphere is a little too tense right now, because Erika is sleeping, I'll go to the second floor to report on my findings, so inform me if I missed anything."

With that, Andre left the room. Minutes passed by without anything happening. Five minutes then fifteen and eventually an hour. Normally, no matter how bad the damage was, Aceso could heal them all, in less than a minute. So, waiting for this long made her incredibly anxious.

Then two hours passed and even Xander left the room, Andre briefly came by but also left with Xander, leaving only 3 people in the room.

Staring intensely at Iris' fingers, Aceso did not blink once. Soon, she saw a slight twitch, then Iris began breathing again. Standing up, Aceso looked over Iris.

The girl's eyes opened slowly, revealing a blue, starry iris.