Aleron rushed back to the hidden city as fast as he could. Sir Richardson bellowed at him when he tried to leave, but when he explained there was an emergency, Mr Ansel excused him, overruling the vice-president. He took the train for the first time in years just to cut down the journey from days to hours. It was dark by the time he arrived at the hospital, but Aleron kept running as fast as he could down the halls until he found Sophia waiting for him outside Brayden’s room.477Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkpz8Lpma5J
“Is he alright?” Aleron asked as he ran up to Sophia.
“He’s gotten worse,” Sophia explained. “He has this dreadful fever that keeps rising, but no matter what medication we give him it won’t come down.”
“Can you explain to me what happened?” Aleron said.
“It was so sudden we don’t know,” Sophia sighed. “Brayden’s been doing so much better these last few days. He was comfortably walking in his therapy, and he was generally trying for the first time to work with us, even if he feels a little stressed. He still doesn’t speak, but he has started interacting with us. However, just as we were about to finish up today, he tripped and lost consciousness. At first, we thought that the stress had gotten to him and caused him to black out but when he woke up, he had a fever in the low forties. He couldn’t move and he was struggling to breathe. His health has drastically declined since then, and he’s continuously getting worse.”
“What do you need me to do? How am I supposed to help?” Aleron asked.
“Well he seems to be in a lot of pain, but we can’t find anything physically wrong with him,” Sophia explained. “We need to ask him how he feels to look into what’s causing this. However, the only way he’s been able to communicate with us is nodding and shaking his head, but he’s too weak to do that right now. You’re the only one he talks to, so we need you to find out what’s wrong.”
With a nod, Aleron walked into the room. He opened and closed the door as quietly as he could before walking towards Brayden.
“Brayden, are you alright?” Aleron asked as he sat on the seat next to the bed.
Brayden weakly opened his eyes and looked up at him. Even Aleron could tell that he wasn’t well at all. His breathing was uneven, his face was flushed, and it looked like it took all his energy to stay awake.
“A-A-Aleron…?” Brayden muttered.
“I heard you aren’t feeling very well today,” Aleron said. “Everyone is really worried about you, are you in pain anywhere?”
“Y-yeah…” Brayden muttered. “M-my h-h-head…”
“Your head?” Aleron confirmed. “Can you tell me where?”
“A-all of it…” Brayden replied. “It-t really h-hurts-s-s.”
“It must be a migraine of sorts,” Aleron sighed. “Do you get headaches like this often?”
“N-not th-this bad,” Brayden stuttered. “But… yeah.”
“How often?” Aleron asked, concerned about how frequent his headaches were.
“N-nearly e-everyday…” Brayden said weakly.
“Every day huh?” Aleron sighed. He pushed back his sweat-drenched hair to place his hand on his forehead. “You are really warm. This heat must be unbearable.”
“I-I’m a-a Fire E-Elemental… this is… n-nothing…” Brayden claimed.
Aleron almost commented on how he remembered something about himself, but he was too distracted with his expression. His eyes started to tear up, he became paler and looked like he was in more pain than before.
“Brayden, does it hurt when I touch your head?” he asked.
“Y-yes… a l-lot…” Brayden replied. Once he finished speaking, he began to cough. Sophia had warned him that his lungs were still a little weak due to Kazmir’s poison, so his heavy breathing from the fever was going to make him feel even sicker.
After a heavy sigh, Aleron called out to Sophia which caused Brayden to flinch and whimper. He didn’t say it very loud which meant his reaction was very alarming.
“What’s the matter?” Sophia asked as she entered the room. “We can’t hear very well from the other room.”
“I think there may be something wrong with his head,” Aleron explained. “He just told me that he gets headaches all the time and that he has a really bad one right now.”
“But we have thoroughly examined everything we could, and we can’t find anything,” Sophia stated.
“Such debilitating and recurring pains isn’t normal right?” Aleron stated. “If it’s not a brain or head abnormally, what else could it be?”
“I’m sorry I don’t know,” Sophia sighed. “We have no idea what could be causing this. Nothing comes up in any of the tests making it impossible to make a diagnosis. Sometimes we wonder if there’s some sort of spell blocking our ability to find out what’s really wrong.”
That comment from Sophia made Aleron feel sick in the stomach. Remembering that she had also said something about another person causing some of Brayden’s injuries, an idea popped into his head.
“Have you checked his Ikiru and Kohai levels?” Aleron asked.
“No, we haven’t been able to yet,” Sophia replied. “It’s quite a gruelling test, and until his health improved, we couldn’t even think about performing it.
“I have a feeling we should do one now,” Aleron stated. “Is it at all possible to check the activity in particular places in his body? Especially his head?”
“It is possible, but it could take some time. If we use our strongest machine, we’ll be able to examine the whole body with details retaining to each of his organs,” Sophia claimed. “However, we’ll need him to stay awake the entire time to get a proper reading, and it will be painful.”
“We don’t have any choice,” Aleron claimed. “I can’t help but feel something sinister is at work here.”
After that Sophia left the room to get the necessary equipment. While she was gone, Aleron asked Brayden if he was going to be alright taking the tests. He agreed, begging Aleron to make the pain go away. Sophia returned five minutes later with a large grey machine. She removed the metal headband with tiny needles at the bottom that was attached by wires and walked over to Brayden.
“Alright, I have to place this on his head, one needle at a time,” Sophia claimed, folding the headband at each metal clamp. “Unfortunately, I can’t give him another sedative as I just gave him one an hour ago. I’ll need your help as much as possible Aleron.”
Aleron nodded, once he did Sophia bent over and began to place the headband on Brayden’s head. He kicked, wailed and screamed as soon as Sophia started, only just managing to insert the first needle into his temple. Aleron had no choice but to pin Brayden down, stopping him from moving as he continued to yelp in agony. When the headband was completely in place, and Sophia was able to turn on the machine, Aleron let go of him. It made a whirring sound every minute, indicating that it was making a scan. Each time Brayden flinched, and his breathing became more rapid.
“Would you like to hold my hand?” Aleron asked.
Brayden gave a slight nodded, whimpering in pain as he did. Aleron grabbed onto his left hand, which made him relax slightly. Ten minutes past and every scan made him squeeze his hand harder, so hard that Aleron thought his hand was going to shatter into a million pieces. Sophia finally turned off the machine and removed the headband, when she did Brayden released his grip on Aleron’s hand.
“That should do it,” Sophia said as Aleron helped her packed up the machine. “I’ll gather the results in the next room. Please join me when you can.”
Sophia left the room, and Aleron went to follow her. Brayden rolled over to his side and grabbed onto his sleeve. He turned back to him as he looked up at him, his eyes begging him not to go.
“It’s alright, I won’t be far,” Aleron said to him. “I’ll just be in the next room if you…”
He trailed off when he noticed that Brayden had become paler and started to shiver. He coughed slightly as he lost his grip on Aleron.
“Are you cold?” Aleron asked, to which Brayden replied with a weak and shaken nod. He grabbed onto the blanket that was folded at the end of the bed and placed it on top of him to cover his body, so only his head lay above the covers.
“I-is i-it o-over?” Brayden asked. “I-I d-don’t want to d-do that a-again…”
“Yes,” Aleron replied, wiping the tears from his cheeks. “The test is finished now, so you don’t have to worry about it anymore.”
“B-but… it…s-still h-hurts…” Brayden muttered.
“I know, but because of that test we’ll be able to find out what is wrong and fix it,” Aleron assured him. “How about you try and get some sleep now?”
“I-I’ll t-try…” he sighed. “B-but t-there’s so m-much p-pain it’s h-hard.”
“That’s alright, just close your eyes and try your best,” Aleron stated, getting to his feet. “I’m going to see Sophia now, but I’ll come back. I promise.”
“O-okay…” Brayden muttered, closing his eyes.
Aleron walked into the next room and stood next to Sophia, keeping his gaze on Brayden to make sure he was okay.
“Anything yet?” Aleron wondered.
“It’s just coming through now,” Sophia replied. “Should only be another minute.”
Aleron waited patiently for the results. Exactly a minute later Sophia gasped in shock.
“I-impossible,” she stuttered. “How is this even…?”
“What’s wrong?” Aleron asked.
“It’s hard to explain but his, for the most part, his Ikiru energy levels are normal. But his Kohai levels… They are so high that an ordinary Oviri would be dead,” Sophia explained. “The scariest thing is that most of it is located in two spots.”
“Where?” Aleron asked, attempting to get a look at Sophia’s screen.
“First there is his lungs. I thought it was Kazmir’s poison, but this seems to be the real reason he gets tired easily, is short on breath and occasionally has coughing fits,” Sophia stated. “Thankfully there’s not too much there to be too concerned, but…”
“What about the second?” Aleron asked.
Sophia didn’t need to reply as Aleron caught a glimpse of the screen. He was horrified by the amount of Kohai energy activity on his brain. It was hard to believe that Brayden hadn’t died with such dark thick energy attacking his mind.
“You were right, the Kohai energy in his head is probably the cause of all these problems. There is hardly any Ikiru energy activity there at all,” Sophia sighed. “I have no doubt in my mind that it was placed here on purpose with a spell. It couldn’t have been Kazmir, I doubt he could pull off something so precise. Whoever did this to poor Brayden really knew what they were doing.”
“Do you know what spell?” Aleron asked.
“Give me a moment,” Sophia muttered as she quickly and firmly tapped on the computer’s keys.
She calculated the results for two minutes before an answer appeared on the screen. When it did, Sophia gulped and began to tremble slightly. Aleron watched as she opened her mouth, closed it then bit onto her lip.
“Infinite Void…” she whispered.
As soon as she named the spell, Aleron clicked his tongue. Everything had fallen into place, and he understood what had really happened to Brayden and why he was still alive. At that moment he knew that Kazmir attacking him was no coincidence and that the evil Shadow Beast was actually hired to kill Brayden. Since Kazmir often bragged about killing a Valero, Aleron gathered that he must have left not knowing that he had failed his mission. Which also meant some else finished the job by casting Infinite Void, a spell that erases all of the victim’s memories, personality and abilities while turning them into a motionless doll that would never age, heal or die. Aleron was absolutely horrified, especially since he knew that there was only one person who knew how to cast that spell. Brayden’s own father, who was also the one who probably hired Kazmir to assassinate the child.
“I can’t believe this,” Aleron growled. “To do that to his own son, after everything he forced him to do.”
“Yin Gethen, correct?” Sophia asked, her eyes wide with horror. “The Dark Oviri before Darkyn took over?”
“Yes…” Aleron sighed, attempting to calm himself. “Where do we go from here? Somehow the spell is beginning to wear off. I don’t know how much longer the curse will last, but he’ll continue to be in extraordinary pain until it does.”
“There’s not much we can do, this is far beyond our capabilities,” Sophia stated. “For now all we can do give him an Ikiru transfusion to combat the Kohai energy and hope for the best.”
Much to Aleron’s relief, Brayden’s condition improved after receiving an Ikiru transfusion. It took about an hour for his fever to drop under forty and his breathing to ease. Until that point the headache had kept Brayden from sleeping. As soon as it eased, he fell straight to sleep. Three hours passed and he started to get a bit of colour back, the pained look on his face disappeared and looked peaceful as he slept. Aleron decided to stay by his side in case he needed him. He picked up Brayden’s book to pass the time, but he couldn’t understand most of the spells written in it. He didn’t know how the kid managed to get through the entire book three times in two weeks.
His phone began to ring, causing Brayden to stir slightly. Knowing that he had to take the call, Aleron left the room and closed the door behind him so he didn’t wake him up. As he knew that it was the MLC he picked up the call.
“Aleron, how is Brayden Valero?” Sir Richardson asked, not even taking a second to say hello.
“He’s doing better,” Aleron sighed. “His temperature is still a little high and he’s very run down but he’s in a stable condition now.”
“Excellent just the news we wanted to hear,” Sir Richardson said. “It has been decided. Once we get permission from the Head Shadow Beast, we will be heading out there to collect him. He will be moved to our care and start his training immediately.”
“That can’t happen,” Aleron yelled. “He may be improving but he’s still really ill! Only these doctors and nurses can help him, so he needs to stay here. His health will deteriorate if you move him now!”
“Why is that?” Sir Richardson asked. “Surely he’s not that sick.”
“He has dangerously high Kohai levels in his head and lungs, you can’t even possibly think that’s not being sick,” Aleron growled. “Mr Ansel, surely you would understand important it is to let him stay here.”
“I do,” Mr Ansel replied. “I voted against moving him, but majority voted for it.”
“The discussion is over Aleron,” Sir Richardson barked. “We demand you talk to your superiors to allow us to come and collect Brayden Valero.”
“No, I’m not letting you take him away,” Aleron claimed. “You are going to have to abandon this plan of yours, or you will have to face me as an enemy.”
“If he doesn’t come into our care, what are we going to do about him?” Sir Richardson demanded. “We can’t just let him do as he pleases. Who will look after him?”
“I will,” Aleron said, positive his decision was the right choice. “He’s just a little kid and he deserves to live as one after everything he’s been through. Once he’s well enough he’ll live with me and I’ll take care of him.”
“He’s an extremely powerful Oviri, the only full Fire Elemental left in the world!” Sir Richardson growled. “Without his memories he’s dangerous. We can’t leave him unsupervised. He needs to train with us.”
“Richardson, considering how unwell he is, I believe that the best option for now to let Aleron look after Brayden,” The president of the MLC spoke up. “He is quite young and with his injuries he really needs time to recover. Aleron is a very capable warrior, I’m sure he’d be able keep Brayden and his powers under control.”
“We cannot change the decision now, we took a vote,” Sir Richardson snarled. “You can’t override this plan on your own. You need majority of the top five Starlight Knights to agree with you to cancel what had already been decided.”
“Ah yes, but I’m the only one present,” Mr Ansel said. “If the others were here, I bet three of them would agree with me. Besides since I am the only one here, doesn’t that mean I make up the majority of the top five. I dare say that by the looks on everyone’s faces after hearing more about Brayden’s condition are reluctant about their choice. I’m the President, so I’m calling it off.”
“But sir…” Richardson began to complain.
“That’s enough let’s save this discussion for a later date. We’ll decided what to do when Brayden’s feeling better.”
After that final statement the line disconnected. Aleron sighed, placing his phone back in his pockets and re-entering the room.
“Thank god that’s over,” Aleron muttered as he closed the door.
“A-Aleron…” Brayden called as he coughed.
Aleron turned around to find that he had woken up and was staring at him. He walked over to see how he was doing. He was still a little flushed and looked drowsy, but he seemed to look a lot better than when he first saw him earlier that night.
“I’m sorry did I wake you?” he asked.
“I-I’ve been awake for a-awhile,” Brayden claimed. “I h-had a bad dream.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Aleron said kneeling beside him. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I f-forgot…” Brayden shook his head. “L-like always.”
“I see,” Aleron muttered. “Are you feeling any better now?”
“A l-little…” he muttered. “M-my head is fine, but I s-still feel r-really sick…”
“Alright, why don’t you go back to sleep?” Aleron suggested. “I’ll be staying here tonight to look after you, okay?”
“Aleron… a-are they r-really going to take me a-away?” Brayden asked.
“Oh, you heard me?” Aleron sighed. He was shocked that Brayden could hear him all the way out in the hallway with the door closed. He looked down at him. His eyes were watering, and he looked frightened. Aleron started to stroke his hair so that it was out of his face and smiled. “No, you don’t need to worry about that, I’m not going to let them.”
“Then… you r-really mean it,” Brayden asked. “I c-can stay with you?”
“Only if you want to,” Aleron claimed. “Would you like to come home with me when you’re better?”
Brayden didn’t answer, dropping his gaze as if to think over Aleron’s question. His eyes began to flutter and he looked like he was about to drift back off to sleep.
“You don’t need to give me an answer right away. Just think about it until the time comes. Whatever you decide, I promise to look after you,” Aleron said.
“O-okay…” Ray mumbled.
“Alright, get some sleep. I promise I’ll still be here when you wake up,” Aleron said as Brayden closed his eyes.
It was only seconds before he fell back asleep. He didn’t stir again after that, not even when Sophia came into the room to check up on him.
“He’s doing well thanks to you Aleron,” Sophia said after confirming that Brayden had greatly improved because of the Ikiru transfusion. “We never would have found out what was wrong if you didn’t come to comfort him.”
“It’s good to hear,” Aleron sighed. “I managed to talk the MLC out of transferring him elsewhere. Now he should have plenty of time to make a full recovery.”
“Ah that reminds me. There’s something I need to ask of you,” Sophia stated.
“What?” Aleron asked.
“We’ve considered that the stress from the therapy caused this to escalate. He may be able to leave here in a month depending on how his health is, but I’m afraid he won’t be ready for it when the time comes,” Sophia explained. “Since he’s so comfortable around you, we were wondering if you’d take over his therapy lessons.”
Aleron didn’t know what to say. However, when he turned his gaze back to the peacefully sleeping Brayden, he knew he couldn’t refuse.
ns 15.158.61.21da2
