["After a rough night from an earthquake measuring 4.2 on the Richter Scales that shook the area, the authorities were finally able to contain the fires that had erupted from Kurou Academy and burnt down half the school's gymnasium and damaging the infrastructure of the other associated buildings of the campus.
There have been no casualties, though there were a few injured students who are currently hospitalized due to them sticking around for after-school activities. Sources indicate a failure in the gas system as the likely cause for the fires, but authorities are not ruling out the possibility of more fires coming and have placed the school under observation to remove any likely sources of future fires. This is Maya Origami of Kurou News Japan."]
"Well, that's a wrap then." Sona said as Tsubaki turned the television off. She looked to me with a shrug. "So at the very least, you don't need to come back to school for a short while."
"Yeah, but quite honestly it would have been better I did not have these injuries on me." I replied while wincing at the small pangs of pain shooting down my spine.
It seemed that my injuries were severe enough to the point that I would require a few days of rest even with Asia's Twilight Healing and Avalon working overtime. Whatever the Excalibur Shards did was pretty damaging to me in the long run; I ended up with two broken ribs, several torn muscles in all my limbs, at least one lung collapsed and my Prana severely drained to the point I could barely project a butter knife without a fair bit of effort.
With a taste of irony, the school's utter destruction of the gym and courtyard meant I was one of the few to have a perfect excuse to explain my injuries. I ended up visiting the same hospital I spent my first few months recovering in this world.
Though I really wanted to punch one of the doctors when he asked if I had a fetish for nurses. He sounded genuinely disappointed that I was not inducing my injuries purposely for the nurses, muttering something like he thought he had a fellow comrade or something.
"Well at least we all have our limbs intact." Ise grunted as he shifted a little in his chair. He had relatively lighter injuries compared to me, but he was also pretty banged up from the fight with Kiba, having his arm broken, his legs twisted and nearly having his head removed from his body. Considering that Asia was tired out from healing the others, he ended up coming here to get the doctors give him some treatment.
"So how long do we have to recover before returning back to the academy?" I asked while thanking Reya who helped to adjust the pillow.
"Probably long enough. The damage done to the academy was significant to the point that even with our repair crew working overtime, we cannot get away without explaining about some of the damages." Sona replied back tiredly. "It would raise some suspicion if the academy was able to recover the damage overnight or even two days, so we would need to close off the area to finish the restoration work, which could take a couple of weeks at best, a few months at the worse. Lessons will be held in a different location in roughly two to three days' time until the repairs are done, so use this opportunity to recover okay?"
"Well, I can live with that." I replied as I leaned back on the soft cushioning. "Sorry about the mess though."
"Well much of it was by those exorcists and Kokabiel, so we can charge the bill at the Fallen Angel Faction." She paused before adjusting her glasses. "However there are some portions of the academy you are responsible for by using the Excalibur, and I don't recall allowing you to plant explosive charms around the academy."
"Erm I was just being prepared, I did not plant all the explosives and I tried to limit the blast radius?" I weakly replied at the glare of the Shitori Glasses. "Erm, can I at least get a discount?"
"Oh, I will think of a suitable price later." Sona said that with a smile that immediately got me afraid. "So look forward to it."
Damn it. I let my head hang in tiredness, thinking about the amount of money required. This was going to suck.
"… Well, I will of course give you some form of discount." I looked up to find Sona looking to the side with a slightly flushed face. "It is only appropriate since you saved us."
Was she okay? Maybe she did not recover enough from the fight?
"Erm Emiya-kun?" Momo voiced out uncertainly. "I don't mean to interrupt the conversation but" She pointed to my side of the bed. "What are you going to do with that?" I turned my head to the object of her interest, looked for a moment before letting out a deep sigh.
I was kind of out of it when I came to the hospital, but it seemed that the fused Excalibur decided to tag along with us instead of being taken back to the Church. The others were understandably worried about dealing with the holy sword, but it seemed to understand their frustrations enough to hover a fair distance from them and made itself invisible when we arrived at the hospital and continued until we were alone in the room. Now it was currently placed against the wall, its golden aura lighting up the room with a warm glow.
And to my eyes only, the figure that had plagued me was sitting next to it, its form no longer resembling something from a horror film; from what I could tell, it was a knight with platinum blonde hair, light blue clothing with white accents and lightly plated armor fitted to him. Even with one arm missing, he was now more comfortable to the eye, especially without the empty eye sockets.
The history books were somewhat wrong of King Arthur's appearance it seemed.
"Honestly, I have no idea." I turned my head back to Momo. "I guess we would need to ask those exorcists when they come for it."
"That might be a long wait." Akeno remarked from her side of the room with her arm in a sling. "From what I overheard, the exorcists have a lot of questions to answer for our faction, and the situation is a little volatile."
"Well that sucks~ OAUI!" I replied only to yell out in pain as my chest muscles flared up in agony and I had to slump back.
"Emiya-kun, are you okay?!" Meguri leaned over to stop me from hitting my head against the bed stand.
"Yeah, it is just my ribs." I grumbled as I tried to adjust myself properly. "I have serious injuries before, but this is by far the third longest I ever gone to suffer."
"Even for a human, you are particularly idiotic." Mitelt snorted as she came along and gave me a look that reminded me a little of Sakura when she disapproved some of my decisions or actions. "What type of moron goes around trying to take on a high-tier fallen angel and the Vanishing Dragon with a weapon that could kill him in a few seconds by having his life-force drained out?"
"Evidently me." I grunted as Meguri and Tsubasa helped to lift me up a little and readjust my position. "Granted I should be more careful, but considering the circumstances, I did not have much chance to test whether the sword would absorb a lot of my Prana."
"Hmph! Well take this as a lesson and be more careful, okay?" Mitelt pouted lightly as she glanced to the side. "We can't have you getting injured too often okay?"
"Yeah, I will remember that." I smiled gently at her. "Thank you for your concern."
"What~ I am just making sure that you do not die on me, otherwise there will be no one to protect me from these devils! That is all!" Mitelt sputtered and replied back while crossing her arms and looking away with a red face. What was her problem?
Erm, why were Reya and Meguri looking at me with slightly angry expressions? Why was Akeno and Momo smirking in amusement? And why were Ise and Saji face-palming?
"I am still surprised you were not dead from all those attacks." Tsubasa shook her head as she looked at all the bandages on my arms. "Even for those implanted with the Rook Piece like me or Koneko, I think those type of injuries could have been fatal enough to take us out."
"Well, technically I went through worse." I shrugged while looking away slightly.
"Evidently so." Sona adjusted her glasses again. "If what the doctors said were true, you went through a lot of fights to get the scars and wounds I heard so much about. We should be thankful that the damage from this fight was not too severe."
"Well, thank goodness for that bottle of, what do you call it? Phoenix Tears, huh?" I leaned back with a sigh and looked at the ceiling.
"Save your thanks for the fallen exorcist named Lyle then, he was the one who gave it to us." Sona remarked while frowning. "Though I wonder how he got that bottle."
I lightly nodded as I thought about that bit. Apparently, Lyle helped in curing me by handing over his bottle of Phoenix Tears before disappearing to god-knows-where. When they asked for the reason of helping them, he had this to say.
"I have finally found the true user of Excalibur, and I am duty bound to ensure his survival until our next meeting."
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A/N : The Story Needs More Power Stones ;)
PS : if we can reach 400 Stones by the end of the week, I will throw you an extra chapter
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