Three days.
Yuki had been asleep on the living room floor for three days. Elena had tried to move him to a bed twice. Both times, Hana growled at her. Actually growled — a low, rumbling sound from deep in her small chest that made the seasoned maid back away slowly.
Hana hadn't moved. She'd eaten only when Kana brought food. She'd slept curled against his side. She'd held his hand when his body twitched, and his mana flared in his sleep. But she hadn't left. Not once.
Kana had taken shifts. Sitting cross-legged at his feet with her sword, glaring at anyone who got too close. She let Lira and Bella through. Elena and Miri. Nobody else.
Bella checked on him with her magic eyes every few hours. The mana flood had slowed to a trickle by the second day and stopped entirely by the third. His body was still changing — she could see the energy integrating, restructuring, settling into place. But the crisis was over.
Lira barely slept. She sat in the chair nearest to him and watched his chest rise and fall and counted the seconds between breaths.
On the morning of the fourth day, his eyes opened.
Everyone was in the room. Lira in her chair doing paperwork. Bella on the opposite sofa reading a book. Kana at his feet. Elena in the doorway. Miri behind her mother.
Hana was on his chest.
He blinked. Focused. Saw the worried faces.
"Hey."
The room exhaled.
"How long was I out?"
"Three days," Lira said. Her voice was steady. Her eyes were not.
He sat up — carefully, because Hana was still attached. She shifted but didn't let go, her small hands gripping his shirt.
"I feel fine. Better than fine, actually."
He looked down at himself and paused.
He was bigger. Not subtly. His frame had widened. His shoulders were broader, his arms thicker, his torso denser. When he stood — gently lifting Hana with him — his head was closer to the ceiling than it had been three days ago.
"How tall am I?"
"Taller," Lira said.
He checked. About 190 centimetres. Six foot three. He'd gained almost ten centimetres in his sleep. His skin felt different too — not harder exactly, but denser. Like the difference between touching wood and touching stone.
Ugh, the absorption restructured everything again. Muscle fibres, bone density, mana integration. Twelve thousand lives worth of energy, compressed into a teenage body. It will likely take time again to adjust to my new frame.
He looked down at Hana, still in his arms, still clinging.
"She didn't leave your side," Bella said quietly. "Not once in the three days."
Yuki held the little fox girl and gently rubbed behind her ears. "Hey, Hana. I'm up. I'm okay."
She pulled back enough to look at his face. Dark eyes searching. Making sure.
Then she said it.
"Yuki!"
Clear. Loud. A single word carrying three days of worry and relief and something fierce that a five-year-old shouldn't have needed to feel.
The room went still. Hana rarely spoke. Single words were events. A full-volume shout of his name was unprecedented.
Yuki didn't flinch. Didn't make it a thing. Just smiled and said: "Hey there, Hana. Thanks for keeping me company. I felt better knowing you were by my side the whole time."
She nodded. "Mm." Clear. Voluntary. A real response.
Two words in one minute. A record.
Kana launched herself from the floor and landed on him like a silver-eared missile. "I was guarding you too! The whole time! Nobody got past me!"
"I can imagine that, Kana." He caught her with his free arm, now holding both fox children — one in each arm, which was easier than ever given his new size. "Good job. Both of you."
Over their heads, he saw Lira and Bella. Both had tears running down their faces. Lira was wiping hers away fast, trying to maintain composure. Bella wasn't even pretending — she stood there with wet cheeks and her mismatched eyes bright and didn't care who saw.
"I'm okay," he said. Softer now. For them. "Really. I'm okay."
He set the girls down and stretched. His body felt like it had been rebuilt from the inside out — because it had. Everything was tighter, stronger, more responsive. He flexed his hand and felt the mana move through him like electricity through copper. Fast. Effortless.
"Any news while I was out?"
Bella wiped her eyes and switched to briefing mode. "The general you captured talked. This was the Dominion's primary offensive — twenty thousand men total, naval and ground, sent to capture Veldara. Our standing army is barely fourteen thousand. If they'd reached the city..." She trailed off.
"They would have won."
"Almost certainly. Especially with their siege weapons." She straightened. "The city's been celebrating since you dropped the prisoners at the gate. There's been a festival for two days. Everyone's calling you the Masked Hero. Songs are being written."
"Great."
"You don't sound pleased."
"Songs mean attention. Attention means questions. This is exactly why I wore the mask."
He walked to the table where the jars of capsules sat — exactly where he'd left them, untouched.
"You didn't take any?"
Lira shook her head. "We wanted to wait until you were awake."
He picked up a jar. The blueberry-sized capsules glowed faintly inside — condensed human life energy, compressed into swallowable form. The solution his parallel mind had been working on for months, completed in a moment of crisis.
He ran every analysis spell he had. Enhanced processing. Thought acceleration. Dozens of parallel minds examining the capsule's structure simultaneously.
Safe. Stable. The energy disperses evenly through the body on ingestion. No rejection risk. No side effects at standard dosage.
"Take one. Each of you."
He distributed them. One for Lira. One for Bella. One for Elena. One for Miri.
He crouched in front of Kana and Hana with two capsules in his palm. "Your turn."
Kana looked at the capsule. Looked at him. "It's too big."
"It's the size of a blueberry."
"A big blueberry."
"Kana. It'll make you stronger."
"I can't swallow it."
Hana shook her head in agreement. Solidarity in refusal.
Yuki tried reason. He tried encouragement. He tried explaining the magical benefits in terms a five-year-old would understand. Both girls crossed their arms and shook their heads.
He looked at Elena. "Elena will give you sweets if you take them."
Two pairs of ears shot up. Elena, catching the implicit order, nodded and produced a small tin of honey candies from her apron pocket, which when Yuki had designed it, had turned it into a magic bag, which she loved.
The capsules were swallowed in three seconds.
Bribery. The one universal constant across all worlds.