Pain was a compass. It told him exactly where the broken pieces were.
Ren dragged himself out of the dark. The transition was not gentle. It felt like being pulled naked through crushed glass. The heavy, metallic smell of the accident was gone. The sterile stench of the infirmary was gone.
He smelled old paper. Dust. Earl Grey tea.
He did not open his eyes immediately. He listened.
Rain lashed against a windowpane somewhere to his right. A clock ticked with a heavy, mechanical rhythm. Someone was breathing nearby. The breaths were completely silent. But he felt the displacement of the air. He felt the static charge of magic lingering in the room.
He focused on his body. His left leg was a pillar of pure, white-hot agony. The tibia was fractured. The muscle tissue around it throbbed in time with his erratic heartbeat.
Good. He was alive. The pain proved it.
He slowly opened his eyes.
The ceiling was made of dark, carved wood. Shadows clung to the corners of a massive, archaic room. He was lying on a deep red leather sofa.
He shifted his weight.
The broken bone in his leg ground together.
A violent spasm ripped through his body. His jaw locked. He bit down on the inside of his cheek so hard he tasted fresh blood. He refused to make a sound.
"You are awake."
The voice came from a high-backed chair near the window.
The red-haired girl. Rias. She was sitting with her legs crossed. A porcelain teacup rested delicately in her hand. The dark-haired girl, Akeno, stood behind her.
They were watching him. Not with malice. With clinical, terrifying curiosity.
"You slept for nine hours." Rias took a slow sip of her tea. "Your heart stopped twice during that time. Our medical familiars had to restart it. You are entirely human. Yet your body survives trauma that should have killed you instantly."
Ren ignored her. He looked down at his left leg.
His trousers had been cut away at the calf. A soft, glowing green light pulsed over his skin. It was magic. Akeno's magic. It was slowly knitting the fractured bone together.
The pain was fading. A cold, unnatural numbness was spreading up his knee.
The numbness felt exactly like the moment his heart had stopped on the asphalt. It felt like the freezing rain that had finally swallowed Sarah's hand.
Panic hit him. It was not a thought. It was a physical strike.
He sat up violently. The room spun wildly out of focus. He reached down with both hands and grabbed the glowing green magical poultice attached to his skin.
He ripped it off.
"Stop." Akeno stepped forward. Her polite smile vanished instantly.
The magic tore away like adhesive tape. The sudden absence of the healing spell caused the localized pain to return with catastrophic force.
Ren choked on a gasp. His vision blacked out for a full second. He fell back against the leather sofa. His chest heaved as he dragged dry, dusty air into his burning lungs.
He gripped his injured leg. He squeezed the muscle tight to keep the bone from shifting. The agony was blinding.
But it was his. It was real.
"What are you doing." Rias set her teacup down. The porcelain rattled sharply against the saucer. The absolute composure in her voice was cracking again. "You have a hairline fracture in your tibia. If you interrupt the healing circle, the bone will set incorrectly. You will never walk without a limp."
Ren closed his eyes. He focused on the pain. It was a heavy, grounding anchor. If the pain stopped, the accident was gone. And if the accident was gone, so was she.
He opened his eyes and looked at his right hand.
The magic had washed away the dried blood under his fingernails. It had completely smoothed out the deep, crescent-shaped grooves in his palm. The marks where Sarah's small fingernails had desperately dug into his skin during those forty-seven minutes were fading.
They were cleaning away the evidence. They were erasing the only physical proof he had left of her existence.
His chest seized. A raw, terrifying grief hit him harder than the truck.
He closed his empty hand into a fist. He squeezed. He drove his own fingernails into the exact spots where hers used to be. He pressed until the skin broke. He needed to feel the sharp, grounding ache of her grip. He needed to bleed to know she was real.
He pushed himself up from the sofa.
The tibia cracked. The sound was horribly loud in the quiet room.
Akeno flinched. The sadistic, perfect mask she wore slipped completely. She took a half-step back. She had tortured fallen angels. She had burned enemies alive. But she had never watched someone willingly destroy their own body just to hold onto a ghost.
Ren stood. He leaned heavily against the armrest of the sofa. His left leg was useless. He balanced entirely on his right. Sweat dripped down his pale face.
He opened his mouth to speak.
Nothing came out.
His brain misfired. The hypoxia from his repeated cardiac arrests clouded his mind. He looked at the window. He saw two bright headlights rushing toward him. He heard the terrifying blast of a truck horn.
He violently flinched backward. He threw his right arm up to shield his face.
He hit the edge of the sofa and collapsed hard onto his side.
The headlights vanished. It was just a flash of lightning outside the window.
Ren lay on the floor. His chest heaved. He was trapped in a failing body. He reached out with his bleeding right hand and grabbed the leg of the coffee table. He squeezed the wood until his knuckles turned white. He was trying to ground himself. He was trying to remember what year it was.
"I cannot." He whispered to the floorboards. His voice broke. "I cannot let you erase it."
Rias stared down at him. The crimson aura surrounding her completely vanished.
She did not understand. She was a god in this territory. She had power, wealth, and absolute authority. When people were broken, they begged her for salvation. They traded their souls for a second chance.
This human was broken into pieces. And he was guarding his broken pieces like they were diamonds.
"Akeno." Rias spoke quietly. She did not take her eyes off Ren.
"Yes, President." Akeno's voice shook. Just a fraction. But Ren heard it.
"Bring him a crutch from the storage room."
Akeno hesitated. "His leg will not heal properly. He will suffer."
"Bring it." Rias ordered softly.
Akeno bowed her head and stepped out of the room.
Rias walked slowly around the coffee table. She stopped two feet away from where Ren was lying on the floor. She did not offer him a hand. She knew better now. She knew he would slap it away.
"You have no registry." Rias looked down at him. "You have no faction. You are bleeding supernatural energy that smells older than the Great War. You are a beacon."
Ren forced his eyes open. He looked up at her.
"The Fallen Angels have already sensed you." She continued. Her voice was cold. Measured. "They are watching the school grounds. If you walk out of this building, they will take you. They will not ask questions. They will dissect you to find out why our scanning systems return a blank result."
Ren tightened his grip on the table leg. He used it to slowly, painfully drag himself into a sitting position.
"So." Ren breathed heavily. The metallic taste of blood was thick in his throat. He paused to drag air into his ruined lungs. "Let them."
Rias tilted her head. A profound, unsettling realization washed over her features.
"You do not care if you die." She stated. It was not a question.
Ren did not answer. He stared at his right hand. He rubbed his thumb over his bleeding palm, ensuring the pain was still there.
"Death is easy." Ren finally spoke. His voice was a quiet, broken rasp. "Living costs too much."
A heavy silence filled the clubroom.
Rias looked at him. She realized, with absolute certainty, that she had no weapons against this man. You cannot threaten someone who welcomes the end. You cannot buy someone who refuses comfort.
The door opened. Akeno walked back in. She carried a wooden crutch.
She walked over to Ren and placed it on the floor beside him. She did not say a word. She avoided looking at his broken leg.
Ren reached out and grabbed the wood.
The system inside his chest hummed. The ancient lock turned again.
[ RESONANCE CHARGED. ]
He did not know what it meant. He only knew he had paid the toll. He had chosen the pain over the submission.
He used the crutch to force himself up. He stood on one leg. The room swayed dangerously.
He turned toward the heavy oak doors leading out of the clubroom.
"They will kill you." Rias warned him one last time.
Ren stopped. He did not look back.
"They can try."
He took a step. The wooden crutch hit the floorboards with a heavy, hollow thud.
He walked out.
Outside the window, a black feather drifted slowly down through the rain.
They were already waiting.