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"NNnngg..."

Okay, he felt that. He winced his eyes shut after his pinky finger had been reset into the joint. It wasn't a pleasant experience, and a slightly painful one. Which was a bad sign, as he started to feel the aches set in all over his body, like a thousand insects burrowing into all his wounds at once.

On top of that, he was starting to feel like crap; perhaps Asherah was truthful about his running a fever. Which was weird, because his upgrades should make sure such things wouldn't afflict him, ever again.

He opened his eyes and turned to see the young woman examining his right arm, specifically his elbow. "I think I may have hyperextended it when I was being thrown around. It works, its just, I need to force it to bend..." he explained. Attempting to bend it to show her, he however found himself a lot less able to follow up on his claims than he would have five minutes earlier.

Wincing as Asherah more or less thrust her fingers into his arm, he arched his back instinctively, which made even more things hurt. He breathed a bit heavier as she did so, because although afterwards it felt decent, Asherah's technique really didn't feel all that hot at the time.

"I... I'm not sure if you can help the leg. Its not bone anymore, it's..." he started to explain, before trailing off. How would he even explain that to someone? Since he got revamped in a science lab, he really never had to go over the details with anyone. Was he even allowed to go over the details?

"If you can't do anything about it, I have somewhere I can go." he finished, frowning.

His gaze averted when he heard Jerrard get up and missed the last part, trying to see who was leaving through the door. "That's fine. I guess I'm ready whenever....... wait, what?"

"..."

Rather than address Asherah, he would turn to anyone who was immediately nearby, and possibly observing this. He had, at this point, figured out what this healer was about to do.

"Y'all might want to look away." Rain suggested, smiling weakly and sweatdropping. About that time though was when Asherah went in.

Rain would let out a deep, pained hiss in pain, his muscles all contracting simultaneously at the feeling of the alien intrusion. Lifting a shaky left hand, he raised his index and middle fingers ever so slowly to the crown of his head, as if he was about to do something.

But just as shakily, he would remove the hand and clench the edge of the table instead. "Nnnn. Fine. Stop if want." he managed to squeeze out of his lungs, but was unable to look towards his miracle worker when he tried to speak with her.

But, he never did yell out.

Rain half drifted into unconsciousness, so he was unaware that Asherah had finished her work until a few seconds later. He leaned his head up off the table to look at his leg, observing it as he slowly lifting it skyward.

It certainly seemed to be back to normal... he eased himself up off of the tabletop, still wincing at the pained feelings left over in his body; despite this young woman's thorough work, there was no way she could get everything without more appropriate equipment and environments.

Still though, it did look like his leg was very uninjured, which was odd considering how she treated the injury. He really did expect to see a gaping wound in his leg, amongst other spots on his body.

Sitting up, Rain's shivvering body teetered on the table's edge, as he eased his feet to the ground. Slowly, he would put more and more weight on them, before standing tall once more. And almost falling over, having to catch himself with the table before a full plummet.

"Whoa!" he shouted, regaining his balance slowly. The psychological damage from the wounds still remained, and his leg instinctively had given out on him as a defense mechanism to prevent more damage. He would still need to rest and sleep this off.

V13 would be busy filling in the gaps, that was for sure. Gawd, he needed a booster right now. He hadn't had the chance to resupply with A~E recently.

"It feels... odd, but better. Injured, but not. You did a good job, miss. Its definitely what I needed. Thank you so much." He would bow respectively in front of her once she regained her composure, before finally adding in on the end.

"... but, I have an island to catch. I don't have time to show or rest at this point." he responded, before turning and heading towards the door.

And tumbling a second time as he attempted to walk, his body giving out on him more than just his legs this time. He panted heavily as he barely kept himself off the floor, his heart racing. It was like all the strength was being sapped from his body.

'What's... what's wrong with me? Damn!'

Seeing Rain walk out of the bar like that gave a mixed feeling of grief and discomfort, as well as admiration for the warrior. Even a blind man could see that Rain couldn't last too much longer on such a large scale of injury, but it was absolutely marvelous how he would still keep going on with them. It was something Kuroha newly admire dof the warrior.

The Samurai turned back towards Asherah. Seeing as how she was alone, maybe he could reintroduce himself after all of this time. Maybe she remembered him from way back then, or maybe she had moved on from it all. Her team did have a harder time than most in HoH after all. He got up from his seat, and nonchalantly walked over to her.

The samurai plopped down in a chair next to her, and as if he had known her for the longest of times, said,

"Hey there, remember me?"

If this wasn't startling to her, it'd definitely be awkward.

((This post is being made with the assumption that everyone is here to hear it, just as Sun did for his. So, even if you're coming but are late, you'll hear it.

Then again, I dunno if I should note Vahn, Athan or Maximos as being here in my post since I dunno if they're coming to the firebrand. XD

Sun, this is directed towards you, so I'll wait until you get back from wherever to note it.))





Sun's exit would be abruptly interrupted by the sound of Ichigo's fist striking against a tabletop. He didn't break it or anything, but the resonance was enough to stifle the chatter in the Firebrand. For a moment, patrons who were simply idly drinking and caring little about the situation at hand would only stop and look in Ichigo's direction before shrugging it off and going back to their own business.

But for the sake of those gathered around Sun for his speech, Ichigo hope they kept his eyes on him.

"Hey!"

A simple exclamation, directed towards Sun before he could leave the room.

"No one's done with anything here," he continued. "You say you're just the messenger, huh? That you were just doing your job? Don't gimme that crap! I know who you are. I read the goddamn magazine. You're Sunstrike, right? You were on Teira's team and fought alongside her all that way to the finals. Don't try to tell me your job is done when one of your friends is somewhere in the hands of people who want to destroy everything."

Ichigo turned to the rest of the group assembled around Sun, namely at Rain and Kael.

"But it isn't like Sunstrike is wrong, either. He was right about one thing...a lot of us are in the dark, and there isn't any use getting pissed off over whose fault it was or not. All that does is waste the time we've got now."

Ichigo made sure he spoke loud enough for the entire group to hear him.

"I don't know how many of you are, but I'm sure there are a lot of you guys who want to save Teira. I know how it feels to have a friend taken from you like that suddenly...just taken away from you to some place full of stuff you don't know anything about. 'Cept when I did it, I was able to get through because I had friends who wanted to do the same thing. There wasn't any fighting over it at all. We did what we had to do for a friend...and that's what we all have to do now."

Ichigo couldn't even imagine how badly his first journey to the Soul Society would have gone if people were playing the blame game as to why Rukia had been captured in the first place. But that was an entirely different story.

"And for everyone else involved who don't even know her...or even care about her at all...there's a whole lot more at stake than just her fate. I see that now. But whether this 'destroy existence' thing is connected to them taking Teira at all doesn't even matter. As far as I'm concerned, everyone here should have a reason to want to stop this Victor guy. In the end, we all want to stop these guys. That means we have a common goal, and a reason to fight together."

Ichigo knew there were still people out there who wanted to fight against this and stop this from happening. He didn't see Rage or Lazenca amongst the group, since for all Ichigo knew they had been injured and were trying to find sanctuary. The thought was troubling to him, although he wasn't aware that Rage was just upstairs taking a shower.

There wasn't any way for Kon to tell Ichigo anything either since he was so busy with Raven. Though, the stuffed animal seemed a little recalcitrant now that Raven was bearing that fanged grin of hers.

"Please tell me this wasn't a bad idea..." thought Kon in a whiny mental voice. He still wanted hugs, but hoped it wouldn't be at the expense of being eaten.

By then, Ichigo had turned back to Sun.

"If you're trying to warn us but you only know so much, then you should be helping us find out more about our enemies. If this is a place we can't just barge into like you said, we need a plan. If we all go our own way we'll be crushed by those guys. I faced one of them myself, and I bet you all have too. If there are others out there fighting them too, we need to help them as well."

Ichigo also remembered the others that were fighting Alpha back at the Stadium. He could recgonize two of them as Vahn and Athan from Team Fracture, who he had rooted for in the finals. He wasn't sure who the other was, but if he was with them then they were no doubt against Victor as well. From what Sun said, Vahn was definately caught up in all of this just like the people here in front of Ichigo.

They all had their reasons to fight. Now they just had to work together.

Speaking of which...

"Hey, Urameshi!"

Ichigo had suddenly changed the direction of his voice over to the spirit detective, who appeared as if he was just mildly interested in the whole ordeal. Ichigo didn't shout too loud, but he kept his voice loud enough for Yusuke to hear.

"You're helping too, so get yer a** over here. I'm not giving you a say in that matter. This kind of stuff is your freakin' job, isn't it? You're in it as much as I am"

Ichigo seemed almost nonchalant about it, as if whatever he said was certainty. The orange-haired teenager was sure that guys like Sieg or that samurai friend of Yusuke's wouldn't be too happy if the spirit detective didn't rise to the occasion.

With that said, Ichigo leaned back against the bar counter, keeping his eyes on the group as he folded his arms, closing his eyes.

"And that's all I have to say. Anyone against?"

"Heh. Its doing just fine Asherah..."

Ah, the soft touch of a woman. He hadn't felt that touch since he last met with Himawari, a kunoichi he had met one night in some random bar. The touch was similar, but nothing felt like the ninja's hand.

"And how ar-"

Kuroha was cut off by the sound of someones fist slamming into a wooden table, that of which he half-cocked his head towards. Ichigo Kurosaki, the Stand-in Shinigami, it was him. Even this wandering samurai had heard things about this man in his trip to the Underworld. The rumors ranged from a ruthless maniac, to a cold shouldered kid. The most he had heard though, was that he was just a kid who did insane things for the right reasons. That is something all too uncommon in this day and age. The samurai listened intently, almost completely forgetting about Asherah in the process, however, he caught himself and said to her.

"...Hold on, Asherah. I think this is something we both should listen to."

His ears tuned to the Shinigami's voice, and listened intently at what he had to say.



That just furthered Kuroha's thoughts on the matter to new heights. He was absolutely right, about it all, and to hear that someone had gone through something so similar was just a wake-up call to the Samurai, as well as most everyone probably. Everyone needed to get their s**t together if they wanted to have any possile chance of getting this done safely, and with minmal to no casualties.



Again, he was right. Whether everyone knew this or not, each and every one of their lives hung by a thread due to this new threat, as it would either Alter or end it in one way or another if things were to continue on to bend with Victor's will. All of this wasn't at all overwhelming for the Samurai, as he had survived three wars and a plethora of battles in his past, but there was always a troubling feeling he got in the back of his head when it came to things that were in the category of "Saving the World.". No matter, he had officially just become an aid to the cause, or at least that is what he hoped. A lot was in store for this samurai, he suspected, and with such thoughts, he would ponder on how to help. Finally, he continued on after it was all done...

"Okay, now that that's over, How have you been Asherah?"

"You don't look ready to go anywhere."

Scarker had decided that he was interested enough to get involved, and his target of involvement just happened to be Rain. He'd left his sword by his table and wandered over to the man doing his best to stumble out the door.

"How are you gonna to catch a flying island if you're having so much trouble walking?"

He doesn't say anything, or turn his head during Ichigo's speech, but when he's done talking the mage addresses Rain again.

"They sound like they're going to the same place you are. Maybe you should rest for a little while and go when they go. A large group would be better than one weak injured guy, right?"