[TTIABAD] Chapter 123: Unbearable

Sometimes I honestly wasn’t sure what to make of Hell. On one hand, I couldn’t think about it easily without my mind going nearly catatonic, my memories of memories and slight information say it’s the worst place that could ever possibly exist. Not to mention, there’s apparently at least two versions of Hell and I got sent to one that demons seemingly don’t come from despite becoming one because of it, and to top it off, I have a gem that I’m pretty sure is inside my Hell-remade-soul that connects me to the entire plane.

All of that was confusing. Today I was confused about my lost memories though.

I could not remember Hell and I had no idea how long I was there for. It feels like… forever and only about five minutes and I genuinely have no idea which is true. Maybe it was only five minutes but the experiences were eternal. That could make sense. Who knows the processing speed of a soul? Higher than a mind, that’s for sure. I might have lived a million lives in a handful of minutes. Either way… I had no idea what hell was actually like in detail. I only knew that however bad it was, it had affected and infected me so deeply that my pain tolerance was basically set to max. Endless torture would probably do that to anyone, sooner or later.

So it was amazing how god damn awful I felt. Hell must have been lacking on a few things if I can still feel this shit even without feeling any pain.

Everything was Wrong. Capital W wrong. I couldn’t feel… almost anything. What I could feel didn’t make sense. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear, I couldn’t feel, I couldn’t move. No, correction, I could feel but every single sensation was wrong and terrible. And both light and extreme. I had no idea what the word for what I was feeling was. If discomfort was a raindrop, this was an ocean.

Wrong. It was wrong. Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong. WRoNg WrOnG WRong WRONG WRONG WRONG. MY BODY WAS WRONG! WRONG. WRONG! WRONG!

HELP ME!

Agony. This wasn’t, this wasn’t, it wasn’t it wasn’t it wasn’t it wasn’t it wasn’t it wasn’t it wasn’t, Ah, ah ahhhh AHHH. I tried to scream but I had no mouth. No mouth, I have no mouth. I have no mouth, I have nothing. I was trapped, stuck, in my head. Nowhere but my head. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Help me help me help me help me help me-

A god must have heard of me. The feeling of wrong didn’t fade but suddenly, I could see. I CAN SEE! Like a man drowning I grabbed that sense and cried, no, tried to cry. I didn’t… I didn’t have any… oh my god.

It hit me like a bomb.

My mind, my body, my- my- my EVERYTHING. N-Nneeedddd to focus. Focus. Focus.

Riary. Riary was here. Konohora, Tyler. Here, alive. Oh good, that’s good, good good good. Tyler looked beat up. Real beat up. Half his side was crushed, again. H-He should really work on that. N-N-Needed to stay better. Better. Better. Better. Right, no, yeah, okay, no, focus. Tyler is alive, that’s good. Just wounded, cut across his back bleeding, crushed bones in his body, collapsed lung, and a variety of injuries from that. He looked like he had a dent in him. Nasty.

Riary was there, looking down, and he-her-heeerrr her face, her face was shocked. No, funny, ironic. Her body was also shocked. The daaamges to her w-were different than Tyler. But maybe even deadlier. Electricity was inside her, still bouncing around, but somehow… acting weird. Weird. L-Like snssssaaaakes. MAgic snakes. F-Filling her up. Trying to kill her, but, n-not directed.

Konohora was, okay. Sh-eess sHe She. She only had a lot of broken bones in her arms and a lot of torn muscles. Sh-shee was healing me. I-I could feel it. I could seeee again because of it. Bad wrong. Sho-sh-shouldn’t, Shouldn’t seee see sees ses se ssesses sess.

B-B-B-ody, wrong. WRONG. AGONY.

It hurts. Pain, pain, not pain not pain. Mind, mind pain. Breaking, hurt, it hurts. Not pain but it hurts. It hurts. It hurts so much. It hurts, it doesn’t hurt, why does it hurt.. Help me, kill me, help me, help me, help me. I c-c-can’t. I-

Focus. Focus focus focus. Not-not-not-not on me. Not on me. Don’t focus on meee. No no no no no no no no no no no no no. Focus, focus, focus, focus. Needddddd.

AHHHhhhhh

T-tear it apart, tear it apart, destroy it, destroy it, destroy it, destroy it. Destroy it! I should have died, I should have let it be washed away, le-let-let it become nothing, nothing nothing nothing. This isn’t right, this isn’t right, this isn’t right.

Focus, fight, fight. Focus on the fight.

A kick. I was going to diiieee. Die. I was going to die so I played aaa trrrick. I kicked Rinkaru but… it wasn’t me. M-My survival instincts had activated in full. I… made a, made an Aura of me and hit her. While I ran away. I ma-made it. Made it. Surv- I shouldn’t have survived. I should have died. Let myself, let myself die, I want to die, let me die, destroy, destroy me, de- focccus.

The blast tore me apart. I leaned my head back in what I thought was a futile attempt to get even a little further away. It-my-head. My head, my head. Oh my god my head. My ffffaacceee- no no no no. Nn-need to focus somewhere else. M-mind no-not working. B-body sending t-too-too many wrong signals. Fu-f-fuccking me up. No pain, but, but all the other signals. B-Body dysm-moprhia in ov-verdrive. Nerves shot, m-mind damaged, brain injurrryy tooo. N-not good. B-Blood falling. G-Gonn-aa ddiee.

I w-wanna go home. I miss-miss them. Ferris, Alex, Toxi, Sora. M-M-My friends. Mom. Dad. Aunt Rachel. Uncle Carson. I miss them so much. It hurts. This isn’t fun anymore. It was never fun. W-Why did I come down into the dungeon, to get stronger? I’m not a w-warrior! I’m just… someone with bad luck. I’m just a… man.

Anger.

Anger anger anger anger anger. Anger. Rage.

It’s not fair. Nothing is ever fair! I-I-I knew it… I knew I-I’d suffer again. But why?! WHY ME?! I just want… I just want my damn potion and to go home and to explore a fun world! I don’t want to fight and d-d-d-die and kill and enjoy fighting and to be hunted and I don’tttt too to to to to to be a pile of c-c-crushed meat! My body, my wrong body is more wrong. More wrong. So wrong. Too wrong. Wrong. I want it gone. I need it gone. Make it go away. Go away! Please go away.

I-Hate it. I hate it so much. I-it was so-ssoo much easieeerrr when my stupid Ability was weaker. When my body was weaker. W-When Riary burned me… it’d just been black void. Unfeeling. T-This Agony-!

It’s Unbearable.

I should have waited, I should left the city, I should have hid, I should’ve, I should’ve done so many things differentlttly and now I’m messed up in the head and-

I wasn’t dead. Like a bolt of clarity hit me. I wasn’t dead.

But I could be.

It’d be ss-so easy. All I had to do… was turn off my aura. Like flexing a muscle, w-w-well, a million muscles at once. But still… so easy. I’d die… near instantly. I could kill myself, free myself from this… Hell. This torment.

I nearly did it.

But why wasn’t I dead?

I could see them. I could feel them. It was all I could see really. Konohora, Riary, Tyler. Staring down at me with worry, fear, disgust, shock, horror, sickness, hope, all in their eyes, in their body. Konohora seemed dead, even as she m-m-moved like a robot. My mind was still being h-healed even as she did everything she could to save me with her hands.

I could feel her energies, flowing through me, targeting my brain. My mind.

But it w-w-wouldn’t fix the wrong. So, so wrong. The mental pain. It couldn’t. Eve-every single moment, I could see what was left of my fucking body! Th-the The the scrap of meat! Th-the sensations! I-I-I-

My own words came back to me, once said in exhaustion, like a bitter hateful pill.

‘Suicide… what right did I have? I control my own life and if I want to take it, that’s my decision. I’m allowed to. Fuck anyone that ever says differently.

But that also means…. It’s my decision. Not the decision of an exhausted mind and body too tired to form thoughts properly. Not the thought of someone doomed or overly emotional. It’s the decision of the best, smartest version of me and only that me. Me at my highest point and no when or where else. I refuse to die to my own emotions and fears.’

Fuck you me. Fuck you to hell.

But I didn’t pull my aura back or turn it off. I reinforced it, keeping it and my agony going for as long as possible.

Every second, every hateful horrible second was an eternity I couldn’t escape. I wanted to rip out my own Ability. Seeing myself… was the worst possible thing I could have had happen. But feeling myself with it was even worse. Not like this. Not like this. That terrible feeling in my gut was the wind against my flayed stomach. The itch that made my brain want to die was my ripped apart kidney. Every fucked sensation suddenly had an answer, none making sense. Non-none being alright. None being okay. I was- was broken.

It lasted too long, my Aura fading every moment. Till eventually, like a drained battery… it shut off.

And finally, blessedly, consciousness left me.

******

Tears fell from Konohora’s eyes. Derek was going to die. She’d said she could save him… and realized five minutes in that she couldn’t. He was even worse off than he looked and he looked dead. His mind needed most of her healing energies… because some of his brain was missing. That took most of her healing energies… and she realized that she couldn’t save him. His aura was the only thing keeping him alive and she could feel it throughout his body growing weaker. It wasn’t the first time she’d healed someone with an aura.

This all felt so… familiar. The war had been… terrible. This felt like that. From the crater, to the dying demon and dead fairy, to her desperately trying to heal a B-Rank combatant. Except this time it was a demon instead of a dying human soldier. That soldier had lived. Derek wasn’t going to be so lucky.

And then she’d felt a change. His aura… held steady. She’d almost paused in shock. That simply… wasn’t possible. Passive aura was a thing but this…

She’d kept working, as the minutes flew by. At least an hour must have passed. Every scrap of Healing energy she could use, she did. Every vein or wound she could heal with a potion, stitched up, or even cauterized with Riary’s power, she did. She’d gone as far as quickly stitching dozen of bandages together as a temporarily replacement for skin. It was all… so little. And then the aura fell.

She could feel Derek’s brain practically halt, the neurons nearly stop firing all together as normal biology began to take over once again… but he lived. She had, metaphorically, caught him with her power. The most dangerous period was over.

It was only as she blinked out of the daze she’d been in, that she realized what had happened. Derek had been awake. He shouldn’t have been, under no circumstances, Aura or not, should he have been. Except… Derek didn’t feel pain. There would be no pain to knock him unconscious. Maybe even no shock either. With Aura overriding normal biology… he’d been awake. The entire time. Keeping his aura steady.

She let out a slow breathe. Derek would not have been the first friend or lover she’d lost… but it never got easier.

“Is… he…” Tyler said, voice trembling.

“He’s alive. His Aura is no longer active. Preparations and a small consistent amount of healing energy is currently keeping him alive.”

“He… will live.”

Tyler collapsed to his knees, dragging Riary down to the ground with him. No, Konohora realized as she turned an eye to her, she had collapsed as well. Konohora winced. There fight with Vanessa had been close but this… this was different. The team had always known that so long as she lived… she could easily heal everyone back to full health. Now she couldn’t. Not always and not always easily. There bodies were different now, stronger, more. And more meant harder to heal. It had… shaken them. Badly. Tyler had never lost anyone like this and Riary… had lost too many like this.

“We will not be moving for a while. I need water, food, and more supplies. Tyler, scout around, make sure the other group of B-Rank’s that Rinkaru was directing isn’t coming closer or fleeing towards the town. Riary, help me prepare.” Konohora had snapped into military mode. She’d lived through all ten years of that brutal war where hundreds of millions died. From ten to twenty she’d been there as a healer. She knew how to care for these types of wounds and what needed to be done when her own energies weren’t enough.

Tyler and Riary just sat there for a moment, blinking, before jumping into action. Konohora frowned a little. None of their injuries were life threatening, but… She didn’t know when she’d be able to heal them. She was used to broken bones but Tyler and Riary were clearly in pain. It wasn’t just them that were shaken, she had gotten used to wiping away all injuries with ease. Turning back to Derek, she did something she didn’t often do.

“Goddess of Truth, Truth is flawed. It is not perfect. Yet it is beautiful in it’s imperfection. A world of only fire or water would be less beautiful to me no matter the amount of perfection they might have. I feel the same about truth. I believe there is a place for lies and beautiful imperfection in this world. I pray to you, out of genuine love and worship for truth, and out of a desire to grow closer with it, so I may become a better healer.”

She could feel it, as her connection with her Goddess grew, just a bit. She would need all she could get if she wanted to keep Derek alive.

She looked down at him.

“Stay with us. We’d miss you.”