The Varied Path (Akatsuki no Yona Fanfiction)

Chapter 127: Day Two

Calista grunted, raising her head despite the millions of pins and needles stabbing the inside of her brain.

Ugh, gonna feel that one tomorrow.

She was a little worse for wear at the moment. Her knuckles were splitting painfully and she couldn't help but wondered if this is what it felt like to truly be dying. She had to say, she was not a fan.

She had made it, but just barely. The next couple of rounds were brutal and a blur. She could hardly remember what it was that she had done in order to survive but she hoped they weren't dead. Hopefully, the healers would be able to repair the damage she had done to the others.

Now, she was sitting back in her cell, nursing her bleeding head. The blunt force trauma she endured would not go away easily but she would live.

"Notch?" A soft voice inquired and she stirred from her restless sleep.

The two others that had been kept in the same cell hadn't returned in a while and she assumed the worst. Which also meant the new visitor was there for only her.

Calista's mouth twitched in a smile as she regarded the same healer that had come in earlier to treat her absent-at-the-moment cellmates. She appeared a little older than her, but that might've just been the stress lines etched on her face from years of dealing with the trauma that came from tending to the fighters.

"Hey, Briar." She croaked weakly.

The girl sat down by her side, bringing out some water for her to drink. She held it up to her mouth and after the beaten fighter took a sip, she gave her a nod of thanks.

"Let me see." The healer demanded, not wasting any time.

She parted her hair, worrying her lip between her teeth at the crimson stains that matted the dark strands to the fighter's head. Tsking lightly, she reached into the burlap sack by her side to gather what she needed.

Calista winced as she started to clean the injury with gusto only to slow down when she showed her signs of it hurting.

"I'm fine." She protested but groaned as agony ripped through her skull.

"You've got a concussion." Briar stated bluntly. "You have to rest."

"I can't." She seethed as her jaw ticked, trying to prop herself up against the wall better. "It's the Cull, remember? No one gets pardoned."

Briar's long, red bangs fell into her eyes and she blew them back with a huff so that they didn't obscure her vision. That stick-straight red hair of hers was a menace to deal with sometimes but at least it didn't require much management.

"Yeah, I know." She whispered.

Calista fell silent as she continued to work, flitting over her injuries with a speed that surprised hers. She hardly felt a thing.

"I never got a chance to say thank you." The fighter said softly as she moved onto the shallow gash on her shoulder she had gotten from her rival when he pushed her into a barbed wire. "For your help back in Kai."

She had run into her when she was recovering some intel for Yona in the underground about the troops near the border. There, she had been roped into a scuffle while the Enforcers attempted to separate the fighters. One of them had thrown a wild punch and it was on trajectory to hit an unsuspecting person when she shoved them out of the way. 

That had gotten her treated by a healer since it was policy and low it behold, it was the same girl that had been looking out for her for years. 

If she didn't have her help back then, those injuries she received from the Shadow Stalker would've been a lot worse. Briar had been the one to heal her ankle so that she could walk on it again without too much difficulty.