Ashes of Love and War - TodoMomo

||Chapter 12 ~ Part 2||

There was nothing left.

Momo felt her legs buckle under her.

"It's all gone! I don't under - When did this -" Asui shook her head in disbelief. "How?"

Aizawa's medical room was a disaster. It looked like a whirlwind had blown through the storeroom, upturning shelves and ripping apart anything in its path. The table had been shredded into tiny pieces of wood, lying like sharp needles on the ground and mixing with the smashed tinctures of Eri's potion.

"They shouldn't have known. It - it doesn't make sense." Momo swallowed, then looked sharply at Asui. "Go tell Aizawa!"

Asui nodded and rushed out.

Momo squeezed her eyes shut, drew in a ragged breath to steady herself, and began looking for anything salvageable. She nearly gasped in relief as she found the wicker basket of surgical tools lying scattered in the far corner of the room, but still intact.

She collected everything as quickly as possible and then hurried over to the shelves that held the stymphalian antidote.

The top shelf was intact, the sealed elixirs untouched. It must have been high enough that the stymphalian destruction hadn't been able to reach it.

Standing on her tiptoes, she reached up to the jars and paused. There were only four jars instead of five.

Momo's lips thinned. She counted the bottles again, studying the painted labels, but she couldn't remember which of the jars was missing.

She didn't have time.

Momo tried to quell the feeling of unease as she grabbed the painted jar of stymphalian antidote. Pain throbbed in her shoulder as she pulled it from the shelf.

It felt like a tweak. Worse case, a sprain.

She grit her teeth. There was nothing she could do about it right now. Momo straightened up as she pushed the pain away and stuffed the jar into the basket. She hurried upstairs to join Aizawa in Eri's room.

XXXXXX

Eri was pale and feverish. Momo pulled out the antidote and handed the basket to Aizawa to ready the surgical instruments. Moving to Eri's side, she tipped Eri's head back, pouring the healing serum down her throat. The little girl moaned faintly, then fell quiet again.

Momo's chest tightened. There was little they could do. Eri's power was a double-edged sword. She could heal the most devastating injuries on anyone but herself. They would have to wait for her to heal naturally. Momo sent up a small prayer to Apollo as Aizawa began sewing up her shoulders.

They didn't speak until he finished tying the end of the flax.

"Alright," Aizawa said at last. "I'm done." He sighed in relief as he leaned back in his chair and threw the scissors into the basket at his feet. His face was ashen, and there were prominent dark circles under his eyes. He looked older and more tired than she had ever seen him.

Momo felt a pang in her chest as she handed him a wet towel. She watched him wipe down his hands. Despite his severe attitude, Aizawa cared deeply for each of the children he fostered. And seeing Eri like this, in pain and unable to ease her suffering, ate at him.

Aizawa finished wiping his hands and scrunched the towel into a ball. Then, he paused and stared down at the cloth for several moments. Momo could see the muscles of his jaw working as he kept clenching and releasing it.

"Asui said my medicine closet was destroyed," he finally said. His voice was wooden, almost hollow, and trembled almost imperceptibly.

Momo bit her bottom lip. She nodded faintly. "Yes..."

Aizawa let out a low, deep breath. He leaned forward and dropped his head to stare at the floorboards between his feet. "Nothing?"

"I - I don't know... Asui is looking now." Momo swallowed and looked away.

The stymphalian had never attacked like that before. Although the Teppodama Hassaishu still hadn't shown up, the stymphalian sent this time had been stronger and smarter than anything they had fought before. But why? What had changed?

Momo's eyes drifted back to Eri. She was sleeping, but her breathing was still labored. Yet, the effects of the antidote seemed to be working, and her temperature had gone down. Momo's stomach curled as the realization hit her.

"The attack just now... it was to kidnap her, wasn't it?" she asked softly.