The Death We Seek

Causality and Forbidden Gospels [Chapter 9]

The first thing he noticed was that his head was pounding. The second thing was that, despite his eyes being freshly opened from his slumber, he couldn't see. The third was that he was not alone.

Issei was sick of being so injured all the time. If something happened during that time, he would be helpless.

This time was so much worse than anything he had ever experienced. Death was easier to handle than this was. He was completely shut off from his partners, his most reliable sense and his ability to think.

Issei could move. He wasn't alone because Rias and Koneko were there with him, easily identifiable by the contours of their bodies he had familiarised himself with. Through muscle memory, he manoeuvred himself above their resting forms and stood. His neck hurt.

Orienting himself by feeling the door with his hands, he walked over to his desk and turned his lamp on. The darkness did not change, it only lightly stirred his former and future wives.

Ddraig wasn't answering him.

Issei got to work leaving his room as stealthily as possible. He needed somewhere quiet to heal himself and return to normal. Assuming that it was nighttime as his redhead and white cat were back to being sound asleep, the lack of people calling out to him proved him right.

Going through his illusory door and down far too many flights of stairs wasn't fun when you were blind. Zechs didn't even install a hand-rail. Did he?

He didn't remember. There wasn't one, so apparently not.

Finally reaching the end of the two-hundred odd stairs and only falling over twice, Issei still couldn't see despite the much brighter incandescent magical lights illuminating what was supposed to be his training room.

There would be seclusion waiting for him on any of the lower floors. He could try and heal himself there, and if not, could seek help from Zechs far more easily.

The lift was somewhere along the wall, so he just trailed his hand along until he reached the steel doors, pressing his full weight against the wall. It felt like he had walked a lap of the cube before getting there. Had he been walking that slowly?

Pressing the call button and waiting too long, he stepped inside and just ran his hand along to press the first button he reached. Issei had been blind many times, but it never got easier nor could he rely on his other senses this time. His head hurt too much to even try, so he just drowned it out.

After yet another eternity, it finally reached the destined floor. He could see very slightly now, as if he was looking through frosted glass in the pitch black night. It slowly got better and better as he walked, so he kept walking.

His head smashed against the floor before he even registered he was falling. Judging by the sudden heat and wetness around his face, it was bleeding.

No. That wasn't right.

Issei was the avatar of Ddraig, a superhuman in every sense of the word. He was durable. Where was Ddraig?

After sitting down leant against the concrete walls of this unending maze, his vision settled for being dimmed and tunnelled, barely visible conditions considering the already dim lights. His head had stopped hurting ever since he fell, and he was basking in the ability to think once more.

If as much time had passed as he had felt, his family would be awake by now. He had to heal himself.

He had to.

He was trying to.

It wasn't working.

Why was it not working. He knew how to.