The Demon Sword: Sorataki

Chapter 6: Heavy lifting

It all took its toll. The lack of sleep, the long stretched travels, the fast healing and power to see the spectrum of living things due to the experimentation was done on her from her kidnappers. Though they prove useful it consumes great amounts of stamina. 

To keep such feats up for long periods of time was already asking too much, summoning her wings to boost her combat power and speed, however, was simply overkill.

Andrew snaps out of his trail of thought when he noticed Natalie blindly reaching out for him. Her hand scanning the area just out of reach from his face. 

She's not using her purple eyes anymore?! Andrew's mind beams out in alarm.

"Don't tell me you've burned yourself out?!" Andrew said in shock.

"I'm fine," Natalie said in-between panting. "We need to keep moving."

She pushes herself off the wall only to take two drunken steps and stumble back onto it fighting for air. Andrew reached out for her on reflex into subsided when he was sure that she regained her balance.

Still trying to understand how she is as tired as she is just stood there worriedly idle, watching her kneels there with the support of the wall. It was then that it hit him.

His memory pulls him back to when he last saw her eat anything. It was the night before by the camp fire not long after he dozed off.

Except he never 'saw' her eat anything. He just assumed it.

He never saw it as a cause for concern that she did not eat with him in the village of Lucas because she tends to skip meals since her incident. He wanted to believe that she ate back at the campfire, but now he was thinking that she just left him to assume that as to not have him worry.

Reaching out for her extended arm he led her and the children up to the hall, some place away from the defeated armed men. After finding such a place around the corner he requested her and the children to be seated.

Now sitting on the floor of the hall he then pulled out the half eaten hard bread he took from the village and kneeled down to hand it over to Natalie.

"Eat up," he said.

Spaced out by his request Natalie looks up at him with an uncertain stare. It was hard for her to make out his facile features in the dark but she could sense that he caught onto her facade.

"And in future: try not to hide things from me just to keep me from worrying. Like a certain, eaten fish for example," he continued.

Realising that her cover was blown Natalie looks away from Andrew to the ground. Her cheeks and ears burn crimson with guilt, both coming up more red on his inferred goggles than normal.

"I didn't hide if from you deliberately, you never asked." She mumbled in a defensive defiance.

"Still playing that card even now?" Andrew said plainly.

Natalie looked around at the cold stone hallways, the cleanings that matched the floor to the extent that you could turn the room upside down and nothing much will change. This cold and dark place teeming with the ever presence of danger at every corner.

She then looks at the young children. So at odds with this bleak pit of darkness. Seeing that this is neither the time or place to be pity she hefts a sigh in defeat.

"Sorry," She whispered.

Andrew just nodded in approval to her apology. He would not admit it but he found the whole ordeal amusing even if rather inconvenient considering the circumstance. That itself more than paid off the incident as far as he was concerned.