(Outdated) The King of Elements

It's All My Fault

Dre's eyes shot open. His shirt was drenched in cold sweat as he looked around the all-white room with bare walls and three empty beds on his left and right. "I'm in an infirmary?" he asked himself. A wave of relief filled him as he raised himself into a sitting position on a stiff mattress. He wiggled each finger, insuring that he was now in the present, away from that strange place. His button-up shirt and black jeans had been replaced by a black muscle shirt and a pair of black, loose-fitted slacks.

"Damn shame what happened to Kim, though," he heard Ian say outside of the door. He looked out of the square window and saw five members of his team outside in the waiting hall. Ian was sitting on a leather bench with Rose, Michael was leaning against an off-white brick wall, his arms crossed as he studied the floor. Megumi and Keiko was sitting on the leather seat set beside Ian and Rose. "Getting stab through the stomach to save someone must really suck. It'll suck even worse for Dre once he finds out what happened."

"I know. I can't believe how close she was to dying," Rose had said solemnly. "I hope that she will be alright."

Dre turned his back to the door and slid down onto the ground, staring at his feet in utter disbelief. Kim had risked her life to save his, while he made himself black out by using his power. He truly was the worst.

"Of course she will live. She's being looked at by one of the best living healers to date," Megumi said confidently. "Besides, you heard what my daddy said, no one has died in the entrance exams yet."

"Emphasis on the word yet," Michael said. "Just because there hadn't been a fatality yet, doesn't mean there can't be one. If that woman hadn't come when she did, Kim would have died, and it would have been all Dre's fault."

Those cold words sliced straight through Dre's heart with deadly precision. If she had died, her blood would be on his hands, the imperceptible, unwashable blood would taint Dre's psyche as long as he lived. He brought his knees to his chest, wishing that it was him that was fighting to survive instead of her.

"Why do you always have to be such a dick?" Megumi asked.

"It's fun once you start doing it. If I could make money by hurting people's feelings, I'd be a millionaire by now."

"Allow me to change the subject. Will anyone check on Dre?" Rose asked.

"I will," Michael sighed as he picked himself up from the wall.

"Like hell, you will," Megumi said indignantly as she stood up. "I'll go check on him. You'd probably drive the poor guy to suicide if you do it."

Dre heard the light thudding of her footsteps, but he didn't dare move. He didn't want to seem like a person who had just escaped a death-defying situation with nothing more than a few cuts and bruises, while one of his teammates almost died because of him, especially Kimmy. He wanted to look exactly how he felt inside; defeated, morose, incapacitated by grief's vice-like grip around his neck.

"The bed would make a more comfortable place to sit, dude," he heard Megumi say from the doorway. He didn't even hear the door open.

Dre murmured inaudibly as he rested his chin on his knees. He felt that he couldn't look Megumi in her eyes, for they would only make him feel less guilty, something that Dre didn't have a right to feel.

Megumi shut the door behind her and sat against the wall beside him. The intoxicating scent of strawberries flowed into his nose again, uplifting his spirits again as he remembered their time before he came to this damned academy. It was a feeling he didn't deserve.

"I'm so pathetic," Dre sighed through his knees after a moment's silence.

"I didn't realize you were listening."

"Listening about how I blacked out? Or about how I got Kimmy killed because of it?"

"She's not dead, Dre," Megumi sighed. "It's true that she got hurt pretty bad out there, but she's going to make it."

"No thanks to me," he said, sinking his head lower into his legs.

Another moment of silence passed, until Megumi said, "Look, do you know why she risked her life for you?"

"Because I'm weak. The complete opposite of my family."

"No, dude," she said softly as she turned in front of Dre. "She did it because of this team, and because she's such a good person. She'd rather risk her life than to see any of her teammates die, especially you, Dre." She perched herself back against the wall with a sigh. "But what do I know, right? You've known her a lot longer than I have. Why do you think she did it?"

Silence filled the room again. He didn't want to think about why she did it because he already knew the answer. Not only was it because he was weak, but because she cared. Knowing that the only person who cared about him got seriously injured because of him did nothing but made him feel worse. "Can I ask you something?" he said as he rose his head slightly above his knees. Megumi nodded. "What happened after I blacked out? The only thing I've heard so far was about what happened to Kimmy."

"Well, first off," she said as she crossed her legs, "we were all ambushed by Edge Walkers whenever you were attacked. Keiko was pinned to the tree by one and was almost killed, but Michael threw a spear and struck it straight through its head. Ian and Rose was busy fighting an Edge Walker together, and Kim and I were fighting one of our own. I was the one who saw that you had fainted, but when I announced it, Kim saw you on the ground, and I guess she just snapped. I mean, it unlocked her element, sure, but she was pretty freaking scary. She grabbed the thing by the face and electrocuted it until it turned to ash. After that, she rushed to your side to check on you, but wasn't looking out for any Edge Walkers, and was impaled through her back by one.

"A few seconds later, my cousin Sakura and Loyalty showed up through the forest with their swords and started killing all of the Edge Walkers around us. Sakura picked up Kim and rushed her out of the forest. Before she left, she said something about 'an important announcement regarding the group,' but said she will announce it once Kim gets healed. Loyalty carried you out of the forest and told us to follow him out. From what he told us, we were the eighth group to finish the entrance exam out of forty-five."

Dre outstretched his legs and entwined his fingers, his eyes glued to the white tiled floor, allowing the details of the story to marinate in his mind. "Where is Kimmy now?"

"I guess she's in the ER. I overheard from Sakura that her parents were going to operate on her. Daddy say's they are the best doctors of Amity, so it's a pretty safe bet that she will be ok. Hell, she may even be healed by now. Her father was the one who healed the group, but you wouldn't notice because you're too busy moping to actually look at me."

For the first time since she appeared in the room, Dre looked up at Megumi. She looked to have not even stepped foot in the Edge Walker's forest. Her hair was now tied into a long, crimson ponytail with no signs of blood or dirt. There weren't any signs of scarring on her freckled face and arms, and her bloodied butterfly shirt was now replaced with an ocean-blue T-shirt that looked like it would show her navel if she were standing.

"Wow... Er, I mean- You look great. I mean, like untouched," he said hastily as he went back to studying the tiles. That was smooth, Dre.

As smooth as alligator skin.

A barrage of excited voices erupted from the hallway outside of the door, sparing a very awkward silence between the two. Among the voices, Dre could vaguely hear Kimmy speak just as softly as before. His heart leaped to his throat at her voice. Megumi stood on her tippy-toes to look out of the window. "Looks like sleeping beauty finally woke up."

"If you read the original story, then you'd know that that's kinda dark, Megumi," Dre said coldly. She didn't seem to hear him, as she had just walked out of the room to join the excited group. Dre followed.