The Rising - Ennead 1

Act 9

Duty is heavier than a mountain, death is lighter than a feather

- from the Imperial Prescript to Soldiers and Sailors. Issued by Emperor Meiji of Japan on 4 January 1882

Keaton Gaines

How much blood the human body has - that's something basic you learn as a Chemyst. When you feel actual blood seeping between your fingers and then congealing, it's the last thing you'll think about.

With every heartbeat, the puncture in Mad's lungs pushes forth frothy blood. I feel a bubbling in his chest as he struggles to take each breath.

Somewhere, far from this very bad situation, the sounds of battle encircle me. The girls have been pretty bad-ass so far but...

We're screwed in every available hole.

"Come on mate. You didn't get poked that bad."

I'm talking to a dead man walking, or lying - if you want to be technical about it. I just need him to be conscious for ten seconds. Thirty seconds is what he'll need to heal himself enough. Ten seconds enough time for me to try something that Jin would never try...

His eyes flutter open. "Good man, we're doing good. You're doing good. Just give us a bit of your..."

He grins weekly, hacks up blood and then goes back under.

I curse and bite my tongue in the process. Biting my tongue isn't so bad. At least I have an excuse for the tears that drip onto the back of my palm.

FSHHT

The girl from Solly's appears in a puff of grey smoke. The shock is enough to make me reduce pressure for just a second.

"Keep up the pressure you idiot!" She hisses, as if she's the boss of me.

Cradling Mad's head in one hand, she pulls a pink crystal out with the other. A glance is all it takes to tell me what it is.

"August trusted me enough to hand this over. Can you do the same?"

Her nose starts bleeding as she fades away in a dream shift. Her last words rattle in my head like dice, "It's not like I'm going to give you a choice."

Jin's bony elbows shove me out of the way as he takes my place. His hands are undoubtedly more suited for this kind of work than mine. As a Maker who treads Sylvanic he...

Wait. How?

"The witch. She 'shifted us here. I don't know why."

His sending is hurried, unlike his usual laid back flavor. I'm not surprised - even he senses how deep in the cuckoo's kaka we are right now.

Suddenly, I find myself without a role to play. My hands - my very sticky hands - have nothing to do.

"Are you crying?"

Jin found me at a bad moment. I'm not the emotional one. Far from it. I'm Keaton Gaines for christ's sake. Apathy extraordinaire, that's my thing. Kyle does the caring; I do the sneering.

"It's going to be ok." He grunts, "Even if we die we'll be heroes."

He pauses. Noting how wrong that sounds.

"That could probably have been less macabre." He coughs out some sort of strained chuckle.

I hazard a look around me. Our sorry band is in better shape than we were a second ago. Jin's bear wolf is scraped pretty bad, but it has a prize at it's feet - the rapidly decomposing shell of the Legion Daemon that had tormented us.