Brick by Boring Brick

Chapter Eight: A New Member Has Joined the Party

"wHaT?!"

Sero and Kaminari yelled in unison at Mina's words. She was coming along too?!

Kaminari's mind reeled. He, deep down, was still afraid that Sero would get hurt on this mission; but now some innocent bystander too? Kaminari couldn't exactly be in two places at once. If it came down to it...

"But- it's going to be dangerous!!", Kaminari threw his hands into the air,"We might die!! Don't you want to...like, repair your village instead of risk your life?!"

"No way!", Mina snapped,"I can fight. It was a dragon that did this to my village, I know it. Not only that, but I'm totally a warrior. I can handle myself."

Kaminari and Sero exchanged confused glances.

Suddenly, Mina picked something up off the ground; it was lying right next to where she had sat before.

Kaminari and Sero, being completely oblivious, had not noticed it before.

Mina picked up the object and swung it over her shoulder; Sero jumped backwards in shock and Kaminari let out a tiny scream.

It was an axe.

It was two-handed and dual-bladed, and Mina could obviously pick it up like it was nothing. "I've been training with this thing since I was a kid!", she announced,"It's enchanted, too. Now take me with you, are I'll slice your heads off."

When Kaminari and Sero remained silent, Hagakure spoke up,"Please, just let her go with you. I need to fix up things here; I know there were some others that left the village, and they're bound to come back eventually. I'll stay here and help them; but if there's something wrong with the dragons, some way to stop them from hurting not only us but themselves as well, I could think of no other person that I'd send to make it all right again than Mina."

Sero turned and looked at Kaminari, his eyes sympathetic. He was practically pleading for him to let Mina come along. Kaminari privately cursed himself for teaching Sero to use the puppy-dog eye technique so well.

Then even more privately, Kaminari's mind screamed as he began to notice how adorable Sero was.

Before he could think anything else, Kaminari sighed to himself and looked up at Mina,"Fine", he said,"But you'd better be ready for some chaos."

"Chaos is my middle name- and also my entire existence", Mina replied, a huge smile crossing her face.

"Alright, alright- but before we head out", Kaminari turned to Hagakure,"If it's not a personal question, why are you invisible?"

"Well, before I trained to be a warrior, I trained to be a mage", Hagakure laughed tiredly, as if she had told the story a thousand times; which, in the end, she probably had,"I wasn't very good at it. Long story short, I messed up a potion and became permanently invisible. On the bright side, I trained to be a warrior after; and I'm way better at that."

"Huh", Sero blinked,"Well, I'm glad you were able to make the most of it."

A small,"Yeah", came from Hagakure and then, Mina spoke up,"So uh, we're not going to travel in the middle of the night because that's stupid, Kaminari's shoulders are bleeding, and we have no shelter. Solutions?"

Sero turned to Kaminari and screamed. How had he not noticed the blood?! There was so. Much. Blood.

"Um...caves again?", Kaminari asked, shrugging; he flinched in pain as he did so.

"Again?", Mina questioned,"Do you guys sleep in caves often?"

"Just once. We met two dudes who lived in there. They were pretty chill.", Sero summed up, his eyes darting back and forth between Mina's face and Kaminari's wounds,"But uh, you wouldn't happen to know of any shelter around here?"

Mina shrugged,"I don't know anywhere close..."

"Follow me", Hagakure, if she had been visible, would have been seen rolling her eyes with an expression that looked like I'm-tired-but-I-have-to-take-care-of-these-adult-children.

So Mina, Kaminari, and Sero followed Hagakure, who was barely visible under the night sky. As they walked, Sero continued to steal nervous glances at Kaminari. It wasn't until Mina had brought it up that he'd noticed Kaminari's injuries. Was he that blind, or just a terrible friend?

When they arrived at their shelter-to-be, Sero's mind still boiling in a pot of negativity, Hagakure announced,"We can stay here tonight. Tomorrow, you three can head out on your quest."

They had arrived at, unsurprisingly, a cave.

"Alright", Sero grabbed Kaminari's wrist and started to drag him in,"Thanks, Hagakure; it means a lot. I'm going to patch up this electric idiot."

Hagakure gave him a thumbs up and she and Mina began to look for the best place to sleep in a cold, dark cave.

"Ow! Ow, Sero, STOP TYING IT SO TIGHT!", Kaminari complained; he had taken his shirt off, and Sero had cleaned off his shoulder wounds. He was currently bandaging them up as well; Sero always seemed to have bandages on him, for whatever reason. It's like he could just produce them from thin air.

Or at least, that's what Kaminari thought.

Sero muttered something inaudible, his gaze blank as he continued to dress Kaminari's wounds. The blonde looked at him with mild concern, before speaking up,"Uh, Sero? You alright, bro?"

Sero blinked, looked up at Kaminari, and finished tying up his right shoulder,"Er...fine.", was all he said as he went on to Kaminari's left.

By the time Sero had completed his task of fixing up Kaminari, Kaminari himself was pretty annoyed.

"Sero", he frowned,"Something's up, isn't it? What is it? ARE YOU DYING?!"

"What? No!"

"ARE YOU SURE, SERO?!!"

"Yes! I'm fine!"

"NO YOU'RE NOT GIVE ME ANSWERS YOU'RE DYING AREN'T YOU WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO NOW SERO-"

"FINE!!", Sero gave up in the face of Kaminari's irritable persistence,"I...I just feel a little guilty. I didn't notice that you were all messed up until Mina said so. I could've patched you up the moment you climbed out of that river, or I could've just seen that monster coming straight for us and stopped any of this from happening, or-"

"Sero", Kaminari put a hand on his friend's shoulder,"It's okay, really. Plus, if it wasn't for that monster thing, we wouldn't have met Mina and Hagakure; and I'm fine now, cause you fixed me up...with your suspiciously never-ending supply of bandages. Everything's okay now, and honestly, I'm glad I got hurt instead of you."

Sero stared at Kaminari for a moment before giving him a faint smile,"Yeah...thanks man, but you know I'd die before I let you get injured again. Now put a freakin shirt on."

Kaminari smiled back, laughing, and grabbed his shirt.

Everything was okay again; even if they were in a creepy cave, absolutely freezing, with two absolute strangers who just happened to be nice enough to help them...

Yeah, everything was okay.