Enter The Ninjaverse

CHAPTER 27

Mage looked down to Acronix laying on his bed, chest barely rising and falling. His mind failed to process what was there. The tribe leader was covered in bandages, all his armor removed to expose all the injuries he had. His chest was covered in so many bandages that there was hardly any skin shown, and one arm was in a cast while the other was covered in bruises. His left leg was in a cast and the right one covered in more bandages. One of Acronix''s eyes was covered in a patch to heal, and his hair looked matted to his head. His right wrist he normally summoned the Time Matrix on had been twisted so far backwards it was being held in place to heal.

"Who... did... this...?" Mage asked quietly, his words barely announcing to the air in front of him.

Two members of Acronix's squad sat in chairs opposite of Mage, neither willing to look at their Dragon Lord. Both of them had awoken long after Krux had left, and Acronix had already been like that. It'd taken them nearly three hours to drag him to the Time Tribe to get him treatment, and more hours just to disguise the state of the tribe's leader to prevent anything from leaking out. It'd then taken them nearly five hours just to get Acronix basic treatment, and the two were ashamed of themselves as intensely as Mage was horrified.

"Mage?" Harumi opened the door to the treatment room, Lloyd in tow. Monty was with them, with Lulloyd just behind. As the four entered the room, the sight was enough to make Harumi freeze up. Lloyd turned away, while Lulloyd pressed himself up against the wall. Monty's expression went unreadable. Each of them had read the report already from the squad, but seeing it in action was something else.

"Harumi..." Mage whispered, "Is... is he going to be..?"

Harumi walked up to Acronix's side, looking down at his broken body. Without medical equipment, he was being treated by time users, reversing his injuries as much as they could. The severity of them, however, made the process agonizingly slow, and dangerous as well. When she arrived at the bed, Mage reached out and tangled his fingers in the sleeve of Harumi's gi.

"H..Harumi...?" Mage whispered, tears starting to fall from his eyes, "Is... is he going to be... is he going to be okay?"

Lloyd stood beside Harumi, looking over the battered body. Both of them could feel the weight of how dangerous this was. Harumi, unable to answer Mage's question, remained silent.

"W...Why would someone do this to him?" Mage focused towards the beaten form in front of him, "He's a good person, he's... he doesn't deserve this..."

"Nobody does," Monty spoke up behind them, "Horrible things happen to good people all the time. Right now, I'm pretty sure that Krux wanted to send us a message with this."

The other two in the room flinched. All the way back to the Time Tribe, all Acronix had muttered as the name 'Krux' over and over again. While neither had seen the injury, it wasn't difficult to piece together who Acronix had to be talking about. Even more delirious ranting during his initial treatment had led to one of the Mind Tribe members looking into Acronix's memories and confirming that indeed, it had been the Krux this universe knew.

"A message by hurting someone?" Mage gulped, "I know that... I heard that while I was traveling, but I never had it happen to me."

"Well you should get used to it, Dragon Lord," Monty explained, leaning against the wall, "You're a symbol for the world. Anyone you care about is in danger. Thankfully right now, all your friends are powerful people. But if someone wants to hurt you, they'll do it through someone else. If you can't win a duel, kill their support. This sort of thing is going to get pretty common for you if you don't think about it."

Mage withdrew his hand from Harumi's sleeve and looked to Monty with a look of horror on his face. He took a step back from the bed, then looked over to Acronix. The longer he looked, the more he felt tears starting to well up in his eyes. Before Harumi could say anything, Mage gasped and closed his bleary eyes to open them silver. With the power of speed, he was gone from the room and off to somewhere to cry.