1. Schism

I had never cared for hospitals. A place of healing, some called it, but only in the physical sense. To me it had ever been a cold and machinelike for its indifference towards life.  Save them if you can, get them out if you can’t. Make room, can’t have these fine beds being taken up, after all. I looked down at Teratin, my best friend, and was grateful for the steady, albeit weak, rise and fall of his chest. It was more than I’d had standing over my Father’s bed, all those years ago. An ebony lock fell across the ivory colored bandage taped over Teratin’s eye and I was tempted to brush it away, but didn’t for fear of causing him any more pain. He looked so fragile, so damaged; like a glass figurine that might shatter if proper care was not taken.

A nurse had entered the room and was checking his vital signs, handling him more roughly than I cared for.

“How is he,” I said a bit too harshly, as though she were the one who had placed him in this predicament. She was tall and slim and red headed and the clan tattoos she bore marked her as the Daimyo’s kin, but at that moment I cared little for formalities and hierarchy. “I asked:  how the fuck is he?” I asserted when she didn’t issue an immediate response.

The look she gave me was not the one of haughty indifference that I had expected, but rather an understanding coupled with sympathetic eyes. I was grateful to her for that, even if I would never mention it. 

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” she said “We’ve done all we can at this point.”

I heard what she said, but the words didn’t process. It was more than me not wanting to hear the words, they simply did not make sense. Teratin, not okay? One might as well claim the sky was made of lemons, so ludicrous the thought was. I didn’t care how important to the Daimyo’s clan this woman was. All I knew was that my best friend, my other half, my soul, was broken and she was telling me it could not be fixed.

“Shut up and fix him now.” I demanded.

“I had expected my brother’s student to be better behaved than this.” Came her chiding reply.

“Fuck your expectations,” I shut my eyes, I didn’t want to look upon his broken visage anymore; didn’t want her to see the tears I felt burning there.

“Just fix him…I know you can. Please, just do it.”
I felt her hand upon my shoulder, but her reassuring touch did little to settle the worry that churned within my stomach. “There’s really nothing more I can do, Rihei. My energy is Positive and Teratin’s is Negative. Attempting to heal him any further would do more harm than good. It could go well beyond severe bodily harm, he might never wake up.  Healers almost always have Positive Energy, it’s impossible to find someone competent enough to fix him.  He’s going to have to heal naturally, scars and all.”

Despite the hand upon my shoulder, I knew her words were forced. She didn’t really care. None of them did. None of them knew him like I had. None of them cared.  Yet, what made it all so much more devastating was my ignorance. I didn’t know how it had happened, how he had gotten hurt or why. The only thing I knew, was that I would find out who had done this to him and I would make them wish with every fiber of their being that they had never been born.

I was prepared to take hell apart to avenge Teratin.