All That Bloodshed

Chapter 4: soldier down on that icy ground

Notes:
Trigger warnings? Arisu has a bit of a spiral moment near the end.

Luckily, the doctors deemed him ready to begin trying to take short walks. Usually he was accompanied by his brother, but he couldn't always be there and Ryouhei was sick of being cooped up in his room. He wanted to find the others and now he had the means to.

Now that Ryouhei was beginning to talk and he was somewhat mobile, his brother needed to be out of the hospital more often, much to Hajime's displeasure. Really, Ryouhei just found it freeing. He was used to his brother's scorn at worst and his indifference at best. This bizarre shift to attentive care was off putting. He didn't know how to act. He didn't know what Hajime wanted or why he was doing any of this. It couldn't just be because he'd almost died. That didn't seem to be enough.

(But then again, hadn't it been for Ryouhei? He'd forgiven Chishiya and Aguni without a second thought, both of them almost having been responsible for his and Usagi's deaths.)

(Ryouhei had always been more forgiving than Hajime though.)

He still hadn't seen his father despite his increased waking hours. He hadn't really expected to, so he didn't know why the continued absence bothered him so much.

But that didn't matter. He was a man on a mission. One day, between rounds, he managed to make his way out of his room, shuffling down the hallways and peering curiously through doors. He knew that Usagi was in room 512, but he wanted to find the others. Chishiya hadn't said anything about where they were, but Hajime had mentioned that there hadn't been many survivors at all. It made sense that they'd all be kept close, what with them all having similar injuries. Especially since all of their hearts had stopped. A whole minute wasn't a joke even if one could escape permanent brain damage still at that length. There was no way that it hadn't reaped some side effects for the others that the doctors wanted to monitor.

Well that and if the general injury pattern being similar to the Borderlands was true, then he knew that the others should be worse off than him. He'd only been blown out of the second story window. The others had been taken out by the King of Spades and he had no idea how that translated now that they were back in the real world. It hadn't looked good, when he'd caught a glimpse of them in the alleyway. Usagi, the least fight-oriented out of all of the girls (other than Ann who seemed above it all, much like Chishiya) had certainly been bad enough off that Ryouhei had had to carry her all the way to the Queen of Hearts game.

So he wandered the halls, trying not to look too lost, lest the nurses stop him and ask where he was going. He'd been encouraged to move around, but they preferred to keep an eye on him all the same. He was reportedly one of the more unstable survivors. His lack of speech must have been more worrying than expected even if he and his brother were assured that it was a common trauma response.

Perhaps they still couldn't rule out a physical cause. Ryouhei was still limited in his speech after all even if he had the words to speak. He just... couldn't get them all out. He was lucky that Usagi understood what he meant to say, and that the hospital staff was being so patient with him.

He was on one of his countless slow expeditions when he heard familiar laughter. It was bright and loud and utterly unreserved. Kuina.

His head swivelled almost violently, but he wasn't bothered by the twinge of pain. No, he had to find where she was. She was with Ann, surely. He picked up the pace, seeing a door open just a few feet ahead. Before he knew it, he was standing in the doorway, staring wide eyed at the two girls.

Kuina was dressed in what looked to be soft pink scrubs, her hair was still done in locs and sat in the same hairstyle that he remembered. She looked good, no outright visible injuries to be seen, and she was smiling. She was sitting up, twisted so that she was looking at the other bed, facing Ryouhei and the door.