The Raven's Curse

Chapter Forty One

It was dark. With only little light to illuminate his room. The athmosphere was cold and dreadful. Just like his emotions. He placed two fingers gently on her pulse. It was slowing down significantly. He kneeled beside her laying body and held her hand tightly. He was afraid if her pulse would suddenly stop. Her face was as pale as the dead. He was afraid if she would be dead.

"How's Japan doing?" Arthur asked as he heard footsteps of which he knew belonged to Lukas.

"He's in bad shape." Lukas said. "But he'll recover soon. The blade almost pierced his heart. We're lucky it didn't."

"I see." Arthur replied curtly.

His mind flashed back to this evening's incident. They had arrived quite late due to the difficulty of the sudden snowstorm. It was too clean upon reaching the lake. The snow approximately reach Ivan's knees and they would sink right in if not wearing proper shoes. Looking at the clean mess, Arthur used his magic to detect the energy of three missing people. But he could only detect two. He had to pull (f/n) out from underneath the heaps of snow. Her skin was as cold as ice. (F/n) looked as if she were dead. The blood from her severe wounds had frozen. She looked as if she were dead. Fortunately he was able to detect that slow quiet pulse. Kiku was nowhere to be seen. But with the tsunami incident and the faint energy felt by Lukas gave them the very idea of his whereabouts.  Ivan had to break open the ice with his metal pipe and dive in to pull him out.

Afterwards, Lukas tend to both of the victims as healing magic was his field of expertise. He took quite some time to heal Kiku since the katana pierced him badly but it was no biggie. Speeding up mitosis shouldn't be a problem for Lukas. Besides, it would take atleast a country to kill another country by stabbing them int the heart - or something more superior and powerful than that. However, the treatment for (f/n) was difficult. Tending the wounds and healing hypothermia were easy. But tending the soul was another case. According to Lukas, more than half of her soul was already taken. She is still alive, but only just. Humans can't live with only part of their soul. They don't own any magic energy that would support their soul. Soon that it would fade away and last but not least, she will die.

"Arthur." Lukas called out.

Arthur was broken from his trance with surprise.

"I've been calling 'England' three times in a row already." Lukas said and sighed. "This may sound cruel. But there's no hope for her."

"Don't you dare say that!" Arthur spat.

Though he knew it was the truth. If (f/n) was a magic being, she might just have a little positive chance of survival. But she wasn't. She was a human. An important lady in his life. Lukas could only watch in pity. He could see how much he loved her. Even his magical friends were there watching sympatheticly. 

Lukas glanced at the entrance. "Romania."

"I think it's best if we gather here rather than the meeting room. The other countries should know their current state of being." Vlad stated.

And that was what they did - except for Kiku though, he was still unconscious. Though everyone couldn't shake off the sad feeling of watching (f/n) dying on bed, they didn't have the heart to leave her alone. Still, she is and forever would be the member of the Ace Team. Besides, her heart was still beating, slowly. It felt more sad if they were to leave her alone. Everyone sat around Arthur's room. The air was grim. 

Vlad said with a smirk. "It seems that our King of Curses has put a curse on the island. Isolation Curse anyone?"

Arthur cussed. Vlad began explaining briefly about it. The isolation curse is a very diverse curse. It isolates the person or place according to the situation. No one can expect the outcome of it. In this case, the island was hit with a terrible blizzard and they were cut off from all sources of connection. They were missing from radar. Even if the navy tries to find them with the given coordinates, they will only be lead astray by the magical force. How jolly.