Faded

Ver Million

                Enough of loathing, it was time to take care of some patients! Brushing her hands off with her sleeves, the witch propped her hat upon her head and proceeded out the door; the newly acquired horns of her protector glowing with the absorbed energy from the sunshine, creating a luminescence in its wake. Further down the hall were her two new patients: Ver Million and Emalf. They had their own individual nurses at first, but now that Wadanohara being the only nurse left alive, she had to put the life of everyone on her shoulders. The nurse stressed herself beyond tears; knowing that the one life she couldn’t hold up… had to die an unfortunate death, all because of her weakness and helplessness.

There was no need to dwell on that memory now; it was long ago, anyway, and Wadanohara had other business to worry about. Knocking upon the strange wooden door (all the rest of the doors were painted a shade of white; this one wasn’t even painted), there came a noise inside, in which the nurse responded to by letting herself in to see the female demon. She had short brown hair (perhaps at a masculine length) and red horns that seemed to curve outward. Her Wolverine-ish claws were propped up against her dresser, which was also right near the window. With a smile, Ver greeted the witch.

“Hey, Wada! How have things been holding up on your end?”

She queried. Wadanohara barely replied with a grin, but instead with a gloomy sigh. Of course, it was involuntary; she would never sigh while working. That wasn’t polite at all! The nurse felt as if she had a right to be this blue… Satanick was dead, after all. It isn’t something one gets over so easily.

“I guess I’ve been… better. I received a gift from Idate this morning.”

The witch explained, organizing her things to tend to Ver’s wounds from the war. No one seemed to be healing well from it… all except for Idate and perhaps even Cherryblod. Ver had some bloody gashes, and Emalf was exhausted beyond compare. Turning into a flaming beast the size of a house must take more out of someone than Wadanohara imagined. His health was fine, however; no broken bones, no hay fever (he seemed to grow a concern for it), nothing out of the ordinary. The only downside was the fact that… well, he slept for a majority of the day, and if he were to wake up from that… well, not so nice things usually resulted. Vendetto took care of it most of the time, but sometimes, not always, sometimes, they would nap together; the demon nuzzled against the other’s chest (flame demon and demon were enough to differentiate the two of them from one another, right?).

“Oh really? What’d he have to give the new witch?”

The demon had a teasing tone in her voice, as she briefly grinned. Wadanohara barely cracked a smile in return, and continued doing her job by dabbing the wounds gently with what was said to be Neosporin. She wasn’t a surgeon or anything, even if she did have to stitch up a few wounds; Kcalb being kind enough to attempt to fix some problems. Neosporin always did the trick, and when Wadanohara would practice her healing magic… Samekichi said it was the most calm and relaxed he had felt in a long time. Perhaps her magic did work! Or… she was accidentally lulling them to sleep. Hopefully she wasn’t messing up that bad.

“It was, er… Satanick’s horns. Idate ate him, and left his horns behind for me to have them. Maybe he doesn’t like eating horns… I don’t think he’s ever eaten a demon before; certainly not a devil, or anyone as high of a ranking as him.”

Nodding, Ver cleared her throat, before reaching up to brush away a strand of the witch’s curly messy hair that fell in front of her face. She still hadn’t done her hair yet… was she so struck by what happened to Satanick that she’d been forgetting something as essential as doing her hair? It didn’t matter to the demon; she barely touched her own hair anyway.

“Hey… it’s gonna be alright, Wada! I know it… things will get better. Maybe we can get out of this hell hole; maybe even get a bigger place! These rooms are jam packed… but still, this isn’t about me, or us, or Satanick, this is about you. You’re the person, or witch, keeping this place alive. If it weren’t for your hospitality, we would have never… well, seen the outside, so to say. If that war with Sal and the Red Sea or whatever still happened and you weren’t there? Who knows… we’d either still be fighting or we’d all be sleeping in a puddle of crimson colors. It’s all thanks to you… really, Wadanohara; I don’t think you see your self-worth! Think about it…! You have Samekichi… you would have never met him if you hadn’t worked here. Satanick… you would have never had anyone like him… if you hadn’t worked here. I’m going on a tangent now, but still! Have some self-confidence. We owe it all to you.”

By this point, the witch had tears swelling in her eyes and glazing over her vision. That was… too sweet. To hear it from Ver? Who barely said anything if it didn’t have to do with work or getting paid? People really did care… even if Wadanohara felt as if she hadn’t done anything to step up and protect them. It was true; these patients, these friends… were her life. They were all she could ever ask for, and now that she was a witch… well, it was going to take a while to get used to, but now she felt as if she was now capable of doing something; capable of being able to protect the ones she held close to her heart.

“V…Ver… I… I don’t know what to say besides… Th…Thank… you…”

With a few whimpers, she soon collided with the demon in a tight embrace; sobbing uncontrollably. Ver stroked down her long, flowing brunette hair, the way Samekichi would have. The nurse clutched onto the demon’s shirt and fell to her knees.

“I miss him… I miss him so much…! I couldn’t do anything… I couldn’t do anything!! I stood there and… and…! I watched! I watched as he plummeted to his death; I watched as his blood spilled from the hollow carcass he held onto… he held onto it long enough to sing to me… one last and final time… He did it for me… why… I could have done something… I love him… and now… I can’t even tell him that… I’m sorry, Satanick… I’m so, so sorry…”

By now, Ver was lightly hushing her, letting her just spill it all out. The nurse needed this; she was high maintenance, anyone could see that. Things had to be done in such and such a way, and now that the one she had in her schedule most often was gone… it was even harder for her mentally then it was anything else. No one could imagine how pained she must have felt, knowing that her guardian had passed away and her schedule was all out of whack.

“Sometimes you don’t have to say it, Wada. Actions speak louder than words… and from what I’ve seen, you’ve told Satanick you’ve loved him more than you think. That’s all that matters… words are just the icing on the cake… or the whipped cream and cherry to the ice cream. He understands… I know he does. He’s hard headed and things easily get over his head, but you… you were his core… the mark can even tell you that. Just because that power isn’t in you anymore, you still have the memory of it, right? You know why Satanick did that, right? Shh… shh… that’s all that matters… as long as you know that he’s satisfied, you shouldn’t have to worry about anything else… I promise.”

The nurse was left speechless, but continued to sniffle for a brief moment, before pulling away and wiping away a considerable amount of tears. Her cheeks were a rosy red, as was her nose. If Ver weren’t so nervous to admit it, she’d say the witch looked really cute.

“Th-Thank you… really… so much, Ver… … f-feel better…”

She stuttered, before exiting the room.

“I should be the one telling you that!”

Were the last words Ver shouted to her, grinning to herself and leaning back against her pillow.