Reken felt bones crack under his fists, their fissure echoing alongside his friend’s screams. How many did that make? First was the knee, something too easily broken with a little deviation of force when charging. The idiot was fueled by nothing but a blinding fear of pain, which ironically only brought further and more extreme measures of torment. Never charge into a more skilled opponent. Didn’t Reken teach him this already? The right shoulder was popped next when Reken held his foot against Alfred’s back as he pulled on his arms. He learned that from move from Naruto. The nose was smashed when Alfred was wiggling on the grass, a couple of teeth falling with it. Reken lost it for a small time, coming to himself smashing his fists against Alfred’s face.

“Was that the cheekbone? No…” he stopped. The grinding of bones he had heard was from his fist, not Alfred. With a grimace, Reken got up and walked through the forest, leaving a trail of blood behind him. His blood. He gave another grimace as he pulled the knife from his stomach, oblivious to the blood pouring out, and returned it to its owner with a flick of his hand. It landed near the pile of bodies, closest to one of the smallest guys. It was always the small one that gets you, Alfred should remember that. Reken was sure he started with six of them, but two had the sane mind to run away mid fight, when Reken had three knives sticking of out him.There were about four left, including the redhead, Alfred. He was blond before, but the blood had changed that. Reken’s blood again. He never did like using knifes, there was no joy in it if he couldn’t feel his opponent's body squish under him. Today though was different. The fight had started with a backstab; Alfred, previously one of the few men Reken trusted, stuck a knife in his back, piercing the back of his ribs. Things got messy afterwards as his goons, mainly made up of boy’s Reken had broken before, charged with a typical smug dick look. Reken laughed as they stuck a knife in his guts. He laughed even more when he beat them senselessly.

Reken felt proud, even as he pulled the last knife from his left shoulder. The one that was in his guts was impaled into one of the boys, the largest one most likely. His first kill too. Reken had previously participated in fights with unfavorable circumstances, but this? It was whole new level. A shame that he won’t live long enough to indulge in it. Ten too many cuts.

Reken kept walking, aimlessly yet with a destination in mind. Gang wars was never his thing, but one thing lead to another. It began with a school fight, somehow escalating to him being the boss of an entire district after a couple of years and hundreds of extra fights. Reken turned right with conviction, something odd to do when lost in an increasingly darkening forest. Wasn’t there more light than this? How long has he been walking for? He hooked left again. Reken had expected his end to be met with a gunshot, something that would be very difficult to dodge. He was wrong about that, but he was right about the betrayal. It was always how big men fell. Either a knife to the dick or a knife by a dick. The sounds of water running filled Reken mind. He took a left again, then another left, which did not make sense, as it would have lead right back to where he began.

The sight of a glamorous river proved otherwise. Reken only realized now how dark the forest had been when he stared at the flowing river, it’s silver lights bright enough warm his cold limbs. He walked forward, pushing away the branches of a tree before having a coughing fit, the shudders obnoxiously reminding him how broken he was. He spit out blood, a few teeth coming out with it. He looked up, not finding the moon. Strange.

Reken slumped down against a tree, allowing his legs to bath in the water. One of the few body parts that weren’t broken, he noticed. They were good legs. Small but sturdy and strong. Agile too. It was a good run. Eighteen years of life took longer than he expected. They got him by so much, and he felt more thankful towards them than anyone else in his life. His long and lonely life. Reken glanced one final time at his tanned skin, now blended with dried blood, and slowly let go, gently falling into the river.

Taliaren found the body drifting gently in a river in the forest. Silently moving along, more like a daydreamer than a corpse. Initially, the young druidess panicked - sure, she knew how to heal someone in theory, but in practice it would be her mother, Talara, who'd handle that sort of thing, especially with anything serious. She'd only been in the area to gather sprigs of holly, for Talara's own spells, but it did mean she was at least somewhat prepared for the circumstance she now faced.

She didn't realise what it was at first. From a distance, it looked like a fallen branch floating in the water. But, of course, this was clearly not true up close. Transitioning first to a fast walk, then to a run, Taliaren got to the edge and waded in to get to it, whoever it was.

An older boy or a younger man. Countless injuries. Broken bones. Stab wounds. Missing several teeth. Very bad all round. But wait... was he still breathing? Perhaps he could still be saved, but Taliaren doubted her own abilities. Yet what life was still in him would surely have left by the time it would take her to bring him home. No, she must do this herself. There would be no one else who could.

She tried to steady her breathing, think carefully about what she was doing, calm down. What did she need for a healing ritual? Holly, she had that. She made Earth's Blood, but that took time, it was a clay-like substance made from water (which she had an abundance of) and a particular kind of dirt (which was harder to find). Surely by now he was close to death. Taliaren worked faster.

Pulling the body from the river, she marked a circle each on the forehead, palms, and heels in Earth's Blood. She smashed a chunk of chalk with her axe and use the powder to draw a circle on the ground around him. She wrapped every wound (of which there were many) in willow bark. At last, she held the sprig of holly in front of his nose and set it alight. According to what she had been taught, either the smell of burning would wake him up or the fire would reach her hand and she would have to stop.

Crying now, she thanked the river for its water, the holly for its sprigs, the ground for its earth, and so on and so on (this was quite normal in her religion, though it just as well could have been fear-induced). She prayed to every god she knew of that this man would not die. The flame drew ever closer to her hand, and still nothing. But surely, surely it would be just a moment longer. Just a moment longer. Please, just a moment longer.

Reken never liked getting drunk. Others sought to loosen their control over themselves, to separate their bodies from their soul and be nothing. But not Reken. He despised losing control, despised the way the world danced around him in a hundred ever changing shapes. He wanted to feel every inch of his life, every nail and pain into his body.

Today though, he did not. His mind felt dreary and tired, his body filled with so many holes even the gentle sway of the wind seemed to molest his wrecked insides. He was neither conscious or unconscious, neither alive or dead. Reken could feel it, a gentle hand, a swaying angle looking over him, tugging at him, wishing him, pulling him towards her. He could also feel the slumber, a deep and tired desire to wholly close his eyes, his second eyes. He felt them both, and fought against both equally so.

Reken is not to be moved. If God wants him to go right, then he'll go left. If his arms are broken and refuse to move, then move them he will. If death came calling, then he'll beat it with it's legs own legs.

Thus for a long time, Reken felt his limbs. The broken shards of his fists, his twisted elbow, the cracked forearm, the dislocated shoulder, the cuts of his skin, mostly throughout his back, and their depth. Oddly, he even felt them stitching, coming together, bonding and combining. The blood which drenched out of his guts now only seeped slowly, drop by drop until it was halted, kept in by something. His muscles, previously torn and removed from their spots, reattached themselves with a precarious virtuosity, as if willed by something. Something foreign. It was an oddity in his body. Then he noticed it, a thing resonating from his blood, and not from whatever was poking its tentacles inside his limp body. It was hungered for more. He felt it brutality rushing through out his body like a fire. It washed over each spot the foreign force touched, reattaching bones or muscle tissue the foreign one had missed, even fabricated entirely new ones to fill in the holes. It guided the foreign one, controlling where it got out of hand, and kept him from what felt like creating a third limb. He wouldn't like that, No. And where the foreign one refused to cease it's endeavors, then the blood simply devoured it. Blood, Reken would call it Blood from now on, as it certainty resided in it. How he know, Reken wasn't sure. He wasn't even sure how he could feel it, or anything for a matter of fact, but he could. And he didn't like not knowing.

His body was his, and he would choose whether to fix it or not. His eyes, his tired and dry eyes, refused to open. Reken willed it with all his might, willing his dead arms to force them open, but they would not. Frustrated, Reken bared his teeth, his full set of newly created teeth, and tugged at his stubborn body. His nerves almost buckled, but his eyes creaked open. The blinding light came quick and merciless, too bright and radiant, as if he was a newborn pulp. The burn slowly resided, unleashing an endless series of tall trees, lush grass, and a river that flew with gold instead of water. Then he saw his body.

Red with blood, tattered beyond belief, and nude. His guts lurch at that sight, yet he could not turn his "eyes" away. Reken felt the world at once, the shape and colors of it. The birds singing in the trees, the shape of fox striding hundreds of feet away, a particular ominous force stalking him, and someone alive washing over him, just an arm away.

His eyes, his real eyes, bolted open, staring into one of the branches of a far off tree. He stared into it, seeing what looked like a startled child gaze back. Hair as black as Reken's, with dark pupils that screeched to look it.

It's surprise slowly changed into a glee. A devious and wretched smile Reken knew he would despise. It mocked him before "it" closed, leaving him look with both sets of eyes dazed.

His screams came first, the pain after. Then he realized he was awake.

Taliaren was more than a little surprised to see the spell work. Barely a second longer and her hand would be burned and the man would be dead. Obviously, she had not expected to succeed: she had seen only thirteen summers and her training had only gone so far. But she had, despite her expectations and fears and she had saved this man. Except now, he was awake and the pain of he injuries she could not heal (as there were too many of them) had hit him. He was screaming, but sadly there was nothing more Taliaren could do for him: she was exhausted already from the spell and the only painkiller available was the willow bark already wrapped around his injuries (willow bark is a very useful material). Eventually the pain faded enough that he could fall to sleep, though likely not a pleasant one.

Taliaren decided to rest by the base of a tree herself as she was very tired. She made sure, though, not to fall asleep, as to be caught unawares by, say, a bear was to be caught in a truly difficult situation. Fortunately, this precaution proved unnecessary, and she spent most of her time simply watching the river, listening to the birds or something else like that. She spent a short while looking at her reflection in the river. Dark hair tied back to keep it away from tree branches and out of eyes. The aforementioned blue-grey eyes, and the thin lips and light skin. A handful of cuts from encounters with brambles and thorns (Talara was strongly against the use of magic outside of serious circumstances and would neither heal these nor let Taliaren try herself). Strong legs from walking up to a dozen miles every day. Ignoring the social norms of more populated regions, preferring the practicality of hide shirt, jacket and trousers to the stupid skirts, corsets and gowns worn by more "civilised" girls and women.

The man, now sleeping on the forest floor, was certainly an odd character. A little short, dark hair, and, strangely, no clothes. It was quite arkward, but as least he wasn't awake. Now that no one was at risk of dying, Taliaren first began to wonder what had brought him here - why he was so badly hurt and what had brought him to be drifting down a river on the brink of death. Weirdly enough, it was neither a situation Taliaren was used to dealing with, nor a kind of person she was used to speaking to.

A few hours passed, and Taliaren's strength began to return to her. It was just as she needed to start heading home that the man finally woke up fully, obviously still in some pain, but not debilitatingly so.

Living so far from civilisation lead Taliaren to be pretty bad with first impressions (and with socialising in general), but she tried her best. "Oh! You're awake! Erm, hello. I'm Taliaren. I, er, I found you here."

Reken regretted opening his eyes--both sets of eyes. At one page of his mind, he saw a little girl dressed strangely, on the other, he saw, and felt the texture of the trees, the softness of the ground, a gigantic bird flying in the skies, and the freshness of the river all at once entered him without order or mind, driving his insides madder than he thought possible.

He ignored the girl for now, and tried to shut his eyes, his other eyes, which sadly only resulted in him foolishly blinking like a madman. After a few moments, he tried to recall the feelings of his nerves, without all the agony of course, and willed it, desiring it to move, without moving. Difficult, but not unreasonably so. The range in which his, call it Mental Eyes, observed things dwindled from the outside, their scope finally being reducing until it only saw stitched body on the ground. Then nothing but darkness.

Dizzy, Reken felt back in his body. The soreness was livid, reminding him of the time did a marathon. Attempting to move was returned with a hundred different muscles complaining, stretching and tugging. He wasn't going anywhere for a bit. That left his eyes and a tired mind to use. Darting around, he observed the foreign girl that spoke rubbish a few moments ago, a unfamiliar setting, and most strange of all, the body that remained to breath--his body. Reken should not be alive. He felt the life seeping out of him, out of the many cuts in the outside and the ones inside as well. Yet he could breath, and nothing seemed to be broken. Odd.

He sighed, suddenly being aware of the vicious hunger in his stomach. It's roar was enough to sway the trees, he thought. Saved him the effort of sounding like a fool however, Reken observed from the girl's flushed face. The guy however, had no money much less clothing even, but since the girl had bothered to stick with his useless body for...a time? He wasn't sure how long she was there, but he reckoned she wouldn't leave him to starve after that ordeal. Reken laboriously lifted his hands a couple inches from the ground, motioning his index finger in the direction of a spot populated with thick bushes and trees. He hoped she understood the meaning behind it, as his hands dropped dead after a moments breath.

A viscous hunger threatened to rip Reken's inside. He felt it's desires, the will to devour anything. It craved something to sink its fangs into, and even though the girl wasn't Reken's type, she seemed strangely appetizing to him.

"What?" The man could barely move, he was just about managing to lift his hand, pointing in the direction of a few bushes. He must be so incredibly tired, only being able to- Oh. That makes sense.

"You're hungry. Of course, of course you are." Not getting much of a reply, Taliaren babbled on regardless. "It makes a lot of sense, actually. You'd expect near-death experiences to be..." And so on and so on.

She quickly got to the bushes and gathered as many berries as she could hold in both hands, before hurrying back to where he lay. She got there, before realising that, due to his current state, it would be very difficult for him to eat them, especially with the threat of choking. She ended up feeding him herself, carefully giving him only one at a time. The process was slow and boring, but she hadn't come this far just to kill him herself. It took a while for her to register that fact that though she knew very little about what was going on, he likely knew even less. So she told him her side of the story while he ate, explaining how and why she got here and found him. She mentioned the healing ritual but didn't go into the details too much - most people weren't generally interested. By the time she was done, the berries were gone, and while he was by no means in a good state, he seemed a little better.

"So, you opened your eyes for a second, looked really weird, and then just fell asleep again. I was pretty tired and you weren't exactly going anywhere any time soon, so here we are."

Taliaren decided that now he'd eaten something (though admittedly not much, it would have to do, she figured), she should try to get the two of them home, or somewhere similar enough. There wasn't much that she could do about his clothes, as she wouldn't be able to kill, say, a wolf or something, even at her strength's fullest. She told him this, and apologised for it.

"But if we could get to my home, there'll probably be something there we can use, and I'll need to be back soon anyway. I think there are more berry bushes along the way, so we could get you more to eat. If I help you, can you walk?"