I wake up the next day and go to rub my face… I forgot that I can't use my hand… I'm going to have the replace the bandages today anyways… I might as well see what is wrong with my hand. I start doing the wrappings around my hand… Some puss has soaked through the wrappings, making it slightly wet in the locations it was touching the bed. Everything seems fine until I get to halfway down my bicep muscle. The veins that would be pumping the blood are black tinted… The further down I go, the worse it gets… Until I get to the elbow…

From my elbow down… My entire arm is covered in a blackish color… Several places on my arm has ripped skin and blood/puss leaks from them. The skin has taken a much harder feeling as I touch it. Also the same density as rock, I drag my hand across my other hand and feel nothing… I pinch some skin between my fingers, enough to feel the pain if I could and still nothing. I try to move my fingers… Nothing. I try to move my elbow… Nothing… I try to move my entire arm… Nothing… No! Move! FUCKING MOVE YOU STUPID ARM! It twitches as I put in a tremendous amount of effort to move it… I breath a sigh of relief… At least I might be able to move my arm with enough training…

My arm is still a mess though… Perhaps it would be best to just chop it off… I have to discuss this with Aegis… I hope he shows himself to me today. I did see him yesterday but he must have noticed and ran away… Well, crawled away… It is almost like he is afraid of me.

I get up and clean my arm. I can feel something when I drag the water soaked rag across my arm… I can feel the warmth of it. So I can still feel temperature changes at least. I cast some focused healing on it with no effect towards repairing it… It is as if my arm absorbs the mana of the spell instead of the effect… What would happen if I used all of my mana into a single healing or regeneration spell… I try it-. FUCK! OUCH! DAMN! Every piece of my arm that is showing pain has just activated again. FUCK! For a second… When the pain went through my hand… I thought I could move it… If only for a moment but that might have just been wishful thinking.

I should really talk to Hilda junior about this… I laugh in my head that I am going to get medical advice from a little girl. The truly messed up part is that she is the strongest healer inside my army… I look forwards to seeing what each of Gobber's children grow into but… Hilda junior has definitely caught my eye over the other ones so far… The way she talks… I think she might be a demigod of the god of life… That is truly terrifying but also helpful. If any of us utter the wrong thing, this little girl might be able to wipe us off the face of the world… I'm once again not positive this is the case though. I would expect the demigod of life could just wish any wound the be cured. Hilda junior has to put in a lot of effort to fix things.

I start baking some more sugar bread for the celebration. I only let them sample one roll last night but it was able to feed around 50 people… I made a dozen rolls yesterday so 600 people can be fed with the rolls today… That is far under what I should have… Portioning it to the size of a few bites per person might be the only way everyone will get to try it. Even above that, the chocolate covered parts only make up maybe 5-10 pieces of the sugar bread… Whatever, it is just something extra so that today is more special than other days.

I spend the next few hours preparing for this celebration. Finishing up a few more loaves of the giant sugar bread. Using the remaining sugar and chocolate in the process. Besides a single cup of sugar and a bar of chocolate… I am going to have to hide these from Darkclaw, as I know what will happen if he finds out I have them. Everyone starts to wake up, the pirates slowly trickle into the main building. They are led outside where I will be giving a quick speech for the people to start the celebration. They look on in wonder by all the interesting things they are seeing. Perhaps also shocked by the portals…

Darkclaw comes through and he is already celebrating with several dozen pirates as he comes through the portal. Laughing and cheering he stops and takes in a big whiff from his nose then abandons them to rush towards the cafeteria… He brings out an entire roll, chewing it as the size is bigger than even himself. He rips off a piece for each of his generals and they all start consuming it as well. I see the surprise on their faces as they do. Darkclaw stops to talk with me for a few seconds, only enough to show that he is still with me. Still my follower even though he is ruling the pirates.

Nami and about 20 of her ninja followers have decided to move to the fortress. They are in the process of becoming more accustomed to their new surroundings. Nami moved because she is my general now, the other 20 ninjas felt too strongly a dept towards me and also volunteered to serve under me. She pats her children on the head and they run off to play as she stops to speak with me for a few minutes. While not a huge amount of ninjas have moved here, it is always nice to have a stealth troop for sneak attacks and assassination/spy missions. They speak of the hot springs more than normal, enjoying them thoroughly. I'll have to go back and make hot springs for all my outposts such as the lizard men and murine folk villages.

I spot Aegis and he must have also spotted me… He attempts to run but stops halfway from running away. He turns and walks towards me using his fingers as feet. Perhaps building him an automaton body would also help him move around. He looks slightly bigger than he was previously. If he was a gauntlet that covered close to the elbow. He is now an arm guard that covers slightly passed the elbow.

“So… Who won the fight for your body?”

“I did Aegis… We need to speak about my arm… And what happened during that fight… I can't seem to remember anything after Leaf was struck… What did I do?”

“You… I'm not sure where to begin… First, you killed anyone who came in your way… Not even sparing those who begged for their lives. You went out of your way to cause harm to other people… If you do that again… I'm not sure I can serve you.”

“I understand… I still can't make any promises… I'm not sure I can control this trait anymore then I could my other ones. Only time will tell. So… Do you have any idea what is wrong with my hand?”

I unravel the wrappings on my hand and reveal the blackened skin on my arm… The puss I cleaned off earlier has already returned… It is like my arm is dead or something.

“I do have a theory… I've just never seen or heard of anything happening like this… With summoners, they can conjure food that people can eat made of mana. You can become sick if you eat it too often… What has happened to your arm is the most extreme version of that. I think you've developed an extreme case of mana poisoning.”

“Is there any way to fix it?”

“Well… Normally you would just have to wait and stop consuming conjured food if you got mana poisoning… For you, I'm not sure that would work… You need to find a way to remove the mana from your system.”

“Do you think chopping my arm off would remove the effect?”

“Perhaps… You might be able to use your arm as a power source as well… You sort of turned your arm into a rechargeable mana canister… I'm not sure how that is possible… But you might be able to set off anything that requires mana by just touching it with your hand.”

“Well… The thing is… I can't even move my hand.”

“Hmm… That wouldn't be a problem if you were wearing me… But I just don't feel comfortable with you wearing me just yet.”

“I understand… And I agree… For now… Can you protect Leaf… Just you being around her, guiding her I would feel safer.”

I can sort of feel almost a smile form into my head as Aegis says.

“There is the Kite I know.”

He scurries away. More and more generals continue to come out. I watch as each comes out of the cafeteria with the bread, enjoying it greatly. It makes me happy that my experiment with food has succeeded. Each greeting me before heading outside. The pattering of peoples feet slowly dies down as more and more head outside… I do as well. Our fortress wasn't meant to hold this amount of people. Even outside the clamoring of everyone is hard to watch. Several hundred pirates needing to head into the forest as the spaces to stand on the road or near the tents set-up just isn't enough. I walk up to the guard tower and the noise of talking slowly quiets down as I wait until silence.

I look over the crowd. I can see several hundred of them eating away at the sugar bread I had prepared. Some of them eating a skewer of meat or other type of food that can be eaten with just hands. I see the looks on everyone's faces. Some of questioning concern at why I had brought everyone together. Others look on in slight fear seeing what I had done on the battlefield. Others look on in amazement over the new and wonderful things they've seen in the past few days. I finally begin my speech as the last of the talking quiets down.

“Greetings! Some of you may not know who I am! I am Kite, the current leader of the army you had just faced! Today will be a celebration of the peace we've agreed upon, as well as a day of remembrance for those who have lost their lives in battle!”

I am shouting almost as loud as I can to reach the crowd of thousands of people. I hear someone yell out now.

“You've only lost a small fraction of your army! What right do you have to say we should remember the fallen! What right do you have to tell us how we should feel!?"

I hear a few sort of grunts and hollers in agreement from the rest of the crowd… Perhaps doing this wasn't such a good idea… My hand is still unwrapped. I raise up my destroyed hand, the crowd becomes silent again as they wait for me to speak about this hand.

“WE HAVE ALL SACRIFICED! Some of us more than others! While you were outside fighting my men, I was inside fighting against the lich by myself! The cost of that fight was the destruction of my hand! It was the loss of my men and the loss of my future men that I was fighting for! I sacrificed an arm to fight evenly with this lich who you all assumed was a human! Sacrifices must be made when you do not wish to kill your enemy! Sacrifices must be made in order to save people from themselves. From following someone who would sooner turn them into ghouls, then have them as friends or soldiers.”

I lower my hand. The sounds of the crowd have become completely silent. None of them had known the full story. What had happened during that fight is now lost, only Aegis knows exactly what had happened. I press on, pushing the speech forwards after that interruption.

“Now! I understand we have all lost someone close to us in the past few days! That is why we are here! We are here to remember their sacrifices, to honor the dead while celebrating our life! I have set-up memorial stones over there and on the pirate island to the south! If you wish to give your prayer to the dead and hope their soul passes on smoothly, you can do so. Now with that out of the way!”

I have several people bring out several bags worth of gold. Because Gold had taken the opportunity to hide her valuables from everyone, they must all be short on money. They look on confused at the huge amount of gold in front of them. Almost 100 gold is being displayed here now. I start the remaining portion of my speech.

“NOW! We are going to be celebrating with a few competitions to test everyone in different fields! You can join more than one competition as they will be done one after another. Each testing different things, combat potential, magical power, even artistic prowess will be decided by competition today! This will let you get to know and understand your new companions better! It will also give you the chance at earning some extra money through betting! Now! With that, let the first competition of unarmed combat begin!”