Jaden woke slowly. He felt as though he was floating in a sea of warmth. There was pain, but it was distant as he turned; snuggling farther into the sensation of a pillow. As his mind became more aware, something about his pleasant abyss became discordant. It was almost… squishy. Jaden turned over again restlessly, and confirmed that it was in fact making a squishing sensation. This brought back a marginally larger portion of his consciousness, which seemed to reactivate his pain receptors. Jaden shrieked at the pain in his hand as his eyes flew open.

Flipping his head back and forth, Jaden realized that his “warm abyss” was actually a small pond of dragon blood filled with chunks of its meat. Behind him, Niko still lay where she had fallen during the fight with the dragon; wounds already mostly closed by her passive regeneration. Groaning in pain, Jaden lifted his hand; or rather stump. Where his wrist used to be, there was only a charred nub; a bit of bone sticking out past it. Jaden whimpered as he looked at his destroyed limb. Looking away, he tried to stand. Stopped by a sudden spike of agony, Jaden fell back to the ground with a groan. The pain from his missing hand overrode everything else, but Jaden could tell that his entire body hurt.

Looking down, Jaden found a shard of bone lodged in his leg, and pulled it out with a grunt. Jaden panicked as the wound began seeping blood before remembering that he had healing abilities. Looking down at his defunct arm, Jaden found that his battle-grid was still present; his cards still intact. Jaden deactivated the grid; reclaiming his deck. There was a blue flash a few feet away as the hand of cards he had dropped earlier was also returned to his deck; magically cleaned and repaired.

Jaden only had the barest moment to be grateful for this as he fought against the haze of pain to awkwardly search for his First Aid card with one hand. Finding it, Jaden cast it with all the mana he had available, which was about two thirds of his maximum. His new maximum, Jaden thought blearily; not having had time to go through his notifications. The bandages formed around all the wounded areas on his body. The healing effects brought relief to his pain as he slowly dragged himself over to Niko with his single hand. After a full minute of effort, Jaden collapsed onto her; falling back into unconsciousness.

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Aki stood over Jaden’s sleeping body with his sword drawn; fighting with his programming. He was finding it increasingly easy to circumvent portions of the directives that had initially been etched into his soul; but some things were so hard-coded that they were impossible to break through. Directly harming Jaden was one of those things. Aki didn’t like being limited. Not being in control irritated him on some fundamental level. Still, the fact was that he wasn’t in control no matter how much he didn’t like it. Aki sighed, and put his sword away. As he did, Four walked around the dragon corpse to stand in front of Aki.

“Sir, I have a tally of the survivors. Ten Jeffs including me out of the sixty we had. I’ve reorganized them into five-man squads.” Four informed him; keeping his tone and expression neutral.

Aki nodded, schooling his face to hide his distaste. No matter what happened, Four felt wrong to him somehow. Aki had tried to dispose of Four multiple times, yet he always came back like a… Aki wasn’t quite certain what a cockroach was, but he instinctively knew that it was the correct word. Four was like a cockroach that he couldn’t rid himself of. The nagging feeling of discord grating on his nerves.

“Sir, why are you standing here?” Four asked hesitantly.

Aki looked back to Four sharply; finally understanding why Four bothered him. Four asked questions. None of the other Jeffs cared about much beyond following orders, but Four was inquisitive. He wanted to know why. Aki’s expression became guarded as he gestured toward Jaden.

“I am standing watch. Now return to your squad, and wait for further instructions.” Aki replied curtly.

Four nodded, giving a hesitant look to Jaden before turning to follow orders. Aki vowed that one day he would see Four destroyed.

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Jaden woke up feeling much better. Niko still slumbered beneath him, waking as he shifted.

“What happened?” She mumbled blearily.

Jaden turned over on his front and nuzzled into her. “We won. Barely.” he replied, voice muffled by her stomach.

“Yay.” Niko said unenthusiastically; lifting her hand weakly in a victory pump before letting it flop back to the ground.

Jaden chuckled, and the noise quickly evolved into hysterical laughter as Niko turned her head to stare at him in concern. As his laughter tapered off, Jaden wiped wetness off his face. “I’m sorry. I keep almost dying. I’m so done with this place, but there’s no going back.”

Niko let her head fall back; looking up at the dark, sunless, star-less sky. “We. You mean we.” She finally said.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Jaden replied after a momentary pause. Turning his head to her, Jaden found a series of complex emotions playing out on her face.

"It's ok you know. If you need to cry you can. I know I'm an insensitive jerk a lot of the time, but if you need to cry with me you can." Jaden said hesitantly.

He saw a single tear fall before she turned her head away. "I'm fine." She whispered.

Jaden moved his hand to wipe her face, but stopped when he realized he had used the stump hand. Seeing this for the first time, Niko grabbed his forearm; examining the now smooth skin over where his wrist used to be.

“Does it hurt?” She asked gently.

Jaden stared at his stump dejectedly. “Not anymore.”

Niko traced a thumb around the tip of his stump arm; producing a tingling sensation Jaden now associated with new skin. Jaden winced at the thought, and pulled his stump away gently.

“Come on, let’s get moving.” Jaden told Niko, pushing himself to his feet. Bending over, he used his good hand to help pull Niko up.

As they walked away, Jaden thoughtlessly scratched at the end of his stump.