What at first we just thought was a shard of crystal piercing her skin, was actually not just that. It was her skeleton.

It’s hard to tell how much the assimilation progressed, but a chunk of her bone was already transformed into crystal. For some reason, it was now trying to get outside of the regular flesh, instead of transforming it as well.

And not only in one place.

After we detached, I realized that she was now bleeding in more places than before. A small set of spikes was forming lower, on her collarbone, going towards her arms.

-Then do it! - yelled at him Il. - You see she is not well!

-I… I never did anything like…

I grabbed him by his shoulders.

-You managed to repair a lot more. I know. Please. I’ll give you all the mana you ever need.

-Me too! - immediately picked up Il. - Go! Quick!

I could tell that he was for some reason hesitating, but finally we managed to get through to him.

-Fine. But that’s not the mana problem… just…

He took a deep breath.

-If you want to share the burden, you are welcome. But just please, be warned. That is not going to be pleasant.

-Like anything going now is pleasant! - yelped Il. - Please!

He nodded.

-Whoever wants to contribute, please, place your hand on me.

Immediately both me and Il stepped up.

For wasn’t really keen on helping, but after a moment she also joined.

-I am not sure if I’m going to help much, though… - she said, but Kon just shook his head.

-It’s not really important if you know her, I am not trying to remake her face. Hopefully.

-Hopefully? - I asked, but he ignored me.

-It’s more that you know how a body is supposed to look, and having more images is always better.

“How a body is supposed to look”?

I understand where he was coming from.

He said that to “edit” the face, he had to know what to change it into, but to just know how a body looks?

I mean, he could just think of his own? Isn’t that enough?

It’s not like gender mattered in this circumstance…

Okay, if we are talking about the insides, maybe she’d have something to say in the matter, she was quite learned… supposedly at least.

I decided to not question him, just follow.

-What do we have to do? - I asked.

-Relax and… eh, let me in, so to speak.

-What…? - asked For.

-When you feel it, you’ll understand. Just don’t resist and relax.

She seemed a bit concerned, but nodded.

Neither me nor Il were going to try and contest his knowledge.

-Let’s go.

I wish the process was easy and quick, but of course, it couldn’t be.

If anything it was definitely painful and very involved.

The first thing he did was place his hand on the wound, not the crystal and the wound that she had from the crystal opened wider than ever before.

He was making it larger.

Of course it was accompanied by the rather large amounts of blood gushing from the wound.

It took a considerable amount of willpower for me to not stop him.

Even just looking at something like that made me wince in phantom pain, what kind of torture was he putting her under?

Il had the same issue with his “treatment”, but before we managed to do something rash, we realized that she was not even screaming.

If anything, she was now a lot calmer.

Sure, he was breathing heavily, but not coughing blood, or screaming, which would be expected if someone was literally cutting you open.

I took a gander on her mana.

There was no change in it at all, at least for now, so I guess that was good news?

But, as I was taking a peek at her, I noticed something else.

Kon’s mana was wildly fluctuating instead.

Just as I noticed that, a small tug finally reached my mind and I felt him try to connect with me.

Just as instructed, I didn’t resist and invited the presence.

I expected him to try to do something to me, or at least to feel some kind of effect of his spell, but there was nothing.

Sure, I felt some mana getting drained from me, but it was just a tiny trickle, it was just more like me leaking it than him doing that on purpose.

But, as I felt that, I also got connected to him a bit closer, and managed to get a glimpse of his own state of mind.

He was in pain.

Not just a minor one.

He, very on purpose, was trying to conceal it, and while it definitely was working, at least on the outside, he was not going to fool me.

The pain that I’d expect from the wound she had, was now being transferred to him.

As I noticed that, I heard in my mind his answer.

-Sorry, I didn’t want to startle you…

-Starte? Fuck that, are you okay? - asked For.

Apparently he was speaking to all three of us, and I was not the only one who noticed the problem.

-Startling is not a problem - said Il. - How can we help?

-Just… no, nothing…

He was saying that, but I was not so sure about that.

I was not going to say that to him, though. I didn’t want him to lose focus.

While we were being a bit distracted by the sudden realization, he was not playing around.

The wound that he was working on was now not only larger, but also deeper.

He actually managed to reach her bone structure: we were able to see what the problem was.

I was right in my assumptions. Her bones were already partially turned into a crystal, at least from the outside.

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I honestly had no idea how he was going to even approach that, but he seemed like he knew what he was doing, so I was not going to question anything.

At that point, I expected for bleeding to become a problem.

Of course, during the whole procedure, she was bleeding, and since her blood was abundant in mana, she fainted pretty quickly.

As soon as that happened I started getting worried, but it never got any worse: the mana instantly stabilized and not moved at all.

It was not because someone was supplying her with mana, instead Kon was manipulating her blood.

When she fainted, instead of letting blood leak from her wound, he started… catching it?

It was similar to when I use water magic: creating water orbs or something like that. He grabbed the blood she was losing and was keeping it right at the opening, not letting her loose any more.

He probably was also giving her a tiny bit of his, but never much, to let her be still and unconscious.

After accomplishing that, he moved onto the next step.

He moved his hand from the wound to the bone, touching where the actual skeleton was still normal, and took a deep breath.

I expected something to happen. Maybe some light, a noise or something?

But what I got was… weirder.

The bone started… warping. Like it turned into goo right where he touched her, and started slowly spreading towards the crystal parts

At first, it looked like it was going great.

Sure, he was losing mana, but as soon as that happened, the connection we had jolted to life and started finally chipping away at our mana reserves.

To be honest, I expected to lose a lot more to that kind of procedure, but it was not that bad, really. Maybe because there were a lot of us sharing the drain, but still.

Was it really all that was to it?

Ha, of course not.

It was not going to be that easy.

The first moments were going great. The “gooified” bone was turning back to solid matter and slowly replacing the crystal, but that soon there was a problem.

He wasn’t able to turn any more of her bone.

It was strange to look at: it was just like someone had melted a piece of ice from a sharp spike.

The deeper parts of the bone tissue weren’t bone any more: it was pure crystal. He was not able to manipulate those, for some reason.

Before, there were some pieces mixed in, but those just moved away, as he commanded them, gathering deeper and now were blocking progress.

Or well, there was no progress to be made: no bone was remaining at all. It was just all Crystal.

He didn’t stop, though. Instead he moved to the other side of her body, started repeating the process there.

That went well up till the same point: until she now had two pieces exposed.

-Now for the more advanced part.

Advanced?

-I will now try and remove the crystal. It is not going to be a pleasant feeling for me, so please, if I flinch, can you keep me stable?

-Okay.

-Wait! - stopped him Il. - You really want to take all that pain by yourself?

Yeah, I was a bit concerned with that as well.

I knew that the pain he was dealing with had to be immense, and since he said this is going to be “advanced”, I can bet it’s not getting better any time soon.

-Of course. It’s important that she…

-Can’t we help you somehow? Like, I don’t know, numb the pain?

-Numb? I don’t think that’s possible.

-Is there a spell like that? - asked For, a bit concerned as well. - I don’t remember ever reading about anything similar.

-I don’t know… I thought maybe…

I suddenly had an idea.

-Kon. Can you redirect the pain somewhere?

-Redirect? Where? It’s not like I can just “leak it out” or something.

-No. I meant to another person?

He froze for a second.

Of course, technically it should be possible. He was already doing that to himself. But did it have to be him?

-I… I am doing that right now.

-We know - I said. - Can you share it with us though?

-I…

He hesitated.

I bet this was the first time someone actually asked for something like that.

Not like anyone knew about that ability of his in the first place anyway.

-It should be possible… - he finally replied. - But why are you asking? I can handle it, you know.

-Sure you can - I said, interrupting Il who was about to say something. - But that doesn’t mean you won’t get distracted if a sudden jolt comes in.

-I…

-Just do it - said Il. - I can take it.

-You mean “we” - I corrected her.

He sighed.

-I am not sure if I can split it into multiple people, though. So…

-Give it all to me - I immediately said, knowing very well what Il was about to propose. - And I will not listen to any excuses.

-Mor…

-I said no excuses.

-Fine. Just be careful… ready…?

-So fast? Sure, hit me with it.

I didn’t expect for him to be ready almost immediately, so I responded without thinking. I didn’t even prepare myself and pain hit me with the full force of a freight train.

It might be just because I was not used to this kind of feeling, or just forgot how real pain felt, but the searing feeling was definitely real.

The moment he redirected it towards me, I almost fell over backwards, but managed to stabilize myself and only clenched my teeth.

To say it was distracting was an understatement.

And he was able to cast spells while feeling THAT?

Not even to cast spells, I was hardly able to think, clenching my teeth to the point where I was grinding my teeth.

On the other hand though, Kon visibly relaxed.

And, if my eyes weren’t deceiving me, so did the “patient”.

Don’t get me wrong, Kon was definitely blocking her pain before, because she was not flailing about, but up till now her face was contorted and definitely still in pain. Now she was just looking like she was peacefully sleeping.

Good that worked out.

For and Il immediately noticed the change.

For more in me than anything else, but still. Seeing my face she was definitely about to say something, but decided against it.

I think she looked at the shape of my mana and said that she was not going to touch that, fearing the blowback that might cause.

I was not paying attention, though. I was just focused on trying to not interrupt him and be as quiet as possible.

-Ah… - groaned Kon. - You… you really are compatible.

-You better get a move on - said Il. - I am not sure how long he can last…

-Long enough - I managed to squeeze out, but shut up immediately after, because I could tell that along my brief words I also leaked out some of the pain.

-Ouch… - mumbled Il aloud.

-Okay, prepare yourself. It might get worse - announced Kon a moment later.

Wait, it wasn’t already the worst?

Fuck me.

-Hit it - I plainly said, waiting for the inevitable.

But…

Nothing changed.

Despite his announcement, the pain was constant, and even though it was nothing to scoff at, it was bearable.

I peeked at what exactly he was doing, but I actually didn’t see any change.

Neither did Il apparently, because she asked:

-Why did you stop?

-I did not… - he replied confused. - I mean… it looks like it, but… look.

The crystal inside her suddenly sprung to life and started growing back, almost filling up what he just removed, before he stopped it again, turning the bone to goo.

-What did you do!?

-Nothing! That’s the problem. I can’t counteract this… - he said, with a worried tone.

-You need more mana? We still have plenty… - she asked.

-No… I mean, yes, mana is helpful, but that doesn’t change a thing. It’s… just I can only change that much with my own power. I can’t change what is completely crystal.

-So what now?! We failed?!

-Of course not. There’s still a way, but…- he said, but hesitated.

-So get on with it? What do you want me to do?

-It’s just… I have to remove the crystal… manually.

-Manually?

-Pull it out with force.

I didn’t like the sound of that.

-Isn’t that a bit risky? - asked Il

-I wanted to “purify” her, however stupid that sounds, but I cannot just get my gold on her crystal. It’s like it’s evading me on purpose.

-Mgh. Well, whatever the problem, the root is always the crystal… - I thought to myself, although a bit too loud, because I am sure they heard that too.

-Okay… Do it then.

-Well, I would, but… Just be prepared, Mor.

Ah. Right. That’s going to hurt.