^^ Truer Words ^^

--- Wren's POV ---

I sat down next to Rin's bedside, and activated my Ankh, pouring magic into it, before gripping her wrist. I felt the sickness in her, and hummed.

"Interesting..."

"Wren? Keep your oddly inquisitive, extremely insensitive, scholastic curiosity to yourself, please? This is my mother, and she's been slowly dying for 25 years. Have a goddamn heart." Takeo groaned in annoyance.

"Yeah... sure... I wonder if her body would still react to lightning... the chemicals-"

"Wren." He said calmly.

"Sorry. I've got it." I directed my Ankh and Lightning Rukh into her at the same time, and let it work naturally.

Her entire body arced with magical lightning, targeting the cancerous cells in her heart, simultaneously healing her and destroying them. I thought it would be relatively easy, but the entire process actually managed to drain almost all of my magical energy in a matter of seconds.

I leaned back, shivering, and looked at Mad Max. "So that's why no one ever just healed her... god that hurt... alright... let's go again." I began a second session.

After it was done, the medicine burned out of her body, and we sat back to wait.

---

She opened her eyes, and Takeo quickly sat down next to her, grabbing her other hand. "母!どう感じますか?" (Mother! How do you feel?)

She smiled gently, and tugged his hair. "What've you done to your pretty hair, Takeo?sheesh... and who's this? Make some tea, dear." She immediately tried to sit up.

I placed a hand on her shoulder. "Miss Rin, you must rest. I am Wren, a friend of your sons. I just burnt out the Cancer in your body. Your body is in shock, and you must rest. I will make tea if you wish, but I'd recommend you eat a hearty, warm meal, and drink some water." I said sternly.

She smiled and patted my cheek. "Alright. If it's the doctors orders... I would like some rice, I think. My stomach feels very empty."

I nodded and looked at the nurse, who was staring at us. "Get her a bowl of warm rice, and some protein. Fish or Beef will do. Also, some water, and a tea-pot. Go."

She flinched and bowed, then ran out. "You scared the poor girl!" Rin admonished me.

"I was indeed impatient with her staring. Very rude... anyway, after you eat, I must leave, I have other patients to see. Takeo will stay with you for a while, until you sleep, and I'll arrange a home for you. You've been in the hospital for a very long time, Miss Rin." I said softly.

She nodded. "Yes... you've both grown so much. I remember you, Polisavich... how's your dear mother?"

I smiled. "At peace, Miss Rin. My father as well. I'm a Knight now, like he was. And a scholar, like her."

She frowned. "I'm sorry, dear. Now! Takeo! Are there grandchildren for me yet?"

He blushed. "Mother!!!"

The nurse returned with what I'd asked for, and I helped Miss Rin sit up, then set the tray in her lap, with hot Rice, sliced steak, and a cup of water.

She saw the steak, and handed it to Taki quickly. "Please get this away from me." She sighed.

"You don't eat steak? I can bring fish-"

"I don't eat meat, child. I've never eaten it before, and I don't plan to now." She said sternly.

I bowed my head. "Then vegetables. You need nutrients. Any preferences?"

She smiled. "Beyond meat, I am not very picky."

"Squash and Lettuce." Taki said dryly, and she smiled, before tucking into the rice.

The nurse returned much quicker this time, as Taki ate the meat quickly, wisely not savoring it. "You eat meat now, son?" She asked him.

"I eat anything I can get my hands on. I haven't had much food in my life, ever since... well, almost forever." He replied.

She blinked. "Ah... how have you been paying my hospital bills?"

"With... proceeds from my work." He said carefully.

"He works with me at the Academy, as a Chemist. He's quite talented." I saved him quickly.

She nodded, and the nurse sat the food down in front of her, a salad and a plate of fresh squash. "I always knew that. Oh! And my favorites! How can you afford things like this, son?"

"As I told you, I'm a Knight, a Nobleman, and a Merchant. And he's my friend. I am paying for this. I owe him many favors, and I don't miss the money, it's... not much. Well, compared to how much I paid for my ship." I said simply.

She smiled. "Interesting. Well, you said you had other patients? Who?"

"The sickly daughter of my lover, the Lord Paladin Pantera, and also a son of my Clans old Paladin." I smiled.

She nodded. "Ahh. So you're doing favors for friends and family, not strangers?"

"No, I actually have a very tight schedule right now. I'm running an Auction tomorrow, and I'll need my full attention. Soon, though, yes. Now, good health, and I'll see you soon, Miss Rin."

She nodded. "Indeed. Good Health, and good bye. Be well!"

I smiled and stood, before bowing, and walking out. I quickly found a nurse, and approached. "Hello, miss... might you be able to point me towards one 'Tina Pantera'? She's a family friend, I want to pop in to see her for a moment."

She nodded. "Oh of course! We'd love you to see her! She's very sociable, but her intelligence makes other children her age wary of her. Come."

I followed her easily, and we were quickly in a room that looked more like a Library than a Hospital Room. Bookshelves filled with actual books lined the walls, the topics rather varied, but all based on magic or medicine.

I hummed, seeing the girl playing chess by herself. "You look a lot like your father, you know, Tina." I said.

She blinked at me. "I know. Next you'll say 'except your eyes'. Everyone does."

"It's your teeth, actually. No fangs." I grinned.

She blinked again, then raised an eyebrow. "Papa doesn't have fangs."

"Yes he does. See?" I showed her a scar on my collarbone where he'd bitten me.

"Hmm... interesting." She blinked again.

"Do you know who I am?" I asked.

"Wren Niklaus Polisavich. The nurses are already talking about how you simply healed a cancer patient. That's why you're here. To heal me." She hummed.

"Not entirely, but yes. See, I have a gift. I am able to manipulate Sigils. I can take them away, or give them, or simply make them stronger. I can even store them in objects, Rail Metal is best, and let others use them, with the proper magic." I sat across from her.

She nodded slowly. "You want my sigil."

"Correct. It's good that I don't have to explain myself, but I don't think you'll see much of me. Someone like you around someone like me is a very bad idea." I smiled.

"Because you have secrets. And I don't care."

"Correct again. Now. A deal. I'll make a copy of your sigil, and then put it back, and heal you. Good?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Do what you want. You're going to anyway."

"It's still polite to wait for permission." I grinned.

Her left eyebrow raised again. "You're very odd."

"You have to be odd to be #1." I remarked.

"Not necessarily. But in the numerical sense... yes. Go ahead, then." She closed her eyes.

I placed a finger on her forehead, and gripped a Rail Shard encased in a coin-shaped piece of Amber, dangling from a string.

I removed her sigil slowly, painlessly, and strengthened it, placing it in the pendant, and then placing a copy of it back into her body. The Sigil reprinted itself, clearer than ever, and I tucked away the token. "And now for healing..." I searched her body for the sickness, but couldn't find it like before.

"My sickness is Cellular, not Bacterial." She informed me.

I searched deeper, and still nothing. I went down to the cellular level, and found the malignant cells. I grinned. "You'll want to be asleep for this." I knocked her out with a tap to the temple, and laid her in the bed. Then I began destroying the bad cells, rebuilding and replacing the now-destroyed ones.

It took a lot longer than with Rin, but eventually I managed to find the source, a glitch in her DNA. The glitch was in a RNA piece that controlled the creation of malignant cells to fight infections. I built a new RNA that worked, and added it into her stem cells. Immediately it began spreading, and she relaxed in her sleep.

"There you go, kid. Don't worry. You'll be fine." I grinned and stumbled out of the room, leaning on Takeo when he caught me. "Oh! Hi Taki. Good to see you here... help me to the Fourth Ring, eh?" I asked.

"Why?"

"The next guy is there. I can't heal anyone else today. My magic needs to recover." I shivered.

He nodded and placed a hand on my heart, before pouring a bit of magic into my reservoir. It exploded violently, but the scale was so tiny it seemed easy to handle. I grabbed his hand. "Yeah... that's a bad idea." I chuckled.

He shrugged. "Meh. Figured there was nothing to really lose."

"My life, for starters. Let's not." I chuckled, and then stood straight, cracking my back.

He laughed and lead me out of the hospital, shaking his head.

---

"Sir Yamamoto, am I correct? May I speak with you?" I asked the man who was playing scrabble by himself.

He hummed, and nodded, gesturing at the other seat.

"Thank you. My name is Sir Wren Niklaus Polisavich, sir Yamamoto. I am a Golden Knight with the Uruk Order. I'm here with a proposition." I said clearly.

He nodded and made a five letter word, and then looked at me after tallying his points. "I'm listening."

"I have a special gift, sir. I am capable of taking people's Sigils away, permanently." I said simply. "I'd like to remove yours, in return for rights to your personal Island in Death Valley? I believe it's a Mine of sorts, that spits out various metals and gemstones?" I smiled.

He blinked, and chuckled. "You had me going, there for a moment-"

I placed the pendants on the table, of the three I'd taken so far. Mei's, Takeo's, and then Valentina's. "Proof, sir. I'd like to relieve you of the burden of your sigil. If I succeed, I'd like a little something for my efforts. And if I fail, what have you lost, other than time at your game?" I grinned, placing them back in my pocket.

He nodded. "True... alright... I accept." He shook my hand and leaned back.

I pulled out my fourth pendant, and touched his forehead. I found his sigil, and gently removed it, down to the bare roots of its existence. They resisted, so I simply tugged until they let go, and slipped it into the pendant.

He shivered, and I put the pendant away as he looked at his forearm. "Bare as a baby's bottom. Done. Now, sir, I believe you owe me something?" I smiled.

He grinned and laughed. "Indeed... indeed... Tom? Sign over Ursa Major and Ursa Minor to Sir Polisavich, please? He's their new owner. Also, the Yamamoto Family Bank Accounts, all except AR-2. I don't need the rest."

"Sir, our agreed upon value-"

"Was much less, because I didn't think you could actually do it... ha! Thank you, Sir. TOM!" He barked.

The servant that had been lingering jumped, and started racing around, finding leases and papers, then writing a letter to the Arielle banks, signing them over to me.

I smiled. "Thank you, Sir Yamamoto. You are very generous."

"Mm. Thank you. I've been wanting to escape my life for a very long time... now I've passed on my sigil, so all is well. Goodbye, Sir Polisavich." He nodded sagely.

I grinned and nodded. "Indeed." I bowed, then walked away at his nod of dismissal.

---

"You ready to go, Takeo?" I asked suddenly.

He flinched, and covered his beating heart as his mother laughed. She'd heard me coming. "Back to work, hmm?" She asked.

"Yes, Miss Rin. And if you're feeling well enough, you'll join us in a few days, after the doctors run their final tests to ensure you're healthy." I bowed my head.

She nodded. "Indeed. I feel amazing, my dear boy... you must promise me to use that ability for more than just family and friends, Wren. It's not wise to withhold power from the world. It wants to be let out. It is sentient."

I hummed. "I promise I'll think about it, but healing you and Valentina drained me completely. I barely had enough energy to help Sir Yamamoto." I cracked my neck and leaned against the doorframe.

"Ready. I'll see you in a few days, mother. Stay safe, and stay healthy." Taken kissed her cheeks, and she smiled.

"Same to you, my boy. Stay out of trouble, hmm?" She patted his cheek and leaned back to get some well earned sleep.

As we walked down the hall, I smelled something amazing, and shivered. "James?" I asked, turning around.

His fist entered my vision, and I let him hit me. My skin barely dented, and my Runes didn't bother activating. I grabbed his hand and kissed his busted knuckles. "Mi amor, por que?" I asked softly, looking into his eyes.

He hissed. "You messed with her sigil!"

"Indeed, I made it stronger. So? I was helping her. And I healed her, you're welcome for that, by the way." I smiled, and hugged him.

He blinked. "Healed? She's still-... she was sleeping, I thought..."

"She's sleeping because I knocked her out so I could perform the rather painful operation that would fix the glitch in her DNA. Her illness was because of a glitchy piece of RNA... whoever your wife was, her DNA didn't match with yours fully." I explained.

He hummed. "She's a Roanokian."

"Ahhhh. That explains it... wait?! Is? You're still married?!?" I asked, confused.

"... yes? She doesn't care, of course, so long as I visit her often. A very open relationship." He assured me.

"Who?" I asked slowly.

"You've met Maksazha, right?" He grinned.

"No... no way."

"What?" He asked.

"You're married to his mother?!?" I asked.

He blinked, and laughed. "Wow. No. not even close. It is a member of his tribe, however. She lives on Gategüt, most of the time. She has her own little cove on the eastern side."

I breathed out in relief. "Okay... wow... anyway, that's why she was sick. I filled in the RNA with a magical substitute, but she'll need further... adjustments. She'll need actual Roanokian DNA, later. I was able to make a stable substitute and layer it over her original, but she needs the original. I think it is the Gene that develops Gills." I said simply.

He nodded slowly. "Okay. I'll ask Dentara..."

"You said you weren't married to the Chief." I said slowly.

He blinked. "Huh?"

"Dentara is the name of Max's mother, the Chief." I said slowly, enunciating every syllable.

He blinked again, and then paled. "Oooooh... well then... alright. I'm... going to go check on Valentina."

I kissed him gently. "Do so. Have fun. But I'll get payback for that punch later... come see me around midnight." I popped his butt with my hand gently, pushing him towards his daughter. He grinned and jogged away.

"I will never be able to reconcile that in my head." Taken was covering his eyes, childishly avoiding the hyper-sexual interaction.

I laughed and nodded. "Come along, small child. We have an Island Paradise to build."

One of the nurses caught my hand as we walked away. "Sir? I'm so sorry, but there's an emergency... please, come with me."

She started dragging me towards the ER, and I sighed. "Takeo, go to the Island, oversee the Auction with Elena. Tell Günter that I'm busy."

He nodded and jogged off, and I let myself be led.

---

I walked past her as she began speaking, and laid my hands on the nearest person, channeling my magic through my Ankh and into the patient. The bones of his legs knitted together, and then his skin and muscles closed. Then I focused on removing the splinters of bones, and repairing the ligaments.

Once done, I stepped back, and realized I'd spent almost no magic. She pulled me away to a man with a dagger through his stomach, and I hummed, pulling it out easily, covering the hole with a glowing palm.

His intestines closed, scarring, and then his muscles, and finally the skin, leaving a long, jagged scar across his belly. He woke up, and I knocked him out. "Alright. Next?" I asked.

---

"And there you go. But no more jumping off roofs, huh? See where it gets you? You're papa is lucky I don't work here, or he'd have to pay lots of money, okay?" I said sternly.

The little girl grinned. "I won the dare, though."

"Was it worth it?" I asked.

"Well, I won €20, and papa didn't have to pay for hospital bills, so that means I gained money, so yeah. Worth it." She smirked.

I laughed heartily and nodded, patting her head. I flipped a €100 coin to the father. "What do you do?" I asked.

"I work a stall in the Third Tier, Sir." He bowed his head.

"Mm... I remember you... you wouldn't remember me, maybe. Wren? I used to steal fruit from you, and give it back." I grinned.

He blinked, then gasped. "Wow! You've grown up, huh? A Knight and all!" He laughed and pounded my back. Then he turned to the room. "Oi! Guess who it is! It's Wren! Wren Polisavich! The scamp is a Knight now!" He shouted.

I shrugged at the many people who remembered me. "Calm down, ye rats. It ain't like I jus' returned from a war or somefin. It's been 5 months, is all." I smirked.

I shrugged off their praise and got back to work, healing another stab wound. Once that place was empty, I went to the next hospital.

---

A couple of things I learned from that six day period, is that One: Magic can't solve everything, evidenced by the thirteen people I was unable to cure of advanced stages of cancer and heart disease.

Two: magic solves just about everything that is caused by stupidity, evidenced by the number of stab wounds and broken bones that I healed in moments, with only a tiny amount of magic necessary, once I got the hang of it.

And finally Three: there are a lot of places to hide and have sex in a hospital. You'd be surprised, but James knew them all. Fun times.

After six days of healing as much as I could, I realized that the reason for a lot of the sicknesses was the dirty water most people in the lower Tiers drank. Water held some of the nastiest little buggers in the history of medicine, and so I informed everyone in the lower Tiers to boil their water before using it for anything, from washing your hands to cooking.

I finally stopped, and sat on the docks. I dropped my head into my hands, and rubbed my temples, trying to focus past their pain. I felt it so acutely it's like it came from inside me, but that wasn't possible. I didn't feel pain anymore. Not the emotional kind.

Günter sat next to me, surprising me enough I jumped. "It's like this on every Island, Wren. Get over it... live like the rest of us, eh? Take it a step at a time, kid. Let's go. Today is Saturday again, and you have a class to go to, remember?"

I nodded. "Yeah... yeah." I boarded the ship, and sat on the bridge. I slowly looked at Günter. "Is it odd... that I want to help them? I've never cared, before. I've stolen from those people. I once stole from a man who was having a heart attack. Max helped him to a hospital, but I took his wallet, and bought myself a loaf of bread. A whole loaf. Then I ate it. I didn't share with those hungrier than me..."

"Sounds like you were a complete asshole. And how do you feel about that?" He laughed.

"I don't. I needed that bread. I survived a whole month on that loaf of soggy, molded bread. It was logical for me to do what I did... but I wonder if it was kind. I'd like to think I am kind, when it doesn't harm me to be so."

"When it's convenient."

"Right." I nodded. "If it harms me to be kind, it's not worth it. What do you get from being kind for no reason? Nothing."

"Karma." He shrugged. "You get good karma."