(A/N) Aiko: I'M SO SORRY I DIDN'T UPDATE UNTIL NOW! I WAS REALLY BUSY YESTERDAY AND TOTALLY FORGOT!

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Karma's eyes were still closed when he regained consciousness. The pain of his injuries flooded his body, but he was able to feel that he had bandages wrapping his body and was clearly on some sort of pain medication.

Part of him didn't want to open his eyes.

From what Nagisa had said, the likely scenario was that he had been found by the police and quickly sent to the hospital, likely along with his daughter, even if she wasn't in any form of critical condition. At least she didn't look like it, Karma's brain was too fuzzy to be sure of that.

When he opened his eyes, Nagisa wouldn't be there anymore. When he opened his eyes and awoke for the new day, he'd have to deal with a reality in which his beloved Nagisa was dead-

"Hey, Karma, wake up already... We all miss you, and I'm right here. It's okay to wake up."

-or so he thought.

Karma's eyes flew open at the voice.

The first thing he saw was blue, and the next thing he knew he had tightened his arms around his lover, bawling his eyes out.

"Y-You're alive-" Karma gasped out before ending up in a coughing fit. A cold thing was pressed onto his arm, and looking down he was able to identify it as a water bottle in Iyuka's hands.

"Papa said Daddy would probably be thirsty when he woke up, so I got you some water." She sheepishly admitted, a small smile on her face.

Karma's own lips spread into a smile as he took the bottle from her hands and drank over half the contents.

"Thank you Iyu." Karma pressed a kiss onto his daughter's forehead.

Iyuka smiled wide, and bright.

Karma turned back to Nagisa.

"What happened while I was out? All I remember was the... gas... filling the room, you screaming something at me, and then I blacked out."

Nagisa paused for a moment.

"Iyuka, honey, do you think you can go find the doctor for us? Akihiko-sensei will likely want to check up on Daddy."

Iyuka shifted nervously. "I-I don't want to be alone." She admitted.

Nagisa's smile softened. "Alright honey. We can go find him together later. I'm going to give Daddy a run through of what happened, so if you don't want to listen you can listen to some music on my phone if you'd like."

Iyuka nodded, accepting the offer before taking Nagisa's phone and sitting on a chair in the corner.

"When I made the decision to use my gas, I was counting on a specific thing to occur. A snake is able to live with it's venom, so my snake half should be immune, but my human half wouldn't recognize the venom as harmless, so it would trigger the gas while my snake half removed the venom. However, there was a chance that my snake side would trust my human side and not fight the venom... Luckily, this didn't happen, and I'm alive."

"Trust... your human side?" Karma muttered.

"In a way. Do you remember when we were in high school and you used my own venom to put me to sleep?" Karma nodded. "It only worked because my snake side associates you with safety, and couldn't believe anything to my body by you would be harmful, so it didn't remove the venom, and allowed it to take it's course. If my snake side thought the same about me, I would have died, but who knows better not to trust me than me?" Nagisa chuckled.

"After the gas started to flow, I knew I would be fine. It hurt so I dropped to the ground to better deal with it, but I wasn't going to die. Once it cleared up I got you out from the cell and took you to the police, who had just arrived. They took us all to the hospital, and were nice enough to take Seizon to the vet for us as well. You had the worst injuries, followed by me, and luckily Iyuka only had bruises and scrapes. She'll heal up back to normal in no time. You have some fractured bones and several deep cuts, but it was nothing life-threatening. Seizon also had a few bruises but she's our little survivor. She'll be fine."

Karma processed the information slowly, still fuzzy-brained and hardly fully conscious.

"The important thing is this: We're all okay, and it's over. It's over, love."

Karma smiled. That much he could understand. They'd go home soon and have fun with everyone.

They were broken and bruised, and needed more than a little healing, but they would be alright.