Healing

~~~✨~~~

Rei still found everything happening in that new world strange, yet at the same time, it was already completely familiar for Leonoris to heal him. In fact, this was about to be the third time in just one day.

“I’m starting to think this room already has my name engraved on the door.”

Leonoris guided him with steady steps down the hall toward the infirmary. She held him by the elbow like he was a clumsy child. He let himself be led: his legs ached, his neck throbbed, and his head, like since he got there, was lost. It reminded him of times he'd held one of his four younger siblings by the hand when they were sick or scared. The memory twisted his stomach, but for some reason it also made him feel cared for by the priestess.

They entered a low stone room where the scent of herbs and a thin thread of filtered light from a small window created an artificial calm. A clean, cold stone cot waited at the center.

“Sit here,” she said, helping him lie back. “I’m going to clean the wounds.”

Rei tried to make a joke. Humor came to him as a defensive habit, something that pulled him back from the edge whenever fear crept too close.

“Well,” he murmured with that dry English undertone, throwing out a lie, “nothing I haven’t endured in the workshops.”

Leonoris barely allowed a smile, but her hands worked carefully. She took out bandages, ointments, and a small crystal that glowed with white light when she pressed it to Rei’s skin. Her expression tightened—there was focus, and something almost like annoyance.

“I’m sorry about my brother,” she said without looking up. “I just hope you can understand why he acts that way.”

Rei let out a sigh.

“Oh, sure. He hit me so hard I’m now a Royal punching bag. Should I bow, I guess?”

His voice was dry, ironic, and it made Leonoris fix her gaze on him with a lighter expression.

“Ettor has trained the royal guard since he was young,” she began. “He’s dealt with tough types, with men rougher than you could imagine. But… never with such strength toward someone with so little…” She stopped, blinked, and the word didn’t come. Her expression turned almost awkward toward him. “Experience?”

The pause pricked Rei like a nail.

“Did you just call me weak?” he shot back, half offended, half amused.

“I didn’t say that,” she replied, keeping her voice level and returning her eyes to his wounds.

“You called me weak,” he insisted.

Leonoris drew a deep breath. Doubt flickered in the corner of her mouth, a small human gesture in the middle of her serious tone.

“You’re here,” she said plainly, “and you are the Hero. That’s what matters.”

From anyone else, it might have sounded like a cheap merchant’s comfort, but from her—whose calm made Rei feel safe—it loosened his shoulders for an instant. Still, the next question cut sharper.

“Were you expecting a different kind of person?” he asked quietly.

Leonoris hesitated before answering. Her hands didn’t stop, but she lifted her gaze for just a moment. It wasn’t a hard look—more like one weighing words before letting them fall, searching for an answer without cracks.

“They expected someone more… epic,” she said. “You know—a forged warrior, proud, the kind who inspires respect just by walking into the square, who makes men envy him, women die for him, and children see a Hero.”

Rei let out a short, bitter laugh.

“Oh, right. And I’m not going to fit any of that. All my life I’ve been the bargain-bin version of the original.”

“Again, I didn’t say that. Stop assuming, Hero.”

“Oh yeah?” he replied with a smug smile. “So that means you do die for me?”

Leonoris paused for an instant, giving her brain enough time to narrow her eyes before pinching one of his untreated wounds.

“Ow!” he yelped. “So mean!”

“You think in very strange ways, Hero. And if you squeal over a pinch, men won’t respect you.”

“So mean…” he muttered in surrender.

Leonoris proceeded to treat the pinched wound, applying her healing light magic with her usual dedication. Rei’s joke hadn’t distracted her…

“Am I… laughing again?”

Rei caught himself realizing that his peculiar humor had returned for the first time since he’d arrived in that world. As if the light enveloping him from this mysterious hooded woman was also healing his soul.

To his surprise, the princess lifted her gaze to him again. Leonoris’ almond-colored hair slipped from her hood to frame her pink cheeks. Had she blushed at that joke?

“I was underestimated too,” she admitted softly. “Since I was young, many believed my place wasn’t in the Royal Family, nor in Kounaria. I suffered a lot for a time, too. But I hid in my studies, and Solaria showed me the way. I’m not saying this to compare myself to you. I say it because I know what it’s like when others think they know better than you.”

Rei looked at her. He hadn’t expected such a confession. He’d heard rumors of stern majesties, jeweled courts, ceremonial acts—but never imagined that within her own family, things could be so wrong.

“Damn. Even people with royal blood have it rough?” he muttered in surprise.

A brief grimace crossed her brow before she stood abruptly and continued:

“But it doesn’t mean we can’t fight in a different way. Or that the Hero has to fit a single mold.”

Something in her movement caught Rei’s attention, but it faded when he saw her smile—a smile among the gentlest he’d ever seen.

“That rope thing,” she said, making Rei flush slightly. “It wasn’t elegant, but it could work—and you wouldn’t have said it so confidently without reason. I think, if you put your mind to it, you can surprise us. Just follow the light along the path, Hero.”

The image of light echoed inside him unexpectedly. “Follow the light along the path” sounded like advice to be kept like a precious novel.

Rei, still aching, smiled faintly. It was an unexpected relief to feel that someone saw shine where he only saw mud.

“And what if I can’t?” he asked after a moment, with cowardly honesty. “What if I’m not the right one?”

“Are you saying my Goddess was incompetent in choosing you?” Leonoris frowned.

“Hey! I—I—I didn’t say that!” Rei panicked, seeing the princess’s angry expression.

“You’re saying my Goddess was incompetent in choosing you.”

“I didn’t—”

He froze. Leonoris was throwing his own earlier joke back at him, and she made it clear with a smile that could melt a glacier.

“If you can’t do it alone, we’ll teach you,” Leonoris said. “I can’t promise it will be easy, or that you’ll be treated kindly, but we won’t leave you alone. And I’ll help however I can. I promise.”

Leonoris finished bandaging one of the bruises on Rei’s side, gently wiping the dried blood from his eyebrow, and stowed the used bandages in a small pouch.

“Try not to get hit in those spots again,” she teased, with a touch of affectionate irony.

Rei let out a muffled laugh, but didn’t have much time to react before she suddenly leaned on him—head on his shoulder, full weight on his body.

“W-w-what? Hey!” His face turned beet red in seconds.

“It’s not what you think,” she said calmly. “Stay alert.”

A few seconds of silence passed, filled only with the pounding of his heart hammering in his chest from the situation.

CLANG!

A large container fell from the top shelf, plummeting toward the cot.

Without thinking, Rei rolled forward. It wasn’t heroic bravery, but a visceral impulse: he dodged Leonoris and, with trembling hands, managed to deflect the jar that would have struck her. In the movement, he lost his balance and fell against the edge of the cot. The hands holding the jar clung to her back for an instant, the momentum leaving them in an awkward embrace.

Rei turned as red as a tomato: the closeness hadn’t been planned, and his heart slammed against his ribs in surprise.

“S-sorry!” he stammered, struggling to get up. “I didn’t mean—”

Leonoris looked at him, and a short, light laugh escaped her lips with surprise and tenderness.

“Relax,” she said, rising as well. “See? You could protect me. Not bad, Hero.”

Rei felt even warmer than moments before.

“Did… did I just?” he thought, touching a finger to his lips.

Leonoris set the jar back in its place. At the doorway, she stopped in the threshold. She turned back toward Rei, her body still half-turned away.

“You’re not the hero we expected,” she said, voice clearer than the fog, “but maybe you’re the one we need.”

Her dark green eyes shone with warm determination. She tilted her head in a brief farewell, adding as if sealing a fate:

“May the Goddess guide your path and ours, Hero Kashiwa Rei.”

Rei stayed there, lying on the cot with fresh bandages on his temple and his heart still racing from the closeness. He closed his eyes from weariness—and from something else: Leonoris’s words had struck like a small iron, lighting a faint flame in his chest. He didn’t know what else to do.

But he thought that maybe, just maybe, if that girl was there, not everything would be so terrible.