Chapter 32: Actions

Sora's black eyes slowly opened as he gazed at the ceiling. He made to move his body only for it to feel slightly weak as it responded slower than usual.

'What happened?' He questioned himself as he regained focus of his situation.

The memories of what happened slammed into his head as he realized the cause for his abrupt 'nap'.

Alchemy required chakra to produce results no matter how small or large it is in amount. Despite the draw on his chakra being minimal, the constant drawing of it without giving himself time to recover it caused his to reach a state of near chakra depletion.

'Damn it all.' He thought as he felt a slight headache come on. Had he not been so focused on the results and what he could achieve, he would have noticed that he was low in chakra.

On top of that, the pain he felt on left side of the back of his neck made it glaringly obvious what had taken place. He didn't need a mirror to tell him that the curse mark was inscribed on his neck.

'Shit! I'm really an idiot.'

Clicking his teeth at his ignorance, he made to move from the bed he had found himself in only to feel a weight above the limb.

He looked to his side to see Zatanna currently curled up on the bed, over his hand. His eyebrows scrunched up as he felt something wrong internally.

Closing his eyes in concentration, only a few seconds passed before they reopened in shock.

'What the hell happened!?' He questioned as he inspected the change.

The reason for his shock was simple but also complicated. In the original, Sasuke had spent a decent amount of chakra before receiving the curse mark.

The amount he had left was the deciding factor that helped him adapt and survive the mark. In Sora's recklessness, he had exhausted his chakra right before the curse mark set in, leaving him defenseless.

At least that's what should have happened.

There was a foreign energy in his body, different from his chakra and also different from the curse mark chakra. What was even more shocking was that the foreign energy was pushing back the chakra from the seal.

The cursed seal contained a bit of Orochimaru's consciousness in it. It was partially responsible for Sasuke falling unconscious to integrate itself with him.

The foreign energy seemed to resist the piece of consciousness, leaving the power of the curse seal to flow through.

'That's why I don't feel the pressure of Orochimaru dancing at the back of my head.' Sora concluded before asking an even more important question.

What was the foreign energy that was currently integrating itself within him. The more he focused on it, the less foreign it became as he recognized the energy signature.

His eyes immediately turned the the girl beside him as he extended his senses to her. Just as he had guessed, she was dangerously low on magic.

All the times he had been with her, she was always brimming with magic to spare but now it felt more like a bottle with only a few drops of water in it.

'She did this…to help me? Why?' He thought in confusion.

He couldn't wrap his head around it. He knew they were friends and she had promised to assist him in his endeavors but why?

Why go this far?

As much as chakra exhaustion was dangerous to a shinobi, mana exhaustion was also as dangerous to a homo magi like Zatanna.

'How long has she been out? If she's been like this for a while and she's only recovered so little magic then it could be worse than I thought.' He thought as he immediately got off the bed, laying the unconscious girl gently on the bed in the room.

He trudged his sore body to the box to the side of the room, pouring out its content. Out of the box, many ingredients, leaves and herbs fell out to the floor in a pile but Sora wasn't concerned about the mess.

With Zatanna's mana pushing back the shard of Orochimaru's consciousness, allowing him to regain a decent level of chakra during his 'nap'.

As for how Zatanna's mana was able to accomplish such? Mana is purely spiritual energy and Zatanna is a homo magi with powerful mana. The soul could be said to be made of spiritual energy.

Despite the knowledge and expertise of Orochimaru, his seal wasn't prepared for the flux of pure spiritual energy that the homo magi gave off.

Sora picked up different herbs, mixing them and carefully adding a sliver of chakra during the process.

Using observe, he checked out the final product.

[Object: Paralysis Poti-

He didn't go far in reading the description before discarding it and starting all over. He tried different processes and methods but they didn't give him his desired result.

Throughout the process, his mind didn't let go of how he felt at the moment. He didn't know how to feel about someone doing something so life threatening for his sake.

Granted they've lived together for roughly two months, it still came as a surprise to the Uchiha incarnate. He was so distraught that even when he succeeded in making a healing potion, it was simply discarded into his inventory.

'The problem isn't an injury. It's her lack of mana, a health potion is as useless as water right now.' He thought as he tried another combination.

He didn't know how long he had sat on the floor with a mortar, a pestle and other tools, trying different things until he finally got it.

[Object: Mana Potion]

[Effect: Restores a small amount of the user's mana.]

'I did it!' He thought as his eyes lit up in joy at his success but he didn't slow down. He carefully retraced his steps and repeated them to recreate the same result.

'With how low she is, one dose won't be enough.' He analyzed as he held the latest dose of the potion before setting it aside and starting again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two hours passed since he began frantically making potion and he finally felt like he had enough to wake Zatanna up from her magic induced coma.

He parted her lips with the bottle as he fed her the potion. To his dismay, the liquid only dripped down the side of her mouth.

He grit his teeth as he realized that he wasted one dose. Granted he still had many more, he wasn't sure how many he would need.

Without a second thought, Sora poured a decent amount of the contained liquid in his mouth before parting her lips with his own, pouring it down her throat.

He felt a bit relieved as he felt the liquid go down and her mana rise up a bit. He took another mouthful of the potion and repeated the process.

He did this until he only had five bottles remaining and he was getting worried.

'This is bad! It doesn't look like she's regaining consciousness one bit and I'm almost out of potion. I used up the last of the herbs and ingredients to make these.' He thought frantically as he parted her lips once more to force feed her another dose.

Just as he pulled back to take another one, he was pulled back in as Zatanna seemed to regain life.

Freezing for a moment, he had no idea what to do from here. He felt her tense weakly at his lack of response only for her to relax as he allowed himself to get into it.

It was a few seconds before they separated but to them it felt like a full minute. He stared down at her with a complicated expression as she smiled weakly before letting her hand fall to the bed.

"Well…that was something." She said weakly.