Chapter 50

{I'm… ALIVE!} - Kyon's consciousness shouted out loud. A single coherent thought throbbed in his head — revenge! The mere idea of taking revenge sustained life in his fragile body. Taking revenge and destroying, trampling upon the one who had driven him to this terrible state. His vital energy seemed to be emanating from his very soul.

His body would have fallen apart if he had not reached the 2nd stage of base phase. He wouldn't stand a chance if his nervous system hadn't been upgraded, increasing the resistance to the stress of all his organs and his whole body.

The bony hand of death reluctantly let go of Kyon's heart, allowing it to make an uncertain beat and then another one, and another... In the next moment, his heart started beating in a furious rhythm, striving to break through his ribs that weren't particularly intact. He took another convulsive breath, and his body shuddered in pain that pierced him to the very marrow.

It pained to look at the once handsome boy: the blood vessels in his eyes had burst of tension; his hands looked like flat pancakes with shattered bones as a "filling"; his right leg was turned at a grotesque angle; his whole body was covered with dried crust and stains of still fresh blood…

Kyon scanned his body and found twenty-eight fractures of various degrees of severity, internal bleeding, a failing kidney. Most of his teeth were missing. He had a brain hemorrhage, contusion, and concussion... His lungs and tendons were torn, his joints were fractured.

Kyon slowed his heartbeat to 25 beats per minute. He hastily "patched" the torn blood vessels, stopped the internal bleeding, sent all the proteins and energy from the recently eaten sausage to heal the most serious injuries. He isolated the damaged kidney and infused it with Synergy so that it wouldn't atrophy. He would restore it later, holding on for some time.

His incredible will to live must have impressed heaven. The clouds filled the sky, and it cried washing up his body.

The time inexorably flew by. The early morning was approaching. A cool rain came in real handy. It filled his mouth with water and saturated his drained organism with vital moisture.

If the servants noticed Kyon, crippled and barely alive, they would throw him into the cesspool where he would stay forever, so he gathered all his willpower and crawled to the wall slowly, carefully, with gentle light movements, grabbing the sound transmitter with his mouth on the way. It had fallen from his pocket and was lying nearby.

Kyon found a nook behind a dense thicket of bushes. There was a stone-paved path nearby and a little bench in the distance.

If the gardener fancied going around the hedge to trim it, he could find Kyon lying there. Although, it was unlikely that they plucked shrubs every day.

In the morning, the first servants came to the park. They didn't notice any traces of blood because the rain had already washed them away, but they found some suspicious items of black clothes near the wall and took them away.

The servants set about their work, never suspecting that a half-dead boy was lying in the pose of a broken star behind the nearest bushes.

The whole day flew by in the blink of an eye. The evening came, and the night, and the morning again. Kyon was desperate for some energy. All the nutrients he got from the sausages had expired. His recovery began to decrease.

Kyon moved his head to the sound transmitter and dialed Marina's frequency with his tongue.

Fortunately, she answered his call this time. She could hardly make out what he was lisping in his barely audible voice. If Marina had not recognized his frequency, she would not have even guessed who was calling.

Yielding to Kyon's plea, she took some food and water from the kitchen. Without telling anyone, she sneaked to his nook at the training ground and pretended to drop something. She crawled into the bushes under this "plausible" excuse — Kyon cringed at her fake nervous "Oh, how awkward I am!" - and let out a muffled scream that sounded more natural this time.

Her emotions were hard to describe. Shock, horror, disbelief! All the colors had suddenly disappeared from Marina's face leaving only fear, despair, and a strong desire to help the dying boy whatever it took her. While she was staring at him, Kyon conveyed to her, not without some effort, his two urgent requests: "don't tell anything to anyone" and "take care of me."

That's how Marina's "behind-the-scenes" life began. She spent part of the day in Kyon's nook, spoon-feeding him with liquid food and water, treating him like a wounded chick. She brought him medicine, ointment, infusion. She bandaged his wounds and even put a crooked splint on his broken limbs. Marina completely got into the role of a nurse-mother-hen looking after the wounded "warrior."

When his vocal cords got a little better, Kyon managed to express his thoughts more or less distinctly. First of all, he asked Marina to forbid the servants to trim the bushes behind which he was hiding. Otherwise, they could find him. He also explained to her the situation with Juno, who he was, and what he was doing in the mansion where death awaited him on each step. Her care was vitally important to him. He could start thinking over his next move when he got better.

Marina worried about Kyon so much that it hurt like hell. Flitz had forbidden her to talk to boys, but this one appeared to be an exception... She really liked Kyon. The more she cared for him, the more she became attached to this boy.

Marina told Kyon more about that strange meeting with Juno at the entrance to the mansion. She turned out to look like the little demoness's young mother, Diana.

After Yurich disappeared, Juno's mother plunged headlong into work on the plantations and rarely came out. Not everyone remembered her anymore.

Marina noticed long ago that servants bowed to her reflexively. When they looked closer at her, they frowned, puzzled, but no one had ever given her any intelligible explanation.

Things in the mansion were a little different. Any guard knew what Diana looked like. Anna and Dinah were completely confused when they saw Marina. Some scared servants bowed to her, but they quickly realized she was not lady Diana. She was just a girl who looked like her. And yet, they treated her with respect, just in case.

When Juno heard the story of the unfortunate girl and her duty to "serve" Flitz, she immediately sheltered Marina and promised her that the old goat would never touch her mother's doppelganger or he would have to deal with her. Thus, Marina had been unexpectedly promoted from a "suckretary" to "a good friend of the lady of the house," which was, of course, a much more pleasant "duty".

One of those days, Kyon told Marina that Juno was Flitz's weakness. Awareness washed over her with the force of a tidal wave. She was piously convinced that Kyon had invited her with a sole mission to save her. He must have calculated everything! Her soul filled with overwhelming gratitude and admiration.

Early in the morning and late in the evening, Marina was sitting on the bench, behind the bushes and Kyon's little nest. He had changed his primary habitat so that it was more convenient to talk with her and get food while she was sitting and reading a book without attracting attention.

Day after day, cell by cell, Kyon was healing. He had restored his kidney, the neurons, his eyes and broken nose, tendons and joints and cured all the internal injuries. He still had to work on his bones and teeth. It's impossible to restore them for an ordinary person, but Synergy can do everything. He asked Marina to bring him some cottage cheese and milk. His body needed a fresh supply of calcium.

During one of her visits, Marina solemnly gave Kyon his black clothes that she had found, washed, ironed and carefully mended. When the servants picked up his garments, they did not dare to throw them away. You never know who of the nobles might have an urge to get undressed and run around naked in the light of the moon. They whipped Kyon's clothes into shape and put them in the linen closet, neatly folded.

The anxiety that grasped Marina's heart was finally letting go. Her friend from the bushes was getting better. His voice was already strong enough to please her with all sorts of exciting stories from time to time. As for Marina, she often told him about Flitz, how they lived, what they did, about her sad past, how her family was killed, and how their house was burned. In fact, Flitz had saved her from starvation.

Flitz kept thinking of recovering his seed so that she could give him a child. It had been an issue with him as long as he remembered himself, and he had even come to terms with it, but after Marina appeared in his mansion, he felt the need to get healed. His desire grew stronger, and now he was making every effort to find a cure. Marina was touched that she had inspired him with a dream.

Despite his poor character - greed, hypocrisy, lust, and anger - Marina noticed his sincere kindness to her. The rare tenderness that he gave her like a hug, a look filled with love, a gentle kiss in the morning, combing up her hair penetrated the deepest corners of her soul.

There wasn't a day that Marina did not mention her former master. Once, she told Kyon about the day when Flitz took her to buy some new clothes, her face lit up with a shy smile. Then she added that later in the evening he tore that unfortunate dress off her, her eyes shining with yearning. Marina told Kyon that she wanted to get in touch with Flitz so that he would not suffer the grief of her loss. But she could not find the courage to do that.

Kyon wondered why she was so worried about someone who she hated so much? Did she hate Flitz at all? He used to think that Marina could not stand the old man, that she was afraid of him, that she hated him. It turned out that there was something hidden behind the veil of fear... At the moments of such revelations, her voice sounded pitiful, sad, anxious. She felt anything but hatred. Vague suspicions crept in his mind. He started to believe that Marina didn't despise Flitz at all... She was attached to him. His rare kindness and promises to make her the mother of his kids touched the strings of Marina's soul. Yet, whatever her feelings might be, they were unequivocal. Despite all her gratitude, appreciation and respect, she was disgusted by his abuse and decrepit old body that she had to endure night after night in herself and on herself.

Kyon was astonished, baffled, amazed and angry with the strange girl. With all that, his soul filled with warmth every time he saw her. He would have died without Marina's help... her kind words, care, inept but very diligent medical assistance, a well-timed blanket (sleeping on the grass is not grilling under the sun at the luxurious resort but the easiest way to pneumonia), food, water. It was more than just "a good deed of a Homo erectus." Kyon realized that he was incredibly lucky to have met Marina on his difficult path. Her kindness wrapped him up like a warm blanket. She could heal the whole world, not just his bony body. Her past, the loss of her parents and brother, had left an indelible mark on her soul and character but, instead of getting embittered against the whole world, she imbued her soul with the best feelings of humanity: compassion, mercy, love for all living things. As the practice had shown, for half-dead things, as well.

{I will definitely pay you back… And Martha from the mine, too. I don't know how to do it yet. Just see it come.} - Kyon had made up his mind.