◇First Steps◇

Kuan Mo was able to painfully get up as he realized the area around them was slowly being corroded by the acid. The young man that had somehow helped him... Was now deathly pale and passed out on the floor partially laid against the wall by Kuan Mo after he had caught him.

Relizing how bad their surroundings were, Kuan Mo grimaced. His toes were killing him as he moved towards the glass door. He tried simply opening but resorted to banging on it with his elbow hard.

The door thankfully wasn't made of shatterproof glass, and instantly shattered upon the third hit.

With a curse, Kuan Mo cradled his now injured and bleeding arm to his chest, using his still good right arm to unlock the door from the inside. Blood dripped down the gashes on his arm and elbow, glass plainly sticking out in certain parts. He bit back the need to curse more, as he opened the door, then turned to grab the young man by his waist, hauling him up and over his right shoulder one handed.

'Damn fella...weighs quite a bit.' Kuan Mo inwardly complained, but his mind was shifting back towards his pain ridden foot.

Having laid the young man down onto the floor with as much gentleness a one handed motion could do, Kuan Mo turned his attention to the katana's on display. Grabbing the most sharp looking one, he steady in both his hands, and inhaled sharply before swiftly arching the sword downward towards his foot. His injured arm had been protesting against the sudden movements, and almost caused him to jerk just midway...

Yet he managed to force it downward, and soon blood splattered onto the floor.

Kuan Mo almost dropped the sword from the sheer amount of pain that was accompanying his right foot.

"Bloody************************" Kuan Mo cursed, his eyes tearing up, but instead of becoming a blathering mess, began to hunt down cloth for his still bleeding foot.

Finding some cotton shirts on a clothing rack, he tore it into manageable strips. Then he went to grab a switch blade from the counter, and actually found a first aide kit there as well. Seating down behind the counter, he began to carefully cut away his boot, and sock from his foot.

Or what remained.

Wincing as he removed the layers, he found himself staring at a toeless bloody mess...that was his foot.

'Better this...than to die.' He thought frowning, as he opened the kit, and began working on disinfecting it...then moved on to wrapping it with the bandages in the kit.

Finally, pleased with it, he turned to look at the bloody mess on his left arm. The glass was digging in, and the skin turning into a yellow tint surrounding it. He grabbed the tweezers from the kit and began to slowly remove the shards.

He was still in the process of doing this when Lu Xing finally began to come around.

"Augh.." Lu Xing groaned as he sat up, 'How long was I out..?'

"Didn't really count the minutes," Kuan Mo said from behind the counter, "but no more than thirty minutes."

Lu Xing instantly placed up his mental walls, his mind feeling the left over tendrils of alienlike intrusion.

"How did you do that?!" Kuan Mo asked bewildered, and slightly light headed at the mental feeling of having been shut out so abruptly.

"Just practice.." Lu Xing muttered out as he recalled unwanted memories.

He got up somewhat shakily, but managed to quickly scan their surroundings. Seeing how they were alone in the shop, Lu Xing headed over to Kuan Mo's spot. Just as he got to the counter and leaned onto it, he saw Kuan Mo's injured elbow.

"Wait." Lu Xing said leaning down next to the man, "I can help you."

Kuan Mo eyed the young man warily, but he allowed Lu Xing to grab his arm.

Wincing at the gesture, Kuan Mo spoke, "You won't faint like last time?"

"No." Lu Xing said as his blue flame came to life, he didn't reverse time.

No. He could no longer do that after seeing the amount of glass shards the man had removed. Doing so would cause those very shards to return to the flesh before reversing to having left the flesh...

So he cleanly, and instantaneously melted them to liquid while fast forwarding the substance into nonexistent...only then did his flames fast forward the arm's healing process...just enough that the arm still had fresh scarring.

'I can't heal it completely, the mass of the arm must remain similar enough to now, or it could look to...abnormal.' Lu Xing thought, then he glanced down at the man's feet...

"Thanks." Kuan Mo said stretching out his arm, he was still feeling out of sorts with the entire situation.

"I'm sorry." Lu Xing said feeling guilt ridden, 'If only I could've leveled up my abilities...only then would my temporal powers be stronger, and the backlash less quickly to come.'

Kuan Mo had glanced at his one injured foot, "Oh. Couldn't be helped. Better half a foot than my whole leg."

"..." Lu Xing placed his hand down onto the injured foot, and had his flames quicken the healing.

"Nifty trick." Kuan Mo said feeling odd at the lost of his toes, but able to move the foot without an ounce of pain.

He couldn't see underneath the bandages, and therefore didn't know that his foot was practically healed.

"I'm Kuan Mo." He said lefting up his hand for a handshake as he introduced himself.

"Lu Xing." Lu Xing replied accepting the handshake.

He was inwardly surprised, the man's name had rung a bell, but he couldn't recall to what.

He released the man's hand.

"Well then, it's been a pleasure..." Lu Xing said getting up, "but I need to head up to the 2nd floor."

"Alone?" Kuan Mo askes knowing that the monster from before had gone up as well.

"It'll be faster if I go up alone." Lu Xing explained, his eyes glancing at the bandaged foot.

He knew first hand the alienlike feeling of becoming use to those first steps...

It always took a while.