To meet her

In the room, Kitsi had taken off the hood they put on her head. Unlike prior times however, her face was incredibly pale. The inside of her mouth tasted like iron all the time, wet with blood, her lips in comparison were cracked and chapped. She'd lost count of the number of times she almost chewed off her own lips when the pain almost became unbearable.

A sleeveless shirt covered her upper body, though with how brown and musty it was, it might as well be a rag. From the sleeve openings near her shoulders several long, swollen welts peeked out.

The room could be better, she thought to herself trying to think of anything else besides her rough sand paper like shirt which kept rubbing against her now painfully sensitive back.

She hears a knock come from her door. What could it be this time? She thinks as she puts on the hood again ready for another round.

The lock starts turning with a few clicks from the other side, as it opens she presents her hands for the person at the other end to bind, but unexpectedly he reaches for her hood instead.

"Hey!! What are you... Zhao Wei?" Through the cloth like material of the hood she hadn't been able to see his face clearly but now that it was clear as day in front of her she was too relieved for words.

"W..what are yo uh..." she kneeled down while covering her face, trying her best to hide the tears flooding out.

Why was he here? She did everything in her ability to keep him safe, and through all the pain and suffering she told herself it'd be fine if he could escape, if he stayed away. But she couldn't help herself when she saw him.

The strong facade she put in front of the interrogators and the guards finally crumbled.

"Kitsi, I'm sorry but we don't have time, we have to.."

"Ah!!" She screamed as his hand held her by the shoulders. Her hand held his wrist limply. She didn't want him to see, but her vision began to black out. He turned her around and she'd expended most of her strength resisting the pain.

As he turned her he didn't even need to ask to know what happened. Her whole back was drenched, a mixture of clear fluid and blood oozed from the lashes she received on her back, trickling from the cracks where her skin split apart after whatever contraption they used to whip her made contact with the body.

In some areas several lashes overlap on top of each other, drawing blood as it exposed small sections of flesh. He hadn't noticed her complexion before but now it was clear as day that her complexion was sickly and that she was sweating profusely all over her body. The dirty rags they used to cover her body probably caused an infection.

"Thirteen!" He called out. Almost immediately the small child assassin appeared in front of the door.

"What's going on?" She asked him.

"I think she was tortured, shouldn't she be a silver grade warrior? How can they be able to hurt her this much? Shouldn't her Tantra kick in to heal her body?..." he followed up with a barrage of questions in a panic.

Thirteen squatted next to him, checking her forehead. "She's in shock, I don't know how she stayed up this long but she should've gone down a couple hours ago when treatment would've been easier." She explained, "she'd been going on pure will alone this whole time and she must've...", she must've finally put down the fight when she saw you, she was going to say but decided not to for some reason.

Zhao Wei was staring at her waiting for her to finish the sentence, but she decided otherwise, "it's not important we need to first get her own body's healing back on track... It's those shackles, it's almost exactly like yours but it's cutting off the flow of Tantra in her body causing it to stop from healing her. We need to get the key from one of her interrogators but the information is usually kept..."

She stopped speaking as she looked at Zhao Wei who was gripping the shackles, veins bulging.

Was he an idiot? Didn't they already tell him what this thing was capable of withstanding? Even if his were specially crafted the ones from the kingdom wasn't too far behind in terms of quality.

Just as she was about to scold him for it, she heard a crunch as his fingers sank into the shackles, causing it to crumble as he pulled it apart.

She remembered how she was compared to him by Jeff, at first she thought it might've been just bias. But now she understood, when he fought her he was refined, skilled and had full control over his movement.

But that wasn't the real him. Watching him squat protectively over Kitsi ripping the shackles apart with his bare hands, she caught a glimpse of a shackled ferocity just waiting under the surface.

Once he was done, he picked her up careful not to touch her wounds and laid her in bed, with a whistle he called Myra over. "Thirteen, I need you to go with her, make sure to clean her wounds once you return, I'll be back soon to help out."

"Where are you going!?" She asked as Myra absorbed her and Kitsi into the shadow.

"To meet the princess."