#(here pain suffer with me c: HSR is a fun game with no sads)

[shallliveoninsong]

Exit Wounds

◇ cw for blood, injury, and some not so pleasant medical descriptions

He stayed conscious longer than he thought he would.

Thankfully, long enough to make an inspiring speech to stick it to Phantylia before she retreated. But the fight took its toll and darkness claimed him soon after.

Jing Yuan hadn’t received any kind of significant injury in battle for hundreds of years. Perhaps he had gotten too…complacent. He was a good fighter of course, but compared to the frontrunners of his peers…

Despite Phantylia's defeat she got a few last laughs in. When consciousness returned to the General his mind was a disorienting blurred mess. He didn’t know what he had been doing or where he was. People were moving him, talking, rushing around doing something he couldn’t make out through his swirling vision.

All he knew was pain.

It tore through him without mercy, like a rabid beast. It was as if every drop of his blood was attacking his flesh, the sensation permeating from his back. Too weak to move from where he lay the only sign of life consciousness were his muffled cries of pain.

Why…? Dan Heng—right, that was the wound from Cloud Piercer! But then why…

Phantylia’s taunts echoed in his ears.

For my next trick I’ll turn each of  you into my voidrangers. The power of the Destruction will eat away at your flesh and transform you into pawns of the great Nanook!

The connection between himself and the ravager had been broken and yet—

The Destruction must still be in him. It may have lost its source, but with an open wound like the one in Jing Yuan it had a place to cling onto like an infection, still trying to turn him into Phantylia’s pawn.

The voices are talking to him, but he can’t make out what they’re saying. They must be from the Alchemy Commission.

Jing Yuan tries to speak, to say he doesn’t understand, that everything is all jumbled that it hurts like nothing he’s ever experienced before and please do something to grant him some kind of solace, but very few incoherent sounds actually make it out.

Then, a young voice cuts through the haze.

“General!” Bailu yelped.

No. Lady Bailu shouldn’t have to witness something like this!

He musters all his strength to try and sit up, act like he’s fine and hide the ugly sight, for he hates to scare her so, but his efforts are only rewarded with a fresh wave of fiery agony.

“Stop him from moving!” another voice shouts.

Hands grasp him by the arms forcing him still while others tend to his wound.

I’ll be fine, it’s worse than it looks, he tries to tell young Bailu. But all that comes out is tearful 'sorry's.

Bailu shushes him. Pushing past her shock she jumped right into helping.

Jing Yuan wasn’t well-versed in the healing arts. Nor was it easy to differentiate which pain he was feeling that was due to the healers' work and what was due to the Destruction. But he does wish he could be under during their efforts. Why didn’t they put him under? Were they afraid of how any sedatives would react with the Destruction?

The wound itself is its own grisly mess. Cloud Piercer wasn’t exactly known for having a dull blade after all. But if it was just flesh that needed to be mended and bleeding halted that would be easy for the Xianzhou medical technology, albeit it would take some time.

But then, sprouting from both sides that Cloud Piercer impaled him were jagged cracks of fragmentum corrosion. It kept growing and spreading, reopening the wound whenever the doctors tried to close it up.

They had no choice but to cut it out. They removed as much as they could that was deep in the wound and stitched up the rest but there were still jagged lines of darkness flecked with gold on his skin’s torso.

Lady Bailu concocts a medicinal pellet to suppress as much of the fragmentum's power as possible and manages to get Jing Yuan to take it. After the long arduous process is complete, the corrosive feeling from the Destruction begins to dull slightly, finally allowing him to speak fully.

“Thank you…”

_____

Jing Yuan is careful to keep the true severity of his injury to a few select people, most of them being the healers of the Alchemy Commission. He sees no need to create unnecessary worry. Besides, he’s reached a point where they are no longer fearful for his life. The effects of the Destruction were far from over, but the chance of it doing him in diminished significantly after Bailu’s consistent aid. Yanqing, Fu Xuan, the Astral Express crew… they should all be celebrating their victory and focusing on those who still needed aid in the aftermath of all this, not worrying about an old man.

He insists on attending the ceremony for the dead, despite Yanqing’s protests. Jing Yuan plays off the severity, joking with his retainer that he’s too eager to take his place. Yanqing relents and stops making a fuss about him attending.

His whole body is sore, it takes all his effort to mask his exhaustion as the Luofu sees the released Starskiffs off. But it is the right thing to do. Jing Yuan survived. Again. The least he could do is honor the memory of those who died.

It could have easily been him after all.

But it wasn’t.

Why did he always remain?

Why did it have to be him?