Jhin dragged Kyaru out of the room. Facing Megumin's worry-stricken face, he forced out a stiff smile: "Relax, I won't do anything to her."
"But..."
Before she could finish, Jhin had already pulled the girl into Kokkoro's room. By the time Pecorine rushed over at the sound, the door had already slammed shut—he'd even set up a layer of wind element to seal off all sound.
The two of them stood frozen in the corridor, at a complete loss.
Inside the room, gazing at Kyaru's gaunt face and lifeless eyes, Jhin felt not a shred of tenderness in his heart. He pointed at the unconscious Kokkoro: "Now... can you give me an answer—when will Kokkoro wake up, or is there any way to make her wake up?"
The thing she, robbed of her memories, dreaded facing most was Kokkoro and Jhin. She twisted her seized left hand, trying to escape the room and flee back to her own bedroom.
Seeing her trying to run away again, Jhin couldn't hold back the fury in his heart, forcing three words out through gritted teeth: "Answer me!"
Kyaru pressed weakly against the wall, her messy black hair like a spider's web binding her within it, tears spilling from her hollow eyes: "I'm sorry... I can't remember... I don't know anything."
"If an apology were any use, then what would I be asking you for?"
The cold words turned into a sharp blade that stabbed into her heart. In her fragmented memories, she had never once heard Jhin speak in such a tone. The tears slid down her cheeks and seeped into the corner of her mouth, filling it with bitterness.
"Fine. You can get out now."
It was as if Kyaru hadn't heard him at all—she stayed where she was, mechanically repeating those two words, "I'm sorry."
Jhin was already on edge, and now here she was buzzing around like a fly. The fury suppressed to its absolute limit in his chest leaked out, just a sliver of it.
"BAM!"
His right hand slammed against the wall behind Kyaru; his left hand seized her chin and forced her to meet his eyes. Within those calm pupils burned a violent rage: "If Kokkoro never wakes up again, or just dies like this, then you'd better be ready to become my property. In the time that follows, I'll do everything I can to wring dry your life, your flesh and blood, and your spirit to find the mastermind behind all this. You'd best pray that day never comes."
Kyaru twitched the corner of her mouth into a wretched, bitter smile: "Why not just treat me as your property right now? I've lost so many of my memories anyway, and I have no reason to live."
Jhin clenched his fist but did not vent the malice in his heart on her. He knew full well she was nothing more than a pitiful pawn whose memories had been wiped, not to mention she counted as a comrade he had once trusted. Venting on her would be utterly meaningless—nothing but a waste of time.
"What's wrong? Don't tell me you're not interested in me?" Kyaru tugged open her own collar, exposing snow-white skin. As she went to undo the buttons further, a large hand pressed down to stop her, and at once a sharp pain shot through her shoulder. She clenched her fists and silently endured the pain, as if only by doing so could she ease the guilt within her.
Not until the warm, sweet blood ran down his teeth to the tip of his tongue did Jhin release his mouth and straighten up. He had bitten a bloody mark into Kyaru's shoulder. He wiped the bloodstain from the corner of his mouth and snarled at her viciously: "This is an IOU. Believe me, you won't want to see the day it comes due."
Having said this, Jhin threw her out of the room. Her disheveled clothes and the still-bleeding bite mark on her shoulder terrified Pecorine and Megumin, who had been waiting outside.
She refused to have her wound bandaged, and carried her frail body back to her bedroom.
After that day, Kyaru began to eat again. Though she was still like a puppet at others' mercy, she now had a reason to go on living—to wait until she became a searching tool, to hunt down the one behind the scenes.
Jhin himself could no longer recall how long it had been since he'd slept. Relying on [Life Spring Lv.1], he could forcibly suppress the drowsiness welling up from the depths of his mind, but what was even the point of doing so—he himself couldn't figure it out.
He only wanted to stay by Kokkoro's side, confirming her condition every single moment, and using the [Blade of Resurrection] on her once every hour.
During the intervals, he would clasp Kokkoro's small hand and chat with her about things that had happened recently. Though he kept himself shut inside the room and didn't go out, he still observed everything around him with his elements—and Kyaru was the key subject of his attention.
"Pecorine sighed again yesterday. That should be... no, that was exactly the four-hundred-and-thirty-second time she's sighed over this stretch of time. Maybe it's hard for you to imagine, but that lively, cheerful glutton has had her appetite cut in half lately. Though I suppose that's a good thing too—at the very least our ingredients won't get used up so fast, and they won't always have to go out hunting."
"A few times they ran so far away that my spiritual power could barely detect them. Good thing I still have [Elemental Armament], a magic that can serve as a signal relay station—that's the only reason I didn't lose track of them."
"Honestly, Megumin feels really sorry toward her. All the housework and other matters during this time have been handled by her. It's truly just like what her mother said in the letter—she's very virtuous and very good at taking care of people."
"Kyaru... never mind, she's the same as always—eating, spacing out, uh... going to the toilet, taking baths. I wasn't peeping at her, mind you—I only used the elements to sense where she'd gone."
"Speaking of baths... I have to apologize to you about this in advance. This whole time it's been me bathing you, so... mm, you know what I mean. If you're unhappy about it, you can wake up and curse me out—however you want to scold me is fine."
Kokkoro still showed not the slightest reaction, looking serenely as though she were merely fast asleep. If it weren't for Jhin using the power of life on her at such intensity, then given her current state—unconscious and unable to eat—she would surely have already wasted away to skin and bones.
Pressing her little hand against his forehead, silently conveying his longing for her, his eyelids gradually grew heavy, as if he might fall asleep at any moment. Jhin used the power of life once more, trying to make himself alert again.
Perhaps the fatigue had accumulated to its limit—the power of life had no effect. He struggled hard within the whirlpool of exhaustion, yet his vision still went black and he toppled sideways onto the bed, his grip on Kokkoro's hand still refusing to loosen.
He came once more to the space formed of starry skies. Jhin's thoughts had become sluggish; it took him a long while to register why he had appeared here. It wasn't until the figure of the goddess Eris dimly and indistinctly emerged before him that the situation finally cleared.
He rushed before her without hesitation: "Goddess Eris, you must know the way to make Kokkoro wake up—isn't that right?"
"Yes. I should have sent someone to deliver the relevant item to you, but for some reason the passage to the human world has been abnormally unstable lately, so for now you can only go and retrieve it yourself."
Eris's words sent a jolt of renewed spirit through Jhin.
____
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