Chapter 45: Recuperation
"Well, don't worry about that, hahaha... So when can I go back?" Axel asked.
"Back?" Dr. Jerome gave him a flat look. "You go back when you're healed. That is the most basic responsibility a doctor has to his patient. This is the school's special treatment room, so stop thinking about running around and focus on recovering."
Then he glanced at the others in the room.
"And the rest of you, the patient needs rest. Don't stay too long."
With that, he applied another layer of medicine to Axel's injuries, checked the bandages one last time, and left to deal with other matters.
The moment the door closed, Alvis took a step forward, face dark.
"You idiot, you actually..."
Before he could finish, Dr. Jerome's voice roared from outside.
"Didn't I just say the patient needs rest?!"
Alvis stiffened, then cleared his throat awkwardly. "Sorry. I lost control for a moment."
"Then control it next time!"
Alvis's lips twitched. He clearly wanted to say something back, but since they were both working at the same school, he swallowed it and lowered his voice instead.
"You idiot," he hissed at Axel. "How dare you talk back to Teacher Zephyr like that? You nearly scared me to death. Good thing he didn't pursue it. That must be because of Vice Admiral Garp."
"Maybe," Axel said.
But he did not really believe that.
Garp and Zephyr were not the same type of person. Garp followed his temper. Zephyr followed rules. In some ways, the two were complete opposites.
Seeing Axel still look so unconcerned, Alvis pressed on.
"Anyway, don't think about anything else right now. Heal up first. Then go become Teacher Zephyr's student and train properly."
After that, he turned to Binz and Ain.
"You two as well. Once you finish talking, get downstairs and continue training. Until you officially leave this class, you are still my students. Today's training is nowhere near enough."
"Yes, sir," Binz and Ain replied together.
Alvis gave Axel one last warning look, then left without saying anything else. He still had an entire class to whip into shape.
The door closed again.
Binz was the first to speak, his face bright with excitement.
"Congratulations. The three of us all passed. We'll get to keep fighting side by side."
Ain nodded, though when she looked at Axel, her expression softened.
"I only passed because of you."
"Your own ability got you through," Axel said. "No one else swung those swords for you."
Binz scratched his cheek, then looked at Ain curiously.
"But still... Ain, your swordsmanship surprised me. Why didn't you use that from the start?"
Axel answered before she could.
"Because she wasn't confident."
Ain glanced at him, then gave a small, embarrassed smile.
"I didn't really know how useful it would be in a real fight," she admitted. "I've practiced it before, but I've never truly tested it against someone that strong. At first I only thought about passing, so I used both hands on one sword and tried to increase my attack power."
Binz immediately understood.
That first attempt had not really been swordsmanship at all. It had just been a straightforward, clumsy way of trying to force power where power alone could not solve anything.
Ain lowered her head slightly, then said once more, "Thank you."
Axel sighed. "You really don't need to keep thanking me."
"But I want to."
"Then don't. We're friends. That's enough."
Ain looked startled for a moment, then lowered her eyes and smiled.
There was no point saying more after that.
Axel glanced toward the door.
"You two should get going. If Teacher Alvis has to wait too long, he'll probably double your training. And once you leave, I can finally get some sleep."
Binz nodded. Ain hesitated for a moment, then followed him out.
At the doorway, though, she looked back one last time before closing it.
The instant they were gone, Axel's expression changed.
"Ow... ow, ow, ow..."
He rolled half sideways on the bed, then sucked in a sharp breath as pain shot through his body and nearly made him curse aloud.
Earlier, while Dr. Jerome was cleaning the wounds and applying medicine, he had forced himself to stay expressionless. He had been gritting his teeth so hard his jaw still ached.
Now that no one was around, there was no point pretending.
He had definitely been smashed hard enough.
As he was still writhing around in pain, the door opened again.
Ain stepped back in.
She took one look at him flopping around on the bed and let out a small laugh.
Axel froze.
Then, as if nothing had happened, he sat up straighter and said with a perfectly serious face, "I'm doing rehabilitation exercises."
Ain bit back another laugh. "Really?"
"Yes. Very advanced ones."
She walked over and placed a cup beside the bed.
"I just brought you some water."
Then, with obvious emphasis, she added, "You can continue your rehabilitation exercises."
Before Axel could say anything else, she slipped out again, one hand still on the door as she muttered under her breath, "What an idiot."
Over the next few days, a whole group of classmates came to visit once.
Only once.
Because after that visit, Dr. Jerome personally gave Alvis such a brutal scolding that the man never dared arrange another group visit again. From then on, Binz and Ain came as representatives every now and then, carrying notes, updates, and whatever else the others wanted passed along.
Dr. Jerome, for all his sternness, turned out to be a genuinely good man.
Axel got to know him little by little during recovery. He was responsible, thorough, and surprisingly patient once he stopped yelling.
With nothing else to do, Axel rested properly for the first time in a long while.
He did not train his calculation ability nearly as hard as usual. At most, he spent an hour or two each day maintaining the feeling so his mind would not grow rusty. The rest of the time, he read the books Ain brought him.
Oddly enough, that period of forced idleness led to an unexpected result.
His calculation ability rose again.
The change was obvious.
It was not a tiny improvement he could talk himself into imagining. His mental processing had genuinely become sharper, cleaner, broader.
Axel was puzzled at first.
He could not tell whether it was because his mind had been overworked for too long and finally recovered during this break, or whether resting after constant strain had somehow allowed his brain to consolidate what it had gained.
Maybe it was just one of those strange leaps that came after enough accumulation.
Whatever the reason, he had no intention of complaining. Increased calculation meant increased control, and increased control meant greater strength. That was all that mattered.
Two weeks passed in that white room.
By the end of it, Axel closed the book in his hands, slid a bookmark between the pages, and placed it on the bedside table.
His injuries were basically healed.
Even Dr. Jerome had looked a little surprised by how quickly his body recovered. When he originally said it would take a few weeks, he meant the injuries would stabilize by then, not that Axel would be nearly back to normal.
In the end, though, he checked Axel over, gave a short grunt of approval, and officially ended the treatment.
"It's finally over," Axel muttered to himself.
He was honestly sick of this room.
White walls. Empty space. The same ceiling every day. The same smell of medicine.
If not for the fact that he had secretly accelerated blood flow to the injured areas and pushed tissue recovery faster, he probably would have stayed here even longer.
At last, he was free to go back to Garp's place.
Just as that thought began to lift his mood, the door to the room opened.
The broad frame that stepped inside was so imposing it seemed to fill the doorway.
Teacher Zephyr had arrived.
.....
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