Hugging Zihark's thigh, Kai'Sa kicked her legs and started swinging in midair.
Using that momentum to line herself up, she pushed off with both hands at once, sprang upward a little farther, and grabbed Zihark by the waist. Then came the shoulders, then the head, and finally she stepped on his shoulders and climbed into the passage above.
Only after Kai'Sa had made it in safely did Zihark retract his bone spikes and climb up after her.
The reason he had deliberately arranged for her to go first was not because he wanted to admire the shape of her backside from below. It was because her shoulder pods would decide whether the two of them could get through the passage at all.
Kai'Sa's shoulder pods took up a lot of space. If she could not make it through the narrow sections, then there was no point going any farther.
The two of them climbed upward in sync, sharp claws digging into the rock face. Their ascent was steady, but not slow.
Still, before long, Kai'Sa suddenly started moving more slowly. Zihark was busy searching the rock wall ahead for his next handhold, and before he noticed, he bumped into her. Kai'Sa immediately let out a muffled cry.
"Why'd you slow down? Is there something up there?"
Zihark thought she had spotted something above them, but the moment he looked up, he was instantly blinded.
He slid back down a meter and lowered his head awkwardly.
Within his awareness web, there were no Void creatures above them at all. If Kai'Sa had stopped, then the cause had to be something on her end.
"Kai'Sa, what's wrong?" Seeing that she had come to a complete stop, he asked out of concern.
"My stomach hurts a little..." Kai'Sa said.
"Your stomach hurts? Are you sick?"
Zihark froze. In the two or three years they had spent underground, Kai'Sa had felt pain from combat injuries plenty of times. But pain from illness? This was the first time.
There was no way to inspect anything properly in a nearly vertical tunnel, so they would have to reach level ground first.
"Can you keep moving? I'll carry you."
"Okay..."
Kai'Sa slid down, wrapped her arms around Zihark's neck, and looped her legs around his waist. Carrying her on his back, he kept climbing.
Along the way, Zihark noticed her body trembling from time to time as she endured the pain. He sped up. The upper end of the passage was not the exit they had hoped for. The higher they climbed, the gentler the slope became, until in the end it was almost flat ground.
Zihark set Kai'Sa down and removed his helmet before asking for details.
"What kind of stomachache is it? Is your voidskin causing it?"
"It just started all of a sudden. It comes and goes in waves. I don't know what's wrong either..." Kai'Sa took off her helmet too. There was an unnatural flush on her cheeks.
The more Zihark looked, the more wrong this felt.
"I'm going to find you something to eat." He got up and started to leave to hunt.
Because the pain was in her stomach, Zihark assumed it was just a strong hunger signal from the voidskin. He was already thinking of finding a heart for Kai'Sa to absorb so her voidskin would settle down.
As far as he was concerned, the hearts of Void creatures were practically miracle medicine. No matter how bad the injury, as long as the voidskin absorbed enough energy, it would return nutrients to the host and repair the damage.
"Don't." Kai'Sa grabbed his arm and stopped him.
Seeing the confusion in Zihark's eyes, she shook her head and explained, "This isn't the first time. It'll get better if I just wait a bit."
"Huh?" Zihark immediately caught the problem in that sentence. "This isn't the first time? Then why are you only telling me now?"
He felt a burst of anger. Something this important, and she had kept it from him.
"It's just a little uncomfortable, that's all, so I didn't mention it..." Kai'Sa was not lying. To her, it really was only a bit of discomfort. Compared to the stinging pain the voidskin brought her, this barely seemed worth bringing up.
It was just enough to leave her feeling heavy and irritable, without any desire to move. It put her in a terrible mood.
"Tell me honestly. How long has this been happening?" Zihark pressed. Until he understood what was going on with Kai'Sa, he was not going to sleep easy.
Kai'Sa could not understand why Zihark was obsessing over what seemed to her like a tiny little ache. She just needed a little rest and it would pass.
But seeing how stubbornly focused he was, she could only think back and explain her symptoms, haltingly piecing together the story.
"This only started happening recently. Every month, there are a few days when I don't feel well. The first time came out of nowhere, but it didn't really bother me. Later on, it started getting a little more uncomfortable..."
"..."
Zihark fell silent and looked at Kai'Sa with a complicated expression. After a long pause, he finally said, "Kai'Sa, I think I know how to treat this. I'm just not completely sure it'll work."
"How?"
"Show me your stomach."
Though she did not really understand, Kai'Sa obediently moved the hand she had been pressing against her stomach. Zihark placed his own hand there and gently rubbed through the voidskin.
Whether it was psychological or whether it really worked, Kai'Sa immediately felt a lot better when he rubbed her stomach. But the moment he took his hand away, the discomfort came back.
After a few tries, she shifted into a position that made it easier for him to keep going and asked, "I really like it when you keep rubbing it like this. What's wrong with me?"
"This is just one of the troubles of growing up. You've gotten your period. For girls, there are a few days every month when they feel uncomfortable and need a little extra care."
Zihark sighed inwardly. What kind of cursed fate was this? He, a guy, was the one who had to teach her all this. Kai'Sa's mother had died early, and now this burden of enlightenment had fallen squarely onto his shoulders.
It was all Malzahar's damn fault.
"Do boys get that too?" Kai'Sa asked like a curious child. To her, questions about the differences between boys and girls were far more interesting than studying monsters.
She knew there was a difference between men and women. Back on the surface, she had often seen Zihark peeing wherever he pleased, and she had seen it again not long ago while they were changing armor. She just did not know why that difference existed.
"Of course..." Zihark sensed danger approaching and immediately changed course. "Yeah, they do. It just shows up more in the mind. Boys get irritable and bad-tempered during it. So if you ever see me acting like that, you need to be good and not provoke me, understood?"
When you talked, you needed to leave room for error. Zihark had already proven that to himself. It was useful, and it was one of the reasons he was still alive.
"Oh. Then do boys wet themselves too?" Kai'Sa asked, cheeks red.
"Wet themselves? I stopped doing that when I was two—... wait. You're not talking about that kind of wetting, are you?" At first Zihark thought she literally meant peeing himself, but then, connecting it to everything she had just said about her period, he suddenly realized how serious this was.
"I don't know. It was just... a warm flow..." Kai'Sa's face grew hotter and hotter, as if she had just brushed up against some forbidden secret.
"Hiss—" Once he got confirmation, Zihark sucked in a sharp breath. "Then where did that flow go in the end? Your voidskin doesn't open up down there!"
"It... it got absorbed." Kai'Sa stammered the answer out. The moment she finished speaking, she had the strange feeling that she had permanently lost something.
"Damn it!" Zihark stared at the voidskin on Kai'Sa's body as if he had just discovered something truly outrageous.
The Void had actually...
Actually...
Was this what people meant by the troubles of growing up?
Zihark felt so done.
[End of chapter]