Crossover Fan Fiction / Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction / Tenchi Muyo Fan Fiction ❯ Reason And Accountability ❯ High Mountain Chill ( Chapter 30 )

The tent flapped in the breeze. The air was bitterly cold and thin. My face ached with it. Other snores nearby indicated the host’s comrades were trying to conserve heat. It wasn’t working. I found several layers of underclothes and pulled them on, shivering bitterly. I eventually put on socks and my uniform and then boots. Apparently I was a wind mage, with the aid of a spirit I kept in a box on my belt. It looked like a cookie gnome, but glowed a bit. It looked at me curiously, understanding I wasn’t its usual master. I emerged from the tent and shouldered my air rifle, stamping my boots to try and restore some heat to my toes. It really is bitterly cold here. The stars are sharp, and I don’t recognize them. This is not Earth, then. I head for the field hospital, where the two guards nod at me when I enter. I find a lot of mangled men and women. Warfare in this place is particularly brutal. Not a quick snuffing with a hypervelocity bullet that shuts off your lights before you feel it. No, these are slow and badly designed muskets, swords, crossbows. It’s nasty and primitive fighting, and just fast enough to make it so nobody wears armor to slow you down, since the steel or lead bullets fired would rip through that anyway. So it’s a meat grinder. I scanned the area and started healing the least damaged, moving on. They fell asleep at the cessation of pain, as they should. I worked my way up, drawing mana from the spirit at my belt. Converting it from wind magic to healing. I eventually arrived at the first aid bandaging area, where an exhausted commander was being tended by the very protective childhood friend and boon companion. They were obviously together-together, as the whole army knew. She was a sword saint, a whirling dervish who spun into close combat and killed every enemy in reach, from a family which had mastered these arts generations ago and served the Royal family as body guards. She was serving him, however. And his hand was gradually exposed with most of a finger missing.

“I told you those don’t grow back. And it’s infected. You have to stop using it or you’ll lose more than a finger,” warned the medic, applying more salves and similar fluids believed to expel the evil humours and promote sanctification and healing. I sighed and applied Heal Other, rapidly growing back the finger and curing the infection that would surely kill him in a few weeks. This country needs the Laziest General to win its wars, even if its otherwise corrupt and failing from internal debauchery. These cannot be helped.

“I thought you said they don’t grow back?” he complained. I drifted back into the shadows and tended to more of the wounded, healing and curing as I went. It was dawn by the time I finished, and I yawned in exhaustion.

“Who are you?” asked the sword saint of me, hands gripping the hilts of her blades. She stared me down.

“Just a visitor.”

“Are you an assassin?” she challenged. I raised an eyebrow. “Okay, so not an assassin. But what are you?”

“Just a visitor. I’ll be gone soon. Don’t blame this girl. She’s sleepwalking,” I warned her.

“What nonsense is that?” she demanded. She was pretty. My real self would totally date her. She was spoken for.

“Don’t wait too long to claim your prince. Other women are interested in him. He’s strayed before. He might get caught with unintended children, or a marriage to another childhood friend. You aren’t the only one, after all. It might even happen for politics. Can you live without him?” I asked her. Her expression was dark at that warning. “I need some sleep. She does too. When she wakes up she probably won’t remember any of this. Let it go. Your prince was dying, and now he will live. Make use of this.”

I left her frozen in contemplation and entered the tent, a few of the others roused and dressing. I undressed and went to bed. What an exhausting night.