The vent shaft hissed above Ren's head, releasing bursts of unclean air. Every few seconds, water dripped from it, turning into thin, shiny puddles on the pavement. But Ren paid them no mind. He had bigger problems to focus on.
He sat with his legs placed carelessly on the ground and his back against one of the base walls of Izanami Vault. His shirt was scorched in places and kept clinging to his burned skin. Blood was starting to dry on his left shoulder, too. His arms were a mess of torn flesh, but the burns on his legs were even worse. So much so that he wondered how they were even able to move at all from that Hollow chamber to there.
"I keep bleeding like this every time I go look for something, and I'm done for..." he thought.
Suddenly, he could hear footsteps echoing from somewhere. A flashlight beam landed on the area where he sat, mingling with the reddish glow of the neon lights scattered around. Finally, the beam landed on him.
Mika stepped into view.
He wore a long coat, dusted in places from the road. His white hair was tied back in a loose knot, while a few stubborn strands slipped forward over a breathing mask that covered the lower part of his face. The mask hissed faintly as he inhaled.
He also carried a backpack across one shoulder, which he seemed to be overly protective of: one arm stayed over it at all times, like he was anticipating someone might try to take it from him.
He stopped when he saw Ren.
"...Shit," he whispered to himself, crouching in front of him.
Ren noticed the man's eyes right away. There was that faint but familiar trace of gold in them, like patterns beneath their surface. Like Kagami's.
"I wasn't even supposed to have rounds in this sector today," Mika said, ignoring the fact that he had no idea who Ren was. His eyes studied his injuries. "I guess lucky for you, I did."
Ren tried to push himself upright, uneasy of the stranger's presence, but his body just wouldn't listen.
"Careful..." Ren said, clenching his teeth in pain.
Mika paid him no mind. He pulled out a clean cloth and pressed it hard against Ren's arm.
Ren flinched. "I said..."
"Yeah," Mika interrupted gently. "Just hang in there a bit longer, alright?"
Ren stayed still for the next several minutes. He kept quiet, although his mind remained painfully aware of the stranger's hands working on him. Mika, on his part, moved his fingers quickly. He seemed to know exactly what to look for and where to stitch. He applied cool gel on some parts of Ren's limbs where he deemed it was most needed. But there was no anesthetic. The pain came fast and painfully sharp, like a blade cutting through skin without any remorse.
Ren clenched his jaw, trying to hold steady, but his vision was already starting to get hazy.
"Is that cat with you?" Mika asked without any context or introduction.
"No," Ren replied, barely audible.
"Yes." A voice echoed at the same time from the shadows above. Kagami's.
Ren turned his head toward the sound. A broken ray of sunset light slipped through the structures in that moment, shining on Kagami's fur and making it look surreal. She sat there, calm and silent, and for a moment it seemed as if her presence covered more than the small feline shape she occupied, settling over everything. Still, he didn't feel like being around her in that moment. He felt she had abandoned him when he needed her most.
Mika showed no visible reaction, but he caught every detail of it.
"She keeps following me around," Ren tried to explain in his own way.
Mika smiled at the words, but kept his attention on the needle, threading it carefully as he prepared to stitch the deeper wound along Ren's shoulder.
"Yeah... they do that. Witches."
That made Ren curious. He watched the man's face more attentively, like he could get answers just by staring hard enough at his features. He wasn't subtle about it either, so Mika almost smiled. After a moment, he gave in, offering the explanation Ren hadn't managed to ask for.
"I had one of my own once," Mika explained, without stopping the stitching. "But she died a long time ago."
Ren tried to ask more, but the words stopped somewhere between his throat and the pain in his limbs.
"Witches always leave a scar," Mika continued as the thread pulled tight across the skin.
He got that part right, Ren thought.
As Mika finished with the last bandage, he glanced at Ren. "What were you doing out here, anyway?" he asked with a voice that implied suspicion. "Most people avoid this place, and the ones who don't usually don't come back."
Ren hesitated, then leaned back slightly. "I'm looking for something."
Mika looked at Ren for a few moments but decided not to press further. He turned toward the backpack he'd carried in earlier and pulled it closer. From inside, he retrieved a small wooden box sealed with three thin cords and a folded strip of cloth marked with inked symbols.
He placed the items around Ren in careful order, then sat beside him again.
"You'll feel something warm," Mika said.
Ren watched as Mika unwrapped the cloth and laid it over one of the burned areas on his arm. The moment it touched his skin, the inked symbols started glowing in slow rhythms. Mika held his hands above it, murmuring something Ren couldn't understand.
The heat started slow, then spread across Ren's arm. As it did, the skin changed color as well, little by little, engulfing burnt tissue into itself until most of it was barely visible. It calmed the pain with it until the feeling became pleasant. Like a gentle warm breeze in the cold.
Kagami's tail curled faster for a moment.
"That's not regular healing," she said, as she recognized the symbols running on Ren's arm. "That's... old witchcraft. You must know your history."
"It's something I kept from the past," Mika explained. "It doesn't really work the same without the bond, but for some injuries it works well enough."
"Why are you helping me?" Ren asked out of plain curiosity.
Mika then reached for a vial and a small injector from the backpack. "It's my job. I help people who get dragged through all sorts of things down here. You're certainly not the first."
He pressed the injector gently against Ren's arm.
"This will make you sleep. Your body will thank you later."
Ren didn't fight it. He let himself slip into the gentle fog as something much needed. The last thing Ren saw was Kagami's silhouette approaching them gracefully, and that long tail of hers curling around objects as she passed them by.