Midnight Rose

[Belle]

Yuki finished wrapping Belle's hands, cutting the roll of gauze with a pair of scissors and securing the wrap with a clip. Belle gritted her teeth, trying to keep from flinching throughout the process. She failed - miserably. She didn't need the dull throb to know that the fingers in her left hand were broken. Her right was injured as well, though at least it was only one digit. It did mean that she was going to have a hard time making rude hand gestures for the foreseeable future, however.

"There," Yuki said. "That should hold them in place. No more climbing."

"Thank you." Belle managed to keep most of the sarcasm out of her tone. If she pissed the old woman off, everything she just went through might end up being for nothing. She breathed a sigh, resting her crippled hands in her lap, her legs crossed on the cushion below her.

She recognized the room as the one she'd woken up in before. It was still just as bare, though now it was missing even the futon. Just the shrine and a rack of what looked like wood weapons remained on the walls. The smoothly worn, dark paneled floor was devoid of carpet, and the sliding door that led out to the backyard was left open.

'Mister Pickles' was there, too, his too-big-for-his-body head rolling to the left as he gazed at her from his master's side.

"So," Belle said after a long, awkward pause. "How do we… start?"

Yuki snorted. "You're a pushy one." She gazed levelly at her. "You know, I never actually agreed to anything."

Belle scowled. The old woman smirked. "Relax. There's no need to make such a scary face." She stood, folding her arms behind her. "You say you want to protect people? A lofty goal ... If it's true. I've had many students that claim noble aspirations. Most of them never finish the training."

"What happened to them?"

"Some couldn't handle the demand, what it asked of them. For others the fire simply faded - whatever it was that drove them to come to me and to put them through so much, I guess it wasn't so important to them anymore. That's if their bodies didn't give out before their spirits."

"They...?" Belle trailed off. A long silence hung in the air, the unspoken word filling the empty space between them.

Yuki stared at her. "What you're asking for isn't child's play. Power - true power - comes at a price. If you're not willing to risk everything, you won't survive."

"Haven't I already proved that?"

"You've certainly proved you're stubborn. But what will that mean? Does it mean you'll stick to it until you succeed, no matter the outcome? Or will you rebel against what I have to say, and try and do things your own way?" She arched her back. "But I suppose before we answer that question, we'll have to heal those hands of yours."

"You have a bacta pack?" Belle asked hopefully.

A smirk. "Better." Yuki reached into a pocket of her uniform and extracted a fist-sized orb. It was green, semi-transparent, like a dull emerald. She walked over and placed it in Belle's hands. The weight caused a flash of pain that quickly subsided. Somewhere deep within the core of the jewel, a faint light seemed to glow like a sparking ember.

"That orb will draw what it needs from your body and stimulate the healing process," Yuki said. "With you, it should take about an hour to complete." She straightened, putting her arms behind her back. "For that time, you will focus your thoughts. Think upon it and nothing else. Don't move, and don't speak. The better you're able to concentrate, the faster it will go." She strode towards the open door. "I'll be back to check on you soon. Remember: concentrate!"

Belle stared as she exited onto the interior patio and turned, disappearing along the back of the house. Her eyes turned towards Mister Pickles, who stared at her with silent expectation. She shrugged, sighed, and closed her eyes. Once upon a time, before she'd been pulled out of her world, she'd taken some meditation classes. She'd never been very good at it. She'd never reached that level of 'nirvana' that they claimed was waiting, or that feeling of peace they promised. All she'd gotten instead was some serious cases of pins and needles. She'd much preferred the yoga classes, though for reasons she wouldn't be proud to admit.

Focus. Right. She took a deep breath, furrowed her brows, and tried to concentrate. She formed a mental image of the sphere in her mind and held it there. That had been one of the techniques they had tried to teach her: to focus on a single thing, like breathing, or a shape. For her it had been a box.

The mental image wavered. She refocused, trying to cling tighter to the image, but it was like trying to grasp hold onto jello. The harder she tried, the faster it seemed to fall apart.

The pain in her fingers was fading. Whether that was because of the jewel itself or simply because she wasn't agitating them anymore, she wasn't sure. Time crawled forward. Occasionally she would open her eyes, her vision stinging from the brightness outside. There were no clocks. The only way she had to guess how much time had passed was the movement of light and shadows across the yard.

Through it all, Mister Pickles continued to sit, his posture immobile, his eyes fixed upon her. For a crazy moment she wondered if he was meditating, too, but then his tail wagged and he yawned. Nope, just a dog.

The jewel was brighter now. What had been a small spark was now a glowing candleflame, a flickering light within the orb. She'd never heard of 'healing stones' before, and she suspected it was probably bullshit. It was clear Yuki couldn't get rid of her just by kicking her, so maybe now she was trying to bore her out. Was she watching right now, waiting for the moment when Belle slipped up? Another maybe. If it was true, Belle wouldn't give her that out.

Rolling her shoulders, Belle recentered her mind. She'd never had to focus for so long on a single thought before, and she was surprised how exhausting it was. She felt herself starting to nod off, caught herself, and stiffled a yawn. Ten more minutes - surely that was all it was going to take. No? Another ten, then... another... another...

When Belle came back to herself, the sun was nearly gone. Amber red light painted the walls of the courtyard in steep angles. The orb in her lap was burning bright. Completely suffused with green light, it glowed like a fireball in her palms. It had been far longer than an hour. Yuki was standing in the doorway, her arms folded behind her, her eyes hard with something - probably satisfaction.

Shit. She HAD fallen asleep. Belle tried to say she was sorry, but the words refused to come. Yuki strode into the room and knelt in front of her. Reaching forward, she wrapped strong fingers under Belle's wrapped hand and gave a hard squeeze.

Belle was prepared for pain, her breath hitching in her throat, but to her surprise there was none. Yuki gave another squeeze, then seemed satisfied and stood again. Belle guessed there were such things as healing stones, after all. "Good," Yuki said. "Looks like you're ready."

Belle tried to smile, but found even that was difficult. She must've been more tired than she thought. She opened her mouth to say 'thanks', but again found that the word died in her throat. She blinked. Her eyelids felt heavy.

No. Not just her eyelids.

"It's called a Kyuuketsu stone - the blood sucker," the old woman explained as Belle tried to move her arms. Her finger twitched. "Technically incorrect. As you see, what it eats isn't blood." She gestured down to the luminous sphere. "In ancient times it was used as a healing tool, but was abandoned because of the unfortunate ... side effects."

Belle's brow broke out in a sweat, her lethargically beating heart starting to trot.

"For our purposes, however, it has another quirk," Yuki spoke casually, walking around the edge of the room, lazily inspecting the faded illustrations on the walls. "The human body has two sources of energy: physical, and spiritual. When you move, when you breathe, when you commit to any action, you expend both of these to make it happen, even if it's something as simple as beating your heart. You use them so unconsciously, most people are never aware that the spiritual side of their power exists.

"The Kyuuketsu stone, however, does know. It's only interest is the power in your body, not your soul. It will drain you, and drain you, and drain you, until your heart can no longer beat. Once it's gotten its fangs into you, the only way to be saved is for someone else to remove it. Or, if one can, use their spiritual energy alone to move their body. Under normal conditions, it can take decades of meditation to isolate one's spiritual energies from the physical. But with the help of the Kyuuketsu stone, soon spiritual energy will be all you're left with. If you can harness it, you will have made the first step in the training. If you can't, well ... Remember what I said about the students whose bodies gave in before their spirits?"

Yuki's lip twitched in a smirk. "You asked me if you hadn't proved that you were willing to risk your life already, and you were right: you did. Now you're going to get the training you were begging for." She stopped behind Belle. "I'd say you have another hour to figure it out. Good luck."

She patted Belle on the head, and with that, she left again. Belle's sweat continued to bead, eyes transfixed on the swirling mass of energy within the orb.

Fuck.