fortunefail

Entry tags:

- 74

[Accidental voice]

[The recording starts with a smashing sound, as the journal takes a nice snapshot of the ceiling and part of the underside of a kitchen table. Yuan's voice can clearly be heard nearby. He sounds rather disturbed.]

W-What the hell is this?!

[Action]

[A short while later, Yuan can be seen striding through the village with great haste. Every so often, he stops to cough mildly, before continuing on his way. His hands are buried deeply into his pockets and his gaze is stubbornly locked on the ground before him.

He's headed straight for Raine's house. Feel free to run into him before he gets there.]

Edit: [And after paying a visit to Raine's house, he'll head for Kratos' place. He's a busy man today.]

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Did you?

[Personal question, yes. But he won't know until he asks. What could be worse than being old?]

I ... did, but I suppose it wasn't so much of a drastic change. [It's not really an answer, though she attempts to brush it off in favor of the examination. Raine frowns when nothing seems to be working. If it's not geostigma... but there's something very strange about it.]

[Hint received, loud and clear. He's silent for a moment, before he coughs again. Damn, his throat is sore.]

I don't suppose a cold could be related, somehow?

... How long have you had the cold symptoms?

About a week, if not more. I've had it ever since things in the village appeared to be fixed. [And thus possibly longer, because if he had that cold during the experiment, then he won't be able to remember it.]

And that's when these other symptoms began appearing as well... strange. You're not normally prone to colds, are you?

Not at all. [He pauses for a moment, then his eyes fall on the black stain again. It's sort of ridiculous, but...]

The only other time my lungs were giving me trouble was after Kratos and I defeated Aku. That was over a month ago.

Aku... I see. And he was a being of darkness, wasn't he? [She frowns, looking at Yuan's arm.] There could very well be a possibility of some connection. Do you recall the exact details of that battle?

... Aku was causing landslides by the mountain range. Kratos and I went to investigate, and were immediately under attack. Aku was a formidable opponent. He could shapeshift at will and he was fast; at one point, he grabbed my leg and flung me into a mountain. [He stops talking for a moment, mulling things over. It's been a while.]

Neither standard magic nor physical attacks had any effect on him, so Kratos resorted to a holy spell. I gave him most of my mana to increase its potency. Just before the spell hit, Aku managed to run Kratos through, but it wasn't fatal. ... There was an explosion. The shockwave didn't hit Kratos, but I was slammed into a rock, myself.

Yes... I remember Kratos's wounds now. I tended to him when he was at the clinic.

Giving Kratos most of your mana would have left you in a very vulnerable state.

I suppose. My lungs started acting up after I crashed into that rock. After a week or so, the symptoms died down again.

But now they're back. I wonder why the gap ... perhaps your body recovering from its mana shortage helped stave off the symptoms in some way.

Either that, or being a frail old man worsened the symptoms before they'd disappeared completely.

I suppose you'd just have to ask anyone who might have talked to you if you seemed ill. Though if you had supposedly removed your cruxis crystal to reach a state, it might have made you vulnerable ...

Then I should hope I'll make a full recovery now that everything's back to normal.

[He pulls his arm back from Raine's grasp, covering the stain with his other hand. It's rather unsightly, and it really does itch.]

That doesn't look like something that's just going to go away on its own, and you know it.

If it doesn't go away on its own, I'll find some other way to cure it.

First you'd need to determine what it is. Which is something that you should look into immediately, instead of waiting around seeing if it will go away on it's own.

I'll try the library.

All right. Just remember to keep in touch with me, whether you find something new out or not. I'll do some looking into it, myself.

Fine. [He clears his throat.] ... I need to make sure Kratos isn't suffering from the same thing.

That was part of my intent, yes. I did speak to him during the Shift, and from what I could tell he didn't seem ill at that time. So we will see.

[That response isn't really surprising. Kratos was always the luckier one. He pulls out his glove again, slipping his right hand into it to hide the black rash.]

All right. I'll stay in touch.

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- 74

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