Yuuki Nao woke up, opened her eyes - and panicked.
A firm hand on her shoulder pressed her back against the bed when she tried to bolt upright. "Hey, hey, calm down! You'll recover! You'll recover!"
After a moment, the words penetrated and she relaxed against the hospital bed. Slowly, she reached up and gently explored the contours of the patch holding her left eye closed. Memory showed Akira's blade flashing out and arcing across, and her throwing herself away as it blurred by - so close - and a flare of unbelievable pain...
"My eye... will heal?"
"The specialist they brought in seemed fairly certain. He said you should expect to lose some visual acuity, probably quite a bit, and it'll hurt like hell once you're off the IV, but... yeah, eventually."
She turned her head to look at him. "Thanks, Tate. What happened, with...?"
He sighed, and his expression was grim. "Sanada had no problems. Akane-chan's cut up a bit, but she won. Should be out of here about the same time you are." He flushed slightly. "And Miko-chin's boyfriend broke a branch over my head."
There really wasn't anything remotely funny about this whole situation, but that was close enough for the chemicals floating through her system, and she giggled.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. My own damn fault, not paying attention to him. Let's see how much concentration you can spare with the Killer Kitty out for your hide."
Okay, that was funny. When she'd stopped laughing, she propped herself up on an elbow - injured or not, she wasn't helpless, dammit - and asked, "What next?"
"Miyu's back."
"What?! But I thought she was..."
He shrugged. "Well, in physical terms she's another, mechanically identical gynoid that's been programmed from the first one's backup data, but she talks about herself as though she were a continuation, so I see no reason to disagree. Regardless, the 'bot's back."
It took an effort, but she snickered. "I bet Akane took that well."
"No," he shook his head, "she didn't react at all, actually. It was creepy."
Remembering the look in the older girl's eyes when the traitors - she refused to delude herself that they were anything but - had met before splitting up for their attacks, she had to agree. "Alyssa-chan said that Artemis needed targeting data when you asked... she can pass it up?"
"Yeah. They've given the kid the okay to move once I'm back to full, so, tomorrow or the day after."
"You expect her to..." she couldn't finish the sentance. There were too many horrible ways for Artemis to be applied for her to pick one to mention.
"I expect," he answered dryly, "her to get herself killed, along with everyone else with her - including Sanada, which'll at least give the thing a bright side for the rest of you."
"You'll be with her, too," she said, and didn't think about why it bothered her.
Another shrug. "It's not as though I haven't been expecting it."
No, he and Yukariko aren't even pretending to be polite to each other any more. ^_^
I wasn't able to find out how long it would take Nao to heal after having her cornea literally cut open - which was indeed what happened - and, though there wasn't much data on it online, it seems that eye patches are used to protect and stabalise the eye while it's recovering from the surgery to actually fix the problem. If anybody here knows better how this works, I'd like to hear it. ^_^
And before anybody starts ragging on me for being mean to here, at least she's better off than she was in canon, ne? I mean, she's still got an eye under the thing, right?
Ja, -n
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"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"