"Okay."

Fortunately, Fenix possessed both patience and a very good sense of balance. While the climb was obviously taxing on his energy, he didn't falter, and Mayako would hardly need to adjust him at all, let alone catch him.

When they reached the top, he decided that it was definitely worth the climb. The hill faced the Cizokian border, angling slightly towards the road leading out of the village, but it was tall enough that it offered a great view for miles, over all but the tallest trees.

The road stretched down out of sight--towards Galaens it was mostly forest lining the road, but towards Cizok it was almost all farmland, the trees in the area having been cleared ages ago. It was a magnificent sight, especially at dawn or dusk, and it was no wonder it was the favorite place of one Eldridge Tsukimono.

There was a small flat area at the top, where the rock sat, providing level ground so that Fenix could move a bit without much assistance from Mayako. He took a few minutes to survey lay of the village and surrounding area out of habit, before carefully lowering himself to he could sit against the rock.

"This is a nice spot," he observed. His desire to leave, check on the kids, and find his mentor left him feeling anxious most of the time, but for the first time since he came out of his coma he seemed...content.

The trip up the hill wasn't eventful, but it was stressful. Mayako didn't want Fenix to fall as much as he didn't want to fall, if not more. This was how she was supposed to keep it from happening, holding onto his back and ready to grab his side and help him become stable again as needed, but if he really did fall, he was taking her with him. There was no way she could hold him up if he was going to fall back into her, and that was actually the most likely scenario.

Fortunately, it didn't happened.

Mayako breathed out a deep sigh of relief. Everything had gone well. They got up to the top of the hill fine, and Fenix was probably going to be better off, now that he had the exercise and the confidence to exercise. Having climbed a hill like that this early in his recovery was impressive--something he should have been patting himself on the back for. Mayako was about to mention it, but then Fenix spoke first, and directed her attention back to him.

For a moment, she stopped breathing.

He looked just like him.

Mayako could still picture what it looked like. Eld would trudge up here when he wanted to be alone, and sometimes, Sarah would coerce her to come with to find him, and they'd sneak up on him when he was here--and Sarah rarely ever tried to scare him. He just always looked so serene . . . so . . . peaceful. He'd just look out over the hill with a genuinely content expression upon his face, not saying a word. He didn't even have to have a book with him to read. He was just happy to be up here.

"Y-you . . ." Mayako shut her eyes for a moment . . .

And she smiled.

"Yeah. It is . . ."

And she sat down by his side.

To other people (like his mentor) silence was often considered awkward under any circumstances, but Fenix didn't feel uncomfortable in the least--nor did he seem bothered by Mayako being in (relative) close proximity, though considering she was primarily in charge of taking care of him he'd long gotten over any issues with that.

I can see everything from up here...reminds of being in the belfry back home. Growing up, he used to sneak up there to have a look outside; since he wasn't allowed outside the church, it was his only connection to the outside world, at least until he was brave enough to occasionally sneak outside at night.

Fenix would show no signs of wanting to move for some time; it was still early in the day, and the only thing waiting for him was his bed back at the clinic. Not to mention he needed to rest a bit before tackling the hill again, as something told him going down on crutches was not going to be any easier than going up.

It was a nice place to be, truly. Whenever she was up here, she could see and understand why Eld preferred it so much over all other places in the village. They could spend any amount of time up here, really. They didn't have to go back until it started to get dark, after all, and with the two of them lacking anything to say, it was fine to sit in silence. Truth be told, it was the first time Mayako had to sit and relax for quite some time.

After awhile, though, she started to think about going back. There were still things that needed to be done at the clinic--like patients to take care of.

Which reminded her . . .

"So . . . M-Mr. Black?" Mayako asked to get his attention first, "Has . . . has Emma said anything to you? About anything?"

It was need-to-know information for Mayako. After all, Emma was technically on suicide watch. If Fenix had any information at all, it would be helpful, even if it was something tiny--something like maybe Emma mentioning that she wasn't ever hungry, or maybe that she was hungry at some point. Sometimes, the smallest hints like that could set off the biggest alarms.

Fenix remained silent for several moments, furrowing his brow. He'd certainly talked to Emma, but what exactly he could say took a minute to figure out. He couldn't mention anything about grilling her for information, but their more recent conversation was fair game, he supposed.

"She thinks I'm crazy," he answered bluntly. "And is convinced I'll be trapped here for life, or something like that. She seems to think of Hillcrest as some kind of prison, or that it's cursed." He tried to keep his voice neutral, but he didn't think too highly of his new roommate.

There was something that bothered him slightly, though. If her injuries weren't inflicted by Theleaus, then who? "What happened to her?" he asked before he could stop himself, before realizing something and amending, "Though, it's fine if you can't say." He wasn't sure if it held for a small village like this, but bigger hospitals frowned upon giving out information about their patients without good reason.

She was silent for awhile, too. It was a long story, if she was even going to get into it--and it might make sense of things for him, if she did--why Emma thought everyone in Hillcrest was crazy, for example, and how she got hurt, and why she was effectively on suicide watch. For several minutes, she debated telling the story.

Mayako wasn't a trained nurse, though--and really, she was just as bad off as Emma. She simply didn't show it as much. The two may have even had similar views on Hillcrest, or, at the very least, common factors between their views on the village. She was just as emotionally troubled, though. The only difference was a need for suicide watch. Mayako could keep busy to take her mind off of things. Emma, on the other hand, could not.

"I-it's fine . . ." Mayako declared with a nod.

She felt as if she could tell Fenix about it--even that she owed him the information. He was, after all, Emma's roommate. Emma wasn't going to talk, and it might be hard to understand her if one didn't understand how and why she became this way.

"A-a few months ago, o-our village w-was, well . . . "attacked." A-a man th-that called himself "The Law" h-had come through. H-he came a-and talked about how property values w-were high, and so all our taxes were higher, a-and said th-that we absolutely had to pay our property taxes, y-you know? A-and my dad never had to pay taxes on the church, a-and a lot of people didn't have the money to pay the higher taxes-- i-it was . . . really a lot more than it was before. I-it was like . . . like . . . triple what it was before, you know?"

Which was a terrible situation to ever be in. Property taxes in Algeroth could actually be pretty high sometimes, especially in areas of significant trade activity. Believe it or not, the agricultural goods that Hillcrest had to offer actually increased its property value tremendously, and so property taxes were already fairly high. Tripling that might very well put a millionaire out of business, given time.

"A lot of people c-couldn't pay, a-and my father refused-- s-so he burnt down . . . a lot of houses. A-and . . . the church. And . . . then . . . he started to really hurt people. And kill them. A-and then . . . E-Emma's boyfriend a-and one of the boys th-that used to live here stood up to him, a-and . . . a-at the time, we all thought The Law died."

But that would've been too good to be true.

"After awhile, though . . . that boy left. I don't think he'll ever come b-back, too. A-and . . . Sarah and Emma's father died of sickness in the c-clinic a little while later, a-and . . . Sarah just . . . walked off one day. Davis was the last thing Emma had left, you know? Her b-boyfriend. A-and The Law came back, a-as if . . . it was on cue, you know? Davis h-had stayed around, b-but . . . he was just one man, you know? The Law was . . . really smart. T-too s-smart. S-smarter th-than anyone in the village. I-if he didn't want to be caught, h-he wouldn't have been. A-and . . . he wanted to be. By Davis. I-I don't know if it was revenge, o-or if he was t-trying to make a point or . . . or what, but he k-kidnapped Emma a-and held her in the top of the church--a-and he had a di-diversion for Davis already set up, a-and i-it led him to the church, b-but The Law h-had already gotten impatient, you know? A-and he started c-car-carving . . . t-tallies . . . i-into Emma's face . . . f-for each minute that passed. Davis was . . . five minutes late."

Which explained the wounds on her face, at the very least . . .

"A-and Davis fought him and got his gun off him and wrestled him to the floor and pointed the gun at him, a-and The Law t-told him that . . . that killing him would just make Davis just as bad as him. A-and that police could just be bribed into l-letting him go. I'd imagine th-that . . . that Davis didn't say anything for awhile, a-and . . . I think he really tried to justify k-killing him, but . . . but revenge is just enforcing moral law-- a-and killing and hurting to enforce any law was what he did. Th-that was why they called him that-- The Law. So . . . Davis knocked h-him out, a-and took Emma to the clinic, and took The Law n-north, on his own. T-to get on a boat, to g-go to this penitentiary c-called Hadseax. B-but he never came back. He should've come back! He had all the time he needed t-to come back. But he never did . . ."

It was a long story, and it was tough for Mayako to recall it all--but she did. She released a sigh and leaned back into the rock, and Fenix in the process, and didn't care in the least about the close proximity. That was the last thing on her mind right now.

"S-sorry . . . I . . . probably said way too much . . ." Mayako sighed again.

"No...it's fine."

An uneasy feeling of frustration rose within him; during all the events she described, he'd been laying in bed, asleep. He was no Zach or Remmy, but if he'd been awake surely he could have done something...

No, it was pointless to think like that. His situation would have been the same anyway; as soon as he was well enough to make a difference, he would have left, and nothing would have changed. Even so, he didn't like to hear people suffer like that, even Emma. He may not have liked how she acted now, but he still remembered the girl who stood up when no one else was, and begged a dangerous man to let her take her friend's place at his hands.

When I get back, I'm going to look in the archives and see if there's anything to cancel regeneration.

He wanted to say more to her, some kind of reassurance, but nothing came to mind. When tragedy struck, there was little you could do but pick up the pieces and move on--he knew that all too well. Mayako was moving on, it seemed...but Emma lost the will to.

"There were some names Emma mentioned, people who left the village." Fenix knew what happened to half of them now: Remmy died, Sarah left, and Davis disappeared, but there were a few more he needed clarification on. "You mentioned a few, but there was also..."

It took him a moment to search his memory--a lot of what Emma said was rather meaningless to him, especially when she started talking about him being stuck in the village, but he tried to store parts of what she said that he figured were important.

"...Eld, Noah, and Etsu." Eld, he gathered, was the Tsukimonos' son and the boy who was in Galaens, and it must have been either him or Noah that was the boy Mayako referred to. Noah and Etsu were names he'd heard no one else mention yet, so he was curious.

Mayako shook her head. "Eld was-- he was the boy I w-was talking about, th-that went a-and confronted The Law with Davis. E-Etsu was this girl from o-out of town, from Cizok. She a-and Eld fell . . . in . . . l-lo-love, y-you know?" It was almost like it hurt her to say it. "A-and they left together. But-- but when they left, th-they thought that everything was g-going to be okay. Th-that there wasn't anything left to hurt this place."

Which left one other name: Noah. That was someone she could actually talk about in some significance, but barely. She felt more comfortable around that subject, but in actuality, she wasn't. Talking about Noah was as bad or worse than talking about Eld. Her feelings for Eld, however, blinded the reality of it.

". . . Noah . . . was . . ."

Mayako paused for a long time, again. It was another long story to tell.

"He was the reason Sarah left," Mayako trailed off, "H-he and Sarah, th-they started dating-- before The Law showed up, you know? A-and . . . they got into a lot of fights, h-he and Eld. A-and then Eld was out of town, w-with Etsu-- a-and Sarah and Emma's father fell ill, a-and Noah was there. H-he used to be a real big jerk. He a-always picked on me and Eld. Always, whenever h-he could, a-and then Sarah would throw a punch o-or something, a-and he'd go away-- a-and it didn't matter what, either! My dad got sick once, a-and he still made fun of me. But . . . but he stuck a-around, a-and he comforted Sarah, a-and he apologized to me, a-and we all stayed with their dad for a long time. A-and then The Law came, a-and he was going to burn down Emma's house, y-you know? So . . . so Noah tried to stop him, a-and . . . The Law beat him really bad, a-and left and dragged him away i-instead of burning the house down . . ."

More recounting of the past. Truth be told, they actually had become closer to Noah. Looking at their past together, it shouldn't have been possible, but time changed people. And so did conflict.

"H-he was horribly beaten a-and scarred up a-and . . . God knows what a-anymore. S-Sarah chased a-after them, but was too late, a-and found him left for dead, a-and he didn't even . . . look the same anymore. W-we brought him back to the clinic, a-and he recovered a-and all . . . but he really was never the same, a-and when he left, he . . . he disappeared. A-and then people th-that were associates of the Law started to . . . die. In horrible ways. And Eld and Davis, they got involved, a-and it was Noah. I don't know what happened to him. No one ever told me. Sarah knew--but . . . she never talked about it. I-I only know that . . . she didn't want to even look at Eld for a really long time. I . . . don't think I-I want to know, either. Noah was D-Davis's best friend since childhood, you know? Can you imagine . . . having to do something drastic to someone l-like that?"

If she could see beyond Emma''s state, she might even understand why Davis wasn't coming home. If he was alive out there, somewhere, he might have been fighting his own emotional war, and like Emma, he might have been losing it.

"Y-you know . . . this isn't the first time sh-she's said that. That . . . everyone here is crazy," Mayako took initiative to change the subject, at least partially, "I-it's like we only attract th-the crazies here-- th-that's what she said, when Noah lost it."

They've had a really bad run of luck lately. But that was all he thought; in spite of (or possibly even because of) the things he dealt with on a regular basis, he couldn't possibly believe that the town was cursed or anything.

"Everyone seems sane to me. And I'm sane." That was all he really needed as proof that there wasn't some supernatural reason driving people insane, but he got the impression Emma would convince herself that he was crazy no matter what he did.

"But I guess sitting in her bed all day, she can't really see that." It sounded like the only people she had contact with were Mayako and the doctors, and now him. He wondered why they put him in the same room; was it really just to make things easier on Mayako, or did they think having someone else to talk to would help her?

I don't think I'm much help, though. Emma was at best indifferent to him, and he surmised that if she probably didn't like him much most of the time.

Well, that was kind of relieving. "Y-you think so?"

Mayako smiled a little and leaned back more--coincidentally, partially leaning her head against Fenix's shoulder. She didn't realize she was doing it, and wouldn't have really made much out of it if she did. Her mind was still on other things.

"It's-- i-it's hard, you know?" Mayako asked rhetorically, "I . . . don't really know i-if Emma really should b-be released. I-it's Tsukimono-sama's decision, h-honestly, but . . . I don't know. I don't know wh-what I'd do if I-I were him."

Emma was on suicide watch. It was that simple. No sharp objects were permitted in her room, nor were there drugs or anything like that, and she had to be watched when she was eating, too. Just how long was a person supposed to be on suicide watch? Especially when the person showed no signs of recovery. Emma just . . . acted like she was biding her time, ever since the Tsukimono's thwarted her last attempt--biding her time for something. Something drastic. Another attempt, perhaps.

There was no way someone like that could be allowed to go home. As much as Mayako wanted to see Emma go home and start rebuilding her life, it just wasn't an option. Not yet.

Fenix frowned for a moment; he hadn't intended to suggest that Emma should be released, just that sitting in the same room all day probably wasn't going to change her mind about anything. If they could supervise her and bring her outside, perhaps...but for all he knew they already tried that and it didn't work.

"He's a doctor. He probably knows best," he pointed out. The Tsukimonos seemed competent enough to him; he didn't think they were making any kind of grave oversights with Emma.

While he noticed that Mayako was leaning on him, it didn't bother him, nor did he think much of it. His mind, too, was occupied with other things.

"Mhmm . . ." Mayako agreed with a nod.

It was just that . . . monitoring Emma outside would have been too troublesome. Inside, they only needed one person to watch over her. Outside, they'd need much more than that. The clinic was a confined space, she could be cornered if she tried to run--which was a distinct fear of theirs. Someone who wanted to die badly enough might run for it, go some place alone, and succeed in taking her own life.

They didn't really have the staff for it--not after The Law's final rampage. It was just the three of them, the Tsukimonos and Mayako. Mayako tried to act the part of a nurse, and kept herself busy that way, while the two certified doctors did the real weighty work.

There was a long silence.

"Um, um . . . I-I'm sorry," Mayako tried to sound cheery--to maybe to the truth around to something humorous. Something, maybe, that wasn't so painfully serious and genuinely depressing. That never worked out for her, though. "You came up h-here to relax a-and I just went on about all th-this . . . stuff."

It bothered her, though--and really, she didn't have anyone to talk to it about. Sure, there were the Tsukimonos, but they were so close to the situation that they just . . . could only help so much. It was depressing.

"It's fine. I wanted to know what happened while I was out anyway." In a way, he felt like he was getting the second half of the story. Mayako couldn't remember some of what went on, and he'd gotten Emma to fill him in. Emma wouldn't talk about other issues, and now Mayako was telling him.

"Besides, I have plenty of time to relax." He was in bed most of the day, after all, and while he did regularly do the exercises to get his strength back, he still spent most of his time laying down.

It did cause him to realize, though, that Mayako had been taking care of him every day since he woke up. While she did seem to be staying at the clinic, he would think she'd have a day off, or would at least spend some time on break or something each day. He figured she did, at first--after all, she wasn't with him constantly--but he was getting the impression she spent all day in the clinic, busy, and did little or nothing else.

"I think you need to relax more than I do," he observed.

Mayako tried to smile more as she looked up at Fenix and shook her head.

"Not . . . not really," the more she tried to smile, too, the more it worked. It was a skill that required a lot of practice, and she'd gotten all the practiced she needed in her life. "I-I like working as much as I do. It's not like . . ."

All the books she used to love to read were about religion, psychology, philosophy, action, romances, and adventures. Right now, that wasn't what she wanted read. It was all too close to home; all too close to what she didn't want to deal with right now. Or anymore, perhaps.

What else would she have done? Lay around and think about their little side of the world?

"It's not l-like I have anything else to do, you know?"

Fenix hesitated, confused by her response. That way of thinking was entirely foreign to him, another aspect of life that he didn't understand due to his bizarre upbringing. The only responsibilities he had were those the took upon himself; the only things he had to do were those that he chose to.

Well, what do you want to do?

Before he could voice the thought, though, something interrupted. "Oi, lovely day, innit?" an accented voice said casually, stepping out into view and startling Fenix. He hadn't even noticed that someone was climbing the hill, and here he was already up there.

The man loomed over them only by virtue of being the only one standing--he was a few inches shorter than average for a man, meaning Fenix would have dwarfed him. Slick black hair was cut short enough that it stood straight out, accompanied by a thin goatee on his chin. He held himself more like a young man, but the lines on his face suggested he was at least thirty.

As he looked down at the two teenagers with sharp red eyes, surprise crossed his face. "Whoops, I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" he asked as though that was genuinely his biggest concern. Though, it wasn't too hard to guess why he might get that impression--without noticing or meaning to, Fenix and Mayako had gotten quite close, looking less like a nurse and patient and more like a young couple.