Extra To Protagonist-Chapter 79: Healing (5)

He did not know how long he sat there.

The walls never changed. The lights didn't dim or brighten. Time in the old training room passed like a heartbeat suspended underwater — slow, muffled, uncertain. It was the kind of space that existed between hours.

Merlin leaned forward eventually, elbows braced against his knees, fingers still curled slightly like they were gripping a blade that was no longer there.

His breath was steady. Too steady. It felt wrong. Like the body was trying to convince him it could go on when everything inside had already fractured.

He flexed his fingers.

Then again.

Still trembling.

Not from exhaustion anymore.

From something else.

"A week ago I was using lightning. Shaping wind. Using space like a pressure machine. Now I have to count every breath, pace every movement, because I can't afford to burn out. This isn't weakness. This is what's left after the strength is gone."

His eyes opened, unfocused.

The ceiling above him was just stone.

Not a divine trial. Not a curse. Just a room with bad lighting and a cracked tile near the left support beam.

He looked at the cracks for a long time.

They didn't mean anything.

But they were real.

His hand drifted toward the scar at his side — the place where the rift had split through him. It had been closed. Cauterized. Repaired by hands not his own. But beneath the skin, something still howled.

Not pain.

Not anymore.

Just emptiness.

"I'm not afraid of dying. I never was. But living like this… powerless, after everything I've built, after everything I remember, that's the part I don't know how to swallow. It tastes like failure. It tastes like watching someone else wear your name."

He tilted his head back again. Let it rest against the wall.

His throat felt dry. Not from thirst. From disuse.

There was no one to speak to.

And he had no words left anyway.

He didn't close his eyes.

He didn't sleep.

He just breathed.

Let the silence press down on him like water in a trench.

Let it crush every trace of the boy he had been.

And made room for whatever came next.

Something small moved in the rafters. Maybe a rodent. Maybe not. He didn't look up.

If it was danger, it would show itself. freewebnøvel.coɱ

If it wasn't, it didn't matter.

Time passed like ash in wind.

No one came.

No voice called for him from the hallway. No footsteps echoed down the corridor. No instructor interrupted him with a lecture on proper rest.

He had vanished.

And for now — he preferred it that way.

"I'll come out of this stronger. Or not at all."

The room was cold.

But he stayed.

Alone.

Still.

Waiting.

Not for help.

But for the moment he could stand again without shaking.

—

He didn't remember standing.

One moment he was seated on the cold stone, shoulder pressed to the wall, breath low. The next, he was upright. His balance was off. His knees stiff. Something in his right ankle clicked when he moved.

But he moved.

The training hall lights buzzed faintly overhead, dust caught in the beams. The floor was marked with scuffs and divots, evidence of a hundred past spars. Faint burns. Cracks. Dents.

He stepped to the center. Slowly. Deliberately.

The center was always the best place to fall.

'If I collapse again, at least I won't break anything important.'

He exhaled through his nose and reached for the pulse inside his chest.

Nothing.

He tried again.

Still nothing.

No wind. No lightning. No space. Just silence.

His hand curled slowly into a fist.

'Then we go from the beginning.'

He shifted his stance.

Footwork first. A simple line. Step, plant, pivot.

Again.

Step, plant, pivot.

His balance was wrong.

The ankle clicked again. His center of gravity leaned too far forward. His hip caught slightly in the twist.

'Shit. I'm slower than I thought. Coordination is gone. And without mana reinforcement, every mistake actually matters.'

He tried again.

Again.

And again.

He lost count after thirty.

The ache in his ribs returned, dull and constant. The pull in his shoulder flared with each turn. Sweat gathered beneath his collar, sticking the fabric to his spine.

Still, he moved.

'Forget the affinities. Forget the core. Just the body. Rebuild that. One brick at a time.'

He took the stance again.

This time he added a strike.

A simple thrust.

No blade.

Just the motion.

It pulled too hard on the upper back. His wrist bent wrong. Elbow lagged. All wrong.

He stopped.

Reset.

Again.

And again.

The breathing helped. Even pace. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. That part he remembered. That part he could control.

He tried the full sequence. Forward, strike, twist, reset.

It felt like dragging himself through tar.

But it moved.

His body obeyed.

'Not much. But it's something.'

The echoes of his steps filled the empty space. Hollow. Slow. Steady.

He didn't imagine applause.

He didn't dream of victory.

He didn't pretend this was noble.

It was just movement.

Repetition.

Grinding out failure until there was nothing left but function.

That was what recovery meant.

Not healing.

Just motion in the absence of collapse.

His hand tightened.

Again.

Forward.

Strike.

Reset.

He kept going.

Not because it helped.

But because stopping would mean listening.

And silence was heavier than any blade.

—

She found him on his twenty-seventh failed form.

Merlin didn't hear her enter. The training room doors were old, heavier than the rest, and they didn't creak. No warning. Just the low hush of boots across polished tile, then silence behind him.

He didn't turn.

Not until her voice came, low and measured.

"You're supposed to be resting."

Merlin straightened out of the stance slowly. His shoulders rolled back with the kind of weariness that didn't come from exertion but from futility.

He looked over his shoulder.

Seraphina stood in full uniform, arms folded behind her back, silver eyes unreadable. Her presence was quiet. Cold. Not unkind.

He turned fully, sweat clinging to his collarbone. His breath wasn't ragged, but it was shallow.

"I'm not good at resting," he said.

She said nothing. Her gaze moved to his feet, then to his stance. She noted the tremble in his right hand. The unresponsive left. The way his weight tilted slightly off center.

"You're forcing it," she said.

"I know."

"Why?"

He wiped his wrist across his brow. The sweat didn't smear. It clung.

"Because I don't want to be useless."

That gave her pause.

A long one.

Seraphina stepped further into the room, her boots echoing soft against the floor. She stopped a few paces away, leaving just enough distance to give him room, but close enough to see the way his hands shook when he lowered them.

"I heard from Vivienne," she said. "You're still cut off."

Merlin didn't respond.

"Not temporary," she added, more quietly.

Still nothing.

"You're trying to move like before," she said. "Like you haven't lost anything."

His jaw flexed.

"…Have you come here to lecture me?"

"No." Her voice didn't change. "I came because I thought you might need help. Not a healer. Not a teacher. Just someone to stand nearby while you fall apart."

Merlin looked at her sharply.

Her expression didn't flinch.

'No pity. Just facts. She's always like this.'

He turned away, picked up the rapier that had been resting against the wall.

His hand barely held it. No lightning curled around the blade. No wind steadied the grip. Just steel. Cold. Unforgiving.

He faced the center again.

Took a breath.

Seraphina watched him from the edge of the room, her arms still folded, her presence like a statue of frost.

He moved.

Step, plant, pivot.

His ankle clicked again.

But this time, when he thrust, the blade hit true.

It wasn't fast.

It wasn't sharp.

But it was stable.

Seraphina exhaled once through her nose.

Then she crossed the room and picked up a long practice staff from the rack. She turned it in her hands once, testing the weight.

"I'll spar with you," she said.

Merlin blinked.

"I thought you came to help me fall apart."

"I did." She moved into position, feet set, staff low. "And now I'm helping you put it back together."

He stared at her for a long second.

Then raised Keryx.

No mana.

Just breath and bone and repetition.

And the quiet sound of two broken people refusing to stay down.

—

The first blow wasn't a blow at all.

Just a step.

A shuffle of boots on the polished floor. A twitch of fabric. The breath that comes before movement.

Merlin moved first.

His left leg slid forward. The blade dipped low, not for a strike, but to bait one. A test. He was watching her shoulders, her weight, the tension in her grip.

Seraphina didn't fall for it.

She turned with a precision only years of drilled repetition could breed. Her staff snapped up and caught his guard, not enough to knock the blade aside, but enough to redirect the angle of his wrist.

The next move was hers.

A thrust. Center mass.

Merlin stepped off-line.

Just barely. Just enough. The butt of the staff skimmed past his ribs and rattled the edge of his coat.

'Too slow.'

He pivoted.

The heel of his foot ground against the stone as he spun, blade arcing upward for her side.

She dropped. No sound. Just a single motion, and her legs swept the floor under him.

Merlin's balance crumpled. The ground slapped his spine before he could catch himself.

He didn't stay down.

His breath hitched. His chest was burning. His body was telling him no, not yet, not again, not now.

But he moved anyway.

He rolled to his knees.

He stood.

Seraphina didn't help.

She didn't offer a hand. Didn't speak. Just waited with her staff lowered.

'That's fine.'

He raised the rapier again.

His wrist ached. There was no mana stabilizing the tremble. His muscles were still pulling tight in strange places from the corrupted mana. But he kept moving.

Again.

Lunge.

Counter.

Block.

Fall.

Repeat.

Each motion was jagged. Not fluid. Not what he remembered.

He missed the breath that used to come with lightning. The weightless steps wind used to give him. The sharp control of space folding behind each thrust.

Now there was only the drag of feet and the slap of skin on stone when he fell.

But Seraphina never mocked.

She struck when she should.

Paused when she needed.

Every time he slipped, she gave him just enough room to try again.

And again.

And again.

Until finally—

He stopped.

His legs shook beneath him. The sword dipped in his grip. His back felt like stone had replaced every muscle along the spine.

Seraphina stood across from him, still in perfect stance. But her gaze softened.

"That's enough," she said.

Merlin didn't argue.

He let Keryx fall to the floor with a quiet clatter and collapsed onto the mat beside it. Sweat soaked the back of his shirt. His breath came in short, sharp pulls.

She knelt beside him.

Said nothing.

Just sat there in silence.

Minutes passed.

Merlin didn't move.

He wasn't crying.

But it felt close. That cracked, raw edge just under the ribs. The place grief builds when no one's watching.

He stared at the ceiling.

The flickering overhead light. The stone. The silence.

'Why do I feel like I'm grieving my own body?'

Seraphina's voice was calm. Even.

"You fought harder today than most students do in a year."

He didn't answer.

"You're going to recover," she said. "Whether you believe it or not."

He looked at her. Slowly. Carefully.

"…And if I don't?"

She met his eyes.

"Then we make a new version of you."

Her tone wasn't cruel.

It was sure.

Like there was no other possibility.

He breathed in..and out.

And nodded.

Once.

No more words were needed.

He was broken.

But not abandoned.

Not this time.

Not entirely.