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The window pane shattered as Sinclair drove his sword through it, kicking away the loose shards to open a passage big enough for escape.
“This is enough,” Yi Sang said. “Go through.”
Sinclair bowed down—
A chunk of metal — not shot from a gun, but thrown at him by a human — screamed as it flew through the air; Sinclair deflected it with a swing and readied his sword to deflect potential further assaults. It never came.
Sinclair looked back at Yi Sang; on his back, Outis was draped over like an inert sack, immobile and, hopefully, not dead yet.
“She said there is a safehouse not so far away from here,” Yi Sang said, climbing through the window. “Hurry up. She is dripping away with every second.”
“Where is the safehouse?”
“Forward, for now,” Yi Sang said.
The trio proceeded down the moonlit street; someone screamed in the distance. One of theirs, Sinclair hoped. For now, the fighting was elsewhere. Faust was covering their escape; with her intuition bordering on prescience, all of the activities of Blade Lineage in this region came to fruition.
This was an exception.
“Is she going to make it?”
“If we hurry.” Yi Sang leaned onto a door handle; the door yielded. “We are fortunate that nobody lives here anymore. All the changes…”
Sinclair followed his senior inside; the room was dusty and unused, the bedframe missed a mattress and half of its planks.
“Is this—”
“Not yet.” Yi Sang knelt down and let Outis’ body slide down from his shoulder. “Help me move it.”
Together, they lifted the steel construction and dropped it at the far end of the room. Yi Sang turned around and knelt down again, reaching into a hole in the floor before yanking something out — a trapdoor followed.
“Down,” he said, motioning towards a rope ladder.
The saferoom looked cleaner, but, otherwise, little different from the rest of the building: as far as Sinclair could tell, nobody has been here for months. A stack of futons, several drawers and lockers for supplies, a singular lamp — nothing unusual.
“Faust said I would have to assist her,” Yi Sang said, crossing the room to reach into one of the drawers for what looked like an Enkephalin battery. “You should take care of Outis, and it would not do for our enemies to discover you easily. Therefore, I believe I am to seal you here.”
“Are you even planning to come back?”
“If I don't, our Mentor will.” Yi Sang flicked the lamp on. “Please stitch Outis’ wounds before she bleeds out.” He grabbed a rung of the ladder and started climbing. “I know you have experience with that.”
Sinclair took a deep breath.
Outis didn't respond to the application of rubbing alcohol to the gruesome, lengthy slash running across her body, but her moving chest and a still-pulsing vein informed Sinclair that, at least, she was alive, and the blood slowly leaking from her body had no intention to hasten its pace.
This couldn't feel easy to him, no matter how much it happened.
He brought down the needle, stabbing it through the edge of the wound, and drove it through another edge; then, with well-rehearsed motions and trembling hands, repeated the process six, ten, fourteen times. A merry black thread ran down the slit of the wound, bringing bloodied flesh together.
He swallowed the images of what it’d be like to drive it further apart, cut off the thread, and reached for another suture to continue his grisly work. Despite all of this, Outis still didn't react; she lay unconscious, unwilling, unjudging.
He heard screams and angry yelps above his head, and concentrated on the third slit, trying to not pay attention to the people who, according to their mentions of the Thumb, must have been Kurokumo Clan members. From what he could make out—
At least the ones he bothered to talk to were safe, or maybe the Wakashus just didn't bother to mention them. None of them was interested in investigating the room any closer, or mention the apparent renovations — but if they did, they’d find the entrance to the saferoom very fast, even in the night’s darkness.
Sinclair reached for his blade, took a deep breath — and let go. He returned his attention to the fourth and final bloody wound running across his teacher’s body.
He shoved the robe aside and ran his fingers across the tattoo below. It resembled the Kurokumo clouds — but, unlike the members of the Clan, Outis never made it block the blows of her enemies.
She was a double agent, that he did know, but whose side was she truly on? Was she reluctant to use it to hide her allegiance, or was the reluctance the actual mark of it?
He would have plenty of time to ask these questions when she would wake up, and right now, it didn't matter. She bled for the Blade Lineage, and that was all that mattered.
He heard someone yank the opening to the saferoom, and dropped the tools to reach for his sword. This would have to be his last stand, if it called for that, and something in him relished in the fear of dying, craved for blood, his own and his enemies, for something to make it feel like he mattered—
The member of the Kurokumo Clan who opened the trapdoor fell down, the body splitting in two as it hit the ground with a disgusting crunch. A flurry of steel clashed above his head; he grabbed at the ladder and started climbing up.
The last Wakashu hit the floor just as Sinclair’s head peeked out of the hole; almost immediately, he felt a blade resting on his shoulder.
“She is down there,” he forced the words out of himself, looking in the eyes of his Mentor. “I stitched her up.”
“Good,” Meursault said, sheathing his sword. “We will depart as soon as she can walk. Was anyone else harmed?”
Sinclair shook his head.
“You did well enough.”