ohko

Chapter 7 Summary: Kotori realized at the last minute that she was able to heal the Demon Lord's wounds with her touch, although the effects were slightly delayed. She threw herself at his headless corpse to begin healing any remaining major injuries. Unaware of her plan, the Hero pulled her away to begin sexually assaulting her. Somehow, Kotori managed to confuse/distract the Hero by unexpectedly becoming willing participant in the sex scene. She ended up saving herself from blatant rape by giving the Hero a hand job. Out of nowhere, the Demon Lord's headless corpse suddenly stabbed Kotori through the back in order to deliver a mortal blow to the Hero. With his heart ripped out, the Hero teleported away screaming, while Kotori collapsed to the ground with a hole in her chest. The Demon Lord's corpse also fell to the ground motionless.

Kotori gasped for air like a dying fish.

It hurt so badly. She squeezed her eyes together tightly as she clenched her arms to her chest. In all three decades of her life on Earth, Kotori had never injured herself badly enough to be hospitalized. She had never even broken a bone. Suddenly having a gaping hole in her lungs was nothing close to anything she had ever experienced before.

She coughed more blood as she knelt on the ground.

She wondered if she was going to die.

Kotori had no idea if her homunculus body shared any similarities with human anatomy. Given the volume of blood that came up through her trachea, Kotori could only assume that something like a pulmonary artery was ruptured. The human lung was inflated by negative pressure in the pleural space. Similar to a balloon, any puncture wound through the chest wall caused the lung to collapse. In medical terms, this condition was called pneumothorax. The blood pooling in her lungs, or hemothorax, basically made it so she was drowning her own blood.

Her head felt faint. 

She could feel her pulse racing, which was irregular and chaotic. Right now, she could only take short shallow gasps of air.

For someone who was supposed to be an undead homunculus, Kotori felt that her injury was distressingly realistic. In fact, it made zero sense. The Demon Lord managed just fine with far worse injuries than her own, and he had even walked around headless. The Hero, on the other hand, apparently managed to teleport away after his heart had been ripped out of him. Under conventional logic, those two were the ones who were the real zombies.

They were such cheats, it was unfair. The logic of this universe was clearly broken.

Kotori curled up into the fetal position, suffering still.

She wonder if the Demon Lord had hesitated at all before he skewered her through.

Probably not. 

He didn't have a reason to.

Kotori knew that she was disposable, and the Demon Lord himself had stated that he was going to use her like a tool. She had been naive to think that he would treat her any differently. All great chess players knew when to sacrifice their pawns to advance their plans, but this was precisely why Kotori hated chess. Growing up, she had always hated the idea of sacrificing her pieces. It was impossible to win a chess game without losing the people who were important to you.

She hated this fact so much.

She closed her eyes.

+ + +

She didn't die.

Kotori spent five or ten melodramatic minutes thinking that it was the end before she eventually touched her chest and realized the puncture wound had partially sealed. The external bleeding had reduced dramatically. Her flesh had started to close the wound, although it steadily oozed ominous black pus.

It still hurt like heck though.

The sheep girl struggled to her knees, still coughing up residual blood in her lungs. Apparently, most of the internal injuries were still there, and the injury site rapidly turned an angry purple color even if she moved a little. Regardless, it was evident that this probably the same healing ability that she had unwittingly used with the Demon Lord, although for some reason it didn't seem to be working as well for her.

Kotori didn't fully understand it, but at least she wasn't dead yet.

Concerningly, the dripping black stuff around her wound also seemed to be steadily spreading. It was acidic, pungent, and burned wherever it dripped. Kotori had a sinking suspicion that it was some kind of curse or poison. The Demon Lord hadn't held back while fighting the Hero, and whatever nasty tricks he had prepared for the human also affected her own body as collateral damage.

Kotori felt dizzy. As the time passed, the sharp pain over her chest had gradually gotten more diffuse, to the point that she felt it seep into almost all her muscles and bones. Kotori realized by this point that the Demon Lord was the only person she could turn to for help. If she truly was poisoned, in all likelihood the man also kept the antidote.

She spent another five minutes trying to catch her breath and wincing every time she moved. Eventually, she found the resolve to start dragging herself to the place where the Demon Lord had fallen. Even so, she needed to stop every few inches to wheeze and curl over from the stabbing pleuritic pain. 

Ultimately, she found herself kneeling beside the motionless decapitated body.

Demon Lord Mephistos looked very dead. He wasn't breathing, and his skin looked clammy and pale. Although his major wounds were sealed, there was no sign of life in the corpse.

Hesitantly, Kotori lifted her bloody hand and touched him again.

Again, there was the fiery sensation in her fingertips, but she was expecting it this time. The sheep girl did not pull away, and she stayed there waiting as she watched for any changes in Mephistos's body.

At first, there was nothing. 

But then a few minutes passed, and the headless corpse began to twitch faintly at its fingertips. The chest began to rise and fall, as if it was suddenly capable of breathing. Kotori also felt a pulse, as the Demon Lord's circulation also began to pump throughout his veins and arteries. The dead body was alive again, although it didn't seem to want to move very much.

She stopped touching him.

The corpse continued breathing for a couple minutes. However, it eventually went completely still, as if it had run out of juice.

It was actually morbidly fascinating.

Kotori briefly experimented with touching the dead body several times, and eventually she convinced herself that she seemed to basically operate as some kind of battery. However, the decapitated body wasn't really alive, and the lower half of the Demon Lord's body was only a mindless shell of the man's former self.

The sheep girl suddenly had a violent coughing fit. She looked down at her chest, and saw that the black ooze was rapidly spreading. Seeing this, she was almost certain about the poison. Time seemed to be trickling away faster than she expected. Kotori was beginning to feel light-headed. She felt feverish and damp all over, and she struggled to think clearly. Everything seemed to hurt. 

Kotori scanned around the room, and spotted Mephistos's head on the ground a little further away.

A ridiculous thought crossed her head... 

Wincing, she staggered across the room and recovered the body part.

She brought it back to the body and lined it up on the Demon Lord's neck...

...There was no way it could possibly be this simple...?

Her consciousness was slipping away from her. Kotori felt like she was burning up. The girl coughed violently and pulled the Demon Lord onto her lap. She was probably mostly half-delirious and acting feverishly, but she wanted him there right now. It simply felt nice to feel his skin up against hers. The sensation was cozy, welcoming, and sublime. Kotori exhaled with a sigh.

It was almost instinctual, as if this was the place she was always meant to be.

Oddly, she didn't feel pain anymore.

∎

ohko

So any of you familiar with my regular writing schedule might find it strange that this chapter is coming at an odd time. :sweats: ...Yeah, I wanted to finish this so I can spend my Wednesday preparing for my presentation. It's 1:30 AM for me right now, and I hope I haven't completely messed this chapter up because I'm tired. >.< I hope the ending isn't too disappointing. If it's bad I may end up re-writing pieces of it...