Outside:
All was peaceful on this lonely night. It was quiet; no birds chirped nor insects called; there was only the slight rustle of the wind and crackling of the fire.
Yet, at this very moment, in this infinitesimally small period within the vastness of time, something changed. Time is what allows change, what constitutes change, what creates the ability to do work, and what moves forwards. In other words:
What the fuck—oops, I'll try that again. Who the fuck is messing around at this time of night!?
Indeed, for the light of Ran's accomplishment cannot be smothered, especially by a flimsy tent made of cloth. Yeah, basically, to reword it for like the third time, Ran's breakthrough into rank-6 woke everyone up and they all gathered outside, looking for their potential enemy.
Only, when they felt the familiarity of the waves, as well as their origin, their tired eyes almost went bloodshot. Man, they're all trying to get a good night's sleep and this one over here was too busy nonchalantly breaking through.
They opened his tent, intending to give him a good whooping for interrupting their sleep, but their eyes instantly cleared up when they saw what was inside.
All three of them quickly cramped together as they held the unconscious Ran in their arms, the same one who had blood leaking from his mouth like a baby leaking saliva. They cleaned up the scene, removing all the blood from Ran, the sleeping blanket, and even from Fluffy who he had been sleeping on.
They examined his condition, but the only clue they got was from the slightly unstable waves that were quickly receding.
"Mental disturbance?"
They didn't have much to go on, but they could come up with this explanation, and it was pretty much it.
It could be said that when Ran practiced his skill, the sudden introduction of ranking up created a disturbance. The two differing mental states collided with each other and essentially fought; hence the physical backlash.
As for why he went unconscious, that could chalked up to the imperfectness of the practicing skill. It simply amplified what had already happened, leading to an even bigger collision, making Ran go bedtime.
This was one scenario of a mental disturbance, but it was the only one. But, all this was simple enough to understand, except the three no longer knew what to do. They could only hope he would wake come morning.
Ann wanted to heal his body as it still leaked blood here and there, at least, she wanted to. So, she did what she always does and used her fetal organ to quickly heal Ran's body.
That was until…
"Shit!"
Indeed. Only then did Ann's face take a shade of purple. As expected, her fight against Kingsley had completely sapped her fetal organs storage.
Currently it was only as big as a watermelon seed and she had been feeding constantly since the fight. Yet, it only grew by only a millimeter or so—it would be weeks at least to get anywhere near it's previous quantity. And this right here was what she meant when she said that using that skill would leave her weakened. Right now, she is no more powerful than many other experienced rank-5s.
Of course the biggest card the youth serum has was, as suggested by its namesake, it's superb healing ability. If used continuously, it would remove or mask blemishes… scars, and would keep one looking youthful for as long as they were alive.
In reality though, this was the first time she had used it in a life-threatening battle where she could not hold back, so it still came as a surprise just how much had been used. Thus, looking at the somewhat pale-looking Ran, she almost regretted using so much before.
Of course however, this was not the end. Before leaving, they had prepared some supplies, and some healing elixirs. Taking one out, she realized that it was only rank-7, which had been prepared for him for whatever reason, but now that he was rank-6 it wouldn't be as effective.
They didn't have rank-6 ones and neither did they have rank-5 ones, though those would only kill him as they were too powerful. Not to mention they didn't have them because a certain someone was too prideful to get them—that person, however, was currently regretting it.
And so, Ann could only silently endure as she put the elixir on Ran's forehead, it's suction mouth firmly sticking onto his skin. She then flicked at the flask's neck, where inside was a thin film of glass that stopped the fluid inside from leaking. Flicking the neck caused it to vibrate at just the right frequency that the little film inside shattered, allowing the concoction to flow directly into his forehead.
Once it was completely inside, she removed the flask, which left a little red ring around where it's mouth had been. She swiped the little fragments off his forehead and set him aside, trying to put him back into a comfortable position to sleep in.
Then, as if it took a ton of effort to do, she wiped the "sweat" off her head, before plopping down on her bum, exhaling dramatically.
The rest too let out sighs of relief seeing he was fine and he no longer leaked blood from his mouth.
Of course, this didn't last very long.
Just as sleep was settling them in and their eyes slowly closed, an almost ear-piercing yowl startled them awake to the point they accidentally kicked each other's shins.
They saw Fluffy keeling over as she clutched her head, her non retractable claws digging into her skin and drawing blood. Worse yet, as everyone watched, the pinkish scar on her forehead began glowing a dangerous reddish-pink.
It glowed brighter and brighter as her expression grew more and more painful until finally, her eyes abruptly glazed over.
Crack.
The sound of something cracking reverberated alongside everyone's ears, and they knew exactly what it meant. Indeed, another set of waves of consciousness swept over everyone from Fluffy's location.
"Dual breakthrough…" The trio looked at each other, shocked at the current events. This was simply unheard of. Or rather, not the two of them happening within a few dozen seconds of each other, but the connection that they seemingly had with each other. Multiple breakthroughs aren't uncommon, like during a big battle, but they occured like this.
They simply couldn't fathom a mechanism that could reasonably apply to this situation, unless they were both close initially and one jump started the other. However, Fluffy was nowhere close to breaking through beforehand! So the question remained; how? Of course, if you know me, then you would know the answer would be quite simple really—not explaining though.
Now, silence ruled over the tent as the waves quickly receded after their moment of freedom. Seeing the waves quiet down and the pain leave Fluffy's face as she began to sleep soundly again, only then did they dare to exhale, afraid of another accident happening.
Yet, now that everything had returned to it's originally peaceful nature, the lack of sleep suddenly hit them twice as hard, directly relinquishing their rights to stay awake any longer.
At the moment, there were now four such people sleeping on top of one another, occasionally snuggling with a leg or thigh. Only one remained awake.
He stealthily crawled out from underneath them and exited the tent. He looked back at them, disdain no longer hid and emerged in his green eyes.
He shook his head as he sat on the cold hard log of wood, staring at the lowly flames. How could they sleep together so… innocently like that? He could not figure it out.
What if an enemy came and bombed them with an AoE attack, directly consuming and turning them into soup? Wouldn't it be better to split up, so at least one can survive?
Beyond that, someone had to stay and be on the lookout.
Now, as you may know, this was all complete and utter horse shit! Nay, that would be a disrespect to horses.
He was merely drawing excuses for himself, to make himself feel better.
After all, there were three women in there; how could he sleep with them!? Shit, there would be four if you squint hard enough at Ran with his abso-fuckin-lutely fabulous hair.
Plus, he felt uncomfortable with their warmth piling on him.
He was just humble and preferred the cold warmth of this flame right here.