The scent of metal returned in her breath as she struggled to breathe. Her former cold persona quickly melted away as she crumbled onto the ground.
"Master!" Xiao Li and and Ying Hui both rushed out of her ring and took out small armfuls of the purple pills in their tiny arms.
Ying Hui quickly stuffed one into her mouth one by one till four pills had been used as she cried out tearfully, "Hurry, Lotus! You have to eat these pills! Hurry!"
The bitterness of the medicine helped melt away the horrid metal taste in her mouth as her fluttering eyelids slowly opened fully once again.
"Ying Hui... Xiao Li..."
"Master!"
Eyes glistening with incoming tears, the two breathed a sigh of relief seeing that the girl had finally regained her consciousness.
"Geez! Do you know how scared we were thinking that we'd lost a master again?!" Ying Hui scolded her with eyes full of tears, "Don't do that again!"
"S-Sorry, sorry." Lotus wore a weary smile as she muttered painfully, "I got mad and ended up using so much spiritual energy again..."
"It's all right." Xiao Li responded quickly, "No one can fault you for using your spiritual energy the way you did. It's all right as long as you are okay."
The pain in her chest had finally subsided enough for her to move around again. Lotus turned to the hallway and could feel the pill taking effect. However, another pain quickly followed as she crumbled onto the ground clutching her stomach! She cursed under her breath and grimaced in pain as even her head pounded. She had taken too many pills in one sitting!
"Lotus!"
Ying Hui and Xiao Li shouted in horror as they saw her cough up blood.
"Shoot! We fed her too many pills!" Xiao Li cried out in terror as he realized what they had done, "Her body can't take the heat of the pills all at once!"
"Oh no! Oh no!" Ying Hui grasped her head in horror as tears fell onto the ground, "She's too weak right now! She'll burn from the inside out! She's going to die!"
Feeling the heat of in her stomach continue to grow painfully, she could feel her consciousness wander in and out as she struggled to grasp a hold of herself. She's really going to die again if she can't survive this ordeal!
However, against her efforts, everything around her quickly grew dark as she collapsed onto the ground. She could sense the growing panic from the others as her surroundings slowly closed around her.
As the heat and cold clashed inside her, Lotus can barely contain the impact of the clash from harming her internally as the pain in her abdomen only grew worse. As if seizing the chance, she could feel the light and dark attribute start to clash against one another inside her body. As the pain resonated inside her body.
"Brother, what do we do?!" Ying Hui cried in horror as she could hardly believe it herself, "We basically took the life of our own master with our own hands!!! I can feel his life slipping away!"
"Wait!" Xiao Li hushed with a look of confusion as he stared at Lotus in confusion, "Something is going on inside master..."
Ying Hui whispered nervously, "But master has had two different sets of opposing spiritual energy clashing against one another. He purposely increased and practiced his fire spiritual energy to fight off the cold element of the poison all these years... And he also has to deal with the light and dark energies-! Is that... her fire element?"
The two froze as they could feel her spiritual energy amass in large amounts and surround her. Seeing this, Ying Hui's eyes lit up as she shook her brother's shoulder, "A-li! A-Li! He's coming back to life! What's going on? Will she be all right after she wakes up?!"
"Would you give me a break and let me think?!" Xiao Li pushed away from her and grumbled in dismay as he watches their master slowly revive to life.
The strange feeling of warmth surrounded her growing warmer and warmer. Finally, the first thing she felt as soon as she woke up was a piercing pain in her dantian as she struggled to place a barrier between the two sides. By the time she can finally stop the clash between the two elements, she finally opened her eyes again. However, instead of the cold hallway. She found herself aflame in horror!
However, she bit back a scream and struggled to think things sensibly as she could feel that something was amiss.
"It's not hot... or painful..." She muttered in bewilderment.
Aside from wanting to roll around in the open space to, she could feel the familiar air around her as she looked about curiously. She narrowed her eyes, "I'm inside the soul..."
She gasped in horror as she realized where she was in frustration, "Damnit! I'm in that ugly monster's soul already?! Grrr!"
She scowled bitterly in disdain and stomped her bare foot causing ripples as she exclaimed angrily, "He better pay me back in full for this later! Harming Yuu and all that... With me here, I've already made it up to him. Harming Yuu and the others is not a part of the bill! I will absolutely not forgive that! You hear me?!"
"Dad, listen to this! I made it through an audition. I'll be in the next school musical production!"
Hearing the voice of a child, she looked around hurried in surprise before she came upon the black and white scene of a bright and pretty living room decorated with a sense of warmth to it.
"Congrats, Vil! What role did you get?" The black shadow of an adult congratulated the small blond child before her with a bright smile.
"Vil?" Lotus noted curiously.
"Of course I got the main…character's rival. I'm going to the evil villain, like I usually am." The child said dejectedly by the end.
The father patted his shoulder with a bright smile, "That director must have outstanding casting sense to cast the cutest kid in the world as the villain."
"The last play I was in, I was cast as the main character's bully too. I wonder why I'm always cast as the bad guy." The little boy muttered in disappointment, "Do I look like I'm going to bully someone?"
"Not at all. But it might be because you are an especially beautiful and wonderful kid." His dad responded readily, "The villain's role is an essential one to get any story moving and make it dramatic."
"There are times when villain casting is even more particular than the lead. So put your all into your performance." He continued and patted the child's shoulder.
"Ok, I got it, Dad." The child responded dejectedly.
"But…the villains never stay on the stage all the way until the end."
Hearing Vil's voice, Lotus turned aorund to find Vil standing before the scene a little far off to the side.
"Once they've played their part all that's left is for them is to watch the happy ending unfold from the shadows." Vil continued with a quiet frown, "I…want to be on stage longer than anyone else."
"Is that so?" Lotus hummed quietly as she noticed the scene before her changed and that Vil had gone missing.
The scene before her was a familiar one. It was one of the streets she had taken a liking to when she was younger. Four years after she had been adopted, she had just arrived in the Land of Pyroxene at that time and had gotten lost when a former worker of the orphanage noticed her and had tried to kidnap her. However, with her caretaker and the surrounding people around, she was saved and looked after by the people on the streets for the remainder of her stay.
"Ah, look at that guy! That's the guy who was picking on the hero in the drama yesterday." The shadow of an unfamiliar child pointed at the other from a distance.
"He sure pulled out all the stops on the bullying. He's got the worst personality." The child next to him responded
"Seeing him up close, he looks really delicate and weak. Let's get some payback for the hero." The third decided firmly.
Seeing this, Lotus raised a brow and frowned, "These children want to play knights for others when they can't even protect themselves... I wonder if this is one of the reasons why Vil took on boxing lessons. No. Kickboxing was not the only thing he learned. He was fast for just boxing, he must've also learnt martial arts. This world also has karate and taekwando."
"Heeeeeeeeey youuuuu!" A boy with wolf ears suddenly appeared shouting at them, "Hey jerks! Knock it off with ganging up on someone to bully them!"
"Huh?" Lotus raised a brow, "This manner of speech..."
"Wah, it's Jack! Let's high-tail it outta here!" One of the children cried out in fear and ran off with his friends into the alley.
"Jack, huh..." Lotus frowned, "So, they know either other before..."
"You just moved here, right? Are you okay?" Jack looked back to Vil's child form that had remained quiet and still for a while.
"I happen to be taking boxing and fencing classes. I would've been able to take them just fine even without you." Vil responded with a huff.
"O-Oh really? Sorry for butting in." The child responded with his ears lowered back guiltily.