Ryu took a breath, his body entering a state of focus. It was incredibly hard to do so when he knew quite well that there were a whole host of people rushing toward him, though. Even so, the first thing he did was check on the state of his body.
His qi could move, albeit slowly. His body was a bit languid and his reflexes were shot. But the greatest change was in his mind, it was practically shut down, as though a business that was boarded up and closed off for the day. Its full effort was placed behind assimilating with this coming information.
Then Ryu understood. The reason his thoughts were so slow and his reflexes so shot was because he could only control himself with a sliver of his mind right now, only barely enough to remain conscious. He had a feeling that if not for the Origin Flame, he wouldn't be awake right now at all and might even fall into a coma for an extended period of time, leaving the others to do whatever they wanted with his body.
