Frederick quickly stitched up the more minor wounds on the blue-haired woman, thankfully without a struggle from the latter. In fact, the woman barely moved at all. If t wasn't for the almost imperceptible movement of her chest, Fate would've thought her dead.
After taking care of the small wounds, Frederick moved on to the worst ones.
Gilliam had done a number on the poor girl. Her torso was covered in so many deep holes she looked like Swiss cheese, and her back had entire layers of skin and flesh missing from being whipped.
Many of her teeth were gone, ripped out by Gilliam and leaving bloodied gums. Half of the fingers on her right hand were cut off, the left hand gone completely. Frederick said that the damage done to her vocal cords from her screaming could have rendered her mute if they hadn't brought her to him.
Frederick didn't seem perturbed, however. He merely scooped a handful of dirt out of a nearby bucket and started molding it with his hands. As he worked on it, the clump of dirt grew springier and paler, until eventually, he held a replica of a piece of human flesh. He stuck the newly made skin onto one of the blue-haired woman's wounds, massaging it until the area appeared whole and seamless once more.
Fate and Robna watched in fascination as Frederick repeated this several more times, even replicating the spot where Gilliam stabbed the woman in a kidney, until the woman was without wounds. He sometimes had to cut the poor girl open so he could properly place the new flesh, like when he fixed her vocal cords, but he always did such actions quickly and confidently, fixing the wound and covering the entry within seconds.
Then Frederick grabbed another chunk of dirt out of a trough nearby, dropping it into a large bucket and working at it until a few gallons of clear liquid were within. He moved to the blue-haired woman and slid a drop of her blood, still not cleaned off of her, onto his finger, then flicked it into the bucket.
The liquid inside hissed and steamed, slowly deepening until it was as red as the blood that entered. Frederick grabbed the handles on each side of the bucket and hefted it up, grunting with exertion.
He set it on the long, tall table next to the bed, elevating it so the bottom of the bucket was above the woman. He then moved to a cabinet and pulled out a plastic tube with a needle on one end and the other end open.
He poked around on the blue-haired woman's arms, looking for a vein, then inserted the needle when he found one.
Frederick said to Fate and Robna, "This is where it gets difficult. The substitute blood I made will kill any pathogens or diseases she contracted when—" he gestured to the woman's blood-caked body "—this happened. Problem is, it hurts. A lot. She's unconscious now, but the pain is sure to wake her up. I need you two to help me hold her down until then. Divine Reach and both hands.
"If she has a Manifestation seed, this will cause it to awaken due to the massive influx of Divine Energy she's about to get, and Divine Reach is rarely something we can hold back with just our hands."
Fate and Robna followed orders, the three moving to hold her down. They blanketed the woman in their Divine Energy, doing as Frederick instructed and making a barrier a fraction of an inch above her skin. Frederick stuck the open end of the needled tube into the bucket of blood, a pulse of Divine Energy spreading out as he made the blood start flowing through the tube.
When the first ounce of blood flowed through the needle, entering the woman's vascular system, her blue eyes snapped open.
And she screamed.
It was a loud, ear-piercing, high-pitched scream that made one's ears bleed, the same scream she gave when Gilliam had his way with her. She bucked and kicked, her scream growing louder. The three of them focused as much of their Divine Reach as they could on keeping the needle inside, having no choice but to let the blood trickle down their ears. It was extremely uncomfortable, but Fate knew the woman was going through something so much worse he had no right to complain.
Their tug-of-war lasted over an hour, the blood flowing as slow as typical blood, sometimes clotting and forcing Frederick to manually unstop the tube with his Divine Reach. Halfway through, she had awoken the Manifestation seed inside of her, her screams growing louder and carrying a strange weight to them.
Wherever her mouth pointed, Frederick's house would gain a new window or a new skylight. The sound punched through the stone like paper. No doubt the entire city could hear her.
They stood there, hands on the woman, panting. She was remarkably strong. Her Divine Reach was easily at the higher end of Rating Five, or Divine Grasp as the Embodiments called it, the force behind it somewhere around seven hundred pounds. That coupled with her bizarrely-high physical strength, made Fate feel like he was wrestling Autumn when she was still a Prodigy.
Frederick let go of her, motioning to the others to do the same. He jogged out of the room, coming back not long later with hands full of brown clothes. When the woman had finished sitting up, her hand on her head, he placed the clothes in her lap.
"There's a shower through that door over there," he said, pointing. "Wash yourself and put those on."
The woman glanced at the clothes, then looked at the three Embodiments, suspicious. She studied their faces for several seconds, her eyes narrowed and her mouth a thin line, her eyes lingering the longest on Fate, who was still wearing his mask.
Finding what she was looking for, she hopped off the bed and went to the shower.
"What happened to her?" Frederick asked when the woman was out of earshot.
Fate answered. "You know who Gilliam is? Red hair, sadistic fuck, Avatar?"
"Of course. He's notorious for being untouchable because Incarnation Freyda is sworn to protect him."
"I killed him."
Frederick stared at him for a solid ten seconds, mouth agape. Then he frowned and looked to the door leading to the shower. "He did that?"
"She was 'provided'—" Fate said 'provided' with audible disgust "—by an Avatar merchant-looking fella. Greedy eyes, bald, pretty fat. Looked like the type to kill for a single Dangan."
"Ah, Avatar Clidmund. Yes, I've had my fair share of dealings with him in the past. He's a horrible person."
"WAS a horrible person."
"You--?"
"No, Freyda. Anyway, they won't be doing stuff like this anymore."
"No, they won't. It seems I've been too lax in controlling my city."
Fate's eyes flicked to the man before focusing on the door once more. 'So, he's not just some secret hidden Personification,' he thought.
Because the man next to him was, in fact, a Personification. If Fate hadn't just held his own against an Incarnation, even a handicapped one, he might've been wary. Instead, he decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"Well, if you ever need some 'unconventional' help…" Fate took a business card out of his pocket and handed it to Frederick. He still carried them around from his Styx days. His ship still received emails; the signal was boosted by the Hephaestus Guild not long after they arrived in the multiverse to work pretty much anywhere.
His Ex Ear was likewise improved, although altered to receive them only from his ship. Now it worked anywhere within a few solar systems of his ship.
"The Hand of Styx," Frederick read aloud. "Does Hades know you are using this name?"
"Not sure. It's been disbanded anyway, technically, so I don't see a problem. We don't have a new name for our group yet."
Frederick hummed in thought, placing the card on a counter since he had no pockets.
The door to the shower opened right then, and the blue-haired woman stepped out.