Chapter 268 – Reintegration

“Stop squirming!” Lydia demanded as she closed in on Undine. The newly shaped water elemental was currently busy reflexively avoiding a multitude of flying blades with a slightly panicked face. Lydia, the controller of said blades, was standing there with a rather large container. John just watched the whole scene unfold, with his arms crossed.

“You messed up, so now you get cut,” Salamander shouted across the room.

“…Yes, I know,” Undine mumbled and forced herself to remain still. Lydia made it quick and cut a chunk of slime out of the water spirit’s torso’s right side, where the red, curving pattern served as a stark reminder of what had transpired a mere half hour earlier.

Lydia dumped the slime in a container, and Undine stitched herself back together in a matter of seconds. Being liquid did have its perks. Once more, John looked at his ocean elemental’s new form. She certainly was a lot more… curvaceous.

Her HP was up to high levels, but the red markings remained. No amount of regeneration would get rid of that scar, it seemed. It didn’t inconvenience Undine in any way, but it was there and wouldn’t go anywhere.

The rest of her form had stabilized though. She was still much more primal looking than her old, dressed form, but she wasn’t dripping all over the place anymore. The malevolence had also burned from her eyes; they had even changed from red to a golden colour that was looking a lot more friendly.

“Bring this to my private laboratories back in Berlin,” the princess ordered the knight she handed the container to. “Remind them of their oath of secrecy and tell them only what they need to know.”

“Why would ya ship that all the way to Berlin?” Rave wondered as the knight bowed with a loud “As Deus Vults!” and marched out of the house.

“Because I am not going to face the PR disaster that would be admitting that one of my fighters was foolish enough to get Lorylim matter into Rome itself. This will be shipped to my laboratories, and they will examine if there is even the slightest bit of corruption remaining,” Lydia explained, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Luckily, houses here are magically reinforced. I will have to explain away the massive amount of water and Thana crashing into the city as an ‘overzealous training exercise’. I will also have to pay for any damages that may have been caused by this.”

“Undine is my elemental,” John said; “I should stem for those costs.”

“You can repay me in private, but it is important that I am the one who apologizes, or the press will nail me on not taking responsibility for my subordinate’s mistakes,” the princess told him.

“And what will you do with me if there is any corruption left?” Undine asked, a fluttering of frightful notes in her voice.

“Then Nia will keep purging you until there isn’t. I trust her to act the precision knife.” Said blank blonde was currently quietly eating ice cream. At the sound of her name she stopped, spoon in mouth, and turned to look at everyone.

The fact that he could see the spoon through her skin was more than slightly unnerving – and that was despite the amount of ghosts John had already fought. If she ever over-exerted herself, would that mean that she would completely fade from this world? ‘Blank powers are dangerously stupid,’ he thought, thankful that he didn’t have to deal with any of that.

“Until we have news of whether or not she is still corrupted, you are not going to fight in the tournament,” Lydia suddenly dropped this information on John.

“I assume you don’t want to risk her suddenly flipping out and ruining everything?” he asked.

“That is correct; due to how your elementals work with your ability, I can’t tell you to just keep her incorporeal either,” Lydia finally lowered her hand again; she looked absurdly tired.

“I could just un-summon her,” John suggested.

“If you wish her worse than I do, that is certainly an option,” the princess said. “You think the elemental plane is particularly understanding of corruption of any sort? If there is as much as a speck of alien matter still inside her, they will eat her.”

“That’s an ugly picture…” John mumbled.

“That is not a metaphor,” Undine said. “It is how we keep the ocean clean. The Mother of Water is… careful.”

“Okay, so un-summoning is out of the way, just because of the sheer risk of it,” he sighed. “How long do you think they will need?”

“They better do it meticulously, so 5 days, if I had to warrant a guess.”

“In other words, I won’t be able to participate in the group fight,” he reckoned.

“Yes,” Lydia kept the answer short. That wasn’t a huge loss, all things considered. They already were majorly disadvantaged because of the extra condition that was in place for the first group fight. Thanks to Nia being missing during the announcement ceremonies, they had to pick their team first, and Maximillian could then respond however he wanted.

Lydia looked at her clock. “I will be able to get another 5 hours of sleep,” she mumbled; “We will talk about this more in the mo-“

“I WILL FUCKING RIP HER SLIMY BRAINS OUT!” The shouting somehow echoed through the house before the sound of the door getting kicked open did. Loud stomps announced the impending arrival of Thana.

“I cannot be bothered by this right now,” Lydia waved off and left the room through the northern door just in time to dodge Thana coming in through the one at the other end of the wall.

“Where is that oceanic bitch?” Thana looked around with wide-eyes.

The blood mage was drenched in water, head to toe. ‘Took a while to find her, as she tried to find her way up herself,’ Momo informed John mentally.

“There you are!” Thana growled as her eyes fell on Undine. “You fuckergasting puddle of misery, the fuck do you look like now?”

John put a hand on Thana’s shoulder as Undine, with a bit of a sorry expression, opened her mouth. “This will take a bit to explain, why don’t you sit down,” he suggested. Thana dripping on the floor and the couch was only a minor cause of concern. The room was pretty dirty thanks to John’s pants having been covered in mud already, something that he was currently fixing.

Well, Siena was fixing it. Stuck into a maid outfit, she was busy mopping the floor boards. Just the first in a series of punishments John planned to administer for her being in part responsible for this whole mess.

He quickly laid down what had transpired in her absence, and at the end, Thana was staring down Undine with the pure, smug expression of ‘I told you so’. “Should have listened to me, Un-dumb,” the blood mage said. “…No, that one is fucking awful… anyway, you fucked up big time.”

Undine averted her eyes in a display of shame. The fact that she still did so, despite everyone now knowing that she was blind and only able to look through everyone else’s eyes, at least told John that she had the common decency to look as miserable as she was feeling right now.

“Everyone could have told her that was a fucking bad idea,” Salamander drove by in flight. “Stupid ass decision.”

“Will you let it go already, Sally!” Sylph palavered, attaching herself to Undine’s cheek in the tiniest of hugs; “She is back, that’s all that is important. Cuddly slime woman is still here! All is well!”

“It – is – NOT!” Salamander’s small fire became a giant flame in the middle of the air; “You fuckers can get bent if you think I am just going to let this slide as easily as you are. I, for my part, will not let this be bygone.”

“B-but,” Gnome stuttered her way into the conversation; “We forgave Thana, so we can surely forgive Undine.”

“Thana didn’t have a choice; she wanted her last moments to be filled with something that wasn’t fucking pain,” Salamander reprimanded them. “Undine did.”

“I am with firecrotch here,” Thana said, and the two exchanged a thumbs-up.

“I agree…” Undine also said; “I will do what is within the range of my possibilities and comfort to achieve your forgiveness.”

“Sure you will,” the blaze elemental crossed her arms and flew away.

“You can come right back here,” John shouted after her.

Salamander turned and grumbled something unflattering. “Look, I get that you are angry,” John told his fire spirit. “I am not at all happy with this whole situation either. Undine is vouching to better herself though, right?”

There was a wave of agreement from the ocean elemental, but, after a warning glance from John, she opened her mouth and actually said, “Yes.”

“I don’t need you to forgive her today, but don’t get yourself lost in some far-fetched hatred,” John said.

“Shut the fuck up,” Salamander hissed like a drop of water that hit a heated pan. “She is still my sister, I could never hate her. Now let me cope by drying up that swamp outside!”

She flew away again, and John allowed himself a smile. Given time, this whole thing would just be an ugly part of their history. ‘Hopefully without further consequences,’ he thought, looking at Undine again.

“I am just so happy you are still here, let’s eat some gummy bears together! You want a fizzy tablet? A bath? Both? I think both is fun!” Sylph blabbered.

“No,” John told them. “Undine is going to help Siena clean this mess up; it is mostly her fault after all. We will think about what else to do once I wake up.”

Undine nodded; she knew she had to repent for her actions. The pain she had caused John and the danger she had put them all in was something she could only apologize for, but the wrecked gardens were something she could actually do something about. With everyone else’s help.

For a start though, she was delegated to scrubbing the floor, washing clothes, and generally helping Aclysia get the house in order. Momo, meanwhile, sat down on the table again and started experimenting with that e-reader.

It was impressive how quickly everything could go back to normal once a situation had been weathered. “Yeaaaah,” Rave yawned, “some more sleep sounds good. Please no more pain attacks this time around.” She grabbed John by the hand and guided him up the stairs. “Ya feel fine by the way? No lasting damage?”

“Nope, no status effects, no losses, aside from the Skill Evolution Points, and generally not feeling good about any of this. Just tired,” he answered.

“Thank Gaia,” his girlfriend mumbled under her breath. “Ya know how worried I was when Aclysia just burst in and you were all tormented and stuff? I am not losing ya, ya hear me? I love you.”

“I bet you a pile of bullshit that I would hate it more to be separated from you again,” John smirked.

“Oy, don’t ya try being cute right now,” Rave complained with a smile as they got ready for bed. “This is serious emotional talk!”

“Jane, we both know we don’t do those,” John poked fun at her. “Cause we both majorly suck at talking about feelings.”

“Do we though? I mean, I wouldn’t call our relationship, like, bad or unhealthy or anything. Talking about emotions is just…” she searched for a proper term.

“Really awkward?” John suggested.

“Yes, that, really awkward. So we don’t do it. Actually, let’s just do this another way!” Rave wrapped her arms around John, and together they fell into the bed. They were so close to each other that their noses almost touched, “If ya worry me like that again, I will punch ya something fierce!”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” John giggled and kissed her, “I love you.”