An exhaustive five hours later, Sylpheel had managed to stabilize Zel's condition and everyone else was walking around like they were brain dead from exhaustion. Even Koppeii Rezo, who had cast a lock on Zel's magic to keep him from blasting a hole in the roof when Zel had lost control of his powers. Koppeii Rezo, who was now snoring on a bench in the hall, had maintained the spell, just barely, for three hours non-stop. Firia and Gourry, who had pinned Zel to the bed during the worst of the convulsions, and when Sylpheel had cleaned the wound, were sitting down at the end of the bed, staring blankly at the floor in exhaustion. Ryoko was cleaning up the area, which basically looked like a bloody tornado had hit it. Lina was helping Sylpheel give Zel a sponge bath to clean off the blood and sweat around the wound and on the rest of his body. The only two persons who were not exhausted were Martina, who was fielding people who came to the door and getting supplies for Sylpheel, and Amelia who was getting water, food and blankets for everyone.
Sylpheel sagged into a chair, looking utterly exhausted. "I really don't know why it isn't healing .... or why it's getting worse!" She cried out, burying her head in her hands, sounding near tears.
Amelia, who had just walked in the door, handed Sylpheel a glass of water and wrapped a blanket around her. Sylpheel glanced up in thanks to Amelia, but it went unnoticed, as Amelia was glareing jealously at Lina's tending of Zelgadis. Lina simply ignored Amelia.
Sylpheel sighed and turned to Ryoko, after taking a sip of her water. "Ryoko, can I take a look at your sword?"
Ryoko obligingly manifested her sword and held it out for Sylpheel to look at. Sylpheel held her hand close to the sword for a second, then pulled back, looking surprised.
"What is it?" Ryoko asked, concerned by Sylpheel's reaction.
"This sword doesn't give off any heat, regardless of being made of light .... Much like the Hikari No Ken, or 'Sword of Light' if you prefer. I wonder why ... " Sylpheel mused, thinking about that. "The sword of light causes wounds that are difficult for a magical creature to heal, but I've heard of it giving them wounds that caused this much trouble."
"It may be the fact that Ryoko's sword is not based on will or magic, but raw energy, that could be causing trouble ...." Lina stated, as she had been listening to the conversation.
She was interrupted by a young lady with spikey pink hair who had just walked into the room. "And that is exactly why it isn't healing."
Lina and the others stared at her, except Ryoko, who also stuttered out, "W-washu?!? H-how did you get here?!!?!"
"Remeber, as you are linked to Ryo-Ohki, so I am linked with you, Little Ryoko. With all the mental imaging you were sending me, it was easy to build a gate here. Problem is, I appeared about a hour or two away from here, so I had to walk, or else I would have been here earlier. Now," Washu looked down at Zelgadis, who luckily was out cold, considering all the hell he had been through just a short while earlier. "What are his (interesting life-form) symptoms?"
Sylpheel listed them, while Ryoko stared off into nowhere, utterly shocked for a bit, then dragged Lina and a protesting Amelia out of Washu's way. On their way out of the room they had to dodge out of the way of a tall, dark-green haired woman, and a young man dressed in yellow with a black and yellow bandana, carrying equipment into the room. Walking behind those two was a young girl with pale-blue hair in two pigtails and a sky blue kimono, who ran up to Ryoko.
"Hello Sasami, did Washu bring you here?" Ryoko asked the young girl, who nodded.
"She said I would be needed in the kitchen here." Sasami turned to Lina and bowed politely to her. "Hello, I am Sasami, who are you?"
Lina bowed in surprised return. "Lina Inverse ... Who were those people with you?" She asked, pointing back at the room.
"Kiyone and Ryoga, but we only met Ryoga about a few minutes walk from here, he said he was lost." Sasami looked around at the castle walls. "It is rather gloomy here ... Where is the kitchen? I could make everyone soup."
Lina grinned. "Sounds great to me! Lemme show you!"
After a brief tour for Ryoko and Sasami, as well as to set Amelia to doing the laundry, they ended up in the kitchen. Sasami looked at all the cooking gear in awe .... or something like that. "I can't belive people can make nice meals with all this junk!
As Ryoko and Lina watch, Sasami immediately sets to unpacking her cooking gear and cleaning the kitchen. Lina and Ryoko were soon shooed out of the kitchen, to keep them out of Sasami's way. As the door shut behind them with a final click, Ryoko and Lina looked at each other.
Ryoko shrugged. "She is very serious about her cooking."
"I guessed." Lina looked back at the kitchen, sighed, and started walking back upstairs. Only to find Ryoko in front of her.
"How do you do that?!?"
Ryoko grinned. "Want me to show you?"
Lina nodded. And was abruptly grabbed in a headlock by Ryoko, who asked, "Where to? Zel's room?"
A muffled yell.
"I'll take that as a yes."
Within a moment, Ryoko had phased them into Zel's room. Which was in happy chaos, as Zelgadis was sitting up and looked fairly free of pain. Washu held Lina back when she would have hugged him.
"Don't touch him, the process is not complete." She warned, as she typed on her transparent control board. "I had to use some radical measures to get that wound to heal this fast, but the remaining radiation should be gone in a few minutes."
Washu turned toward Zel and gestured for him to turn around. When he obliged her, though moving rather stiffly, everyone in the room could see that the wound was mostly healed, just a angry-looking red scar going across his back. Ryoko reached over and shut Lina's mouth.
"You're drooling." Ryoko whispered to her.
"So are you." Lina whispered back.
"What girl wouldn't?" Ryoko whispered, grinning.
The green-haired woman from earlier, now clearly seen to be about 25, handed Washu a empty medium-sized jar with a rubber stopper. "Here you go Washu, it should hold the salve well enough."
"Thank you Kiyone, is the first one done?" Washu asked, taking the jar from Kiyone. Kiyone walked back across the room to a piece of odd-looking machinery, which had a small jar sitting in one side of it. She checked on the flow of some thick green liquid into the jar, waited for one last drop to fall in, then quickle popped in the stopper of the jar. She stood up and handed the jar to Washu, who held up the jar and took a close look at it. "Ahhh! Perfect! Now, Zelgadis."
Zelgadis looked towards Washu, pausing while rubbing his wrists, trying to work out the stiffness in his limbs.
"You're going to need someone to rub this into the wound and the surrounding skin every morning and evening for at least a week, or until the salve runs out. Hmmmm ...." Washu looked at the salve, which was glowing greenly. "But this is mildly toxic to regular humans ... Ryoko."
Washu dropped the jar into Ryoko's hands. "You do it."
"Wh-why me ?!?"
"Because if Lina does it, it'll give her a bad rash and eventually make her hair fall out for a short time."
Zelgadis blinked. He looked at the salve, then back at Washu. "Then why in hell is it going to help me?"
"Your body has different needs, or more accurately, additional needs that a full human does not have. Including dietary needs that you haven't known how to meet."
Zelgadis glared at her. "Like what."
"Mineral defficiency was one of your main problems. Your body simply did not have the materials to heal itself with." Washu tossed a bag to him. "In there is a tea that should solve that problem, just be sure to drink it often, but no more than twice a day or more than one pinch per cup of water. Probably will taste awful." She finished cheerfully as she typed some last few instructions into the computer.
Zel picked up the bag and looked inside. "What's in this? I can't identify even half of herbs in here!"
Lina walked over and peeked inside the bag. "Hyssop, thyme, green tea leaf.... mint, cinnamon, dried lemon peel, and dried rose hips, those I know, but what's this one?" Lina held up a odd, serrated edged leaf.
"Nightshade." Everyone else promptly looked at Washu like she was absolutely crazy and Zel nearly fell over. He rubbed his face in his hands, then looked at Washu. "Now, tell me why is that in here."
"It's simple, the nightshade provides a lot of the rarer mineral and chemical compounds your body needs. You don't need a whole lot, just a few leaves, but you do need what it provides." Washu beamed at Zel as she explained.
Lina looked at Zel. "I guess that's the last of my stealing your breakfast tea." She handed the bag back to Zel and hopped up on the bed. He tossed the bag over to where his cloak was and picked up the green-glowing jar of salve. He looked at it closely, with Lina and Ryoko peering at it over his shoulder, then he looked towards Ryoko, then Washu. "So she has to rub this stuff into my back for the next week? What exactly is this stuff going to do to me?"
"It'll simply keep the wound clean and flexible, as well as protect the new skin until it's tough enough to do so on it's own."
Kiyone walked over and handed the medium-sized jar to Zel, at Washu's nod of approval. Zel looked at the jar in faint surprise, seeing that it was now full of a plain white salve.
"What's this?" He asked, looking at Kiyone and Washu. At that point, Amelia walked in, carrying a large stack of Zel's clean laundry. No one noticed her as she started putting away Zel's laundry, and, as she couldn't see around it, she did not notice that Zel was up and about.
"It's just for keeping the scar from stiffening up and the muscles flexible, and it'll have to be rubbed in for about two months." Washu patted Zel's hand, then added, "After then, you'll have to watch it for a while, but it shouldn't give you any trouble." Zelgadis sighed, looking at the tea, salves, Lina and Ryoko. "Oh well, it could be worse."
"ZEL-SAMA!!" Amelia, who had just realized that Zelgadis was much better, tackled him in a flying hug. Zelgadis sweatdropped, looking down at the young girl who had wrapped herself around his waist. He tuggged experimentaly on one of her arms, trying pull her off him. "Amelia, let go."
No response. He sighed. Ryoko took pity on him and pried Amelia off him, while Lina kept looking throught the tea, naming various herbs, and Sylpheel, Washu and Kiyone conferred on something medical in nature. Amelia looked up at Ryoko, just now noticing she was there. She opened her mouth to say something .... or more accurately, shout it. Zelgadis noticed that 'light of justice' gleam in Amelia's eye and wisely grabbed his shirt, pulling Washu, Kiyone, and Sylpheel with him to the far end of the room.