Family Business 50 (Patreon)

Family Business

Chapter 50

-VB-

Finally, it was time to end the world threat once and for all.

And Vayne decided that everyone involved in this fight was both great fighters and horrible tacticians.

She tried not to berate them because she honestly didn’t care, but the sheer incompetence was getting to her.

“We need to use his own obsession against him,” she hissed at the gathered and maybe, probably, somewhat chastised fighters. This was Bilgewater with Miss Fortune all over again, and she’d been there only two weeks ago. “Which means that we will use our own members as bait if we must! Our lives are finite compared to the rest of the world!” ‘And master.’ “Put your weak and unwarranted morality aside for the sake of the mission. You can cry or kill yourself over it after.”

They glared at her, but they didn’t know what she had done before she became master’s.

What was a dozen lives for that of master’s safety?

What was an island compared to that?

What was the world if her master dies?

She mentally shook herself out of her own zealtry, if only because master liked her better that way.

But why did she react so harshly like this? Because she had received horrible news about master through the Sentinel’s own intelligence network. That master was in coma and the prospects were grim. Yes, the news was at least weeks old and might not even be valid anymore, but it didn’t remove the sudden urge and terror inside of her.

She now hated that she was stuck here with these fools debating the moralities of sacrifice; did they not understand that they were all already here with potential self-sacrifice as a matter of fact?! That anything else but to end Viego and his threat to Runeterra came before anything else but her master?!

… At least the so-called Sentinels were mostly up to par. They knew their mission. Lucian and Senna, despite having been reunited not too long, led their sisters and brothers in arms with the full acknowledgement.

No, it was everyone else.

Pyke, the ghoul, remained fixated on his “List.” Rengar and his hunt. Olaf and glory. Riven and self-pity. Graves and loot.

Diana was … more in line with the Sentinels but she was aloof and unwilling to work with many, especially Pyke.

The last member, Irelia, was the most problematic. For one, she seemed to have this idea that she wasn’t here for the sake of the world but for her people. Was it not interchangeable? It wasn’t until literally yesterday that she confronted Irelia about it and got the full explanation and perspective.

And she turned out to be the most problematic. In fact, she may in fact be a threat. As Vayne understood Irelia, she was here because Ionia was in dangerous due to the Harrowing but if the Harrowing stopped, then she had a greater chance to be an enemy of the expedition than its ally and member.

Why?

Because the Harrowing also haunted Noxus. What harmed Noxus improved Ionia’s chance against driving out their invaders.

Vayne put herself in Irelia’s shoes.

A protector of her people, forced to make many distasteful decisions. One war after another. One threat after another. But … if Vayne was an Ionian and her master was Ionian, then she would see the Harrowing as a potential tool very much like how Gangplank had thought he could use it. If Vayne was an Ionian, she wouldn’t use it directly. No, she knew to much about magic, knew her hated enemy, to think about touching and wielding something even half-cursed.

Had she been her old self before master found her, then yes, she would have fought like Irelia was fighting.

But her current self was more aware of other ways to carry out the same duty. After all, if she was Irelia, then she could exchange the soul fragments of the king’s dead wife in exchange for years of the Harrowing upon Noxus.

Vayne knew that Irelia didn’t have such leanings, but she still kept an eye out for the dancer because she just didn’t trust her.

“If sacrifice must be made, then I will do it,” one such fragment of the dead queen’s soul spoke up.

Gwen.

She was… Vayne didn’t know what to think of her. Even to her, it was obvious that Gwen and her nature was in the “good” category. It did not, however, change the fact that she was intrinsically tied to the entirety of the Harrowing and Viego.

Even so…

“Very well. Gwen will serve as bait to lure out Viego, and we will end him.”

Because Viego had hurt her master.

And anything that hUrt her master must be purged.

-VB-

I frowned.

I had a feeling that something was going wrong.

I grimaced when my stomach grumbled.

That must be it. It had to be the anti-constipation potion working as intended.

Even though my body still protested, I got off the bed, ran out of the room, and nearly jumped into the attached bathroom.

See, a human body’s digestive system worked off of blood. Blood that I lost a lot of. When muscles are not using blood, that blood goes to other internal organs. Kind of like 10% to 15% change. Anyways, I lost a lot of blood, but the thing about healing potions was that they didn’t focus on internal organs but rather whatever was closest. Since blood was in larger quantities in my muscles while I was struggling to survive, the healing went there first and in larger quantities.

So my muscles were in good shape!

My internals not so much.

My personal hypothesis was that this internal organ vs. skeletal muscle healing difference on top of the usual dietary demands of my body struggling in the face of coma, weakened digestive system, and a perfectly fine skeletal muscles resulted in a longer recovery than what was strictly necessary.

I recovered, still. I woke up from my coma and healed myself where I could using potions.

Unfortunately, there were still some damages, and my intestines were not what they used to be. Maybe a lot of blood vessels died. With less blood, there’s less oxygen. Less oxygen meant less movement. Less movement meant less peristalsis, which meant… constipation.

I ended up ranting about it around the doctors, and they treated me like a god these days, asking for whatever medical knowledge I had in my grasp that went beyond “blood needs to be there.”

“Ssshhiiiittt!!!” I hissed as the constipation-turned-diarrhea exploded out. The initial splash of the toilet water?

*Chef’s kiss* of cool and refreshing.

The subsequent ones tainted with my shit?

Not so swell.

“UGGHHH!!!”

Recovery didn’t end just because I got out of coma and I could stumble around like a beggar.

… I wondered how everyone else was doing.