It was strange ... she had not expected to feel so ... hollow, within the null zone. Lina shivered, a sensation of worthlessness sweeping over her, nearly making her miss Zel's faint gasp and sudden slump. He began to slip to the side, on his way to falling completely off Elkin's back. Her desperate hands snagged onto him, trying to keep him from falling.
"Amelia! Help me! Zel's slipping!" Her words were torn from her by the wind, making it almost impossible for Amelia to hear her ... but Amelia did. And so did Gourry. Reaching over them both, Gourry's hands fastened firmly onto Zel's shoulders, as Amelia began to squirm out of her place between Gourry and Lina. Moving with an unusual amount of skill, Amelia had soon placed herself before Zel, where she could help support some of his weight with her body. It was a very long, long time before they broke free of the null zone.
Behind the main group, Firia too, was having trouble. Upon entering the null zone, every part of her body seemed to catch fire and frost at the same time, becoming heavy, leaden. But she could handle it. Strangely enough, this purely physical existence had an exhileration to it, something not found in her more magical state. She knew now she was doing everything for herself, not some latent magic, not something she had been gifted with, but she and she alone was doing this.
It was her burden that was her biggest worry. Despite her natural animosity to any Mazoku, the limpness, and strange squishiness to his flesh, made her worry esculate higher the farther into the null zone they went. What had happened, to make firm flesh feel like rotten banana in a rubber bag supported by a cartilage skeleton?
He ... was not real. The pain was real. The pain was alive. In some dark corner of Xeros's mind, he exulted in the pain, but the rest of his mind was wracked in pain, and in an all too rare emotion for Mazoku. For the first time in his life, Xeros truely felt fear, terror. He could feel his half-body, this flesh encasing his spirit, struggling to stay alive, to function with only the most rudimentary inclinations to organs and muscles. He was dying, and for the first time, found he feared death, that he wanted to live.
He wanted to live.
The Mazoku
would not
survive
if nothing
was done
But something
could be done
...
He would not
be thanked for it
The Mazoku
may curse him
for it
Even the dragon
might curse him
for it
But
to let the Mazoku
die
when he could
have done something
Was not possible