He unstrapped all his armour from his top half, then removed the red tunic he wore underneath. I couldn't help the direction that my eye's travelled as his muscles flexed, the tattoos and scars glowing even in dim light.

He caught my eye. "I want to make a joke but I'm afraid you'll hit me."

"You thought right. Now what?"

"Now, you try not to faint," he said, taking off his gauntlets. He muttered something under his breath and touched each finger on his right hand. Sparks flew. His fingers were now tipped with razor sharp claws and he admired his handiwork. "It'll be fine, just watch. Whatever you do though... don't scream."

"Why would I scream?" I questioned with an eye-roll. He lined his hand up beneath his sternum. "Hey, what-"

He pushed his hand right through his chest. I didn't even have the courage to scream as he winced, muscles flexing in his arm. He dug deeper then began pulling out. I took an involuntary step back from the pulsating heart steaming in his blood-soaked hand, utterly speechless.

My breakfast rose and went back down more times than I cared to admit.

He hissed and covered the opened wound with his other hand. Blue light spluttered on the skin and died out. Calmly, he said, "It seems I don't have enough Mana to heal a wound of this severity. I need your help cauterising it." Black blood began oozing through his fingers and he sagged, careful to keep the hand with the heart away from the ground.

My eyes bulged and I rushed to his side, helping him slide to the ground. "You said you'd be fine!"

"Sometimes I overestimate my abilities." His joke fell flat. "I need you to use Enflame."

"That is a destructive move, not a healing one," I stressed, placing my hand over his and the wound. Concern lanced through me at his pain and our eyes connected. The softness there reminded me of my true feelings. "Unless you're asking for a death sentence, I can't use Enflame like that," I said, voice hard.

"Just don't punch a hole through me and we'll be golden." He laughed, which turned to a cough. "Your hand will have to be inside me before you do that though. If you can cauterise the arteries that had joined to the heart, I should be able to heal the rest with my own strength."

I swallowed back my bile and removed his hand. Black blood gushed out and I hesitated to put my hand in the mess. I put his hand back. "Okay, okay, just give me a minute to think. I've never had to concentrate Enflame this way before."

"I don't have much Mana left to hold the blood still, Estra, so you have to do it now."

When I woke up this morning, this was not what I had in mind for today's activities. "Hey, you can do this," he reassured me.

I took a steadying breath and nodded. He removed his hand and I pressed my hand into the hole. It was warm and squishy between my fingers.

I wrenched my hand back fast, scuttled backwards and emptied the contents of my stomach into the corner of the shop. I wiped my lips with a hand only to realise I'd smeared his blood over my lips. Watery bile came up, nothing left to purge out, the bitter tang burning my throat.

"Estra, I don't want to rush you," he said, followed by a groan.

I squeezed my eyes shut. I could do this, there was nothing to it. I'd seen worse and put my nose in worse when I'd been a fox. "Coming." I cleaned my hands on an apron hanging near my head. My stomach flipped as I knelt in front of him again, my hand shaking uncontrollably and generating small sparks.

"Please remember to keep the flame small."

A nervous laugh bubbled out of my throat. Easy peasy, make the flames small. If only I'd done more focusing and controlling of my powers when I trained with Ban. My hand slid in easily, the muscle and skin sucking my hand in. I went slowly, watching him carefully.

Leraj's eyes rolled into the back of his head before he jerked awake. "There," he rasped. "That's it. Do it."

I hesitated, buried to my wrist in his chest. I don't think I can do this.

"Fox," he said, and I met his eyes. He hovered his bloodied, free hand over my shoulder. "I trust you."

My throat was drier than a desert; I couldn't even manage a nod. I focused on channelling my Mana, consolidating it to a small radius around my hand. The floodgate of Mana pressed to be released but I kept a firm yet tedious hold, allowing only a small amount to trickle through. Before I lost nerve, I said, "Enflame."

A sizzle, the horrifying smell of cooking meat, and a smidge of grey smoke issued out of the hole. Leraj went as grey as the smoke and his mouth opened in a silent gasp. I felt my control slipping, the Mana tricking faster. Focus, focus, focus.

"Stop, you can stop now," he said on a rushed exhale, blood-leeched lips mouthing more words without sound. "Pull... out..."

I retracted slowly, his blood cooling against my skin in the air. I gagged and turned my head to the side. I didn't turn around until my hand was completely free. We used the apron to clean my hands and his free one, wipe around his chest where blood had fallen and the floor where blood dripped from the cold heart.

"Are you healing?" I questioned in a shaky voice, eyeing the wound. It didn't ooze profusely anymore but it didn't show any signs of healing.

"Slowly," he slurred, blinking languidly. "It has to start on the inside though so we won't see anything for a little bit. Should only take a minute or two."

He looked like death warmed up and I was very afraid he'd kick the bucket before he could help us. "Hey," I shook his shoulder and he startled awake. "Don't sleep. Please."

He grinned. "Concerned, fox?"

"Always," I confessed because it was true. I could hate him from the bottom of my heart but what I'd felt for him wasn't about to stay locked in a cage. And my mother always said love was stronger than hate.

His grin faded. "Look, I know we don't exactly have time for this but I need to say this. I'm everything that you can call a 'manipulative bastard' in the dictionary and more. I hurt you, I tricked you, I stayed by your side and did little to help you because I wanted you to stay close to me. You gave me something I'd been missing for centuries." He looked away, tears in his eyes. "I didn't treat you the way a man should when he loves a woman. I know there's no way you'll ever forgive me or even accept my apology and I don't want you to. All you deserved was to know why. And I deserve your hate and your rage and your blade should you choose to end my life at the end of all this. But I never, ever deserved you."

"You kidnapped and brainwashed me so yes, you don't deserve me and frankly, you never did. And you're right. I can't forgive you." This kingdom and its corrupt knights had taken almost everything from me so if people thought I would absolve their crimes with a laugh and a smile, then they didn't know me very well. "But... I will accept your apology." It felt like I had barely any room for my lungs to expand with all the emotions within me. I rocked back on my heels. "I can't... I don't think I'll ever understand fully why you did those things that way. All I do know is that you were contracted by Hendrickson and that took away your free will. You were his faithful lackey long before me, and you've probably followed him dutifully the entire time in order to survive. But then I came along and changed things."

"Guess you understand more than you realise," he said softly.

"I guess so," I replied in an equally soft voice. "I can't forget that you did help me, even if it was only little, and what you gave me. I also can't forget what I felt for you, how real it seemed. How real... it sometimes still seams." Once the words out of my mouth, the weight on my shoulders lifted. "This doesn't mean though, Leraj, that I could ever love you like Holy Knight me did. That's never going to happen."

"I know. I screwed up pretty bad, didn't I?"

"Yeah, you did."

He laughed and I joined in, finding myself freer. "Acquaintances, then?" he asked, hopeful.

"Acquaintances." We shook on it.

We sat in silence for half a minute. His face slowly returned of colour and now I could see the healing at work, each fibre of muscle restitching itself until it was back to normal, then the skin stretching over it until it was smooth. He ran a hand down his torso.

I gestured to the perfection. "So explain to me why you couldn't do that inside of you."

"Like I said, I'm low on Mana. Have been since I arrived back at the castle. I'm getting old," he joked.

"You're an immortal exiled demon. As you age, the opposite should be happening. Only old humans get weaker."

"While you get stronger, I get weaker; the more you use my abilities, the less I am able to. Now I can barely hold onto the Mana I've got. Thief and Kitsune give me Mana but where its stored is like a bucket filled with holes. I can't summon anymore either so Heido won't be coming back any longer. I always knew it was going to be a side effect of giving you my abilities so don't feel guilty about it."

"Isn't this going to impact you in a fight?" If he couldn't fight, then he'd be more of a hindrance than an ally.

"Don't give me that look." Annoyance darkened his face. "That pity. I might not have powers but my sword skills go above and beyond yours. I could hold my own against Meliodas earlier in life and that means I can hold my own against Holy Knights."

I held up my hands. "Okay, I'm sorry for assuming." I changed the subject by pointing to the heart. "Now that you're healed, can we move onto the heart eating?"

He glanced at the heart in his hand. "Oh, right. Here." He held it out to me and I raised an eyebrow at him.

"I don't want to touch it."

"It's either this or I hand feed you. I'm not putting it on the counter, that's disgusting," he said when I darted my eyes to the counter.

I scowled. "I've eaten off worse as a fox." Still, I cupped my hands and he plopped the organ into it. Gluggy blood seeped out of the torn arteries.

The metallic smell overpowered the soft musk of books and my nose wrinkled. It had been a long time since I'd eaten an organ before. I tried not to think too hard on what I was about to do but it was difficult considering I was about to eat a heart that came out of Leraj's chest based on a theory that it will help me.

It'll be like eating a peach. Yeah, simple. Maybe if I envision it hard enough, it'll taste like one too. 

A/N: One more chapter and POV change, and this little loose end will be tied up and we'll be back into the main story line :) Just a few little questions: 

1. Thoughts on pacing? 

2. Thoughts on the interaction between Leraj and Estra; and the apology?