Pain brought him back to consciousness long before his thoughts had the chance to put themselves back together.
A raw, dull, all-encompassing pain, as if every part of his body had been crushed and then crudely pieced back together by someone who hadn't bothered to check whether the pieces actually fit.
"Ngh..."
The slightest sound he tried to make drew a grimace from him. Even breathing demanded an absurd effort, each inhale pulling at something in his ribs that clearly had no business moving that way.
He tried to move a finger.
A bolt of pain shot up his arm, so intense that for a moment he thought someone had just ripped it off.
He didn't try again.
Where... where have I fallen this time...
The darkness before him remained as faithful as ever, just as absolute as it had been throughout his journey across the prairie. But this time, it wasn't the only thing preventing him from understanding his situation. His head spun, tossed about by waves of pain that kept him from holding onto a coherent thought for more than a few seconds at a time.
He vaguely remembered the emptiness beneath his foot. The sensation of falling, endless, punctuated by violent impacts against what must have been rock. Then nothing, until this very moment, where his own body seemed determined to punish him for surviving.
A broken arm, at the very least. Maybe a leg too. Several cracked ribs, almost certainly. And that throbbing pain at the back of his skull that made it feel as though his brain was slamming against the inside of his head.
Great. Just great.
He tried to let out a bitter laugh, but it quickly dissolved into a coughing fit, each convulsion awakening a new pocket of agony he hadn't yet catalogued.
That was when he heard it.
Footsteps.
Heavy. Every impact made the ground beneath his back tremble slightly, a deep, rhythmic thud that betrayed a weight far beyond that of an ordinary man. Yet there was a wide interval between each step, as though whoever was approaching covered a greater distance with every stride than a human would, without needing to hurry.
Panic and caution wrestled inside his fogged mind. He wanted to activate his Haki, to sense whatever was approaching, but the pain made any kind of concentration nearly impossible. He barely managed to initiate the mental process before a wave of dizziness forced him to abandon it.
Forget it. Whatever happens, happens.
The footsteps stopped right beside him.
A brief yet oppressive silence followed, during which Emrys almost felt someone's gaze resting on him, despite having no way to confirm it.
"By a shard of firestone-depleted iron filings..." a deep voice said, echoing from a point far higher than an ordinary man's would have. "Where in the world did you fall from, kid?"
Emrys flinched, earning himself another painful grimace.
"Easy, easy. Don't move like that," the voice continued, stern yet calm, devoid of any real warmth.
A hand settled on his shoulder, broad and heavy, covering the entire joint and extending over the top of his arm and the beginning of his chest. It was warm, rough, and calloused. Despite its sheer size, the pressure it applied remained surprisingly measured, almost careful, more functional than comforting.
"Wh... who are you?" Emrys managed to ask, his voice reduced to a hoarse whisper.
"My name's Dubs. I work the quarry at the foot of this cliff," the man replied in an even, almost matter-of-fact tone. "And you just happened to fall right into my workplace. Lucky for you I wasn't standing directly underneath, or I'd probably have heard you coming long before I saw you."
Despite the pain, Emrys noticed the complete neutrality in the remark, as though the man were simply stating a fact, without the slightest hint of concern or humor.
"Alright. Let me have a look," Dubs continued.
Thick fingers, nearly twice the size of an ordinary man's, yet astonishingly gentle, began moving across his body, methodically examining each limb with a restraint that betrayed years of experience controlling his own strength. Emrys clenched his teeth with every touch but forced himself not to move, aware that the giant was merely assessing the damage.
"Left arm's broken. Two cracked ribs, maybe three. Right ankle's in pretty bad shape too," Dubs listed with the detached precision of someone accustomed to such injuries. "You must've tumbled down a good chunk of that cliff before hitting the ground. You're damn lucky to still be alive, kid."
"It... doesn't feel that way," Emrys muttered through gritted teeth.
"Yeah, I figured," Dubs replied simply, offering nothing more.
The man's fingers lingered on Emrys's palm, longer than necessary for a simple examination. A different silence settled between them, one tinged with surprise.
"Those marks aren't nothing," Dubs remarked, and for the first time, something in his voice resembled genuine interest. "Burst blisters, skin torn in places... you've been handling a serious weapon, and recently too. Long enough to injure your hands, not long enough for the skin to harden."
Emrys didn't know what to answer. He was too exhausted to explain.
Silence returned, and with it Dubs's neutral tone, as though that brief spark of curiosity had already faded away.
Then the giant's hands came to rest on his face, even gentler now, tracing the outline of his eyes.
A different silence settled in.
Longer.
Heavier.
"Kid," Dubs finally said, his voice as flat as ever. "Look at me."
Instinctively, Emrys turned his head toward the sound of the voice, his eyes wide open even though they focused on nothing at all.
Another silence.
"You can't see me at all, can you?"
Emrys clenched his fists—or at least the one that still obeyed him properly.
"No," he admitted, his throat tightening. "I can't see anything anymore. It's been... three days? Maybe five. I stopped counting."
He expected pity. Awkward sympathy. Maybe even an endless stream of questions about what had happened.
Instead, he was met only with a long, thoughtful sigh.
"That complicates things," Dubs said bluntly. "But one problem at a time."
Emrys then felt arms slide beneath his body, thick and solid, far broader than those of any ordinary man, and he was lifted from the ground as though he weighed almost nothing, cradled against a tall, sturdy chest carrying the scents of sweat, coal, and heated metal.
"Hang on. Actually, no—don't make any effort at all. I'll try not to jostle you too much."
The walk that followed was a silent ordeal. Every stride Dubs took covered more ground than a normal man's, and yet each step, even cushioned by the giant's careful hold, sent another wave of pain through Emrys's shattered body. He gritted his teeth, stubbornly refusing to groan again, clinging to scattered thoughts just to keep himself from slipping into unconsciousness.
Mom. I have to... I have to hold on. For her.
After what felt like an eternity, he sensed the warmth of a nearby fire, far stronger than the heat radiating from Dubs's body. The smell of molten metal grew more intense, almost overwhelming.
He was laid down with surprising gentleness onto a soft surface, probably a straw mattress or a pile of folded cloth.
"Don't move. I'll be back," Dubs said before walking away.
Emrys remained there, overwhelmed by pain, darkness, and the complete uncertainty of his situation. He heard the clanging of metal, the sound of fabric being torn, water being poured somewhere nearby.
Then Dubs returned, and the treatment began.
It was long.
Painful.
The giant handled makeshift splints with a skill that betrayed considerable experience with such injuries, no doubt gained from years of working alone in an environment as dangerous as an open-air quarry. He immobilized Emrys's broken arm between two thin wooden slats, wrapped his ribs tightly with thick cloth—just tight enough—and carefully cleaned each of his wounds with a liquid that stung horribly but whose smell suggested antiseptic properties.
Throughout the entire procedure, Dubs kept talking in the same calm, detached voice, recounting the facts of his life there with the same clinical indifference he had used when listing Emrys's injuries, without much concern for whether it helped him endure the pain.
"I've been working this quarry for years. Iron ore, mostly, with a few veins of a rarer metal I keep for my own creations. I live alone here, a few kilometers from the nearest village. Hardly anyone comes this way, let alone kids falling out of the sky."
He paused, tightening one of the bandages with renewed care.
"So, kid. Got a name?"
"Emrys," he answered, his voice trembling from exhaustion as much as pain.
"Emrys, huh. Alright, Emrys, I'll be honest with you. Those injuries are going to take time to heal. The arm, the ribs, the ankle—not to mention..." Dubs hesitated for a moment, searching for the right word. "...your eyes. You won't be able to manage on your own in this condition. Not in unfamiliar territory. Especially not blind."
Emrys remained silent, his throat too tight to answer.
"I'm not used to having company," Dubs continued, "and I won't lie—a blind, injured kid isn't exactly what I expected to find while I was out collecting ore today."
Silence settled between them, and for a brief moment, Emrys thought the man was about to leave him there, or worse, take him to the nearest village just to be rid of him.
"But I can't just leave a kid to die in that state," Dubs finally continued in the same straightforward tone. "So here's what I propose. You stay here until your body recovers. The arm, the ribs, the ankle—they'll heal with enough rest. I've seen worse make it through. As for your eyes..." He paused again. "We'll see. Maybe there's nothing to be done. Maybe there is. But as long as you're under my roof—or rather, under my forge awning, since I don't exactly have a proper roof—you won't be lacking anything."
Emrys felt his throat tighten even further, unexpected warmth stinging eyes that could no longer see.
"Why... why would you do that for me? You don't even know me."
Dubs remained silent for a moment before answering, as though the question itself didn't interest him all that much.
"Because I've never been the kind to let a kid die just because I don't know him. Besides," he added, as though stating the most obvious thing in the world, "a blacksmith abandoning someone right after pulling them out of the rubble would be pretty ironic."
Silence settled once more, broken only by the distant crackling of the forge fire and the occasional whistle of the wind against the quarry walls.
"You got family, kid? Anyone who's going to worry when you don't come home?" Dubs eventually asked, without much inflection, as though it were merely a practical question rather than genuine curiosity.
Emrys hesitated. How could he explain his situation to a complete stranger? How could he tell him about another life, another world, a mother he hadn't even managed to find in this one?
"My mother," he finally answered, choosing the simplest truth he could. "I'm looking for her. We got separated, and I don't even know where she is in this world."
Dubs fell silent for a while, as though weighing the answer.
"In this world, huh," he repeated slowly, without commenting on how strange that wording sounded. "Well, one thing at a time. You won't find her in a thousand pieces and blind, that's for sure. Rest first. The rest can wait."
"I don't have time to wait," Emrys murmured, more to himself than to his host, but Dubs heard him anyway.
"You've got the time your body gives you, kid, not the time you'd like to have," the blacksmith replied, his voice suddenly firmer, leaving no room for argument. "I've seen people try to rush things after a fall like yours. It never ends well. So for now, you're going to listen to me, and you're going to heal. After that, you can do whatever you want with your legs."
Emrys found nothing to say in response. One part of him, exhausted and aching to the bone, was almost relieved that someone else had forced this pause upon him. Another, buried much deeper, continued screaming that he was wasting precious time.
The two voices argued inside his mind for a while longer, until exhaustion finally silenced them. He merely gave a slight nod, a tiny movement that nonetheless demanded a disproportionate effort.
"Thank you," he finally managed to whisper.
"Don't thank me yet," Dubs replied in that same monotonous voice that seemed to be the only way he knew how to speak. "Wait until you've tasted my cooking before thanking me for anything."
Despite the pain, despite the total darkness that still surrounded him and probably would forever, Emrys felt a weight lift slightly from his shoulders.
Not completely.
Far from it.
But enough that, when exhaustion and pain finally overwhelmed his consciousness, he let himself sink without fear into that familiar void, that complete absence of sensation which was neither sleep nor rest, merely a pause while his body gathered the strength to rebuild itself.
Thank you, he thought one last time before everything faded. I'll repay you for this. I swear it.
And with that final thought, carried by the warmth of the nearby forge fire and the reassuring sound of Dubs's measured footsteps as he worked around him, Emrys's consciousness finally slipped away, as abruptly and simply as a candle being blown out.
Sorry to the first readers who didn't understand anything. I forgot to translate the chapter 😂😂😂