Chapter 113: Ambivalence

How long she was unaware Nagi never precisely discovered, even in the intervening years since. Remembering only her next sensations were that of hands moving along her skin.

Large hands, undeniably masculine yet deft and gentle as they messaged and soothed tracing the gentle flair of her adolescent hips, sliding under lifting and firmly cupping before kneading the muscles of her posterior. Extracting a gasp from her at such contact with her most intimate of areas.

'Naked.' Nagi thoughts drifted sleepily. Feeling strangely no immedeate panic at the concept, nor any emotion for that mater.

"You are awake." A strange yet somehow familiar voice said, "At last!"

Causing her to realize she had still to open her eyes. Doing so then seemed to require the most monumental of efforts. She didn't recognize the room in which she then lay upon finally doing so. Only that judging from the ceiling vaulting above it must be somewhere still aboard the massive derelict.

Nagi had struggled, willing her head to move. Only to find her body responding poorly as though she were encased in the thickest of glue. Distress of that revelation escalating rapidly, upon seeing the stranger still plying the muscles to ether side of her hips!

He was tall with a regal bearing, handsome to her eyes. Flowing blond hair, only a few shades more 'honeyed' than her own. His features bore a cruel cast warmed only by the wry smile now playing upon his lips as he regarded her in turn.

Twin pools of molten gold that were surely his most riveting feature!

"I had begun to fear you were lost to me!" He continued, tracing with a nail of his right hand along her left side over her hip. Grazing familiarly under and around her abs as he supported himself with his right.

Tickling along and up her ribs till arriving at last, grasping, and gently lifting her chin.

"My precious ... Nagi."

"You..." She had managed to wheeze upon recognition. Able to reconstruct, though now far richer in tone and timber, his was the voice which had first only been the faintest whisper in her ear.

"Yes!" He affirmed smiling, while the hand at her chin then began gently stroking her cheek. "As you can see it worked!" Nagi had felt a sigh pass the length of her being at hearing. A feeling of relief at having accomplished a goal, it did little however to offset the pervading overall weakness holding her form.

"What's happened to me?" She managed at length, even that effort exhausting her minuet reserves.

"An unforeseen side effect of the process." He told her after a notable pause.

"I fear that without connecting the external array we constructed, the device leached nearly all localized bio-energy instead." He had then paused fixing her with a most curious gaze.

"I'm afraid that included yours my dear." Nagi had nodded, or at least she attempted to do so, The result more like a weak flopping to the side.

"But this." He continued, regarding her allowing his gaze to sweep along her exposed length.

"Your lovely body! Is young and strong!" He had paused his eyes steadying briefly somewhere at her midriff. Had she the energy Nagi was certain she would have been red from forehead to ankles.

"I assure you!" He then smiled, letting his gaze return to her face. "It will soon recover!"

At which point a noise had involuntarily escaped. Unlike the gasp before this sound was deeper communicating a sense of exhaustion rapidly confirmed by a sudden swimming of her vision.

"But for now you must rest!" He told her as if sensing. Disappearing momentarily from Nagi's line of sight. Returning almost instantly holding aloft something she instantly identified as a medicinal injector!

"No!" She managed, actually raising part of her upper body briefly before gravity shoved her weakened physic back to the table, Much to his eternal amusement.

"So," He grinned, while preceding forward undeterred. "My little princess doesn't like getting shots?"

Her only answer was to squirm fitfully and even that pathetic tremble passing for protest faded rapidly beyond her means.

"This is merely a dose of concentrated vitamins and complexes." He assured even as he lifted, rolling Nagi on to her left side.

"To assist your metabolisms efforts to rebuild!" He concluded, an instant before Nagi felt a sharp sting to her posterior. Unable to voice more than a mild grunt of displeasure, before she was again lowered to 'face up' position.

"Sleep my precious girl." He then soothed gently stroking the smooth skin of her stomach.

"Sleep and grow strong." He needn't have bothered. Nagi sensed the void enclosing yet again reaching up to grab her awareness. Enclosing all in a black velvet fist.

The next several months of her life were broken into intervening moments of consciousness interspersed with long periods of sleep. Yet each time she ventured suddenly back into the world of the living Nagi knew her body was responding to his continued ministrations, felt herself grow progressively stronger.

Setting the stage for the day when he at last helped her rise from her bed. By that time of course he was no longer some anonymous figure, a slightly more than corporeal ghost 'haunting' her existence.

He had a name, and it was Kagato.

Though to this day Nagi had no clue as to when that all-important introduction had been made.

It would have been nice if she could have simply 'woken up' and resumed her life. That 'reality' however ceased the day her hold upon the waking world had grown firm enough, when she had immediately been pressed into the rigors of physical therapy. Drawing upon resources somehow unseen from the enormous ship.

Only hours had passed during what was now clearly to be a new chapter in her life. When Nagi had been confronted by an enigma in a mirror.

At first she had started not even recognizing the face of the young woman reflected as her own! She had gone to sleep a lanky girl on the cusp of puberty! While drawn and listless from enforced sleep, the fuller face and body erupting about her were clearly those of one closer to seventeen!

"Is that?" She had murmured in shock, in the sheer wonder of the moment. "Me?"

Noting at that same instant her hair, previously worn in a short 'page style' favored by the Jurian court for girls of her house for her age at the time. 'True nobles' never shortened their hair. And Nagi's was now a train of silvery silk cascading well past the small of her back!

"Indeed it is." He had assured, leaning in from one side. Obviously without much success attempting to restrain the humor from his face.

"But..." She had ventured. Ultimately failing to find any words to bridge the river of emotions surging inside.

"You have been in regenerative sleep for slightly more than three years my dear." Kagato had told her calmly.

"The damage to the cells of your body almost beyond even my ability to restore!" He had taken that moment to pause, running a hand gently yet possessive through her flowing mane.

"Yet with time and persistence..." He continued proudly. "Look at the wonders we have wrought!"

"It's like a dream..." She had murmured, feeling no revulsion at his touch. One she even now only half remembered feeling while she had slept. That also had seemed like a dream.

Nagi had regarded him, his eyes reflected in the mirror before her their gaze, steady and clear. His devotion to her continued well being, obvious and unimpeachable.

It was indeed curious then to find her mind turning to her father. They had always been distant at best.

She had never even known her mother's name, where abouts or even the exact reasons why they had mated then parted. Other than the wealth and family status, which both insulated and defined most of her life at the time had somehow been a factor...

Nagi supposed, she had wanted for nothing, except...

Those that had raised and tutored her had been servants. Merely 'the hired help'. Certainly never cruel but at some basic level Nagi always knew, always felt somehow, that she was alone.

To be sure, Gannon had to all estimations been a dutiful father, just occupied?

His status as imperial architect, only his most recent contribution. Nagi was given to know Gannon had been a teacher, Posted at a one of the prestigious 'galactic' universities.

She had been far too young at the time to really appreciate the details enough to pursue them fully. Also she had been rebuffed the few time she had asked. Perhaps she might have learned eventually.

But suddenly there she was, having faced death twice! Aboard her father's cruiser, surviving only to almost die in her attempt to aid this mysterious stranger. Who had clearly more than reciprocated! Thus thought of family and urgency slowly faded further from her, the stage had been set, for, as she had stood there looking deep into his reflected eyes Nagi had fallen. Deeply, passionately In love for the very first time!

Yet in the afterglow of that most profound moment, one nagging thought chose curiously to surface.

"Where are the others?" She had asked, the question seeming supremely odd spilling out of her mouth at almost the exact second of surely the most important event in a young girl's life! His reaction was counter-measurably strange.

"We must find something for you to wear!" He diverted. Gesturing at her current flimsy attire.

"Though I must confess." He continued elaborately. "The notion of you going about as you are intrigues me!"

"Why are you changing the subject?" Nagi pressed. A dull itch of something, resembling panic, starting to whisper from the shadows of her mind.

"Tsunami! I've been asleep more than three years!" She exclaimed her eyes growing large as she turned directly to him. "Where are the others?" She demanded. "My father's crew? What have they been doing all this time?"

"Uh..." The target of her verbal battery responded. Looking back upon her uncertainly.

"Perhaps this isn't the best time..."

"WHAT ARE YOU HIDDING FROM ME??" Nagi had screamed. Suddenly unable to bear the weight of suspicions descending. Half remembered images cascading, vaguely at that moment, recalling the others falling about the wreckage in the room and beyond. Even as the memory of the deck colliding with her face was also recollected as she too was pulled down into utter blackness.

"Please." She had added pleadingly. He had stood regarding her for several long instances. In truth Nagi did not remember how long she had waited. Lips trembling fear spilling from every pore. Needing, demanding that he respond.