Allen thought the most painful part was already over.
He was wrong...
The burning brought by the drop of blood hadn't fully receded before another, even more terrible sensation rose up from deep within his body. It wasn't burning, and it wasn't swelling; it was a feeling coming from his bones, as if something were slowly prying them open from the inside. His limbs began twitching out of his control, his fingers scraping a few shallow marks on the stone slab. Knees, elbows, shoulders, hips, every joint felt as if countless incredibly fine needles were stabbing into it at once, or as if someone inside were forcing him apart. He wasn't fully conscious yet, his mind bobbing up and down as if drifting on scalding water, but the pain was too distinct, so distinct that even if he wanted to pass out again, he couldn't...
"The bones have begun to reshape." Vera's voice came from very close by, as if she were observing his reaction.
"Faster than expected," Vivian said, with no laughter in her voice, as if she were studying something seriously. "It's hardly been any time, and he's already into the bone-structure stage. This child's body... he can really endure."
Allen couldn't make out what they were saying. His ears were full of the sound of his own blood rushing, mixed with the fine, teeth-grating sound of bone grinding against bone. Yes, bone. He heard it. The sound came from inside his body, as if someone were filing down every one of his bones with a rasp. They were changing inch by inch, he could feel it. First his shoulder blades, as though someone were pressing on them from behind, slowly drawing them inward, his broad frame being squeezed narrower by a pair of invisible hands. Then his collarbones. They had been very flat, but now something seemed to be pushing up from inside, stretching the skin taut.
"Stop... stop for a second..." Allen squeezed the words out through his teeth, his voice as if scraped by sandpaper... No one stopped, and he hadn't expected anyone to. It just hurt more than he could bear, as if he were trapped in a sealed box while his body was being compressed bit by bit.
Vera was still holding his hand. Her fingers were no longer cold; they'd been warmed by the sweat and heat of Allen's palm. But Allen could still feel that her hand stayed perfectly steady, never letting go, never making any unnecessary movement. Like a rope lowered from the shore, quietly waiting for him to grab it. He clutched it desperately, his knuckles already stiff, as if frozen into that shape. He didn't know if squeezing any harder would break her hand... but she didn't seem to care.
"The shoulders have narrowed," Vivian said from beside him, as though taking notes for someone.
Allen closed his eyes, then opened them again. He didn't want to look at his body, but his eyes seemed drawn by some force, and he glanced down anyway. His undershirt was soaked through with sweat, clinging tightly to him. He could see his shoulder, the part showing from the collar, trembling slightly. It wasn't him shaking; it was his muscles and skin shifting along with the changes in his bones. The bones were changing, and the muscles were reattaching themselves. The lines there had been hard, but now they were beginning to soften, as if someone were slowly shaving off the angles with a knife. His shoulders really had grown narrower... His body was losing its original outline, little by little.
And it wasn't only getting narrower.
Allen could feel himself getting smaller. It wasn't his imagination. His line of sight was dropping. Lying flat as he was, he had been able to see past Vera's shoulder out of the corner of his eye to a glowing line on the wall behind her. But now that line was blocked by Vera's body. His back, his legs, the whole length of him was drawing in, like a tree being gently compressed from both ends. His wrists and ankles grew thinner, and even his fingers were a little shorter than before. He moved his knuckles and felt that they were lighter, thinner, like knuckles that belonged to a child, not yet fully grown.
"What's... happening..." he panted, his voice thin and hoarse, so that even he could barely recognize it.
"Bone restructuring." Vera's voice was the same as ever, as steady as if she were reciting from a book. "Your new body needs to start from its most basic form. It may be much smaller than before. Once it is fully stable, it will slowly grow."
"But not a little kid anymore," Vivian added, a very light hint of laughter in her voice, as if comforting him, or teasing him. "It's a really cute form~ You'll like it."
Allen couldn't laugh at all. He really was getting smaller, he could feel it clearly: his feet were shrinking up inside his pant legs, leaving a long stretch of empty cloth. His waist grew so slim that his waistband loosened and hung halfway down on his hip bones. His chest drew in along with his shoulders and back, and even the rise and fall of his breathing grew shallower. The old undershirt that had once fit snugly now draped over him like a big sheet, its collar askew, exposing collarbones flushed pale red from the changes. His hair was changing too. He could feel his scalp prickling, as if countless tiny hands were gently tugging at the roots. But the hair didn't fall out; it grew. It spilled down past the pillow, more and more of it, longer and longer. Its color, he couldn't see. But Vera and Vivian could.
"His hair... it's getting lighter," Vivian said quietly, with something strange in her voice, something like awe. "A silvery white tinged with pink. Just like the child in the portrait."
"Quiet." Vera cut her off. Yet her own gaze lingered on Allen's hair too, for quite a while before moving away again.
A violent pain exploded from Allen's pelvis, and his whole body jolted on the stone slab, the back of his head striking the hard stone, his vision flashing white again and again. The pain went too deep, so deep he couldn't cry out. He arched his back, his legs trying to curl up on their own, but some force held them down. His hip bones felt as if they were being squeezed hard toward the middle from both sides, letting out a low creaking, like wood about to snap. His legs began to go weak, his calves twitching as if cramping, new muscles moving beneath his skin, like several little snakes searching for their places inside.
"He looks like he's in a lot of pain," Vivian said. Her voice came from above and to the side of Allen's head, with some hesitation in it, as if waiting for Vera to decide.
"This stage is always like this... When the bone structure changes, the flesh naturally suffers." Vera's answer was very calm, as if answering a student's question in class. Yet the hand holding his didn't move. Allen felt that hand tighten a little, or maybe it was only his imagination.
"You don't have to hold it in~ It'll feel better if you scream." Vivian suddenly bent down and brought her face close to his ear, her voice gone light and soft, as if coaxing him. "It's not like anyone here is going to laugh at you."
Allen would have liked to scream, but his throat felt blocked by something, and all that came out was a broken, wheezing breath like a torn bellows. He opened his mouth and felt his Adam's apple changing. That slightly protruding bone he'd touched ever since he was a boy was retreating upward and inward, bit by bit. As if someone had pressed it with a thumb and was slowly, firmly pushing it back into his throat. His neck grew slimmer, and the muscles of his vocal cords tightened along with it, as if an invisible string were pulling at them in different directions.
His face was changing too. The feeling was very strange... as if someone were gently pushing at his face with their fingers. His brow ridge was drawing back, his chin shortening, even his cheekbones shifting downward. The whole shape of his face seemed like clay gone soft in water, being molded into a new form. His eyeballs were pushed gently outward from their sockets by some force, then settled back. The pain wasn't the worst of it, but that feeling of his features moving sickened Allen to the extreme. He closed his eyes and felt his eyelashes growing longer, as if something tiny were sprouting from his eyelids and gently brushing against his cheekbones.
"The color of the eyes..." Vivian murmured, and didn't finish.
Allen could feel his eyeballs burning. As if someone had buried two little clusters of flame deep in his pupils, not fierce, but burning on and on. He knew his eyes must have changed. Changed into what, he didn't know. But certainly no longer their original dark brown. Would they be red? Like Vera's? Or like the Demon King's, so dark they looked black? He wanted to ask, but his throat could only produce a few broken breaths.
His body was still shrinking... His whole self seemed to have been pressed into a smaller mold, all his organs being rearranged. He heard his heartbeat changing, becoming lighter, becoming faster, like a very, very small bird fluttering inside his chest. His bones followed that heartbeat, one after another, and finally, slowly, came to rest in their new places.
"It's mostly stable," Vera said.
Allen no longer had the strength to respond. His head lolled to one side, and his long silvery-pink hair spilled down over the edge of the stone slab, the ends reaching all the way to the floor, fine and soft, like a layer of newly spun silk. His face was half buried in that hair, showing only one half-closed eye of pale red. That eye was a very light red, like a sunset washed in water, with a dazed look that hadn't fully woken. His eyelashes were very long, stuck together wetly, as though he had just been crying. His whole face was small and white, still faintly flushed, like a porcelain doll not yet glazed.
Vivian leaned in a little closer, stared at him for a long while, and then let out an extremely soft sigh.
"Really... he's so cute you can't even say a harsh word to him."
Vera said nothing... She was still holding Allen's hand. That hand had become very small, curled softly in her palm like a bird not long hatched. She held it without daring to grip hard. On the stone slab, Allen's chest rose and fell gently, his breathing shallow and soft, as if he had finally fallen asleep.
The room was very quiet... Only those dark red lines were still breathing on the walls, brightening and dimming.