Five -
Final Fantasy 4, Kain Highwind
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Alive, then. He is surprised.

He remembers the mountain bearing down on him, rushing at his widened eyes, too massive to be avoided, an enemy too implacable to be fought. He remembers the rock tearing his armor from him, breaking his bones, flensing the flesh from his chest in two great ripping tears like bright fire along his nerves. His fingers fly to his chest, stroke the bandages, draw biting pain from the wounds underneath--but his chest is still right, the muscles still the correct shape. Almost. His fingers trace out the shape of the pain that has been carved into his chest, deep furrows in the flesh, and he understands that the mountain has marked him, left a great 'X' carved across his chest for all to see. Kain is marked. Will always be marked.

His arms are no longer broken, he realizes belatedly. He flexes under the covers: his legs are whole again. Rosa? Perhaps. But why on the airship, when they had left her behind in Baron... and then a sound, a faint exhalation of breath, comes from beside the window and Kain--always a warrior--is on his feet before it fades, bared shape of a golden man dressed only in white bandages that cover nothing. The pain-creature bites him and he sinks into a crouch, fingers digging into his bare thighs to help him keep the groan inside.

Looks up. Sees Cecil.

"He took the hand of the child who tried to kill you and left you alone to die," Cecil-not-Cecil says, his bluish-white hair too short, his face too square, a cruel avidity in his eyes that feasts on the sight of Kain, there on the floor. Kain, or his torment. One or the other, both. "I thought you should know."

Something flares in Kain's mind. Something flares in Kain's body. The world flashes once and goes black. When he wakes, he will have been put back in the bed. And he will be alone.

He is used to that.