Disclaimers 'n' crap: Haihai peeps! I know what you're all thinking: 'HOLY CRAP! HANNAH'S DOING ANOTHER CLIFFHANGERS UNIT FIC!' Well, sorta. I know I have a small fanbase from when I did Last of the Cliffhanger's Unit, and lately I've been wanting to do a little more with the wartime Cliffies. That'll come next chapter. This isn't a one-shot, but it's not very long, either. Believe me, I would LOVE to sit here and write the next part right now, but time constraints prevent me from doing so. And because this is the first time in MONTHS that I've sat down and REALLY wanted to scratch so creative itches, that REALLY sucks. So, for now, I present this. I only own Scott and Elaine. Everyone and everything else is MINE. Any resemblance to a Mary Sue is purely unintentional. I gave Scott an OC girlfriend for a reason. Enjoy!

"Princess! Let me handle this one!" Scott yelled, trying to squash Hannah's protests early. She scowled anyway. Elaine grinned from the other side of the room. Scotty just loved these battles, didn't he? She brandished her blade. Scott's bracelet glowed and formed two knives held by golden string. A tetsugan. He spun the blades and lunged. Elaine parried all of his attacks and made her target Scott's chest. Scott parried these attacks too. Pushing his weight against her blade, he jumped backwards into the air, clapped his hands together, and summoned a hailstorm of ice, his element, to bombard Elaine.

"You sonuva…" Elaine breathed before disappearing beneath Scott's attack. He turned to Hannah.

"See?" he said "Easy as always." Hannah was still scowling.

"Maybe a little too easy…" she said. Suddenly, her eyes widened "Scott! Look out!" Scott whirled around just in time to see…Elaine burying her sword right below his left shoulder. Blood spewed everywhere, some from Scott's mouth as he coughed rigidly. Shocked, Hannah rushed forward, thinking Oh man, I know Scott seems to be incapable of dying, but with all that blood loss…

Without warning, Scott lifted his foot, covered in a curved spike of ice, and hit Elaine squarely in the head as well as the stomach, knocking her backwards and across the room. He collapsed, still bleeding profusely. Shocked, Hannah rushed to his side.

"Shining Heal!" she said, putting her hands on the boy's bloody spot and using her element, Light, to seal it. Temporarily, anyway. She glanced back at Elaine's motionless body "This won't hold forever." She was about to hoist Scott onto her shoulder so she could take him back to Royal Palace when she noticed something. Something odd and astonishing. Something was glowing dully on the back of Scott's right hand. Hannah's jaw dropped.

If this was what she thought it was, and she was pretty sure of that, then Scott didn't need immediate medical attention…because he wasn't physically capable of dying.

"When do you think he'll wake up?"

"I'm really not sure, Your Highness. Your teammates always seem to come around pretty quickly. So, what's the big emergency this time?"

"Look at his right hand."

"It seems to be fi…oh, good lord."

"Exactly."

"Where did he learn to perform that kind of magic? Why would he do this to himself? Does he want to suffer more?"

"That's what I'd like to know. So, if you don't mind, Dr. Sheldon, could you stop taking the words out of my mouth."

"Sorry, Your Highness."

The hospital room came back into Scott's focus quite fast. This was far from the first time he had lost consciousness during a battle and woken up here. What it was the first time for, however, was waking up here to find Hannah glaring at him with something akin to contempt. He had received this look from her many times before, but never under these circumstances. At least, that's what he thought before the next conversation took place and he realized just how different this time was.

"Why'd you do this to yourself, Scott?" said Hannah.

"Do what to myself?" said Scott "Hannah, this isn't the first time I've passed out during a fight, you know."

"Oh, I know," said Hannah "But what I DIDN'T know was that…nergh…how do I explain this…WHY?"

"Why WHAT?" Scott yelled back, genuinely not understanding where Hannah was going with this.

"I'll just leave you two alone, then, shall I?" said Dr. Sheldon, inching towards the door.

"Go ahead," said Hannah and Scott, simultaneously. When the door was closed, they resumed their heated development.

"Seriously, Hannah, why what?" said Scott, in a slightly calmer voice.

"That mark on the back of your hand," said Hannah, regaining the same composure "Do you have any idea what that is?" Scott looked at that spot. There was nothing there. Then, summoned by his will alone, a seal appeared there. "The arrow-pierced circle and the unbroken chain," Hannah continued "This is a sacred vow mark. The person bearing it cannot die until their vow has been fulfilled." Scott looked at it in astonishment.

"I did this?" he gasped.

"You mean you don't remember?" said Hannah.

"I remember…" Scott paused, trying to collect his thoughts. The memories we vague and a bit unspecific, but they were there. "I remember vowing…that I would kill Elaine before I died, that she would go first. I made the vow, and then I blacked out!"

"The sincerity of one's heart is what sets the seal," said Hannah, then, breaking free of her philosophical frame of speech: "Scott, YOU'VE TEMPORARALLY IMORTALIZED YOURSELF!"

"I didn't mean to!" cried Scott "I mean, yes, I put some of my own blood on my hand to seal the deal for myself, but I didn't think that I was actually pulling off that kind of spell! Still…" The room became silent. A small grin unfolded on Scott's face. "Holy crap…" he breathed, coming to the realization "I can't die unless she dies…oh my god, I'll actually be able to pull this off!" Hannah was ready to scream another objection but restrained herself.

"Scott, you'll be in for a helluva lot of pain and suffering for this, you know that?" she said, reverting to her more traditional concerned-in-the-hospital tone "You won't be able to leave this plane of existence, so if you sustain what would be a mortal wound for a normal person, you can't just die and be relieved of the pain. You'll just have to sit and suffer until someone heals you or you heal yourself. Of course, there are some very serious injuries, like having a large piece of your chest cavity ripped out or something, that the seal should heal for you. But please don't use that as an excuse to do anything completely insane. You do enough of that already."

"Don't worry," said Scott, very seriously "I've taken a lot of pain in my life. In a way, I think I'm almost used to most of it now. I can handle this." Hannah's expression didn't change.

"Then why am I still worried?" she said.

"What'll I have to do to get you to stop worrying?" said Scott.

"Could you at least smile…normally?" Scott did so.

"And don't worry about Michelle, either," he said "I'll tell her about this myself."

Like I said, the next chapter will take place during the war. I have every intention to go back and revise Cliffhanger's Unit to accommodate the upgrades (and also to edit out some stuff that I just don't think fits). Trust me, I REALLY WANT TO CONTINUE THIS ONE, BUT I DON'T HAVE TIME TONIGHT! Please review and maybe I can get my lazy ass back to MS Word by tomorrow.