Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the realm of gods, three women watched over a loom as a thread on it was getting dangerously taut. “Come on, Myne, please hang on! there are so many books that you need to write!” the lady with the blue hair said, voice cracking betraying how scared she is. Just as she said that, the thread snapped in two and started to lose color. ”MYNE, NOOOO! WHYYYYY?!” the young lady cried as she grabbed the thread and ran off in an unknown direction. ”MESTIONORA! COME BACK WITH THAT THREAD!” yelled one of the two remaining ladies as the weave on the loom collapsed back to the point where the thread began.

”Calm down, Liebeskhilfe. She is distraught, but she will come back. Then, we can try again,” one of the women said.

“But Dregarnuhr, the thread snapped clear in half. I don't know whether or not I'll be able to put it back together since the thread was so unique,” Liebeskhilfe exclaimed as Dregarnuhr started to look worried.

“We will see what we can do, but rest assured, we will have to try again. Otherwise the garden will fall and with that so will Erwaermen.”

Meanwhile, in the void between worlds, a lone soul was drifting along bored of their time in the inky blackness of the void. “Man, I wish I had something to do or just moved on already. It's been ages since I died!” I exclaimed. “I am pretty sure I saw my soul shatter when I got hit, but now I'm just here floating around.” Suddenly, I heard something faintly in the distance. It sounded like someone crying. If there was crying, that meant someone else was there. Finally, my isolation in this void was over. Perhaps they can help me move on to the next life. I headed over to the sound to see a young woman with dark blue hair crying over two pieces of a snapped thread.

“MYNE! WHY DID YOU GIVE UP SO SOON! IF YOU HAD MADE IT, I WOULD HAVE LET YOU INTO MY LIBRARY!” she sobbed. That was odd. I didn’t see anyone else here who could be called Myne. Was she referring to the thread in her hand like it's a person? Anyway, she's the only other sentient being in this void here, so she must know something, unless she's like me and only just got here. Man, I hope not. With that thought, I floated over to the lady and tried to strike up a conversation.

“Um, hello there, ma'am. Is there any way I can help you so then you possibly could help me get out of this void and to the afterlife?” I asked cautiously. 

“THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO, ERRANT MORTAL SOUL! HOW DARE YOU APPROACH ME WITHOUT PERMISSION!” she said very angrily.

I closed my senses and waited for her to do something to me in anger, but after a few moments I felt... nothing? When I reopened my senses, I saw her there with rainbow colored eyes glaring at me, kinda confused.

“Wait, why aren't you being Crushed and forced to bow to me? The goddess’s aura should have made you kneel. What's going on?”

“Ohh, I see. it must be the soul's determination that's keeping me up and around you while you're trying to attack me,” I stated. 

“What does determination have to do with your errant action, soul? Tell me now!” She looked kinda impatient.

“Well, determination is the will to go on and to overcome any obstacle. It's one of the seven major soul traits. as you can see, when you truly die with an excess amount of determination, it leads to this,” I explained while pointing at the rainbow colored arm I have.

“That's an odd power you possess. You must be from a very different world. Interesting.” she looked at me for just a second before crying out. ”IT DOESN'T MATTER ANYWAY! MY MOST FAITHFUL FOLLOWER, MYNE, HAS DIED! AND HER THREAD IS SO DAMAGED EVEN I CAN'T REPAIR IT! WITHOUT HER I CAN’T SAVE HIM!” 

So that thread was a soul. I wondered why it took that form… wait a sec, perhaps I can do something here.

“You know, I haven't given you my name, have I? My name is Steel,” I extended my hand as I told her. 

“Hmm. My name is Mestionora, the Goddess of Wisdom. It's… nice to meet you, Steel, but can you please go away so I can mourn the loss of my follower?”

“Well, I was wondering if you can show me that thread there. I might be able to do something to help you.”

“You can try to help, Steel, but if you break her even more than now, I will tear you apart,” Mestionora said coldly while holding the thread out to me. I put a finger on the thread and felt a very weak soul, one that has lost the will to go on, but I was confident I could help.

“Ok, this is an easy fix. I just need to add determination to her,” I said as I ran my finger down the length of it, adding some determination to it. As I got to the break in the thread, it mended together leaving it whole and unblemished.

“Wait, you fixed it? You fixed it! Thank you, you brought back my dearest follower, and now I can save him,” exclaimed Mestionora. 

“I'm glad I could help, but determination does not last forever. Without a way to generate it from within it will fade,” I told her. 

She looked sad for a second before getting an idea. 

“Do you naturally generate this determination power?”

“Yes I do, it comes back for me,” I stated. 

I soon felt something wrong, like I was being unwound. I looked down and saw myself unraveling into a string. I looked in horror as the goddess of wisdom grabbed the end and started to wrap it around the thread saying to me.

“I'm sorry, but I can't lose Myne again. She has to do something very important for me so I'm just going to borrow you for a bit, Steel. Don’t worry, you will be separate from her and get to see the beauty of our garden.” 

I barely registered what she was saying as I was unwound up to my neck. Feeling like I was about to pass out but before everything went to black, I heard some final words.

“Please, guide her through her journey. If you do, I'll help you move on when you come back. Now, please, SAVE MY ERWAERMEN!”

Back at the loom, two goddesses were arguing about how to continue the weave when the Goddess of Wisdom came back smiling.

“Hey Mestionora, why are you smiling? Wait, what is that in your hand?” asked Liebeskhilfe.

Mestionora looked down at the thread in her hand to see it had changed. Now its blue color has come back, but there was a tinge of red wrapped around it, the thread turning slightly purple where the red and blue meet.

“Oh, this is Myne’s thread. I managed to fix it,” Mestionora casually replied. 

“Really? Let me examine it,” Dregarnuhr asked. 

“Sure,” Mestionora said as she handed it over.

“Mestionora, I know you like Myne as a devout follower, but I think we must look for another, stronger thread. Perhaps we can use-” Liebeskhilfe started to say before she was interrupted by Mestionora.

“NO! I fixed her thread, so why can't we use it again?” Mestionora yelled at Liebeskhilfe.

“You know why. Every time the weave was rewoven, the threads weakened more and more, and now we see the results of it. Myne’s thread snapped, and even if you fixed it there is a high chance she will snap again before she even regains her memories.”

“Look, we all agreed when we saw Myne’s thread that she was the perfect person for the job of saving the garden, so I don't see why she can't just try again now that I fixed her thread,” Mestionora stated calmly like it was an immutable fact of life.

“You don't understand. Ventuche, help me explain why we can't do this,” asked Liebeskhilfe. 

“Oh, I already started weaving with the thread, Liebeskhilfe. And it's looking very beautiful,” Ventuche replied casually.

“YOU DID WHAT, VENTUCHE? OH MY STARS, THE WEAVE!” Liebeskhilfe exclaimed as they ran towardsVentuche and the loom. Mestionora and Liebeskhilfe looked at the loom to see the beginning of an amazing weave vibrant with colors.

“See? I told you that this would work, Liebeskhilfe,” the Goddess of Wisdom smugly stated. Liebeskhilfe just looked in shock as the weave got to the point in time where everything began.

Chapter Text

When I was waking up. I expected to see just an empty void staring back at me as I knew I had died. However, what I saw instead was a small shabby wooden room with one bed. The room was barely lit as there were no candles or electric lights I was used to seeing everywhere I went. This was odd because the last thing I remembered was… wait, what? As I got up from the floor, I racked my brain trying to remember the last thing I did, but I was drawing a blank. I think I remember talking to someone with blue hair? Anyway, as I saw nothing else in the room, I resolved to try and see where I was at. I walked towards the door and reached for the handle, but as I tried to grip it, my hand just phased through it. Thinking I just missed it, I reached again, for the same thing to happen. That’s when I finally noticed my hand was translucent and glowing a bit. Looking down at my body, I saw that I was dressed in a white T-shirt and black pants, but the clothing along the rest of my body was glowing and translucent as well. It seemed I had died and became a ghost, but then—why didn't I move on yet? Now I really needed to go out and see what happened to me. Luckily, since I was a ghost, I didn’t have to worry about doors anymore, so I just phased through it. What I saw on the other side was a cozy rustic kitchen. Looking around, I saw a square table with some boxes that I assumed the people use as chairs. The reasoning—I saw three people sitting on them at the table, two adults and one child. It seemed like they were a very nice but poor family. As I didn't want to intrude on them, I headed to the nearby door, thinking it was a way out. But when I reached it, I felt something pulling me back. Thinking it was nothing, I continued, but as I was about to leave the cozy home, I felt something snap and draw me back to the room I just left. Landing back at the bed, I heard some pained whimpers coming from it, so I decided to look closely. Laying on the bed was a young girl about 3-4 years old. Her face was flushed, and she was sweating. She was tossing and turning on the bed in pain as she whimpered that the heat was too much. I had the compulsion to help her out, so I placed my ethereal hand on her forehead hoping it would cool her down. It did indeed help, as I felt some heat going into my hand. The question was: how did I feel that? What was more odd, I felt something leaving me. I felt like going on wasn't something I should do now. That's when I realized that my determination was leaving me and going into her. I needed answers, and there was no one else I could even ask. Perhaps I could talk to this young girl, so I decided to speak.

“Hey, are you okay? It’s time to wake up!” I nudged the girl as I softly said this. She seemed to stir a bit, but she did not wake up, so I figured I had to yell it out.

After I felt some relief from the heat, I was going to drift back to sleep until I heard a male voice yelling.

“HEY, WAKE UP!” the loud voice pounded in my head, causing me to open my eyes. What I saw was a dark room with a wooden ceiling. I was about to ask what was going on before the door opened and in walked a green-haired girl. As she started to speak to me, a flood of memories came to me giving me a headache.

Chapter Text

POV CHANGE

Welp, that hurt. Apparently, any pain she feels I feel as well. Well, that's lovely. At least she woke up, so perhaps she could hear and help me out. “Hey, can you hear me?” I spoke out loud thinking she might not hear me, but to my surprise, she did. 

“Hello? Is someone there?” she asked while looking around. 

“Hello, young lady. Do you know where you're at?” 

“We are in my family's bedroom. Wait, why am I talking to you? I don't think you're even real!”

“Well, I just wanted to ask a few questions if that's all right?”

She looked at the floor a bit, thinking deeply about something, but eventually she nodded.

There was something I needed to know first. “What was happening while you were sleeping? You had a heat that I even felt.”

She gazed around a bit trying to pinpoint where my voice was coming from, but then eventually said, “I don't really know. The last thing I remember is a lot of books falling on me after the ground was shaking. Then I woke up in this room.”

So that is just great. We appeared to be going into this world blind, as it seems either this girl had an overactive imagination and amnesia combo happening, or she got reincarnated into that body. 

While I was thinking, she piped up with a sudden question. “Hey, where are you? I can't even see you anywhere in this room!”

That brought me out of my thoughts with a groan, which she heard and asked for a reason.

“That means I became a determination ghost when I died. That's FANTASTIC. I wanted to have some eternal rest, but instead my soul latched onto yours. Can I ever catch a break? I just-”

I was stopped by the young girl suddenly shaking and whimpering, about to burst into tears.

“Hey, kiddo, uhh… what's wrong? You look like you’re about to start with the waterworks. I'm sorry if I scared you by yelling.”

I tried to comfort her when she started talking in a very scared voice, “Are you gonna haunt me then, hoping to scare me to death?”

Wait, why is she asking if I'm gonna haunt her!? Doesn't she know what a determination ghost was in her past life?  

“Uhh no, I'm not going to haunt you. I'm basically just here until you die or I run out of determination, and since I can feel whatever pain you feel, I'd rather you not get hurt, okay?” I tried to reassure her. 

She slowly nodded before trying to get up.

“So, uhh, before we continue… I have one question to ask you. What’s your name?” 

She froze for a second like she was trying to remember a distant memory before telling me. 

“Myne. My name is Myne.” 

“Nice to meet you, Myne. My name is Steel,” I responded

Chapter Text

“Well, with that out of the way, why don't you rest a bit more? You seem a bit more tired still.” 

However, after I said that, she shook her head no and sat up.

“I can't. I must find a book. I wanna read!” she replied as she got up from the bed to immediately almost tumble over. “Bwuh?” she exclaimed trying to get steady footing 

“So, I'm guessing in your previous life you were pretty healthy, huh,” I said while trying to examine her and see what was wrong.

“Yeah, I was, but this body feels… heavy and weak. I don't really like it, and the heat feels bad, but I need to use it to move,” she replied. 

That got me thinking what exactly is this heat she and I feel. It does not feel like human or monster soul magic, no, it feels… wild and untamed. Pulled from my thoughts, I saw Myne get up and try to walk towards the door, but she was slow, almost too slow for me, so I offered help.

“Hey, do you want me to help you move? You kinda are hanging on a thread there,” I asked. 

“What can you do? You are a ghost, a figment of my sick mind,” she said a little angry at how little progress she was making. 

Welp, that's a good question, what can I do? There was only one way to figure it out, and that was to experiment. I closed my eyes to think of something when I noticed something weird. I saw glowing lines coursing through Myne’s body. It kinda looked like water, but there were some glowing clumps spread throughout and a big one near the center where the fluid was being pumped. I wanted to help her because I did not want her to get hurt, so I tried to think of a solution. That's when I saw it right in the center—a tiny dot of red. Once I looked at it, I knew what it was. It was pure determination; it was leaking bits of it into her body. Well, there's the problem. Everybody knows that the human body can't survive without determination, and her soul energy is not flowing correctly. I piped up as she was reaching the door. 

“Hey, do you mind standing still for a bit? I wanna try something to help?” I asked politely. 

After a few seconds of thinking she said, “As long as it helps me get to finding books faster, sure!” 

Well, that was certainly easy, so might as well get on with it. I closed my eyes again and focused on the speck of determination, poking and prodding it, trying to see why it was not moving properly. Then, after a while, I felt there was a thin coat surrounding it that felt… like a rock? Well, there's the problem—this rock thing is preventing the determination from circulating correctly. The good news was that the layer was thin enough so I should be able to break it. I concentrated on the red dot and willed it to expand. That's when I felt the rock crack but not break, so I willed it to expand again. This time the layer broke, and soon I saw red leaking into the white lines of her body. I opened my eyes again to see her standing there, looking confused, probably because I was just floating with my eyes closed.

“Well, how do you feel now?” I asked. 

She took awhile to respond, but she eventually did in an amused tone. “I feel warm, like a nice comfy coat was put on me. What did you do?” 

She was moving her arms and legs up and down while I explained that I broke a blockage that was preventing her determination from spreading. She again looked at me with a puzzled look before I decided to suggest: “Try moving around. I think you will find it easier.” 

With that, she started walking again. Much to her surprise, she bumped her head on the door which in turn caused me to feel a sharp pain on my forehead.

“OWW!”

“OWIE.”

After rubbing my head for a bit, I scolded her by flicking her on the head repeatedly. “Myne, you have to be careful now. Because I unblocked your soul energy, you now have the speed of two hyperactive kids, and seriously, did you not pay attention to how your limbs felt? If you did, then you would have known you were faster now!”

In the end, she just pouted and said, “Okay, I will be more careful. But right now, I need to find something to read!” With that she opened the door and walked out of the room leaving me alone in there. 

“Sigh. You know it would be nice if you guys piped up once in a while and helped me with Myne.” A deep silence permeated the room before I spoke again. “Guess I gotta keep an eye on this book gremlin.” And with that said, I floated after her into the next room.

Chapter Text

As I followed Myne into the kitchen, I saw that she was rummaging through some floor cabinets. She was muttering something about finding either books or paper while lifting some pans. I decided to chime in, otherwise she would tear up the whole house. 

“Hey, you know it's very unlikely you would find books or paper in the kitchen cabinets,” I said. 

She stood up and sat at the table after putting down a pot. “Well, Steel, where do you think the books are at then if not in there?” She pouted as she looked at me, just a little sad. 

Taking a closer look around the room, I came to a realization that I knew would make her very sad and upset. “I'm pretty sure there are no books in this house, Myne.”

After I said that, she immediately got defensive and a little mad. “How would you know that? Anyway, my family could just be hiding them in that room over there,” she said as she pointed to the door next to the bedroom. 

“Look, Myne. This house doesn't look like a modern one, and with the absence of electricity or at least some electronics, I think we are in a medieval period of time. Based on that time period's history, there were no books widely available, so I think there's no books here,” I explained. 

However, she did not listen because she was already opening that door and walking in. 

“Sigh. Come on, guys, it will be really nice if you pipe up.” The room was filled with silence causing an uneasy feeling in my soul. So, without a response, I floated into the room to find a basic storage with some fruits and vegetables on the shelves. The floor had some chopped dry wood on it, ready to be burned for the fire in the kitchen. My eyes then swept over to Myne trying to climb the shelf to get to the top. 

“Oi, Myne, you gotta stop before you fall!” I yelled out, however, she lost her grip and started falling. I tried to catch her, but since I was not solid, she fell through my arms. Myne did land safely though as a green haired woman wearing a bandana did catch her. 

“MYNE! HOW DID YOU GET OUT OF THE ROOM, AND WHY WERE YOU CLIMBING THE SHELF!?” she exclaimed.

“Mom, you're here! Do you know where the books are?” she exclaims, but I noticed that her mom looked confused when Myne said the word book. It was the kind of look you give someone when they speak a sentence almost completely in English except for just one word. 

“Ahh, Myne you're still warm. You need to go back to bed and rest.”

Mynes' squirms and protests were winding down as she started to get tired. When her mom laid her down onto the bed. Myne fell asleep almost immediately. It made me a bit worried. I decided to check the state of her body to see If something is wrong. Closing my eyes again, I looked at Myne’s body laying on the bed. That's when I saw that the determination flowing through her body was slightly fading, like if she was leaking it—like a bucket with a hole in the bottom. What's worse, the glowing lines were starting to get bigger and bigger like they were trying to burst out of her tiny body. What's weird was that in the center of her body was a vortex swirling. Taking a closer look at it, I saw it smashing the energy and determination down into a point. It was not enough, however, because the white energy was still building up to the point of bursting. I decided to help again, so I laid my hand on her forehead to try and pull the determination out of the vortex. That did not happen. Instead, the moment I rested my hand on her forehead, I felt that heat from earlier coming into me. The white energy was flowing into me while my determination was going into her! That's not supposed to happen at all! I wanted to take my hand off of her, but it felt like I was glued to her. So there I was, floating, while the exchange continued. It must have been hours, because when I was able to take my hand off of her, there was no light coming from the window and the bed had three more people in it. There were the folks I saw in the dining room earlier when I was trying to wander. They were cuddled up together with Myne in the center. It was the picture perfect family, and seeing that made my soul drop. 

“They all look happy together, don't they, guys?” The silence that followed just broke my last straw. “That's it. Y'all need a serious wake up call right now,” I said as I pulled my soul out.

Chapter Text

Soul

 Looking at my soul is never easy knowing what we had to do to get out of… that place, that awful place. Still, at this point it was nice to have them with me in this new world where we could perhaps see the sun again after so long. That is, if they would wake up. They have been so quiet since I got sent here. I was sure they would soon get up as well. 

“Ok guys, it's time to wake up, you have been asleep for too long, and this girl here is a handful. My soul just floats there silent and glowing, not a peep coming out. I'm warning you guys, you need to wake up. I don't think I can do this alone if you don't respond in the next three minutes. I'm going to be forced to do that thing you guys hate.” Now, little did other folks know: when you touch someone else's soul, as long as you have no ill intent you can send a jolt through them. I had it done to me before, during the experiments the doctors did. It feels like rubbing your socked feet on a carpet and then touching someone else. A little spark of electricity runs through them and gives them a jolt. That is what I'm threatening to do to them. I know that the monster wont wake up, it never really had a voice or thoughts. However, out of everyone I knew there was one very light ‘sleeper’ in our group. 

“Oh Tahlia, it's time to wake up~” I sang as I did a very light touch on their part of the soul hoping to feel them jolt awake. However, when I touched that part, I felt the jolt myself instead which was not supposed to happen. “That's weird, perhaps I accidentally touched my own soul instead,” I muttered as I touched that soul section again. I still felt that buzz… which could mean only one thing: they had moved on. I suddenly felt cold as I realized something I was not paying attention to when I woke up. Ever since we fused together as one, there was always a… sort of pressure in the back of my mind where they resided, waiting to bubble up and take over when the situation demanded it. However, looking back to when I first woke up here, I did not feel anything at all except for myself. No no no no no, this can't be! The rest must just be sleeping right only Tahlia had moved on, right? I decided to try Beverly's soul section next because I needed their advice now since Tahlia is gone. However, yet again I felt that jolt, meaning they are gone as well. Damn it. They were very wise and would be calm in this situation. Meanwhile, I was here starting to hyperventilate hearing my soul pounding in my ears. Panicking I just ran my hand over the rest of the soul sections, calling out to them hoping anyone was still here with me, just anyone at all. The results were the same for each and every one of them. They moved on, all of them moved on without me. My face started to feel damp as I choked back a sob. I had never been truly alone before. We made a PROMISE ON THAT DAY, I was thinking as dark thoughts started to bubble up. WE PROMISED EACH OTHER WE WOULD STAY TOGETHER AND GO OUT TOGETHER, AND YET HERE I AM, ALL ALONE. I had to check one thing just to make sure I was not having a nightmare again. I used to have serious nightmares before they were in my mind. So I took a deep breath and pulled up my action menu. I hovered my soul over the act button and selected it, then I did a check.

Check

Seeing my stats, I just started bawling at confirmation I am alone and they truly left me behind which just broke me. The emotions were just too much for me as I started to black out, my mind shutting down from overload and… heat? Before I lost consciousness, I felt a hand grabbing my arm and pulling me down to a bed, with Myne’s voice telling me: “It's going to be ok.”

Chapter Text

I honestly did not know that ghosts can pass out or sleep, but hey, I was new to this whole “being a ghost” thing. Anyway, when I woke up, I noticed that I was on the bed Myne sleeps on, but I could not feel anything except for something in my hand. Turning my head, I saw Myne right next to me, and then looking down a bit I found out she was holding my hand. Normally that was fine with me, but that also meant she has been pumping me with that white energy. Searching within myself I saw the energy circling around my soul.

It felt pretty uncomfortable, but remembering what Myne did earlier when she was sick I decided to compress the energy. Since it felt like a liquid, I imagined a cylinder where I poured the liquid into it. Then I circled around the main mass with determination and squeezed it into a solid clump. Poking the clump felt mushy to me, not completely solid, but that was not what I wanted to happen. So I did it again and again and again.

I was honestly surprised that it did not blow up in my face. In the end, I compressed it around 30 times before it felt solid enough for me to toss it into an imaginary box where it was barely visible after hitting the bottom. After the satisfaction of a job well done, I extended my senses outside, looking up to see Myne looking down at my face. 

“Hello, Steel. I'm glad to see you awake!” I just blinked out of confusion seeing her so calm after waking up the first time. 

“Uhh. Hello, Myne, it’s nice to see you too… uhh, how long was I out?” 

She raised a finger to her cheek, thinking for a bit before replying that we have been bedridden for about three days. 

“THREE DAYS?!” I floated up exclaiming shocked that apparently we both have been out of commission. “You're saying you were bedridden as well?” I did not understand why she was bedridden with me. Then she started to explain to me that when I was immobile, she could not leave the room as if we were bound together with a length of tight rope, so she pretended she was very sick.

That's just great. Not only was I tied to her but she was tied to me as well, causing her to be stuck in this room. I felt really bad. I never would want to confine anyone to a single room, that’s just torture. 

Eventually, she asked me a single question that brought me out of my depressive spiral. “So, Steel, what's the plan we need to get some books?” looking up at me with those golden eyes. “Why do you want books? You seem a tad obsessed with them.” What I did not expect was for the next 30 mins to be entirely consumed by how important books are to civilization. That was an interesting discussion with many points but nearing the 30 min mark i stopped her.

Chapter Text

 “We should go out to the kitchen, Myne,” I said after stopping the book lecture. She nodded and then went to the door and opened it. The mom was at the table along with the sister, but the sister looked like she was heading out.

“Alright, I'm heading to the forest. See you guys later!” she said as she closed the door.

“Alright, see you later, Tuuli!” Myne replied as she sat at the table. “Good morning, mom!”

g“Good morning, Myne. You seem to feel a lot better now.” 

“I do, mom. Thanks to you and dad for taking care of me!”

Myne started to eat as a bowl of porridge was given to her for breakfast. It looked plain which reminded me of most of my meals I had when I was alive. I wish I could taste and eat food again. It's one of the things I was missing now that I was…  well… dead. 

After Myne finished the bowl, she asked for another one which her mother readily gave her. 

I floated down to Myne, looking at the bowl of porridge, and decided to speak up a bit. “You know, this plain porridge would be better with some maple brown sugar or some fruit.”

She looked at me with a bit of a sad look in her eyes before replying “yeah”. So it seems we both missed some things from our previous life. I just quietly floated there while she finished eating. After she was done, her mom spoke up, “Myne, I'm heading to the market today. Would you like to come?” Myne looked at me for confirmation, and I nodded. 

“Yes, mom, I would like to go with you,” Myne replied as she brought over the dishes to her mom. The main reason I told her yes was because I wanted to see what we were dealing with. The only thing we knew was that this world seemed to be in the medieval times. 

“Alright, Myne. Come to the storeroom and help me find the baskets for the food.” 

“Okay, mom.” 

I started to follow them, but something caught my eye that made me stop right in my tracks. Off to the side from the dishes was a bent dull knife with a wood handle, ready to be thrown away. I don't know how to describe it accurately, but it felt like it was calling me to pick it up. It felt like eons passed before I made my decision to float over to it, keeping in mind not to get too far away from the storeroom with Myne and her mom.

Floating right next to it, I reached out expecting my hand to phase through it, but that was not what happened. Instead, my hand firmly gripped the handle, and my determination started to flood into the blade. The metal slowly crinkled as the blade straightened out, and I noticed the edge got a lot shinier. Soon, after thirty seconds, the blade looked brand new—completely straight and sturdy. The handle has turned from a light brown wood color into a very dark gray. 

The blade had a red tint to the metal now, and it felt lighter now as well. I started to remember the last time I used a knife, and it brought an unpleasant frown to my face. I gave it a few practice swings before I heard a loud: “Here it is, mom!”

Starting to panic, I wanted to hide my new knife, but there was nowhere I could stash it. That's when I remembered that I had a box inside me where I put that energy rock in. 

I turned my focus inside myself where I found the box, and I chucked the knife into it and closed the lid. Opening my eyes, I saw the door opening and Myne and her mom exiting the room. Her mom scanned the table, looking confused, before taking a glance on the floor. 

“Hey mom, what are you looking for?” Myne asked. 

“Well, Myne, a knife we use regularly just bent, so I was going to take it to the smithy to recycle it and get a new knife, but it seems your dad must have taken it with him to work,” she replied as she stood back up and headed for the front door. 

“Hmmmm.” Myne started to look at me like she was going to ask me something before her mom called out to her to come with her. So with just a shrug in my direction she headed out the door as I floated behind her, looking at the spot on the table as her mother closed the door.

Chapter Text

     As soon as the door closed myne bolted down the stairs pulling me with her as her mother exclaimed for her to wait at the bottom so she doesn't get lost. As myne reached the bottom of the stairway I spoke up “so is there any reason you decided to bolt down the stairs like an excited bunny?” 

“I really am excited to find a book store I really need a book” 

I just sighed I really don't want to burst her bubble but I sincerely doubt that we would be able to find books for people of our status. Perhaps pamphlets or just single sheets of paper with the religious views of the major church during this time. However it would calm her down enough to where I'm not chasing her around all the time. “Sure myne let's go find some books” I replied. As her mother got to the bottom of the stairs she opened one more door and sunlight flooded in.

  It was a semi nice town with big buildings made of wood. Going down the cobbled road I see carriages and horses going up and down the Market Square. I heard myne ask her mother about the castle in the distance. It belonged to nobility and the area surrounding it to the walled area is the nobles quarter. Ugh nobility I really don't like the idea that because someone was born to certain parents they are automatically better than you in every way. 

 Turning my head the other direction in order to hide the frown on my face from myne I looked to the other side. They walked in silence until myne saw something and asked her mom about it.”That there is the temple it's where nobles donate mana to nourish our land and where you will go to get baptized once your 7 its also where the orphanage is” her mother replied. That just sent a cold shiver to my soul. Mana this world has mana that must mean magic is real here. 

 Then I glanced at myne perhaps the energy that is running through myne’s body is mana. That could explain some things like how I was able to wield and compress it so easily since I have experience handling magic. My train of thought was disrupted when the women stated “ok myne here we are the market square”. Looking at the buildings lining the street I see folks going in and out. I take a glance up to see if there's any indicators of what they sell. 

 They do have signs but instead of words there are rough pictures of products. So it seems that printing methods have not already spread yet that makes my mission of finding myne a book to read so she calms down significantly harder. No matter what, I just have to rack my brain for possible solutions. Deciding to table that train of thought for now I zoned back into seeing myne’s mom teaching her about numbers from the pricing on the food. I paid very close attention to the impromptu lesson and to my chagrin discovered that the number system is base 10 the exact same as the previous worlds system. 

 “Man the coincidences just keep piling up” I muttered as myne and her mom were heading to the meat stalls. Feeling bored I was starting to get lost in my head again when I heard myne scream. Turning around I see two things: one a chicken in a stall bleeding out and myne passed out on the ground. I floated over to myne while her mom was trying to get her up. Looking over her shoulder I scanned myne's mana levels.

  It was not high but they kept regenerating at a faster and faster rate. “What is going on?” I muttered I was very curious as to why it seems she had just limitless fast regening mana. It was not at a dangerous level yet so there is not a pressing reason I can see for draining it. I watched as myne’s mom carried her over to a stall with an old couple running it. She asked them if they had anything to help wake up her daughter and the old woman nodded and headed behind the stall and pulled out a bottle. 

 “Hold this under your daughter's nose and it will snap her right up” myne’s mom took the bottle and did exactly that which caused myne to sputter and stir awake.

Chapter Text

After myne sits up her mom says “ahh you ok myne come on lets finish meat shopping” she said nonchalantly. Myne asked her if she could stay here because she feels woozy still i guess she cant handle the sight of blood. I can't blame her. I used to have the same with seeing blood as well. “Mom, I Still feel a little woozy. Can I rest here while you finish shopping?”

  It seems like a reasonable request although her mom did not want to impose on the old couple they told her that it was alright and eventually she heads off to finish shopping for meat. That just left me and myne alone in the small shop looking around. I was looking at an interesting looking necklace when I suddenly heard myne gasp and run towards something. Normally this would not be a problem but apparently it was far enough away to cause me to Rubberband back over to her. Looking up to see what's got her all excited I see a book.

  It was a very nice leather bound book with some yellowing pages. Myne calls over the shopkeeper to ask him what the item is. He replies that it is a book given to him by a noble to cover a debt. When myne asks how much would the book cost he replies with it being worth at least 3 large gold. That piqued my interest. 

 Why would this specific book be worth 3 large gold? I ran an item check on the book to see if there is something I'm missing. However nothing unusual came up with the results other than seeing flowers faintly etched into the spine of the book. Could this be a book about plants? I turned around to see myne on her hands and knees begging the shop owner to let her touch the book.

  “Myne!” I exclaimed “get off the floor you would not even be able to read the book much less the shopkeeper let you hold it you are just a child to them!” myne puffs out her cheeks and stands up as her mom returns from the meat stand. She apparently was given a few packages of animal fat to give to the couple.” Myne why don't you wait right outside the stall it will only take a few minutes for me to finish here”. As myne trudged outside I decided to speak up “so as far as we know books are one very expensive to make and 2 mostly reserved for nobility” she looks down and mutters an affirmation.

  “It's too bad we can't just make our own books then it's not like I know how to make one” I replied. Myne's eyes widened as a smile crept up her face. “Uhh myne what's with the look?” “steel your a genius that's it I will create my own books that way I can be surrounded by them” she said with a determined look in her eye. “Do you even know how to make a book?”

“of course I do I read many books about ancient and modern book making techniques”

  “I should have known” I muttered as myne's mom exited the stall and beckoned her to follow as they were both heading home. Floating alongside them I got lost in my thoughts. With how determined myne looked wanting to make books I can only guess how far she will go. I guess the best I can do is help her with it, I think I can remember a few stories she can publish. There is that one book that robot monster published detailing how life underground was for them perhaps.

  My thoughts were cut off when I heard a shout from behind me. “EVERYONE GET OFF THE STREET RUNAWAY HORSE!” I instinctively pulled out my knife and turned around to see said horse heading straight for us. With its size and the speed it's going, if I don't do something it will trample myne and her mother. What can I do?

  It's getting closer and my soul is pounding. I started to get a weird feeling in my soul and it felt like something was telling me to use it. Grabbing on to it I poured energy into my blade and then I heard a faint voice before I slashed. “Wanting to protect your friends fills you with KINDNESS” As I finished swinging the blade down a green energy arc flew five feet in front of us then stopped and stayed there as the horse ran into it and stopped. I smiled while feeling good. I protected them then before I knew it I passed out.

Chapter Text

POV CHANGE myne

After hearing the horse footsteps getting closer I closed my eyes prepared to get trampled. However when the crushing never came i opened my eyes and turned around to see a very light green and red humanoid shape. It was holding a knife and in front of it was a wall of green energy where the horse was safely behind. “Steel?” I asked before the figure dissolved leaving three things behind. The first item was the knife still glowing even after the shield he made dissolved.

  It looked very shiny and new like he just went to the local culinary store and bought it. Walking over to it I picked it up and it felt light in my hand like it was crafted just for me. The next item was kinda weird; it was a floating cartoon heart. It was mostly red but it had another upside down heart inside of it with 6 other colors. The way it was bobbing up and down had me semi-hypnotized as it pulsed with light. 

 When I walked over and touched it I felt warm and safe just like steel makes me feel when it removes the heat in my body. I quickly tucked it with the knife in my pocket before heading to the last item. It was a clear tennis ball sized globe. As I got closer to it I saw that it had a slight white tint to it. Picking it up was hard for me because it felt as hot as molten lava at first. 

 Luckily it quickly cooled down and I stared at it in my hand. However before I stowed it away with the other items I heard mom call out to me “myne are you alright! We are very lucky that horse stopped before it could trample us”. I looked at mom as she was picking up her basket. Luckily the food was ok so we did not have to go back. Then when she looked up she looked surprised and pointed behind me.

  Turning around and looking past the runaway horse I see a fancy carriage coming our way. It was slowly being pulled by a single horse with an empty harness just bobbing up and down beside them. The carriage pulled up right next to us before stopping where some men got out and opened the door. Out came a middle aged man with black hair and brown eyes dressed in some fine clothes. He looked over to me and mom before slightly bowing his head.

  “My apologies, it appears the straps for the harness were weak so when they got spooked he managed to break free by snapping them. Are you and your child alright?” My mom replied that we were okay and we were just heading home before this whole mess happened. The man said he was a merchant and since this was his fault he wanted to compensate us by giving us 30 large silvers. Mom tried to refuse but after some insistence from the merchant he managed to get mom to take the money. One of the carriage workers came up and told him that the horse was refastened and secured so they were ready to go. 

 The merchant was about to head to the carriage before he spotted the clear globe I was holding and asked what was that. 

“Uhh i don't really know one of my friends gave it to me” i replied.

 “May I take a look at it, miss?”

 “Sure sir”

I handed over the globe to him as he put on a thick looking leather glove and took it from me. He examined it very closely and lightly touched it with his bare hand before his eyes widened. He quickly jerked his head over to me before asking for my name. I told him my name and he quickly asked me something that shook me.

“Myne, how would you like to see me this stone for 10 large gold?”

 TEN LARGE GOLD! That's enough to get my book! I wanted to take the offer but then I remembered that this stone most likely belongs to steel. So I shook my head and soon the merchant looked panicked and upped the price to THIRTY LARGE GOLD! Thinking about it very thoroughly and still remembering that stone is not really mine to sell, I was about to say no. however as i was about to reject the offer again i felt some warmth and the feeling of affirmation flooding into me. 

 It felt like steel was giving me the go ahead to sell the stone so I told them that they have a deal. He smiled then told one of his workers to bring him 30 large golds in a pouch ready. He then turns to me and says “ If you find any stone like this again, keep it and come to the market. I'll be there sometimes and I'll pay handsomely for them ok myne?” Mom was shocked for a second since i just acquired a large amount of money but then just slowly shook her head as the worker gave me the gold. The merchant then waved us goodbye as we walked away and I smiled.

  With this amount of money I can buy my book and perhaps put the other portion towards making my own books. Then looking down and patting the knife and the heart in my pocket I thought perhaps I should get steel something too since this was his stone I sold.

POV CHANGE A very rich “Merchant”

Getting back into my carriage I looked at the new stone I just acquired with glee. It's not everyday that you find a mostly colorless feystone with only a slight life element. That drew my thoughts over to that girl,Myne. She looked to only be 3-4 years old but the way she carried herself was more mature than normal. She is indeed a very interesting little girl. Perhaps my lord would like to know about what I found and who I met. Pulling out a yellow feystone I pulled out my schtappe and chanted “Ordonnanz”.”My lord this is Justus i am heading back to you to report something interesting”  

Chapter Text

Walking into the training room I meet up with Morgan to try to unlock my soul trait. “Hello steel they have you training with me today?” I just nodded as they walked around the countertop. They were in the middle of cooking some hamburgers before I came in. It smelled really good. I really wanted to have some but then they just tossed me a towel and nodded towards the small training area they had set up.

  “Alright steel lets try some healing magic, the simplest form of kindness magic” as they said that they summoned a green dot. “Remember what you need to do, concentrate on the intent to help and then summon you magic” they explained. “OK” I replied and then I focused on the feeling of helping. I then tried to summon my magic but I heard crackling. Then it burst causing me to be thrown back into the wall. 

 I was worried once I got my bearings that Morgan was hurt. However they were unharmed holding a burnt pan in front of them with a green energy shield. My eyes literally sparkled as I told them how cool that was and I wanted to try making it. “Well if your soul trait is kindness then you will be able to do this and more now let's try again"morgan replied. I don't really know how long we trained because they never give us clocks but it was a long while before we stopped. 

 Exhausted we both go over to the kitchen where Morgan turns on the stove again and places semi cooked burgers onto the pan to finish cooking them. That's when a stray question pops into my mind that I decided to ask out loud. “Do you think they will let us out of here soon?” Morgan paused for a second while plating the burgers before responding “I'm not sure but I'm pretty sure the hospital will let us out soon” they said as they walked to the table and puts a plate in front of me. “I'm pretty sure the research will end soon and they will let us go home” they sat across from me as I started to dig into my burger. 

 “ I know it's just that I feel like it's been months since I last saw the sun or the moon and stars. I kinda miss seeing them, you know?” They smiled at me while saying “yeah I get how you feel I'm pretty sure we will see them again soon”. The whole area fades to white as I start to wake up.

POV Mestionora 

Walking down the hallway of this string after seeing the memory I wanted to check something. Once I get to the end of the hallway I find what I'm looking for. The door contains the memories of how steel died. I was not sloppy in my mission to save myne but even though I was able to read all of steel's memories I could not see how they died. I grasped the handle intending to open it when I got shocked.

  That's when ethereal chains with locks appeared, all of them a different color. I felt something appear behind me which gave me some alarm as I thought I was the only one here. Turning around I see a faint green humanoid just standing there. “SPEAK MORTAL WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE” they just spoke calmly “I'm just an echo of a memory here to present a key to help solve this puzzle” they handed me a green key.

  I narrowed my eyes at the echo and asked why they were helping me. They just respond that it would be the kind thing to do before fading away. I stared at the key before facing the door again and putting the key into the green lock with a click the lock fell off and the chains disappeared. Very interesting I will have to come back again to get this door open. With that I decided to return to the divine realm so I can keep a close eye on myne and steel.

Chapter Text

Waking up I felt an intense heat within me like molten lava coursing through my ethereal veins. Is this what myne feels while dealing with her “mana” no wonder she is happy that I take some of it off of her. I focused on the center of the heat and squashed it down. It takes about 35 rounds of compression before it's small enough for me to throw into the box. Opening my eyes I stared at the ceiling above me, the worn wood a perfect reflection of how I feel. 

 Turning my head to the side I expected to see myne there bedridden like I am. However I just see an empty spot where she usually is. Sitting up I tuned my senses to see if I could feel where she was. After 1 minute I breathe a sigh of relief because she is in the kitchen. Floating up I headed for the door because I knew if I don't keep an eye on her she will get into trouble.

  Remembering the horse incident I raised my hand and activated my kindness magic. Heh guess it's a good thing I learned how to use kindness. I phased through the door after bringing my hand down to see myne sitting at the table. She looked different than when I last saw her. Her hair was now a shiny dark blue put up into a bun with a stick. 

 She was concentrating on putting two pieces of fibers together in a weave. I slowly floated behind her to look over her shoulder. Once I was peering over her I asked calmly “so what are you doing myne?” without taking even a glance at me she responded “I'm worried that big brother steel isn't gonna wake up soon,so I'm trying to make papyrus paper to write some stories”. 

 That stunned me. She sees me as her big brother now why? When I asked why she just replied with “he has been with me since I woke up, guided me when I needed direction,and protected me and mom from being trampled. If that's not what a big brother does then I don't know what I can call him”. For some reason that explanation just sent a warmth through my soul, it's been a long while since I was a brother to someone.

  I however can't dwell on this because we needed to chat. So in order to break mynes tunnel vision I flicked her on the head. She stopped for a second blinking before Turning her head up towards me. I just plainly said “So I'm a big brother now huh?” Instead of just blushing and Turning away like I assumed she would do, she grabs my hand and pulls me down to the floor in order to embrace me while crying. While hugging me she starts sobbing, babbling about how when she saw my heart floating after the horse was blocked she thought I died and left her alone. After about five minutes of crying while unconsciously off loading excess mana into me while I was compressing it she eventually calmed down enough to gesture to the table. Once she sat down and I floated to hover over the chair opposite of her she reached into her dress pocket. After a few seconds of jingling of coins she pulls out my knife. She stares at it, the blade reflecting some light as she says 

“ You know Carrying a knife doesn't really help with the whole ‘I'm not a murder ghost’ argument you made when we first met but I digress”. She then sets the knife down the handle side towards me and pushes it over to me. I slowly brought my left hand to it before stopping. Do I really wanna pick up the knife again? Suddenly my mind drifts off to the screams of those I fought long ago in the past. 

 That's when mynes' voice breaks through to me “go on and pick it up big brother I trust you to keep me safe with it”. I grabbed the knife and put it into my inventory before replying “so I guess this means you can see me huh?” She in turn shakes her head “I can now see a red outline of your ‘body’ but I can't really see more details such as your face”. Well that's new is it because I have kindness flowing through me now? Does that mean if I regain more traits she will be able to see me more clearly?  

 Breaking me out of my thoughts again she asked me a very simple question “so what's the plan”? Huh! Plan wait, why am I making the plan? I asked her why and she just calmly said that I make great plans while she likes to just charge into things so she would like to leave the planning to me. I just sighed and tapped my head while she continued speaking, telling me a recap of what happened for the past few days. She sold the stone I made for 30 GOLD! WHY HOW?

  For what reason would a commoner merchant want that stone? Something is suspicious here but I don't wanna focus on it right now because I need to make a plan. “Before we start on making paper we need to do two things” I stated as she leaned in closer. “First we need to boost your defenses so that any harm that may come from this venture can be stopped or deflected which means magic training”. 

 As I said this her eyes started to sparkle like a kid who was given free reign of the candy store. “The next thing we need to do is see what materials we have access to. That way we can see what kind of writing material we can make, be it clay tablets, paper or parchment.” That just made her smile as a faint glow surrounded her. I held out my hand and she took it allowing her mana to drain into me while I was now infusing her with kindness now, not determination.

  Eventually she calmed down and let go of my hand, still smiling. “Ok brother when do we start training”. “Well we can do the actual training when you are able to go to the forest to gather, for now however we will go over general basic information you shall need to know”. She then nodded and sat down very still with eyes on me paying very close attention. So with that I cleared my throat and started to explain “ok we shall start with the three ways how soul users get stronger, the first way is the one we are going to use because even though it's hard it will provide great results and that's regular training where we will have you use magic like a muscle repeatedly it will cause it to grow and become stronger.”

  Looking back at myne I see impatience on her face as she asked me “would the other two ways make my magic stronger faster?”

“Yes however the price of those are steeper and the second one I don't know if it is possible”

“What's the second method?”

“The second method is to find a monster and either take or convince them to give up their soul to you when your soul and a monsters soul merges you gain a good power boost and that can stack with training and the third method to make you even stronger”

 This causes her eyes to slightly widen as she then asks “What happens to the soul that was absorbed?” 

“That's a good question” I replied “you see the soul you absorb will have as much control over your body as you normally do however as they mix eventually two things could happen, either they stay in your mind as a voice while occasionally taking control when they want something this is the best outcome, the other is that they give up and slowly fade away until nothing is left of them”.

 She looked a bit sad and nodded before asking me “what's the third way I can get stronger?” 

I sighed and then decided to rip the bandaid off “ we get you to gain enough E.X.P so your L.O.V.E increases”.

“Exp?love? What is it like in a video game where doing enough quests makes you get stronger?” 

I held my hand up stopping her where then I asked her to listen to my explanation before she decides to go down this path she said she would so I started my explanation.

“Whenever you kill another human and/or a monster you gain E.X.P. E.X.P is an acronym that stands for EXECUTION POINTS. It's a way the soul can quantify the amount of suffering you inflict on another being. When you gain enough E.X.P your L.O.V.E increases. L.O.V.E too is an acronym, it stands for Level Of Violence. It measures your capacity to harm others, the more L.O.V.E you have the less pain you feel, that lack of pain then leads you to more often than not harm others more making you more likely to kill others. The reason why I told you this method last is because I've seen that everyone who decides to gain L.O.V.E falls down into a power lust where they kill anyone in a bid to gain more power”

 As I finished my explanation I saw that mynes eyes were tearing up. Floating down to her I embraced her in a hug gently patting her hair. When she stopped sobbing she looked up at me with those golden eyes and asked me a question that made my soul run cold. “Brother how much L.O.V.E do you have?” Ahh I wish she did not ask that,I could lie but it could cause problems later on so I guess I have to be honest. 

 “My current L.V is at 50 right now, I was not in the best of situations when I died so I'd understand if you want me to stay away” I started to let go when she just hugs me tighter and says “ I'd never abandon my family and you are part of my family now so as long as you don't hurt those I care about or the innocent I want you around”. Heh myne, no sis you know just what to say to make me feel better. Then I heard another voice in my head as I returned the hug again “knowing you will still have myne as family no matter the circumstances fills you with PERSEVERANCE”.

Chapter Text

There we were hugging for a few minutes when we heard effa (mynes mom) walk up to the door. “Myne i'm home” she calls out as the door opens. We quickly scrambled away from each other as effa turned around. She seemed to stare at me for a second before asking myne if she was talking to someone. Myne shook her head and said no as effa started to cook dinner after lighting the wood under the cooking pot.

  This left myne mostly distracted so I just floated there looking at them cooking. I start to recall the last time I had mom cook me something. It was the day before being shipped to the soul studies research center. It was a week after the monsters under Mt ebbot were released. The king of the monsters asgore dreemurr a giant bipedal goat had announced that frisk wattson the daughter of Sarah Wattson who is the 2nd richest person on the planet is now their adopted daughter and ambassador to the monster race.

  The TV was replaying an interview where Sarah claimed that they will get frisk back from that child murderer. Apparently after humans on the surface killed his only biological and adopted son after they treaded to the surface to free the monsters he declared war on humanity. The six missing children that were last seen heading to the mountain spanning multiple years were finally pronounced dead and their bodies preserved by the king were laid to rest. The United government were still debating whether or not to charge King Asgore with murder because even though he killed 6 human children he and his entire race was unfairly sealed underground with ancient magic. Apparently ancient humans and monsters used to live on the surface together but then humans discovered that monsters can absorb human souls to get significantly stronger. 

 Fearing that monsters would attack and absorb their souls to gain power caused those humans to go to war with monsters. The monsters fought but in the end they lost and in order to escape the extermination of the whole race the human leader and the king of monsters at the time came to an agreement. The monsters would get to live but they would be forced underground where they would be sealed by seven human soul mages. There they shall live the rest of their natural lives until either the barrier is broken by seven human souls or the last monster turns to dust. So of course the United government is trying to rectify the wrongs of the past. 

 It also doesn't help that monsters control over 75% of earth's gold. They were apparently using it as currency while sealed underground. So the monsters had pretty good capital to begin creating a town at the base of the mountain. However I did not really care about that at the time because I was waiting for the results of my soul magic test. Apparently a side effect of sealing the monsters underground was humans started to slowly lose the ability to use magic as a massive amount of magic was used to seal them.

  That meant over the centuries more and more humans became traitless, losing the ability to learn magic all together. However when frisk broke the barrier it caused all the magic stored and generated by monsters to be released and sweep across the planet. Soul research institutes started opening up to help humans that suddenly gained traits to learn how to use their powers. They also developed a test to see what trait you have without encountering a monster in battle. I just came home from middle school after the entire day was used to give all the students the soul tests. 

 Mom was already home and was cooking her signature dish of homemade meatloaf paired with Mac and sharp cheddar cheese. I swear ever Since mom gained her kindness magic the food just tasted better and I certainly felt better after eating it. I was busy doing some simple math homework that the math teacher assigned to us today to make up for no math class when there was a heavy knocking on the door. She turned off the stove and yelled out that she would get the door. Most likely she thought it was the neighbors mom asking to see if mom can pop over and heal her 5 year old again. 

 That's when I heard mom call for me to come to the door. So I got up from the kitchen table leaving behind the horrors of multiplication and division and headed through the living room to get to the front door. There just outside the doorway was a large man in a black suit wearing sunglasses. Just behind him parked parallel to the sidewalk was a white van with a medical logo I could not recognize on it. The man asked if I was steel and when I confirmed it he pulled out a sort of medical badge showing it to me and mom before speaking.

“Hello I am a representative of wattson medical solutions the parent company to the soul studies institute that tested your son and I have some unfortunate news, our tests show that your son steel's soul is majorly cracked to the point of shattering”

“Oh my” mom replied “do you know how My sons soul got to the point of almost shattering?”

He started to reply “ well its only a theory at this time but our top researchers guess that when the magic was released from the mountain it caused most of humanity's souls to gain a trait but for some unfortunate others the increase of magical pressure just caused the soul to crack” 

“ Oh dear , will steel be ok?” My mom started to tear up.

“Luckily miss we already came up with a treatment for this problem which we like to provide to your son for free If you just sign this document”

He handed her a clipboard and a pen and mom started to read it. After going through it she asked him what would happen if I did not get this treatment. He started to look sad as he said that then I would DIE WITHIN A WEEK! My eyes widened as I looked at mom, she was stunned but tears were rolling down her eyes. She gave me a look as if asking if I wanted to go through with this.

  In response I just nodded and she immediately signed the document and handed it back to the man. He smiled and took the document before telling me that when I'm ready to go I could come outside to the back of the van where he will be waiting for me. He then walked to the van and I broke down and started crying. I was close to dying. I did not want to die. 

 Mom knelt Down and gave me a hug telling me that I'll be ok now that we know about the problem we can fix it. She then told me I should be going now so I can get better fast and come home quickly. I nodded and slowly let go of her before telling her I loved her. Turning to the door I walked out and across the lawn to the man where he opened the van doors. 

“Don't worry kiddo we will get you all fixed up and back home in no time” looking back home I see mom in the doorway crying and waving to me.

  I waved back as I entered the van where darkness enveloped me when the doors shut. Now I wish I knew these two things back then before I got in that van, one every single word that man spoke was a lie and two that would be the very last time I would ever see my mom in my life. Blinking back to reality I see that I daydreamed for some time because gunther( mynes dad) and tuuli (mynes older sister) were already home, dinner was finished cooking, and the whole family was sitting down almost done eating. I just chuckled nervously and floated down near myne just to be ready in case her mana goes crazy again. However something odd happened when I got close to myne.

  Effa looked at my direction and gave a tiny smile. Wait, can she actually see me? When did that happen? However, just staring at her gives me no reaction. I calmed down a bit thinking it was just my imagination.

  I have to admit looking at myne interacting with her family made me a bit jealous. She has such a wonderful family, a nice and caring mom and dad, and a wonderful older sister. It would be a real tragedy if something or someone were to break this family apart. Looking at them getting ready for bed and heading into the room I just sighed. I wish I had more time with mom before being taken away. 

 Effa blows out the final candle in the room before closing the bedroom door. Now alone in the kitchen I pulled out my knife to look at myself in the reflection. What were once glowing eyes filled with hope for the future was instead tired and dead looking eyes. It looked like a soldier's eyes when they saw their whole unit destroyed. Gripping the handle tighter I decided to just speak out loud since no one would hear me make a promise to myne. “ myne I promise I will protect you and keep your family safe together and nothing will stop me,be it man, monster,or wild animal I will keep everyone safe and happy”.

  That made me feel a bit better about myself. Suddenly I felt someone grab my shoulder and a familiar woman's voice say something that freaked me out. “Look Gunther I told the gods were protecting me and myne that day” 

Chapter Text

 I heard a thump on wood as I turned around, however as I was facing the front door I saw a shimmer of light in the corner. Narrowing my eyes I decided to deal with Effa and Gunther first. Once I made my full rotation I saw them kneeling on the floor with their arms crossed over their chest. It was a little odd to me that they would do that but when they spoke again I started to get the whole picture.

  “Oh great god what do you wish for this family to do for you?”

 This is just great. I did not want to be a god…not again anyway, so I guess I got to clear this up right now. The question is what do I want to do, I doubt they would be okay with a specter hovering around myne with how protective they are. I'll have to go through the semi-truth route. I cleared my throat and told them to rise for I’m not a god but a divine protector sent to watch over myne. Out of the corner of my eyes I see the shimmer in the corner move a bit when I mentioned being a divine protector.

 It must be an intruder, possibly a noble because only magic can cause you to go completely invisible. I would have to deal with the intruder once I get Gunther and Effa back to bed, I'm pretty sure they would freak out if they see me stab what appears to be open air and then blood starts to flow. It seemed that they both had other plans as they asked so many questions.

“Oh divine protector, why have you graced us with your presence?” Effa asked looking a bit nervous 

“Effa there is no need to use official titles here just call me steel and for the reason I'm here I was sent to protect myne as her dreams were given to her from the gods themselves” i responded. Now I know this is potentially a lie but I wanted to give them a reason why I'm here so they won't freak out.

 “I want to know something steel. How long have you been watching over our daughter?” Gunther asked this question which kind of stumped me because I don't really know.

“I have watched over myne since she was born but sending a protector from the divine realm to the mortal plane causes said protector to become weak for a period of time as they need to regain power” I told them. Now was that actually true? I don't really know however since I am a glowing ghost in a world where I don't hear nor see any mention of ghosts. I think I'm in the clear. However, I have to end this soon  because I don't want them staying up all night asking questions when they have jobs they need to work at in the morning.

“Gunther,Effa you each have one question left to ask me for tonight I can't keep you up all night for I must rest so think carefully” I warned them. They huddled together for a few minutes talking between one another probably to make sure they both dont ask the same question. Finally after some time they broke apart and Gunther walked closer to me.

“Steel are you the reason myne is able to walk and run like a healthy child now?” his voice was quivering

“Yes I am” i simply responded 

Gunther suddenly rushed forward and it took way too much willpower not to instantly pull out / make a knife as he embraced me in a very tight hug. He was crying while repeatedly thanking me for healing his daughter which was kinda weird as I was not the one who could always comfort someone. That was more of Morgan's area of expertise as the Kindness soul user. Patting Gunther on the back I looked up to Effa, she too was crying but also trying to hold back from running to me. 

“Effa you hold the last question please ask it and then i will send you guys to bed” i plainly stated. I just want this over with my emotions running high and I don't like it because the last time I did that was when ... .No, I don't want to think about that now.

“Steel what deities are you from like your parents?” Effa finally asked as Gunther sobs died down although he was still hugging me for some unknown reason.

I sighed because I can see where this is going but eventually I buckled up and responded.

“Divine protectors are made not born as such i have no parents only a mission to complete”

I was waiting for the pity and empathy from her as others have given before when I told them about what happened to mom. However instead I saw Effa come over and hug me as well with Gunther still on me.

“If it's not too presumptuous me and Gunther would love to accept you as part of the family since you have helped us so much with myne” she whispered

“I will gladly accept your offer thank you” I admit I was tearing up a bit. It's been so long since I was part of a family. I eventually got out of the hug and ushered them to the door of the bedroom.

“Now it's time for you to sleep you need to work tomorrow so i shall pray to the gods for you to have a restful night”

I then sent a silent prayer to the gods to have them instantly fall asleep when their heads hit the pillow and something unexpected happened. I felt some of my soul energy drain and go into the air as lights rained down on Gunther and Effa causing them to look very sleepy. They both entered the room and after wishing them a goodnight I waited for some time to make sure they were asleep. Once I heard the deep breathing I knew I was in the clear which means now I have to deal with one more thing before turning in for the night. I quickly formed a knife out of determination and flung it near the corner hitting a few inches to the left.

“I know you're there if you don't come out now the next one will go straight into your throat” i said coldly.

 There was silence for a few seconds before a shimmer appeared over the handle of the knife in the wall and suddenly it was floating in the air. Then I heard a low thum as the cloaked figure suddenly appeared to me. It was an ordinary looking man with gray hair and brown eyes dressed in very fancy clothes. Before I can even say a single word he interrupts my train of thought by speaking first.

  “Hello May I pray for a blessing in appreciation of this serendipitous meeting, ordained by the fruitful days of Schutzaria the Goddess of Wind?”

“Uhh you may?”

“O Schutzaria, may steel be blessed. Hello my name is justus”

Chapter Text

I just blinked at that greeting for it was very elaborate and flowery in my opinion, but I digress. Standing there, I closed my eyes, acting like I was in thought. In reality, I was scanning Justus’s mana pathways to see what a somewhat normal noble’s mana flow looked like so I could compare it to Myne’s after I dispose of him. Once I completely memorized the mana pathways, I itched to ask some questions. I gestured at him to take a seat at the table. As he sat down, I floated to the other end of the table so I was across from him, then I started firing questions.

“Justus, how and why did you decide to come here? Keep in mind that lying to a divine protector will have very grave consequences,” I said with a very cold voice. Once I said that, he just smiled and started to explain this headache inducing situation.

“Well, Milord wanted to test a new magic tool he developed to track the spending habits of certain individuals. So he created some fake gold coins that took mana whenever an individual touched them to fuel the magic circle inside of them. The circle sends out a traceable pulse of colored mana. As for why I’m here—I only came to get that magic tool back.” My eyes widened once I figured out what the “magic” tool he kept talking about was.

  I released waves of purple magic in criss-cross patterns around the kitchen until a web of purple surrounded Justus. “You, stay here. If you move, I’ll know, and then… well, you can probably guess what happens next,” I told him as I floated over to the door and phased through it. Looking frantically over the room, my eyes settled on Myne’s dress in the corner. I hovered over it and picked it up, hearing the jingling from earlier.

  I quickly fished through the dress slowly collecting the “coins”, as I was collecting the last three of the thirty coins I felt a slight twinge. Ugh. Justus moved, not a full body move though, just a testing poke. If I had to take a guess, he must have poked or even plucked one of the strings. Taking a calming breath so I didn’t instantly slice one of his arms off, I quickly put the trackers in my inventory before turning towards the door again and smoothly floating through it. There he was still at the table, but he pulled one of the strings up to his eyes and was examining it.

 “This magic here is so interesting. It's not acting erratically like mana normally does, but instead it feels like a gentle push,” said Justus.

“Uh huh. Anyway, let's get down to brass tacks here,” I said as I snapped my fingers causing the strings to go away.

Justus just blinked and asked, “brass tacks?” looking very confused at the saying. ”It's just a saying in the divine realm,” I curtly replied as I opened my inventory again and took out all 30 trackers. “Well, here are your magic tools now. I will let you leave if you just take them and never bother me or my charge again," I said because I just wanted Justus to leave. However, he did not move. He just smiled and dragged all the coins into a pouch before taking out another one. “What is that?” I asked as he set the pouch on the table with a clink.

“Oh, this here is payment for the stone. Milord wouldn't feel right owing a commoner anything for a specialized magic ingredient,” he stated calmly as the pouch was pushed onto my side of the table.

I just narrowed my eyes at him and plainly asked, “how would I know if these are real and not just another tracker that your lord has given you?” 

He quickly pulled a tracker from the pouch and put his hand on it before it started to very faintly glow. “If you actively run mana through the coins, you will find out that they won't glow like the magic tool would.”

I just nodded and did the same thing with the coins to see that they were in fact real. “Ok. Now that you delivered the coins and picked up the magic tools, you can leave.” I gestured to the door hoping that Justus would just leave. 

However, he ignored me again and only shook his head, then said, “I’m sorry, but Milord has tasked me to investigate the commoner girl for we suspect she has mana.”

That just made my non-existent blood boil. How dare they try to get to Myne? Can't they see she wants to be left alone?

“I'm sorry, but as she is asleep, you're gonna have to investigate her later. Now, if you may please leave this house and NEVER come back, that would be very nice.” My hand was gripping my knife as I said this. Wait, when did my knife appear in my hand again? I don't really remember.

“Hmm. You seem possessive of that commoner, I wonder why. Would you care to enlighten me, Steel?” He leaned forward with a slight smirk on his face.

Grr. This noble is starting to really tick me off asking these questions. However, I had to ask him something in return to get him on the defensive. “So what does your lord do that would give him enough free time to investigate a random commoner girl?” 

Ahh, that got to him. His smile faltered just a little bit before being tightened.

“Milord does some important job for this duchy; however, he does manage to get a bit of free time to investigate threats to the duchy, like let's say a devouring commoner that's able to do some high level magic without proper tools to use mana,” he responded with a slightly serious face. 

This made my eyes glow red from anger. My knife started to burn from the amount of determination I began to push into it. I knew now that I could not kill Justus, because if I did, then his lord would truly deem Myne and me a threat. If he judged so, he could come after us or our family. 

Taking a calming breath I then stared at Justus hard before asking, “I assume your lord wants to meet Myne then?” 

He just nodded and replied, “Yes, however Milord is very busy right now, so the meeting will have to be delayed. I will come sometime later with an invitation”.

I nodded and asked ”Will that be all for tonight?”

His smile never faltered. He then got up, said his noble goodbyes, which I still think was too long. I said my goodbyes as well and led him to the door, which I slammed shut after him. I then quickly spread purple magic strings around the apartment again. I did not want to be caught unprepared in case Justus changed his mind and decided to eliminate the entire family. Ugh. I hope to never have to have extended interactions with nobles. That was really tiring. Floating to the bedroom, I wanted to rest because that interaction just took so much out of me. 

Walking out of the building I couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief. That meeting could have gone way worse, but at least I gained some very interesting information and a new item Milord can study. Pulling out the knife that Steel threw at me, I saw it glowing red in the moonlight, yet I could still see my reflection in it. This was a very interesting weapon. I knew Milord would certainly have fun with it in his research. Puting the knife in my pocket, I then pulled out an Ordonnanz and quickly sent a message: “Milord, this is Justus. I've just learned some new information about Myne and acquired an item that you would love to examine.”

Chapter Text

The facility felt colder lately. Since Morgan left, everyone said they got better and was discharged from here. They also figured out that my trait was not kindness before Morgan left. It was a good guess because soul traits are usually passed down the family line, however there are exceptions. The sound of my room’s door opening broke me out of my thoughts. There in the doorway was the scientist and a guard. 

“Come on, Steel. It's time for your perseverance training,” he gruffly said. 

Right, they have a new patient now that Morgan is gone. It's a nice girl named Elisabetta with a perseverance soul trait. That soul trait is the third strongest trait a human could have, it's right behind the justice trait. 

So I got up and followed them out of my room and down the hallway again to the training room. Halfway down the hallway someone called out to my doctor. 

“Dr. Nortlen, hold up, I got some new information about the synthetic soul project.” The other person walked in stride as they spoke to Dr. Nortlen.

“So what's the news on the project?”

“Well, the monster dust has finally combined with the magic we provided it and has formed a proto-soul.”

“That's excellent news, how are growth projections looking?”

“That, sir, is not looking good. The projected growth rate is slow, looking to be about 11-12 months. We are looking into ways to accelerate growth and a proposal to add determination to the soul has been brought forward.”

“I'm sorry, did my ears deceive me, or did you say determination was proposed to be added to the proto-monster soul?” Dr. Nortlen loomed over the other scientist with an angry look in his eye.

“Um, yes sir, they theorize that with determination the monsters soul's growth will increase exponentially,” he meekly replied 

“I veto this proposal. Go back and tell them to trash that proposal and the idiot who thought up that idea.”

“May I ask why, sir?” he looked confused at what Dr. Nortlen told him to do.

“Have any of you read Dr. Alphys' published research on the nature of monster souls?”

“I believe only half of us were able to. Why do you ask?”

“Because if you did, then you would know that monsters can't handle determination. I'm going to put in a request to get enough papers for all of you to read and I suggest all of you do, otherwise I will replace you all. Steel, we are here.” Dr. Nortlen said as I snapped out of the conversation. They opened the door and ushered me into the training room. 

The room has changed since I’ve last been here. All of Morgan's stuff is gone now, as they had to return it to make room for Elisabetta's bookshelves. They lined the walls with them filled to the brim with books, old and new, about a variety of topics. In the center was a table with large stacks of paper lining it, and sitting in one of the two chairs was Elisabetta looking over some documents. Looking up after hearing the door close, she sees me and smiles, “Hello, Steel. How are you today? Are you ready to continue training?” 

I nodded and followed her over to the training area. Even that area has changed since Morgan left. Kindness is more of a defensive magic with the only real offensive capability being surrounding your opponent in a Kindness bubble and slowly shrinking it until… you know. However, perseverance magic is different, and it has a balance of both offensive and defensive options. For example, what I'm training with Elisabetta is the creation of purple strings. 

Purple strings are the most versatile of all the soul magics. They can be very efficient at slowing opponents down while dealing steady damage. That is why purple perseverance strings are a favorite of spider monsters. What I'm practicing here with Elisabetta is my strings’ flexibility. Usually, with this type of Magic the caster can determine how taut or flexible the strings are in accordance to what they want in a specific situation. However, even though I managed to create the strings, they are colorless instead of the normally purple color they should have been and very brittle. Don't get me wrong, they are pretty strong as I can seem to use them as an improvised bat if I want to. However, being so brittle, they only can either last or deal one hit before shattering. After working for what I presume is a few hours on my magic, Elisabetta stopped me and told me we should relax before they come in to pick me up.

“Come on, Steel, let’s go to the table and read a book to calm down.”

I knew she just wanted to read, but I remembered the conversation between Dr. Nortlen and the other guy from earlier, so I decided to ask Elisabetta about it. 

“Hey Elisabetta, do you know why monsters can't handle determination?” 

She smiled at me and said, “Oh, interested in a little lecture from me? That's great! Luckily for you, I just finished reading a research paper from Dr. Alphys about just this subject, so come on over and take a seat.” She patted the seat next to her, so I walked over and sat down. Elisabetta then took out a blank paper and pen and began drawing a sketch of a monster soul and a human soul while explaining to me the nature of them.

“Alright. So right here we have a rough diagram of a human and monster soul. As you see, the monster soul may just look like an upside down human soul, but the major difference is their composition. Human souls are made up of 95% water, 4% magic and 1% determination. Monster souls however are only 99% magic and 1% dust. That difference here is why monsters can't handle determination—because they don't have a lot of physical matter. Since they don't have a lot of physical matter, If determination was ever introduced into their soul, it would cause both it and the body to melt and eventually shatter,” she explained as she drew a crack on the monster's soul. 

I was about to ask about the difference between that and absorbing a soul when the door opened. 

“Steel, training time is over. Time to go back to your room,” said Dr. Nortlen.

I looked back to Elisabetta and said my goodbyes as I got up from the chair and headed to the door. She in turn waved, and told me she would see me again soon. My vision soon faded to white as the door shut behind me.

Walking down the hallway, I approached the locked door again. The green chain and lock that I unlocked last time was still gone. That's good , I thought, because it means I won't have to review memories over and over again to keep the locks off . Just like last time, soon I felt a presence behind me, and I turned around to see behind her a human girl glowing purple.

“I see,” the spirit said. “Are you the one in pursuit of the truth about Steel?”

“Yes,” I replied. 

“Do you think your perseverance in this task will give you the answers you seek?” she asked. 

“Yes, I in fact do.” With that reply her smile widened.

“Well then, I hope this key will bring you closer to what you seek,” she said as she held out a purple key to take. 

I took the key, and then she suddenly asked if I was interested in learning more about the world Steel came from.

“Of course I do! As the Goddess of Wisdom, I love to collect all knowledge,” I stated. 

This just made her smile bigger as she pulled out an object and handed it to me. I examined the object I held. It was a light rectangular device with one side being of full glass. I asked her what it was and she responded: “A tablet containing massive amounts of information about me and Steel’s home. All you need to do is push magic into it and tell it what you want to know.” After she finished explaining the function of the object, she quickly faded away into motes of purple light. By the sound of her explanation, this rectangle is a library. Getting excited, I quickly teleported back to my library in the divine realm. There I found a table and pulled out a chair to sit on. I then channeled mana into this marvelous magic tool, and the glass started to glow. Then, after not even a tenth of a bell, it spoke to me.

“Welcome and thank you for using the Feirune Technology Institute’s mobile planetary library. Please type or spell out loud a query for information you seek, and we shall pull it up for you.”

Hearing that, I was just bursting at the seams. A whole library in the palm of my hand, this is my dream. Regaining my composure, I asked it to give me a general overview of the history between monsters and humans. It then started to talk to me: “Long ago, two races ruled over Earth—humans and monsters…”

Chapter Text

Waking up from memory lane, I felt a sense of melancholy. I really miss them everyday, I really mean that. Looking off to the side of the bed, I saw that the whole family was already up. They were finishing getting dressed, putting on their socks and shoes. Eh, I can nod off for a few minutes more, I doubt Myne can get into trouble since she basically is confined to the house as long as I stay put.

I started to nod off, but then two things happened: first—the door opened and a gasp was made, second—Myne yelled my name out loud, causing me to jolt awake fully alert. Hovering to the bedroom door, I saw that Gunther, Effa and Myne were standing in the only clear spot in the kitchen as Tuuli was entangled in my purple stings struggling. Whoops, I forgot that I laid a trap out for any pesky intruders. As I floated into the kitchen proper, Tuuli saw me and her eyes widened.

“Who are you? Please, don't hurt me or my family!” 

I never wanted to see her like that.

“No, I am not going to hurt you or the family. I'm here only to protect Myne,” I hurriedly explained as I snapped my fingers to make all the strings go away. Now that Tuuli was free, she started to scramble away to the other side of the room. Things could have gone way better with this introduction, but alas, I could not rewind time. With that, I decided to properly introduce myself to her.

“Hello, Tuuli. My name is Steel. How are you doing today?”

She just blinked at me and tried to stand up, however, I saw her grimace in pain once she got to her feet with her left foot being raised slightly. Perhaps she sprained her ankle when she fell down. Great, now i feel the rising guilt starting to consume me. Wait, this is perfect. I know a great ice breaker for this kind of situation.

“Hey Tuuli, would you like to see a magic trick?”

She hesitantly nodded as I worked my magic, gathering my intent to heal and sending kindness to the tips of my fingers. Soon, a ball of green healing magic was in the palm of my hand ready to be given.

“Tuuli, I am very sorry about this whole mess you found yourself in this morning, so as an apology I made you this green ball. Get ready to catch it.” I then tossed the ball to Tuuli, watching as she stuck her hand in the air to catch it. When it landed in her hand, it diffused into her and sent healing magic through her whole body.

“Hey, the ball disappeared! Where did it go?” she was looking at her empty hand as she asked me.

“It went to your foot. Try standing on it now. I assure you that it will feel as good as new.” She hesitantly put her foot back down and then looked shocked as no pain came from it. Then after a few seconds she came back towards me and said “thank you” as she headed for the table.  

 With the kitchen now being purple-string-free and Tuuli fully healed and standing now, Effa started on breakfast as a conversation started between me and Myne.

“Why did you do that, that was rude of you to do!”

“I'm sorry, there was an intruder last night that I had to take care of, so I've laid a trap as a precaution.”

“An intruder?” Myne asked as the whole family perked their heads up and stared at me.

“Yeah, I found that a noble has snuck in here to see Myne.”

“Huh. I don't remember waking up and talking to anybody?”

“That's because I stopped him from interrupting your sleep.”

“That's cool… wait, how did you stop him?” She narrowed her eyes at me. If I still had a corporeal body, I would be sweating right now.

“I may or may not have sent a message… by throwing a knife near his head.”

“STEEL!!!”

“What? I didn't want him to think he could easily ignore me and just get you!”

“THAT'S STILL A LITTLE BIT OF AN OVERREACTION!!”

“Myne, I think you're forgetting that this noble snuck INTO OUR HOUSE!” I stared hard into Myne’s eyes like I was projecting my thoughts and reasoning straight into her brain.

From the corner of my hearing, I heard Gunther ask Effa, “Did the gods’ protector just claim our home as his?”

“Honey, try not to question the will of the gods.”

“Ok, honey.”Gunther just sighed and then mumbled something to Effa before going quiet.

Tuuli was just standing by until she saw the coin bag on the table and opened it asking what it was. Soon, the whole house became quiet as 30 large gold coins clattered onto the table.

“Steel, why do you have my money on the table?”

“So, about those gold coins you had in your dress… They weren't actually coins, they were magic tools." The whole family's eyes widened as they stared at me.

“So are these real gold coins then?”

“Yes, I made sure that they were not magic tools.”

“Thanks, big brother!” Myne exclaimed as she quickly collected the coins back into the pouch and then stored it in her pocket. Tuuli looked at me while muttering ‘big brother’. She had a slight glimmer in her eyes.

I wanted to make a query on what she was thinking, but before I could, Effa announced that breakfast was ready. Everyone gathered at the table and sat in their chairs, rushing due to being hungry. I floated next to Myne as she was given a bowl and spoon.

However, Effa then placed a bowl and spoon… in front of me? I gave her a questioning look, but it seems she ignored me as she walked back to the pot over the fire. After just a few more seconds, Effa brought over a large bowl with some white liquid in it. I smelled a faint wheat aroma as the bowl was set down. Then, one by one, she grabbed each one of the family's bowls and poured a generous amount of what I'm guessing was porridge before giving them back to each member.

Then she got to me and grabbed my bowl, poured some porridge into it, then set it back down in front of me. Just what is she doing? Why did she give me a bowl of porridge? Did she expect me to eat? I don't think I can even eat.

Halfway through her bowl, Tuuli looked up at me and then said, “Steel, you should eat it while it's warm. It tastes way better that way.” She looked at me expectantly, which just caused me to blink.

“You do know that spirits don't really need to eat, right?” I asked. 

“Nonsense. How else are you going to have the energy to protect Myne if you don't eat? Just go on ahead,” Effa insisted.

I then made a show of trying to grab the spoon and failing because I'm incorporeal and it kept phasing through my hand.

“Don't worry, big brother, I'll help you!” Myne said as she picked up my spoon and collected some porridge. 

“It's alright, Myne. Like I said, I don't really need t-” I never finished what I wanted to say, mostly because Myne shoved the spoon into my mouth. The metallic spoon clacked against my teeth, and the porridge flooded down the back of my mouth to my throat. Needless to say that if I was still alive, I would have porridge in my lungs.

“Myne! You can't just shove a spoon into someone's mouth! That could cause them to choke!” I knew Myne knew better than to do that.

Myne looked up to me with wetness covering her eyes. “Big brother, I just wanted you to eat! I haven't seen you eat in three days, so I figured you must be starving right now,” she said with a quiver in her voice.

Now that just caused me to stop my rant right in its tracks. She really insisted on calling me big brother, and right in front of her family no less. It does bring a warm feeling to my soul when I hear her refer to me as that. We just continued, with Myne spoon feeding me the porridge until the bowl was empty and the table was cleared.

Everyone was talking to one another as Effa started making Gunther’s lunch for work. My mind kept wandering back to how nice Myne was being to me. It did feel nice to be cared for like I had been long ago. However, I knew that if she were aware of what I've done before I died, the people I killed, the pleas for mercy that I silenced forever, she would rightfully find me disgusting and very disturbing.

I think I have to properly explain to her what I've done after our training session. That way she’d know the full truth and make a proper decision. Once I made the resolve to tell the truth, I heard a voice in the back of my head, “Planning to tell the truth even though it would be a detriment to you fills you with INTEGRITY .” I could not reflect on my regained trait for long as Myne exclaimed, “Steel! Why are you glowing blue!?”

Chapter Text

“Yeah I am,” I responded as I quickly shoved the feeling of INTEGRITY off to the side, making a note to experiment with it later regaining my original red color. “I turn different colors when I regain a portion of my powers.” It was a simple and completely true explanation that hopefully won't give rise to more questions later on. Effa just smirked and made a comment about how eating regular meals will help me grow stronger. 

“Mom is right! Since eating will help you regain your powers, I'll make sure you eat so you can be strong again.”

Well, I guess I can expect more food in the future. As Gunther left for work, I cleared my throat grabbing Myne’s attention. “Alright, Myne. Since breakfast is done and Gunther is heading to the gate to start the day, I can now teach you the basics of my magic style.” I did not wanna risk explicitly stating that I use soul magic since it seems no one here even uses it. I could tell Myne was excited, mostly because she immediately started to glow with a sudden rainbow, and her mana was starting to go out of control. I held out my hand for her to grab and offload some of that energy. Meanwhile I was also pouring soul trait energy into her so she could stabilize. Closing my eyes, I wanted to do a full monitor of Myne’s body as I drained her mana. Although something unexpected did happen—I felt something click, and soon all the traits I had were draining twice as fast as before. I, however, could not open my eyes yet because I was too busy focusing on the mana coming into me. After squeezing it down around 50 times smaller in order to get another tennis-ball-sized sphere that was chucked into the imaginary box, I was finally able to open my eyes again. I saw Myne smiling, completely calm and not glowing rainbow anymore as I let go of her hand. She then pointed behind me and chuckled just a bit. Turning my head, I saw Tuuli staring back at me with her hand grasping mine.

“Uhh, what are you doing, Tuuli?” I was confused as to why she was holding my hand.

“You were moving a lot while holding Myne's hand, so I grabbed your other hand to help steady you,” she replied.

“Oh yes, thank you, Tuuli,” I said with a smile as she let go of my hand. Looking back to Myne, she just smiled at me and was nodding to herself. I really don't like that look in her eyes. It seems she's planning something. Welp, it was time for a change of topic so I could get her to stop thinking about whatever she is thinking.

“OK Myne, it's time to learn the basics of my magic style, so we shall start with the magic inventory and stats menu,” I began as she tilted her head. “First thing will be how to access the check screen. Here is what you need to do: focus on the person or object, and send a pulse of any type of ‘special’ magic that has no hostile intent. And if you do it right, this will happen,” I then sent a pulse out to Myne, which activated the check.

Steels check on myne

Huh, that's odd. Normally people with an lv of 1 have only 5 attack and 20 HP. Why does Myne have less HP and more attack? There's also the fact that it says she is on a divine mission, which is a bit much but that could help us build credibility. Also, somehow my own check misspelled the word “eager”. Shaking that thought from my head for now, I then showed both Myne and Tuuli the stats screen. They looked at it in wonder, even though it is the very basics of soul magic. “As you see, Myne, the check can help you determine lots of things about the person or object you perform it on.” I then pointed at each line and explained what they mean again since Tuuli was getting an impromptu lesson on this magic. “Now then, Myne, go on ahead and try it on me,” I told her.

Wow, Big Brother's magic is very cool. I really wanna try it too, it could help me gather people that can help me gather books. I closed my eyes and focused on the determination that Steel has given me. I didn't want Brother to worry, but something was happening inside of me with my ‘Mana’. Before, I saw it as just a golden fire that I would stuff into a box while Big Bro drained the excess. Now, however, the fire had a red center and it felt more powerful. When Steel passed out after protecting me and mom from the horse, I had to go without him for the night. There was an incident while sleeping, when the fire started to surge and it felt like I was in the middle of the sun. This, however, did in fact give me practice with moving determination as I used it to crush down the fire. Grabbing a hold of it, I sent a pulse of it towards Steel with the intent to learn more about my Big Brother. Soon, I felt something push back, and when I opened my eyes, I saw the same black box I saw in front of Brother except it had different information.

Myne's check on steel

“Big Brother, what does it mean when it says your Mestionora’s chosen?” Steel's eyes widened as he quickly floated over next to Tuuli and me to take a look at the box.

Traveling the divine realm is easy for us gods, we just need to think of who we need to see and then we appear there. We can also just send summons to our siblings when we want or need to see them. However, sometimes with certain gods the summons can be… Ignored. So when I got a summons from Ventuche about a matter pertaining to the stability of the weave, I got a bit worried. Perhaps Mestionora’s favorite follower’s thread has snapped and she is distraught? As I appeared inside the weaving room, I did not see anyone other than Ventuche looking confused at the loom. She did not seem to notice me entering her realm, so I announced myself to grab her attention. 

“Oh, Leidenschaft, you’re here. Come and look at the weave, there is something strange going on.” I just raised an eyebrow, but eventually wandered over to the weave and took a look at it. It seemed pretty normal until I saw Myne’s thread which caused me to reel back in shock. It was totally different from the other threads now. Now, it had a glowing string wrapped around it reinforcing it. The string pulsed through the same four colors—red, blue, green, and purple. It also seemed to leak the colors into Myne’s thread at a steady rate. However, what really surprised me was that the string was also pushing colors into one of the other threads on the loom. This was something I have never seen before at all. I slowly lowered one of my fingers onto the glowing string and felt a pulse of power. It carried feelings of strength and steadfast will, like a soldier heading into a battle for their duchy to protect their loved ones.

“Leidenschaft, I need you to do something for me,” Ventuche soon said, which broke me out of my stupor.

“Yes, Ventuche?” I replied quickly, facing the Goddess. 

“Can you go to Mestionora’s realm and tell her that I wish to see her?”

“I’m guessing she secluded herself in her library again?”

“Yes, you would be correct.”

"Alright, I shall go get her,” I responded, and I soon took off to see my favorite niece

Chapter Text

Looking at the stats that Myne has pulled up about me kinda shook me. Soon my thoughts started to race with so many questions. The gods are watching me? Who is Mestionora? Is she one of the gods or just a messenger of them? Shaking my head, I quickly put on a brave face as I did not want Tuuli or Effa to suspect I was anything malicious or evil that was stalking her youngest daughter.

“Good job, Myne, you learned one of the two basic skills in my magic style,” I said while smiling at her.

“Thanks, Brother, but may I ask what's the second basic skill?” Myne tilted her head while asking this, which must have been quite cute since I heard an ‘aww’ coming from the background.

“That's a great question Myne. I assume you want to learn it before we all head to the forest to gather food and do some more advanced magical training?”

“Yes brother, please teach me,” Myne replied with a sparkle in her eyes. This brought a slight smile to my face as I started to explain the last basic soul magic.

“The last special magic I can teach you right now is called ITEM BOX. It's a sort of extra dimensional space that all souls have where they can store things,” I told her as I opened my item box in front of her.

“As you see, the ITEM BOX has slots where you can put items in, and when you need them you just have to think of the item to get it from the box.” I demonstrated this by thinking of my knife, which then caused it to disappear from my item box and appear in my hand.

“It is also a very convenient way to store important materials and food with the added benefit of keeping anything in pristine unspoiled condition.” I dismissed my item box and glanced at Myne. She looked very excited to learn this, probably because she could use it to carry more than what she could normally lift. Looking over at Tuuli, I saw her with her eyes closed, concentrating.

“Uhh, Tuuli, what are you doing?”

“I'm trying to run a check on you, Steel.”

“Uhh, is there any reason why you’re trying some magic techniques? I don't sense any mana coming from you.”

“I just have this feeling that if I keep going, I can do it.”

“You know what, Tuuli, how about you help your mom out for now, and later I'll give you some one-on-one lessons about magic?”

“You will?”

“Yes, I will. Don’t worry, it’s a promise.”

“Thank you, Steel!” she replied as she went to Effa to help her clean some dishes that were going to be used later on

Looking back at Myne, I saw her with a smug grin on her face which did freak me out just a little bit.

“Myne, what's with the smug face?”

“Oh nothing brother, just happy that you are now integrating into the family. In fact, I assume even Tuuli will be calling you big brother soon~” she teased me with a singsong voice at the end. Fighting down a blush, even though I doubted anyone would be able to see it, I just stammered if she would like to finish the lesson for now. She nodded, which then led me to telling her the steps of activating the ITEM BOX. It was actually pretty easy—you just have to focus on your soul and imagine that a drawer or other storage medium appears on it. Then all you have to do is just open it, and that's it—you accessed your inventory. Myne managed to access it in little to no time as it was a basic non soul trait related magic. The way her eyes sparkled while she tested it out by putting in random household items and then taking them out afterwards put a smile on my face. It was like seeing your sibling win a sports event they trained very hard to be good at. The sense of pride, admiration, and happiness just filled my soul with warmth. However, soon Effa had to go to work, and it was time to head to the forest to gather some food and materials since the wages that commoners get paid were so pitifully small. It added a sense of sadness to me since back in my old world food and money issues were solved long ago. Sure, in order to fix  these kinds of problems lots of battles and wars were committed when the United government was formed, but because of the sacrifices they made I got to live a good life. Wait, why am I thinking of that now? I gotta focus on the here and now, I can reminisce later. The two sisters were heading for the door, so I floated over to them. Soon the door opened, and all three of us exited out of the small apartment-like home.

“Hey, Tuuli, can I ask you to do me a favor?”

“Yes, Steel?”

“If the other kids don't see me, can you not bring me up to them? I don't want to gather too much attention, otherwise it might be harder to protect Myne, you know?” 

She looked deep in thought for a moment until she nodded and agreed to keep my presence a secret for now. Tuuli locked the door and pocketed the key, and we then started to make the trek down the stairs.

“I can't wait to head to the forest. We might find some good wood to make books!”

“Remember, Myne, that we are continuing training today. Once I get you to learn a somewhat decent amount of skills then we will go looking for book making materials.”

“OK, Steel.” She looked a bit down after I reminded her what we are doing today.

Soon the entry door opened, and light flooded the bottom floor of the apartment building. It was a bright day today, however, from what I could see it seemed like it was getting colder. The folks that were walking around tended to be bundling up just a tiny bit. Myne and Tuuli were now talking to three boys from the neighborhood. Apparently Myne hadn't really met them before due to being sick, so they introduced themselves to her. There was one who had pink hair with purple eyes who introduced themselves as Fey. Then there was another boy who had red hair and red eyes named Ralph. Finally, the last boy introduced himself as Lutz. He had golden yellow hair and green eyes. It didn't really seem like they could see me, so I was just stuck floating along as Tuuli and Myne were chatting with them. 

Looking up to the sky, I saw the sun and suddenly felt very pleased, like a life goal I made a long time ago was finally completed. Perhaps this feeling of satisfaction was coming from me, or it could be coming from the monster soul. After all, it was created from the magical residue of almost all the monsters that came to the surface. I really could not imagine how disheartening it would be to stay sealed underground for almost a millennium. I would lose hope being down there for so long, and that's dangerous. Since monster magic is made up of hope and compassion, losing hope as a monster is predictably fatal. In fact, I still remember the first thing Asgore king of the monsters did once the city was somewhat established. He built a memorial to honor all the monsters that ‘fell down’ and dusted before they got to see the sun again. The news had a field day at that time, lambasting the actions and decisions of the ancient humans and pushing the united government to give the monsters rights already. Huh, I guess I'll never truly know if they ever got the rights they deserved since I could not see the news or anything from the outside world during my stay at the soul research institute. I shivered at the thought of that place. I never want to go anywhere like that again, that's for sure. Soon all the kids reached the gate where there stood just a single guard in the middle of the wide passage. They waved at each other as the kids went outside of the city into the forest, the guard smiling as Myne walked past him. Watching everyone gather food and herbs to take home gave me a slight pause. Why is the ruler of this land ignoring the plights of the common folk? Don't they know that’s how bloody revolutions start? Then again, the higher class does have magic, so that is a factor. 

Pulling my attention back to reality, Myne soon finished gathering and asked Tuuli if she could go deeper into the forest to do that one “thing”. Tuuli then nodded before telling Myne to be careful, and soon we made a trek to go a little deeper into the forest. Soon we both came upon a slight circular clearing with somewhat smooth bare ground.

“Myne, stop here. This is where we will continue our training.”

“Ok, brother.” 

“Now, are you ready to learn about some defensive techniques?”

“Yes, brother”

“Alright, let me explain what we are doing,” I said as I floated away from Myne and turned to face her.

“I am now going to teach you how to make soul armor,” I stated, and I created a layer of hard determination around my form causing Mynes' eyes to sparkle a bit.

“This here is soul armor, a very basic defense that allows you to use your soul traits’ natural magic to protect you. With this technique, you will be able to survive more attacks brought against you. What I have done now is donned determination soul armor. It’s basically the middle ground of soul armors—not too strong, yet not too weak. I want you to create one, and then we will move onto the next step.”

I then gave her basic instructions on how to summon it. It's actually really easy—all you need to do is focus on your trait as it flows throughout your body, then slowly pull it to your skin and push it through, while also keeping ahold of it so it does not dissipate. You also must try not to tug on it too hard, otherwise it makes it harder to move around as the Magic becomes too solid. Watching Sis try to summon her soul armor did take me back. She was almost just like me when I first learned about this technique, jumping in head first and working hard to get it down quickly so I could learn the next thing. A slight smile tugged at the edge of my mouth. Who knew teaching others was so much fun!

Soon I was traveling the realm heading to my niece's library. It seemed that she was more secluded than before. However, once I got to the doors of her library, I felt the distinct crackle of her magic manifesting into some sort of offensive wave? What has happened? Has Chaocipher broken into her realm? I barged into the room and saw something in the very back of the library that brought nostalgia to me. It seemed my little niece had brought out the Training fields. Standing in the middle was my beloved niece with a fierce expression. Soon she raised her hand, and something unexpected happened—spears of energy appeared all around her, crackling with whitish blue light. After a good amount of spears were summoned, she quickly threw her hand down and the spears all rushed forward into a rock slab. As I entered the field and grabbed her attention, one thing just went through my mind.

Will she teach me this strange magic?    

Chapter Text

Traveling the divine realm was starting to bore me. It’s a shame that I had been banned from ever going to the mortal realm or even interacting with mortals. Still, it seemed there were some mortals that somewhat worshiped me even though I am unable to give blessings or boons. Either that, or there were still mortals causing major amounts of chaos. I know some folks find chaos very bad, but that's not all it is. Without chaos there's no change, and without change things get stagnant. When things get stagnant, it leads to no improvement. I mean, sure, I tried to get together with #&%^*+, and in my rage of not getting together with them decided to corrupt Ewigeliebe making him extremely possessive of Geduldh. However, I wanted to ask how long they are going to be mad at me. I mean, it's been — years since. Don't I deserve a second chance to prove I'll behave? If I never sneaked out of my home that I was banished to and didn't wander the divine realm, I would have gone insane a long time ago. 

Passing by Mestionora's realm, I felt a surge of energy which piqued my interest. Looking at the entrance, I saw Leidenschaft about to enter the realm. Deciding I wanted to see what Mestionora was doing, I quickly possessed Leidenschaft’s shadow. Verbergen might be the God of Concealment, but I like to think I'm a close second in stealth. 

Soon Leidenschaft came across Mestionora, and what she was doing was strange to say the least. Using some kind of magic that was… calling to me, she created spears that crackled in light blue and white light. After a few more were summoned, she sent them towards a stone slab where they exploded once they impacted it. That magic, why does it feel so comforting? I have gotten a feeling of hope, protection and doing the right thing from it. Soon Leidenschaft approached Mestionora and asked her what she did. Mestionora told him that she was trying to copy a magic attack she saw from another realm. When Leidenschaft asked what magic attack she saw, she pulled a metal rectangle with a glowing glass side. After she tapped the glass for a few seconds,  the wall behind her started to glow and it showed me something incredible.

“Are we live?”a female voice asked with a little tension. 

“We have audio. but the video is still down. I'm working on it, but I’m confused as to why it's doing this,” replied a young man's voice.

“Hey, Jackson,”

“Yes, Amber?”

“Did you check to make sure that the lens cap was taken off?”

“Uhh, lens cap?”

Soon the darkness was replaced by light as a young woman stepped back from the camera with a small plastic disk in her hand. She quickly pocketed it, then muttered “interns” before smiling at the camera and bringing a microphone up to her face.

“Hello, everyone! This this Amber czooosnek with channel 1 news network, where we bring the news you want! I'm here with our cameraman Jason starloreh today. Go on, Jason, wave and say ‘hi’.”

A hand appeared in front of the lens and waved, followed by a very tentative “hi”.

“Anyway, we are here at the monster embassy where we have a big group of monsters and humans gathered here and viewers at home. I bet we all have the same question running through our minds: ‘why?’ Well, to that I say: let's go and figure it out! Come on, Jason, there's someone over there.” 

The camera panned past Amber, following her outstretched arm, and focused on a small family. There was a middle-aged couple with a young girl, all of them slightly tanned. Soon the camera wobbled back and forth as it got closer to them, grabbing the attention of the young girl. Then, after a while, Amber caught up and appeared in the frame.

“Hello, this is Amber cooosnek with channel 1 news, and may I ask what you guys’ names are?”

“Hello, I'm Johnny, and this is my wife Hana,” the man responded before the little girl stepped forward.

“Hello, news lady, my name is May,” she said with a distinct lisp as one of her two front teeth was missing.

“It's nice to meet you, guys, but is it alright if we ask you a question?”

“Sure, why not,” replied Johnny 

“Why are we all gathered in front of the monster embassy today?”

“We are here to march down the city hall in order to propose the monsters’ rights bill to the United Government council.”

“Do you guys know what the monsters’ rights bill will do?”

“It's as simple as giving monsters the same rights as humans to try and make up for what we did so long ago.”

“You mean, when we sealed the monster's underground?”

“Yes, it's such a shame our ancestors decided to do that since it was completely unfair to them.

“You know we have barely heard what it was like down there. Perhaps we should interview a monster to get their perspective.”

“If you want to interview a monster, the captain of the royal guard is right over there. We can introduce her to you.”

“That would be great, thank you.”

“Well then, come on, news lady,” May said as she grabbed Amber's hand and pulled her towards the front of the crowd. After some muffled apologies and quick movements the camera was pulled back up. Its lens soon focused on Amber again, but this time she stood next to a very large blue-skinned lady that appeared to be part fish.

“Hold on, Mestionora,” Leidenschaft spoke out loud.

The projection stopped moving as Mestionora turned back around to look at Leidenschaft.

“Yes, Uncle? What is it?”

“What is that… creature?”

“Oh, that's a monster. A fish monster, to be specific.”

“A fish monster? Do all monsters look like fish?”

“Oh no, Uncle, they come in all different sizes and shapes, however they do have a few things in common, like being sentient and the ability to do magic.”

Leidenschaft walked forward, causing his shadow to shrink. Trying to avoid being detected and caught in Mestionora's realm, I looked over to the side and saw that the bookshelf bordering the open training fields had a big shadow. So, right as Leidenschaft’s shadow intersected the bookshelf shadow, I quickly transferred over to it. Settling into the new hideout, I saw Leidenschaft stare at the fish monster before asking Mestionora to continue. The projection played as the mortal named “Amber” asked the fish monster their name and if they are able to talk. The monster replied that her name is Undyne von Aquidlo, and she was delighted to answer some questions as the March started. Soon the image started to move up and down as Amber marched along with Undyne asking some questions about monsters and what they felt underground. As she responded, I began to feel a sense of camaraderie with them. We were both banished away by people stronger than us because of what we did/could do. It got me thinking if I could ever be freed from my banishment like how the monsters were freed from the underground. More questions were asked, from which I learned that the ambassador of monster kind was a small child named Frisk, which confused me. The camera suddenly stopped.

“UNDYNE, WE HAVE A PROBLEM!!!” a young voice shouted as Undyne perked her head up.

“That’s Frisk, I have to go!” Undyne quickly said as she started to bolt off to the front of the huge crowd of humans and monsters.

“Jason, come, we have to go after her,” Amber quickly said as she started to run after the fast blue fish monster

“Amber, are you sure this is a good idea?” Jason quickly asked as the heavy camera started to bob up and down.

“Trust me, Jason, I have a feeling something bad is going to happen, and I need to make sure Undyne will be okay for the interview later on,” Amber just replied as she suddenly went silent.

After some running and a few loud pants because of heavy equipment, the camera steadied and showed a very bad scene. Undyne was in a stance with a glowing cyan spear in her grip, while standing across from her was a man.

The man held two things in his hands. In his left was a remote that he quickly clicked a button on, which caused green kindness shields to manifest behind him, blocking the way to city hall. The other thing he held in his right hand was a gun pulsing with purple magic ready to be used.

“Jason, I want you to steady the camera and train it on the man.”

“Mrs. czooosnek, are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Mr. Starloreh, I have a feeling that a fight is going to break out.”

I see that this Undyne uses spears as well. I wonder if she does it as well as me as she appears to get ready for a fight.  

However, before it could even start, Frisk yelled out “stop” while running right next to Undyne. She then turned towards the man and asked nicely for him to let her and her group through so they could get to the city hall for a meeting. The man just laughed and called her an idiot. He then went on a tirade on how monsters and humans can never live in peace because of how superior humans are to monsters. Honestly, with what things I heard the other gods say that nobles proclaim, this was pretty tame. 

After the speech, Frisk tried to speak to the man again, who just laughed and aimed that silver thing in this hand at her. Everyone started to hold their breath like it was a dangerous weapon ,but something that small and far from them couldn’t be that dangerous. I think mortals overreact most of the time, some panic even if they get just a single scratch on them.  

My thoughts stopped dead in their tracks as it pulsed purple, and something so fast I could barely perceive launched towards Frisk. Before the impact, a giant bone suddenly appeared in front of her protecting her from the attack. The mortals over in that realm certainly have some odd magical attacks and shields. A flash of light blue blinked, and soon a short skeleton was standing next to Frisk winking at her. Once the purple light died down, I saw that Amber was fine only because Undyne blocked it with her body. She momentarily grimaced and started to break apart, which made me ask my niece a question.

“Niece, why is Miss Undyne breaking apart?”

“Oh, I forgot to explain this, but monsters are made up of dust and magic, meaning their physical forms are weak. So if they sustain enough damage, they will turn back into dust and die,” she explained to me such a confusing thing.

How could a creature that is made just of dust and magic be strong?

I asked my niece that, and she just smiled and told me to continue watching the projection. So I turned my attention back to it to see how this unfolded, hoping to see at least a good fight from the others.

Everyone was shocked as Undyne was turning into dust dying, and the man was just laughing.

“See, how weak and pitiful monsters are? They will never be our equals. All they are good for is EXP to make us stronger.”

After he said that, something changed. The wind started to howl , and the man's whole body turned green making him stuck in place.

“You know, my whole body is splitting apart like at any moment I will scatter into a million pieces, but deep in my soul there's a burning feeling I can't describe. A burning feeling that won't let me die.” Undyne’s dust started to slow down and float back to her body as her voice rang out from her form.

“This isn't just about monsters anymore, isn't it? If you get past me, you'll destroy them all, won’t you?” A glowing white light started to emanate from her body, but her voice still rang out with strong conviction.

“Monsters… Humans… Everyone, everyone's hopes and dreams vanquished in an instant.” The white light started to get brighter and brighter as she sounded more sure of herself. “BUT I WON'T LET YOU DO THAT!! Right now everyone in the world, I can feel their hearts beating as one and we all have one goal, to defeat you.”

Thunder started to ring in the background as the wind was kicking up even more, the sky slowly turning dark as gray clouds stretched across it.

“Human… no, whatever you are, for the sake of the whole world, I UNDYNE WILL STRIKE YOU DOWN!”

The white light finally dispersed revealing her form which has changed drastically. What was once just a blue t-shirt and jeans had transformed into a full set of black armor, with some white highlights and right in the center a pulsing red heart etched in. Her left eye, once covered with an eye patch, now had blue energy leaking from it forming a spear for just a second before disappearing and reappearing again and again. Undyne the Undying pointed her spear at the man before proclaiming: “You're gonna have to try a little harder than that.”

The song I heard as the battle began was unlike any I have heard before. I would even wager that even Kunstzeal would find it enjoyable. The battle, however, was GLORIOUS. The quick spearwork that Undyne did while deflecting those projectiles was amazing. I know some knights use spears pretty well, but Undyne was just a cut above them. I just watched in rapture Undyne summon and fling spears at the human. The human scored a few good hits on her, but she was beating the human even more. 

One of her attacks interested me greatly. She flung a yellow spear backwards towards the human before it suddenly appeared behind him and hit them. I wonder if I can do that with my spear as well.  

Soon the battle ended, and the music stopped after the man was impaled in the back and fell to the side. The projection stopped, and I couldn't help but clap and cheer like it was a good round of ditter. My niece started a rapid fire of comments about how cool that was and how she wanted to try and do that as well.

“By the way, Uncle, why did you come to my realm today?”

Ohh, I forgot what I was supposed to be doing and got caught up with the amazing battle. I broke the message I was supposed to give, and Mestiorona looked shocked before grabbing me and bolting out of the library. Looking back, I saw the doors close, and I wondered if my precious niece will let me see that battle again.

Finally they left. I didn't think I could last that much longer in this shadow without feeling very confined again. As I emerged from the shadow, I saw that Mestiorona’s water mirror was active and capturing events to be viewed later. Walking over to it, I saw a mortal with an uncanny resemblance to her and… a red translucent boy? It appeared that he was instructing her on how to use magic very similar to that projection. Looking closer at the young girl, I sensed that she has an immense amount of mana. With my eyes widening, I realized that it's a miracle that she has not combusted by now because her body was bursting in seams with mana. 

Zooming out to look at the forest proper, I saw a group of ten zantzes about  half a bell north of them. Wait, I have an idea. If I compel those zantzes to head towards the young girl, she can slay them for training and gain some feystones to relieve herself of some mana. After poking the spot where the girl was, taking in her mana signature so I could find her in my water mirror later, I sent some divine mana at the zantzes. Soon they consumed the mana and followed the line over to the south, heading to the girl. Welp, I’ve done enough for today.  

As I headed to the door, I was thinking about the magic I saw today.It was interesting, and with it, perhaps… Well, enough of that for now, I feel like I’ve done a good deed today, so I'm going to spoil myself by heading to Cuococalura’s realm for a nice treat. The room was engulfed in silence when the door shut, and I finally left.

Chapter Text

It only took about 30 minutes for Myne to learn how to use soul armor for the determination trait. She absolutely beamed with pride when she finally got something to click for her to make the armor not too solid to the point where she couldn’t move. I grabbed her attention to continue the lesson.

“Great, now that you have determination worked out, we can work on actively casting trait magic,” I calmly stated as she looked confused 

“Wait, what about the other traits? Steel, shouldn't I learn more about those first?” she asked me with a head tilt.

“Ahh, that’s a good question, Myne. However, I want you to master moving determination first because that is the first trait you acquired and therefore the easiest to move. I do understand the satisfaction of learning new magic you can cast, but if you try to cast trait magic without knowing what the trait is or what it can do a whole lot of unexpected things could happen.”

She then nodded, and I continued my lecture.

“Alright. So, long ago, in the times when humans and monsters didn't even know the other existed, human mages didn't even know how to actively use their magic safely. In fact, the most common way the mages casted magic was through their fingers. However, since the magic was volatile, it tended to cause loss of fingers because when the mages were endangered, they failed to control the amount of trait magic they put into their hands.”

Myne's eyes widened at the lost fingers part, then started to look down at her own fingers. I gave her a quick reassuring pat to comfort her and continued with the impromptu history lesson.

“Twenty years before monsters and humans made first contact, a young mage named Tobias Fox posed a question that would change the course of history: ‘Can trait magic be pushed into objects?’. After some vigorous testing, Tobias presented his results to the mages council. The new way of magic casting swept through the land, and soon most of the human population was able to perform magic.”

I then looked at one of the trees and saw a branch that would be perfect for Myne to use, so I pulled out my knife and slashed it off, letting it fall to the ground where I floated to pick it up.

“Humans needed a focus to channel magic into in order to safely cast spells, and this branch here will be your focus, Myne,” I stated as I presented the branch to her. 

She looked at it warily before asking if the branch would truly be able to help her cast soul magic. 

Ahh, I guess a demonstration is in order then. I put my knife into my inventory before firmly grasping the branch with two hands.

“Myne, do you see that tree over there, on the edge of the training grounds?” I was pointing at a somewhat old tree that had a thick trunk. “Now watch this.” I started to fill the branch with determination while swinging the stick up, then after enough magic was put into the branch, I swung the branch down releasing an arc of pure determination magic at the tree. It quickly bounded across the field and struck the tree with massive force, leaving a huge gash in the tree. I then turned to Myne, who looked slightly shocked, and held out the branch to her which she wordlessly grabbed and held up to her face, examining it.

“Now, there is something I have to warn you about, and that is how much trait magic you push into a focus. If you push too little into it, then you won't be able to cast magic properly. However, if you push too much into a focus, dire results can happen—such as—” Before I could finish my sentence, I heard a small explosion and Myne crying out in pain as my fingers started to throb. Turning around, I spotted Myne holding onto her fingers using her other hand. Droplets of blood dripped onto the ground, and tears flowed down her face. 

“Explode, I was going to say: explode,” I stated as I floated over and told her to show me her fingers.

Once she let go of her fingers, I saw minor damage to the skin with a few splinters embedded into her flesh. I started to pick out the splinters in her fingers so I could properly heal them back up while slightly chastising her.

“Myne, please, just listen to me before you try using soul magic. As you saw it is very dangerous when not used properly. You could have gotten really hurt.” 

She whimpered as I finally plucked out the last splinter and started using green magic to heal the damaged fingers.

“But Steel, I was only using just a little bit of soul magic. I barely let any flow into the stick before it blew up,” she retorted, puffing out her cheeks.

I just hummed a bit as I finished healing her fingers and looked up again at the trees to find another branch that would be perfect for Myne. Repeating what I had done before, I managed to get the branch down, picked it up and then headed back to Myne where I handed it over to her.

“Ok, Myne, let's try this again. What I want you to do is think of a trickle of determination going from the center of your body through your arm and into the branch.”

“Are you sure, Steel? I don’t want splinters in my hands again, that really hurt!”

“Unfortunately, Myne, yes. I am sure because I know I can heal some minor damage to your fingers from splinters. I can't, however, heal missing fingers, so in the long run this is the safer option.”

She nodded and started to concentrate on the stick letting energy flow into the focus. The stick glowed red for a second before turning into powder and blowing away in today’s calm gentle breeze. When Myne looked up to me, she had a smug expression on her face as if saying “I told you so”.

Shaking my head and muttering an apology, I then started looking around for another better focus that Myne could use before my eyes landed on a rock that was nearby.

“Ok, Myne, so wood is not good enough as your focus. Which is odd as most children start casting soul magic with a stick before moving onto better quality objects. In order to see why this problem repeats, we are going to do a little test.”

I picked up a rock and clinked it with my knife to make sure it wasn't a weak rock type, like sandstone or calcium, and luckily it was alright. I then held out the rock to Myne who grabbed it and looked at it puzzled.

“Rocks take awhile to properly use as a focus, so what I'm going to do is close my eyes and monitor the changes of soul magic in your body when you try.”

She nodded, and I closed my eyes and took a look at her body which seemed pretty normal—the golden fire which I suspect is ‘mana’ was still there, along with the soul traits and the stones still present in her body, but it seemed like they got just a bit smaller than before. 

Alright, let’s see what’s going on with Myne. I told her to start, and soon I saw the red determination exit her body and slowly go into the rock, which was good. However, once the rock got one third full, the gold fire started to rush into the rock as well. The determination in the rock seemed to mix with the mana that was rushing in and causing it to gain more volume.

“Myne, stop now before it explodes!!” I yelled with urgency as I grabbed the rock from her hand and chucked it far away from us. It was a good thing I didn’t hesitate because as soon as the rock landed in the dirt, it exploded into many chunks. Turning back to Myne, I slowly started to explain that the reason why all her focuses exploded so far was because her mana was overloading them when she channeled determination into them.

“What am I going to do, Steel, if every focus I get keeps exploding?”

I just chuckled a bit before pulling out my knife.

“Don't worry, Myne. It's like the folks back in my world say: ‘When one focus fails, try another, better one’. Here, try this.” 

I held out the knife to Myne, and she looked like she was about to take it but then hesitated.  

“Steel, are you sure I should be handling your knife? What will you use?”

“It’s alright, Myne. I can still instruct you even without the knife.” I conjured a Determination knife in my other hand, showing her that it will be okay. 

She then asked me that if I'm able to summon knives, why do I need a real physical knife?

I then explained to her that while I can create knives to use, it also drains me of magic faster than using a focus, so in battle it would be somewhat inefficient.

She then slowly reached for my knife, and as she touched it, the whole blade started to glow a dark red. It was thuming with power that it could barely contain.  

“Alright, let's find something to test how well the focus handles your magic. But whatever you do, don’t point it at anything you don't want to destroy or kill,” I sternly told her as I remember seeing some ‘accidents’ during the first few days when soul magic came back. 

Looking around, I saw some old trees that might take a blow or two from me, but would probably fall over when Myne strikes them. Then I spotted the perfect target on the south side of the training fields—a large boulder of regular stone.

“Okay, Myne, here’s what I want you to do: aim the knife at the boulder over there and imagine shooting a beam of energy like a bullet from a gun.”

“Wouldn't it make sense for me to do a slashing motion?”

“Don't worry, we will be doing that next. This attack, however, is the weakest of attacks you can do with knives, and I want to observe a baseline.”

She then nodded and took aim, the knife glowing even brighter before a pulse of determination was sent out, speeding rapidly towards the rock and impacting it. When the dust settled, it seemed like Myne did no damage to it, but soon the boulder rumbled before falling apart. Two halves of it, clattering into the dirt, almost bisected cleanly.

Huh, she is quite powerful. I better drill some more safety into her lessons.

Soon, she turned to me and asked me in an innocent tone, “So, Steel, did I do well?”

Chapter Text

I looked at the boulder that I split open, confused because I didn't know If this was normal or not. After I asked if I did well, we stood in silence for a few minutes before he asked me something weird.

“Myne, do you happen to have strong feelings towards rocks, be it positive or negative?” 

I just looked up at where his face was supposed to be, confused. Why would I be angry or happy about a rock?

“Uhh, no, why?”

“It's just with the amount of damage you did to the boulder, other soul magic users would think you have a serious grudge against them.”

I just blinked at him before he decided that he wanted to check the knife, so I held it up and it made me wince. The knife had a huge crack along the edge of it, with motes of what I could assume was metal shavings coming from the crack. I slowly turned the blade towards him, and I heard him suck in a breath before getting closer and running his finger along the crack.

“This focus can barely contain your power with you actively pushing determination into it. I fear we may have to find an even better focus for you. Something really strong.” He looked a little sad at the mention of the knife not being able to handle my magic.

I asked him if he wanted me to give the knife back to him, but he just shook his head and told me he can repair it.

The next thing he did was amazing—as he traced a glowing finger along the crack, I could see it slowly fill up and mend together. Soon the knife looked as good as when I first got it.

Big brother is so cool. Imagine if I could do that to torn pages of a book! I would never have to worry about throwing the precious knowledge away.

“Wow, big brother, that's so cool! When are you going to teach me how to do that?”

“Heh, that is a more advanced technique that I will most likely teach you later on. However, the first in order is to get to those skills we have to work on your focus management.”

I just nodded and asked him how would I keep training today without the knife breaking.

“That is rather simple. Instead of actively channeling the determination into the knife, I want you to just coat the knife in it then do the blast at the left rock chunk.”

That seemed easy enough. As I closed my eyes, I saw the visual I was using earlier, where a tube was connecting my hand to the knife to add the magic to it. Well, that's going to have to change now. Clearing away the tubing system to be used later, I instead imagined a sort of sprinkler or those machines that coat cookies in chocolate appearing at my wrist and moving over the knife, wrapping it in magic.Opening my eyes, I saw the knife covered in a pulsing light red glow.

Looking up at big brother, I saw him nodding in approval before he asked me to blast the boulder. I then stared at the rock and aimed the knife at it like I had done before. 

Then, after sending some more energy into the coating, the knife released a blast. It speedily rushed forward before striking the stone hard. Big brother floated over to the stone, after telling me to point the knife at the ground, and examined the mark I had carved into the rock.

“Well, it seems that you have some work to do in terms of attack magic. However, I can tell that with these magic techniques under your belt you will be able to defend yourself.”

I just started smiling because being able to protect myself made me feel a lot better about waking up here in this world.

Perhaps with just this I can make my books and read in peace with my family near me.     

After checking the knife and finding it undamaged, he summoned his own knife and asked me to pay attention. He pointed at the other end of the field where lay another boulder that seemed to be just a bit smaller than the one I had already… destroyed.

“Alright, Myne, let’s do a simple slash. It’s very easy—just pump, or in your case coat the focus in determination, raise it up then quickly swing it down like so,” as he said that, he raised the conjured knife up, then quickly swung it down releasing an arc of red energy that sped towards our new target boulder and impacted it, leaving a mark.

“Now, Myne, just do what I did. Keep in mind that with the technique I'm having you use, your attacks will be faster, but they will lack the power that they normally would have.”

I think I understand the general gist of it. I raised the knife in the air, actively coating the blade before swinging it down and releasing a lighter colored arc of red magic at the boulder. When it impacted, I didn't hear a slashing noise like when Steel’s magic hit it. Instead, I heard a sharp thud. When the dust settled, I looked in shock at what I did to the giant rock. Rather than a carving in it, I saw a dent in the rock like someone took a steel bat and swung it full force into the boulder for some reason.

“Ahh. You did good, Myne,” Steel said with a sense of pride in his voice.

“Steel, didn’t I fail because I didn't slice the rock? It just seems like I bashed it.” My voice was quivering because I felt like I just failed a very simple test.

“Myne, you didn't fail. Remember what I told you about the technique you use? Your attacks will be weaker, but they will also go faster than a normal slash attack.”

Once he said that, I relaxed a bit because I was super worried that Steel wouldn't want to continue training me if I didn't produce the right results. Wait, where is this feeling coming from? I never felt like that before!  

Then a flash blasted through my mind which disturbed me. I was standing over a man in a white lab coat, and they looked terrified begging me not to do it. I tried to say something, but nothing came out of my mouth. Instead I felt my arm raise up, about to launch an attack from a knife in my hand that felt different from the one I used during training. Right as I was about to swing my arm down, I heard a loud familiar voice call out to me.

“Myne! Are you okay!? Is something wrong?!”

Snapping out of it and blinking my eyes, I focused back to reality with Big brother hovering in front of my face with concern in his voice.

“Yes, I'm fine, Steel. Just lost in my thoughts, or… some thoughts?”

“Do you remember what you saw?” 

I didn't really want to tell him because I felt like I intruded on a personal memory, but I felt like something was telling me that would not be the right thing to do.

I slowly described what I experienced. While I was explaining, I could just feel some tension building up in Steel’s shoulders. After I finished and looked up at Steel, I saw that the normal red tone that he usually was when floating around was instead a dark blue.

“Myne, I’m so sorry you had to see that. I should explain that memory now so you can get the whole picture.”

It nearly made me lose my lunch when he told me about that… facility he was sent to. The things he went through were awful and inhumane, with time made worse and worse. Then, after some time, he learned the truth about what they wanted to do with him and the others that were brought there. Wrecked with anger and grief, Big brother plotted and planned to escape from the facility and let the world know what they were doing there. That, unfortunately, led to him… killing the staff and guards there.

“Steel, why did you kill that many workers when you were escaping? I know you had to kill some people in order to get out, but why did you go overboard!?”

“That's mostly because I was L.O.V.E drunk, Myne.”

“Love drunk? What is that, Big brother?” 

As I asked, he summoned a red rod and started to draw something in the dirt while giving me an explanation.

“You see, Myne, when someone gains enough E.X.P to suddenly earn a level of L.O.V.E, they get a sudden rush of power. That rush of power is quite intoxicating to the person which limits their inhibitions for just a moment. This usually wears off on its own as there aren't many folks around when you kill someone. But, in my case, the guards kept rushing forward to stop me and subsequently fell to my blade, thus causing a sort of feedback loop. I kill a guard, gain some L.O.V.E ,get the rush… and before it goes down, another guard lines up to try and stop me. That’s what being L.O.V.E drunk is, and it’s awful to realize what you have done afterwards.”

I felt really bad for Steel. To go through that and then have that kind of self-awareness later just made me want to cry. I rushed forward to his blue form and gave them a hug, telling them I understand, and he is going to be okay. I felt his arms wrap around me as his color shifted back to the red he normally had.

“Myne, I might be a filthy liar and murderer, but I promise you this: I will do anything to protect you and your family, even if it means my own demise.”

That for some reason felt very reassuring to me, and I hugged tighter. Soon we broke apart, and he floated back up before giving me a small smile.

“STEEL!! MYNE!! WHERE ARE YOU!?” A familiar voice called out to us, which just caused me to giggle before yelling at Tuuli’s direction that we are over here. However, my smile soon faded as Tuuli ran from the tree line looking distressed.

“Tuuli, what's wrong?” Steel asked with urgency 

“There's feybeasts coming this way. We have to run!”

However, once we turned ready to run, we all heard growling coming from all around us

I knew that we were trapped now.        

Chapter Text

I ran towards Steel and Myne after I saw the eyes in the bushes near me. This kind of eyes I've only seen once before, when I was younger. 

It was some time after Myne was born and an illness was going around. Mom caught it while at work and then gave it to Myne, causing her to soil her diapers more and more. Mom called out to me one of those days, asking me to head to the forest and find this specific herb she wants. This herb calms down the tummy and helps get rid of the uncomfortable pressure that builds up there when you’re sick.

After hearing her request, I told mom that I would get it for her and grabbed my basket.

“Tuuli, make sure you stay safe in the forest. Dad has heard some reports of dangerous animals drawing near this area.”

After telling mom that I'll be okay, I opened the door and headed out. The trek to the gate was quieter than normal, but that was mostly because all the kids already scavenged for more materials and went home. 

After reaching the gate and letting the guard know why I'm going into the forest at such an odd time, I was now searching for the herb. It took some time, but eventually I found the plant near the cold river. After harvesting some, I sat down wanting to rest just a bit before heading home to mom and Myne. However, right as I was getting up to walk back to the gate, I heard a very chilling sound.

**Grrrrrrrrr**

Looking at the tree line on the other side of the river, I strained my eyes to see If something was across the water. After some time scanning the trees in silence, I slowly got up and turned around. 

Then two things happened: one, the trees made a rustling and cracking sound, and two, I felt extreme pain in my back area. That pain caused me to fall over face-first in the dirt, which made my eyes sting. Blinking rapidly, I slowly turned around to see a big feybeast. It looked like a house cat, except larger and more unkempt than a normal one. Glancing at its left paw as it was slowly walking towards me, I saw red coating the large nails. I just knew after taking a single glance that my blood was on its claws. Soon it was standing over me, blocking the light of day from reaching me, its eyes glowing with raw angry energy.

I firmly closed my hand, collecting some loose dirt and pebbles. Right when the beast started to rush, its head down to consume me, I threw the blinding mixture that was in my hand and rolled. The large cat howled in pain as it brought one of their front paws up to rub the dirt out of its eyes. 

This gave me the opening to run very fast from the howling cat.The trees blurred past me as my heart pounded heavily in my chest. Once I saw the outline of the gate, tears flowed down my face as a smile cracked out. The guard started to smile and wave at me, but he soon stopped once I got close enough for him to see my dirty and torn clothes.

“MISS, WHAT HAPPENED? HOW DID YOU GET HURT?”

I wanted to answer, but instead I broke out in sobs and started to get lightheaded. I did manage to say “Big wild cat” before my world went dark.

When I woke up, it was blurry, but I saw a big mass of tan looming over me. Then a stranger's voice asked if I was alright, and my vision cleared up. There was a man standing over me, holding a smooth stick which identified him as a noble to me. 

He cast a magic spell that made green motes of light fall on me, and soon the dull pain that was pulsing in my back faded away. I couldn't comment on it because the other person in the room, other than my dad who was sleeping in a chair in the corner of the room, yelled.

“Lord Karstedt, why did you waste your mana to heal a lowly commoner? It would most likely be better if you left the wounds on her!” The other man glared at me with piercing blue eyes, like if I insulted him.

This caused me to shrink back into the covers of the bed I was in.

“Lord Gerold, I would advise you not to question my motives, otherwise a major demotion is awaiting you in the future. And for your information, I only healed this commoner for two reasons: one—she is only a child, and two—because she has information about the dangerous feybeast that's in the area. Now I want you to go wake the commoner guard captain and leave the room now!”

Lord Gerold gave me another mean look before turning and heading for the door. When he walked past my dad, he hit his shoulder, causing him to wake up.

As dad rushed over to check me over and see if I was truly okay, the other knight slammed the door shut, leaving us alone in the room. I heard Lord Karstedt mutter under his breath about paperwork and “assigned duty to protect citizens” before turning back to me.

“Gunther, I want to ask your daughter some questions since she was the one who saw the feybeast. I want you here to be a witness to what she says, as it will gauge how much manpower I will send to the commoner forest to deal with it.”

My dads face became stern, and he gave a salute to the knight. 

The knight then asked me what I saw in the forest earlier that day. I told him what I saw, and soon his face softened as he looked relieved.

“That sounds like a leader zantze, which is good as long as they have not gathered a group to protect them. However, I would like you to wait a few bells before going back into the forest as leader zantzes do relentlessly hunt a prey that they lock eyes with until one is killed.” 

That made me very scared at the time. However, I went back to the forest the next day, and the day afterwards, until the threat was pushed from my mind.

“TUULI, WE ARE OVER HERE!!!” I heard Mynes' voice calling out to me, snapping me out of my memories as I changed direction, eventually reaching a clearing where I spotted Myne and Steel in the middle.

When Steel asked me what was wrong, I barely had enough breath to tell them about the feybeasts coming this way. 

We all turned to run, but it was too late. The zantzes growled inside the trees, causing us to stop in our tracks, and I started shaking. 

“There appears to be no way out now, unless…”

Steel then quickly formed a green knife and threw it where I was standing. When it embedded into the dirt, a loud thump was sent out, and a green dome formed around me.

“Tuuli, I want you to stay in the shield. Try not to leave it or knock the knife over till we say it's safe,” Steel commanded me.

“Alright. Myne, do you also want me to put you in a shield or do you want to fight?”

“In order to become as good as you, I have to fight, right?”

“I would say yes, however I don't want to force you, Myne. If you don't want to fight, you don't have to this time.”

I really was hoping Myne would get in here with me soon. I saw glowing yellow eyes within the trees.

“Then I want to fight with you, Steel. I can't just run away from those who want to hurt me or my family… I want to protect them.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I yelled out Myne’s name to hopefully get her to come to me, but soon the trees parted, and the zantzes walked into the dirt circle. I spotted nine of them slowly walking towards all of us.

“Myne, I only want you to focus on slaying the four smaller ones. Leave the bigger ones to me. Also, keep your [^&@#] armor up at all times and try to dodge any attacks coming your way.”

Mynes' face hardened as she nodded and gripped the knife tighter. I was shocked at the look she was giving them—full of anger and some hatred.

“One more thing, Myne. Aim for the head and necks, because I don’t know how well protected their hearts are, ok?”

“Got it, Steel.”

Steel then pointed his glowing red knife at the biggest zantze while chuckling to himself .

“Heh, it's funny how this battle is between a bunch of overgrown wildcats, a bookworm, and a murderous megalomaniac.”

After Steel said that, I noticed that there was sound buzzing through the air. It sounded like very light music the temple sometimes played when we walk past it during spring baptisms. 

Steel and Myne seemed to disappear when I blinked. It startled me how fast they were because they quickly appeared next to the zantzes and started to attack them. Looking over to my left, I saw that Myne managed to catch the smallest zantze off guard because it was headless on the ground. Myne was swinging the knife she had in her hand, sending out red waves of light at the wild cats whenever they got too close. I started to sweat with my heart pounding in my chest as I saw Myne get hit with sharp claws that would cause some major damage to her frail body. But instead of causing a deep gash across her flesh, the claws hit a sort of barrier and only grazed her. Even though the cuts were small, I could see from Myne’s face that she still felt alot of pain from them as her expression would twist into a light grimace.

It did seem she was slowly getting faster and better at dodging any claw swipes heading her way. I turned as Myne managed to kill another one to look at what Steel was doing with his zantzes. 

While Myne attacked with vigor and calculated strikes, Steel was just rushing in close to them. He would just charge forward with the glowing knife and stab and slash at the paws swung at him at high speeds. When any claw managed to get really close to hitting him, instead of it landing on him and leaving scratches like what was happening to Myne, a small flicker of green appeared, which made the pointed sharp claws bounce off of him. I could tell, however, that it made him a bit more tired with every strike at him. 

The way they worked together to protect me made me feel safe, but I also felt a bit sad because as the big sister, I should be the one to fight and protect Myne, not the other way around. 

Soon more of the zantzes were killed as Steel and Myne quickly and precisely struck their heads. There are only two left of the nine that appeared, and I let out a sigh of relief as they fought them off. 

I looked down at the patch of dirt where the green knife was embedded and noticed something strange. The patch of dirt was now covered in small blades of grass that were glowing green? I had never seen something like this before, but it looked very neat. Bending down, I grazed one of the blades very gently with my pointer finger, and a pulse of warmth started to stir inside of me. It was the kind of warmth mom created when she turned on the stove in the middle of winter in order to warm us and the house up to get rid of the stinging cold sensation.

“Hey, Tuuli, look!” Myne called out to me, which caused me to stand up and take a look at her. The area around her has a slight crimson color with the bodies of the zantzes just laying there.

“Tuuli, do you think mom would want some of the fur off these giant cats? I think she can make a warm coat out of them!!”

“Allright, Myne. I see you took care of the wild cats I told you to go after, and I just finished these guys over here. Let’s put the bodies into our inventories and we will figure out what to do with them later, ok?”

“Sounds like a good plan to me, Steel.” 

“Tuuli, I want you to stay in the shield until we get the bodies up in case there's more to deal with, okay?!” 

“Ok, Steel!” 

It was kind of odd watching them pick up the bodies and hold them up to the strange flat black boxes which caused them to disappear. I could only assume that the gods gave my sister and brother that power to aid them with… wait, why are the gods helping Myne again? Steel said it was something about her dreams, right?  

Anyway, looking back, they were just finishing up with the cleanup of the area. However, I noticed in the treeline that something was moving. Just as I was about to yell at them about it, a sound that caused all of us to freeze came crashing out of the forest.

RRRR OOOOO AAAAA RRRRR

Steel then blinked and then spoke very lightly

“Huh, i guess there's one more.”

Chapter Text

I blinked as Steel made that statement like he was discussing what the prices of meat at the market is for that day. Meanwhile, the rustle of the leaves was getting louder and louder as some heavy thuds were echoing through the quiet forest.

“Keep on your toes, Myne! This foe sounds like a heavy hitter.”

Myne nodded at Steel as she stiffened up staring at the tree line. The silence permeated the air before Steel quickly twitched and summoned a green barrier that covered all of us. It was a good thing too because as soon as he did that, a dark-colored arc of energy rushed towards us and struck the barrier causing it to crack and  kicking up a lot of dust. Once the dust has settled, the beast was revealed, and it did not look like a regular zantze. While the other zantzes were only about as tall as me in height, this one was different. This zantze was about as tall as an old tree with ruffled fur. Its face loomed over us with teeth bared, ready to chomp down on our bodies. Its eyes were glowing with a golden fire that threatened to consume their entire head with two black pin pricks in the center of them quickly moving between all of us. Once they landed on me, the ‘zantze’ stiffened and growled even louder while bringing its left paw up to its eye.

“Myne, this guy is different from the others. I really think you should join Tuuli in the @&#$*+#$$ bubble.”

“Steel, I can't let you fight this creature alone, it will tear you apart. I'm going to stay and help!”

Steel just sighed and then quickly swung his knife down at the zantze, releasing another red arc of energy at it striking them.

“Fine, Myne, you can help keep it at bay while I kill it, but I want you to mainly focus on dodging those claws.”

“Ok, Steel!”

After Myne agreed with Steel, the beast rushed forward at a very scary speed towards us. Steel quickly slashed the air three times in a row, sending red waves at the beast. The zantze held up one of its paws to block the incoming attacks. Meanwhile Myne also sent some of her own slashes at the beast, although they seemed a lot faster than Steel’s, so it just appeared as a red blur leaving the knife in her hand.

When the zantze was hit, it released a large roar kicking up a massive amount of dirt into the air. The giant dirt cloud covered my vision, so I could not really see what was going on. The dust settled after a few moments, and my vision was cleared. What I saw made me panic and let out a small scream. Steel was hacking away at the back of the beast, but the fur seemed to slowly absorb the energy of slashes. That thought was not what made me panic though. What did so was what Myne was doing—she was repeatedly running at the beast catching its attention, and she was getting very close to the OPEN MOUTH of the beast.

“MYNE!!!!!! PLEASE DON'T DO THAT!” I screamed.

She, however, did not listen to me and just kept weaving between all the slashes and strikes the zantze threw at her.

“MYNE, FALL BACK AND HEAD NEXT TO TUULI NOW!!!!”

As Steel shouted this, I saw a faint green and red light shine in his hands. Myne soon ran back to me panting as sweat ran down her forehead.

“That was exhausting.” She gasped out with a wheeze. 

Steel threw something from his hand at the air above the zantze, and soon a red and green dome appeared around the beast. Steel then rushed over to us while slightly flickering in his transparent form. 

“Okay, Myne, something is not right.”

“What do you mean?”

“This cat seems to be absorbing all the attacks we throw at it.”

“Should we keep attacking it, Steel?”

“No, it would be a waste of our energy, leaving us vulnerable”

“What should we do? It's not like we can get close enough to stab it, right?”

“Hmm, stabbing it might be the way to go. Myne, stay back in the dome. It will not last much longer, but I can do this before it shatters.” 

Steel then raised his hands forward, lining them up at the very cracked dome. The zantze was smashing its paws against the walls of the dome, making more cracks appear. The barrier vibrated a bit before smoothing out the cracks, causing the zantze roar in anger. Then Steel put two fingers together and snapped them making a loud crack sound. The dome suddenly grew some spikes and rapidly sent them forward, impairing the thrashing beast as they stuck into its flesh causing blood to start dripping from the zantze. It again roared and thrashed even harder, trying to free itself from the spiky prison.

“Ok, so now we know that stabbing works against it. However, it appears its fur acts like a type of natural tough armor because it feels like I'm trying to stab a rock with a sharp stick.”

I then asked Steel if he can just keep the zantze In that dome. He just shook his head and opened his mouth to tell me something. Just as a sound was about to come out of it, the dome made an audible breaking noise when a rush of black fur sped towards us. Steel managed to push Myne out of the way, but could not really do anything else as the beast soon loomed over me. I started screaming while it laid on top of the dome I was in, making a loud thud sound. Looking up at the bottom of the paw, there was a strange golden light pushing itself into the dome, and soon cracks began to form. This caused me to start crying because I was about to die now. The tears ran heavily down my cheeks as the dome finally shattered and the giant paw started to descend onto me.

However, before it could even get halfway down to me a scream rang through the air.

“DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH MY TUULI!!!!!”

Then a bright gold and red blur slammed into the side of the zantze, making it howl in pain as it was shoved away from me. Steel then floated next to me and gave me a quick once over before turning back to the beast and shouting.

“MYNE, YOU HAVE TO CALM DOWN AND STOP, OTHERWISE YOUR FOCUS WILL BR–” 

He was soon interrupted by a loud pop sound, and Myne was sent flying back to us. He quickly floated up and caught her before coming back down to the ground. When he set her down on the grass, I saw that the knife she had in her hand was broken. It looked like someone took a hammer and spike and made it break the middle of the metal blade. The wooden handle was now split and splintered, with some bits of the wood just sticking in her fingers and other shards making deep cuts in her palm. Myne’s blood was slowly dripping from those cuts and falling onto the grass, staining it with a red hue. 

Steel soon stood up after gently setting Myne down on the grass. From seemingly out of thin air, a stick appeared in his hand and started glowing purple. The zantze was slowly getting up and panting a bit because a giant gash along its side was bleeding, but it still looked like it wanted to attack us.

“Enough.” I heard Steel say as he pointed the now brightly glowing purple stick at the zantze.

Soon multiple purple strings appeared next to it and started wrapping around the zantze very tightly.

“Tuuli, after I'm done killing this stupid cat, can you please take me and Myne home to rest?”

I just told him I would, and he muttered a quick thank you before snapping his fingers. Bright light started to shine above me, so I took a glance upwards to see what was going on. There were knives, lots of knives, all of them glowing in either a purple or red light and filling the sky. The sheer sight of them made me collapse onto the ground in awe.

“Normally I would be able to summon countless amounts of knives to stab you with, but I'm so tired that I can only do five hundred thousand instead. Let’s just hope it's enough to finally bring you down, you stupid overgrown housecat!”

Steel slowly raised up his other hand towards the struggling zantze and then snapped his fingers a second time. When he did that, the light that was above me quickly faded as all the knives he created flew swiftly to stab the zantze.One by one, each knife found an open spot in the zantze’s flesh and rushed forward to embed itself into the skin.

After only a few moments, the whirlwind of blades was gone as the beast had all the blades stuck inside its skin.

“Now, begone.” 

After Steel proclaimed that statement to the beast, the knives started to glow very bright, and then one by one burst into many tiny shards. The shards twinkled as they fell down to the ground, making it look like someone threw some purple and red dye into the soil. The zantze, however, still remained standing after that attack.

“Oh $%=!&… I'm sorry… Tuuli… I failed you.” Steel’s voice quivered as they said that, and soon they collapsed onto the ground, their once vibrant red body turning into a very dark blue. 

The zantze just growled as it stared at me and licked its lips. So this is it, I'm going to die now. Intense waves of sadness and fear wracked through my body when the zantze began to slowly walk over to stand above me again.

I don't wanna die.  

I want to see mom again.

I want to see dad again.  

The beast was now opening its mouth, making me close my eyes and hold out my arms in front of me to block the dribbles of slobber coming from it.

As I felt my heart pound in my chest, a faint whisper was heard in the back of my mind.

WANTING TO CONTINUE TO BE HERE FOR YOUR FAMILY FILLS YOU WITH PERSEVERANCE.

I opened my eyes because I wanted to see why the beast hadn't bitten me yet. Once I blinked a few times to get the tears out of my eyes, I gasped in shock. 

Right in front of my hands was a large purple rectangle that pulsed with every breath I took. In the center of the rectangle was a large spike that seemed to have impaled the beast’s skull. I slowly blinked and pulled my arms off to the side, and the rectangle with the body of the zantze followed and landed on the ground.

It’s dead, it’s finally dead!!!  

Letting out a small cheer, I turned over to where Steel was to thank him for waking back up and shielding me. But he was still knocked out, so next I thought Myne summoned it for me since she was learning how to use Steel’s Magic. Looking over to my dear little sister, it didn't take long to realize she was still out cold as well. Glancing down at my hands, I couldn't help but wonder where that purple shield came from if it wasn't them. 

However, I quickly realized that it was almost night now, so dad will start to get worried if we don't get home soon. I wandered over to Myne and slowly bent down picking her up by her waist. I noticed that she is now heavier, which surprised me as she was always so light due to being sick, or at least that's what mom would say. Hefting her onto my shoulder I then turned and wandered over to Steel and picked him up as well. I didn't really know how a divine messenger could sleep this soundly, but then again, he must be tired after fighting that zantze a lot. 

Wandering outside of the giant dirt circle, we all headed slowly yet steadily over to the gate. I kept flinching every time I heard something coming from the forest. I was worried that another zantze was going to come out and eat us. Eventually, after some more time has passed, I managed to get on the other side of the gate. Feeling guilty that I did have to lie to the nice guard telling him that Myne overexerted herself picking some rocks up and that's why she passed out with cuts on her hand. 

After passing by the guard, time seemed to blur, and soon I found myself already in our home's front door. Opening the door I saw dad sitting at the table while mom was cooking some food for us.

“TUULI, WHERE WERE YOU GUYS!? I WAS ABOUT TO RUN DOWN TO THE GATE TO FIND YOU!!! WAIT, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU!!!!!”

Dad was panicking just a bit, but I called mom over so I could hand Myne and Steel to her.

After Mom put Myne and Steel into bed and cleaned out Myne's hand seeing the bloody wound, I explained what happened to us. Recalling all the attacks that happened to us started to make me cry again due to the fear I felt. I was soon enveloped in a big hug as mom and dad patted my head saying reassuring things to me, and sobs wracked my body. They were calling me strong and brave for protecting my little sister and big brother from the beast at the end. 

Those reassuring words made me feel so much better and calmer again. Some time has passed before a question directed to me from dad was spoken.

“Tuuli, do you know why you have dark purple in your hair? Was it because of the beast you fought? Do you need to wash in the morning tomorrow?”

Purple in my hair? What Is dad talking about? Dad must have seen my face scrunch up in confusion. He took out a knife he had nearby in the utensils drawer and held it up to me so the light caught onto it and told me to take a look.

The first thing I noticed was that my hair was different. In addition to some stray strands that were poking out, I had streaks of purple in my hair now.

Reaching up to grasp my braid, I pulled it forward to my eyes to take a closer look at it. I rubbed the hair to see if the purple would come out of it, but it honestly seemed that this was also part of me. It looked cool to me, but I feared that others may not like the new style of my hair. There is only one person who could know what has happened, and that meant I must take care of them till they wake up.

KNOWING YOU WILL NOW BE ABLE TO TAKE CARE OF MYNE AND STEEL AFTER AN EXHAUSTING ALMOST DEADLY BATTLE FILLS YOU WITH PERSEVERANCE.

“Tuuli dear, why are your hair and eyes glowing purple?” Mom’s voice was coming from over my left shoulder.

I just looked up at her and nervously asked, “Do you think it looks good?”

Little did Tuuli and the rest of the family know that the battle with that beast was going to change the commoner forest forever. Right next to the green knife left in the soil a small dark green sprout broke through the dirt. 

Chapter Text

The facility was starting to become even more cold and dead inside.The doctors used to visit me once in a while to see how I'm doing and tell me some of the major events happening here. 

Their visits soon started to wane after Elisabetta was discharged and sent home. Afterwards came the next set of training from an integrity soul user named Amriah. For the first few weeks we had some tense training sessions as they seemed kinda sad. Then, one day, the wall they put up broke, and in the middle of the telekinesis lesson they started to visibly tear up. After some comforting and shooing away the guards when time was apparently up, they finally told me what's on their mind. When soul powers were introduced some folks decided to use them to help themselves, which is okay, but others decided to use those powers to… hurt others. 

Amriah was about to have a great time that day when their family died. It was a family trip to the mall for them, but to others it was a great tragedy because on that day a crazed soul user entered the mall and decided to go on a rampage. Blasting at random civilians with bursts of justice magic, causing everyone to start running away from the madman. Amriah and their family were hiding in the food court only half an hour after the mall went on lockdown. 

After hours of crouching with Amriah’s family hiding under the counter of Boyar’s pierogi and noodle palace with the employees, the crazed soul user entered the food court. His crazed ramblings, about how monsters are actually demons that want to tempt humanity with power in order to seal us underground to fuel their magic core, echoed through the silent dining area. The man's footsteps started to fade as it seemed like he was walking away when the most unfortunate and unlucky thing happened to Amriah. They sneezed really loudly before the man got far enough. Shoes squeaked as the man swiftly turned around, and the fast taping of running was heard.

Then a spray of yellow bullets impacted the counter piercing the nice employees causing them to fall over. The whole family screamed and ran more to the back of the small popup restaurant, but the man kept following them. All of them were now firmly pressing up to the back wall, looking at the insane man looming over them. Amriah’s father tried to fight off the man to allow his wife and child to escape, but there was not much he could do as he had not even unlocked his soul trait. Bullets of yellow energy riddled his body while his wife and child managed to run around the crazed man and into the food court’s dining area. The screams of their father were getting softer and softer as distance was created between the madman and the mother and child duo.

They both were filled with hope as they saw the light of day bleeding through the glass doors of the entrance. The mom’s smile soon turned into a look of shock and pain when a yellow bullet struck her calf, causing her to fall down onto the floor.

Amriah looked back and saw the horrors of reality behind them as their mom was laying on the floor, with blood pooling on the ground staining the once white tile floors into a crimson red. She started to yell at Amriah to leave her behind and get outside before her voice was cut out due to a yellow shot striking her head. Amriah’s mom’s lifeless body hit the floor with a soft thud as even more blood rushed out of the fresh wounds. Laughter slowly built up and echoed through the mall as the man rushed forward from the shadows.

“I’m very sorry, kiddo. I was actually aiming for you, but you know how folks get the jitters when trying to aim sometimes.”

Amriah did not answer; they were too preoccupied with overflowing emotions and tears streaming down their face.

“Ahh, kiddo, don’t cry. You will see them again very soon in the afterlife.”

Time seemed to slow down for them as they saw through tear-filled eyes the man raising up a single finger and sending a single yellow blast at them. Faint whispers played in the back of their mind as an icy feeling began to envelop them and faint wisps of dark blue light appeared in the corner of their vision. When the blast was about to hit them, a voice sounded in their mind.

KNOWING THAT THE MANS VERSION OF THE TRUTH IS COMPLETELY WRONG AND WANTING TO SHOW THEM THE REAL TRUTH FILLS YOU WITH INTEGRITY.

A dark blue dome appeared over Amriah as the blast struck them, causing the yellow glow of the blast to slowly turn itself dark blue as well before being absorbed into the barrier. The man looked confused before crying out in pain as a dark blue aura wrapped itself around him and started to crush his body. Gravity seemed to work against the man, and he was forced down onto the floor letting out labored breaths as if he ran over 10,000 miles all at once with no breaks. Bones started to creak as flesh bent to the intense weight that was casted onto him.

Amriah still was hearing whispers in their ears, telling them to do many things they mostly ignored… except for one.

They slowly raised their hand, making the insane man slowly float upwards looking around in confusion. Then Amriah swung their arm wildly in all cardinal directions causing the man to fly and hit all the walls and the ceiling. He started to laugh in between hitting all the surfaces of the empty mall.

Amriah just stared at the man, then quickly threw their arm back. This caused the man to fly backwards breaking the glass doors and landing at the crowd of police officers that was surrounding the mall.

Amriah walked towards the body of their mom, with each step feeling like a lead weight was pulling them down, trying to make them collapse onto the floor. Once standing over their mom’s body, they suddenly collapsed and blacked out.

Waking up in the hospital, Amriah was hooked up to many devices that were monitoring the status of their body and soul. Doctors were going in and out of the room taking readings on their soul using multiple clipboards. After the doctors noticed that they were awake, they broke the unfortunate news to them. Both of their parents are gone, murdered by the crazed madman known as Samuel Rickson.

Police did come in and visited them to get a statement of what happened that day, which they gladly provided to them, even admitting to roughing up Samuel a bit too much in their anger. Soon the news reporters came in, flooding the room for days on end, asking a lot of questions about the events and feelings of that day.

Then came the research facility, asking Amriah if they would like to help them with training a colorless soul magic user to gain a trait. That was what led to us meeting and training together. Tears were flooding my face as I hugged them and repeatedly told them I was sorry for what happened. After having them comforting me for a while, the doctors stormed past the guards and ripped me away from Amriah. I was locked away for a few days, but soon the doctors came back and sent me back for training.

Amriah seemed to be better than before, and we managed to bond over our intense interest in video games. However, underneath the joy that they were expressing I could sense an undercurrent of pain. Amriah seemed to get tired more and more often, leading to some stalling with our training sessions.

The last such session I did with Amriah was a few weeks ago, when we did not even get through five minutes of exercises before Amriah had to stop. This was apparently the last straw for the doctors here because they rushed in and escorted me out while muttering about getting a medical doctor in to examine them.

There was a knock at the door which pulled me out of memory lane. The door opened, revealing Dr. Nortlen looking very haggard and tired.

“Hello, Steel. Come, we need to go to the training room.”

“Hello Dr. Nortlen. Am I doing more training with Amriah today?”

“No, there's no training today. You guys are doing… something else today.”

This has made me confused. Ever since I got admitted here, the only things I ever really did was training, tests, and resting in my room.

We walked down the corridor in complete silence while the tap tap of Dr. Nortlen’s shoes echoed through the empty space. Once we stood in front of the door, Dr.Nortlen put his hand on the handle and sighed before turning it and pushing the door open.

We walked in, and I was shocked at what I saw. Amriah was laying on a bed, with two tubes coming out of their chest leading Into a machine in the corner. I was horrified at what I was now witnessing since last time I saw them they were generally ok.

“Amriah, what happened to you? Why are you hooked up to this machine?”

“Ahh, Steel. I’m glad that you’re here now. I wish it could be under better circumstances but I’m sorry…”

The intercom then blared to life with the sound of crackles and repeated this message three times, “Dr. Nortlen, please come to the front lobby. Your food order is here.”

Dr. Nortlen turned to the door saying that he would be right back and left. Now me and Amriah were alone in the room.

“Steel, I’m very sorry. I was not expecting this to happen”

“What do you mean, Amriah?”

“Do you remember what happened three weeks ago at our last training session?”

“Yeah, I think so. We were in the middle of training telekinesis when you suddenly collapsed onto the floor and were really pale.”

“Yes, after the session they finally called for a full medical check up.” 

“I'm guessing they found something wrong since you’re hooked up to this machine.”

“Yeah. When the chest MRI came back, they found that my lungs and heart had holes in it.”

“Oh my god, that's just terrible! Amriah, what did they do to fix it?”

“Well, they did try to do a semi-reliable corrective surgery to patch up the holes since they thought it was just a disease that spread too quickly.”

“And it worked, right? They fixed you up?”

Amriah just looked off to the side whenever I asked that.

“No, they uhh… can't fix it. Steel, it in fact was not even a disease but a genetic condition.”

“A genetic condition? What does that mean for you, Amriah?”

“It means that it can't be cured, Steel, because it would flare up everytime I get extremely stressed or use soul magic.”

“What about kindness magic? Won't that help you fight this?”

“Steel, kindness magic can do a lot, but it can't really cure genetic conditions, only slow them down for a short time. That's why after they found out what was really ailing me, they decided it was in my best interest to remove my heart and lungs and replace them with this machine.” Amriah raised their hand to point to the hulking machine right next to them.

“Are you going to be happy being hooked up to this machine for the rest of your life?”

“Steel, I'm going to be honest with you. If my life is long, then no, I won't be happy.”

“Amriah, what do you mean by that?”

Amriah opened their mouth to respond, but before they could get a word out, the door opened to reveal Dr. Nortlen holding multiple bags of Boyars pierogi and noodles.

“I got our meal for today, Amriah. Let me get everything out.”

“Dr Nortlen, is something gonna happen to Amriah? They are acting like they are going to die, but that's not true, right?”

Dr. Nortlen just sighed and looked over to Amriah with a very tired stare.

“You didn't tell him yet, did you?”

“I was getting to it, but you know, it's kinda hard to talk about this kind of thing.”

Amriah then looked straight into my eyes, and that's when I noticed the look of resignation that permeated their eyes.

“Steel, I do not plan to live long at all. In fact, I'm going to die today.”

“Why do you say that?!”

“Steel, look at me. I'm hooked up to a machine that's pumping my blood out of my body to add oxygen then forces it back into my body.”

“There's always advancements in medical technology, Amriah. I'm pretty sure that they can make the machine smaller.”

“I'm going to be honest with you, Steel. Even if they were to suddenly invent a smaller blood oxygenator in the next thirty minutes, I still don't want to continue like this. Plus, I miss my mom and dad. It pains me everyday thinking of them, and I just want to see them again. So, can we just eat the Boyars that Dr. Nortlen brought us? Because that's basically what I want to do in my final moments on this earth.”

I wanted to give a great rebuttal to Amriah in order to convince them to keep living, that we can work through this and give them a new fondness for life, but I couldn’t. Who am I to say who gets to live and who gets to die? It’s not like I'm God, I’m just me. A plain and useless regular human that couldn’t even figure out my own soul trait. The very least I could do for Amriah was to fulfill their last request and make some good memories with them before they… die.

“Ok, Amriah, I'll be here for your last day.”

“Thank you, Steel, for doing this for me. Now, let's get this end of life party started, Dr. Nortlen.”

The next few hours were filled with pierogis, noodles and games as Dr. Nortlen managed to bring an Xbox into the training room where we played multiple games like Halo, Fortnite and Minecraft. We all were just having fun and living in the moment with the worries of the real world washing away. With us having fun, it felt like eternity had passed by in a blink of an eye constantly changing, never staying the same even though I would beg for it to.

Eventually, Dr. Nortlen halted the Xbox game and looked at us with sadness in his eyes.

“Amriah, it's time. I'm going to get the container and the… medicine.”

As Dr.Nortlen left the room I looked at Amriah with a questioning look because I was puzzled at the mention of a container.

“Amriah, what did Dr. Nortlen mean by getting a container?”

“Well, Steel, in order to get this party together I had to agree to a little experiment for Dr. Nortlen to conduct.”

“What experiment did you agree to do?”

“After I die, I'm allowing Dr. Nortlen to capture my soul and run some tests and experiments on it before letting it shatter.”

“Are you sure you're ok with them doing that to your soul?”

“Steel, I'm sure I want to do this. I'm just tired, and if this lets me reunite with my parents quicker, then I'll take it.”

I just nodded, and we spoke for a little bit about the new movement update that Fortnite just introduced for this chapter. Soon the door opened and revealed Dr. Nortlen carrying a tray with a few syringes in one hand, and in the other a big glass container.

“Amriah, I'm here. If you’re ready, then we can begin.”

“I'm ready, Dr. Nortlen. Let's get this done.”

Dr. Nortlen walked over to us and picked up a package, opening it to pull out a blue rubber strip which he wrapped and tied in Amriah’s upper arm. He then inserted a needle to collect blood. The room was filled with an awkward silence as Dr. Nortlen filled three big tubes with Amriah’s blood before pulling a syringe out.

“Ok, Amriah. This is your last chance to back out because once I put this syringe into the tube in your arm I am legally required to administer the solution.”

“Steel, come and hold my hand please. I don't want to be sent off alone.”

I quickly scrambled over to them where they had an arm up and hand open gesturing at me to grab it.

“Ok, Dr. Nortlen. Go ahead and send me off.”

Dr. Nortlen nodded and slowly pushed the needle into the tube and carefully injected Amriah with the deadly mixture. It only took about a minute to administer, but to me it felt like hours as my heart pounded in my ears.

“It's done, Amriah. The mixture will take about 8 to 12 minutes for it to take effect. All we can do now is just wait.”

The clock was ticking now, and I was still holding their arm very tightly making small conversation about what their parents were like. They told me stories of how their dad would try to take Saturdays off just so they could have a nice picnic. There were stories of their mom and how she was afraid of squids at the aquarium because once when she was younger a squid attached itself to her face when she was on a family vacation to the Great West Ocean. Before long, Amriah started to yawn and eventually told us good night as they closed their eyes.

I stopped squeezing their hand as after a few more minutes their own grip was starting to slack. Amriah’s breathing slowed to a stop, and their hand let go of mine falling to the side of the bed. After only a single minute, a dark blue light rose out of Amriah’s chest reaching only about a foot from their body.

“Steel, I'm still setting up the container. Can you hold onto Amriah’s soul for me as I finish this up really quick?”

I did not respond. I just threw my hand and arm into the blue light, causing it to condense into a big cartoon heart. I was transfixed by the glow of the heart as it slowly bobbed up and down in my hand.

“Ok, Steel, I got the container ready.” 

Dr. Nortlen caused me to turn around with the soul in hand to face him. He had the bottom of the container in both of his hands, and the glass tube was behind him. Walking forward, I extended my hand out to him where he slowly placed the metal bottom onto my palm. The cold metal was slightly stinging my skin as he kept repositioning it until the soul was in the center of the circular base.

“Steel, I have a random question for you. Do you mind if i ask it?” He was lifting up the glass tube as he was talking.

“Umm, sure, Dr. Nortlen. What did you want to ask?” My voice was cracking, and my eyes were burning with fresh tears looking at Amriah’s soul.

“Do you believe that a human could become a god?” he just casually asked this while steadily lowering the glass onto the metal base, which would effectively seal the heart away for future use.

That caused me to zone out as thoughts raced through my head, some good and some bad. Ideas of what I could do with that kind of power along with what others’ reactions would be.

Then I remembered how the world was before the monsters came back. How housing prices were on the rise and medicine was overpriced to the point where some folks died due to no health insurance. Disasters that hit areas would cause major casualties tearing families apart.

“I think that some humans already believe they are god, Dr. Nortlen, and I fear that even if a human could become like god I'm not sure they should,” I replied as he turned the tube to the left, and a loud click echoed through the room.

“That sure is an interesting point of view you have there, Steel. It gives me something to think about later.”

He lifted up the canister carefully, the soul now safely enclosed in a tomb of glass and metal shielded from the outside world.

“Come on, let's get you back to your room. I have a feeling that you are going to rest for quite a bit after today's events.”

I just nodded and followed him out the room, looking back one more time at Amriah’s body laying in the bed, wondering if they are happy with the choice they made as the door shut.

That sure was an interesting memory. Who knew that mortals had such complex feelings about others when they climb the towering staircase?

Walking down the hall again, I saw that some of the walls were starting to gain a multicolored glow. While I would love to stay and examine what was going on with them, I only had a limited time here before Steel woke up and this realm kicked me out.

Approaching the door, I examined the locks that were left on it—a light blue, an orange, a dark blue and a yellow one.

I was dragged out of my musings as I felt a Presence behind me. Turning around, I discovered a dark blue silhouette was standing in the once empty hallway.

“Hello there,” I greeted them, mostly because I now knew that these entities were mostly harmless.

“Hello there, Goddess of Wisdom. Do you have the INTEGRITY to face the truth and not cover it up in order to better suit your purposes?”

I gave them a firm nod, and I could see a faint smile on their face as they slowly held out their hand. I had a weird feeling of what I needed to do in order to get the key from the blue figure. I slowly reached out and clasped their hand with my own as I felt some sense of satisfaction. Shaking myself out of a sort of mindless stupor, I discovered that the blue figure was now gone, and in my hand I felt a key.

Spinning back around, I inserted the key into the dark blue lock and gave it a quick turn hearing it click. The lock and chain fell off the door and slowly dissolved into motes of blue light, and then soon even those faded away.

Knowing that my time here is now coming to an end for this day, I left the door and headed back to the divine realm. Right as I was about to enter my library, a stray thought entered my mind.

“How could a mortal become a god?” 

Chapter Text

My eyes burned as I roused from my dream, tears flowing down my face, and hit the bed below. Why did I have to see that memory about Amriah now? Was it because I almost died? Shaking my head at the notion that I could die in this state now, I turned my head to see Myne in the bed with me. Her face was also filled with tears, most likely from killing that giant cat after I passed out. If that cat had the average strength of a normal feybeast, then I would be in trouble unless I doubled down on training.

Sitting up, I found out that I could actually feel the scratchy blanket that was laid on top of me and I could feel the roughness of the bed below. That’s new. I wonder why I can actually feel the bed now? That line of questions could wait for now as I needed to examine Myne. Pushing the blanket off of me, I gently floated up and hovered over Myne looking for any major injuries.

Other than some minor scratches along her arms and the heavily wrapped hand, I didn’t see anything majorly wrong. Summoning an integrity knife, I cut the bandages off of Myne’s hand to see gaping wounds spread across the entirety of it. If I had to take a guess, even without the scarring, the hand would never really move correctly ever again. It was really helpful then that I was not letting it heal by itself, otherwise the hand would end up basically useless.

Channeling Kindness into my other hand I brought it up to Myne’s hand and grasped it. I soon felt the energy drain as not only did I start healing the hand but also channeled all the soul traits I have acquired so far into her as well.

My mind wandered back to the memory I saw in my dream about Amriah. I wished we had a happier ending than that, but I couldn’t reset to a point before they had went to that mall.

Myne started to stir and soon opened her eyes, looking up at me with tears welling up in her eyes.

“I know it hurts, Myne, to feel the wounds close. I just need you to endure for a little bit longer.”

Myne nodded, but she still looked like she was going to rip her hand away from me. I could not have that, otherwise it might hurt her twice as much whenever I would start healing it again. If only I had a book, then I could probably use that to bribe her into not screaming like she is being murdered. Instead, I have to go with the next best thing.

“Myne, would you like to hear a story from my world?”

“Big brother would like to tell me a story. Of course I would love to hear it.” Her voice was cracking a bit as an excited grin stretched across her face.

“Ok, Myne. I’ll tell you the story, but it’s important to not interrupt me, so can you please keep your hand here in mine while it heals?”

She just nodded and quickly placed her hand into mine. The Kindness magic started to flow into her, slowly repairing the damages, while I began to tell the tale of the first fallen human.

“About a hundred years after the human-monster war ended and they were forced underground, a child from the human village at the base of Mt. Ebott ascended up it. There, he accidentally tripped on a overgrown vine and fell down into the mountain.

“The human landed on a bed of flowers that broke his fall, landing in the ruins where he wasn’t alone. Asriel Dreemurr, the prince of monster kind, was exploring the ruins that day when they heard the sound of screaming coming from the distance.

“Fearing that a fellow monster needed help, he rushed towards the sound until he came upon the human resting on the bed of golden flowers. Worried that the human child was hurt, Asriel approached and quickly tended to the human hoping that they were ok.

“The human was roused awake and just lay there, not really believing what they were seeing. A small bipedal goat monster was asking them if they were alright and if they needed help. Asriel asked the human for their name after introducing themselves, and the human responded that his name was Chara.

“As the boys traveled to the castle, they were in awe as the monsters from the stories humans passed down were not the ferocious beasts they were portrayed as. Instead, they were kind and friendly, even to a descendant of the wardens who sealed them down here.

“Eventually, they made it to the castle where king Asgore and queen Toriel accepted Chara with open arms and adopted them into their family. The underground was full of hope, for if Chara and Asriel can become best friends and siblings then perhaps there was a future where the rest of humans and monsters could do the same.

“After a few years, despair blanketed the kingdom as terrible news was released: the human was terribly ill. The king and queen brought in the best monster doctors to hopefully heal Chara, but they failed. Weeks passed as Chara’s condition worsened causing grief and pain to the Dreemurr family. Then Chara on their deathbed gave his last request to his most beloved family: ‘I wish to see the golden flowers of my village one last time’. But, there was nothing the monsters could do to fulfill this request as the barrier kept any single souled being trapped down there.

“The next day, with Asriel by his side, Chara took his last breath and died. Asriel, filled with pain and grief after witnessing his brother die, absorbed Chara’s soul and became a being of unimaginable power. They carefully lifted up Chara’s body and headed to the barrier, crossing it and entering the surface.

“Asriel went down the side of the mountain and wandered into the human village. The humans outside started to scream as a living myth was steadily walking towards the center of the village with a body of a human in his arms. Reaching the bed of the golden flowers at the center of the village, Asriel placed Chara down.

“The cries of the village soon turned into angered shouts as Asriel turned around. The whole village was gathered around him and carrying various tools, wielding them as weapons against the supposed murderous monster. They viciously attacked Asriel, striking him with blow after blow. However, even with the power to destroy the entire village, Asriel did not strike back. Instead, he picked up Chara’s body again and headed back to the underground.

“When Asriel crossed the barrier, they collapsed in the palace gardens where their parents were trying to find out where they went. Asriel gave many apologies to his parents as he slowly turned to dust spreading across the garden. Queen Toriel burst into tears, lamenting the loss of both of her sons. King Asgore was in a different state of mind—he sent a missive out to monster kind to come to the castle grounds for an announcement.

“The next day, in front of all his citizens, he announced the death of his two sons causing a blanket of despair to cloak the entirety of monster kind. Asgores speech did not end there as he suddenly announced a new law for the underground kingdom to follow: ‘All humans that fall down here are to be killed and their souls taken to him. Once he acquires seven human souls, he will absorb them, break the barrier and then take revenge on humanity for sealing monster kind underground and killing his sons.’

“Asgore turned around hoping to see some form of approval from his wife, but there was nobody behind him. Toriel, being disgusted by Asgore’s actions, took Chara’s body and left the castle vowing to make sure no humans encounter any other monsters and get killed.”

After finishing the story, I felt exhausted as healing the wound was harder than I expected due to the amount of micro-splinters of wood that had to be pushed out. Looking up at Myne, I saw tears in her eyes as she was staring at me.

“Did you have to tell such a sad story, Steel?”

“Sorry Myne, that is the most popular story that spread after the monsters got released from their prison.”

“I still want to write it down later, once I make my paper, so you will have to tell me it again.”

“Ok, I will, Myne. But tabling that topic for now, I have to know how did you kill the overgrown cat?”

“Did I kill it? The last thing I remember was the knife exploding… oh, by the way, sorry about that.”

“It’s okay, Myne. It would not last that much longer for me anyway, but if you didn’t kill it and I for sure did not kill it either, then who did?”

Mynes eyes shot wide open as she very quickly shot up from the bed and ran to the bedroom door, shouting out Tuuli’s name. Then, she yelled out for me asking to help out Tuuli because something was wrong.

Floating quickly into the dinning room, I expected to see something gruesome like Tuuli dead on the table because of my failure at killing that stupid overgrown cat. Instead, when I laid my eyes on Tuuli examined by Myne and saw the streaks of dark purple in her hair, I was a little surprised, to say the least. I wanted to check on Tuuli’s soul so pulling on my powers I tugged it out of her body, making the whole world turn black and white.

I looked at Tuuli’s soul in shock as I did not expect her to be a gray soul nor see her soul swell with Perseverance. 

“Huh, that is really odd.”

“Steel, what is this thing and why did it come from my chest?”

“STEEL, WHY IS THERE A CARTOON HEART COMING OUT OF TUULI?! IS SHE DYING!!”

I just sighed as Myne’s question made Tuuli panic.

“Calm down, you two. It’s nothing like that. This right here is Tuuli’s soul, the very culmination of her being.”

“Are you telling me that I’m this ‘heart’ thing right here?”

“In a sense, yes, you are,” I replied as I gently pushed Tuuli’s soul back into her body.

Light flooded back to the world as I asked Tuuli what happened after I passed out and what she told us made everything clear to me on what happened that day.

“So, it appears that when your life was in danger, the Perseverance magic that clung to you from the trap was able to seep into your soul, coloring it.”

Tuuli looked at me in surprise before asking what a ‘perseverance’ is, which in turn made me explain all the soul traits to her. She stared confused at me and muttered out loud.

“Does this mean I have magic now?”

“Yes, Tuuli, you have magic now.”

She looked down at her hands, and they pulsed with a dark purple glow. Then, they shot a solid purple beam up to the ceiling before making a dull thunk on the hardwood.

I had to coach Tuuli on how to dismiss the Perseverance tubes, but eventually we managed them to disappear.

“Ok, so now that Tuuli has dismissed the beams, we need to come up with a plan to get a new focus for both me and Myne.”

“Wait, Steel, why do we need to get a new focus?”

“Myne, we need a focus to cast soul magic, remember?”

“Oh yeah, sorry Steel. Some of that day is jumbled in my brain, so it’s hard to remember what’s what.”

“It’s ok, Myne, but I do feel like its mostly my fault since I neglected to teach you how to defend yourself before going over attacks.” My voice was wavering as tears welled up at the edge of my eyes.

I honestly thought that I was going to start crying, but I was embraced by Tuuli who patted my back while whispering that it was ok. Eventually, I managed to calm down and composed myself while Myne looked worried at what was happening to me.

“Ok, I feel somewhat better now, but we have to address the elephant in the room.”

“Uhh, what’s an elephant?”

“Oh, that’s a special divine beast, Tuuli. Don’t worry about it. What I mean to say is we need to talk about the problem that is apparent.”

“What is the problem, Steel? The fact that I can’t use the knife anymore to get wood for books?”

“No, and I will be talking to you later about trying to use a knife to gather wood because that’s an easy way to blunt a blade.”

“Darn.”

“Now the major problem is that we need to find a focus that’s made of significantly better material for me, you and Tuuli.”

“Wait, why does Tuuli need a better focus like me?”

“Oh, that’s because folks that are closely related to one another like sisters or brothers will typically have the same strength of soul but different colors.”

They both nodded at me with a very serious expression before looking at each other and just giggling to one another. This behavior made me raise an eyebrow, but I decided not to push it.

“Getting back to the topic at hand, Tuuli,” as I addressed her, she stared at me with a curious look. “Do you know where we can find knives made of better material close by?”

She slowly raised her finger up to her chin and started to hum to herself very clearly in the throes of the deepest train of thoughts before a metaphorical light bulb flashed above her head.

“Well, Stee,l the only place I could think of where better knives are is the Noble’s Quarter of the city.” 

“That’s good. We will head there tomorrow after rest and get some.”

“Um, actually… Steel, you and Myne will have to come with us for the pig slaughter.”

I looked quizzically at Tuuli and asked her to tell us more about this “pig slaughter,” and she told me that it was basically an event that happens every year before the start of winter where lots of families head outside the city walls to a local farm to buy and kill pigs to get food and fat for the winter. She also stressed the importance of Myne coming along this year because the size of the family determines the overall size of the pig and portions of it we get. Meaning that if Myne did not appear this year, we might get a smaller pig, and with that not enough to feed everyone this year.

“Hmm, so we have to do something tomorrow. That’s ok, how about the day afterwards?”

“Well, that day is mostly used to get some more handiwork done, but since it’s one of the last few clear days before winter hits hard, we can possibly go to the Noble’s Quarter if we ask mom first.”

“Hmm, that works for me. How about you, Myne?” 

“That’s fine by me,, Steel.”

“That’s great. Now we have a plan for acquiring better gear, so what do we do?”

I started to ponder some options. We couldn’t really train our magic as even I still feel a little depleted and it’s never safe to exercise without a focus. That was when Tuuli asked Myne for help with setting up some pots and pans in preparation for tomorrow, and i was just there floating and watching them talk about minor things.

The conversation they were having reminded me of back home in the facility, before it all went wrong, when I talked to my friends. I felt a pulse of sadness from my soul as I tried to shake away the memories from my mind. Now was not the time for remembering, it was time to prep and prepare for a world that was very dangerous if I wanted Myne to grow into her full potential as a soul mage.

It was only a little while later that Gunther and Effa came home and dinner was prepared, and I was once again made to sit at the table with some sort of stew placed right in front of me. Everyone looked at me expectantly when I carefully grabbed a spoonful of the stew and lifted it up to my mouth. Everyone smiled after I started eating and went back to conversation before I was finally addressed.