"My brother, his children, my people..."

Yahanaseara gazes off into the distance.

"...for far, far too long, I was separated from everyone and everything that I held dear. And now, they are all long since gone from this world and I have long since been forgotten. All thanks to the machinations of that BASTARD."

She spits that last word with palpable hatred and visible sparks.

"I will not allow that to happen again. Ever."

While she proceeds to angrily tear into her remaining pancakes, I'm left to process what she just said. Or rather, the sentiment held therein.

It's obvious that three days is in no way long enough to even begin to get over the trauma caused by a thousand years of solitary confinement, but...

...ugh.

Now that I'm aware that her degree of attachment could start leading in a bad direction, I can't just ignore it.

Stupid sense of responsibility.

"Yahanaseara."

The same tone I use with my sisters when trying to be stern but also not a bitch.

"Hmgh?"

...and it looks like I caught her mid-chomp.

"Just, like... realistically speaking, you do realize that it's not possible for you to be with me all the time, right?"

"......"

Her frown deepens.

"And even assuming that for whatever reason you do decide to stick with me for life, I'm still not going to be around forever."

"Because you are a human."

"Yeah, because I'm a human."

The larger your magical reserves are, the longer your lifespan extends... but even that can only go so far.

And judging from this long silence, I guess Yahanaseara is also starting to realize that fact.

"...I was a fool," she sighs. "How could I have forgotten something so obvious?"

"Hey, now-"

"I was too hasty with him, but..."

Her mouth stretches into a wild grin.

"Brigitte!"

And then she grabs my shoulder and physically turns me around in my seat to face her and-

"I finally know what I can do for you!"

"Uh-"

honey you are getting waaay too close and also your eyes are getting just a little bit crazy there

"But before that, breakfast."

An then she turns back around in her chair to focus on what's left of her stack of pancakes. It's honestly jarring how all her previous fervor just up and vanishes in the blink of an eye.

"You should also eat yours before it gets cold," she says right before downing another whole pancake in a single go.

"Uh..."

Ugh, whatever. Might as well.

I spend the next couple of minutes eating my single waffle, while Yahanaseara takes the exact same amount of time to finish devouring the last few pancakes in her stack.

It's actually kind of impressive.

Come to think of it, Satona also ate a lot... is heavy eating just a shared trait of all Elemental Spirits? Two isn't much of a sample size though, so I guess I'd have to meet more in order to have enough data-

"Bwuh?"

Uh, why am I standing up?

...and why is Yahanaseara holding my hand?

"My apologies, you would not respond to me when I called out to you."

An awkward smile.

"Uh, don't worry about it," I say while looking down at our linked appendages. "I get like that sometimes."

"So I have noticed."

"So, uh... why are we standing in the middle of the room?"

Because I genuinely have no idea what's going on right now.

"Ah, er-"

While trying to gather her thoughts, the tiny lightning girl finally lets go of my hand.

"I was just unsure as to whether it would be better to do it on the bed or on the floor..."

Uh, what?

"The bed would likely be more comfortable for you, but I would have some difficulty... and conversely, the floor would be more comfortable for me but less so for you."

Comfortable for what?

"Eh, I'll just leave it up to you," she sighs. "So please get undressed, and then we can go on from there."

WHAT.

Undressed? Why the hell would I be getting undressed what the hell is she trying to do that would require me to take off my clothes don't tell me she wants to do THAT but how the hell would that even work I mean we're both girls but she is an Elemental Spirit so she could just like turn into a guy and do it like that but there's no way in hell I'd ever

"Ah-"

The sound of her voice makes my heart damn near stop.

"...just your upper garments will do."

"Just my... what?"

A combination of relief and confusion hits me like a brick to the face.

"I just need access to your upper back," Yahanaseara explains, seemingly oblivious to my inner panic.

"And why exactly do you need access to that?"

"Oh-"

A gasp of realization.

"My goodness, I never actually explained..." she slaps her forehead and lets out an adorable little groan. "That is the first thing I should have done."

Yes.

Yes it is.

But Brigitte Martine Fehrenschildt is a proper lady, and a proper lady doesn't rub it in.

"My intention, Brigitte..."

With a beaming smile and a gleam in her eyes, she takes my hands in hers.

"...is to give you POWER."

"Powe-"

Oh.

Oh shit.

"Waaaait wait wait wait."

I back out of her grip and then keep on going a few more steps just for good measure.

"I might like you well enough, but I am not about to enter any contracts."

"Wha?" The Elemental Spirit pauses. "N- no, I would never! I freely admit that there is nothing I would love more than to dye your soul in my color, but that would just be repeating the same mistake I made with my brother."

Wait, mistake?  Huh?

"No, this is... something else."

Well if it's not a contract then I have no idea what the hell else it could possibly be.

"I am going to take a small portion of the magical energy that I have recovered, and inject it into your soul."

She emphasizes that last word with a little tap to my sternum.

"Once fully absorbed, this will serve to forcibly increase your upper limits," she explains. "Not by very much per day, but this will steadily build up over time."

"...huh?"

I'm pretty sure I understand the overall gist of what she's suggesting, but there's a lot about it that makes no sense whatsoever. First off, her type...

"Even if what you're saying is theoretically possible, you wouldn't be able to do it," I say.

"And why is that?"

The smuggest smile I have ever seen in my life.

"Because Light and Darkness-type Elemental Spirits are the only ones who're able to directly manipulate magical energy in the first place?"

"Eheh..."

Somehow, the smuggest smile I have ever seen has become even more smug.

"Oh, my dear Brigitte..." she chuckles. "At long last, I have discovered an area in which your knowledge is lacking."

And now there's a little bit of something dangerous mixing into the smug, which may have just caused my heart to skip a beat.

"It may seem somewhat prideful for me to say so myself, but Elemental Spirits of Lightning are special."

Yeah, it kind of really does.

"We are able to absorb any and all lightning around us and convert it into magical energy to sustain and strengthen ourselves, thus rendering us uniquely immune to attack spells of our own element..."

I actually already knew that, but I'm also polite enough not to interrupt her when she's feeling so smug.

"...and we are also every bit as capable as those of the so-called 'Greater' elements are of directly manipulating magical energy within living things."

Wait, what?

Really?

"Your expression betrays your surprise."

Her adorable smug smile is closer than it's ever been, thanks to the fact that she's now leaning in and standing on her tiptoes.

Not only is she teasing me with her... whatever the hell this is called, she's also taunting me with knowledge that she has that I don't have and it's driving me crazy and the fact that I don't actually hate that she's doing this is frustrating me even more

"I am capable of reaching into the body of another, and either consuming what you refer to as their 'reserves,'" the lightning girl smiles, "or giving them a portion of my own."

Finally getting down from her tiptoes, she does a little about-face spin that sends her fluffy hair twirling around her.

"I did the former to those bandits who I slew yesterday," she continues, "and I did the latter for my brother prior to my imprisonment."

Even though she's got her back to me right now, the way her shoulders sink down a little bit says it all.

"His soul was just so tiny and weak... so I decided to take it upon myself to rectify this."

"By doing the magical energy injection thing that you want to do to me."

"Yes," she nods. "And over the years, he eventually grew far stronger than any of the other humans in our village... second only to me."

"My reserves are already pretty huge, though?" I shrug. "I've been building them up through constant magic use for as long as I've been able to read, and I've yet to meet anyone my own age who actually has more than me."

And even if I count people I know who're older than me, that's still only been a handful.

"You are indeed impressive," Yahanaseara bows her head. "But by 'power,' I was not simply referring to your upper limits."

"Well if that's not it then the only other thing I can think of is a contract and I'm not-"

"That is also not it," she cuts me off. "As I mentioned before, that is the mistake I made with my brother."

"...huh?"

"My brother was my first and only contractor," she says. "And while our contract did strengthen his soul, it also strengthened his medium."

"Okay, now I'm lost again."

After letting out a long, pained sigh, the Elemental Spirit finally turns back around to face me.

"A human soul is like a weak, fragile current of lightning," she says while producing a literal lightning current between two of her fingertips. "Without a proper medium, it will dissipate into nothing."

And then she reaches into her robe and brings out two coins- an unfamiliar-looking iron(?) one, and what I'm pretty sure is one of the silver ones I just gave her.

"But with a proper medium..."

She holds the iron coin between two fingers on her right hand.

"...it will flow just fine."

And then she does the same with the silver one in her left hand.

"However, different mediums have different strengths. Please note that I am sending the same amount through both of them."

As she holds them both up to give me a better look, I can't help but notice that the iron-ish one is, uh... glowing.

"Doesn't that hurt?" I ask.

"Negligible," she shakes her head. "You do notice how the silver coin appears no different, though?"

"...yeah?"

"This is the difference between a normal human vessel and that of a Contractor- the latter is able to safely contain more than the former."

Waaait, this sounds familiar...

"And when the current exceeds its vessel's limits?"

FSHAA

"!!!"

I hurriedly shield my eyes as a blinding flash instantly consumes the iron coin.

bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

...and when I finally open them back up...

bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

...a thick, humming bolt of lightning is in the coin's place.

"In the case of lightning, that medium is consumed. But in the case of a human soul..."

"...the need for a 'medium' is overcome entirely," I finish her sentence.

Because I know the exact concept that she's describing- Soul Ascension.

"Oh, so you are aware of it!"

As happy as can be, Yahanaseara pockets the silver coin, brushes the soot from her hands and claps them together.

"When a human soul transcends its medium..."

There isn't any fanfare, no brilliant flashes of light or anything of the sort.

One second, I'm looking down at a tiny adorable brown girl with hair like a fluffy cloud.

And the next, I'm staring up at a massive intimidating purplish figure with a head crowned with literal bolts of lightning.

Still as beautiful as ever.

<...it becomes an Elemental Spirit,> she finishes up in that bizarre, crackling voice of hers.

Floating towards me, she reaches out with those spindly, metallic fingers of hers and lifts up my chin.

<No matter how much power I poured into my brother, his medium remained stable.>

She draws her face closer to mine.

<But you have no such limitations. Given enough time, your soul would surely break free of its medium.>

Close enough that I'd be feeling her breath on my face if she was actually breathing.

If not for the fact that she doesn't have a mouth right now, I'd be worried that she was trying to steal my lips.

But instead of my usual pointless embarrassment, a far more primal fear has me frozen in place. Like a tiny little rabbit when face-to-face with a tiger.

<And then you would be the same as me.>

It isn't until she finally pulls away and changes back into the human form that I'm more familiar with that my lungs decide to start working again.

...what the hell, me.

"While you may not care about power for its own sake, being free of the limits of human mortality is surely desirable, yes?"

"...y- yeah..."

Though I'm definitely skeptical as to whether it'd actually work, she is still potentally offering me the ultimate aspiration of pretty much every magicuser out there.

"Wonderful, so it is settled then!"

A smile of pure happiness.

"And after you become an Elemental Spirit, I will finally be able to bear your child!"

WHAT.