Chapter 51 - The Aftermath

“Arghhh!!” The child screamed into the night like a crazed beast and fell to the ground. As the three finally returned to who they were.

The fight had only lasted for a few moments. A slaughter of everything that stood in her way, and that denied their happiness.

The child was no longer the short nine-year-old; instead, her body was permanently changed.

Anna gripped her head as it ached.

Cough!

She coughed a portion of sickly black blood filled with unstable mana. 

In the grand scheme of things, it was only for a moment. Their hearts and souls resonated beyond simple trust, bending and morphing around one single desire. The elimination of one of the ones they hated.

Now that was over, they have split again.

[Errgh… We need to…] (Syrus)

[Argh…] (Luna)

[Aerrraa….] (Eva)

And they absolutely despised the experience that occurred within them during the brief encounter.

Syrus tried to stand up, but her knees wobbled as she was unable to put her strength into them. 

Their body had taken substantial damage throughout the small encounter. Not only from enemy attacks but also through the actions caused by a combination of instinct and intelligence. 

“W-h..ere’s Dad… Wher-s Mum?!" Eva cried as her hands grabbed the dirt as she tried to drag herself forward.

Luna also tried to move forward along with Eva, while Syrus tried to circulate blood through their body and sort out the damage.

There was no time to talk; they just had to find their parents.

Their mana supply was already near empty when the fight was over, but now that the fight was over, it had dropped even further. 

Luna already knew she didn’t have enough mana to use her Moonlight to heal themselves. Syrus, on the other hand, could still use her Blood attribute to administer minor healing, but not only that, she needed to expel blood from their body that contained traces of other attribute mana as it was damaging them.

The bloody Anna, after a long and hard crawl, made it back to their house… They examined the area where her parents were last seen, but there was nothing but junk and parts of houses scattered around.

She then made it to the doorless entrance of their home. The fire that had attacked it had stopped before it finished destroying everything. Perhaps it was the cool breeze or the fire-resistant wood used, either way, all it meant was that Syrus did have to stop it.

It was partly burned down, and parts of it had been thrown around. 

Eva coughed more blood and screamed, “MUM!” "DAD!” “Where are you!?”

Luna as well, “Please! Where are you!?” 

Syrus held back from yelling anything as the sight of their burned home shook her.

They crawled around their broken home for minutes and found nothing. They went back outside to where they were before. Then back inside, then out again.

Luna finally gave up and said, [Let’s rest… We need to heal ourselves.] 

Eva nodded with their body and just went silent. She didn’t enter their Soul Space, and instead just sat there quietly.

None of them talked to each other. Each could feel that the others were hurting.

Syrus continued to repair the body by circulating the blood and improper mana out. It took a while for Eva–who was lost in their own thoughts–to realise what Syrus was doing, but when she did, she helped by using Manipulation to drag out the leftover mana they absorbed out of the body. 

Once they had recovered enough mana, Luna used Moonlight to properly start the healing process.

Whatever happened when Anna fought in that state, they wouldn’t be able to replicate it now. The process of using external mana from other sources made only basic theoretical sense to Eva, but any practical practice of it was insane–ignoring the fact that their body with instinct and theoretical knowledge alone somehow made an impossible feat possible.

While they kind of knew what they did while in that state, the issue was that, at best, the sequence of events was a vague recollection.

As such, the leftover mana that the body took in but wasn't able to absorb properly was still lying in the body, causing damage.

The body also started feeling the aftereffects of the stress from the rapid growth. During the fight, a large amount of mana was used with Syrus’s Blood attribute to keep the body moving properly despite the rapid changes.

After some time, they were finally able to stand up again. Syrus spoke, “Now… let’s search again.”

They went through every room of the house. The kitchen was empty, their room was empty, but their notebook was still intact, if not a little singed under their bed. 

Then they entered their parents' room through the curtain that separated them. Syrus gripped the wooden pendant crafted by George on their sixth birthday. The room was devastated by the fire. 

The large pile of papers for classes was simply a pile of ashes. The desk George used to carve items before bed collapsed. The bed had broken under the burned wooden planks of the roof, and the wall had fallen apart, revealing the burning forest.

“...They… can’t…” Eva cried tears of grief and longing. “WHY!” 

“I…I..” Luna's throat shook as she tried to find the courage to say the words she felt she needed to say.

However, Syrus would have none of that. “Don’t you dare blame yourself, Luna.”

Eva added, “If you do… I’ll do anything in my power to punch you in the face.” 

Anna moved through the last remaining room. The bathroom. At this point, Anna had no idea she was even trying to find… She just wanted to find one trace of where their parents could be.

Like every other room, it was a mess. Then Anna stopped as she noticed her reflection in the broken bathroom on the floor.

Eva instantly felt despair when she looked into the mirror and said, “What… No…”

There were still a lot of things that had happened in the last hour that they hadn’t processed yet. For Eva, their appearance change was one of them. But now that it was facing her directly, she was finally able to process it.

“Our hair, our hair.” Eva manically grabbed the strains of it as it flipped down in front of her face as she stared at the reflection in the broken mirror. “Go back, go back, go back, go back, it’s supposed to be black!” 

If someone saw Anna now, they would assume she would be around fifteen to sixteen years old, perhaps older. 

Her eyes had settled into their previous transformation. Both her eyes were a bloody amber, but her left was slightly brighter.

Anna’s hair had grown rapidly and, by the end, had stretched down to her knees. It was an uneven mess of crimson red and white, with the tips shifting to brown.

Her clothes were torn thanks to the sword slashes and beatings into the ground she received and the stretching caused by her growth. However, not a speck of her skin was showing, as, besides her face, blood had hardened all over her body as a protective shell. 

Black hair and brown eyes were the gifts she received from her parents, and they were both taken from her.

For the most part, no matter where one was from, people didn’t care much about their hair and eye colour, even among families, as why would they? Those physical aspects could easily change with attributes. However, for Eva, losing that connection hurt deeply. 

Eva continued to cry and pull at her hair. 

Their physical appearance did look mostly like a grown-up version of her nine-year-old self. However, her face was sharper than either of her parents, and the obvious small horn that was on the left side of her forehead was a noticeable difference.

[We need to look around.] (Syrus)

[...] (Eva)

[We need to see if there is anyone else around.] (Syrus) 

With their parents not in sight, they needed to make sure that everyone else was okay.

[...That’s right…] Luna took control, [If there is anyone left, we need to find them and help them.] Luna realised she was too lost in her own depression; her help would be necessary if there were any survivors. 

Eva was mentally worn out and could no longer concentrate on anything, so as Luna began moving, she left the body to rest in the Soul Space. Syrus and Luna wanted to go and comfort her, but both knew neither was in the right mindset to do that. 

None of them knew the exact time when the village was attacked, but they expected it wouldn't be long before they were startled awake, and when Syrus woke up, it was probably due to some of the movements of the attackers.

Syrus guessed that the attack was supposed to be a stealthy operation. Due to the evidence in play and the words that were spoken between the attackers. She didn’t know how many people were assassinated in their homes before Mern’s counterattack blew up his own house and alerted everyone, but there was a good chance many had already died. 

When that happened, the whole village was alerted, but there wasn’t much that simple villages could do against trained soldiers. House after house was littered with corpses, somewhere clearing, thrown back inside a house if they died outside. Syrus surmised that this was done so the corpses could be burned with the houses. 

People they knew and cared about... Mern, Henry, Albert, and so many others were just dead now.

They returned to Elly’s house, which was also destroyed, but they turned to where the trapdoor would be and removed the large cupboard that was lying on top of it. The door was still locked, so Syrus yanked it up, breaking the locks.

“They aren’t here.” Luna worriedly looked down, not noticing any of the children.

However, Syrus smiled. She jumped down the hole and walked to the small door that led nowhere in the basement. [I had a peek earlier, but it does go on for ages.] She had opened the door, and there were signs of tiny footprints in the dirt. [So, this was what they meant by adding extra security.] 

It didn’t take long for them to realise that having the children stay here wasn’t just for the ease of it, but so that they would have an escape. It also explained Elly’s attitude when Anna didn’t want to stay.

[So Elly and the children could be alive.] Luna was so thankful for Eva’s decision to warn their parents; it meant some lives, and the innocent lives were at least left alive.

[Potentially, depends where the exit ends up.] The tunnel wasn’t lit, so they had no idea how long it went on.

They stared into the long, dark tunnel for a long time.

[We should follow…] (Luna)

[Yes, but our body is likely to collapse from exhaustion soon.] Syrus warned, [And I’m not sure if we can catch up to them if they were running this whole time.]

Syrus, who was keeping constant track of the body, realised they wouldn’t be able to stay conscious for long. The adrenaline was wearing off, and using her Blood attribute to keep the body moving couldn’t last forever, especially after the body still needed to rest after all the pain and stress it underwent.

Syrus scratched their head and thought for a few seconds, [Let’s look for some proper clothes and see if we can find anything before we head out… I doubt we will be back.]

[...] Luna sorrowfully agreed.

Syrus and Luna return to their house and rummage through their parents' belongings, looking for clothes. They could’ve chosen any house to find clothes that would fit their size, and there were certainly better options for that, but they wanted something from their parents.

[A journal, is it Mums?] (Luna)

Syrus opened it, [No, it looks like Dad’s.] She immediately closed it again; it wasn’t the time to look through it. 

[That seems to be everything.] (Syrus)

[Besides clothes, nothing of mother's…] (Luna)

[Don’t say that. We still have her most recent gift.] (Syrus)

Luna nodded, Syrus was right, there was the manipulation book Jen made, and it was still safe along with her notebook. 

[Okay, now at least we need to get out of here… We need to find a place to stay that’s outside the village in case any more attackers come back.] (Syrus)

[Once we do… we need to talk with Lilly.] Luna's concern for Lilly was huge; she didn’t want her to fall back into a depressive state again. And maybe, in the process, she would stop herself from falling.

[.............Yes…] Syrus agreed, but for the first time in her life, she was afraid of having a conversation.

Before leaving the village, Syrus closed the basement door and blocked the path to it again when she hopped back down. Just in case anyone came back looking. After a quick debate, they decided to try and travel through the tunnel.

However, as Syrus feared, after a few minutes of travelling, they began to collapse from exhaustion.