Chapter 52 – Identity & Understanding

“Ergh….” Syrus slowly stood up off the white ground. “Never felt sick in the Soul Space before…”

“How… long were we out…?” Luna rolled over and sat up. 

The plan was to talk to Eva once they finished moving as far as they could in the real world. But once they collapsed into the cave, Syrus and Luna also passed out when they entered the Soul Space. 

A wave of exhaustion had smashed into both of them when they entered, causing them to collapse for a while. This was weird as they normally couldn’t sleep while in the Soul Space; the only time they ever truly slept in this space was before the three of them awoke in the body.

Once Luna finally regained her bearings, she noticed her form had changed. “We grew up here as well?” 

Luna panicked for a moment. “Syrus, how do I look?!” 

“A grown-up version of your previous soul form?” Syrus squinted and looked up and down Luna’s new form. “How about me?”

“Ah… good.” Luna sighed in relief, “About the same yourself… but you are definitely bigger…”

“You don’t say…” Syrus grabbed Luna and helped her up.

Syrus' appearance looked to be that of a tall, eighteen-year-old woman, but she could easily be guessed to be in her twenties. Her now bright crimson hair went only down to her neck, short, how she liked it. Her facial features were noticeably sharper compared to Luna’s, and she still was very muscular. Another chance was her clothes, she was now adorned in what seemed to be light leather combat gear, dyed brown and plated in certain areas with dark, bloody red armour.

Luna, in contrast to Syrus, only wore a black cloth with holes for arms and legs. She was about their current body’s height, which was about a head shorter than Syrus. She had a very soft face, and long white hair went down to her back, but her bright pink eyes now had a sharp glint to them.

“Let’s go…” Luna sombrely spoke as they made their way to Eva, but when they looked to where her emotions were flowing from, they saw a brown and black-haired girl crouched over, holding herself together.

Luna ran and then slid to Eva, embracing her in a hug. “Lilly! Are you okay?!” 

Luna didn’t even compute that she was able to properly touch Eva, in normal situations, they would just pass through each other when their soul forms touched.

Sounding exhausted and hurt, Eva said, “I’m… alive…”

Unlike Luna or Syrus, Eva’s appearance looked far more ragged. Her hair split down the middle, between the black of Anna’s and Jen’s, and the left half was the brown half of her past life. The hairs on the fringe of her forehead overlapped, but a few strains were caught on the greyish-black horn on the left side of her forehead. Her previously grey eyes were now a bright amber. She had also grown to about sixteen, and her clothes were sized-up versions of the clothes they were wearing the day of the festival.

Syrus sat down and didn’t join in on the hugging. She was afraid that her own feelings and emotions would spiral if she didn’t control herself. 

After a few minutes passed, Syrus tried to take control of the situation, “Okay, there has been a lot that has happened in a too short period of time… So let’s just try talking about all the topics one by one, shall we?

“There is only one thing that matters…” Eva gripped her soul form’s arms.

Syrus agreed, “Yes…” Everyone’s emotions were especially tense, “But let’s save that topic for last… Just to give us a few minutes for our emotions to calm down.”

Because everyone could feel everyone’s negative emotions, even if they didn’t want to, they knew it was best to save that topic for last.

Luna released one of her arms off Eva and turned to Syrus. “Okay. How about what happened to us for that minute, our changes here, the physical changes, then we will talk about Jen and George.”

Syrus nodded. “Works for me.”

Eva finally pulled herself up. “Agreed.” 

With them all in agreement, Syrus started, “I can’t comment on the technical details of what happened. But my best guess is that we fused? That’s what it felt like. Please comment if you know anything else, but my memories of that time are completely blurry. I know what we did on a base level, like I know what actions we took, but I have no idea how we did those actions.”

Going in a circle, Luna was next. “For the most part, that’s all I know as well. I’m unsure if it was the stress, our overlapping desires, or something else that caused it, but it can’t be one simple thing.”

Eva added, “‘We’ knew how to use our attributes better than we did ourselves. Well, I can’t comment for Syrus, but I obviously am lacking in experience for any of my attributes, and Luna is unable to use Space to teleport people yet.”

“All uses of Fire and Blood seem to have been within the range of what I could do. But Blood was also used in tandem with your attributes as well.”

Luna sighed. “So, somehow our combined knowledge, instincts, talents, and memories blended together to create a super Anna?” 

Syrus, who now kind of understood, said, “Basically? But if we can, let’s never let that happen again.”

“Agreed.”

“Seconded.”

Luna and Eva quickly concurred.

Luna began the second topic. “From what we know, our soul form is a mimic of Anna, our mental state, our past lives, and our personal attributes. The ratio of what is more important is unknown. ” 

Eva spoke next, “That doesn’t seem to have changed. However, that form we took might’ve affected our souls, which could’ve accelerated or caused the change.

Syrus said, “That… I guess that makes sense, but I do know none of us actually know what we are talking about when it comes to souls.”

“True, but with the rapid change to our body, Lilly’s awakening to her attributes… everything seems to be what we expect, but just that the process was rapidly accelerated.” Luna already knew the answer but asked anyway. “Syrus, what would you say if we encountered those guys again?”

Syrus’s eyes darkened. “Give the word, and I’m ready to kill those who caused this.”

“I see… Well, I would help you with that.” However, Luna was also extremely lost and, besides that goal, had no idea what to do anymore. 

Now it was time for the second to last topic.

Eva gave her opinion first, “The physical changes were obviously caused by that fusion state, but what caused the changes seems to have been an advanced combination of Syrus’s Blood attribute and my second attribute. Manipulation and Moonlight were also used, but I’m not sure to what extent.”

Syrus suggested an answer. “...My only guess for why it happened is because it’s better for combat this way?”

“That could be it… You were also the one with the most combat experience, and the body definitely leant in your direction to grow. But… I don’t think what we did could happen again to that level… just looking over the body after the fact, it was a mess.”

Eva worriedly asked, “It’s going to take a while to heal?” 

“Honesty, yeah… For us to be back at 100%, it is going to take a long time.” Luna then turned to Syrus. “Do you have any ideas?” 

“...From a first impression, I know it lets me change my physical form to a very limited extent? Maybe only change the colour of my hair…” Eva began to smile. She had enough time alone in the Soul Space to feel her new attribute, which caused a part of her earlier worry to vanish.

Syrus replied, “My best guess is Morph? Morph was a common exotic attribute that allowed the user to change their body. However, it let them change to be similar to whatever bestial form they seemed to mimic. Incarnate did something similar to a much greater extent.” Syrus was a little lost, none of the exotic attributes she knew could allow for such a great transformation. At most, it was limited to claws or appendages. Nonetheless, she tried to guess with what she knew, “But it could be a different application if it? Like how Blood is either used for physical enhancement or to create constructs?”

Eva answered, “I’ll stick with Morph then. The name isn’t really important, but it is best if we call it something.”

Luna continued, “I do think Syrus is right, though; it could be different applications of the attribute.”

Syrus asked because it was on topic, “What about taking in foreign attribute mana? Even I know that is something a human body without the same attribute shouldn't be able to do.”

Eva shook her head and said, “Let’s save that for later…. That’s going to be a topic I need to think about for a long time.”

Syrus understood. “Fair enough.”

Now the three topics that related to their physical and soul states were over. It was time for one topic they were expecting, dreading, and anticipating.

No one knew who would start. Their rampant emotions did get the chance to calm down a few levels. But it would be a lie to say there were anywhere near a truly stable calm level. 

Sadness, disappointment, anger, loathing, hatred, disgust, and despair. All these feelings flow from them.

Eva decided to start, “Do we know if they are alive?”

She was the first one to hop in the Soul Space due to her mental exhaustion, so she knew the least about what they found. Eva was hoping that by the time they arrived, they might’ve found something.

Syrus answered, “No, we found absolutely nothing, and out of the options, that is the best thing we can hope for.” They all knew what Syrus meant by that. By finding nothing, that meant there was also no evidence that they died. Especially since it hadn't been that long since things went down, the chance there was not a single trace of evidence in their favour was actually a positive outcome. Of course, the only true positive outcome would've been finding Jen and George alive. 

“They could’ve run away–” Luna shook her head–“But we all know they wouldn’t leave us behind, so that leaves one other option. What exactly happened when we accidentally performed a mana outburst?”

A mana outburst was a phenomenon that was known to happen extremely rarely when some untrained people stressed their mana to the limit when under intense mental pressure. It caused an unstable blast of the user attribute to occur. The massive issue this brought was that, while very powerful, it could create effects potentially greater than the user could do with the amount of mana used, but it would always drain the user of all their mana and even leave them near dead if not careful.

Syrus asked, “Could the outburst even lead to any possible effects for us?”

Eva agreed, “The only thing it did was throw around a few objects and drain us of all mana.”

“No, it could actually lead to something positive. Outburst effects aren’t exactly random, they are based on the user’s will and attributes, with the mana as the fuel. Remember the scene after the outburst?”

Outbursts having a potentially controlled effect was kept quiet due to its potential abuse. The outburst having a greater than normal effect was extremely tempting to some, and so certain groups in the church tried to train the technique even if it was more of a last resort. 

Syrus remembered, “Yeah… things were pushed back, but even accounting for that, a bunch of objects were not where they were meant to or could be… meaning they would’ve been teleported.”

Eva calculated, “And with our near full mana at the time, which is already basically three times a normal person’s amount, a lot more should’ve happened… but if it was mostly contained to one major task and everything else was the leftovers…”

Luna's eyes began to shake, so she closed them to control herself. “Yes… but I have no idea if the teleportation of Jen and George was successful, where they ended up, or if they just died, and the only thing I moved was their corpses.

The excitement in Syrus's eyes faded. The trio were just back to where they started, having no idea.

Eva froze. “So… the only hope that our family is alive is a simple chance?”

No one spoke, but the answer was conveyed… yes. 

“God fucking dammit…!” Eva teared up with ghastly tears as she bellowed and slammed her fist into the ground. “Why… why…. Did it have to be my family?!” 

The question all but one of them was thinking.

Syrus stood up and walked over to Eva. “Don’t think about the reason, Eva.” And hug her tight. “Sorry for not doing this earlier.” It was time for her to be an adult again; she was all grown up again after all. 

“But why?! None of them deserved it!” 

“Exactly, but if you try to think of a reason,. You will be disappointed, angry, and drowning in your own hate more than necessary when the time you need not to comes around. Because whatever the answer will be, it is going to be the most bullshit reason under the sky.”

Syrus singaled Luna with her other hand, “Luna, come over here, and stop blaming yourself, please. We can all feel it.”

“But…” Luna paused.

“No buts, you aren’t a part of that filth, you never truly were. So never blame yourself, otherwise, Jen and George won’t forgive themselves.”

Luna pulled herself back into the hug. This was the first time the trio could properly touch, so why did it have to be like this? She cried, “...Mum… Dad… why did you have to go?!” 

Syrus added, “It’s fine to let it out.”

Eva then ordered. “Then don’t hold yourself back, Syrus!”

“I’m not.”

Eva quickly bit Syrus’s finger.

“Ouch!” Syrus flinched but still held onto Eva. “Why did you…?” Syrus's eyes began to water… A little prick broke the seal.

She tried to look up so the others wouldn’t see her tears, but they fell to the ground all the same. “Out of everyone I ever knew, Mum and Dad truly deserve the best life.” 

It was going to be a long time before the trio would exit out of their hug.