A void of color stretched around Kari as she breathed; in and out, she allowed the blackness of solitude to compress her soul. It had been nearly three weeks outside since she’d last seen anyone besides her mother—almost five months—and eight days of carbonizing meditation since she’d left this spot.

Cross-legged, she opened her steady vision to level a narrow-eyed stare at the mirror she saw across the dully-lit cavern near the bottom of the earth’s crust, bubbling magma sliding over her naked skin, yet all she saw was the prideful smirk her Shadow—the darkness in her soul—returned.

The planet she was using was overflowing with spiritual pressure, and just above the mystically-laced asthenosphere, radiant, hyper-compressed fire crystals increased the heat to levels equal to the surface of Earth’s sun; she was a moth drawn to a flame, locked in a test of will against herself to unravel the secret to accessing her father’s side.

Kari’s fingers clenched in her lap, her sweat constricting into tiny beads of spiritual aura to sink into the rolling magma; the pain and tears she’d shed at first in the hellish place had long since left as she forcefully tempered her resilience, control, and inner strength.

Give up.

Shadow lifted her hand to redirect the visual representation of the same trial they’d come to a consensus on, undergoing a similar challenge to prove she couldn’t handle the solitude or pressure.

Opening her mouth to allow the liquid to wash down her throat, her inner darkness swallowed and laughed. “This pain… is nothing; you seem to be struggling, ‘Weakling.’ Worried Sora might have left without you—forgotten about you?”

Is… that the best you have; running out of tricks? Kari forced a scoff while rebuffing the invisible entity; whenever she needed sustenance, she’d feast on the mystical molten rock, using her natural Fenris trait to convert anything into power. I’m not weak.

Shadow leaned to the side, scratching the back of her head to shift around her thick black locks as she scrutinized the subterranean pit of magical fire and pressure on the super world they’d selected. “Even our endurance has limits. Will we survive the next tectonic shift?”

Talk about weak. You don’t think I can?

“I know I could, but you’re too much of a coward now. Oh?”

Stiff legs numb after remaining in the same position for over a month, Kari forced herself up, taking deep, deliberate breaths—she had to breathe—if she gave in and sustained herself with her own spiritual energy instead of the toxic flames of the mantle, she’d lose.

Kari’s nose burned as she straightened to see her Shadow partially obscured by the pooling magma; she rolled around her neck, stretching out.

This is too easy.

Her Darkness grinned, rising to put a hand on her hip; she looked at the swirling natural magma maelstrom to their left, black arcs of some unknown force drawing it in. “Do you really think all this effort you’re giving will allow you to beat Sora? You’re so pathetic.”

Step by step, Kari battled against the pressure to move from the molten waterfall and enter the mantle; her skin blackened to be repaired with every breath she took. It hurts… but until I find an answer, I’ll walk through any fire.

“Desperate fool,” Shadow scoffed, mirroring her on the opposite side. “Not once have you beat me.”

Dragged into the current, Kari remained focused on her true opponent; as violent as her environment was, the battle within her Core with Shadow was ten times fiercer, and, squeezed by the titanic load crushing her body and spirit, Kari drew the magma into her lungs to be converted.

Soon, the world washed out to be replaced by her internal war; there was only one way she could unlock the ambiguous side of her father if Inari and her mother couldn’t tap into it, and it was by burning her very Essence until something was triggered. Her only option was to face the opponent who could do the most damage to her—herself.

Kari’s vision opened to a crater in a city hellscape—the inner battleground representing the state of her smoldering Core—she struggled to her feet while popping her dislocated shoulder back into place to instantly recover from the gashes marring her skin.

Standing in a street, she looked up at the laughing darkness of her soul, looming inside a burning building; Shadow was freed from her cage to lay waste to everything she’d built.

“Unifying with Persona to protect her won’t save her from me, Balance; try as hard as you want, but you will never put me back into that prison. Haha. You let the wolf out, and now, you will be eaten.”

Amber irises flaring to life, Shadow grew into the black beast, but Kari refused to reciprocate; she couldn’t rely on her mother’s side—if she did, nothing would be gained from this—and, setting her ground, she waited for the loosened fiend to attack.

“Burn everything… haaa… to the ground, but so long as I take Persona’s side, you cannot win, Shadow.”

“You’ll break!” Shadow roared, launching at her.

Knowing her inner wolf thrived on pure strength, Kari utilized the other parts of her soul she’d cultivated over the year she’d been improving herself, and, following the spiritual flow, she slid underneath the beast’s teeth, tightened her fist, and connected with Shadow’s throat—the focused blow made her gag.

Kari’s tail flicked to the side as she jumped to the left, spinning to dodge the spiritual swipe that sent crimson claws ripping through earth and building, devastating an entire street. Keeping her composure, she could only evade the following attacks; only precise, compressed strikes could do any damage to the darkness.

Hours passed in the war, concentrating on the one method she had to win against the seemingly unstoppable force that was the worst part of her soul; Shadow didn’t care if they all died in this struggle, so long as everyone lost.

Kari winced as she miscalculated Shadow’s feint—she was learning— Kari caught her tail in the face in Shadow charged; concrete and steel ripped away with every structure she passed through.

Coughing as she slammed into a wall that refused to give way, Kari didn’t have much time to recover, with the beast plowing into the rubble to swallow everything her Darkness came into contact with. Covering her face and launching up, Kari broke through the surface as Shadow’s teeth closed around her foot, ripping it away.

Pain flooded Kari’s left leg, yet, using one arm in her rise, she managed to find purchase against the side of a crumbling building to shove herself away from Shadow’s next attack. Foot regenerating by the time she landed on the top of a multi-story garage, Kari’s chest heaved while slowing to a stop after a few skips.

Shadow snickered, blood leaking out of her peeled-back lips. “How much longer can you keep this up—the pressure outside—the pressure inside—which will break first?”

Seeing the arrogant gleam in her own eyes made Kari grunt, “Are you really content with us dying if it means being caged?”

“Hahaha! That you have to ask that is… so infuriating, Balance!”

She shot forward, and Kari managed to dodge the bite but not the far swifter tail-flick; she was only growing stronger by the hour.

Turning a pile of bricks into powder in her flight through the ruined city, Kari landed on her feet to face Shadow, running back through the flames to kick the side of her face with all the willpower she could muster, cracking her jaw and throwing her a kilometer to her left.

“I’m not done!” Rocketing after the beast, she snatched a fist-sized wire from a collapsed bridge to wrap around Shadow’s neck, positioned around her back in her skyward flight, and tightened it around her throat. “What… do you think you’re accomplishing in this—haven’t I proven… we’re the—”

Flexing her neck, Shadow snapped the wire and smacked her skull against Kari’s, sending her to the ground like a comet to bury into the subway.

Shadow landed on top of her in an instant, snarling, “The same? Look at this place—a human-made facade—I’m a wolf!”

Kari's jaw set as she grabbed the teeth closing around her, quaking muscles gradually losing ground; every centimeter the molten heat rising out of Shadow’s lungs rose, pressing against her slick face.

“We’re… more than a wolf… I won’t be… eaten by my own fear!”

“I fear nothing!”

“You fear control!”

“You’re wrong!” Shadow roared, claws raking her sides as she tried to force her to give up. “I hate control! I don’t—”

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Swapping to her elbows as Shadow’s fangs and claws bit into her flesh, Kari twisted her hips for her bristling tail to launch between her legs and tickle the beast’s uvula.

Shadow gagged, allowing Kari the opportunity to slip out and punch her shiny, black nose, freeing herself from the claws, and, spinning to Shadow’s back, Kari found the sweet spot behind her shoulder blades and neck.

“You fear I won’t need you—that Sora will take your place!”

“She can’t protect us like I can!” Shadow bellowed, shifting to her back to rub her against the twisted metal, jagged stone, and splintered wood. “You don’t need power, Balance… I am power incarnate!”

“Ugh… We’re… all the same, Shadow!”

“Wrong! You always have control, Balance! I can protect us better—you lost everyone—you let everything die!”

Pain struck Kari’s breast at recalling her utterly broken family.

“I could have stopped all of it, but you wouldn’t let me kill Sora—kill Eric—be a leader! So I’ll burn everything! I’ll show you how a wolf should be!”

The path Sora struggled through since Miami lit a fire within Kari’s heart; Sora had lived as a human, Vulpes, and now a Null-Void chakram.

“We’re… not just a wolf!”

Blackness took her, her whole world fading of color, and a soft hum resonated within her fluid Essence; all heat and pain evaporated to be replaced by a realization she could simply step to the side.

Shadow lost her tight control within their Core to fall back into the abyss she’d risen from. “No! I won’t go back!”

All it took was the momentary lapse of continuity within her to snap the collar around the darkness in her soul, and her eyes easing open in her battered and bruised existence; she discovered everything being drawn into a singularity—her.

It only took seconds for the entire planet to be sucked into the glistening, black crystals and mist-like void that was her ethereal body, and, as if all a dream, her form reversed, her human body returning to expel everything she’d gathered into a supernova.

Floating in the compressing space, folding in to generate a second gravity wave that further accelerated the superheated effulgence, Kari lost all autonomy, and the last thing she saw was the chain reactions she’d made to space-time.

Fingers twitching after an unknown period of time, Kari cracked open her fatigued eyes to see her smiling mother floating before her in the remaining nebula of magical forces she was bathed in.

“Well done, Kari; for the second time, you appear to have used your father’s powers, but… at what cost? My poor little pup… At what cost?”

Unable to talk, she mumbled an internal response. Mom… I… I can’t feel anything. I can’t… move?

Compassion lifting her mother’s lips, she moved to rest Kari’s head in her lap. “Just rest, my impossibly stubborn, suicidal daughter that cannot even reconcile with herself. Just rest, and rebuild your strength; let yourself heal… at least a little.”

I can’t… I have to get… stronger…

Vision washing away, she eventually felt something—warmth—and a whisper that made her ears twitch. “…waking up! Kari? Kari!”

Sora? Why… are you here?

“Is she okay? What happened to her?”

“I don’t know—she was just floating in space!”

Who’s that… Wait, Wendy? No, that… that…

Amber eyes snapping open with the panic flooding her chest, Kari shot up with a sharp gasp, squinting as a blurred, blue sky and green forest assaulted her vision. “Ehgh… W-What…”

Pressure on her leg made her blink, her shaky eyes following Sora’s hand up to her worried face. “Kari! Can you see me? Your spirit feels so weak—like, weaker than when we were at that human facility!”

Shaking her head and rubbing her head, Kari coughed. “Umm—ack… just… give me a second—I’m trying to… Wendy?”

Recovering mind settling on the kneeling, brown-furred fox girl, shifting nervously a little way away, Kari’s throat constricted. “No… Three years can’t—have I been unconscious for three years?”

Wendy shook her head, but Sora wasn’t having it.

“Never mind that! What happened to you?”

Taking a few seconds to collect herself, Kari couldn’t help but chuckle as she found a large blanket of Null-Void tossed over her naked body. “Did… you think I was cold?”

“You were in space!” Sora huffed, “And you were super cold to the touch! I didn’t know what else to do since I can’t make fire anymore—gah, but seriously—you were black and blue… burned, and don’t get me started on your spiritual network. Spill! What happened?”

“Okay! Okay! Shit, just… give me a second. Everything’s a blur…”

A lump formed in her throat as her mother shimmered into existence not too far away.

“Welcome back, Dear.”

“Mom…”

“No! I’m Sora—friend—remember… How hard did you hit your head?”

“No,” Kari grumbled, pointing at where her mother stood. “My mom’s over th—right. Haaa. You can’t see her.”

Wendy rubbed her neck and followed her finger. “Should I… grab Aunt Seiōbo?”

Sora hissed. “Do you know how to get to them?”

“No. You know I don’t know how to slip through space yet.”

“Urmgm…”

Kari scooted back a little. “I’m fine! I’m fine, Sora… Umm… So, I let my Shadow out, and eh, just went through a three-week—oof, five-month, actually—battle with her to force my father’s side to activate… but, damn, it didn’t seem permanent like yours,” she mumbled while studying herself.

Sora opened her mouth, gaze wandering a tad as she connected the dots, closed her mouth, and reopened it again. “You fought your Shadow for… five months!? Heh-heh, hold up, hold up…”

Scooting away further with the glare Sora gave her, Kari asked, “What?”

“You let her free; are you stupid?! Our Shadow’s deepest goal is to cause chaos to force change—no wonder you’re half-dead—stupid!”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine!” Sora shot back. “Sit still, and let me bring my aunts here to… to—I don’t know—to do something!”

Without waiting for permission, Sora slipped out of the White Room to fetch her aunts, making Kari puff out a long sigh and pull her blanket a little higher.

“What a wonderful friend you have,” Alva chimed.

Mmgm. She worries too much.

“Hehehe.” Her mother put a hand on her cheek as she grinned. “I’m certainly happy she has a little more sense than my thick-skulled daughter.”

“Should a mother really laugh at and make fun of their daughter?”

“Would you expect anything less from me, Dear? Your mother always struck at your pride to change your behavior. It’s effective.”

“Humph.” She caught Wendy’s shifting eyes, seemingly trying to follow her gaze to her invisible mother. “My bad. Uh, so… you’re awake, and you’ve turned into a Vulp—”

Kari paused as she paid attention to her scent. “No. You’re… whatever Sora is?”

Wendy shrugged. “Eh-hehehe, eh… Voidseeker is what we’ve come up with so far, but it’s a work in progress. So… You battled your Shadow?”

“Mhm. I’m fine.”

Seiōbo, Nari, and Sora appeared around them, with the two older foxes giving her a lifted eyebrow.

“Ballsy, Wolf-girl. Unleashing your Shadow’s no simple task, and to put the collar back on her—big stuff—risky stuff.”

“Bobo!” the blonde mumbled, floating closer to examine her. “Why are you congratulating her? If we did that, Mom would have plucked every hair on our tails out; she could have lost everything that was her to become a mindless beast—slave to her own whimsical desires.”

Sora’s crossed arms matched her expression. “See! I told you, Kari—stupid! Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing?”

Her mother puffed out a sad sigh, hands held in her lap as she sat before her. “I tried to get her to involve you, but no… Quite the stubborn pup you are, obsessed with doing everything yourself.”

Ignoring the reprimand, Kari leaned back to stare at the bright heavens. “I’m not dead. I’ll heal.”

“Not… exactly,” Seiōbo said, making Kari launch back up.

“What do you mean—Mom, what does she mean?”

Nari snapped her fingers and pointed right at her mother’s Intelligent Construct for her to materialize for everyone to see. “Let her know, Mama Wolf.”

“Woah!” Wendy jumped, scrutinizing the tall, shapely copy of her mother. “Wow, you’re so pretty—I, uh, didn’t expect Kari’s mom to look… well, yeah.”

“Thank you, Wendy, but I am confident my daughter will far outshine me as she matures. As to your question, Kari…” Alva’s melancholy voice still held a slight smile that reassured her. “I tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t hear the consequences.”

Sora rolled her eyes. “Typical.”

Despite what Nari said, and making her mother visible, Seiōbo was the one to answer, her tone making Kari shiver. “Loosening your inner darkness is just as my eldest sister explained to Sora—your yin and yang—and allowing one side to reign unchecked, and for so long…” she trailed off, seemingly deep in thought on something else.

“You allowed the beast into the storehouse, and it has ravaged it; you wished to force your father’s side open, and your Shadow agreed, and so it tricked you into taking a path that it could benefit from. You may think your beast is caged, but… not for long.”

Kari’s closed fist pressed against her thighs as she glared at the blanket. “You’re saying she’s damaged the control measures that keep her in her place, and it’s only a matter of time before she breaks free again?”

Her mother scooted over to place a hand on her covered knee. “Unfortunately, yes, but if you are not so single-minded and allow these lovely ladies to help you, at least for this next time, you can be prepared.”

Alva’s hand lifted her own to draw Kari’s uncertain eyes. “Your Shadow has taken the reins to access your father’s side because you gave her autonomy… I’m saying you can have what you wanted, my daughter, but this time you should let others help you.”

Skipping embarrassment to land in the pit of failure, Kari streamed out a long breath—the words of Ghost Steven from the skeleton kitchen returning—and resolved herself that at least she still managed to beat Shadow on her own, self-damaging as it was.

She looked up at Sora with a forced smile. “I should have relied on my new friend, huh—a stupid wolf?”

“The stupidest!” Tight glare softening, Sora nodded. “I know you’re strong, Kari—heh, I admire how independent you are a lot—but yeah, we’re friends, and I want to help you. Wendy’s now my sister, too!”

“Nice. Huu-haaa. I guess I missed a lot, huh?”

“You have no idea! Oh, and you owe Emi an apology! She’s been worried sick about you all week; she can’t even focus on her studies.”

“My bad. Hehe. Okay, so…” she grinned as her stomach growled. “Food?”

“Sweets!” Nari cheered.

Seiōbo's solemn inner look became a smirk. “It’s 9 A.M.”

“Every time is sweets time!”

Sora laughed. “Right. Well, why don’t we let Emi know Kari will be okay and get some breakfast ready; I can always go for seconds!”