Ewan took a deep breath, his cracked ribs stung, and calmed his boiling spirit down. In the heat of the battle, he took things a bit too far—Walyn’s constant resistance triggered him. His intention was to suppress him while he checked the bones in the graves, not to dissipate the newborn Wraith. He was but a mere child, regardless of his status as the infamous ghost—the persona of dread.
“B-Boss, should I help him?” Kidd asked.
“Go, go.” Ewan waved, rubbing his forehead. He had no means to heal the Wraith, and neither did Kidd. Non-dark element spells wouldn’t work on an undead like that, and Kidd was only a mortal with scant mundane means. But he was the only one around Ewan who could see and interact with the Wraith, perhaps he could prevent his soul from scattering. If not, he only hoped the damage wouldn’t kill the little guy. With the natural recovery speed of Wraiths and the concentration of Dark-Anima around the villa, he should be ok…hopefully.
Kidd dropped the shovel and rushed towards Walyn, where the air hummed and distorted around him. “It’s okay,” he whispered and kneeled. “You’ll be okay,” he said. But the moment he reached out, he yelped and pulled back, falling on his ass, his stretched hand trembling in air. This time, even Ewan could see the Wraith as he materialized and melted into Kidd’s body.
Possession?
Kidd screamed as the last thread of the Wraith disappeared into his chest. He curled on the ground, hyperventilating and groaning, clutching his chest, his face crumpled.
No, this was a bit different from the ‘possession’ Ewan had read about. A Wraith could possess someone, but the possessed had to be weaker in the equation, else the potent ‘Vitality’ would evaporate the Wraith. Because of that stringent requirement that did not carry an exception, the process of possession wouldn’t devolve into a struggle. It would end in a heartbeat with the Wraith smothering the original soul and taking control of the body.
Though he hadn’t measured it, Kidd and Walyn’s situation appeared to match that criterion, yet Kidd was struggling.
Ewan spread his Ryvia around Kidd and kept checking his vitals while observing the interesting phenomenon. Unless it threatened Kidd’s life, he didn’t intend to stop the process. After all, this was knowledge that no book had given him so far, he couldn’t let it go. Not to mention he had no means to stop it—he didn’t even know what it was. Thus, he hunkered down on the ground with his Ryvia and Varos operating at max and took out his diary to note down the event.
Kidd cried and sobbed for seconds, minutes, his voice dimming as time slipped by. Soon, wounds and lacerations appeared on his body. His skin ripped open, his muscles split, blood drenched his clothes. Each change elicited a gut-wrenching scream from him, only to drown the cracks and the snaps of his breaking bones.
His body was changing, Ewan wrote in his diary, but he scratched it the next moment. Kidd was accepting all of Walyn’s wounds, he wrote. They were either sharing the damage or Walyn was transferring it all to Kidd. One was an equal relation while the other designated a dominant and a recessive party.
And the process continued.
…
…
…
Finally, the screams died down, Kidd stopped struggling, and no new wounds appeared on him. He groaned and turned over on his back, his chest heaving up and down.
Ewan squinted, tapping his pen on the diary, wondering whether Walyn controlled the body or Kidd won in the end.
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“B-B-Boss…,” Kidd said in a grinding voice, the words rumbling in his throat. Two different tones, two different pitches, as if from two different vocal cords. They overlapped and buzzed with a grating sound. What he said pointed towards Kidd’s victory, yet the change in voice suggested another possibility—symbiosis.
The observation would continue later, Ewan shut the diary and put it away, another pressing matter awaited him right now. Kidd’s injuries wouldn’t push him over the edge, but they would render him disabled for weeks if he relied on mundane treatment instead of spells. The latter was a piece of cake for Ewan. With Iris, he could heal Kidd within an hour if not minutes—after all, they were normal wounds, not laced with hostile Anima. The only time-consuming part of it was to straighten his snapped bones.
Yet, the simple matter stumbled him, the lack of information about Kidd’s condition tied his hands. Iris’s ‘Mend’ would do wonders for Kidd, it would even be an overkill for his wounds, but the same might hurt Walyn. The positive on Kidd or the negative on Walyn, which side would the spell sway for them, Ewan couldn’t infer. Or they might just cancel each other, and the spell would fizzle out.
Nonetheless, nothing would happen unless he tried it—only trial and error would give him his answers.
Thus, he walked over, squatting beside Kidd, and looked at his incapacitated body. But when he reached out to check his wounds, Kidd slapped his hand away, the right half of his face becoming spectral and changing into Walyn’s. The Walyn’s half glared at Ewan, his eyes tearing up, the innocent face bearing the bruises of Ewan’s uncalled persecution. While the Kidd’s half looked confused and panicked.
Ewan smiled at Walyn, confirming his conjecture. Walyn indeed was the boy that Mystic-Anima showed him through
“Do you feel this?” Ewan asked Kidd, pulling Walyn’s cheek, ignoring his deathly stare.
“I-I don’t,” Kidd said in a grating voice. “B-Boss, will I become like Merton?” He sniffed and cried. “I don’t want to become lame.” Regardless of his cunning or his experience of life and death, he was still a child at his core, soft and tender, easily hurt and weak against despair. In essence, Walyn and Kidd were kindred souls.
“You won’t, I’m here,” Ewan said, his words carrying the weight of his confidence. Even if the spell didn’t work, which he hadn’t confirmed yet, he still had enough knowledge and resources that he could heal Kidd within a short frame of time without leaving any after-effects. But the problem of their co-existence…
The sheer scarcity of knowledge about such phenomenon meant that they had to walk this pitch-black path by themselves and grope their way forward.
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Status: Injured
Step-0 [9th Awakening]
Name: Ewan Ayres
Species: Human
Vitality: 2.0
Spirit: 19.9
Anima: [Fire – 19.9 | Ice – 19.9 | Blood – 19.9]
Astylinds: 4 [Potential: 0]
Rolling Cat [Toast]: Step-0 [9th Awakening]
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Fire Monkey [Orange]: Step-0 [Level-9] [Grade-B]
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Imp [Frost]: Step-0 [Level-9] [Grade-B]
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Blood Lotus [Iris]: Step-0 [Level-9] [Grade-S]
Equipment: Common Clothes; Yurn [Neck Gaiter]; Moonkeeper [Crystal-Ball].
Storage: Journal; Elementalist—The Path of Anima [Subtype-Book]; Spellbook; Bloodlust [Spell]; Transmute [Spell]; Anima-Crystals [Novas Coins]; Obsidian Dagger; Hub-Connector; Ingredients.
Novas: 65,145
Crelith: 3,887