"You don't need to be afraid of me, Kiyu." said the spirit.

"Wh… who are you?", asked Kiyu in awe, and lowered her head again.

A stroke of shock ran through her body. She spoke with a spirit, and yet she asked who the spirit was? In her mind she rolled her eyes, but she refrained from doing it for real. One insult already was enough, no need to add another one. Again she lifted her chin to look at the spirit's reaction.

Even though the creature of light didn't have a mouth, it almost appeared as if it was…. smiling?

"Pure soul indeed.", the spirit replied.

"My name is Cheryu, little Kiyu."

For a moment the spirit paused, and it seemed like the pause was for Kiyu to grasp the full meaning of the next words which were following.

"I am your bonding spirit."

Kiyu didn't even have the chance to realize what was going on. Right after Cheryu finished speaking, a ray of light, like the one which Cheryu sent into the sky, came down from the heavens, and fell on Kiyu.

"Ahh!", she screamed for a second, before she noticed that the ray of light wasn't harming her.

No, on the contrary, it looked like it was helping her. An indescribable, pleasant warmth ran through her entire body, and filled her with a feeling that she had never experienced before.

Since there was no harm caused by the light, she decided to not struggle against it but let it all inside of her.

With every moment that passed, the spirit that floated in front of her continued to dissolve. With the disappearance of the spirit, the ray of light also ended, but the warmth continued to exist in her.

< I apologize for this type of Rite, Kiyu. But time is of the essence, and we cannot stick to the traditions. > The voice spoke inside her head.

Kiyu didn't understand what Cheryu was talking about. Wasn't this the official way of how a human and a spirit merge their bodies? Why was there no time for the sacred ceremony? Why was she chosen? She wasn't even part of the official Rite?

< I feel your questions and your worries. In due course I will give you the answers that I owe you, I promise. >

She couldn't explain why, but somehow Cheryu sounded sad? Without a warning the surrounding time started flowed again. Everything was confusing to her. All the Kushik members pointed towards the hill on which she was lying with Rika.

"Kiyu! Kiyu! We must go! They discovered us!", Rika screamed next to her.

But to Kiyu it sounded like her friend was miles and miles away. Even Rikas hands, with which she tried to shake Kiyu's body, felt like they were in a far distant.

What was going on with her body? It felt like her body trapped her mind deep inside, separated from control of her body.

Even though she couldn't show it, a fear spread inside her she had never felt before. Under normal circumstances, sweat would come off in small swaths, but her body remained motionless.

< A side effect of the hasty union >, whispered the melodic voice in her head.

"What's going on here? What are you children doing here?"

Several men and women of the Kushik tribe gathered around Rika and Kiyu, the latter still lying motionless on the ground.

"You have no business here and broke our traditions. Do you realize what ..."

With a slack gesture, the elder silenced the rest of the crowd. Out of the corner of her eye, Kiyu saw the elder kneel next to her body, and put a hand on her forehead.

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After a moment of silence, the elder straightened up and proclaimed his message with his arms outstretched:

"The spirit has chosen!"

Kiyu noticed various reactions from unbelievable wrinkling of the nose to gasping. The various members of the tribe whispered, some of them louder, others quieter. But right now they all only knew one subject, which was Kiyu - the new Spiritformer.

A spirit chose a 11-year-old girl of the Kushik tribe. This was unheard of and various opinions formed in their minds as they looked at the small, immovable girl. Kiyu heard every single word from those present, and apace she realized that this choice was irrevocable and final.

She, the one who didn't even want to attend the Rite, had become the youngest spiritformer of her tribe, and that by accident!

But not all held back their opinions, or showed even happiness for the young girl. Some of them had hoped to be chosen by a spirit today, but they got deprived of that chance by Kiyu. As if it wasn't enough that there was already enough competition among adults. No, now a small child had stolen everyone's chance.

'I didn't mean to!' She wanted to scream it out, but her body still didn't obey her. She felt even worse now that she knew that people's mind turned into negative thoughts because of this incident.

< Small-minded people. A spirit can choose who it wants! None of them looked worthy, but you, Kiyu. > Cheryu knew how Kiyu was feeling right now, because from then on they didn't share just one body but also their minds.

After the merging, they were a single being with different origins. As soon as Kiyu recovered, she could also discover Cheryu's thoughts and emotions as well.

Some of the assembled, which Kiyu identified as those who had let out their negative thoughts concerning the events, ran back to the ritual circle.

The surrounding people focused on her and Rika too much, and worried about Kiyu, therefore they noticed nothing else. She, instead, had her gaze focused on the camp. There were much fewer people than in the previous ritual, but they were trying to perform the ritual again.

With the first drumming, the bystanders turned around and looked in shock at their compatriots down in the camp.

"No! That's not right," shouted the elder.

With many of the remaining tribesmen behind him, he hurried back to camp. A few people stayed with Rika and Kiyu, and looked after them as best they could.

Kiyu had to watch powerless as another light shrouded around the tribal people. But this light was different. There was nothing to be seen of the purity of the white light, instead it looked more threatening. A mix of black and red danced around in the ritual circle.

Within a few moments, a shadowy figure appeared in the center. The people seemed to cheer, everyone pointed to themselves.

'They are perhaps asking him to merge with them,' thought Kiyu.

There was a great sense of sadness even in her mind. It was never her intention to steal this opportunity from others. Yes, she wanted to be a spiritformer, but only when her time for that came.

But now it had caused chaos. However, she could not remain fixated on her blame for long. With a pitch-black shadow spreading, the evil spirit had killed everyone around him without hesitation.

'NO!' If there weren't the aftereffects causing rigidity to her body, she would have doubtless frozen in shock now at the latest.

The eldest and some others were far enough away, so they just got knocked over by the shadowy wave but survived, as it seemed.

But all at once Kiyu felt as cold as she had never felt it before. All the warmth that Cheryu had given her earlier disappeared. Like Cheryu before, this spirit had appeared before them in a flash. Time stood still around her again, but not for her and Rika.

"Look, what do we have here?" The evil spirit seemed to look at the two girls.

After looking at Kiyu, he snorted in disdain, and turned to Rika. "You seem to make a splendid specimen. Well then, it's decided!"

'PLEASE! No!' inwards, Kiyu screamed in despair and fear.

In the next instant a column of black light shone in the sky and fell on Rika, who screamed in pain. Kiyu couldn't see her friend, but the screams of pain said it all. Her best friend was turning in pain right now, and there was nothing she could do about it.

As fast as the pillar of light had appeared, it disappeared again, and with it the spirit, from which Kiyu had an inkling of where it would be.

"Ah! A splendid specimen indeed," Rika laughed in a much deeper voice. "Then let's see ..."

'Argh!' A stabbing pain filled Kiyu's entire body after Rika released a shadowy shock wave like the spirit did before down in the camp. Unlike the others, Kiyu had survived the wave, but the pressure threw her over the cliff into the river below.

Immobile and plagued by pain, the river's flow carried her away. Her rigid condition prevented her from defending herself against the stream, and Rika didn't seem to follow her either.

'I suppose the spirit thinks I'm dead ...' she thought.

However, the spirit was her least concern. Little by little her lungs filled with water, and she did not even have the chance to spat the water. Only the terrible screams she heard in the distance made her helplessness worse than it already was. Her tribe died, killed by an evil spirit, and she would drown in the river.

Her eyes closed against her will, and she lost all track of time. For a while her mind had stayed awake, but it was getting more and more difficult.

Sorting through her thoughts was a more impossible task, and in the end she failed to stay awake. The darkness that had enveloped her body had now enveloped her mind as well.