"I'm sorry!" sobbed Kiyu in Laki's arms, "I'm so sorry for everything."

"I didn't mean for this to happen. I didn't want.... anyone to suffer." In Laki's arms, she released herself from all the pain and suffering that was on her shoulder, even if it was only for that one moment.

"Psst," Laki consoled her, stroking through Kiyu's short hair. For a few moments around they forgot the world around them.

Kiyu would have loved to stay like this in her foster sister's arms forever, but cold gusts of wind bit into her skin more and more.

"Here," Laki said, handing Kiyu back her shirt, which she had given to Laki as a blanket. "Otherwise you'll catch a cold."

Relieved that Laki didn't hate her, she nodded and accepted the shirt. Kiyu put the shirt back on and they both sat down next to each other by the campfire that would carry them through the night.

At first, they were both silent, and it seemed like neither knew what was going to be said. This mood depressed Kiyu, but she didn't know what to do about it either.

"Who is Rika?" asked Laki without warning, catching Kiyu off guard.

Knowing that she could not avoid this question, she took one deep breath and exhaled again before she told Laki her entire story.

From the spirit incarnation Rite she observed with Rika, the spirit Cheryu who bonded with her and thus made her a spiritformer, the evil spirit that took over Rika's body and how she ended up in the river.

"And the next thing I knew, I woke up on your boat," she finished her long story.

"You're a Spiritformer?" exclaimed Laki. Like Kiyu, she had only heard stories.

While Kiyu's tribe at least still had connections to the spirits through their rituals and could also produce Spiritformers, Laki didn't know a thing about spiritformers, except for rare stories.

Harios was small, but before it became a fishing village with its own dock, there was no interest in the piece of land on the peninsula and few people lived a peaceful life there. A Spiritformer was perhaps the last thing that would ever stray there.

Kiyu nodded. Until that day, she told no one anything about it. Cheryu had come back after a full six years, of which she knew nothing. She herself believed the incident had somehow caused her to lose the powers she had just gained.

And so she kept silent about it until today, when she rediscovered her powers and communicated with Cheryu.

"And this spirit, Cheryu? Does he talk to you? In your head?" wondered Laki.

It was as if Kiyu's story had blown away all suffering for the moment. But as long as Laki stopped thinking about the bad, it should be fine with Kiyu.

< Sometimes I speak to people around us as well. > Cheryu replied in his melodic voice. < At least as long as little Kiyu trusts the people who gather around her like you. >

"Ph..... Pfuhahaha!" Hearing Cheryu's words, Laki burst out into, inexplicable to Kiyu, peals of laughter.

"Little Kiyu?" she repeated with feigned mockery.

"Oh no," Kiyu groaned, annoyed. She and Laki were both 17 years old, but they had discovered that Laki was several months older than Kiyu.

"What's wrong, little Kiyu?" she asked with mock concern. "Is something wrong?"

"Well, thank you, Ryu," she sighed in annoyance, slapping a flat hand on her forehead. "I'll have to listen to that for days now."

< It's not the thing itself that troubles you, but only your judgment of it > he retorted, so that both Kiyu and Laki caught it before he fell silent.

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Kiyu noticed he left them alone with this wisdom on purpose.

They wouldn't be alone anyway, because the bond between Kiyu and Cheryu meant both parties shared everything they thought to the other one, but he had the decency to at least consciously stay out of the two girls' privacy.

Not making a sound, they watched the bursting wood and listened to the soothing crackle. After everything that had happened to them today, this peace did them more than just good.

They had snuggled up to each other, since besides the fire, they had only their own warmth to get them through the chilly night. They were lucky that it was spring right now because otherwise Kiyu wouldn't have known how they could have made it.

For now, she enjoyed being close to Laki, and her not despising Kiyu. And now that she had talked about her story, she felt liberated. She was no longer alone with this secret, but could share it with a familiar person.

What did Cheryu say? What had happened was in the past, and therefore she could not change it? She did not quite understand the extent of this sentence, but it was enough for her to look forward.

"Kiyu?" yawned Laki as she leaned against Kiyu's shoulder. "I'm getting tired."

"Go to sleep," Kiyu replied, stroking her head. "I'll stay awake a little longer to add more wood later on."

Leaning against Kiyu's shoulder, Laki drifted off to sleep. Kiyu would like to get used to this feeling, but for now it was enough. The day ended without further trouble after all that had happened.

The sudden quiet breaths from Laki surprised her. It was the only thing she could hear, besides the crackling of the campfire. She could not classify them, because they seemed almost too fast for a simple sleep.

And also in the past years, in which she had slept next to Laki, she had never heard such breathing sounds from her. Was she asleep? Or was she calming down?

The small breaths went on like that until she was sound asleep.

'Good,' Kiyu thought to herself, and put Laki down on the ground so she could move.

'Are you there, Ryu?' she asked inside herself, hoping that the spirit wasn't already asleep too. If spirits ever did? She wasn't sure, because he had been awake for seven days,

< I am here > he replied. < So the time has come, hasn't it? >

"Yes" she said, nodding. Now that her spirit had returned to her, she would begin her training as a Spiritformer.

"Body enhancement," she muttered to herself. The human body had almost infinite functions and comprised a wide variety of components.

Bones, skin, organs, nerves. She could train and use all of that? She couldn't imagine, but the unconscious use during Laki's rescue alone had shown her the diversity.

In the future, she would think of countless training methods, but for now Kiyu concentrated on one of the simple ones that she could implement without help: Body warming.

And although the night was already cold enough, she wanted to set herself a challenge. First, she took off her shirt again. Her bra, however, she left on, in case of meeting some uninvited guest after all.

After getting rid of her shirt and throwing it on the ground next to the fire, the aspiring spiritformer moved a few feet away from the campfire.

She felt the biting cold, which pricked her skin like dozens of small needles. With each passing second, the individual pricks coalesced into large ones and she felt the pain all over her upper body.

She lifted her right hand and positioned it in front of her body so that her index finger almost touched the chin and her pinky finger was facing away from her face.

The other hand she placed behind her back. No matter how cold it would get in the meantime, her goal was to not have to warm herself with her arms and hands.

Seconds passed and turned into minutes, but nothing had happened yet. No warmth, no special energy.

'Come on!' she thought as the anger built up inside her. But nothing happened.

Why did nothing happen? No matter how long she stood there in the cold, she didn't get any warmer. Nothing was happening.

"Wargh!" A single cry of rage escaped her, and she covered her mouth with the hand she had positioned in front of her. Kiyu turned around to see if she had woke up Laki with her careless cry. But everything seemed to be all right. Her breathing was still deep and regular.

'Why isn't anything happening?' Boiling with rage, she sat down on the ground and hugged herself to protect herself against the cold. 'Ryu, what's wrong?

But the spirit did not answer her. Again, he had fallen silent.

What differed from the other times? Was anything different at all? She went through the situations where she had felt Cheryu's energy. After the connection.... in the river... and also at the fire.

For quite some time, she pondered the events.

'Ha!' It took a while, but a flash of inspiration came to her.

'All this time, the energy was coming from Ryu. I never tapped it myself, but Cheryu gave me his energy.', she thought to herself.

< You're a fast learner. > he praised her after she came up with it. < To use my power, you need to....>

'Psst! Don't tell!' she interjected in her thoughts. Her first theoretical success had given her motivation, and she felt she was going to have a run.

All her concentration was on feeling the connection between her and Cheryu, and indeed! After she had adjusted to this feeling for some time, she could feel something. It was nowhere near as strong as when Cheryu gave her strength, but she felt warmth flowing through her hand in front of her upper body.

Despite the still biting cold, a smile crossed her bluish lips.