(Zack)

After evicting some monsters, the team and I made camp in one of the abandoned buildings. I proudly show the Paladins that I can use the purification rune, which does impress them. It's not limited to Class, so what's impressing them is the fact that I, a kid with little training in runic magic, could perform it.

It's a really basic rune, and my father is literally existence itself. Being able to perform it that quickly did not surprise me.

And now that we have fresh water here, the adults are making dinner, a nice, hearty stew that's going to need an hour or two to cook.

"Hey, Liam," I plop myself onto the bench next to him. He, Kayla, and Louise are playing poker. "During the fights today, you guys used these golden missiles and barriers."

I killed two more Class 1's before the day ended, and they took care of a few as well, along with three Class 2's and another Class 3. Damn, these guys are awesome.

"Arrows," he corrects. "Those were arrows."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," I say. "How come you used those? Your Mana was going down a lot more than normal – are you unable to use-"

"No," he shakes his head. "Those spells are holy spells, which means they do extra damage to unholy things, such as Fallen Adventurers. We have a more powerful version of Holy Arrow as well, though we'll use that against the stronger ones, it's most costly, and has a stunning effect."

"Oh, cool," I say, then look at Kayla. "That's a neat trick with your swords, how you swap them out in battle."

"I noticed you mimic it a couple of times," she smiles, and I grin at her. "Items take just over a second to send in or pull out of the Inventory, so part of it requires a lot of timing, or a move might be off a bit. It's useful for making an opponent stumble when blades are crossed. If our Inventories were like your special one, where it's instant, there'd be less of an issue with that."

"Yeah, but you do it better," I shrug. "I nearly got skewered on that last Class 1."

"Your timing was off," she told me. "It'll come with practice."

"Speaking of practice," I say. "Can we? I want to try some stuff."

"Go out in the street," Eric and Sam say in unison.

"And several blocks away," Louise adds.

"Sure," Kayla answers.

She and I go across the street, so that we aren't too far. After clearing out the monsters from here, we face each other in the yard.

"Any rules or limitations?" She asks.

"No spell Skills," I say. "Nothing overwhelmingly powerful. I want to improve my combat abilities, not get a raw beatdown. My stats are only lowers than yours by a small margin, and only because of my lack of time to raise them."

That, and her higher base stats, resulting in some decent increases for a few of them. I'm betting that Health of hers probably comes from a naturally-high Vitality.

"Alright," she says.

"And don't do any weapon-shifts," I tell her. "Most things I fight won't do that."

"Alright!" She laughs.

I sheathe Zack's Blood and draw my Spook Sword. It's more of the power level hers is at, so there's not as much risk to damaging her weapon. I might accidentally cut through her sword with Zack's Blood.

As soon as we're ready, Kayla charges at me, forcing me onto the defensive. I manage to block every attack, though she manages to make me to move back or to the side every few strikes, causing us to do a sort of dance around the courtyard.

My arms start to feel tired and heavy, like they're filled with lead. This is no doubt a result of resisting such strong attacks for so long, I'm not used to being pushed like this, apart from my training with Nik, and our fight's starting to go longer than practice sparring sessions with him.

No matter what I do, I can't find a way to switch to the offensive, and I even end up using my knife with one hand for extra defense.

Until a thought fills me. It's one I wanted to try out in secret, but never found the opportunity to. Not yet, anyway…

But maybe here…

I let Zack's Blood, the knife, return to my Inventory as I throw out my hand while she's coming back for another swing. A few dozen marbles fly out of my Inventory, scattering around as they bounce off of her or fly past her.

Kayla's left slightly confused and stunned, her blade hesitating for a moment, and I jump back, careful to look down to make sure I land safely. She takes a step forward as I land, and I push forward with my feet, using Dash to fly at her as I swing my sword.

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Our blades clash together and Kayla stumbles back, slipping on a marble. I take advantage of that moment to disarm her, her sword dropping to the ground, and she quickly recovers, using the fall to her advantage as I send her sword flying.

Her other hand grabs my wrist, and she pulls me down with her, flipping me over and putting me into a lock as my sword flies across the yard as well. She has my arms pinned behind me back, holding me face-down on the ground from above, her mouth by my ear.

"Marbles?" She asks. "And what happened to 'no weapon-shifts'?"

"I said 'don't do any'," I remind her. "Never said it was a limitation for both of us. Also, I'm still shirtless from earlier, and you're pressing against my back."

"I'm not into little kids," she tells me.

My rage flares up.

"That's not what I was implying!" I snap. "And I'm not a little kid! Demon Form!"

Kayla's thrown off me by my wings spreading out from my back. I flip over and fly up to her as she twists to recover.

"Barrier!" She calls out, landing on the shimmering Barrier that formed just as I catch up to her. "Whoa, Zack-"

"No!" I soar forward, punching out with my fists. "I was just going to throw you with the shift, but you! Called! Me! Little!"

My fist connects with her chest, throwing her backwards, and I fly behind her, kicking out with my foot, throwing her forwards. Then, I fly under her and kick her up, then above her and heel-drop her. When she lands on the ground, I fly down, grab her, and throw her.

As I go after her again, the others jump in, helping her restrain me until my Demon Form ends. It reached Level 3 during my fourth Fallen Adventurer battle earlier, so I have a full three minutes of struggling against their buffed Strength and binds, minus what was spent throwing Kayla around.

"Jeez," Kayla says as I sulk on the bench in the yard of the house we're using for the night, a few minutes after my Demon Form ends. Her teammates quickly healed her once they 'calmed me down'. "I would've expected you to get angry over 'kid', not 'little'."

"I am a kid!" I snap. "And I am not short! I just haven't had too many growth spurts yet!"

Liam puts a bowl of stew in front of me, and I dig into it, using a piece of bread to sop up the juices. After dinner, I walk over to the other yard and start picking up the marbles, sending them back into my Inventory.

While it only partially-worked against Kayla, I'm sure that against a monster, something like that would probably be a lot more useful. It's not why I've been collecting the marbles, but still.

Looking over at the Fallen Hunters, I notice them whispering to each other. If I bothered, I could listen in, but I decide not to, plopping myself down now that all of my marbles have been recovered and staring up at the night sky.

How are the twins doing right now?

What would Bryce and I be doing right now, if he were still here?

Feeling tears starting to well up, I pull out a bottle of the Neburis White Wine from my Inventory and jump up onto the partially-collapsed roof of the house whose yard I'm in. Popping open the bottle, I take a nice swig of it.

Are the Fates real? Are they trying to screw with me? I lose my brother before even finding out he's my brother. My first-ever friend?

Then Gold shows up. We become friends… and then Aurum showed up. Gold now lives at the Dark Temple, but I know he still hangs out with Aurum, I can hear them yipping and yapping when they play around. Sometimes, I see Nathan smacking them with his staff when they're getting too noisy at night.

Then the twins showed up… Luca and Braden. I hate the punk, but… he wasn't in my visions. Why? Why wasn't he in my visions? To screw with me even more? Or… is he going to leave, too? But why would he leave?

Braden would never abandon Luca. Ever. He probably just forms his own team, separate from me. We don't get along, so it would make sense. Once Luca trusts me more and they're used to not being around each other, I can see that happening.

So the brothers would still hang out, just like Gold and Aurum.

If the Fates exist, they're fucking with me. There's no question of that, none at all. I'm being taunted over my brother's death, as if it's impossible for me to ever have a chance of being really happy. Hell, even in my visions, I wasn't happy.

I was serious, calm, whatever, but not happy. I didn't look happy. My visions can go two ways: either they come true, or they don't. But it's only when I try to force a vision that there's a chance it's wrong. In all other cases, I have to do something drastic to stop them from coming true, to change the course of fate.

Yeah, the Fates exist. And they hate me, because of my power. I'm sure of it. Why else would they make me suffer like this? The only reason I can think of is because I have the power to defy them, I have the power to change fate. To change how things are supposed to be.

My father is literally existence itself. The Boundaries exist outside of time, created by another brother of mine. The Fates are within time, but our father is outside of it. That lets us see time in a different state. I'm nowhere near Big S in power or magical genius, but there's enough there to piss off the Fates.

To make them harass me.

When I got to take another swig, I realize the bottle's empty, then hurl it across the street. It smashes into another building, shattering. Someone lands beside me. Kayla.

"It's not good to get drunk at your age-"

"Ever seen Nathan get drunk?"

"Who?" She asks.

"Nathan Normar, little healer, is on the most powerful team in the Boundary?"

"Normar can't get drunk," she says. "He's a demigod with a high attunement to the Crystals."

To his Sacred Crystal. For the same reason he can't age, he's immune to illness and thinkg like drunkenness. I still age, but I'm also immune to illness and drunkenness. Hell, I was before ever coming to the Boundary.

I've never been sick, and my family was rich. My first taste of alcohol wasn't here. Plus, I'd even stolen some beer in reality.

It was disgusting. I didn't like it. Didn't stop me from trying to get drunk, but whatever.

"Nathan's not the only demigod around," I tell her.

"You're a demigod?" She asks.

"How do you think I have my psychic visions?" I snort. "It's a power from my father. I'd rather have brothers who aren't attacked by Alexander, but that's a different matter entirely."

Tears are streaming down my cheeks, I realize. Bryce… and Big S. Both of my brothers were attacked by the Shadow of Life. Big S sacrificed himself as a mere child to create a powerful seal over the traitor, while Bryce was turned into a Fallen Adventurer.

"Is your father the reason you can lay on snow while bare-chested and not seem bothered at all?"

Oh, right. There's a layer of snow on this roof. Guess I should be shivering, shouldn't I?

"That probably comes from my attunement to my Sacred Crystal," I sit up, rubbing my eyes with my arm. "I'm going home."

"What?" She gives me a stunned look.

"I'm too depressed to think right," I tell her. "And it's going to take me more than a night to get over this. I'll only fuck things up for you guys. Just… don't go after the Class 5, okay? I can't take more death among my friends and allies. Demon Form."