Chapter 2 Was passiert mit meiner Tochter

Worry overcame me the moment I felt the Chakra of my little daughter, Rasa. Her small body should not have been able to release any Chakra, yet I felt it hundreds of meters away from her estate.

Something bad must have happened!

I rushed out of the meeting without a word of warning to my fellow clan elders. I absorbed the ambient Chakra, infusing it into my blood and pumping it into my heart where it strengthened my cells.

With each breath and step, my speed increased. I rushed through the hallways of the clan mansion, ignoring the surprised shouts of the servants and clanspeople.

The floor under me cracked, but not fast enough. She was still pumping out what little Chakra she had!

I used movement techniques to further increase my speed, feeling Chakra flow through my body and giving me energy to release long-practiced footsteps.

A small shockwave followed in my wake, throwing servants who were not quick enough to flee like rag dolls. Clan members who felt the same as I made room for me.

"Elder Bairon!" A member of the younger generation, not older than my son, about 15 years old, waved to me. "We opened up some walls, it will be quicker!" he shouted while pointing to a destroyed wall.

I saw a series of destroyed walls opening into the bright sunlight. With a nod of gratitude, I stepped through three rooms at once and another three before I was out of the compound. Some more youngsters nodded at me, while others were being scolded by their elders. I made a quick mental note of these individuals, they shouldn't be in trouble for helping me.

Once out of the compound, I activated my long-distance skills. The stone under me shifted and with each step, dozens of meters vanished behind me.

I rushed through the lush gardens filled with rare and expensive herbs. I had to slow down for the sake of the clan.

For the first time, I cursed the fact that Rasa's estate was behind the herb gardens. She had always loved them, but now they might hinder me from reaching her in time.

Her Chakra was weakening, and I had to reach her before she had nothing left. I would be able to supplement her Chakra if she was using her own essence.

It took agonizingly too long to reach the outer layers of the gardens. Her Chakra became weaker, and I feared she was already using her own essence to fuel whatever had happened to her.

The gate marking the beginning of her estate exploded inward with a stone-encased kick. The next three steps brought me closer to her home, and I heard her before I saw her.

I wish I hadn't.

An agonized wail of loss and sorrow echoed through the air. I have only heard such screams during the worst raids of my life - where spouses were tortured to death in front of each other, where children were forced to kill their parents.

The sound shook me to the core, and my speed increased. I knew that she was close to exhaustion.

The door to her room had already been ripped out! Had someone attacked her?

I entered her room with as much caution as I could muster in the current situation, which was none at all. If someone was trying to kill me, now would be the perfect moment. But I could do nothing to prevent it. Any less concern for my daughter, Rasa, might mean her death.

Thankfully, there were no apparent enemies in the room. My son, Kerser, was lying near a wall that had a crack in it. The maid, Nadia, had a broken neck from hitting the wall. The difference was that Kerser had been cultivating his body since he learned how to breathe.

In the middle of the room was Rasa, still screaming this horrible wail of soul-wrenching loss. A small indentation in the stone floor showed me what had happened.

She must be suffering from some kind of mental trauma. Her Chakra had burst out in an instinctive act of defense, blasting anything close to her away. Kerser and the maid must have been close to her.

I reached her with enough time to take a few calming breaths. It wouldn't be good for her if my Chakra entered her in its current agitated state. I would have to entwine my Chakra with hers and lower my potency to hers, which would be challenging enough.

Just as I was about to begin, another person rushed into the room. I was about to attack until I realized it was Faador, the main gardener of our herb gardens and our foremost doctor and alchemist.

"You weren't about to supplement her Chakra with your own in such an agitated state, were you, son?" he asked in a stern tone.

I didn't protest, knowing that my control wasn't good enough to help her right now. Instead, I made room for him and looked over my son, knowing that Faador would be able to help him.

Kerser wasn't badly wounded; he had only been hit on the head, which was already healing. I thought it was better for him to stay unconscious for a little longer, to spare him from worrying about his sister.

Once I had moved him into a more comfortable position, I went back to Faador and Rasa. She was no longer screaming, but lying down and breathing calmly with her eyes closed.

Her eyes were red and puffy, her face was a mess, her clothes were drenched in sweat, and her skin was pale. But she was alive.

Faador looked up from where he was pulping herbs and speaking softly next to Rasa. The pulped herbs released a calming aroma.

My body relaxed without my consent, but I let it happen when I saw the same thing happening to my daughter. "She has calmed down for now. It was close; any longer and she might have damaged her potential to cultivate. Her core was already quite weak, I don't know if it can withstand another outburst like that."

Worry gripped my heart.

Complications with little Rasa's birth had made her always weaker and more fragile than others. If her cultivation is now damaged, she would never be able to keep up with her peers.

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I knelt next to her little body and gently touched her cheek. It was clam and cold. "What can we do, Elder? Do you know what happened?"

He carefully picked up her small body and motioned to Kerser. "I don't know, but for now she is calm. We should move her to the medical quarters."

We moved both of them to the medical quarters, a large multi-building compound close to the herb gardens but far enough away to accommodate clan visitors.

Once Kerser woke up, we questioned him extensively. The maid told him that Rasa had asked to see him and he rushed over.

Once there, Rasa looked sad when she saw him and asked where other family members were, until she learned that there were no other siblings beyond Kerser. That was when she started to scream, and the next thing he knew, he was waking up in a bed.

Still confused, I left Faador to his research and sat down next to the still-sleeping Rasa. Her five-year-old tiny body looked even smaller in the adult-sized bed.

I tried to sleep, but I had nightmares where Faador didn't arrive when he did, and I had to try to help her. My Chakra control was never good enough, and no matter how often I tried, she died in the end.

She had just died again, and I was about to start anew when I was startled awake by a piercing scream – the same scream I heard in my dreams, the same one I heard this morning, the same one I hoped to never hear again.

Rasa was sitting upright, her eyes were open but unseeing. The meager Chakra she had regained in her sleep was drained before I could even blink. Kerser was also jolted awake, but his lower cultivation level didn't allow him to react as quickly as I could.

I knew what was happening, I knew what I had to do. I just hoped that I would succeed this time.

A few calming breaths kept my Chakra from moving without my consent. I placed my hand on her chest, feeling the vibrations from her breaking vocal cords. This time was worse – she was actively killing herself!

My Chakra began to move into her body, overflowing and gently flowing at the same time. It gently pushed into her tiny body, giving energy where her own core wouldn't and preventing further damage to her body.

It wasn't a permanent solution – her core would eventually break completely, or I would run out of Chakra before that happened.

His own Chakra was not hers, which had a slight corrosive effect that was somewhat mitigated by being her father.

He didn't know how long he guided his Chakra, only that if he made a mistake now, his daughter Rasa would die by his own hands.

At some point, a different Chakra presence began to invade Rasa's pathways. It felt like Elder Faador's, softer than his own, and it began to flow along, healing where his had been corroding.

Suddenly, the Chakra felt different. No longer was it filled with emotions of loss, loneliness, and sorrow, but with a blast of pure happiness. It broke him out of his trance, so antithetical was it to the constant flow of suicidal emotions.

Before, it felt like he did when he lost his wife, but now it was filled with the will to stay alive.

It felt like he was a lost child, knowing that people who love him would find him, like he felt when he came back from fighting after months without seeing his wife.

Thankfully, Elder Faador reacted quickly and pushed his Chakra out of Rasa's system before it could harm her. He started to get used to the shifted feeling of her Chakra and tried to start again. It almost guided him, flowing into a place deep inside her core.

Then, without any forewarning, parts of her Chakra core cracked off and Chakra began to leak out. He almost lost control of his Chakra again, but Elder Faador reacted quickly, rushing his own Chakra into the cracks to form a glue-like patchwork.

He had to help her alone again, giving his best to keep her body supplied while Elder Faador worked on her core.

Some time later, her core began to release Chakra into her body again, and Elder Faador began to help him again. They supplied their own Chakra until she had filled up her tiny reserves.

He opened his eyes to a massive headache, but it was forgotten when he saw the state of Rasa. Her body was pale white, from skin to hair, and her once-red hair had turned white. Her small arms and legs had little muscle, as if she had been lying in bed for weeks.

People were around and brought potions for him, Elder Faador, and Rasa. He couldn't hear them, as his head was filled with emotions and the sudden 180-degree turn of them.

At some point, the people left, and only Rasa, him, Kerser, and Elder Faador remained.

Kerser sat at the foot of the bed, with Elder Faador and him sitting on each side. “Where did all these emotions come from? Where did our Chakra flow, Elder? It felt guided, and you know more about the Chakra core than anyone.”

At first, Elder Faador remained silent, but when he began to speak, it was slow. “Her Chakra spoke of loss, sorrow, being alone, and having lost someone so important that living without them would be meaningless.” His face looked haunted and older than his already formidable age. “Then it changed into the exact opposite.” He finished with an awed whisper.

He remained quiet for a long moment, almost fidgeting. “I... I don't know if I should speak my theory out loud.” He began, with a look in his eyes filled with self-loathing. Whatever his theory was, he knew he wouldn't like it.

"If...if it pertains to little Rasa, I have to know." I closed my eyes, not wanting to see anything, and prepared for the worst.

"There are Chakra gestalts, some of which gain sentience, and some can think and feel like us." He began, but stopped when I took a much-needed deep, calming breath. Was he suggesting...

"Do you think she's being possessed?" I asked, wishing I had misunderstood.

"I'm afraid so," he said as he gently stroked little Rasa's tiny hands. "There are rumors that such Chakra beings can inhabit bodies or even possess weak living ones."

"Is there a way to separate them, to free little Rasa from its influence or give her control?" I asked, desperately seeking a way to turn this into something positive.

Faador waved his hands in denial. "I'm not saying this has happened. I just can't explain all the emotions in her Chakra without another personality having control over her body." He appeared angry and confused, trying to come up with an explanation, but failing.

"There are no illusions that are strong enough to result in little Rasa experiencing such emotional turmoil. She wouldn't even be able to comprehend half of the emotions we feel. She doesn't have enough life experience to have felt a third of them!" He caught himself before raising his voice to a shout. "All I'm saying is that these beings without a body do exist."

"What will happen to her if it's one of these beings?" I asked, knowing that I knew very little about these things.

"Most texts I could find weren't clear on the process itself, only on its results," Faador said. "In most cases, people became quickly stronger and progressed rapidly in their cultivation. But some became demonic beings, killing everything in their wake. Others caused chaos and destruction by killing a few high-profile people. Some simply left once they grew too strong for this plane and were never heard from again."

"But all of them experienced a rapid change in personality," he continued. "And I fear that if this has happened to little Rasa, she will no longer be herself. We should... kill it, then."

I glared at him. He held my gaze. "We can't let a monster use her body for evil. If it's no longer Rasa and is instead a monster, wouldn't you want her suffering to end?"

He was asking me to kill my child!

A look at my already-changed little girl took away all of my strength. I took her frail hand in mine; it felt fragile, like Alera's when she was dying after giving birth. She too had used her essence.

I remembered our last moments together. "I gave my life to give life. Love her... like I would."

It might be madness, but I couldn't accept it. Even if Rasa was dead, I couldn't accept her being a monster. She was my everything. "What if it isn't a monster? Can we teach it to be good?" I asked, hoping for the best.

Yet Elder Faador shook his head. 'I don't know if it will have its memories. If it does, we might be speaking about an adult person, and teaching someone morals and ethics won't be easy, if it's even possible.'

'I bet you could, Elder Faador!' Kerser blurted out. My head snapped first to my embarrassed son, having forgotten about him completely, then to the Elder.

He was looking intensely at the nearly broken body of my daughter. 'Maybe, if it isn't inherently evil or stubborn.'

Maybe my daughter has fused with whatever has produced these emotions. Maybe she's dead, or maybe not. If she's not, she gave a life to give a life. And I will try to love it the way Alera would want me to."

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TL:A ist ebenfalls viel besser zu lesen, einzigen sachen die ich hatte wusstest er nicht oder waren nicht klar.