Six:

You know that feeling, when you’re minding your own business, then chunks of you randomly explode like overheated batteries? No? Well considering this was a semi-regular occurrence for Leo, he could conclusively say it was very gross and super awkward. Painful, for sure, alarming and potentially hazardous to both himself, and sometimes the people around him, but now that he had a sort-of routine to manage the experience, it was mostly just the gross and the awkward that he regularly had to deal with.

Aside from the fact that he really, really, didn’t like being in the spotlight, or the centre of attention, as that had almost never resulted in positive experiences for him, there was also the aftermath that had to be considered.

There was, of course, the agonizing pain, the cleanup – though his judicious, pre-emptive application of gauze had somewhat taken care of that – but mostly there were the occasional witnesses and the healer to consider.

People were staring, people were disturbed, disgusted, and rightfully wary of him, and the healer was now obligated to wade into the situation and not only tend to a truly gruesome wound, but become part of the spectacle as well.

This often wasn’t an issue. Usually, he had enough forewarning to get to the medical room at the home, or one of the free healer’s halls. Usually, the people around him knew of his condition. Usually, the healers he’d visited had a sort of ‘seen it all attitude’. They were generally older 1st or 2nd Circle cultivators who had stalled out in their cultivation journey and who had been relegated by their clan or sect to what were essentially the volunteer hours negotiated by the Confederation. Occasionally though, there were situations like these. An accident at school, the new kid in a foster-home or, like in this case, he had an incident as a stranger in a strange place. Then, he’d get a healer like this. An ignition or 1st Circle trainee sent out to get experience. She was obviously young – something difficult to tell when dealing with the variable aging of cultivators, but even early starters reached maturity before whatever processes that stopped them from aging kicked in. The girl was also obviously reeling, and as she stood like a frightened opossum, mutely watching as Leo oozed and dripped out of his bandages, he took it upon himself to prompt her into action.

“Miss?” He asked. “If you could…” He let the sentence trail off.

As if his words had ended the fugue the entire room had fallen into, the healer abruptly jolted into action. She looked like one of the mechanical automatons he’d seen outside some of the High District buildings as she robotically made her way forward to address the wound as Leo began to stoically unwrap the bandage that was presently the only thing keeping what was left of his forearm in its place. Robotically, she reached out and placed her hand just above the joint of his elbow, where there was still some healthy-ish flesh.

Leo watched, fascinated as always as the eddies and ripples of life mana – along with barely discernable traces of water, and blood, what he thought might be metal, as well as some unaspected mana – began slowly knitting the torn, jagged bones and flesh of his wound back together. Where chunks and bone were missing, like a miracle, they regrew before his eyes.

While fascinating to him, the scene itself must have been too much for many of the gathered bystanders, including one of the chamber monitors, and the healer herself. He only really registered the rapid paling of skin, and the expression on the girls face as she finished the healing, staggered to her feet, and then made it two steps before she promptly turned around and evacuated whatever meal she'd recently eaten. She wasn’t the only one.

Leo didn't blame her, or any of them. His arm had been gruesome – all splinters of bone and dangling meaty bits – and most of these people probably hadn’t had an entire lifetime to become desensitised to the gore. But while it was generally the case that Leo would begin to feel bad at this point, the truth was that he was entirely too much in his own mind feel much of anything besides agony, and fascination.

It was the trace amounts of his own mana – mana that was innately possessed by all things – that he found was reacting to the environmental mana all around him. He’d been able to watch as his body absorbed and processed this ambient mana to aid with the healing. It was like his body was naturally supplementing the healer’s spell. It was this room, this entire building, but specifically insane quantity of mana in this room that had made it clear to him.

He stood, as he pondered, in order to move away from the aufal now littering the floor around the corner he’d been occupying. Ignoring the looks, and comments of the group, and the hateful stare of the healer who was now equipped with cleaning supplies – water mana swirling in violent arcs around her – he began to make his way to another corner of the room where could think in relative seclusion. He wanted to stay and watch her work whatever magics she was about to use, but he was well aware of the number of people making no secret of how little they wanted him anywhere near them.

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He wished he had some way to observe from afar.

If he wasn’t a complete pariah before—being a Foster and all—he absolutely was now. There was unlikely to be a single other person in the room, from those who had been escorted out in disappointment to those who still awaited their turn in the machines, who was inclined to think favourably about him.

He understood it, somewhat. He had interrupted what would probably be the most important ritual in their young lives. Depending on whether they ignited their cores or not this was likely the only ‘true’ ritual they’d ever experience, and the only one they would participate in as anything other than an observer or a victim.

He wondered if any of these people realised this was just as important for him. No, he could see it in their eyes, feel it in the air around them with that sense of ‘knowing’ that had yet to be proven wrong. They’d already written him off like the head technician had when he’d read his name.

“Show’s over,” that same head technician sneered at Leo. The enmity was palpable. It was like the man was implying that Leo had purposefully, publicly blown off his own arm. “Next ten,” the man announced, rattling off a list of names.

As Leo sunk down slowly along the far wall, sore, exhausted, and truly drained, he felt his body instinctively tense up as the healer came back around to find him. She was marching towards him with determination, and had something in her hands. Her face wasn’t kind, and not knowing what to expect, Leo prepared for the worst. Staggering to his feet once more, and clutching his bag half as a shield, and half as a habit, he braced himself when she thrust her hands forward.

He almost dropped the items when she slammed them into his chest. Both arms full he moved, more quickly than the girl was probably expecting, and slipped the backpack to one arm. Then he caught the small bag he’d just been assaulted with and slipped the loop around his other arm.

Leo’s abrupt actions had the girl tensing, and Leo stayed very still as she assessed him. He could see that she was doing something, or the mana around her and between them was, but what that something was he didn’t even have a frame of reference for. Shaking her head she pointed to the small bag she’d shoved into him and gave a single command.

“Eat.”

Not sure what to do, aside from nod his head as the girl continued to stand there and glare at him, he stayed still and waited.

“Why didn’t you ask for a private room, or at least to wait in the infirmary?” She asked.

“A private room,” he repeated. She nodded once.

“Yes, or the infirmary.”

“I…” Should he go with the truth? At this point he didn’t see how it would really change much. “I didn’t know it was an option,” he said.

“You, what?” The healer asked, her face scrunched in confusion.

“Nobody mentioned it,” Leo continued.

“It was in the orientation,” she quietly raged at him. “Are you thick? Did you not pay any attention to the safety briefing. I’d have assumed if you were wearing that,” she pointed to his medical bracelet, “that you’d at least have enough self preservation instincts to pay attention to critical information that could save your life.”

The words were harsh, but if it was true, then from her point of view Leo might have deserved the look of utter disgust and contempt she was throwing at him – though some of the scorn just seemed like the everyday, run of the mill prejudice he usually faced. He had paid attention, close attention. However, even if Leo hadn’t been paying attention to the orientation, it wouldn’t have mattered.

“I arrived late,” Leo stated simply. His voice remained low and even, and he refused to let any embarrassment or shame take hold. It hadn’t been his fault, and he refused to let his now former case worker and the reason for his tardiness, continue to make him feel bad for things he had no control over. Never again. She had no say in his life now.

A feeling of rage threatened to burble its way up, but he strangled it back into the dark place he choked all of those feelings down into. They wouldn’t serve him now, and he had more control than that.

“You were late,” said the girl, her expression now incredulous.

“Yes.”

“To your ignition day,” she continued.

“Yes,” he repeated.

“Fool,” she muttered under her breath in a voice she probably believed was too quiet for him to hear. Then she seemed to make up her mind about something. “Can you read?” She asked. The few people willing to get close enough to Leo to eavesdrop snickered at that.

Leo took a deep breath as he stared into her eyes. His face a mask of calm, his mind waging a war with his emotions as he once more buried his feelings in that deep dark pit. He did not turn to glare at all the people with last names they received from families, and access to datapads of their own, filled with information from schools they could afford to attend. Instead, he answered the question.

“I am literate. Yes,” he said evenly. Genuinely proud that he’d not allowed a hint of his feelings to leak into his voice.

“Don’t move,” the healer said, storming away. When she returned, she was holding a simple tablet. It was a basic model, only able to send, store, and receive information, but he could read the title of the data-packet that she was pulling up. It was in info packet. For a moment, his curiosity, and giddiness at new information about the ignition process, and the incredible facilities nearly overtook his previous feelings. The girls next words were an unnecessary bucket of water on all of that.

“Your ignorance is dangerous, and disruptive. Fix it. And you will return this before you leave,” she said, placing the tablet into the bag with whatever food she’d brought over earlier. Before she pulled away, she gripped his wrist, hard. “Was I clear?” She asked, her smile tight and eyes hard.

“I understand,” Leo said. The pain so negligible in his experience that he didn’t even need to suppress a wince

“Good,” she said, before turning and striding away.

She might have his compliance, but he wouldn’t allow her his rage. ‘Any person capable of angering you becomes your master.’ He quoted to himself. I will be my only master. He vowed, as he finally slumped to the floor to study and wait. Even if it was only in the sanctity of his own mind.