Kano left it to An to explain what Ren needed to do and went back to just redirecting energy. The relief of not having to tax herself doing two things at once anymore was almost enough to block out the pain for a little while. As far as she could tell, the children were still alive. Though they were starting to glow, which was probably not a good sign.

Once Ren understood her task, she oozed through the hole in the reactor’s wall that Werisah had made and enveloped a sizeable portion of the catalysts. They vanished into her malleable form, and her whole body quaked.

“Are you ready?” An called when Ren went still.

“Do it.”

Kano couldn’t spare the concentration to watch, but she could sense that An was transferring something along with the energy building within Ren. It was at this point that Kano realized a potential flaw in this plan. If they made another reactor, what was to stop it having the same problem?

But there was probably nothing to worry about. Surely An had already taken that into consideration. If Kano had thought of it, then the necromancer must have as well. She couldn’t afford to spare it much thought either way. Her own task was hard enough.

With Ren’s help, An neutralized the last of the catalysts, and Kano was at last free to release her hold over the dissipating energy. After watching it multiply for so long, seeing it finally decrease almost felt too good to be true. But her senses didn’t deceive her, and she could take a well-deserved rest. Sinking to the floor, she felt like going right to sleep, but that would have to wait. She had to see the rest of this through first. She glanced over to the children and saw that they were already asleep. Hopefully they’d be okay when they woke up.

“What now?” Kano asked, seeing that the energy was still swelling within Ren.

“Now all Ren needs to do is shut herself down.”

Ren swiveled to face her, her body strobing with color. “And how am I supposed to do that?”

“Er, are you not able to? I assumed you’d be able to manage that level of control, given that you were able to mimic the catalysts so perfectly.”

“Those are totally different things. What am I even supposed to do to make this stop?”

“I’m not sure. I suppose if you can’t will the reactor to do as you wish, then you could simply break down the catalysts you create within your own body… You shouldn’t suffer the sort of chain reaction the reactor was at risk of, though I’m not sure how whatever is in the catalysts will react with your body.”

Ren’s eyes widened. “I wish you’d said that last part sooner.”

“Why?”

“Because I already started breaking them down.”

An backed away toward the exit. “Oh dear. Does it feel as if you might explode soon?”

“What? Am I going to explode?”

“It’s a distinct possibility.”

Still sitting down, Kano just watched the disaster unfold. Maybe trusting An with this hadn’t been such a good idea, not that she’d been spoiled with options at the time. Some of the fault was probably her own anyway. She was the one who’d suggested Ren in the first place.

“Calm down,” Kano said, “she’s not going to explode yet.” The energy within Ren was being channeled into something, but it didn’t strike Kano as immediately dangerous or unstable. It looked more like Ren was just absorbing the energy into her body, and yet she seemed to have no knowledge of what was happening to her. Kano might be guilty of much the same presumption as An in that she’d thought that Ren’s ability to recreate things using her body was due to precise control over her own form. Though it seemed more like it was actually an inherent function that Ren herself didn’t understand and had only a limited degree of control over.

Late as the realization was, it was still useful. Not that it offered any insight into Ren’s current predicament. “How do you feel right now? Anything unusual?”

“Worried. Angry that I let you talk me into this, and—”

Before she could continue her list, Kano said, “I meant how does your body feel.”

“Oh. It feels pretty much the same as usual.”

Well, that was helpful. “Nothing that seems at all strange?”

“No, though it’s not like I can feel much in the first place.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Clearly going by how Ren felt wasn’t going to get them anywhere. How else were they supposed to diagnose what was happening to her? “An, you’re a necromancer, can’t you figure this out? This seems like exactly the sort of thing you guys do.”

“I suppose I could take a look,” An said with her back pressed against the door.

“Well?” Kano asked when An stayed where she was.

“She’s definitely not going to explode, right?”

“It doesn’t seem like it, though your guess is as good as mine. Is there some particular reason you think she’ll explode?”

“Well, no, not exactly. It just seemed like something worth being wary of.”

“Noted. Now can you hurry up?”

Taking a few tools from her robes, An went to work. She looked through the lenses of a complicated-looking device and spent a while scrutinizing Ren’s body while Kano took the opportunity to close her eyes and rest. Now that the excitement was fading, her exhaustion hung over her like a heavy net, trying to draw her down into slumber. But she stayed strong and willed herself to stay awake. Despite her exhaustion, it was easy enough if she put her mind to it. If only the same were true of solving Ren’s problem.

In fact, they weren’t even sure there was a problem. But there had to be, didn’t there? There was no way it could be this easy. The reactor had been quite dangerous and unstable, so it stood to reason that recreating that same structure would carry proportionate risk, even if the form that risk took wasn’t necessarily the same.

An was still inspecting Ren, intent on whatever her instruments were telling her, when Kano opened her eyes and noticed a thin line had appeared on Ren’s body. At first she assumed it was simply the way the flesh was sitting, but she watched as the line quickly lengthened until it went right around Ren’s rearmost section. And then, without further warning, everything on the rear side of the line detached.

Kano watched it fall to the ground, writhing as its shape changed, before looking back at Ren and An. Neither of them had even noticed yet.

“Hey, guys,” Kano called, pointing at the newly separated portion of Ren’s body. Ren really mustn’t be able to feel much if she had no idea her body was splitting in two.

They both looked to where Kano pointed, eyes widening in dumbfounded amazement as they beheld the sudden change Ren’s form was undergoing. Before they had time to act, another rapidly widening fissure appeared before their eyes. It was followed by another, and like a dam bursting, the cracks multiplied with incredible speed.

With only the portion that formed her copy of Kano intact, Ren clutched at the nearest part of herself, trying to keep it from splitting off. But her efforts did nothing to repair the rift, which widened until the portion was no longer connected, and it slipped from her arms.

Strange as it was to see Ren split apart, it was even stranger still when Kano realized each piece was moving independently. How was that possible? They had no brains, though now that Kano thought about it, she wasn’t sure if Ren had one either. Still, Ren only had one soul. Had it somehow been split between the different bodies? Or were they all being controlled by the same soul, wherever it was? Neither explanation made much sense to her, but she couldn’t think of any alternatives.

“I’m guessing you don’t understand this either,” Kano remarked to An.

“Not currently, though I hope to.” Shaken from her stupor, the necromancer went over to examine one of Ren’s fragments. “Oh,” she said, setting aside her tools after only a few moments. “Odd as it is, the cause of Ren’s unexpected split is far simpler than I supposed. It appears she received several souls from the reactor, which have accordingly split her apart to form their own bodies.”

That was what had been in the reactor? Souls? Kano shrugged. It made as much sense as anything else to her. “Is she okay?” The much-reduced blob appeared to still be frozen in shock at what had become of her body, though Kano wondered if the division hadn’t taken some kind of toll on Ren’s mind. Even if Ren hadn’t noticed it happening at first, Kano found it hard to believe the process wasn’t traumatic. She’d practically been torn apart, after all. How could anyone be okay with that?

“As far as I can tell, there’s nothing wrong with her. Other than losing most of her body, of course.”

“Hello? Ren?” Kano called. “Can you hear me?”

Kano’s replica slowly turned its head to face her. “Kano?” Ren muttered, sounding dazed.

“That’s right, it’s me. Can you see me?”

“Of course I can see you, what kind of question is that?” Her annoyance seemed to help bring her back to reality as she took in her surroundings with clear eyes.

“Good. I was worried something terrible might have happened to you. But you seem okay.” Kano glanced at the writhing pieces of Ren’s body. “Are you?”

“I think so. Mostly I just feel tired.” She yawned to accentuate her point, an odd mannerism given that she probably didn’t need to breathe. “My job is over, right? Can I rest now?”

“Go ahead.” Ren lay down, still looking like Kano, and Kano added, “Thank you, by the way. For what you did. You probably saved us all.”

Ren’s only response was an indistinct sound from the back of her throat, and she closed her eyes. Kano watched over Ren for a little while to make sure she wasn’t about to suddenly die, but she seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Good. That was one less thing to worry about. Now all they had to do was figure out what to do about these other souls that had split off from Ren.

They didn’t look dangerous, but given that Ren’s body tended to absorb organic matter, they probably couldn’t leave them to roam free. Were they even intelligent? Their aimless movements didn’t seem to suggest that. She prodded one with her foot, but there was no reaction.

“Any idea what we should do with these?” Kano asked, gesturing toward the multicolored piles of flesh.

“Hm, if it weren’t for the potential danger of them getting into the reactor and starting something again, I’d suggest we just leave them in here. For the time being, I think it’s best that we just try to get them out of here and away from the reactor. You know Ren better than I do. Do you have any ideas as to how we could move them out?”

“Nope.” She hadn’t been able to move Ren at all when she’d wanted to.

An sighed. “You’re lucky you have me, you know that? I’ll put something together. Just keep an eye on them and try to keep them from doing anything that might be dangerous.”

Kano watched them carefully, though she wasn’t sure how much she could do to stop them if they headed for the reactor. If worse came to worst, she could try to use her force field again, but she wasn’t sure if it still worked, and she definitely didn’t want to use it when she was already so exhausted. Why did Ren get to sleep while she was trying to clean up the blob’s mess? It was completely unfair.