Levi – now alone - sat staring at her hand. She did no longer sit on a simple chair, though. Environment rebuilt itself right after her "guest" (could she even call him that? After all it was her that wandered into his private space) vanished. Right now, it was a simple room, and seat changed itself into a comfortable armchair.

The subject of her though was obvious. All this reincarnation matter was not one where errors were acceptable. But knowledge that no plan can withstand reality was ancient, and outcome was far from the worst. There were also no big deviations, no matter how many times she checked.

Acceptable. This was... acceptable.

Subject maintaining most of his memories was unexpected but acceptable.

Psychological portrait and attitude were acceptable.

The stowaway was expected, he would probably make contact with this young man about now, but things that he could do were very limited. And it was impossible to track soul to a place where it will be born. Not even the "crazy sage" will be able to do it. Or should she now call him a clock after his endeavor succeded? Poor man, even if what he had done to himself won't destroy him, it will sentence him for great pains. Next reason why she should not worry about his premature interference. And without possible danger, his contact with young man could even be beneficial. This was acceptable.

She tightened her hand into a fist. Stronger and stronger until she felt pain. And then opened it, single drop of blood concentrating in the center from injury made by her nails. Cuts closed and vanished instantly, even before drop finished to form. Moment later small, but perfect red orb levitated into the middle of the room. It swelled in moment into many times it size and exploded.

Created red fog formed multiple shapes, thirteen bigger orbs, one with the greatest diameter in the center and tweleve others rotating around it, themselves and around their own axis. This twelve had various sizes, the greatest being maybe half as big as the central one, where smallest was maybe one hundred as large. Their rotation itself was incredibly complicated, something that could even be called beautiful by a person that liked this kind of things.

Levi had seen it far to often to care.

Seven other symbols that appeared were far more important to her. They levitated around five places on a few orbs, and had completely diffirent shapes.

A clock, that looked like a pocket one.

Figurine of a warrior with a shield - a guardian.

A sword, with truly beautiful ornaments.

A small orb similar to one in center, of this entire construct but one that was shining with golden light, despite being made from red blood. The sun.

And finally a chain. Simple piece of work without any addition.

Levi sighed and complicated model shrunk and levitated between her hand.

Oh how she hated this view. This was Taihon, star system that was one of the three piercing – worlds. Or anchor-worlds. To have it closed between your hands, almost like waiting for your action. To have all most important figures to it present, and future showed strigh before you...

For a lesser, being it could be extatic. Worse person would probably think about itself as a puppeteer, controller.

She did not have similar illusions. And If she ever had, then they vanished thousands of years ago, when sword and guardian rose to power. She knew well that there was point in time, where they almost decided to kill her and certainly had a possibility to do so.

One more time, she felt annoyed at her creators for their decision to close her existence in the body of a young woman.

Oh, she did understand well, why she had to be living and sentient creature, she could also understand choice, of a human – the most common, most diverse, and potentially the most powerfull species. Lastly, she had nothing against women at all.

But the young part angered her for thousands of years.

Because this was youth exactly, what made her so afraid of death. With enough time someone old can accept that he will die. The same could even happen to people in middle age, with enough wisdom, but someone whose body was barely an adult? No matter how old was she, her body, her brain, her spirit always feared to die.

And that was why from thousands of years, from time when she was almost killed, she hated her role and hated this view. But it was not like she ever had a real choice. Oh, she was not forced. It was far worse, she just know exactly what will happen if she will fail.

So she waved her hand and model divided. Most of it flowed at the side, leaving three newest addition alone on it previous place.

In woman mind this three were of similar, great importance, even if each of them characterized different circumstances.

Chain was destined.

Clock expected.

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Sun was a surprise.

Levi bite her lips. There was little that she could do about a clock, and she "cared" about the sun for more than half a year already, despite danger associated with it.

Taihon was a world of immense importance, and inhabited by more than just two beings capable of posing a threat to her. She did not intended any harm, but maybe it will be better to leave further tampering to Protection...

Levi smiled a little when she remembered this part of her conversation with Mark. Struggle, Pain, Protection, Sacrifice. During her talks with the reincarnating boy she named every one of them. How funny it was, when the boy treated it as some kind of metaphor, when the truth was so much more...direct.

But then again, the boy itself was the most important at the current moment. She did not know what kind of form he will take, but optimal place and circumstances of his birth were already decided. Chain was an interesting shape, but there was no need to change anything.

No, it was more than interesting... It was no special... well speaking about formed souls as not special was probably completely mad on its own right, but it was no more special than others. The problem was why... why chain? This was something that she was unable to comprehend. Each soul always takes completely unique shape, but it must be something that will somehow show its... "meaning" its "essence". The Sun was the most ideal example, you just needed to look at her, and there will be nothing other that you could truly compare this child too.

And she only barely started to crawl.

She looked at the image of a chain once more. If at least this was chain used to connect things, more like a cord, she could understand... But no, image clearly showed something made from solid hard metal, that would rather be used to tie a dangerous criminal than to connect anything. It was not that such a form was impossible, but boy did not seemed like one that could take such a shape, not at all.

And Levi had a lot of experience, she refused to believe, that she would not be able to recognize character of a brat with barely two decades of memories and knowledge at his side.

And that was why this shape bothered her. Variables were needed, but it doesn't mean that she liked them.

They were needed but also dangerous.

Well, there was nothing that she could currently do to solve this riddle.

...No, this was not exactly true, it could be a little dangerous, but there was something that she could do.

Actually this was something possible only now.

She tightened her teeth. There may be no other location, so she needed to work fast.

The sun and clock flowed on the side leaving chain alone between her hands. Her palms and fingers moved so fast that they blurred, and after a moment the same happened with her lips. Thin ribbon-like stream of blood flowed from her forehad and covered her hands, before she delicately touched symbol of a chain.

While it was not flashy at all, what she was trying to do now, in this room beyond normal space and time, was an absolute peak of magic.

In the first place manipulating someones soul was something wildly know as both impossible, and extremely dangerous. While souls could not directly influence anything, their power itself was quite literally infinite, and when they themselves were indestructible. They were possible to change.

Paradoxical it was actually why trying it was so dangerous. Souls didn't like to be changed in any way except the natural one, and they showed they anger on the mind of any caster that would try it in very VERY violent way.

Activating a natural defense mechanism of a multi-dimensional construct with nearly infinite power, was basically as stupid you could get, expecially when manipulation af a mind, could bring mostly the same result, without nearly as much danger.

Obviously what Levi tried to do now was not manipulation – even leaving aside danger, she would never decide, on something like that purely do to ethical concerns.

No, what she was trying was investigation. Even this would be immeasurable dangerous in a normal situation, but present time was far from normal.

The key point was that Mark still yet not incarnated. Whatever clock was using him for it was taking a while. And until he incarnated, his soul had existed in this OTHER place and was protected not only by its own power, but also by natural laws of reincarnation.

Ironically it was this additional protection that made Levi decide that trying to investigate his soul was safe enough. Like a human slumbering in safe place, or child looked by its parents, souls had they protective reactions dulled for as long as they remained here. She was sure that she wouldn't provoke any response, as long as she will only watch.

So she touched.

And immediatelly pure hatred burned her fingers to the bone.

She did not scream, pain was to sudden for this. Instead, it made her thrust all air from her chest while all blood-constructs around exploded into mist.

She was not a being of battle and was not used to this kind of pain, later she even wondered if she ever felt something similar in the past.

A second later when recovering-sub systems activated regrowing her fingers instantly, and when she regained clearness of mind one thought appeared here instantly.

"What was that?"

She was sure that it was not act of self-protection, or it won't end with just destroyed fingers. Attack would be mental, and it will take days for her to regain her full mind capabilities.

But if this was not conscious response, then what have happened was, somehow, result of her body just making contact with Mark soul.

But that was a nonsense, while not strictly impossible, that would mean that young man soul taken its shape around hate... What would partially explain strange shape...

But the very concept of soul shaped through hate was ridiculous, not only there was nothing in Mark life that could lead to such a result (and this included not only his recent life but many, many previous up to the point when his soul was found countless of years ago) but hate itself was almost as self-destructive feeling as you could get, it should rather make shaping harder, than serve as its core.

So the most obvious conclusion was impossible, could she try to uncover more? Levi though for a moment while considering her possibilities. But no... She couldn't try soul-investigation again. Even in this place doing it more than once on the same soul was far too dangerous... And she didn't delude herself, that she could uncover from studying Mark previous life more than programs that worked on it by millennia.

Did it even change anything? Again no, it was very unexpected but do to their unique circumstances chance of soul-shaped existence being danger to her creator plans, were almost nonexistent.

“Just like existence of THIS kind of soul form”  She rejected this though instantly.

Still according to preliminary analysis as incomplete as they were, sun and chain would only have a positive effect on each other, up to the point were plans leading to this two meeting, were already made.

Just in the case, maybe she should request of speeding this up even more.