70 – Liù is back

They felt the change before they saw Ishrin shift in place, changing from his lotus position to one where he was sitting with his back to the door, hiding what he was doing from them. Both Melina and Lisette got up at the same time, walking towards the room Ishrin was in but stopping at the threshold, beyond the soundproofing barrier.

They could see better, from their new vantage point. His right arm was outstretched, disappearing into a void filled with strange stars that looked like they did when he opened his inventory, but at the same time looked different from what they remembered. It was as if he was using the inventory to do something else, and the image of him doing the same moments before disaster struck at the mountain astral realm filled Melina with dread. Beside her, Lisette was perfectly calm, and Melina could not tell whether the girl was reminded of the same episode with just a glance, her outward appearance placid as a lake, only marred by waves of barely repressed curiosity.

Her mind, Melina’s own mind told her, was not the same as a normal person’s mind. She had forgiven her, and even though Melina did believe that Lisette was still suffering from trauma, it was as if there was no more room for any other form of trauma in her mind, beyond the original one that had made her turn out the way she was. If this interpretation was true, it would explain why Lisette was seemingly not making the same connection Melina was making, the parallel obvious to everyone, Lisette included, but only significantly activating emotions in one of them and not in the other.

Then Ishrin was moving. His arm did, at least, with microscopic adjustments that she imagined were him feeling tiny objects inside his strange storage space with fingers that were the size of mountains.

Then a sound. The barrier popped like a soap bubble, and a rush of magic joined the ambient mana of the cave system, telling her that whatever Ishrin had done had saturated his room with more mana than she thought possible for a Tier 3 core to handle. But a quick check told her that he was still at that Tier, and so must have pulled the energy from somewhere else.

The inventory was now closed, and all light seemed to have died in the room except for a deep all-encompassing blue that swallowed everything else. She recognized the hue of that light. Oh, how could she not? It was the exact same color as the giant cube inside the mountain, in the realm where they almost died.

Her heart raced, and her body felt hot and cold at the same time. She was sweating, like she had a fever, and her eyes were transfixed on the light moving left and right, forming and dissipating shadows with its every movement. Eventually she saw it, the source of the light, and it was a small cube no bigger than Ishrin’s hand. It was that cube. She remembered it now, that other cube, the smaller version of the one she tried to destroy and that they stole so they could study it later.

“Are you here…?” Ishrin mumbled, unaware of the fact that Melina was there. “Liù?” He asked the cube.

Melina held her breath, not daring take a single step.

“Liù, don’t play games with me.” He said, and while his voice sounded angry, his body language was trepidant but hid no trace of that anger. “I can feel you, come on, it’s not the time to play pretend.”

Slowly, almost shyly, Ishrin’s power began to flow towards the cube, powering it with his own cultivation. It was a lot of power, she thought.

The glow deepened. The light grew stronger.

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The cube was lifted up into the air by its own power.

Then…

Nothing.

“Come on!”

Again, nothing. Melina was beginning to think that maybe, maybe—

Suddenly a rush of energy unlike anything she had ever witnessed shook the entire room, the shockwave collapsing on itself right before it hit the confined space of the concrete walls to return to its center. And there, at the center, was the cube, floating in the air and rotating around Ishrin like a moon, glowing. A voice that was sound and yet it was not, like words appearing in consciousness.

Hi Ishrin~

“Liù? You can… talk?” Ishrin said, and his voice was on the verge of breaking.

What do you meaaaan >.<

“You can talk! Oh, I have missed you so much.”

Awwww :3

“What’s with this strange way you’re talking though?”

I’m Liù! What do you mean strange??????

“Nothing, nothing! So, little rascal, tell me: what are you doing inside a super advanced piece of technology?”

I hid here~ hehe!

“When you healed me?”

Death was searching for me! I said no! And flew into your pocket space :P that’s how I ended up being sucked in here! It’s so strange, this place. There was no light. I am a creature of the light! It was scary, at the beginning. But I made this place mine, in the end :D

Melina didn’t immediately respond. The reason why Ishrin had suddenly turned to face her was because of the noise she made when she almost collapsed to her knees, overwhelmed as she was by all the swirling emotions in her mind. She felt his gaze, inquisitive and curious, but more than anything she felt her gaze. It was powerful, solid, sharp. But at the same time familiar.

Except, what used to be a little creature was now like a giant, powerful and menacing but also playful and sweet. And so Melina stared at the small floating cube that once was a little denizen of the elemental realm and wondered about what had really happened to Liù that changed her so much, and yet so little.

Hi Melinaaa~

“H-hi.” She said tentatively. “Sorry Ishrin. I came in a while ago but I saw that you were having a moment, I don’t know, I didn’t want to distract you so I stood as still as possible and, and—”

“So you saw it!” He said quickly.

Then Lisette also joined them. “We did, Ishrin. Truly a miracle.” She shrugged then, as if a miracle was the very least she expected him to perform. As if the fact that he could bring back a dead pixie who had spent her very being, down to the last mote of mana, to heal a person dying from who knows what was simply another day on the job. Perhaps she was right.

Ishrin left as the three talked and chatted for what felt like hours to catch up. Liù was particularly surprised at the shift in Lisette’s attitude, and she was very happy at how chatty her new friend had become. The two were the best of friends now, all their past misgivings forgotten.

Melina was not jealous. Not only because Liù made sure to shower them both with praise and attention, remembering every single detail about them from the last time she saw them, and complimenting them for their growth and gains. But also because she did not see the time Liù spent talking with Lisette as time she did not spend with her. She was not that kind of person, perhaps, not anymore. Or perhaps it was due to her new relationship with Lisette, a person she no longer saw as competition but as an ally.

This last thought opened a pit at her stomach. Lisette might be an ally, but the real battleground was Ishrin, who was having a heated discussion with Sir Westys—the boy complaining about the forced stop in their delving—without half a clue about what was going on in her head. She wanted to come to his rescue, manhandle Sir Westys’ a little, as he deserved, to vent and show Ishrin she had her back. But she held herself back in the end. She was not a young mageling, barely pubescent, acting irrationally because she got a little emotional.

She needed to be smart.

Then Lisette said something that made her brain sputter and restart.

“You have made me worried, pixie Liù.” The black-clad, stoic killer said. “I am slightly angry at you for what you have done, sacrificing yourself and all of that, and demand that you and I have a long catching up session. Alone. We have to gossip.”

If Ishrin had been there, he would have joined Melina in her staring at Lisette like she was an alien.

“What?” Melina asked, and her voice was deadpan because the circuits of the brain that connected emotions to spoken language failed to create a meaningful inflection to her tone of voice.

Yes! Yes! I will chat with you, girls talk!

“Good. Come.” Lisette said, completely serious.