The day was coming to a close when his father and mother finally decided to break it to him. Leo was brought into their bedroom, which was soundproofed, and they finally told him.

He already knew, but they didn’t know that, and so he had to cry, and plead, just like he had the first time.

The crying wasn’t fake; the moment he started to fake it, the real tears came out, and he was soon crying into his mother’s shoulder as she comforted him with the fact that they’d see each other on holidays and during the summer.

The pleading wasn’t very hard either; after all, he only needed to copy the pleading he had already done with Maxwell. The soft “No,” from his mother hurt more than Maxwell’s stern, reproachful declinations, though, and more tears came until everything was real, and he was truly begging to stay behind.

But after an hour, a knock came from the front door, and his parents helped to calm him down for a few minutes before opening the door and handing him off to Maxwell. Leo could tell that his parents were absolutely gutted even though they tried to put on a mask of calmness for him, and it only made it worse.

Adina still didn’t seem to understand that he was never going to be able to live with them like he had before, despite their parents having explained it to her- he had been there-, and that made Leo think…

Maxwell’s conversation with his parents ended just then, and he had to shelf his thoughts in order to stay composed enough to turn around and walk away with the strange man. Tears fell heedless of his efforts to keep them restrained, and before he knew it, they had gone up the elevator and were on the roof, where a ship was waiting for them on a designated spot.

It was roughly three times the size of a school bus, with a pearl white, unadorned surface. It had two wings meant to let it move around on planets, although they were useless in space.

As they stepped onto the ship, Maxwell was talking to him, but Leo wasn’t listening. He nodded when it felt right, and the ‘conversation’ died quickly.

Nothing in the past few minutes had felt real, but this especially so. His brain simply couldn’t process the fact that he was leaving behind everything he knew.

Leo glanced down at his watch. Along with the things that the hotel’s staff had already placed inside the ship an hour or so ago, it was one of the only things that belonged to him. It was also his seventh birthday present.

The watch kept track of the time- both Standardized and Lavend III time-, but it also kept track of his heartbeat, blood pressure, pulse, calorie intake and his calories burnt, as well as a dozen other things. It also acted as a translator.

It had probably been pretty expensive, but had also been a huge help in his day-to-day life, especially since a fair number of foreigners had been in his class that year.

A powerful clap resounded only a foot in front of his face, startling Leo so badly that he almost wet himself.

“Alright, kid; you’ve been spared ‘till now because of the circumstances, but no longer. It’s time for you to get your soul under control.” Maxwell said, completely ignoring the beeping of Leo’s watch, which was shouting out his heart rate.

“What-“ Leo started, but Maxwell cut him off.

“Shush. We’re not buddies right now; I’m your teacher. Now, I’m sure that you’ve started playing around with your soul-“

This time, Leo cut him off: “No, I haven’t.”

Maxwell looked taken aback in response to his words. “Not even a little bit?” He asked.

“Not even a little bit.” Leo confirmed.

“…That’s weird. Why?” Maxwell looked at him suspiciously.

“I just didn’t.” Leo said, but just like when he had told Maxwell not to call him Leon, it was a lie.

In truth, Leo hated that he had awakened. He had deliberately avoided even vaguely interacting with his soul sphere.

Maxwell still looked suspicious, but eventually muttered something about children being strange and, after stopping to recall what he had been saying before Leo’s interruption, continued.

“Since you don’t have even a slight clue how to interact with your soul, I’ll have to change the order of things a bit. To begin with, you obviously need to figure out how to access your soul.” Maxwell said.

“How?” Leo asked.

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“I was getting there. Quit interrupting, and be more patient.” Maxwell reprimanded, “You need to learn how to open your soul sphere. It acts as a bridge between your body and your soul. The process of opening one's soul sphere is different for everyone, though, so you’ll have to figure it out on your own. Get started.”

“Here? It sounds like it’ll take a while.” Leo said.

“It won’t. Trust me; it’ll be intuitive. You’ll figure it out in minutes, I bet.”

Leo simply sat there for a few seconds, staring at Maxwell, who stared at him. After a few seconds, Maxwell awkwardly coughed.

“You can start.”

“I don’t know how to start.” Leo told him.

“You weren’t taught this in school?” Maxwell asked.

“…No? Was I meant to be?” Leo asked.

“I was, and so was everyone I’ve ever met. I guess it's taught later than I expected on Lavend III, though.”

“What was? You’re not explaining anything,” Leo told him, starting to get annoyed. “Why’d you declare yourself the teacher when you’re so bad at it?”

“Wow! That was pretty hurtful. Good job, but don’t do it again.” Maxwell said.

“Sorry,” Leo told him.

“It’s fine. Let’s continue. You simply need to clear out all the side things in your brain, and focus on your soul. It should come to you with ease.” Maxwell told him. “To make it easier, I’ll block out your senses.”

Leo frowned. “What?” He asked, but an instant later, everything vanished.

…Except for his consciousness. He couldn’t feel, see, smell, hear or taste anything. His mind felt ungrounded; like it was going to float away into the endless black void that seemed to be before him.

Leo tried to take a deep breath in order to calm himself, but was unable to, and suddenly, he felt like he was suffocating. He tried to scream, but he couldn’t.

And then, he suddenly stopped. Leo didn’t know what had caused it, but he suddenly felt calm and tranquil, like the complete sensory deprivation wasn’t so terrible.

…For the briefest of moments, he felt like Verin, the being from his… visions? Memories? He didn’t know what the scenes had been, but it didn’t change anything.

Leo focused, pushing aside all useless thoughts, and thought of his soul sphere.

Suddenly, somehow, he could feel the soul sphere, even through the sensory deprivation. It felt like a gateway to another world, ancient beyond belief and suffused with tremendous power… power that reminded him of Verin.

Leo’s mind contracted and moved in a way that felt impossible for the human mind, reaching out to touch his soul sphere. He did, and nothing happened. Leo acted on instinct, and grasped it.

----------------------------------------

As the human woman neared death, Verin reached out for her pitiful Existence.

‘The final trace of life in her universe,’ Verin thought, awed. The universe had entered the final stages of its life, and it had been truly incredible that this version of humanity had survived as long as it had.

With ease, her Existence was scooped out of the confines of her universe, and appeared before him. Her body was dead, but her Existence was not. Verin connected the two once more, and Mun was reborn.

“Greetings, Mun,” Verin said.

----------------------------------------

Leo felt nauseous as his mind was bombarded by two separate things- sensory overload and visions of Verin.

While his mind had been whisked away to see Verin save a technocrat woman, his soul had almost entirely entered the physical world, only a tiny wisp of it remaining on the other end of his soul sphere.

The instant that it was freed, Leo felt like he had complete control of everything within its radius, which encompassed the ship and several yards outside of it… which was nothing. He remembered learning in school that outside of a planet’s atmosphere, there was literally nothing, but it was different to feel it personally.

Leo could feel the souls of several other people at the same time, each one currently self contained… aside from Maxwell’s. His soul was currently doing something weird with his body- presumably separating his mind and senses.

The area that his soul encompassed was easily several times larger than Leo’s, and every bit of it was several times stronger. Moreover, Leo felt that the soul of every other passenger was also significantly stronger.

…That felt impossible, not because his soul was tremendously powerful, but because it bared traces of Verin. He had already come to associate Verin with supreme power, and so it felt wrong for Leo’s soul, bearing traces of Verin’s, to be so utterly outclassed.

Leo pushed these thoughts aside after a few seconds, taking direct control of his soul. He compressed it until it didn’t encompass much more than his own body. While smaller, his dominion over the smaller area felt much more concrete.

Concrete enough that he was able to shove Maxwell’s soul away from his body with relative ease. Of course, that hadn’t been any more than a small fragment of his soul, but it still felt rewarding.

And then, Leo fell over as he very abruptly regained all five of his senses and control over his body. However, what caused him to throw up a second later was how incredibly taxed his soul felt.

It didn’t feel like it was limited to just his soul, but his body, too. He couldn’t perfectly describe the pain that his soul was enduring, but it felt very similar to what his body was feeling- exhaustion beyond belief and tears-worthy aches.

Maxwell had never been the only one inside the ship’s waiting room; two others, a woman and an old-looking man, had been sitting at the other end, and in that moment, the old man rushed forward, crossing the twelve-yard gap in a single footstep.

Leo felt the man’s soul gently expand from his soul sphere and envelop the man’s hand as he pressed it against Leo’s forehead.

The pain in his soul and body both dulled, and Leo took a deep, shaky breath as the sounds of the world returned to him. There was some shouting- between the woman and Maxwell, it seemed-, but the old man took him away from it. Picking him up with ease, he brought Leo down a hallway and into his room, where he laid Leo on the bed.

“You need to put your soul back into the spirit realm,” The old man said, and Leo shook his head.

“It’s too tired. Won’t move an inch,” Leo croaked.

“Just try… on three, alright? One… two… three.”

Leo tried to stuff his soul back through the gateway that was his soul sphere, but it didn’t budge- until the old man’s soul enveloped his own, and, with Leo’s assistance, gently guided it through his soul sphere.

And then, it was all over. His soul was stuffed back on the other end, and Leo was left with a merely exhausted body.

“You should be fine. Just go to sleep,” The old man told him. “You’ll feel better when you wake up.”