Hey, hey! Here's an advanced lesson on soul surgery!

While skills are basically forcing your soul into doing specific actions without you needing to think about them too much, manual surgery is a lot more flexible--if a little bit unsafe.

It's easy to go too far or be so cautious no difference can be seen, but once you understand how to make the best of it, it can lead to some very interesting results.

For example: the laws of physics in a universe are kept in check by said universe, which is to say their soul. Things like gravity are extremely common because of all the advantages it provides, but did you know it's extremely easy to just disable or lessen the impact of gravity on a specific object? Or maybe, we can increase it to ludicrous levels.

I throw myself at Perseverance and push her as hard as I can, it surprises her for only a moment, but a moment is all I need, I increase her clothing's weight and harden it enough so that it doesn't rip and she can't just take it off. I don't want to crush her bones or anything, just immobilize her, changing her soul directly is a little bit too tricky to do in the middle of a fight, but her clothes? Now that's fair game.

The added weight of her clothes finally tips her over in the direction I pushed her in, and she's now unable to escape

I don't want to hurt her too bad okay? I'd be setting up a terrible example for Hotel if I just kill them, so I'll just incapacitate them, and then we'll talk-

Perseverance slowly gets up despite her clothing that must now weigh 20 times her weight. How is she-

PERSEVERANCE BLAST

To my surprise, she blasts her own clothing off, she is very much naked for what is not a split second but she's unbothered by her nudity. I can hear a chortle from Frustration, now that I think about it she hasn't done anything during this whole exchange. Whatever, if she's going to stay put I have no reason to focus on her.

"Tonevergiveupinthefaceofadversitytoliveanddiebyone'sgoaluntiltheveryendlettingnoobstaclekeepyoudownthatisperseverance." She says something so fast I can barely understand it, a purple ribbon forms around her and a brand-new magical girl suit comes to replace the old one.

Alright, so maybe I should've made the clothing a little bit harder to destroy. Doing that can be problematic, though-

PERSEVERANCE ETERNAL

A dozen of what look like purple snakes start to circle around me like I'm a lifeboat surrounded by a bunch of sharks. Perseverance slowly walks up towards me, every time I look away from one of the purple snakes, it jumps at me. But unlike the beams they just don't stop existing once they are 'fired', they just come back to circling around me.

I cast another glance at Frustration to see if she's not going to do anything, she's leaning on the side of a building and talking with Hotel, at least she's not a threat but...

"Hey, can't you help a little? Your nemesis is being a pain here," I say, as I dodge another one of those annoying snakes.

"Naaah, I'm powered on frustration, I was kind of mad you interrupted our fight, but seeing her tear her own clothing off was just too funny for me to be angry anymore," Frustration laughs, "Good luck taking her down though, she's impossible to reason with when she's like this. But I'm rooting for ya."

Seeing she's not about to interfere does take a weight off my mind. I wish she didn't speak to Hotel at all, but maybe they are safer with her than alone. I direct my attention to the fight again, I can't get distracted.

The snakes are directly tied to her soul somehow, so modifying them in a hurry is out of the question. Let's think about this for one second. I'm trying to take her out without using violence too much, but if I try to restrain her she just gets stronger and stronger until she can just destroy whatever's keeping her tied up. Taking out the air around her until she's knocked out? Might cause brain damage if I'm not careful. Trapping her into an immovable object? I don't like bending the laws of physics to THAT extent, or the universe might genuinely get pissed off.

My thoughts are interrupted by all the snakes springing on me at once, I jump out of the way and a massive purple pillar destroys everything where the snakes intersected. The snakes are something, but I'm more scared of Perseverance who isn't...doing much honestly? She's just slowly walking towards me, that's it. Is she preparing something? I can't help but feel a little uneasy-

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

PERSEVERANCE TRACKING

At least she's nice enough to yell what attack she's going to use.

Her pace quickens to a sprint, I change the texture of the ground into something a lot more slippery. She almost falls down a couple of times, but the best it does is slow her down, she jumps towards me and-

A gray cement wall appears between me and Perseverance, she slams into it with so much force I thought it was going to break, but it somehow holds. The snakes disappear the moment she hits the wall--wait, isn't that wall from the orphanage?

"I- I appreciate the fact you want to solve this without violence. But..." I can hear someone say behind me, "You might end up hurting more people if you hold back too much."

A girl with a blue mask and an oversized hoodie jogs up to me.

"I just don't want Hotel to think violence is an okay thing to do, if I go all out then they will just think that's how everything can be solved." I try to justify myself.

The girl--who is obviously Inadequacy--shakes her head, "Kids are not as stupid as you think they are, and trying to make them think the world is so black and white is only going to make things worse," She turns back to Hotel and nods, Hotel nods back. A silent agreement I don't have anything to do with.

Perseverance walks around the wall, but another wall ends up blocking her way every time she's about to get any closer, this repeats a few dozen times until, eventually, Perseverance's patience is at its limit and she ends up blasting the walls in front of her, the walls glow intensely for a few seconds--and they do end up crumbling--but they get replaced by another wall the very moment the first one falls apart.

"M-my powers are very limited, you know? I need to- I have to draw the runes myself before adding the anti-magic properties to it," Inadequacy explains, "But if someone can instantly make a wall with the runes already drawn? Then adding the anti-magic only takes a couple of seconds."

Perseverance's eyes widen, the reality of the situation slowly setting in. But she doesn't stop, more blasts, more walls to stop her, two steps forward and two steps back. Her blasts get bigger and bigger but the walls always end up absorbing the blows. She tries to jump over the walls, but a roof ends up being built right above her, she tries absolutely everything she can only for all of it to stop her dead in her tracks.

"T-that's how I feel every day, you know?" Inadequacy says, "That everything I do is pointless, always someone better, that I'm never making any progress."

Perseverance's attacks are getting weaker, I can't tell if she's getting tired or if she's finally accepting the fact she's losing. "I won't give up, even if everything is against me then..." Perseverance mumbles to herself.

"But I think you...you're so much more pathetic than I am," Inadequacy continues, "you have so much power and yet you use it to do the exact same thing over and over. I'm a weakling by magical girl standards, and yet I'm doing more every day than you've done in your entire life."

Perseverance hits the walls pathetically, it's really hard to see her as the girl that gave me so much trouble only a couple of minutes ago. Inadequacy walks past me and stops in front of Perseverance, I can't see what her face is like under the mask, but I assume it's some form of disgust.

A single punch, that's all it takes for Perseverance to be knocked out. Inadequacy looks at the unconscious girl for a few seconds, and seeing she's not about to wake up, she finally lets herself fall on the ground too, "I- I think I could've added anti-magic to only a couple more walls, it's not fair. Even though we perfectly countered her, she still gave me so much trouble."

Frustration starts to clap, "I didn't even think it was possible to make Perseverance give up on anything. It's one of the few situations where my power would've been better, I would've just ended up stronger as my frustration built up." She nods to herself, "I like to think that makes me the winner in a way."

"Y- you didn't help at all!" Inadequacy shouts.

"I told you what the kid was capable of didn't I? Nice teamwork by the way," Frustration looks back at Hotel. "Is the kid a girl? They gotta be if they can use magic like this."

"K-kids can't be magical girls, you know that."

"Yeah, and boys usually can't be magical etiher, and yet Awe was a guy wasn't he? There's an exception to everything."

The girls banter for a little bit longer. I can't help but feel like I was a little useless in this fight, I expected her to be powerful, but everything I threw at her only made her stronger. I got so cocky thinking I'd be able to beat them easily with soul surgery, but I actually got outmatched by the locals pretty hard. It's been a very long time since I've actually felt...weak? It's not such a bad feeling actually, being rescued at the last moment by someone else. I could get used to this.

"What do we do with her?" I ask as I poke Perseverance a couple of times to make sure she's truly out.

"I don't knooow," Inadequacy whines, "I helped a criminal and took down one of the highest ranked magical girls so that can't be good at all for me and the orphanage, I can't just throw her into prison or anything..."

"Just let her go, if she ever comes back you can just crush her spirit again," Frustration proposes, "The only reason she kept coming back is because we were always at a stalemate, so she thought she had a chance. But being beaten like this? It's going to bruise her ego enough that I doubt she's going to bother us again anytime soon."

I just shrug at her explanation and go sit next to Hotel. I'm honestly not sure what they learned from all of this, "So, how do you feel about all of this?" I ask them.

"Violence...less...choice?" Hotel answers.

"Yeah, I guess it's better to only fight as an absolute last resort if nothing else works. Good enough."

"How...know?"

"You don't, that's the hard part. But if you think violence is going to make things worse for everyone, then avoid it I guess."

Hotel nods and I just sigh. Is it okay to care so much? It's just going to hurt in the end isn't it? I really want to leave but...

I take another glace at Hotel, they are playing with a mini-orphanage they just made, they improved a lot.

Something's bubbling inside me, a weird desire that has always been there but waited all this time to make itself known. I know what that feeling is, but I don't like acknowledging it's there, it whisper in my ears.

'I think you're just afraid of choosing at all.'