TF Chapter 71 A Star

***Nathaniel***

"Danny said your spiritual powers transformed weirdly, even causing the creature to feel fear...how exactly did that come to be?"

Minutes had passed before Bora threw out this question. Those minutes had been the time that had been needed for all of us to regain our faculties. Though, I had to admit, that slap was something I hadn't expected from her. Witnessing that side of her, which had lost control had somehow made me feel more elated. When her emotions had taken control, she had appeared more animated, more vibrant to me, instead of her dull cold self. It had been the same with that genuine smile she had shown when congratulating me about my recovery. She had been truly happy.

"I don't really know what could have caused such a phenomenon, but I remember them pulsing like a heart at the start, as if truly alive. But because I had been in the middle of a battle, I ignored them and continued fighting..."

Even now, as I looked within myself, I could see that star, burning, attracting and compressing my spiritual powers. It was an exact replica of the true stars, whose images I had seen in the virtual word, except that my star, this intent, appeared to resemble the real thing.

I also had the feeling that it wasn't really real, just an amalgam of my spiritual powers given form. The word intent had naturally formed within my mind the moment I had gazed upon the star the first time, but what was intent exactly.

A star...once, when young, I had yearned to transform into one of them after laying eyes upon a virtual construct. It had been so beautiful, so powerful, so magnificent...I had been mesmerised. Could that moment have led to the creation of this star?

While delving within my thoughts, my mouth never stopped moving as I narrated every little detail, without leaving anything out to my two companions. I wanted to see whether they could pick out something that would allow them to awaken their own intents, such that I could have some reference material.

I explained everything I had experienced to the best of my ability, not adding any falsities within as that would only cause problems for them. Bora's purple petals glittered within this place as her eyes were focused on me, absorbing my every word.

I felt a bit hot on my face, but held down the urge to turn away, instead pretending to have my gaze focused somewhere between her and Danny, yet my eyes involuntarily always returned to her. I had never been this conscious of her when we had been training, even when our bodies had been at zero distance from each other.

Now, even her gaze alone was enough to fluster me this much.

I took a breath, closed my eyes, and ran away to my spiritual space, where the flaming molten star was burning with a powerful intensity. From the moment I had woken up, to now, I hadn't had the chance to try out this new spiritual transformation. Now was as good a time as any. Honestly, I didn't want to gaze upon her once again as that might make me do something I might regret.

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(Sigh)

Did all those people who fell in love feel this way, the butterflies in the stomach, the failure to hold a proper conversation and most of all, the urge to always have your eyes on her. I was 45 years! I shouldn't be acting like a teenager!

With a thought, I triggered the intent, causing the sparkling nebula of mist to reappear within this space, which had previously been empty. Last time, the mist simply liked to linger within this space, but the intent seems to have become some sort of new storage for it.

After triggering it, I opened my eyes to see the effects for myself in the real world only for Bora's flinch to make me withdraw my spiritual powers into my core.

Fear and terror. Those two emotions had been expressed so vividly within those purple pupils of hers that I had been shocked into pulling back. What had startled her so?

***Bora***

Those eyes! Though the rims of his pupils hadn't turned white like previously, this time having been akin to flames, that memory had still been brought to the fore, causing me to flinch.

I suddenly became embarrassed upon seeing that look upon his face, like he had just been rejected. Honestly, I should have gotten over that months ago, yet...

(Sigh)

I had just shown Nathaniel something I had been trying to hide all along, the fear that he might one day get taken over and kill me. I had gotten nightmares many times from that single memory. That hadn't been Nathaniel. It had been a being who had had the power to annihilate me in an instant. At that time I had felt weak...very weak and terrified and...

"WHAT is intent?"

The question naturally came out of ny lips to stave off the fear that had been threatening to consume me. I had seen an expression on Nathaniel's face that made me want to never show an unsightly side of me in front of him ever again.

"I have no idea. The word simply unveiled itself the moment I had laid eyes upon the sun within my spiritual space, like it was apart of the universe."

"I don't believe in such things, like luck or something, only coincidences. There must be a force on this planet, akin to that on Musana continent...of course this is just speculation on my part as I have never experienced your exact circumstances..."

The more I spoke, the more my fear and terror dissolved into nothingness, causing me to feel like I had just started a reaction to change myself to a better person.

I had a thought that if I managed to change myself, maybe I could gain the courage to confront my father head on, instead of what I did before, sending that crappy message.

"I believe that we shouldn't speculate carelessly here...you do remember what had happened on Musana before, right? What if there is some being here who has an even shorter fuse than that?"

I mustered all my willpower to prevent myself from flinching after the guy had spoken. I would never forget that moment when the possessed Nathaniel had had those silver rimmed pupils of his boring directly through me. The fear I had felt from that day forth had given me multiple nightmares.

(Cough)

I decided to drop that topic there and then as I didn't want to enter into an entity's bad books. What had happened to that Ross' family boy was still vivid within my mind.

"...the word will also probably appear within your minds when your intent appears?" Nathaniel's words didn't have any other point instead having the purpose of trying to lighten the atmosphere.

"You said that there was an egg shaped cradle within your mind...one formed of your spiritual powers, right? I do remember you complaining about how your spiritual powers hadn't grown when that being had temporarily taken over your body. Could it be that it had compressed your spiritual powers at the time?" After much pondering and calculations, this was the only conclusion I could come up with.

"...now that I think about it, that is a plausible explanation. I wonder...can the two of you also try to compress your spiritual powers?"

Nathaniel asked the question with the faint light from the gap in the leaf curtain lighting up his face, from the lightning raging outside.