“Wake,” a small whisper said in my ear. I opened my eyes and whirled around. I stood in a dark space where everything was black, and couldn’t see anything around me. It was just like the space I would go to when I got a new spirit to join me, but I didn’t meet any new spirits, did I?

“Who’s there?!” I called out into the never-ending nothingness.

“Me,” the small whisper said in my ear again. I looked at my shoulders to see if a spirit was standing on them but saw nothing.

“Who are you?” I asked, still confused and a little panicked.

“Me,” the whisper said again.

This is getting us nowhere fast. I need a new question. “Where are you?” I asked.

“Here,” the whisper said again, being wholly unhelpful.

“Where is here?”

“Here.”

“Show me where here is?”

“No.”

“Why not?!”

“Trust.”

I raised an eyebrow at that and asked, “You don’t trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Why not?”

“New.”

“New? What does that mean?”

“New.”

“And we’re back to square one. Umm, Why are you talking to me?”

“Curious.”

“You’re curious about me?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want to know?” I shrugged.

“You.”

“Not helpful!” I snapped into the darkness.

“Ah, Scary!” the whisper exclaimed, still very softly.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. I was just getting impatient.”

“Scary.”

“Why don’t you come out and talk with me?”

“No.”

“Well then, can I go if you won’t talk with me.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Curious.”

I sighed, “Well, I’m curious too, but I can’t tell you anything if you don’t ask me directly or show yourself.”

The whisper went silent for a moment, a bit too long actually. Then a tiny dot of light appeared in front of my face. I backed up in surprise and squinted at it. The small dot was made out of flames, ice, and silver arcs of light pulsed out of it as it floated before me. “Hi,” the whisper said from the small whisp of light.

“Oh, so you’re the one talking,” I said, realization dawning, “So, what are you?”

“Me.”

“Yes, you. What are you?”

“Me.”

“Okay, are you a monster?”

“No.”

“Are you a spell?”

“No.”

“Are you a spirit?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I blinked in surprise, “Well, that answers that question. Do you have a name?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your name?”

The whisp hesitated for a moment before saying, “Crucible.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I blinked, “Huh?”

“Crucible.”

“W-w-what?”

“Cru-ci-ble,” the whisp said slowly this time.

“You are my sword?”

“No.”

“But your name is Crucible.”

“Yes.”

“How did you get the name then?”

“You.”

“But you’re not my sword?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a spirit?”

“Yes.”

“That lives in my sword?”

“Yes.”

I nodded, understanding a little more, “Why talk to me now? How did you get into my sword? Why did you get into my sword.”

“Unknown.”

“What do you mean, ‘unknown’? Do you not know?”

“Yes?”

“You don’t sound too sure of yourself.”

“New.”

I nodded again, “A new spirit. How did you come to be?”

“Forge.”

“When we were making the sword?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” I said and began to think as fast as I could. If this has been in the sword for the entire time, what had happened? When did it come to life? How are spirits made? Wait, don’t answer that. But why is it talking to me now? “Why are you talking to me now? There has to be some reason.”

Crucible hesitated a moment, “Hunger.”

“Hunger? For what?”

“Chakra.”

“You hunger for chakra? Can you make it yourself?”

“No.”

“Do you know how?”

“No?”

“Okay, so let me get this straight. You talked to me because you were curious and hungry. You can’t cultivate chakra, so you ask me. The one person you can talk to because of the lack of chakra or something. But you also want to know stuff about me. Why do you want to know about me?”

Crucible was silent for a moment as it thought, “Want.”

“Want what?”

“Lonely.”

“You want to be alone? Doesn’t sound like you’re doing it right.”

“No.”

“No, you don’t want to be alone? This is a very confusing conversation.”

“Yes.”

“At least you agree with me. Why are you lonely?”

“Alone.”

“I should’ve guessed that was the answer. Umm, you want chakra but can’t get it yourself. You want to know me so you won’t be alone. You want to go into my core and get chakra, right?”

Crucible hesitated, “Maybe.”

“Maybe, as in you haven’t decided yet?”

“Yes.”

“Well, let me decide for you,” I said, “If you are left to be in my sword, you will probably become starved of chakra. So, you reach out to find and meet me so I can help you with that, but you don’t trust me. Since you don’t trust me, you don’t want to join me forever. This leads back to the first problem of hunger and in need of chakra. So, why don’t you join me and learn about me as we go along, and you’ll get all the chakra you need?”

“Trust?”

“Yes, you can trust me. Don’t worry about it. I will take good care of you. Plus, there are two more spirits inside me that are much older. I’m sure they’ll accommodate you and be your friends.”

Crucible floated around me in a quivering line as it paced and thought about what to do. Before it finally stopped and said, “Yes.”

“Yes? Are you sure? There’s no turning back.”

“Yes.”

I smiled and extended a hand, “Hello, Crucible Si’enn. I’m Zeana Si’enn. Nice to officially meet you.”

Crucible extended a long silver whisp to my hand, touched it with a flash, and was gone. My eyes fluttered open, and I saw the dark room of the hotel we were staying at and sighed. It was still the middle of the night, and I needed to sleep. Yuki sturred from under my chin and licked my face. I chuckled softly and scratched behind her ear before closing my eyes again and drifting back to sleep.

***

Ding

Chakra combo acquired

Name: Zeana Si’enn; Title: The Endless Storm; Race: Deadly Zin; Cores: 6; Age: 9.

First Core 1: Lightning And Force Lvl 7

First Core 2: Water And Life Lvl 7

Second Core 1: Earth And Force Lvl 7

Second Core 2: Ice, Edge, And Force Lvl 7

Third Core 1: Air and Fire Lvl 7

Third Core 2: Fire, Ice, And Edge Lvl 1

Skills:

Quick Advancements Lvl 9

High Pain Tolerance Lvl 2

Natural Abilities: Flight, Hard Skin, High Agility, High Dexterity, High Intelligence, Hivemind, Multiply, Genetic Alterations, Kitsune Form, Split Cores, Climbing Form, Tsudzurao Form, Quick Transformation.

Racial Abilities: Sin, Penance.

***

The next day I woke up groggy and completely unsure as to what had happened last night. But as I slowly woke up, it all began to come back to me. I have a new core. I opened my status screen and saw it. Third Core 2: Fire, Ice, And Edge Lvl 1. I didn’t know the spirit was so weak, but I can level it up as I give it chakra. I looked around and saw nobody else had woken up yet, so I got to work cultivating.

I took control of Apollo’s Inferno chakra and began carving a new channel for it to travel through my body. Once I finished, I tried to move Crucible’s chakra but couldn’t get it out of the core. It was blocked in with no channels. So, I began using its chakra to create new ones along the rest of my channels. I couldn’t get far, though, as it only had enough chakra to reach my elbow. But that was fine. I began to move the chakra along that passage and replenish what I had little by little.

Then I felt someone shake me, and I opened my eyes to see the twins trying to wake me. “Top o’ the mornin’ to ye, big sis,” they yawned.

“Good morning to you, too,” I said with a smile and hopped down from my bed with Yuki in my arms before going to the bathroom to feed her. Everyone else was already awake and was getting ready to go. As soon as Yuki finished eating, we left for the Colosseum.

I immediately found Geoff, Jeff, and Jeph’s food cart when we arrived. I was starving and needed more money cause you could never have enough. But this time, a different person was working the food stand. He looked utterly average, not too tall, not too short, not too fat, not too skinny, but absolutely average, except for the tattoo on his neck.

I approached him and said, “Hey, can I see my winnings and the secret menu?” The man nodded without a word and handed me a bag of money and the secret menu. I blinked and asked, “Don’t you want to know my name?”

“You’re Zeana Si’enn. Hight 158 cm, weight 28-30 kilograms, hair color ginger, team name: Fiery Heart and Rezurrection. I know who you are and don’t care,” the man answered.

Pouting, I said, “Well, what’s your name?”

The man sighed and said, “Geoph Schaeffver, the pleasure is all yours.”

I nodded, not liking this guy very much. And opened the pouch to count the money. There was 1,620 Lucre within the bag, and I took out the one gold piece and platinum before saying, “A Fiery Heart with a resurrection for Zeana and Haze.” And I placed the bag of coins on the food stand counter.

Geoph took the money and said, “Coming right up.” Within minutes he gave me the usual food and drink. I took them and hastily left. I didn’t want to be anywhere near that guy. He seemed unnecessarily mean. I quickly returned to the seats Haze had for us and sat beside her as I ate, Yuki occasionally stealing a bite from me.

The rows of people slowly filed into the Colosseum as we waited. A few hours later, the place was packed to the max, and the fights began. This time instead of sixteen teams going out at the same time, each team went out one at a time. And we watched as one team after another fought to their last until it was finally our turn. We each stood and walked to the waiting room, our nerves on overdrive as we prepared for the upcoming fight, not saying a single word to each other. We needed to win and go onto the final round of the team tournament.