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Jair managed to walk far enough to locate a bench, stunned and hyperventilating. He’d been in close calls before, but that was by far the most prolonged and terrifying thing he’d ever experienced.

People murmured and reached for him, offering help, asking if he was alright.

Part of his mind was stuck teleporting in desperate circles in the heart of the ocean with no way of knowing if he was even moving in the right direction. Deep enough to have no stars and no hope to guide him. The memory had seared itself deep, replaying so intensely even the darkflame rebirth did nothing to ease his mind. Or... had it even been Darkflame? It felt different.

He gripped Maelstrom tighter. Only the fact that he could still breathe prevented him from trying to teleport away, but given how fixated his mind was at the moment he’d not end up anywhere good.

Someone tried to pry his fingers open and he lashed out. Darkflame flashed and the person disappeared, and did not reappear.

Well, he'd been mentally drowning in the ocean, so...

Briefly he wondered if there was any way to rescue whoever it had been, but his mind flinched away. He couldn't even imagine choosing to take himself back into that.

"Sorry," he murmured, then thought of Raina's study. Darkflame brought him there in an instant, along with two people who'd grabbed Maelstrom's blade despite having seen one of their fellows disappear completely.

Jair glowered at the idiots as they let go of the blade and looked around in confusion. "This is starting to get tiresome." With a quick slash that burned through them both, he sent them to the Institute dome. He had no idea what the state of the academy was at the moment and he didn't care.

Raina wasn't in her study, but a quick search of the house and conversation with Carn located her sitting in one of the oasis gardens, working on her manabody.

Jair burst into the area far enough away not to disturb her. He just had to be sure she was still here, that he hadn't somehow dragged her along into the ocean and left her behind.

He knew it was impossible, but the more confirmations he had that fate had it out for his friend the more reasonable absurd scenarios like that started to sound.

She was here.

He was here.

His soul had been clawed at, some of the outer pieces were damaged, but he was alive. Maelstrom's integrity was at 98%, reflecting the damaged state of their shared soul, and Jair had the distinct impression that it would have been lower if not for the idiots hitchhiking a ride.

"We've got to stop doing this," he told Maelstrom wearily. "I don't even know what this is, but it's clearly not where we belong."

Maelstrom flickered with green fire, a glint of gold deep in its core.

Jair considered it, the sleek curve of its blade as it narrowed to a point, the deep darkness of its runnel hiding a window into their soul, the hilt with its thorns. "You couldn't stab me yourself," he mused, rolling the blade from hand to hand. "Even to save our soul from destruction, I needed to be the one to break the skin."

Maelstrom slowly reshaped as he passed it from hand to hand. The thorns withdrew, the hilt returned to its normal comfortable spiral, but with a razor-thin blade twisted into it. Less invasive than the thorns, only enough to make the shallowest of cuts, but would require only the slightest pressure. No more wasting a quarter second reaching his thumb across to the blade, the faintest flex of his hand would suffice.

Jair sat down. He looked over at Raina, confirming again that she was alive and safe. He couldn't bring her with him using Darkflame until he had a functional manabody, or at least a manacore, but that didn’t mean he had to leave her behind.

He'd slipped back into solo mindset without noticing, going off to do his own thing as though no one else in the world mattered.

Though everything in his body demanded action, some odd mix of panic and aggression and relief and anger, he forced himself to relax into the tedium of collecting and compressing mana that he couldn't sense or feel.

The only indication he had was the faint drifting lights that floated throughout the oasis. They began to slowly move toward him instead of continuing on their aimless way, a clear indication that the ambient mana flow was being disrupted.

By the time Raina finished her meditation, he'd accumulated enough mana that he could vaguely tell it was there. If not for his years of extensive focus and hypersensitivity, he'd not have noticed the tiny wisp of fog-like power he'd collected. Clear progress in one way, at least.

He stood and walked over to join Raina, but didn't once let go of Maelstrom.

She stretched and yawned. “Won’t miss this once we’re on the road, I can tell you.” Then she caught sight of him properly and one hand jumped to her forehead, Tempest appearing in the other as though about to jump to his defence. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Jair shook his head and waved her down. “I’ve learned one of the limitations of Darkflame. It operates on a similar principle to standard transit, so crossing water is not an option.”

Raina’s eyes widened. “You– you didn’t. Are you… how did you…?”

“Time traveler, still. Thankfully. I don’t think I’d have escaped if not for that.” He glanced down at Maelstrom, the golden glint of Temporal Reversion in its core. “It’s not like it used to be. I was expecting the timefall, the cliff to still be there. Instead it’s more like Darkflame. I need to think of the time and place when I activate it. At some point I’d like to test it further, but… not today.”

“You look terrible.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You should sleep.”

“Don’t need it. Darkflame—”

“Isn’t a substitute for proper rest.”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“I’ve spent hours every morning meditating.”

“Not resting.”

Jair wanted to argue, but he didn’t have the energy. He felt deeply drained, and the exhaustion of the meditation effort didn’t help. As long as he’d been ignoring it, he could keep ignoring it, but now he’d been made aware of it, Raina’s suggestion that he sleep sounded awfully nice.

She must have seen his acceptance, because she stopped arguing and took his arm instead. “Let’s get you home.”

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“I’d like to test time traveling.”

“Good morning to you too. Did you sleep well?”

“Yes. I don’t want to surprise you too much if I start behaving very differently over the next several hours. Or days. Depending on how it goes.”

Raina considered this a long moment. "What does that mean, really?"

"I don't know for sure." Jair hesitated. "This feels wrong, but I have to know.”

“Okay. Then do it.”

Jair looked around at the room, memorized the slant of the sunlight, the curious tilt of Raina’s head, the glint in her eyes. This moment. “Alright, ready. What do you want to do when it’ll never have existed?”

“You haven’t done it yet? I thought you could come back in time. Shouldn’t you already know all my secret desires?”

“We have to live through it before I can revert it.” Jair tilted his head as a thought occurred to him. “I wonder if…” he grinned mischievously. “Come on, let’s go out back. I want to test something.”

The Serin townhouse had a sizeable courtyard, ideal for doing things like training with your friends. Jair drew Maelstrom and stood in the traditional ready stance. “Let’s fight.”

“Is this to do with time travel?”

“Yes. Join me.” He gestured with Maelstrom.

Raina took her own stance, hand on forehead, other extended, and Tempest appeared.

Maelstrom flickered with a crisscrossing maze of golden lines, glow pulsing up and down its length. Jair lunged, leaving himself intentionally open.

Raina countered, and the fight was on.

Jair maintained absolute attentiveness on the entire area as the fight progressed. It was an alteration of his usual style, since he was trying to remember it rather than just act through it. The difference in focus made it harder to keep up, especially since it was still only a couple weeks into his prime reversion and his body wasn’t wholly up to speed.

Raina tapped him a few times, but pulled her strikes to avoid hurting him. She frowned in confusion at first, but as the fight went on she had no time for being anything but fully focused. She may have had a minor advantage, but he was far more used to ignoring his limitations and doing ridiculous things anyway.

As it drew on, Raina began to tire, which seemed a good time to start experimenting.

Without warning, Jair focused intently on the moment toward the start of the fight where Raina had first hit him. The distraction let her hit him again, but then Maelstrom flashed gold and he was a half-minute earlier.

Jair had no time to react, Raina's strike was already committed to, but that didn’t matter. He let himself fall backward, catching himself against the wall, laughing.

Raina frowned. “You alright? I didn't hit you that hard.”

“I can do it. It doesn’t have to be…” with a thought, golden light flared up.

He had no time to react, she’d already committed to the strike. He couldn’t remember clearly before, the different stages of the fight blurred together.

“I don’t have to rely on ledges any more. I can micro-revert.” No more falling past the place he was aiming for, no more being forced to relive weeks to redo an hour. He’d need to practice a lot, increase his memory tracking capabilities, but this was an absolute revelation.

As long as he remembered it, he could revert to it. He ran a hand across Maelstrom’s surface fondly.

Anywhere, any time.

“I wonder if it works on other people.” Darkflame was also intended as a self-application ability, but Maelstrom could forcefully apply it to others. He may not be able to stab Raina for the moment, but he did have other people available.

He reverted to the room upstairs, the moment he'd fixed in memory.

Raina stared at him, curious.

“I’m going to go into town. Remember, this timeline doesn’t exist, so do whatever you want.”

He left her standing there and darkflamed himself to Vaes City. Apparently the scene the previous afternoon had caused enough of a stir that people didn’t feel quite so comfortable running up and grabbing his sword. Good. That was annoying all around.

But he may as well exploit his fame, since he was here anyway.

“I’ll give a free phoenix purge to anyone willing to test my time travel spell,” Jair called out. “First five applicants only. No refunds.”

Hesitant they may be, but there was still a rush the moment he indicated he was open for business. No one pressed into his personal space, but they did shove each other to try and reach him.

Jair thought back to the moment he’d entered the city. “If any of you notice you’ve gone back in time, come to that square over there and you’ll get your purge. Ready?”

The gathered people nodded eagerly.

Jair gave a quick swipe of his sword, focusing on Temporal Reversion and holding the time of his arrival in his mind.

The world flickered. The other people walking by abruptly shifted forward a few paces, as though an interruption to their progress hadn’t occurred. The chosen people who’d been standing next to him now stood in the square instead, looking uncertain as they tried to catch his eye. Were they supposed to wait there, or come over… what was he doing?

Interesting. That was not the outcome he’d expected, but it made sense.

Jair dusted off his robe, then turned toward the gathered five people. “You all time traveled?”

Nods.

“How far?”

“A few minutes. I didn’t quite believe it at first, but everyone was doing the exact same thing they just did.” The woman shivered. “Creepy.”

“Yep. You’ll get used to it.” Another sweep of the sword, Darkflame trailing in its wake, and Jair’s promise was fulfilled. The people looked immediately more relaxed and less exhausted. They gave him smiles and thanks and went on their ways, chattering about how fortunate they were.

Jair thought back to just before he’d shouted his offer, when he’d been meandering through town, and sliced his hand on Maelstrom’s hidden blade. Temporal Reversion.

An elegant tracery of golden light tore through him.

He stood a few steps back from his previous location, half a minute previously. Looking around, he found the people he’d reverted already standing in the square. They watched him uncertainly, unsure whether to stay in place or approach. The woman he’d been talking to patted herself down with a frown, as though checking for damage.

How about the exact moment he’d sent them to? He wanted to see their full reaction, not just the outcome. Would they still retain memory of the reversion, or would his own new loop overwrite theirs?

A flash of gold, and he was back in the square.

At the same moment, the selected people looked around in surprise, then started towards him.

“It’s not going to do that many more times, is it?” the woman he’d been talking to asked uneasily. “The first time was bad enough. When you say we’ll get used to it, how many do you plan on us doing? I’m not sure if it’ll be worth it.”

Jair frowned, then chuckled. “How many times have you done so far?”

“Two, but one stopped midway for a second.”

“Huh. Interesting. It should have been one, according to my calculations.”

“Should have? You don’t know what you’re doing?”

“I did say it was a test. Does that mean you’re permanently integrated into Temporal Reversion now? Or just that you’ll remember this specific period of time no matter how many times I reverse it?”

“I didn’t sign up for permanent anything,” one of the men said angrily. “You said test, not lifetime enslavement.”

“You won’t be a slave, don’t worry.” Jair grinned down at Maelstrom. “I don’t suppose you know how to unloop these fine people from our timeline?”

Maelstrom’s brightly glowing golden tracery dimmed and its silver edges glinted.

“Yeah, I still don’t speak soulsword. You’re really going to need to simplify it for me if you want me to understand.”

Jair focused back to the moment in Raina's study, the angle of the light through the balcony door, and activated Temporal Reversion. A flash of golden light, and he was gone.

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