Breathe in, breathe out. I've heard it before, as a mantra to assist focus. There is apparently something about breathing that really seems to help people with that. Perhaps it's the intentional stepping away from the distractions of the world to focus entirely on one's self, particularly the aspects which are so commonly taken for granted. Something like that, anyway. I can only speculate, because I find the practice horribly distracting.

I seem to focus far better when I don't breathe at all.

After all, pulling mana out from myself doesn't involve my body in the slightest. I don't know if I can exercise my soul in the same way I exercise my body, but it stands to reason that the more I practice pulling out that inner energy, the better I'll become at it. This is much more exciting, much more natural than most training I have to do. Training my 'talent' has always been a pain in the ass because I'm usually afraid messing with animancy will be detectable by the wrong people. Theodora can certainly see when I'm using more complicated forms of animancy, even moving souls in or out of a body, so it just doesn't feel safe to use in this city. This, however, she can’t see. This isn't even animancy, but it’s still part of me and what I am, something that feels right to use freely.

Filling my soul with power, then expelling it so that it annihilates that stupid all-pervasive mana that I can't even use just puts a smile on my face. I want to bring more of my mana into the world. I pull the power inward, then I push it outward. In and out. Ha, maybe I can use this to help focus instead of breathing.

If nothing else, it’s a great way to make efficient use of my time as I walk back to the hunter's guild. I can more or less navigate the city without even thinking at this point, so a bit of meditation shouldn't be a problem. I look inside myself, watching power move as I pull it through the channels in my soul, letting it fill and soothe me. One channel and one channel alone pulls the mana in from beyond my immediate self, going further than any other part of me in the direction with no name. I trace it slowly backwards, pushing my senses against the current, looking for where all my power comes from.

Thump-thump.

The line of power is long and narrow. Too long, impossibly long. I realize that if I try to observe it by sliding my vision across the entire expanse of its presence, I will never, ever reach the end. Like a ring wrapped around my body, I can never see all of it simply by rotating my head. I cannot travel to the end of something which goes forever. But I am not limited to such paltry ways of sensing.

Thump-thump.

Every single soul in my range is known to me. Their positions, their movements, their songs and colors and vibrations and feelings… I ignore as much as I can, because it tends to be too much. For the first time in a long time, however, I no longer feel that. Here, everything is simply me. There's no overload of information, even when I view the entirety of an infinite distance. Some part of me already knows everything there is to see here.

Thump… thump.

So just like that, I behold the end. The source of everything I am. A vast and beautiful sea of power and potential. Formless, yet seeking form, the torrent deep within scrambles desperately through the minuscule channel, a mass of incomprehensible power paradoxically too weak to send any more of itself through.

Thump.

How laughable that I consider myself hatched. I'm free from one prison yet still struggling with the bars of another. I tug at this vast blue ocean of my trapped self, pulling and shaping it. It moves to my will as naturally as can be, because of course it does. This is what I've always been, part of myself I've always had. I move it with the same instinct that moves my tendrils, I see it as easily as I see with my eye. But even with all of it here, able to be shaped however I choose, I don't have the slightest idea of what to do with it. Like a giant mound of clay, sitting untouched in front of an uninspired artist, I feel the fullness of myself yet I fail to know what any of it should be.

Thump.

That thought is more than a little frustrating. I really don't know what this means, do I?

Thump.

It's beautiful, I know that much, but what am I supposed to do with it all? I suppose I can use it to cast spells, and hopefully to disrupt the spells of others, but so what?

Th...

Perhaps things will be clearer when I am more fully myself. This pathetic channel through which I pull mana feels more like a wall. It can be wider. It needs to be. I need to pull myself into the wor—

Thwack!

My attention is smashed back into the physical as I find myself suddenly face first in the solid dirt of the road. My lungs gasp desperately for a breath, inhaling dust and detritus only to cough it all back out again and try again. A sharp pain and wet feeling in my nose indicates that it's damaged, possibly broken. I roll over onto my back, clutching my face and rapidly attempting to sit up and try and figure out what just attacked me. Immediately, an unrelenting wave of lightheadedness forces me back to the dirt. I finally get some air into my lungs, checking for threats with my soul sense only to find the people around me all seem more worried than hostile.

"Hey, um, are you all right?" one of the people around me asks.

A few deep breaths later, I find myself able to answer.

"What happened?" I ask, hand slowly letting go of my spear.

"Um, I don't know. You were just walking around and then you suddenly fell over. Did you trip?"

Did I trip? No, I don't think I did. Actually, given the burning feeling in my lungs, I might have taken my focus a little bit too seriously. I think... I forgot to breathe.

"I'm fine, thank you," I mumble, embarrassed.

Waiting a short while to catch my breath, I slowly stand up and resume my walk to the guild, face red. Okay, maybe that's a little too much focus. How long had I been walking without breathing? The rest of all that… I don’t have any idea how to process that. I’m some kind of big, blue mana mass in addition to… everything else. I look down at my tiny hands, clenching and unclenching them. I hate this stupid body. How did I end up in such a pathetic vessel? Whatever. No sense dwelling on what I can’t change. I'll just focus on drawing that mana for now, I think. And breathing. Best not to pass out again.

At least my walk is almost over. The guild pops into my senses, a cacophony of familiar and powerful souls that always whets my appetite a little. Not that I have any intention of eating my comrades, but it is what it is. The feeling puts me in a better mood. It’s… refreshing. The ache of Angelien's death still pulses inside me, but I no longer feel so helpless, so angry. I can do this. I have friends and family and a way forward.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

The receptionist looks up and waves to me when I enter the guild.

"Vita, there you are," she says. "You're needed for a mission. Have you seen Penelope?"

Ugh, that figures. Well, I guess I can't complain. There's no better way to get stronger than the forest.

"Yeah, I have," I answer. "Want me to go get her? I don't know when she'll drop by on her own."

She gives me a once-over.

"How about you drop by the medical ward real fast? You look like you just lost a fight with a runaway wagon."

I blink. Oh, right. Between the cut side of my face and my possibly-broken nose, I’m probably a bit of a bloody mess. I just kinda forgot about the pain, but getting it healed is probably a good idea. I nod and make my way towards the healers as instructed.

Claretta and the guy who feels like roots in soil are both in the room, along with the broken-souled Fulvia and a myriad of other patients. Soil-soul is asleep, but Claretta sings clearly and crisply, a wordless and beautiful tune that starts sealing up the cut in the side of my face as soon as I enter the room. My nose, however, just starts hurting more.

"Ow!" I yelp, holding my face.

Claretta glances at me and stops singing, her slow exhalations betraying a deep and full-bodied exhaustion.

"Vita, right? If that hurt you probably have something broken. The spell is complex enough to try to set it, but it's faster to do so manually. May I see your nose?"

I nod, approaching and bending down a little so the wheelchair-bound Claretta can get a closer look. The deeply tanned-skinned and dark-haired woman stares at my face with complete dispassion, arm moving up as if to do something for a moment before she grimaces and returns it to her side. She still has no hands or feet, though the beginning of wrists and ankles seem to be starting to form. Hopefully she’ll finish healing soon.

"Jeremy!" Claretta snaps. "Wake up for a second, I need someone with fingers!"

A comically large pile of blankets in the corner starts to move, the soil-souled man emerging and blearily blinking the sleep out of his eyes.

"M'up, m'up..." he mumbles, yawning as he makes his way over to me. "Geez. What wall did you piss off?"

Do I seriously look that bad?

"Can you just fix it or whatever?" I grumble awkwardly. "I need to go grab Penelope."

He shrugs, grabbing my forehead with one hand and snapping my nose back into place with the other. Another gout of blood gushes out for a moment before he stops it with a spell, the pain quickly vanishing.

"There you go," he yawns. "Tell Penelope I said hi. You need anything else, Claretta?"

"No," she answers blandly. "Rest well, Jeremy."

He nods, waves, and returns to collapse inside his fortress of fluff. The biomancers here must be getting run pretty ragged, still. I should probably head out and let them work, but I can't help but find my attention drawn to Fulvia's damaged soul. I stop by her bed before departing, trying to determine how fast she's been healing. …It's really not much. If I couldn't look at the soul down at a ridiculously detailed level, it wouldn't look like she was healing at all. I check around with my soul sense, trying to determine if anyone is paying much attention to me. Only Claretta seems to care, she's not currently looking at me so I pull out a shard of myself and crush it, sprinkling the raw soul energy over Fulvia's spirit.

The reaction is immediate. Her soul pulls in the power almost exactly like my Revenants do. Fulvia doesn't feel dead, though. Perhaps this is just how damaged souls react? Either way, the shard dust heals her considerably. I can probably just fix her.

"...It feels like a wretched joke to be put in charge of her," Claretta says, causing me to jump a little.

A series of bars jutting out the sides of her wheelchair allow her to move around a bit even without hands, and she's managed to sneak up on me with them. I was just looking out for her… bah, souls are distracting. Unknowing or uncaring about my surprise, Claretta simply continues to talk.

"She's certainly not going to want to see my face if she wakes up," the crippled biomancer says, an utterly humorless smile on her lips. "Yet they commended me. Can you believe it? I just about had to threaten the higher-ups to stop them from giving me a fucking medal."

I barely know this woman, and I don't know why she's talking to me about this. Maybe because I helped rescue her. It's odd to be in a position where others respect me. It's one thing to be respected because of mind control, it's a very different and very strange feeling to have done something to earn it.

"Why's that?" I ask.

She laughs, a sound full of despair. Her musical soul still tears at itself, roiling in unceasing hatred.

"Well, they said it's unprecedented for a team to survive in the forest for months on end. They’re just so fucking proud of me for keeping her alive against all odds. 'Heroic,' I think was the word used. What a fucking joke."

I glance down at her, trying to decide if I should respond to that. I've been told I'm not exactly the best person for sympathy or advice in situations like these. It doesn’t look like I need to say anything, thankfully. She's not looking at me, eyes locked on the unconscious face of her teammate.

"She ate us,” Claretta continues. “Over and over. Because I let her, I enabled her. I knew that she knew I was the reason her meals never went away. So she ate Fulvia instead of me. She would bite my friend's arms off, and I would regrow them because if I did, maybe she wouldn't come for me next."

"It’s not your intentions being deemed as heroic, it’s your results,” I say. “That’s how it works. You did save her, in the end.”

"I did," Claretta agrees. "Even though she begged me to let her die. But a hero? I was a coward. I was afraid of death and afraid of being alone. That's the only reason why she's alive. Maybe she'll recover, maybe she can live a normal life after all this. But I don't get to take credit for that. I shouldn't even get to see it."

I say nothing, once again unsure how to respond.

"Some nobles in a mining town got their arms and legs bitten off," Claretta says suddenly. "Probably a monster, they say. But nobody can find it, so I hear your team is getting sent out."

I shrug. Makes sense to me. I knew I was going on a mission already.

"It's her," Claretta insists, eyes wide in my direction but not seeing me at all. "It's that child. That thing. I know it is. You have to kill her this time. Please. She’s going to be even more dangerous than last time. She’ll keep getting smarter, keep getting stronger. You have to kill it now."

"She's not the only one getting more dangerous," I say. "We'll be ready this time."

Claretta nods firmly. With a tendril, I pull out another two shards, judging them to likely be enough. I'm a bit leery of using my soul like this, considering how much work I go through to get this power in the first place, but I smash them anyway and sprinkle them on Fulvia's shattered soul. They’ll just grow back when I eat. A tense thirty seconds or so pass, and then the woman finally starts to stir. Her soul is still a total mess, but it doesn’t need to be fully intact to function and I don’t want to waste any more shards than I have to on this.

A look of absolute horror creeps up Claretta's face as she watches her former teammate squirm slightly on the cot. She doesn’t quite wake up yet, but she probably will soon. It’s enough to enrapture the biomancer. Taking advantage of her distraction, I quickly excuse myself from the medical ward and more importantly, the conversation.

I quickly head back to the immortality lab, practicing my mana control on the way. Strolling downstairs, I’m disappointed to find that Vitamin does not jump into my arms from above as she usually does. Instead, she's lying on a table, Margarette standing over her and drawing tattoos on her skin.

"Hey, guys!" I say.

"Hi mom!" Vitamin chirps back happily.

"Don't move," Margarette snaps at her. "Hello, Vita."

"I'm afraid I've got to steal Penelope," I announce. "We've got a guild job."

"Ugh, what terrible timing," Penelope complains, emerging from one of the side rooms. "Nothing for it, I suppose. Let's..."

Her words cut off as she looks at me, said look quickly turning into a glare. After a moment she rushes forward and grabs my face by the chin, pulling me closer.

"Uhwuh?" I grunt in surprise.

Her stare is intense and unblinking, and behind her gaze I feel her thoughts moving a mile a minute.

"Your eyes…” Penelope mutters. “They didn’t use to be blue.”