I wake up early in the morning with Mom and Dad coming into my room. We are still in the city, in one of the residential houses with an open-air forge workshop attached to it in a manner akin to a garage from my old life.

“Aly...” Mom begins softly. The tone of her voice tells me this is something important.

“We know that you went through a hard time for the last two years. It’s impossible for us to understand what it was like; for us, it felt like just a night of sleep.” Dad says, sitting down on my bed next to me. Mom joins me as well, gently holding my hand and purring while Dad speaks.

“Please... tell us what’s troubling you,” Mom says.

“Nothing’s wrong,” I reply. It’s been a long two years, and I am grateful that there were no problems.

“Aly,” Dad says, a bit more firmly now. “You’ve barely talked, and you haven’t trained at all.”

I roll over and open my mouth to say something, but I immediately stop myself. I was about to say, ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ but even thinking that is making me cringe… they already admitted that they can’t possibly understand. When did teenage angst set in? I may be thirteen years old, but I am better than that. Of course they are worried; to them, it’s like I just changed all of a sudden.

“I...” My voice catches in my throat. How do I explain everything? “I don’t know where to start,” I finally say.

“Why don’t you start right after you recovered,” Mom suggests.

I hesitate at first, not trusting myself to say the right words, but after I get past the first few words, the rest come out like an avalanche. Along with them, the pain and solitude return to the forefront of my mind, just as clear as while I was experiencing them, my improved memory working against me.

I can’t stop myself from crying as I explain my worries, my fears, the pain and worst of all, having to deal with all of that with no one to lean on; if I had let anyone wake up, I would have quit and left thousands in a vegetative state.

Mom and Dad hold me close, stroking my head and purring to comfort me. It feels like a weight has lifted off my chest when I’m finished, like suddenly climbing to the top of a hill or breaking out of a thick jungle and seeing the clear path ahead.

“It must have been hard,” Dad says gently, “but that is over now; everything will go back to normal once we fix up the village. We brought the airship back, so in just a few months, we’ll have our home again. For now, why don’t you play with Tana and the twins while we work?”

I nod, but stay with my parents until I’ve properly calmed down, and then walk with them to the edge of the city where the excavated airship is at, to see them off. It certainly needs repairs to be ‘complete’ again; that’s something that I can do given a day’s effort, but it pains me to look at my hard work in such a state.

The impromptu docks have several boats in place already, but more are likely out and several are still being built as each village tries to rebuild. I watch everyone board the airship but am caught by surprise when, Mom and Dad wave to me, I can’t help but feel an irrational fear of being abandoned. I know it’s silly, but... I spent so long without them and now they are leaving in front of me. I take a deep breath to calm myself, hearing the notification of [Calm Mind] leveling up. They will come back, they are just cleaning up and will be back by nightfall. I keep telling myself this as the airship lifts off and heads toward our village.

I find Tana in my perception and walk to where he is, fighting against the feeling that I’m the only person in the world even as I walk past people. He is currently training with his swords in a building that I presume is the one Esofy claimed as her temporary home. Approaching his door, doubt fills me, a strong feeling of reluctance like I’ve already been rejected. I raise my hand to knock on the door but I can’t actually bring myself to notify him of my presence. What if he doesn’t recognize me? What if I’ve grown too old for him? I push the doubts down, knock on the door and wait. Tana stops training and walks to the door, surprise on his face as he sees me.

“A-Alysara.” Tana stammers as nervousness visibly claims him. “I-I didn’t expect you.”

It’s kind of cute how he is trying to avoid eye contact, and the sudden rise in love essence shows me that his feelings haven’t changed. He looks a little older, but doesn’t seem to have aged as much as I have.

Relief fills me as I realize that he still sees me the same as before, that knowledge lessening the almost overpowering loneliness somewhat.

“Can you help me look after Yafe and Yafel?” I ask, fidgeting.

“S-sure...” Tana blushes and looks down.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Alysara turns around and leads, walking off. Tanafyam can’t help but admire how she has grown. Supposedly two years have passed, but it doesn’t feel like it. Alysara’s tails swing with her gait as she walks and moves, almost like a beautiful dance. Her tails are so long, so fluffy, so beautiful, with an unworldly touch to them; a warm, inviting beauty like a dancing fire in a hearth, they seem to have a silky luster to the fur, almost begging him to feel the softness. Her body is more shapely now but still not quite like an adult’s.

Tana catches up to her side, taking a glance at her. She’s grown much more beautiful, with soft skin and full lip., Her hair has grown longer too, after not being cut for so long it now reaches the base of her tails and, without being tied back in any way, frames her body like a portrait, He likes it like that. Her clothes hug her bust tighter than they used to, and give her the start of an hourglass look. Overall, she looks like she’s just beginning to grow into a young adult.

Yet another thing that she is ahead of him in. Looking at himself, he just can’t seem to match up, he is just leagues below Alysara in every possible way. Tana’s heart pangs for her, but also seems to constrict when he thinks about his ongoing failure to catch up with her. No matter how hard he trains, it just doesn’t seem to matter; he continues to fall further behind.

Alysara seems a lot more distant now. He can’t tell why but it just seems like Alysara is keeping her distance a little more than she used to. She’s also unusually quiet – usually she wouldn’t let the silence between them go on for so long – but when they meet up with Alysara’s younger twin sisters she finally shows a warm smile. The twins both stop what they are doing to run up to their older sister and give her a hug, big smiles on their faces.

“Oh? You jump into the jaws of the tickle monster?” Alysara says with an affectionate smile.

“Oh no!” “Run!” the twins say and run away giggling. Alysara lets them go and gives them a head start, staring off after them with an odd expression on her face.

Envy sparks in Tana, he never had such affection from his family, but then again, he spent all of his time training. Would he have had this if he had taken some time off training, or would it just have let him realise sooner that his parents were zealots? He shakes his head, banishing the thoughts and feelings. He can’t change the past, so there’s no point in worrying about it. He chose his path; now, he needs to stick with it.

“They’ve had enough time; let’s go find them,” Alysara says, giving him a smile.

She’s just too beautiful to look at when she does that; he can’t help but look away, his face warming up. Alysara saunters off, seeming to follow Yafe’s trail.

“Why do you always train?” Alysara asks suddenly. “You are always practicing with your weapons and skills.” She seems a little more comfortable now.

Tana wants to ask what’s troubling her but he just can’t bring himself to do so: he, who hasn’t accomplished anything, might offend her, she may even tell him to go back home.

“I-I, umm, well,” Tana’s face burns as he tries to find the words. I want to become as strong as you. There’s no way he can say that to her; he’d die of embarrassment.

“I want to become strong... like Esofy,” Tana says, unable to give the whole truth.

“I see... but she’s much older than us, so there’s plenty of time to reach her level. Why don’t you want to learn a craft?” Alysara asks.

“I-I’m just not good at it. Besides, I’ll have to replace a skill, and that would make me weaker.” He replies.

“No one is good when they first start, it takes years to become good at something, and you don’t need to get a skill. It helps, sure, but not having one doesn’t mean you can’t do it at all.” Alysara turns down an alley, her certainty making it seem that she is being led by something he can’t see.

“Also, fighting doesn’t only mean you are better or stronger, or have higher combat skills.” she continues to explain. “Having other skills, like perception skills, can make you stronger as well, sometimes faster than only practicing fighting. For example, my [Sense Mana] helped me learn spells and enchanting much faster than just learning those by themselves.”

Esofy had also stressed how important those skills are. ‘Listen, Tana, It’s one thing to fight with your normal senses, but to fight with [Sense Danger] or [Battle Sense] gives you a huge leg up. It gives you a whole new sense to help you react in battle or dangerous situations. I even knew someone with [Danger Prediction], which lets you know when an attack will happen even before it happens.’ Tana took both.

Alysara soon finds her sisters, tickling them once she catches them. She stands so far above him, even though she doesn’t spend all of her time training. It makes him a little jealous that he can’t be a genius too.

“You can incorporate training into your normal life,” she says, turning toward him. “Take this game, for example; even if it was for fun, I was tracking them with my skill and training it. You don’t always have to be in a dojo.”

Alysara takes his hand and pulls him close, his heart speeding up and pounding in his ears.

“You can practice your footwork with dancing.” Alysara starts moving, leading him in a dance. “And maybe you can even gain a breakthrough.”

Being so close to her, he can’t take it; with a burning face and shaky legs, it takes his full concentration to not run away out of sheer self-consciousness.

“Sorry, was it too much?” Alysara asks as she suddenly breaks away.

“N-n-n-no,” Tana stammers, looking away.

“A-Anyway,” Alysara says awkwardly. “You get the point. You can train your skills with everyday things.”

He nods. Perhaps he should ask Esofy to teach him how to dance.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It is very... awkward? That’s not quite the right word, but it’s a strange feeling to know that I am the focus of someone’s crush, although the sense of validation is nice.

Wait, when did I start caring about validation? Regardless, I’m too young to really want anything like that.

This is why I hate puberty! Stupid hormones, stupid emotional swings, and stupid overly sensitive self-consciousness.

I focus back on my sisters and ruffle their heads. I play with them until they are out of breath, and we take a break. Tana has mostly been awkwardly tagging along, so, after our rest, I ask what he wants to do.

“Umm, well, p-perhaps...” Tana struggles to say what he wants, his eyes darting around with nervousness. “Umm, m-maybe you can teach me how to d-dance?” He’s blushing furiously, but he finally manages to get the words out.

“I want to learn how to dance too!” “Teach me too! Teach me too!” the twins say.

If only there were more of me, I think with a silent internal giggle that catches me by surprise, summoning two of my Diadem clones.

With the help of my multiple minds, I teach them basic dance movements. Tana remains flustered throughout the lesson but handles it rather well.

“What else do you want to do?” I ask once we get tired of dancing.

Tana shrugs, rather unhelpfully, although his slightly blanked-out expression tells me he’s probably not thinking too clearly after dancing with me for that long.

“Why don’t we play with our Bonds?” I suggest after a few moments’ though, this way we can also train the twins’ Bonds. “Here are the rules: no Bond skills; we each summon three balls of our element or essence and try to hit each others’; if yours are hit, remove them; you lose if you have no more left.”

After laying out a few more rules, we start. It is immediately apparent that I have a major advantage with my much higher Bond level, and I end up being ganged up on after winning the first round. I let the twins win the second round, Yafe beating Yafel after I am taken out, and then I make sure everyone wins at least once.

For much of the rest of our available time, we play netball. I remember Tana being very good at it, and, despite not playing it for years, he only seems to have gotten better. I can’t help but feel nostalgic, replaying some of the games we played back then. We end the day with another dancing session in which Tana manages to get a breakthrough in his [Agile Movements], since he isn’t quite as flustered as he was before.