Nathaniel and Noelle gathered Kaine up and moved him onto Leslie's bed. He was out for the count but seemed otherwise stable. Not long after, both Duncan and Elisa made themselves known, the racket Kaine had made earlier had evidently summoned them from their beds.

Nathaniel was glad that he'd brought Noelle with him. Duncan turned out to be a handful almost immediately, but Noelle managed to keep the boy relatively calm while he explained matters to Elisa.

Naturally, her first instinct was to immediately join the search for her daughter, but when Nathaniel elaborated, she was shocked. Elisa wasn't an Arcanist and didn't truly understand the implications of being affected by dark mana or demons, but Nathaniel gave her a brief explanation and assured her that they were actively looking for Leslie. This seemed to calm her down, she was under no illusion that she could find Leslie faster than the city watch could.

"Put simply, when a demon afflicts a person with dark mana, they can alter their mind in certain ways. The most common usage of dark mana is to inflict terrible suffering on the demon's victims. More advanced demons are much more capable. In rare cases, they've been known to use dark mana to cause the people around them to act in ways more aligned with the demon's own morality and ideology. Essentially, they turn people mad or in extreme cases, control them directly. It's not quite the same as demonic possession but functionally, it's close enough."

It wasn't lost on Noelle that Nathaniel was exceptionally calm. His intimate familiarity with this particular brand of evil was evident.

Elisa had an odd expression on her face. It was a mixture of concern, fear and unbelievably, excitement.

She moved over to her husband's side. This was the man who, for the longest time, had been an absolutely awful companion. He'd become worse and worse over the last few years. It pained Noelle greatly to see that Elisa flinched her hand back more than once before finally placing a gentle hand on her husband's chest.

"You're saying he might go back to how he was now that it's gone? Before the violence?"

The way she asked caused Nathaniel to pause. He really wanted to tell her yes. From the hope in her voice, it was clear to Nathaniel that there must've been a side to Kaine that he'd never known.

As far as he'd known, Kaine had always been a nasty piece of work, but he had to admit, he was surprised to find out that he'd become abusive later in life, perhaps if he'd investigated back then he could've saved this family a lot of suffering.

"I don't know for sure. Prolonged exposure to dark mana can affect people in peculiar ways. Right now, we don't know exactly how long he's been under. You should understand that this is exceptionally rare. Not only do demons seldom find this is worth the effort, they usually kill the people involved when they're done with them. I expect that he'll lose some memories, at the very least."

Elisa nodded at Nathaniel and Duncan came over to her, glaring at Nathaniel on his way over.

Nathaniel figured this was as good of a time as any to test his theory. He conjured a little light mana and stopped Duncan in his tracks.

"Duncan, give me your hand."

"What? Why?" He looked at the older man, still irritated.

"Duncan, please do as he asks. He knows what he's doing." Noelle interjected.

Reluctantly, Duncan followed his teacher's instructions and moved to shake hands with Nathaniel, his eyes were still narrowed.

Nathaniel gripped the hand tightly. Without warning, he pushed light mana through Duncan's membrane, sending it coursing through his body. Light mana was very, very fast. Before Duncan could react, it had travelled through his whole body multiple times.

Nathaniel saw no visible signs of dark mana within Duncan's body, but he'd been surprised more than once today already. He was checking to see whether or not Duncan had been somehow affected like his father. He'd never thought of it this way, but Duncan had been quite aggressive as he got older. He observed the light mana closely as it completed its circuits of Duncan's body.

Each time, he noticed that the light mana was slightly eroded.

"Fascinating."

He could feel Duncan was trying to pull his hand away, but Nathaniel was a fully grown man, he wasn't getting free any time soon.

"Hold still," Nathaniel added, then gathered more light mana, flooding Duncan with as much as he could muster. He sent it to every inch of the boy's body. Every time he did, he found that the light mana he sent in returned to him slightly diminished.

"It's almost like there's natural dark mana in him. The concentration is so low that I can't see it, but the light mana is reacting to something nearly everywhere I send it. Noelle, look at this."

Duncan had, at this point, begun to relax his attempts to escape Nathaniel's vice grip. Strangely, he felt calm. More peaceful than he ever had. Noelle came over and placed a hand on Duncan, sending a probe into him. Duncan didn't seem to mind.

She observed the changes to the light mana that Nathaniel described and she agreed.

"How is that even possible?" She looked over at Nathaniel, who lowered his eyes to meet Duncan's.

"Perhaps it's another one of the demon's experiments. How do you feel, Duncan?" Nathaniel asked with half a smile on his face.

"Alright, I suppose. What're you doing? What's that mana type?" Duncan's voice sounded relaxed and he was obviously genuinely interested, though shortly thereafter, his face was scrunching up a little every few seconds as if he was becoming confused.

"It's light mana. Perfectly harmless when used this way, fret not. There's something inside you that I think is causing you harm, I'm removing it."

"Right...Thanks." Duncan started to blink quickly, his expression soured a little and his eyes started studying the floor of the room.

Duncan had, for the longest time, felt that tight knot of fury in him that he'd inherited from his father. It was that little voice somewhere inside him constantly reminding him that he was a bad person, just like Kaine. That this was how he was made and how he'd have to be to survive. He'd have to hurt people to achieve his goals. He'd always wanted to keep his mother safe, but he knew to achieve that in particular, he'd have to stoop very, very low. The worst part was that he was so very willing to do exactly that.

A few minutes after Nathaniel had started whatever it was he was doing, Duncan felt that feeling slowly leave him entirely for the first time in as long as he could remember. He noticed it was very, very quiet.

Then, without warning, he felt a flood of other feelings that he had thought were entirely lost to him.

Primary among them was a sense of overwhelming guilt. He felt sick to his stomach and paled in the face. Nathaniel was finished with his task now and was just sending more light mana around to be absolutely sure.

When he saw Duncan's expression shift, he let the boy go and Duncan fell straight to his knees.

Elisa was staring, eyes wide, looking straight at her son. She ran over to grab him and support him. He looked like he'd vomit. His eyes were wide and tears were running down his cheeks. He was practically gasping for air.

It was quiet, but Elisa could hear him trying to mutter something. She leaned in close to try and catch what he was saying. She wasn't sure, but it sounded like he was apologising.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." on repeat, over and over again.

Elisa looked up to Nathaniel with something like fear and appreciation mixed into one. He returned her gaze, pity in his eyes.

Nathaniel reached out a hand to her, which she took, holding onto her son with the other.

He flooded her with light mana, similarly to Duncan, but he noticed no change in the light mana outside of the usual decay from travelling through a foreign body. Still, to be sure, he swept it through her inch by inch, but he found nothing.

"You're clear." He said, letting go of her hand. She nodded, then turned back to her son, rubbing his back.

"Noelle, I'm staying here for the night in case Leslie comes back." Nathaniel turned back to Elisa. "Assuming you don't mind, Mrs Sellanion?"

She nodded in assent and Noelle took the hint.

"Alright, I'll return to the college and let them know what we've found. I'll stop by and let Victor know, too. Want me to take the book with me?"

"No, I'll hold on to that for now. I'm going to study it and see if there are any differences from the last one I saw. It might contain something useful, maybe something specific to this particular demon. Will you stop by my home, too? I'd like you to check in on James and Vance."

"Sure. No problem. Good work tonight, Nat."

"You too. We may not have found her, and we're still down the skeleton, but this..." He gestured to the Sellanion family. "This is a victory."

"I think she'll be long gone by now," Noelle added in a slightly defeated tone.

"You're probably right. Maybe the guards found something, we probably won't know until morning."

Nathaniel looked over and saw Duncan had raised his head and was staring at him. The boy looked terrible but focused.

"Did you say "Vance"? Where is he? I need to see him. I have to apologise, I have to"

"Duncan, stop." Nathaniel interrupted, raising a hand.

He gave Duncan a second to collect himself, then spoke.

"You heard what I said about your father earlier, how he was afflicted by dark mana? Well, I think the same happened to you. I've never seen someone affected the way you were, it was subtle. Regardless, it seems to me that perhaps your father wasn't the only one in the thrall of this demon. Therefore, I will not hold you fully responsible for your actions in that state, Duncan. I know full well how dark mana can warp the mind into unfathomable states. However..." Nathaniel paused.

Duncan sank an inch, ready for his beratement. It never came.

"Neither Vance nor James will have any concept of this. Besides, I'm not letting you anywhere near my son until he's back on his feet and I've had a chance to explain this all to both of them. Then, under my supervision, I will allow you to meet them. Before that time, you will explain everything you remember about your previous encounters with them to me in detail, your interactions with Leslie and your father, plus anything else I ask of you. Am I understood?"

Nathaniel would be lying if he said he wasn't furious at Duncan's involvement with his son's current injuries, but he was truthful about the effects of dark mana. He'd seen people do far, far worse in the thrall of demons.

He did leave out that he wanted to study Duncan further for further traces of dark mana, but those present didn't need to know that yet.

"Get yourself together, Duncan. Your mother is going to need you to be ready when your father wakes up. It'll be a difficult conversation and you already know what you need to explain to him. When he wakes, use his name as often as you can and give him something to focus on. Can I leave that in your hands, Duncan?"

Duncan lowered his head, which essentially left him with his forehead a few inches from the floor. He nodded slightly but stayed in place.

Elisa gave Nathaniel an approving look.

With that, Noelle and Nathaniel left the room and left the family to their own devices. Evidently, this would be a difficult time for them. Nathaniel posted up in the hallway at the top of the stairs leading to the 2nd floor. It was an excellent place to monitor the house from and specifically, it allowed him to keep an ear out for activity from Leslie's room.

He sat, thinking.

The Sellanions and the McKinley family had always been at odds, but now that he thought back on it, perhaps there were signs. Their aggression had been getting worse, but he'd always put that down to Kaine's ever-evolving temper problems. Subsequently, he'd always attributed Duncan's worsening bad streaks to his father. Without this context, it had all made perfect, normal sense.

He'd discovered that in reality, it had the most terrible of magical explanations. He felt that old fervour rising up, the desire to go out into the world and rain fire and light on every demon he could get his hands on. Of course, there weren't so many around anymore, so for now, he'd focus on the one that had presented itself to him.

Noelle was true to her word and made her way back through the city, stopping at the city lord's house to fill him in and then moved on to the McKinley household, then the college. Her report was met with interest from the other masters throughout the night and she was subject to a barrage of questions that left her absolutely exhausted by the early hours of the morning.

By then, the city watch had found no sign of Leslie Sellanion.