With a heave, Nimh awoke, thunder in his ears.

Twisting, he pressed his hands to his temple, trying to slow the storm that raged through his mind, a blanket binding his limbs as he rolled.

Holding back a scream, he stared at the ceiling, the world bending around him. Tears streamed down his face. But it was not the pain that made him wept.

It was like his mind was being pulled apart, thoughts expanding, condensing, and merging into new something new. His sight flickered as the colour faded in an out of view. Every twitch of the eye seemed to peer deeper into whatever his focus was on.

The smooth wall became a canvas of unseen blemishes. Each blemish became a landscape of caverns and canyons. Each canyon delved into infinity as he sought to pull his sight under control.

He failed.

Even closing his eyes did not give him peace as the darkness became pink-tinged boundlessness, the cycle repeating as the skin behind his eyelids lit up into something alien, yet disturbingly familiar.

It took him a while to realise he had seen it every night, the instant before he fell into slumber. It was not a comforting thought.

So Nimh lay there, his form slowly becoming limp as he succumbed to the experience of opening his mind well for the first time.

Hours passed before Nimh regained a semblance of control over himself. His overly activated brain calmed down into a state of extreme fatigue, which matched Nimh’s body.

Covered in sweat, exhausted beyond belief and feeling disconnected from his own body, Nimh rolled to his knees, the world spinning around him.

“Welcome back,” Marcus said. “That was something else. It was like you disappeared for a while there.”

The spirit’s words made Nimh want to vomit like someone had screamed loud enough to blow out his eardrums. Holding back, he tried to respond silently but found his thoughts scattered and unfocussed.

“Nothing to say?” Marcus continued. “That’s fine. You’ll be happy to know that despite my best efforts, I couldn’t take my body back, so yay you. So, I’m giving up. You ignore me most of the time despite you saying that you would teach me the spiritual arts. You ignore me when I try to help and despite me watching you, all I’ve learned is that I’m attached to a body that’s doomed to die.”

“Shut up,” Nimh growled. “If you want to pass on, just go through the spiritual seed.”

“Oh, you would like that. Wouldn’t you?” Marcus berated. “You're one selfish prick, you know that? I get it, you’re sad. You want to change the world, yadi yada. But did you ever think that maybe you are the problem, not this world?”

Nimh snorted. “Do you think it’s a matter of blame?” Nimh said, his mind slowly pulling itself back into focus. “Do you even know what those contracts are?”

“Sure,” Marcus intoned. “It’s my people giving up. What, did you think we didn’t know? We’ve always known. Sometimes it's just better to give up than to fight a losing battle.”

“You knew?”

“Of course. Anyone that’s seen those slaves know.”

“Then why did you mention anything about breaking the contract?” Marcus’ words had confused Nimh.

‘Because why not?” Marcus asked. “Just because we know about it and choose to succumb doesn’t mean we want to be bound to it forever.”

“You make no sense,” Nimh argued.

Marcus was quiet for a while and Nimh was too perplexed to care. These people knew that the slave contracts were them binding themselves to obey others. They chose to give up the sanctity of their own minds.

Friend's words wormed into his mind. Nimh’s own people were disassociated from the Realm of Thoughtful Heights, which meant their own minds had needed to develop differently to survive. They could not draw inspiration from the Realm, so they developed themselves in absence of it.

Making them mentally strong while disabled at the same time.

These people were too sensitive to the Realm, making them susceptible to its power. They had no real protection from it unless they had something to act as a barrier between them and its effects.

The power of Ranks.

Low Ranks were uncared for, abused and discarded by the society as a whole, making them crippled, weak, and even more at risk of being made a slave.

And they accepted that on a fundamental level.

“Marcus,” Nimh said slowly. “Why are you still around? You know you can’t take your body back and you know you can’t escape my spirit well unless you go through the spiritual seed. Why are you still here?”

The spirit grew restless. “I hate you; you know that right? I just want to see you get what’s coming to you.”

It was a lie. Nimh could feel it.

“You want to see what happened,” Nimh said slowly. “You want to know if I am right. If I can really climb the Ranks and do what I say I will.”

The spirit shifted and Nimh knew he was right.

“Marcus,” Nimh said with as much confidence as he could muster. “I have found something, though I need to work it out a bit. Can you give me some time? Then we can work on your progress with eth spiritual arts.”

Marcus was silent, his spirit uncertain. Nimh understood and did not comment when Marcus went back into his spirit well.

Taking a breath, Nimh turned his attention inward, focussing on the space he had found before. The well which had been empty and repulsed his every attempt at connecting with it. His time in the Realm of Thoughtful Heights seemed to have been effective because now he could see a subtle spark exist within it.

With clumsy determination, he reached out for it, in a way that was alien to him. It was not a movement of vital energy, nor manipulation of spirit. It was something else, something that left a strained tension that blurred his eyes.

He failed to touch it, his awkward attempt fumbling at every turn. But he did not relent, with each attempt becoming less inept, albeit slowly. Over time, the tension eased, his eyesight becoming less hindered as he practised.

Finally, after what seemed like a hundred attempts, he felt the spark within his mind well. A sensation of opening tore through him, emotions ran wild as he was drowned in joy, despair and everything in between.

Like a musical symphony, the emotions sang through him, deeper and stronger than he had ever experienced. And with each emotion, memories sprang to his mind, like a dream in motion.

Nimh could only let himself be swept away as he truly felt those emotions for perhaps the first time in his life. And felt the intoxicating power behind them.

He had always known that certain emotions could both help and hinder him. Anger was a wonderful motivator and in the right circumstances, it could sharpen the mind and rid itself of distractions and hesitation. But anger unchained without restraint led to destruction and misery.

But now, he knew he could harness that anger and the thousand nuanced emotions within himself. He knew he could control them, let them run wild and not be destroyed by the consequences.

The emotions slowly faded back into the mind well, leaving Nimh exhilarated and exhausted.

It was then that Nimh realised his body did not want to move. He remained there, hands and knees on the ground, head bowed. Then he collapsed and truly fell into a deep sleep.

Keira sat in meditation, trying to tap into her spirit well.

Nimh had begun his instruction on the spiritual arts after he had defeated Sebastian Stain, while they waited for whatever Nimh had done to the man to finish. But that instruction came to an abrupt halt when Stain awoke and ended completely when he told Nimh about slavery contracts.

To Keira, she thought Nimh had overacted. Slavery was just a way of life after all. E Ranks and F ranks were the lowest of the low, so if they could be put to work with a slave contract, then at least that was better than living a meaningless life. Right?

Or so she had believed. She had accepted those facts of life long ago. But, perhaps it was Nimh’s influence, or what he said when they first met. About no one being able to take away her choice and future from her.

It had sounded like a hollow lie then. After all, that was exactly what the slave contract did. You gave up your right to choose and just became a mindless husk that did what you were told. No pain, no pleasure, just simple existence.

Life couldn't hurt you if you weren't aware of the world. Which is what the slave contract did,

Maybe that was why Nimh had taken the news of the slave contract so badly. He found out that he was wrong.

Yet Keira was surprised to find that she didn’t want him to be wrong, despite knowing the truth. She wanted to believe that Nimh could make this world better, and change the society that she had always known.

Despite the man being an alien.

Maybe it was because he was from somewhere else that he could see the future clearer. She wanted to believe that. It helped that his victory over Stain seemed to have already changed the man.

Changed him in unexpected ways.

She had not believed that Stain would actually adhere to Nimh’s command. The moment Nimh had left the two of them alone together, she thought the man would revert back to the domineering D Rank he had been before his defeat.

But that had not happened.

Instead, he had taken the command to heart and began her education. For hours, he had lectured her on the true going’s on in the undercity, the relation it held with the City-State and the other undercities of its kind. She learned of the fighting rings, of the childbearing system in place and of the control measures which would need to be rectified.

By the end of it, she hep felt sick. And there was still a lot more to learn.

After excusing herself, she had fled, going back to the only safe place she could think of. The prison that had once confined her had become a beacon of her liberation after just a few days.

There, she had found Nimh, training. He had trained so hard that he collapsed from exhaustion.

She could not describe what she felt watching that. He knew she was there, but he was so focused that the world could vanish, and he would have continued. Such single-minded focus, such strength.

She wanted that kind of strength. That kind of single-minded determination.

Then she realised she did. When she had attacked Nimh on their first meeting. When she fought against E ranks after just a day of training. When she followed Nimh to his fight with Stain. She already held the tools she needed, she just had to learn to use them.

Just like him. Just like everyone.

Without quite knowing how or why she now knew what she wanted to do. And she knew how to get there.