Branches of the tree surrounding the residence rattle in the surrounding area as a rough stream of wind brushes through them. At the time, I’m sitting in my room together with Mister Abe.

“Alright, so far nothing out of the ordinary.” He removes his palm, with a warm glow of mana being released from it, off my bare back. Ever since we arrived, Mister Abe has been checking up on my condition in order to prevent the shadow, my other half, from taking over my body again.

I enhance my back with a kimono once more.

“Mister Abe, are you able to tell what that thing is yet?” The way he shakes his head displays complete denial. It has been like this since the start, all we know is that it’s related to the mark together with my improved sense of sight.

“Yuuna, meet me once you are done training. There’s something I would like to discuss.” He says as I’m leaving the room. Surprise shows through my expression along with the reply of a simple “Okay”. Unaware of what he would like to talk about with me, I begin to worry. Did I mess up? Am I going to get punished? I begin to brainstorm to the point of a cold sweat.

Is it maybe about my other half? Now that I think about it, I never had the chance to ask it what it meant by “our family is on the move”. Did something happen to my sisters?….Are they being taken to an even further place?

I slide-open the tatami door and behind it, Hidiku and Mistress Nagi area already waiting for me with patience.

“Prepared?” My attention is stolen, and the endless thoughts born within my mind fade in an instant. Instead, excitement takes over me.

“Yeah!”

———

Today is the start of our second week of training. We are finally past all the horrors we have been put through to improve our physical abilities. Doing squats and push-ups infinitely? Dragging logs around the forest? Being crushed by the pressure of a waterfall? Done! Those days are gone! Not a chance you are sending me back to those times! I’ve been reborn, I’m a new person!

Just like any other day, we are patiently standing before the house on the light-stoned gravel spread all around it, awaiting our Mistress’s instructions. I can’t wait to find out what we will be learning next.

“Alright, I see everyone is ready. Before we begin, I’d like to know what knowledge you two have about spiritual cores.”

“A spiritual core, otherwise known as the human soul, is the immaterial object that drives the body, mind and conscience to behave as they do as well as a source for energy to fuel our abilities. If one happens to lose a spiritual core, that person becomes an empty shell.” Hidiku gives our Mistress a straight answer, she seems impressed.

“That’s correct. Can you tell me the exact process of receiving energy from the core and materializing it into our abilities?”

Both of us stay silent. It seems neither of us have a proper answer to that one and yet, I still decide to respond, if only for the sake of erasing the silence.

“Uh…You concentrate really really hard and then swoosh and boom, It….just appears?” At least I tried…

“No, Yuuna, that definitely isn’t the answer I’m looking for. It’s one of the basics, what did they teach you at the academy?”

“Fighting.”

“Tactical retreating.”

“How to make sweet dumplings.”

“Liquid explosives.”

“Social skills I still lack-”

We take turns in replying with me as the first one to go when I soon get cut off by a deep sigh from the Mistress. She then facepalms herself.

“Alright, that’s enough….have the academies really degraded this much…” She mumbles to herself with a barely understandable soft voice.

“I will explain how it works so listen closely. It all depends on your mind, the stronger it is, the stronger you become as a whole. When you tap into your core, it’s energy gets sent out of it into your circuits through which it travels throughout your whole body. By doing so, your body heats up and blood within your veins begins to travel at a faster rate. The rest depends on your mind. I presume both of you went through meditation practice?”

Both of us nod. Until now we were just doing it without knowing the whole process. We had no clue what was happening as we used our abilities.

“Good. So now you know what happens when you try to use your abilities, but it won’t do you any good without a stable enough spiritual core. With less training of one’s core comes higher risks. Sending too much energy out of the core at once will cause your circuits to take damage, if not disrupt them completely. In that case you would require long term medication where recovery isn’t guaranteed. However at the same time, sending too little energy will force the circuits to overwork as they need to supply you with enough energy to use your abilities, but they won’t be able to supply the energy at a harmless pace.”

“By meditating, you can increase both your concentration and the core’s effectives. A common method is to think of the core as a tiny dot on a blank paper sheet, then close your eyes and imagine the dot expanding bit by bit without any distractions. But that’s only to have your core work at a safe pace while supplying you with enough energy. As I said previously, the use of your abilities depends on your mind. By concentrating hard enough you can spread the energy through every inch of your body, then imagine the form and flow of your ability and direct the energy flow towards the point you want to use the ability on.”

The Mistress extends her palm towards the blue sky, then suddenly, just above it, a small bead of flame with the colour of violet appears out of thin air. If I remember correctly, Mister Abe said her ability’s colour depends on her emotions. What does this colour mean, I wonder?

“Once you are capable of doing all that, you will be able to do this. And once you master your concentration and your spiritual core control, infinite possibilities will unlock.”

My eyes shine even brighter than the Sun soaring across our vast sky. I want to learn how to properly use my ability. I want the Mistress to teach me!

She looks at Hidiku, then directs her gaze to me, as if she is inspecting us. Hidiku seems focused, he’s serious about this.

The Mistress nods “I see both of you are prepared. Now then, I would like you to demonstrate exactly what I just explained. Concentrate, tap into your core and show me your abilities. Hidiku, you first.”

“Y-Yes.” Hidiku stutters but he goes back to focus mode in an instant. With closed eyes he takes in a very deep breath as his lungs expand like a balloon and lift his chest. After a few seconds of standing by, Hidiku’s hair begins to faintly wave as if a breeze is blowing through it, but there’s no wind whatsoever. A faint dark blue aura slowly but surely forms around his body. He’s doing it.

Hidiku opens his eye. One eye looks normal, but the other has a glow and a unique pattern to it. The “Sacred Eye”, an ability that improves one’s reaction speed, tracking and pinpoint accuracy. A perfect asset for an archer.

With a single arm on her waist, Mistress Nagi smiles. “That’s it Hidiku. It might be barely visible, but you got the basics of it down”. She then redirects her view to me. “Your turn, Yuuna.”

I nod with a focused expression, I want to impress her just like Hidiku did and so I close my eyes and begin the concentrating.

A small dot….get a clear imagine of a small black dot and expand it. I’m slowly inflating the circle with my imagination and soon I can feel the energy flowing through my circuits. That’s it, now focus harder, get it through every inch of your body and concentrate it on a single point.

At this point I can mildly feel the aura forming around me. I’m on the right path, now to just release my power. An image, now picture the shape of electricity as you see it, multiple of lines with very sharp and pointy angles, then make it flow!

My hair begins to float as I increase the output, then, after I’m fully prepared to unleash it, with a last increase of focus, an electricity shock runs through my body and the aura disperses as my circuits lose all power.

Wait, what happened just now? Did I do it? No, that feeling……it felt different compared to all the other times I did it, I can’t feel the energy anymore either. Did I fail?

The two spectators now have their glances of surprise locked on me……Try again, I’ve probably just made a mistake somewhere. Try again and again until you get it right.

As their eyes are on me only, I attempt to bring out my ability, over and over again, but with each try it just feels like it gets worse and worse, until finally, I drop to my knees due to exhaustion and support myself using my arms. There’s enough hot sweat dripping down my face to form a puddle.

“Y-Yuuna, maybe you should take a break. Have some more rest, you can always try again later.” Hidiku approaches me with caution but I’m more concerned about my situation.

Why doesn’t it work? Why can’t I release it? This is how I’ve always done it, what changed?

“We can do some practicing later if that’s what you wish for.” Mistress Nagi offers, but my mood has been flipped over completely. My excitement is gone, now instead replaced by anger and disappointment in myself.

I pick myself off the ground as I give the gravel beneath me a deadly stare. My irritation is reaching its peak, I want to get out of here before I cause any trouble in front of them.

“It’s alright….I can figure it out.” And so I slowly walk off, passing the two of them as they watch me leave.

I slide open the tatami door of the main room and head directly towards to my room but before I get to cross to the other side, Mister Abe who’s currently sitting on the veranda behind an open glass door notices me.

“Done with training already?”

“Yes.” I don’t bother stopping, however, I’m sure Mister Abe notices that something is off.

———

As I enter my room and close the door, my main idea is to lay down and take a nap, but upon setting foot inside, I look directly at the glass window with my reflection, placed across the room. Instead of proceeding with the original plan, I instead approach it and rest one of my palms on it. I then slide the fingers of my other palm over the mark on my face and focus directly on it.

It’s the mark, isn’t it….Nothing good has happened since it appeared. Where the hell did it come from anyway?!

Suddenly, to my surprise, the image of me within the reflection changes. It’s almost identical just that my eyes in it are crimson, my complexion turns pale and my hair takes on a pure white color. And that grin…..isn’t mine at all.

The reflection begins to talk back to me with it’s evil like voice. “Hehehe, that’s right, it’s all my fault. I’m the one that’s slowly turning your life upside down, and soon enough I will take over your existence as a whole HAHAHAHA-”

I smash right through the see-through window using one of my fists, then let the arm hang down. My hand releases a red fluid and it drips on the floor due to a small amount of glass shards piercing it through the skin and flesh. Multiple emotions are swirling within me now. Anger, grief, desperation but also longing.

Standing still before the mess, the door behind me opens and a person enters the room. In silence I look back with a single eye by slightly rotating my head while it’s tilted downwards.

It’s Mister Abe. Despite the disorder I’ve made in the room, he remains calm.

“I see you aren’t doing too well. Let’s talk, perhaps I can help you.”

———

We are back in the main room, sitting across each other. My mood remains the same, the irritation on my face is painfully obvious.

“I want to discuss the mark. I might have an idea that could help you. Do know how it came to be?”

It’s the same question I’ve been asking myself, but I never thought too hard about it.

“Think back to when it appeared. What happened before it’s manifestation?”

Before it….that’s right. The images of my memories from that day begin to play within my mind as a presentation of some sort. It doesn’t take me long to get an idea of what the cause was.

“The soul transfer…..A friend performed it on me just before she passed away. If I remember correctly, it’s a type of forbidden arts that converts one’s abilities to another.” Mister Abe shows a hint of seriousness.

“That may be the case, but it’s forbidden for a reason. Do you know why?”

I take a moment to think about it but the few ideas I come up with don’t make it dangerous enough to label it as “Forbidden”. And so, I shake my head in denial.

“It’s because it’s an incomplete spell. Using it on one runs a high risk of the transfer having negative side effects. It could be an incurable disease, permanent damage to your body or perhaps losing all of your senses. There have been cases of perfectly healthy people dying a week after its usage or losing their abilities forever.”

I listen closely to the Mister as this becomes very engrossing and at the same time it makes me worry about what happened to me.

“But in the worst-case scenario, a curse is created and an inhuman entity is born within your mind, erasing your consciousness and finally, taking over your life as a whole.”