It was the morning after the meeting with the director.
The Song Domain's underground dojo was large, several hundred meters in diameter. SpellTech enhanced steel fortified the entire space. Rows of armor and weaponry lined the concrete walls. Littered throughout the chamber were combat rings, each equipped with a runic apparatus capable of manifesting a barrier — its sole enchantment separating Awakened fighters' attacks from anything or anyone outside.
Nico and Gemma stood on opposite sides of one such ring. The sand supported their bare feet. A white circle was painted onto the edges where the translucent barrier lay, its not-surface pulsing in waves as Nico dragged his fingers along the border.
"I don't think we've ever sparred together." Gemma chuckled. His torso was bare, and his lower half was covered by a pair of loose, linen trousers. "You'll go easy on me, right?"
His face was wolfish and smiling, and in his hands he held a practice spear tightly — enthusiastically, even.
Nico let his arm fall back to his side and took a couple steps in his direction. His outfit was a mirror of his partner's, except he wielded a mace instead.
"Your skill could be superior to mine," Nico suggested. "With all four roots in your soul, our strength is relatively equal."
Tessai, lounging outside the barrier on a chair with a bottle of expensive liquor, shouted:
"Get on with it!"
Gemma's brow twitched.
"Shut it, will you?!" he barked back, but walked forward to match Nico anyway. "I swear, you've been nothing but unpleasant!"
Tessai only snarled back in response.
Gemma's attention shifted back toward his partner. The air inside the ring thickened, and both lowered themselves into a battle stance. This was a test of skill, not power, so neither would be using their Aspect. In that respect, they had similar experience — both their Aspects enabled them to fight stronger in melee, not at range.
A tense second passed as they assessed each other.
Gemma attacked first, both his hands gripping the shaft of his spear as he took a step forward and slashed down.
As the spearhead glistened in the light, Nico stepped back, dodging the weapon by a wide margin and then moving faster as Gemma pressed the advance.
Thrust, stab, upward swing, downward slash. Gemma chased his opponent across the ring, his viridian eyes tracking each minute movement. His muscles expanded and contracted like coiled springs. His clothes rippled in the breeze, and his weapon moved so fast the air whined. Even though Nico's arms were longer, Gemma's spear gave him the reach advantage, and he expertly controlled that.
Left, right, center and then sweep. Nico's feet glided across the sand, and he held his mace with only one hand. Using both would give him more power but also sacrifice what little reach he had left. The walls of the arena were slowly closing without him having attacked once.
It would not stay that way.
After deconstructing Gemma's assaults and creating a plan, he rooted his feet and pressed forward. His blood pulsed twice as fast as before, and essence flooded his muscles in precise bursts. Gemma, not caught off-guard in the slightest, positioned his spear directly between them and attacked at his opponent's waist.
Nico rose the head of his mace to parry, but Gemma had already switched grips, stepping forward with his front foot and pulling his spear upward.
If Nico evaded backward, he would be put closer to the edge, and if he dodged either right or left, he would be caught by the spear once Gemma rerouted it to descend.
So, instead, he continued forward, his mace held like a club, and Gemma's focused expression broke into a grin. He tilted his weapon to the side, using his spear's shaft as a makeshift block. If it were any kind of blade, this defense would've been easily penetrated by a stab, but a mace was an unwieldy weapon much too bulky to effectively employ that attack.
Nico didn't care. He swept his mace in an arc parallel to the tilted spear's length. If Gemma wanted to block, he would have to do so with the butt of his weapon — something both impractical to coordinate and easy for an attacker to avoid.
As soon as Nico moved his mace, Gemma rotated his torso towards the weapon — in doing so, bringing his own towards Nico's exposed head.
Abandoning the attack, Nico pivoted in step with Gemma, a wave of force warping the air as their weapons finally collided. Sand scattered in a ring around them. Metal ground against metal. Nico disengaged quickly, free to escape his corner and circle back towards the center of the ring.
The wind whipped through Nico's hair as Gemma slowly trailed after him.
After that first exchange, his savage grin widened further. It wasn't often he got to cut loose. This was an opportunity he would use to the fullest.
'How funny,' Nico thought.
It was strange; their weapons and fighting styles were quite mismatched. Nico, despite his regal, polished technique, where every move had a specific purpose and led to a specific outcome, was wielding a mace like a barbarian. And Gemma, his own weapon a two-handed spear, fought with all the subtlety of a wild animal.
Such was the world of the Spell.
No matter what weapon it granted you, if it was powerful, humans used it to fight. It was only fitting they trained their strongest weapon in practice, too.
Both returned to the battle with unabated strength. They weren't the least bit winded after that exchange, and their desire — well, Gemma's projected onto Nico — stoked hotter.
They exchanged blow after blow around the ring. Due to the force of their strikes, sand piled around the barrier, and deep craters formed during especially terrible binds. The minutes ticked away. Then an hour passed. A couple rounds ended, with Nico taking them by decisive force; he still walked away with several deep cuts and gashes, however.
It was during one such round that Nico got himself cornered against the wall. With his weapon misplaced, and his reaction predicted, he was forced to step forward and grab the shaft of Gemma's spear to stop its descent from cleaving his head off.
Gemma instantly yanked him forward. Their strength was equal, and Gemma had better footing, so Nico actually found himself being manhandled. He still raised his mace, intent on smashing his opponent's skull in before a punch connected with his jaw. Nico's jaw groaned under the pressure, and he missed, scraping skin off Gemma's shoulder instead.
Nico's back collided with the glowing barrier as the force of the punch travelled through his body, and Gemma took advantage of that momentary lapse in focus to seize hold of his wrist.
The air visibly thickened between them Both had a hand on the spear, and Gemma was actively fighting to contain Nico's other arm. The Sanguine Hunter grinned, then tried to headbutt Nico. Nico pivoted, pulling his arm back — making Gemma lean forward — and managed to get enough height to knee him in the stomach. Gemma wheezed, then loosened his grip just long enough for Nico to free his arm and, instead of taking the time to swing, dropped his mace and elbowed him in the face.
Gemma groaned, stumbling back. His spear was ripped from his grasp. Nico brandished it, then held it up to his throat.
"I—ugh—give up," Gemma rasped, then pushed the spear tip aside. He collapsed down on the sand and brought his finger to his shoulder — raw and dripping with blood. A quick activation of his Dormant Ability erased all the damage.
"That should be enough for today," Nico said. "Tessai, deactivate the barrier."
A couple seconds passed. Nico helped Gemma up, then retrieved all but one soul root.
The man's expression visibly dimmed at the loss of all that power.
The glowing barrier still hummed behind him.
"Tessai?" Gemma asked, louder.
Nico sighed, spotting the giant outside the arena, his head lolled back in rest.
'Impudent.'
He extended a soul root from his palm. It phased underground, reemerging beneath Tessai and wrapping around his Soul Core a second later.
The man immediately shot up, his eyes wide, and felt around his chest with both hands.
"Tessai, the barrier," Nico repeated.
His head snapped towards the pair.
"Oh, yeah."
He rolled his eyes, then pressed the button to lower the field.
***
Nico retired to his quarters in the Song Domain's compound late that evening. He had spent the day after his spar practicing his Awakened Ability once again, and he felt himself about to grasp an epiphany. It was so close, but it felt like a single piece was missing — something crucial to the very foundation of his technique itself.
Resting on the couch, he closed his eyes, choosing instead to focus on Shaman's distant mind.
Thoughts flooded his consciousness. The wraith had used the gateway in Ravenheart to return to Earth, and was now appearing in the Song Domain's now fully furnished kitchen. It dispersed its form into thin wisps, travelling through walls and ceilings toward his room.
Nico felt the way it moved through the air. He felt the emotions it did — the joy of reuniting, the irritation at such prolonged boredom, and the growing concern with its own assimilation. He gazed at the world through crimson flames, glided through a separate dimension of the world, and coalesced into a human shape on the couch beside himself.
Groaning, Nico brought his hand to his forehead — his actual one, not the mist-made one Shaman manifested — and carefully probed himself for the source of the sudden headache. It was surprisingly hard to tell the difference between himself and the wraith. There was something wrong. He scooted himself back against the armrest, but Shaman innocently drifted closer.
'What the Spell?'
It was eerie. He shouldn't be two people. And he wasn't even "people", but separate creatures with unique ways of interpreting the world.
Nico built a shaky mental wall between himself and Shaman. The Ascended Devil's hex helped strengthen it significantly, and the pain, quick as it had come, gradually faded into memory.
'What was that?'
A rather fruitless question, considering how little he seemed to know about the process of creating and maintaining his own Spirits.
'I'll… think about it in the morning.'
***
Nico "woke up" early. In truth, he hadn't slept at all, but had instead been put into a sleep-like state by Shaman. Real sleep would've immediately sent him to the Dream Realm. While there was technically no difference, since Kido and Gemma hadn't returned yet, he probably would've had to meet with Damon of Sorrow. It would be a chore, no doubt.
Yawning, he sat up. A blanket fell off his shoulders. Did he grab that in his sleep?
Disregarding the object's appearance, his gaze naturally drifted to the spherical blob floating above the coffee table. Upon closer inspection, he realized that it was his Spirit. Shaman was, somehow, resting, the flames of its eyes smothered into a cloud of diffused light.
'It can sleep?'
Nico blinked.
'I see.'
He stood up, stretched, then entered the bathroom. He stripped himself down, threw his clothes in the trash — they were rather poorly-suited constructions of his anyway — and filled the bathtub with water using a wisp of soul essence.
'Too cold,' he internally remarked as he lowered himself into the tub. 'I'll make it warmer next time.'
After conjuring a washcloth, a bar of soap, and two small vials filled with shampoo and conditioner, Nico cleaned himself. The smell of sweat and… well, a little of everything, faded from his body.
'It's a decent mental exercise.'
Incorporating his Awakened Ability into almost every part of his daily life would help improve his efficiency, as well as the quality of his products. There was never enough practice to be had, and since his Soul Cores could be replenished by either Shaman or the first Nightmare Creature he saw, there was not too much point in being frugal.
Nico rose out of the water once he felt sufficiently clean. The water rolled off his skin — now back to its full, honey-rich color since the moon had fallen, and the sun reigned over the sky; it was yet another new quirk of the Beast God's lineage.
He stepped onto the white tile floor, a soft towel manifesting in his other hand as it rose to his head. He began to dry his hair, then his body, staring into the polished mirror on the wall.
'What should I do today?'
He had spent his first night back introducing Tessai to Song. That was how he had been informed about the movie, A Song of Light and Darkness, and decided to attend the meeting the next day. That event bled well into the afternoon, so he took himself and Tessai back to his quarters in the Song Domain's compound. The morose giant locked himself in his new room. Nico spent the night tinkering with his Awakened Ability, then sparred with Gemma in the morning, and then returned to his earlier activity for the rest of the day.
Then he slept, and now—
The door flung open.
"—swear, that floating thing better not be—"
Tessai froze a couple steps in.
"Good morning, Tessai," Nico said calmly.
The giant's eyes wandered.
"What in the Spell… I could've sworn…"
Nico felt that the man was very, very uncomfortable, and decided to manifest a dark blue robe, knotted at the waist.
"I—huh?" Tessai opened his mouth, then closed it. Nico brushed past him and out into the foyer.
"Apologies. I'll make sure to lock the door next time," he said, ignoring Shaman's sudden appearance at his side and imitation of laughter.
'Don't manipulate Tessai's perception again.'
Shaman's body stiffened. It attempted an exaggerated sigh.
'When did you develop enough intelligence to start imitating human behavior?' Nico mentally asked.
The wraith shrugged, stopped walking, and leaned back. It accelerated unnaturally, surfing into the living room and even doing a couple of flips along the way.
Nico ran a hand through his still-damp hair. He sighed, then manifested a comb.
'Will you eventually be able to create lingual thoughts?'
Another shrug, but this time Shaman was floating upside down, its torso swaying from the ceiling fan.
Nico looked at it. After a moment, he pulled out his communicator, swiping it to unlock. Only two apps appeared — the messaging and browsing ones. It seemed Kido had left him a note saying they'd return to the Dream Realm and talk to Damon of Sorrow, so he typed a short message to just Seishan.
'Enter the Dream Realm by midnight.'
Seishan had been attending meetings with noble figures and directing her former Handmaidens for the last couple days. It was just about time for them all to return to the Moonriver Plain anyway.
And as for what he planned to do in the meantime… well, it would include visiting a sleeping man with black hair, his spirit wandering the forsaken lands of the Forgotten Shore in total darkness.
There was a hunch Nico wanted to confirm.