Kapitel 14: 14. In Spirit

The past few weeks passed by unceremoniously for the most part.

Mia stopped teaching me maths at the request of the actual teachers on the compound, saying that rushing my education too much might cause accidental stress, which would be bad for my recovery.

I was annoyed by this since I couldn't do anything but meditate and watch other people fight, and not having the studies to focus on while meditating made it more difficult. So I did what any other eleven year old girl would do when she was bored.

Annoyed my older brother into entertaining me.

Or at least everyone's Big Brother, Taiyo. The medical nerd happily divulged himself of some of his older books of the basics on many subjects. Human anatomy, herbology, parasitology, toxicology, drug interactions, as well as buying me more up to date books on magicology.

Mia and Aki took this as him trying to buy me over to his field of study and did exactly the opposite of what the teachers said to do, gave me more books on magic and manuscripts of martial arts.

Needless to say, I was ecstatic.

Everytime I sat on my bed I had a big dumb, happy smile on my face as I buried my nose in one of the many subjects I had available. It was a glee from my childhood I missed and loved. The others noticed it quickly, as no matter the subject or field, I just loved to learn.

Magic itself was such a diverse field, even the studies about the types were diverse. There was magic as we know it that uses ethernano, anti-magic that used bane particles, and even magic that used bane particles. There were even offshoots of magic such as alchemy that involves transmuting the matter of an object, a dark equivalent of magic called curses that uses curse energy born from negative emotion, and spirit arts that use spiria instead of ethernano, bane particles, or curse energy and requires a lot of discipline to master.

This wondrous art evolves even further when you consider the biological effects magic has. For instance, a recent discovery has shocked the scholarly world. All mages are born with a magic origin in their bodies and it's the thing that allows us to perform magic to the capacity we do in the first place, but after studying how creatures such as demons don't need a magic origin to perform magic they discovered that wizards can awaken a second magic origin within themselves, which while always having existed, largely goes unused.

Some of the most powerful wizards in the world seem to naturally awaken their second origin without realising it and research is currently going on to find a way to enable mages to purposely awaken it.

I was determined to see if I could be the one to do it.

The power I could get from it…

Magic power, that was the deciding factor I needed to always have the upper hand. I have been building it further and further since I was a child, and while my magic power was weak and unrefined at the moment, it was much larger than it should be for a child my age and even surpassed most of the adults in the compound, even lieutenants such as Mia.

Which is why I was determined to refine it.

I spent more time meditating, determined to get my magic energy to be as hot as the ethernano emanating from the bonfire, to be able to reach that eighth ring and bathe in the energy from right next to the source.

It was painful and each second felt like I was on the edge of death, but when I did meditate near the pyre, instead of in my room or in the sun, I tried to focus on the words of the Captain.

I pictured a wildfire, my emotions, the anger I had towards the worshippers of Zeref. It would burn anything and everything it touched, indiscriminately. Friends and foes would all be turned to ash.

But I tried to control it.

Shrink it.

Bring that rage under my control.

From a wildfire, to a campfire, to a torch, to eventually a small flame in the palm of my hand.

All without losing its heat, instead compacting that wildfire into a smaller, infinitely hotter flame.

The same heat that made me suffer each time I sat in that ring.

In words, it sounded simple. But in practice, it was difficult. I had to raise my own body temperature to excruciating levels and hold that heat for hours at a time.

Everytime I felt that I had made progress, however, the heat would rise. It wasn't just me, though. Everyone seemed to be pushed further and further away as the heat would rise, but I only viewed this as a tribulation, as if the bonfire was testing me, and pushed further.

Much to my astonishment, and others, I had managed to make it to the second ring just a few days before the week of the Obon festival. This pushed others to continue to try and face the bonfire as well, almost ashamed that a pre-teen had more motivation than veteran mages.

But it wasn't the fact that I had made it to the second ring that impressed me, but what seemed to be the reward.

The magic seemed to heal my body, provide me nutrients on a level that food didn't and accelerated my recovery.

It seemed that whatever the source of the bonfire was, it seemed to repay me for my efforts after pushing myself and surviving its tribulations, giving me more strength and encouraging me to face the next layers.

Taiyo said that instead of the usual five months needed for recovery from malnutrition, I only needed another two. He also said that no-one truly knows what that phenomenon is and has stumped the few that even attempted to research it over the years.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, though, I continued to try and reach the further levels.

And not because I was trying to distract myself from what I was currently having to face.

Mia and Aki went to celebrate the festival with their families. Mia, her parents and grandmother, and Aki, his uncle and great uncle. This left me and Taiyo alone for the week.

Both of us were uncharacteristically quiet, and you'd have to be an idiot to not be able to figure out why. This was a festival to celebrate your ancestors with your family, and we…

Even if he tried to smile and cheer me up, I could still see the cracks in the usual happy facade he had.

The two of us were currently walking up a set of stairs along the mountainside in a line towards a temple that acts as the shrine for those who don't have the ability to provide graves for the deceased. The sun had started to set and the sky was grey with a thick layer of clouds.

"Mia said her family took you in, right? So…why don't you celebrate the festival with them?"

"Because," he said, his tone solemn in the bittersweet atmosphere, "As much as I love them, our families are separate. I'll celebrate any other festival with them, but this is the one occasion I'd prefer to be alone."

"Does it bother you that I'm here?"

"No, firecracker. Not at all."

His small smile was the only warmth I had in this cold afternoon, but even then, it didn't provide much.

Eventually the procession made it to the temple, where priestesses would light the candles inside our lanterns, when we would then carry them down into the city centre and use the candle to light incense sticks. And then we lit a small braid on fire after tying it to a large arch in the centre of the city.

This was our contribution as an apology for not having a grave for our departed, a central gate so that they may roam the city freely during the festival and leave whenever they wanted.

As the night progressed, Taiyo and I joined the others to watch the dancers parade through the streets before heading back to the compound, our plain, white paper lanterns in hand hoping to be able to spend the next few days with the family we lost.

"Do you want me to stay with you?" he said as he walked me to my empty bedroom.

"No. Y…you're right. This is something I'll need to be alone for. It just won't feel right."

He patted me on the head before wishing me well.

"My room will be unlocked, if you need anything."

"Thank you…"

Sitting the paper lantern down on the end of the low table in the centre of the room, I took in my usual living space. The usually energetic space was empty and cold, devoid of the usual sources of warmth.

Aki's snide remarks, Taiyo's happy tones, and Mia's bickering banter.

None of it was here. Not even its echoes.

But the spirits of my deceased family should be, so…I shouldn't be alone. That was the purpose of the festival, afterall.

But who would even be here?

Matron Clarise?

Grandpa Rob?

What about that woman who left me in Rosemary in the first place?

Those purple eyes and black locks that are a mirror image of my own, and that small song, my first ever memory…

"No. I…I have to be realistic. Just because she isn't in my life doesn't mean she's dead. She probably just didn't want me…"

But…I must still have ancestors who showed up. Everyone has a lineage that flows through their blood.

Even if I don't have visitors from my blood, maybe Grandpa Rob decided to take the chance to check up on me.

"Umm, hi, Grandpa Rob. I'm sure…I'm sure you've found peace in heaven. I bet your daughter is sad to see you again, though. But if anyone deserves peace, it's you. You spent so much effort trying to make sure we kids didn't despair while we were in the tower, and you even sacrificed yourself for our freedom, but…but…"

My voice choked the more and more I talked, the weight of my memories finally pressing down on me once again as I confessed my unspoken source of anguish.

"It was all for nothing! Something took over Jellal, and blew up the ships before everyone could escape! I don't even know if Erza lived, but we were thrown out of the tower, the lives of our friends were threatened, and I just…I just, I don't know what to do. The only thing I can think of is to get stronger, strong enough to protect them all so he won't be able to live up to those threats, but I don't know how to do that or even what to do afterwards…I don't even know if I'll be strong enough to find the one who ruined our chances at a happy ending."

Tears freely ran down my face at this point as doubts and worries I didn't even know I had begun to emerge.

"Everyone here, they're so kind hearted and have offered me so much, but everyone that helps me always feels tragedy. Rosemary went up in flames, the boats that were supposed to give us freedom went up in flames, even you were killed by flames, so is this village next? What about my next home, and the home after that? Are these flames a curse? Should I just stop everything before it's too late, so that I don't lose the home I have here?"

"Before I'm alone again…?"

I sat there in silence with my head hung low, desperate for an answer from the elderly man who had always acted as a source of guidance during my time in slavery.

From a spirit I didn't even truly believe was there…

The sound of crackling pulled my attention to the flame in the lantern, the only source of light in the dark room.

The dim orange light flared up slightly, and the colour changed to a bright violet as it stretched out of the lantern and started to take shape in the air, as if someone was writing with the flames as ink.

As the message formed, the violet light spread throughout the room and illuminated translucent figures that were all dedicating their attention to me. Some were human, but most weren't.

Pointed ears, sharp teeth, horns, scaled limbs, sharp claws, and bat-like wings all surrounded me as a sweet, familiar melody rang in my ears. Even some of the more human figures had some of these traits, as if they were hybrids.

[Dun dudunduh duh duh~]

The source became clear as one of these hybrids stood in front of me, her finger coated in the same purple flame she used to write the message in between us that hovers just in the air.

A message I could barely read through the tears blurring my vision.

[You are not cursed, my dear Alectsa. And you are never alone.]

Long black hair, purple eyes, and black horns stood in front of me, beside her was a human man with blonde hair and brown eyes. They were both dressed in brown robes and rags that made them look like travellers that were on the run, a marathon that stopped a long time ago.

Despite being dead the two lovers looked at me with smiles full of warmth.

Smiles I had never seen before.

A warmth I had never felt before.

[Because we will always be here.]

A warmth greater than any flame could ever hope to achieve.

[Watching over you.]

The smiles of my parents.

[In spirit.]