"That bastard!" Nya punched Faris's bed, they had gathered in Faris and Venka's room after classes. Memories of Faris's actions and demeanor still fresh on their psyche. They had attempted to talk to him the next day, and the next, and the next, but each day he ignored them or berated them. It had gotten to the point that by the end of the week they simply gave up and went to Venka's room instead of stopping by the hospital. Everyone's faces were dour. Ventus looked at them, their mood seeming to visibly dampen the room. He preened himself and settled to rest. Nya got up, paced up and down for a bit as if in an attempt to settle her nerves, still agitated. She finally sat down after a huff.

"Why is he acting like this?" Morgan sighed as he stared at the ceiling. "This isn't like him at all."

"He lost his magic, but why is he so hostilely irrational? At first, he just seemed irrationally mad, but then he had to go and…" Katya turned to Venka, she had been silent on the way to her room, and now simply sat on her bed, hugging her knees to her chest and sitting on the floor. "Venka, you okay?"

"…Yeah…" Venka looked at her friends, "I'm just, wondering, why would he be that angry? It doesn't make sense."

"You think he's faking it?"

"I think he's, over exaggerating it…" Venka sighed, "Either way he's being a moron."

"What do you want to do about it then?" Morgan asked, "March up there, smack him in the face, and make him spill the beans?"

"I like the part where we smack him in the face."

Bartholomew, who after relaying all he could to his uncle and fixing his golems had dutifully received his punishment alongside the rest of the first years. Despite his large form he was easily forgettable amongst them he realized, and after the events began to feel twinges of regret over not participating earlier. Though those feelings weren't on the forefront of his mind.

Bartholomew had been dragged along Dr. Mendel, Beta, and Gamma for some time, at some point he told them he was too exhausted to continue and needed rest. This was ignored at first, until he stopped moving, even when Dr. Mendel threatened his life he refused. Before Dr. Mendel could order Beta to 'coerce' him. Eta had caught up with them. Dr. Mendel's face twisted in anger and indignation as Eta relayed everything that had happened.

"So, you ran like a coward?! And you were defeated by mere human children?!" He smacked the child in the face, turning to Beta he hissed at him to go and apprehend Epsilon and the subjects, terminate on sight. As Beta leapt into action, disappearing from view, Bartholomew felt a gust of wind as he was dragged away from Dr. Mendel and Gamma, into the clutches of a shade. Before he could scream in fear the shade covered his face.

"I'm on your side human. I want you to realize if I wanted to kill you, I would have, I am here to help you rescue your compatriots. I do not want you to scream after I let go of your mouth. Please… please don't scream." Bartholomew took a few seconds to focus his eyes and nod vigorously. The shade released his hold on his mouth and Bartholomew gasped.

"…Um… who are you?"

"Your friend gave me the name of Atlas…"

"Wait!" Bartholomew remembered as he was fleeing alongside Dr. Mendel, the youngest shade, looking uncannily like Faris but with scarlet hair and eyes. "Faris is a shade?!"

"It's a bit more nuanced than that…" Atlas grinned, "Master Faris is actually quite interesting in his own right, and I believe he has some control, especially given his resisting against Master Tartarus's hold."

The rest of their short trip was silent, Bartholomew stopped them only once in order to collect the stones and cores of his ice and fire golem. "Oh, thank god the main parts are still intact, I can rebuild them."

"Curious…" Tartarus observed the runes in the ancient language that littered the cores. "It's extremely complex, but from what I can observe, the ice golem does not in fact generate cold as much as absorb heat already in the atmosphere, thus cooling that area. The heat it absorbs is then absorbed in part from that burning golem, which uses that heat in its own attacks. And…" He pointed at a part. "What's this?" He pointed to a part of the ice golem's make up, "It says something about expanding then contracting after given thresholds…"

Bartholomew nodded, "Yes its…" he looked at the shade suspiciously.

"If I had wanted to, I'd just tear it from your mind, I'm merely curious." He walked along now, Bartholomew speed walking behind him.

"Okay…" As they made their way to the holding cells, he saw that the door was bolted. "Shoot, we don't have a key, and it's magically blocked."

"Give me a moment… but please, explain the concept of the golems if you would."

"Yeah… Faris was the one to suggest it and show me schematics. There's a liquid within the Ice golem, it normally runs through her wings. Faris called it ammonia gas. Basically, the gas can be expanded really easily, when it does it's able to absorb heat quite quickly. This causes the area to cool down slightly, then the gas is compressed, while it's compressed all the heat it's gathered comes together, and it radiates heat, which actually means the heat seeps out, if the heat seeps out, then when the now cooled compressed gas is expanded, it freezes again." Bartholomew shakes his head, "It takes a while, but the fire golem is the perfect match for it, it's designed to gather heat and store and release it, the ice golem also gathers heat, but has an easier time doing it, so the fire golem will instead siphon the heat from the compresses bits of the ice golem. Both golems are stronger just due to their proximity with each other."

"He's exemplary…" Atlas said, he began to line the edges of the door with a green powder. "I assumed he had abnormal intelligence, but to be able to create something like that…"

"It was quite amazing."

"I see… it is sad then…"

Bartholomew frowned, "What do you mean?"

"He is damaged mentally, his mind is fractured, and not all the pieces belong to him…"

"Do you mean with the shade?"

"Oh?" Atlas looked on surprised, "You don't know? I assumed you all knew."

"What?" Bartholomew looked on curiously, any secret of Faris's would be intriguing.

"If he had not told you, he has his reasons, I won't reveal anything that could harm him."

"I can promise you there's little other than attacking the kingdom or wanton mass murder and pillaging that will cause me to turn from Faris, and depending, we might need to know, he may need medical help." Bartholomew gave his best trader's smile.

"That makes sense…" Atlas began to enchant something into the powder, counting down in his head. "The boy, somehow has the memories of over 20 other individuals within his mind, most if not all of them had been slain by him. These memories are complete enough in their own right that his mind was able to fracture and form identities for each one."

"Uh huh…"

"You don't believe me?"

"That just seems unlikely, the ability to retain that much information and call it back… Faris is astounding, but… who's memories are those?"

"Surprisingly enough they seem to have been vagabonds connected to the disappearances of the children with the white hair, though they didn't have white hair in those memories." Atlas stood back. "The most interesting part is perhaps that it was by this method that he took back and resisted Tartarus."

"Tartarus being the shade, right?"

"Yes… Though, the boy, his mind is overtaxing itself, it did not help that Tartarus inherited this strange trait and killed several dozen more men and ripped their memories before slaying them, his mind would likely be unable to withstand that."

"How could he even memorize all that?"

"I don't know, but I know that he's also in incredible danger should he keep this up. It takes magical and physical stamina to allow each segmented 'conciousness' room to exist, Tartarus confessed he was slowly assimilating them, but in order to destroy and completely subsume it, he needed to find the first fake set of memories." Atlas laughed, "He had thought it had been a boy who hadn't been killed by Faris who was the last fake identity. But he was wrong…"

"What do you mean?" Bartholomew was getting uncomfortable with the situation, "So whoever this split of conciousness is, it's not the last fake conscious, but there were only two conciousness left…"

"Tartarus himself told me he questioned why someone would allow a fake to dictate their life. And that he had to be careful, if he used up too much magical energy, he'd end up ending the magic allowing the conciousness to be separate, doing so would cause him to take on their memories and personalities fully. And it would fundamentally change who he was." Atlas looked at the door, "All right, here we go…"

Bartholomew yelped as Atlas pushed him out of the explosion. As the smoke cleared the huddled forms of the members of the rescue squad peered out.

"Bartholomew!?" Bergan had been able to jimmy out of his manacles, and had gotten everyone else out, their only issue had been the door. They had heard voices by the door and moved to the sides in order to ambush their captives. Until Bergan smelled the slight fragrance of purple soldier. His quick thinking saved their lives and ears as they were busted out. "How'd you escape?!"

Bartholomew turned to look to Atlas, who was missing now, after a hurried check to see he wasn't lurking around he turned to Bergan, "They're in trouble!"

From that on they found the rest of the first years. And there had been no trouble getting back. Bartholomew was lost in thought as he remembered Faris's red hair.

"Bartholomew?"

"Wha?!" He looked at the others, they had looked at him bemused by his silence.

"You're not talking, you haven't eaten a thing, you look really uncomfortable."

"Sorry," Bartholomew smiled, "I'm just surprised you're all surprised and bothered."

"What do you mean?" Venka asked now, curious.

"He lost his magic." Bartholomew frowned. "I heard from my uncle, Faris had been attacked by Yacob and his group, he won, spared them, and later that night disgraced Rembrant, this is what caused him to be on Rembrant's radar for targeting. Rembrant's son Yacob's reason for attacking him back then was simple." Bartholomew paused for effect, "His punishment, all their punishments, would have been the loss of magic, their magic would have been taken away, it was bad enough they were willing to kill Faris, not because they'd get it back if they did, but out of vengeful spite."

"Yeah but-"

"But Faris is different?" Bartholomew chortles, "Isn't he a ten-year-old boy? If a young man loses his cool on the threat of losing his magic, why is a young boy exempt?" Bartholomew remembered Atlas's statements, "He's lost a good deal of who he was guys, and I don't think you realize how serious losing your magic is, we've had 12 cases where a student or adult mage was punished enough that they lost their magic as the punishment. 8 didn't make it into the next year, choosing to take their lives instead of live without magic. Sure, Faris isn't exceptionally strong in magic, but was he ever ambivalent to it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Jeez guys…" Bartholomew shook his head, "Did he hate magic or call it tiresome?"

"Well no but-"

Bartholomew remembered the enthusiasm Faris had showing him his ideas and schematics for the golems, and how much fun he had had with the boy enchanting them. "That kid loved his magic, he loved even the tiny amount he could command, I don't know much about his home life, he seems stable enough, but magic seems to be the most valuable thing he may have had." Bartholomew stands to leave, "He reacted stupidly to your attempts to show camaraderie, but I doubt he had the presence of mind to accept such sympathies."

"So, he should take it out on us? We were punished?!"

"For something we knew we would be punished for." Bartholomew stated, "You knew the risks coming into it, we all knew, and I know you were all prepared for the consequences, but were you prepared to lose your magic? Don't answer, let me ask you another question, without your magic, what would you do in life, how would you do it? And would you trust those with magic to not take advantage of the extremely vulnerable you?" Their silence was good enough for him.

"Bartholomew…" Dusan spoke.

"Oh?" Bartholomew bowed lightly, Alanna and Dusan had been the only ones seemingly unfazed with Faris's behavior.

"I'm guessing you also knew?"

"Knew what?" Venka asked, "Why does this happen? Why are we out of the loop, does he hate us now? We did our best! I did my best, I tried, and tried, if I could turn back time I would!"

"Venka…" Alanna began comfortingly, "The best thing to do is…" But before she could say anything else Venka stood up and left.

"Welp…" Morgan began, "We'll wait here to see how it turns out…"

Faris hugged his knees, observing how scarred they were, the first thing he noticed was how small his body was, he had never really taken it into consideration before, but before he died, he was definitely taller than he was now. Hopefully, since his father was taller than his old father, he'd reach that height or even greater heights before he turned 16.

"Damn it…" His eyes welled up with tears again. When he came too, he immediately felt something was wrong, in that he could spread his mind much past his own normal confines, and that he couldn't feel the corner of his mind that housed his magic. Having no magic felt like a wound in the back, one so horrendous the nerves died, and all you could tell was that there was something very wrong, but that he was too scared to reach back to feel the blood and truly ascertain the damage. After his friends left and Lord Jaya left him alone, time had allowed him to truly understand. He had remembered his eyes lingering on the nurses far much longer than they should have, and his head filling with thoughts both nasty and brutal thoughts towards them and his friends. Eventually it started coming back to him, like a dream.

Tartarus was desperate, when Faris had taken back his mind he had at first fought him viciously, but then his friends had intervened. Tartarus took their intrusion poorly. Just as he had begun to intrude on Faris's psyche, so to was Faris's personality and memories dripping into him, it was why he tried to stop the enhanced children, whatever care he developed for them wasn't enough to directly save them, but it was enough that he wouldn't actively kill them. Their 'supposed' betrayal was enough then to tip Tartarus over the edge and unleash a suicidal attack, he destroyed himself, and Faris's connection to magic in the process. In doing so Faris and Damien shuddered as each conciousness within them faded, and they fought to maintain their mental integrity as the equivalent of 1000 years of different life experiences and outlooks threatened to make them lose sight. The last psyche to disappear was Damien, but in doing so, it allowed Faris to realize all he had been doing was running away from his memories, and pretending he was divorced from some of his more unsavory actions. Though he still despised the loneliness he now felt. Worse than that he looked to the side of his bed, several coins, old keys, small knick-knacks and such were slightly hidden, somehow, he had developed kleptomania, though he realized he had inherited it from Uglauw's men, throughout the week it took time for him to divorce their life experiences from his own. Due to his perfect memory, in conjunction with what was the equivalent of copying and pasting their identities, he could almost see, feel, smell, hear, and even taste their life experiences, he even inherited their thoughts at the time, to the point were the only reason he had retained his sanity was through being able to convince himself that their lives. As real as he thought, were theirs and theirs alone. After several binding oaths in the ancient language, he finally divorced himself from their memories, and found to his surprise and fear that his memories beginning with separating Damien, and ending with Tartarus's spiteful suicide, were considered in some way ingenuine as well. He laughed, "I basically forced myself in twain, because I was too cowardly to own up to my own weakness and inefficiency. And because I was existentially scared that I was taking life away from someone, when all I was doing was robbing myself. And now these fuckers are in my head, souring my day because I wanted to understand them, and…" He turned to the door, "You know what? Just come in."

The door opened, revealing Venka, she was relatively calm as she eyed Faris, who stared back evenly. He frowned and she turned away, he had caught her staring at his deep red locks, a permanent reminder of what had happened to him. "I want to talk to you, I want to know why the hell you're acting like this…"

"Like?"

"Like…like nothing matters, you were kicked out of the mage's school, but I still wanted you to stay, you would have been kicked out but they'd be forced to house you do to my demands earlier."

"And so, I live in your shadows?"

"Faris!" Venka teared up slightly, "That's not at all what I mean!"

"Venka…" Faris scratched his hair, "I'm not mad that I've been kicked out, I'm not mad at you guys, I'm mad at Yacob, but I'm not going to pursue vengeance past a few, in my opinion, reasonable demands, I'm mad at myself for stupid things I did, and right now I don't want to be around you guys while I work on piecing myself together."

"So… you're returning home?"

"No, I can't do that either, I don't want to give my parents heat ache, and I don't want to increase their animosity towards this kingdom. They don't even know I was arrested, the news didn't spread far enough, and retractions were sent out rapidly enough to keep the event from spreading past where the damage was already done." Faris pointed to his hair, "Besides, you guys kept looking at this stuff, normal humans aren't going to treat me normally if they realize the story behind it." He chuckled.

"Are you certain you're alright?"

"I'm not alright at all, no, I feel the need to break and hurt things very badly, though I regret what I said to you all, I just wanted you all to leave me alone. Though that doesn't mean I want to talk to you all right now, it'd make me… Uncomfortable? Mad? Probably extremely bitter, and I don't want to expose that many emotions at once."

"And you don't feel bitter towards me?" Faris's silence hurt her a bit, smiling she asked, "Fine, what's the plan…"

"I'm going to get rehabilitation, apparently the kingdom of the dwarves will do me wonders." Faris lied through his teeth, he didn't need Venka knowing that he would remain, he didn't want any of them to try to help him along the way, he needed to do things himself. That coupled with the nature of Jaya's request being quiet, problematic, the military housed the most anti-mage faction members, while none of their high-ranking members were traitors like Rembrant was, his outing was a serious blow to their side. Faris would have to make it seem like he applied on his own.

"And that's that? You've lost your magic? And you're leaving us?"

"Hey!" Faris grinned sardonically, "Are you saying you can't handle yourselves?"

"Are you kidding me?" Venka snapped, "And who rescued whom?" Her face paled, "I mea-"

"No, no," Faris smiled, "You're right, from the little I could recollect, you did outstanding against those enhanced children, and against both shades you fought, honestly you guys are as skilled if not more skilled than the average elite mage, while I can't call you top 100, or even top 500, you're getting there. You especially, I'd imagine in 5 or so years you'd be the head mage." He frowned, "And that's why I can't be with you guys, you don't realize, so many humans have had their memories tampered with in this kingdom, and the ones who were most severely affected are normally family members or close ones of mages." He shook his head, "I'm extremely dangerous to you all, everyone knows what you risked for me, all it would take is one asshole with the mind to spy on you to break into our room and kidnap me if you prove to be too dangerous for their reckoning."

"Do you even believe that?" Venka looked at him with disbelief.

"Venka, you all proved already you were willing to disregard authority on my behalf when I was being arrested, then you did it again to rescue me. From what I can tell, you're having trouble finding students to face you down, and you've all had to give a bit of your magic every day, of course you guys are so skilled that you'll be in pearl next year, but the damage to your reputation is still there, and each council member has faced some sort of trouble for it, Lord Jaya himself losing his seat and position as head." He shook his head, "As far as anyone's concerned, if you are willing to disobey for my sake, you'd be willing to obey for my sake, regardless of the case, you should understand that someone would seek to take advantage of that. I'm no longer Faris Ser, the vengeful, talented, dangerous child mage, capable of facing foes with hundreds of times greater strength than I hold, capable of turning entire bands of soldiers under my mercy. I'm a normal ten-year-old boy, nay, I'm a weaker than average ten-year-old boy."

"So… Is this goodbye?"

"No, more like see you later, I'll be back in time to see you graduate." Faris smiled, "I kinda wished you guys did hate me after what I said, it'd make it easier to not say goodbye."

"Faris… I care about you." Venka looked red as she said it, "Even with everything you're saying, I don't want you to leave, we can find a way…"

"We probably could…" Faris smiled, "But I already swore I'd keep you safe, I've ultimately realized you're safer right now without me than with me." He got out of his hospital bed and approached Venka, who sat a few feet away. He patted her head and cupped her cheeks. She wore a forlorn expression as he looked at her, as if on impulse he kissed her, it was a quick peck, almost forgettable, but both their faces turned red as beats after his kiss. "I promise, I'll be back when I can protect you."

"Y-you!" Venka stood up, face red, she turned around, slapping herself lightly. "You aren't telling me everything!" She frowned, "I…" She started tearing up, looking mad, "Are you taking advantage of my care for you to get me to stop pestering you!?"

Faris looked at her evenly, "Yes…" He knew denying it was what she expected, but he also had begun to feel guilty, and perhaps the recent reminder of his own mortality and general powerlessness emboldened him, he had tried half attempts at making his friends hate him to get away from him. While he could have easily doubled down on the lie and continued to hold it, he chose to trust Venka, even if he didn't know whether that trust was founded or not in reality, he needed someone to confide in. He only hoped she wouldn't despise him, or hate him.

She burst out laughing. "You know what, fuck you, you don't do that, not when we both know we…" She turned to the side, after an uncomfortable bit she plops herself down. "Tell me about Damien."

"What?" Faris looked in alarm, then he remembered, though he hadn't really forgotten, it was one of those… ingenuine memories, of a conciousness that wasn't truly his. But he remembered, every minute detail at the time. "Oh… you remembered?"

"I couldn't forget if I'd want to, he's as familiar as you are, or you're as familiar as you are." She frowned, "But you're always so uncomfortable around me… why?"

Faris smiled, "It's a long story."

"I can listen."

"Fine…" Faris closed his eyes, opening them, his voice and countenance remained the same, he wasn't relying on anyone else to talk, he didn't have anyone else to tell the story, all he had was himself. "So… what do you remember?"

"That, somehow, you and Damien are different, but the same? And that… you had been mad at Damien, but that you had resolved it mostly by then. And that, Anya, you didn't kill her, but… downloaded her memories? And they formed a conscious? And there were other ones too, I think, the men who kidnapped the children? The ones you killed? And that Damien knew a lot of things."

"Yeah…" Faris chuckled, even as the pain threatened to form a lump in his throat. Clearing it he found it surprisingly easy to breath as he looked Venka in her eyes. "Perhaps I should start from the beginning, I want you to know, I won't reveal this lightly, and please." He looked at Venka, who looked back seriously as she saw the fear and uncertainty in his eyes. His voice, which trembled with his doubt and apprehension, began at barely a whisper as he spoke. "I had been coming home from the library..."