Hundreds of voices faded into a dull murmur in the background. Lazula couldn't tell which were real anymore, if any. They all sounded the same, blended together as they echoed across the dome of glass and gold. Only two people mattered in that moment– herself and the Headmaster, whose eyes still refused to turn away. A spare few seconds, a minute, or ten. She couldn't tell how much time passed before his hollow words broke the standoff.

"You did the soul analysis, didn't you?"

"Four hundred and sixty souls," Lazula mumbled. "How?! And why didn't you tell me?"

His eyes faltered, landing on the smooth floor of swirling white, silver, and gold. "I was waiting for a good time."

"When the hell would have been a 'good time' to drop that one on me?" she questioned.

"Later, Lazula," he maintained. "I'm sorry."

Only after a deep breath that caught in her throat could she bring herself to her next words. "But, the souls. They're the reason my aura's so strong. The reason I'm so strong."

Headmaster Skye shook his head. "You're still one of the most skilled–"

"Just– stop," Lazula interrupted, slicing the air with her hand. She assessed all the ears and eyes in the lobby, and began to walk past the Headmaster with a glare to warn off the woman that had turned their way. "We're not having this conversation here."

"Lazula," he nagged.

Her shoes screeched on the floor as she whipped her head halfway around. "What?"

"Please, at least speak to your mother. She was adamant we tell you. And she carried the souls first. You might learn something from her."

Lazula turned back toward the stairs with half a sigh. It wasn't a bad idea, but she wasn't in the mood to admit that to him.


Noxis had ventured out of his hospital bed to the chair next to a window overlooking the park and the bay. A flattened Holoband lay in his lap, and his one hand scrolled through full-scale models of prosthetics. He stopped on one, better built-up than a couple of the others but proportionate to his other arm. Smooth and slightly grooved down each side, as if to suggest lean muscle.

He tapped a circle floating in aether, and it twirled to the elbow side of the Hologram. Noxis held his own half-arm out to meet it, and thousands of points of light coalesced to fill in a prosthetic elbow and an inch or two of his upper arm. The light-based model tracked his movements as he turned his hand over a couple of times, and each of his fingertips took a turn at the tip of his thumb.

The door opened.

"Headmaster," Noxis greeted. His arm vanished in a mist of blue light.

"Mister Orion."

"Please just call me Noxis," Noxis dismissed. "Not out of courtesy. I just can't stand my last name."

"I understand, Noxis." Headmaster Skye lowered himself into the only other seat in the room. "And I've been told you made a decision."

The tousled black spikes atop Noxis's head bobbed as he nodded. "Yeah. I'll do it."

"I want to make sure you're certain about this," the Headmaster checked. "This is a major procedure, and it's incredibly hard to undo something like this."

"If I didn't do it, I'd spend my life reminded I had the chance," Noxis figured, clutching his half-arm.

"In that case, I can make sure all the paperwork is handled as soon as possible," the Headmaster pledged. "If all goes well, we'll have you transferred in a few days' time. We'll send an android to collect everything you need from your dorm." He paused. "Or a member of our staff, if you would prefer."

"Doesn't matter."

Headmaster Skye nodded once, and fixed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. "Alright. You'll hear back from hospital staff about that transfer. Glad I was able to help."

"Before you go," Noxis interrupted, as the Headmaster stood and began ironing out his blazer with a flat hand. "This might be the last time we talk for a while. So I want to tell you something."

"Go on."

"Condor is planning something."


Lazula was back at home in the Skye Manor four hours before the end of her mother's workday, granting her plenty of time to sit with all the unpleasant thoughts for company. Her parents had been lying to her for the last eighteen and a half years, and who knows who else was in on it? Who else knew that none of her victories were from her own strength or skill? She didn't even have the energy to consider what it meant for her future in the Huntsman Leagues. She was too busy grappling with the feeling of betrayal, and all the questions that surrounded the fact four hundred and sixty souls occupied her body instead of one.

Her mother's return was a relief. So was the fact she returned alone, so she didn't have to look at her father again. The Headmistress had, apparently, heard everything. She brought Lazula straight upstairs into a room overlooking the garden, with a view of the storm that stripped the most stubborn leaves from barren branches.

Lazula began her interrogation before they both sat. "Alright. To start, how did I even end up carrying four hundred and sixty souls?" then, quieter, "Do I even have a soul of my own?"

Her mother gathered her honey-blonde ponytail at her shoulder. "How much do you remember about your father and I's Twilight Crusade days?" She asked in reply. "And about the Church of Awakening?"

"I remember… they were a cult that sacrificed faunus. They were trying to resurrect the God of Darkness, or something," Lazula recalled. "And I remember something about Vladimir Garnett taking souls, but I never understood it. I was little when you told me, so I didn't understand it all. And once I got older, I realized you didn't want to talk about it."

"I think you were right," her mother acknowledged. Her eyes turned down, and out the window. "His semblance was made for someone like him. Every time he killed someone, he would absorb their soul into his own. He had absorbed two thousand by the time we dealt with him. Each one made him stronger. By the time we fought, he had hundreds of times the aura of the average person. And was much, much stronger."

"...Like me."

Lazula didn't know her mother's face was capable of the look it took on. "You and him are nothing alike, Lazula. You're a good person. I know you are."

"Just keep going."

She opened her mouth, but bit back her protest and continued instead. "I was the one to land the final hit on him. I killed him. And when I did, four hundred and sixty souls transferred into me. As far as we figure, they were from a village the Garnett family destroyed in Northern Mistral."

"Then the things I hear… Those aren't hallucinations. The souls are talking, or repeating words they said in life. And the visions..." She rubbed her hand up the bridge of her nose and across her eye, where it sat. "Gods, I feel like I'm going to puke."

Lazula couldn't tell if she wanted her mother's hand on her shoulder as she started to reply. "I saw them too. And I heard them," she consoled. "It was always worst around blood. In med school they had to take me out of the surgery ward entirely. And all that time the voices would make me anxious, and restless, and so irritable..."

"So can I get rid of them?"

"We only knew the souls passed to whoever killed the current host," she answered. "But after you were born, I couldn't get out of bed for weeks. I felt so weak, that I realized the souls must have transferred to one of you, or both. As soon as you were old enough, we got you tested."

"So death, or I pass them along to another kid that didn't ask for them?" Lazula summarized. "There's no other way?"

"I'm sorry, but we don't know. We've never found a way," she said. "That's how we came into contact with Frontline. Your father was a patient of theirs years before, but after your soul analysis Griswold Baine himself contacted us. He said he was curious about soul transference. We tried to figure out a method of transferring souls between people, but at the time nothing seemed to work."

Her voice cracked under the weight of her words. "And why didn't you tell me?"

"I'm so sorry, Lazula," her mother pleaded. She could tell her mother, at least, genuinely was. She'd take it over the Headmaster's cold insistence he was somehow in the right. "When you were younger, we didn't want to scare you. Then, your father insisted we keep it secret."

"Couldn't you have told me?"

"Your father has good reasons," the Headmistress replied after a brief hesitation. Lazula's look must have told her the half-explanation wasn't nearly enough. She leaned in a bit closer, as if there were others around. "I can't give too much away, but things are going to start happening soon. Your father is on our side, you need to remember that. He has a plan. And you, the strongest huntress of a generation, have a place in it. In his words, he wants to limit the number of 'contingencies' surrounding you."

"Contingencies? Like what? That I'm my own gods-damned person with my own mind? And not a weapon?" Lazula continued. The reason was clear. She was a weapon, one that couldn't know why it was so powerful, or else it wouldn't obey its owner so easily anymore. Or it would try to get rid of that power. But she couldn't stand being in the dark any longer. "What is he even planning for? What is going to happen soon?"

"I've already said too much. I can't tell you anything else."

Lazula straightened to her feet, and looked down on her mother from the corner of her eye as bolts of rainbow flicked across her iris. "Of course you can't."


Almost a week had passed since the incident at Sparring Team. Moka didn't leave the infirmary until Sunday morning. According to her, what hurt most by the end of her stay wasn't her head or the wounds left by broken glass, but the soul-crushing boredom that came with sitting in the same bed all day. She made an escape attempt Saturday morning, but didn't make it much further than the coffee stand in Slate Library.

Lazula had been quiet since. Caspian wanted to think it was an accident. He saw the horror in Lazula's eyes– the kind of look he'd never seen before. But she hadn't said a word. She hadn't said a word, and Lilly had only half a vague explanation when she showed up at the infirmary. According to her it was an accident, and she was "going through something." It was somehow enough for Moka to forgive her, but it was getting harder to defend his sister against people's whispers.

Caspian's hands relented on the bar above his head in time with a victorious ring from the stack of weights next to him. His arms fell to his sides, and he leaned into the pads keeping his legs in place with a worn-out smile. "Oh, man. Tomorrow's gonna be another sore day."

"Probably," Moka agreed with a smile of her own. "You lifted more than I did today!"

"Well, I'm not recovering from a concussion and five shards of glass in my back," Caspian countered. He dismounted the lat pulldown machine. "I'm getting hungry though. Wanna go to The Roots after this? Looks like everyone's heading over in a bit."

Moka's tail approached the ground. "Mm, I think I'm gonna visit my mom tonight," she said. "She isn't feeling great today, so I should stop by."

"Oh– I'm… really sorry. Is everything okay?"

"Yes! Yeah, it's not like she's in any danger or anything," Moka assured. "She had another round of chemo this morning, and it was pretty rough on her. But she'll be okay."

"Good," Caspian concluded. He took an ice-cold swig from his water bottle, pondering how to frame his next words. Compliments were hard– moreso the deeper down from which they came.

"You know, before our mission, Noxis would tell me every now and then that I have no idea how good I have it. And he's right. Not every kid is born healthy to a loving family with billions of lien. I have it better than just about anyone," he began. "And you, I mean, not everything has always been easy for you. But you're still so strong. And seem so happy, and healthy, and like despite everything that happens you just keep moving forward. I really admire that about you."

"Oh, thank you," Moka returned. But by the twitch of her tail and downturned gaze, he knew his words didn't have the intended effect. He only hoped he hadn't made her uncomfortable. Her next words answered that question. But dropped his heart into his stomach.

"I'm not doing as well as you think I am, Cas."

"What do you mean? Are you doing okay?"

"Well, mostly. Like, mentally I'm usually fine," she answered. He followed her lead out of the busy main-floor workout area. "I just came to Sentinel because I wanted to win tournaments, and put the money I win toward my mom's treatment. But since coming here, I've entered one tournament, and didn't even fight past the first round."

"That wasn't your fault," Caspian contested. "If you had fought instead of Cat, you probably would have carried your team to the singles."

"I don't know, maybe. But I haven't done anything to help her," she insisted. "I tried to get some crappy part time job to make any amount of money for her, but I couldn't even keep that."

"I thought you were good with the customers? Did you get–"

Moka's nod answered his question. "I was. But that only goes so far when you're late more often than you're on time. And I straight-up forgot to go once. My boss told me I just wasn't worth it."

"Sorry. But it kind of sounds like your boss was a jerk anyway."

Moka's sigh almost lifted into a laugh. "I don't know, maybe you're right. I'm just so frustrated I've done nothing to help her, after all this time."

"You've been good company for her."

"Yeah. While she stays in the hospital we pay more money than we'll ever have just to keep her alive."

"You have time though, don't you?" Caspian prompted. "We're still here for two and a half more years. And a lot of people don't even enter their first tournament until their third or fourth year."

Moka's mouth stayed open for a few seconds before producing her next words. "I don't know if she has that kind of time," she whispered. "And I might not be here next year, Cas. I failed two classes second semester of last year, and I failed one first semester. If my grades don't improve soon I won't be around much longer. But the classes just keep getting harder, and I stay the same level of kinda stupid."

"You're not stupid, Moka," Caspian assured.

"I'm not smart like you, or Lilly, or Ichigo. I have to study really hard to get decent grades at a place like this," she maintained. "But every time I try, I start thinking about who I want to hang out with, or the new hobby I don't have enough money to try, or, I don't know, how much I want to see the Northern Lights? Just, everything I'm missing out on."

"Then, I know," Caspian decided. "You've been helping me a ton, so I can do the same for you. Whenever you want to study– or need to, I guess, I'll help you. I have a pretty good grasp on our classes, so I can keep you on track, teach you, whatever you need most."

"That would… be really helpful, actually," Moka admitted. "But, um, I'll need a lot of help. Like, we might have to start with last year's stuff."

"Oh, and I came into the SFC deadlifting two hundred pounds," Caspian ribbed. "And knowing what a deadlift was in the first place."

Moka kept her eyes in Caspian's as a quick giggling fit overtook her. Warmth flushed over him. The lights dancing in her eyes were bright– too much so, like staring directly into the sun. He had to turn his eyes away after a second.

"Okay, fair," she allowed once the fit had passed. "So it looks like we have a deal."

Caspian glanced side to side, then into the window that looked out over the pool.

"Why are we at the swimming pool?"

"Huh? I don't know, I was following you."


As he stood in the entrance to Frontline Biomedical's Central hospital, Caspian took a second to compose all the words he had planned for Noxis. He knew he'd lose some of it to nerves and the simple fact it was so much easier to think than to speak, but he needed a solid base. That way if the words came tumbling out all scrambled by nerves like he knew they would, they'd at least be the right ones.

He didn't quite forgive Noxis for all he'd done, and all he had been involved in. He didn't know if he could after October 1st. But he recognized he was trying to change. Caspian didn't know how long Noxis would be out of commission– or if he'd ever come back. But when he did, despite all he had done and all he had said in the past, if he was willing to work with Caspian, Caspian was willing to work with him.

He nodded, if only to assure himself, and proceeded to the front desk.

"Hi, I'm here to visit a patient?" Caspian asked.

The android met him with a pair of cameras that looked just like eyes. "Okay, which patient would you like to see?"

"Noxis Orion?" Caspian tried. "I'm his teammate, at Sentinel. His team's leader, actually."

At first the android appeared to have ignored Caspian's words in favor of the computer at the desk, but it looked up after a few seconds. "It appears that patient is no longer here."

"He's not here?" Caspian repeated. "What do you mean?"

"According to our records, Noxis Orion was transferred yesterday morning. He's now receiving care at Haven Central Hospital, in Mistral."

Caspian stood at the counter for a few seconds more, alone with all the words he didn't get the chance to say. He turned away, and his absent eyes arrived on a news story about the Pyrrha Nikos tournament coming to Vale.