Akari clutched the base of the pot as they tore through the alleyway. Missiles struck the back windows, and the van shook from the impact. Nothing had broken yet, but those protection sigils wouldn’t last long.

“Hang on!” Hector repeated. They left the alley a second later, taking a sharp right and spinning into the evening traffic. Akari and Kalden slid across the floor, but they didn’t let go of the pot.

Kalden kept stirring with his head down, using his other hand to adjust the dial and feed more mana into the battery.

Talek. He wasn’t kidding about this taking his full concentration. For a second, he almost looked like his old self with that cold, unshakable gaze.

Akari craned her neck to look out the front window. It wasn’t easy with her glasses half-broken.

Hector wove against traffic, and several more cars collided as they scrambled to dodge. Her heart raced as she felt the full weight of their situation. This wasn’t just about saving Relia anymore. They’d all die without her.

Three squad cars turned on their sides up ahead, forming a blockade in the road. The drivers reached out from their windows and formed ten-foot Constructs of ice mana.

She braced herself for a collision, but Hector spun the wheel at the last second, pulling them onto the sidewalk. Pedestrians scrambled away as the van squeezed through the cobblestone path.

Soldiers followed on their motorcycles, sirens blazing in a high-pitched song. Those sounds still made her shiver to this day.

More mana flashed around them, and the back window shattered from the impact. Hector squeezed the van between two palm trees, merging back into traffic with another sharp right.

“Shokita!” he shouted. “You’re on defense!”

Akari hesitated, meeting Kalden’s eyes. Talek, was she actually scared? Maybe it was that fight in the bathroom. Maybe it was the sirens reminding her of the night her mother died. Or maybe it was the fact that Kalden actually liked her. That seemed too good to be true—as good as a death sentence for one of them.

Probably her, since Kalden had all the luck.

A truck slammed into their van, shattering another window behind Kalden. Mana flashed from Akari’s hand as she formed a domed Construct over their heads. Shards of glass ran down the sides like rain from an umbrella.

Kalden raised his head with a grateful smile. For a split second, she saw some of her own fear reflected in his face. It vanished just as quickly, and he gave her a firm nod.

“Go,” he said. “I’ve got this.”

She scrambled into motion, hopping over the back seat where Relia lay. She threw open the back doors and found more than a dozen squad cars in pursuit.

Here we go. Still crouched in the van’s cargo area, she fell into a combat stance and cycled her mana.

~~~

The reagents shone brighter as Kalden turned the battery’s dial. This part was more of an art than a science. The cauldron’s temperature might be perfect, but other changes affected the bonding process. Things like air pressure, humidity, and ambient mana. That meant you had to rely on your other senses. How thick did the mana feel against the spoon? How fast was it changing colors and emitting light? Did it still smell earthy and sweet, or had it become sharp and bitter?

Many alchemists would measure perfectly up to this point, only to fail when the numbers ceased to matter. It was hard enough in a lab, much less a car chase. He’d taken a mental enhancement potion to stay focused, but those effects waned now.

Shards of metal mana cut through the wall opposite him, and the door flew off its hinges. A squad car appeared in the opening, and someone hurled a flurry of Missiles toward him.

Kalden raised a Construct of pure mana, protecting himself and the cauldron. He threw his own technique at the driver, but the back passenger deflected it.

Akari leapt back over the bench, launching her own mana out the broken door. The back passenger blocked that too, but Akari raised a gun in her other hand and pulled the trigger. The bullet struck the back passenger in the head with a spray of crimson.

Angels above. Was that the same gun she’d taken from Frostblade? He’d forgotten she had that.

Akari launched a second Missile at the driver. Kalden didn’t see the impact, but the enemy car spun off the road.

They reached an intersection, and Hector took another sharp turn. Kalden’s backpack slid across the floor.

“Grab that!” he shouted.

Akari grabbed the bag’s strap just before it slid out the open door. Time slowed to a crawl, and Kalden watched the compressor and pill casings fly out the top pocket. The wind caught them both, and they flew away.

Oh no.

Akari deflected more mana with a mix of Missiles and Constructs. She handed Kalden the bag, and he glanced in the open pocket, hoping against hope there was something else there.

He had one mental enhancement potion, one bottle of pure mana, and one bottle of space mana. Plus, he’d still have the extra lantre and helocite in the smaller pocket, along with the grenades he’d taken from the lab. That was all. No pill casings, and no compressor.

The reagents shone even brighter in the cauldron, and Kalden failed to quench his rising panic. Even if Hector made a fire, how would he hold the pill together? How would he finish this?

Kalden pressed his back against the wall and took a deep breath through his nostrils. He ignored the flashing mana, and the way his body slid side-to-side on the floor. Should he take his last enhancement potion? No. Potions like that helped you focus, but that focus came at the expense of creativity.

Think. Alchemy had existed for thousands of years, long before these modern tools. How would the alchemists from the past have solved this?

They would have used Mana Arts.

Was that possible? Not at Kalden’s level. He needed more mana, more power, and more control. Relia could have done it, but she was too busy surviving her crystals. And Hector only had his fire aspect.

Kalden’s past self could have done it too—he could have used his Mana Arts to shape and compress the pill. But he wasn’t that person anymore.

“We’re on the bridge,” Hector said. Kalden glanced up and realized Hector was right. They’d reach the blockade soon, and they’d have to fight their way through.

“You ready for that fire, shoko?”

No. He only had one viable solution, but no one to execute it.

Not yet.

Kalden’s thoughts raced even faster than the van. It seemed too soon to advance. He’d only just begun having these dreams about the past. They had nothing but theories and vague plans.

But this was necessary. It had to be now.

Besides, what else was he waiting for? He felt like he needed more information, but what difference would it make? Kalden understood his past self—he’d filled entire notebooks, analyzing his personality and his desires.

Or rather, his lack of desires.

“Talk to me, shoko.”

“One minute,” Kalden hollered back.

“You’ve got ten seconds.”

Kalden took another deep breath, sinking deeper into his own mind.

His past self had trained to appease his parents, with no goals of his own to fight for. He’d never stood up to them in those days. For all his fighting in the dueling rings, he’d never uttered a single word in his own defense.

He thought about the mental enhancement potion. His past self had been like that all the time. He’d known how to follow rules, but not how to improvise. He’d only started doing that on Arkala, after his brother had left. Since then, he’d yearned to follow in Sozen’s footsteps—reaching for something more.

His past self had been predictable. Everything had been mapped out for him, from his training schedule to his career path.

No … not my past self. Me.

Memories weren’t ancient history, buried in some vault. They were an active part of him—suppressed by the same force that had sent them to that island.

He remembered what Akari had told him that outside day school—the day he hadn’t stood up to his mother.

“I’m spineless,” Kalden whispered as he stirred the cauldron. His soul didn’t react to that. Being spineless was a symptom, but it wasn’t the cause. Besides, he hadn’t been afraid before. It was more logical than that. His parents had been Grandmasters. He couldn’t win that battle, so he’d retreated deeper into himself.

“I don’t think,” Kalden whispered. “I only train. I do my duty as a member of Clan Trengsen.”

His mana reacted to that. Kalden felt a pain in his soul, and some of his mind opened to the dream world. So close.

“I only fight for my parents.”

That was closer but it still wasn’t right. He hadn’t cared about what his parents wanted, either. He hadn’t cared about anything. He’d only worked to fill his purpose.

The words came to Kalden’s mind, and he spoke them aloud. “I’m a machine.”

Mana exploded through his soul, racing through his channels. He tasted it in his mouth, smelled it in his nose. It prickled his skin, and he saw blue in the corners of his eyes. It even flooded his thoughts, carrying a thousand memories from his past life.

His mind moved halfway into the spiritual realm, and he had a choice to make. He’d embraced his past self, but they hadn’t synthesized yet. Some part of him still rejected that idea. Whether it was his brain or his soul, Kalden couldn’t say.

And maybe he was right to be afraid. What if he returned to that state of apathy? What if he fell into some dark pit he couldn’t escape?

Kalden watched Akari as she fired more Missiles from the back of the van. Blood and bruises covered her body. One of her lenses was still a web of cracks, and the middle was barely held together with tape.

She seemed so fierce as if nothing could stop her. But that wasn’t true. He’d seen her break before in that Martial prison, the night they’d rescued Elend. He’d helped her then, and he knew she’d do the same for him. If Kalden’s past self took over, Akari wouldn’t give up on him.

So Kalden embraced everything. Every memory, and every thought. The truth became clearer with each passing second. There was no dichotomy between past and present. He’d survived hardships, but he’d changed. He’d become his own person.

Kalden opened his eyes, and he felt a calm clarity. Then, almost as an afterthought, he glanced at the mana watch on his wrist. He’d bought this on a whim a few days before, inspired by Akari’s obsession with numbers.

795/795, the screen read.

Five points short of Apprentice. Kalden had hoped he might go all the way, but that didn’t matter now. He knew what needed to be done, and he had the means to do it.

The van screeched to a halt, and Hector unbuckled his seatbelt. “You better be ready, shoko.”

“I’m ready,” Kalden said.

Akari knelt down beside him a second later, retrieving the bottle of liquid mana from his pack and helping herself to a good long swallow. She must have drained her soul during the chase.

Kalden glanced out the back window and saw more than a dozen squad cars behind them, forming another blockade. A dozen more soldiers waited in the toll booth up ahead.

He looked down at his glowing cauldron and formed two Constructs, no bigger than the palms of his hands. They started as circular planes, but he pulled pressure from the middles, stretching the planes into two halves of a capsule.

Kalden understood the shaping, but his eyes still widened as he plunged both halves into the cauldron. Ten minutes ago, he’d barely been able to move his Constructs, much less change their shapes in midair.

The reagents filled the shell, and he retrieved the pill, grasping it in both his hands, applying pressure from his channels to compress it. At the same time, he pulled his mana from the outer shell to reduce its surface area.

Their enemies didn’t wait for them to finish. No sooner had Kalden begun compressing the pill than another volley of Missiles struck the van.

Kalden kicked the bag at his feet. “Four grenades in here.”

“Got it.” Hector unzipped the pocket and pulled out two of the explosives, hurling them out the side of the door. He followed with several blasts of fire mana.

Akari threw the other two out the front windshield, following with several techniques of her own.

Kalden couldn’t see the results, but it must be working because the van wasn’t shaking so hard now. His channels strained as he applied more pressure to the pill. He shook with the effort, and it felt like lifting twice his body weight. His mana might be stronger, but his body was barely ready for this.

Finally, Kalden reduced the pill to half the size of his thumb. Now, he just needed the last blast of heat.

“Hector!” he shouted.

Hector turned around and began gathering fire mana in his palms. Kalden used his own mana to hold the pill in midair.

“Twelve hundred degrees, you said?”

Kalden nodded. “A few seconds should do it.”

“No problem. One fire coming right—”

Another volley of Missiles tore through the back window. One struck the side the side of Hector’s head. His technique faded, and he collapsed on the van’s floor.

“Damnit,” Kalden cursed as he turned him over. “Hector? Hector?”

No reply. He still had a pulse, but he didn’t open his eyes. What now? They’d lost their only fire source. Even the grenades were gone. Not that those would’ve worked in the first place. Had they seriously gotten this far just to—

Stop, Kalden told himself. Think.

What did they have left? One bottle of pure liquid mana, one bottle of space mana, one mental enhancement potion, and a few vials of lantre and helocite.

Raw helocite made pure mana explode on contact. Could he mix that with the bottle of pure mana?

No. He’d get an explosion, but that would be more kinetic force than heat. Not enough to finish the pill.

What else?

Another idea came to him then, crazier than anything else they’d done that day. Unfortunately, it was the only thing that might work.

“Akari!” he shouted over the battle. “Get Hector out of the van.”

“What?”

Kalden pointed toward the open door. “Just get him out. I’ll explain later." Then he uncorked the mental enhancement potion and crawled to the backseat where Relia lay. She looked even worse than before, but she hadn’t lost consciousness.

“I need you to drink this,” Kalden said as he brought the glass bottle to her lips.

Relia swallowed the potion, dribbling the last bit down her chin.

“Good.” Kalden used his sleeve to wipe her mouth dry, then he grabbed her upper arms and pulled her toward the door. “Get ready to fight if you can.”

“You serious?” she muttered.

“I don’t need a miracle,” he said. “Just a few Constructs. That potion should help you focus.”

They gathered in the street a second later, and Kalden filled them in. Akari kept up covering fire against their enemies, and Relia made a half-hearted defensive Construct around them. Even in her paralyzed state, it was far stronger than anything he or Akari could have done.

Finally, Kalden opened the van’s fuel tank and poured both vials of helocite inside.

“This is it,” he told them both.

Relia shifted her shield between their group and the parked van. Akari swallowed two mouthfuls of liquid mana and layered her own shield on top of Relia’s. Both girls looked equally ready to pass out, and Kalden didn’t feel much better.

The van exploded. Even with both shields, the force of it nearly knocked Kalden off his feet. But he stood his ground, straining with all his mental might as he held the pill in the flames.