“Ow!” Caeden winced.

“Oh, shut up, you big baby. I know it doesn’t actually hurt.” Cat rolled her eyes as she continued to work on fixing Caeden’s soul. She was sitting behind him, hand pressed against his bare back. Apparently, the physical contact made it easier for her to work on him. “You’re making this harder than it needs to be. I’m not an extradimensional shroud expert. This is really hard.”

Caeden was in the IP training room their team had regularly used since they first came to the Academy. It was strange, being back in such a familiar environment after everything that had happened almost a week ago. Surreal was probably the right word. The Core Seat was emptier than before, and many students were suffering from after-effects due to the suppression field. Having one’s shroud confined to their body so suddenly and forcefully was apparently traumatizing.

But time marched on, and the Academy wasn’t going to shut down simply because some of its students died. After all, that was to be expected. The reason for their deaths might have been unprecedented, but the loss of life itself was essentially routine. Thanks to Caeden and the efforts of his friends and those of the Forged faction he led, the loss of life had been kept under control; only a few hundred students died, compared to the thousand or more that were under immediate danger before they intervened.

The aftermath had been brutal. Hundreds, thousands of revolutionaries had tried to flee once the suppression field went down, only to be stopped by the cocoon Erik’s Incarnation, Sauma, had created. All had been captured alive, thanks to the Headmaster.

Even now, Caeden could hardly comprehend how powerful that man was. The moment he regained his aura, the entire campus was once more under his control. He had destroyed an army of Ethermen, artificially enhanced humans that had been grafted with ethertech to turn them into living weapons. At the same time, he had also subdued and captured thousands of unshrouded, all while casually talking with Cat. Teasing her, more like. Caeden could confidently say that he hadn’t been straining himself at all. All that power brought to bear, and he was hardly paying attention.

Which led back around to now. The whole team was here after nearly a week of handling various tasks, mostly separately. Caeden and Lily had been caught up largely in admin work for the Forged. Checking on members, handing out rewards to those that went above and beyond during the fighting, things like that. Erik had taken some time to recover from his own mental breakdown and had been more subdued than normal since.

And Cat…Cat had been spending time with the Headmaster. Her grandfather. That was a thought Caeden had been getting somewhat used to ever since she told him a little over a week before the Revolution attack. Then he met the man. It was one thing to know that your friend had a powerful relative. It was entirely different to experience it. Caeden could now understand Cat’s constant dissatisfaction with her own abilities to some degree. Living in the shadow of that kind of legacy must be unimaginably rough.

Then there was Asherta. The strange dragon-human hybrid Lily and Erik had encountered while they were traveling across a restricted, dragon-owned continent. They had very little idea of how long the poor girl had been there on her own, as her shroud’s domain let her change her age at will, and she didn’t understand any language beyond a few words in Draconic.

While Caeden was finally getting his soul fixed after the damage he had done to it by using the ninth form of his shrouded weapon, Forged Infinity; Lily was working on teaching their new ward Central Common. Caeden’s girlfriend seemed to have assumed full responsibility for Asherta and had been working with her to adjust to civilization over the past week.

That had…mixed results so far. Asherta was by no means stupid and had started to pick up Central Common at an absurd pace. However, she seemed to disregard any lessons about etiquette, society, or propriety. Lily had a hard time getting her to wear clothes half the time, never mind something as cumbersome as the school robes. Instead, Asserta ran around in shorts and tank tops that covered as little as she could get away with without Lily yelling at her.

While Caeden found the lack of coverage slightly awkward, it wasn’t without reason. Asherta fought primarily using her draconic heritage to transform, adding scales, claws, wings, and a tail to her athletic frame. Normal clothing would be restrictive and get in the way more than anything. Unfortunately, because her transformation was physiological rather than shroud based, the adjustment ability of the school robes didn’t apply. Normally, the robes were infused to adapt to changes in their wearer’s body shape, to accommodate formshifting and even Embodiments. Asherta’s changes were of an entirely different nature, and they had found that her transformations simply didn’t trigger the infusions correctly.

Caeden was working on coming up with a solution. Luckily, he had a bevy of dragon bones, scales, and claws, which he hoped would let him make some clothing or armor that would work with Asherta’s unique nature. He had spent the last week using every spare moment he could get trying to get back into the groove of ethersmithing, with mixed results.

Caeden had been distracted. He was self-aware enough to acknowledge that. He couldn’t get his mind in the right place. After everything he had learned underneath the Core Seat, his mind was shot. Caeden deeply despised killing humans, shrouded or not. But he had come to terms with the deaths of revolutionaries that had come at his hand. Their goal was mass genocide, and Caeden had neither the ability nor the time to try and change their minds. Especially when they were in the process of trying to murder him.

He didn’t like it, and some part of him was still haunted by every life lost. But he had managed to make peace with it. He had accepted that he didn’t have the power necessary to spare people actively trying to kill him, especially with so much at stake. Mercy for the revolutionaries would have meant death for him and his friends. So he shut down his conscience, which told him only a monster would kill so freely, so callously. Because he saw no alternatives. The Revolution was fanatical; they didn’t want to change their minds. They weren’t looking for a peaceful solution.

Now. Now he had to deal with the fact that it was all a lie. The revolutionaires were fighting for a cause not their own, their every action in vain. All of it to provide resources and publicity to an amoral bloody warmonger bent on cornering the next wave of ethertech-based warfare. Every revolutionary he killed, every shrouded they killed. It all meant nothing.

And he didn’t know how to live with that. More than that, he wasn’t sure what he would do if he ever faced down another revolutionary. How could he end their life, knowing just how pointless it all was? Killing another person, knowing it wouldn’t even stop the true culprit, knowing it wouldn’t even slow him down. Just a pointless death to add to the pile. And that blood would be on his hands.

How could he live with that?

“Ow!” Caeden flinched as Cat’s hand withdrew from where she had smacked his shoulder. He turned to glare at her.

“Lily, Caeden’s getting all mopey again!” Cat called out in a sing-songy voice. “Come over here and beat him up!”

She winked at Caeden’s glaring face. “I’m messing around in your soul, you idiot. I know when you’re getting all depressed.”

Caeden rolled his eyes before looking toward where Lily and Asherta were doing some light sparring. Asherta’s skill in hand-to-hand combat was unrefined but brutally effective. Meanwhile, Lily was generally less skilled but worked off more refined techniques. Both of them had something to learn from each other. In fact, Caeden had found it worthwhile to spar with her, though he had only had the time to do it once so far.

Both were looking at him. Asherta looked between Caeden and Lily before tilting her head. A look of intense concentration stole across her face. “Caeden sad, go hit.”

“Close enough.” Lily nodded. Part of Asherta’s language training with Lily was to repeat back anything others said but using synonyms as much as possible. It allowed Lily to correct any misunderstandings and helped Asherta narrow down on the specific meaning and context of words. “But when Cat said ‘beat him up,’ she was joking. It wasn’t meant to be taken seriously.”

“Ahh.” Asherta nodded. “Joke. Amusement. Funny.”

“Yes, exactly!” Lily smiled brilliantly.

“Wasn’t joking,” Cat muttered, continuing to work on Caeden. “But whatever.”

“I find your general desire to see me in pain disturbing, especially considering you’re working to fix my soul right now,” Caeden muttered back. Though he was smiling as he said it.

“Not really your fault. You and Lily being all buddy-buddy ticks me off for some reason.” Cat huffed.

“Maybe you want a relationship of your own.” Caeden guessed.

“Nopenopenope. Not a relationship gal.” Cat shook her head.

Just keep telling yourself that. Caeden thought. He figured Cat wasn’t mentally ready for a serious, committed relationship, so watching him and Lily pull it off was digging into her emotional insecurities.

“Hey, I caught some of that,” Cat grumbled. “Not insecure. Just not a normie like you two. But,” She sighed. “Sometimes it…seems nice. I’m happy for you two, honestly. Having that instant support.”

“You know we have your back, right?” Caeden felt compelled to ask.

“Yup. Not the same thing, you know that.” Cat shrugged.

Caeden just nodded because he did know. There was an inherent difference between the emotional support of a friend and a romantic partner. Different expectations, a different kind of intimacy that a friendly relationship couldn’t replicate. Caeden could obviously understand wanting and missing that kind of trust and support.

“What’s on your mind?” Lily asked, sitting down on the bench in front of Caeden. He was turned sideways so Cat could sit behind him. Naturally, thoughtlessly, Lily slipped her hand into his.

“Ok, I’m stopping here.” Cat patted his back. Caeden could feel her shroud slipping out of his soul, closing up the microscopic holes she had opened to work on him. “How are we looking?”

“Right.” Caeden realized Cat didn’t want to hang around for a heart-to-heart between him and Lily, even if they weren’t discussing anything strictly intimate. In fact, he would guess she would be more comfortable discussing their physical relationship if only to make fun of how slow they were taking things.

Caeden grabbed hold of Forged Infinity, where he had it clipped to the sash of his robe around his waist. The shrouded weapon had been created by an extradimensional, godlike being who insisted he wasn’t responsible for all life on the Starry Sea. He had recently introduced himself to Caeden over concerns involving Caeden’s second shroud, Physical Enhancement. A domain which he said shouldn’t exist. And one he was worried would destroy the universe in a feedback cascade if Caeden’s soul ever experienced too much damage. A relevant concern since Caeden’s soul was apparently underdeveloped to the point of infancy.

Which is where his shrouded weapon came in. The entity had initially created it for Caeden as a way to monitor him more closely without Caeden’s knowledge. Forged Infinity could transform into a multitude of forms, giving it far more versatility than any other shrouded weapon. Its default state resembled a sword hilt, eight inches long. It was gold, with eight purple buttons set four to each side of its oblong shape. The seams between the buttons and the rest of the hilt showed bright crimson peaking out.

But Caeden wasn’t looking to use any of Forged Infinity’s weapon forms. Instead, he ran his finger down the spine of the hilt where it was gold. That section extended, revealing a purple slate twice the width of the hilt. It was slightly transparent and lit up a moment later to show four circular counters. Words quickly followed. The two left counters were under the heading ‘Sharp’ while the right two were beneath ‘Physical Enhancement.’

The top counters indicated integration, how well Caeden was fuzing his shrouds into his soul. This was normally a process that happened before a shrouded was even born, but he was uniquely disadvantaged. The Sharp counter read 50%, while the Physical Enhancement counter showed a measly 2%.

But those weren’t the counters he was currently interested in. The bottom counters indicated soul damage. Due to his use of the ninth form of Forged Infinity, Caeden had brought those counters up to 10% each.

“Ok, Sharp is at 4%, and Physical Enhancement is at 5%. Looks like we’re going to need more work.” Caeden frowned.

“Ugh, that sucks. It’s going to get harder to drop that down the closer to zero we get. I’m honestly not that skilled with soul repairs right now. I’ll try and get everything down to 2%, but no guarantees past that point.” Cat sighed. She had been working on Caeden for almost an hour.

“No pressure. I don’t intend on using 009 any time soon. We can use me as a training tool to improve your skills.” Caeden genuinely wasn’t that worried. For all that it was an overwhelmingly powerful tool; 009 was also a dangerous risk so long as his soul was incomplete.

“Ok, sounds like a plan. You two have fun.” Cat jumped up before stalking over to where Asherta was still watching. “Alright, dragon girl. I’m going to summon an army of skeletons, and you’re going to beat your way through it as quickly as possible.”

“Fight, yes” Asherta nodded. “Dave join?” She looked like a dog waiting for a treat.

“Dave’s busy with stuff in his own universe, so not today.”

“Aww! Fight ghost man! Good fights, much fun!” Asherta pouted.

“Another time.”

Lily smiled at the pair as Cat started opening portals and pulling through hundreds of basic lesser undead while Asherta grew scales and started obliterating everything around her. Then her focus returned to Caeden. “Ok, what’s up.”

He sighed. “Just the usual. Nothing new.”

Of course, Caeden had already discussed his misgivings with Lily almost immediately after he had them.

“Ok, we can talk through it again.” Lily’s smile held nothing but care and concern. There was no condemnation, no exasperation.

Caeden relaxed. “Thanks. That would be nice.”