PreCursive

  After our emotional reunion in the middle of the Healer’s ic, the meeting had adjourned. Woodrid Leopold had left, leaving Grey, Honoka, and I aloh the atose form of Sylvia, g a o oversee the occupation of Elderwyck. The actual Healer had rolled her eyes at us a us alohout a word, while Sparrow...

  Sparroulled me aside as the meeting was breaking up.

  “e to the docks when you’re ter tonight,” He said in a low tone, resignation thi his voice. “We’re meeting to decide the fate of the Division there. ermission from the Marshal to make the decision ourselves.”

  Ah.

  Well, as far as I was ed, it was a fone clusion. But heless, I the person who was very likely the most senior surviving member of the Noe Divisiourhe nod wearily before departing.

  When we were alone, Honoka turo Grey with trepidation on her aged face. “Well? How is she?”

  I held my breath as I waited for an answer from Grey.

  I didn’t quite get what I wanted.

  Grey reached up to massage his forehead, letting out an explosive sigh as he did so. “It’s…hard to tell,” He said wearily, causing both Honoka and I to tense up. “Not in the sehat she’s in any further danger, no. I say that Sylvia is not in any danger of dying. We have Nathan to thank for that.” He said with a grateful smile at me.

  I let out a relieved sigh at that, grateful for at least ohing. “Then…I didn’t mess her up by patg up her wound with the gold?”

  Grey immediately shook his head. “Oh no, not at all. If anything, the material was a deg factor in sh up her soul, so to speak. The Aetherically charged gold and Mithril of your…previous arm…” He said, trailing off for a moment and staring at my gloved new arm. He shook his head before tinuing. “Had already been aligned, so to speak, to work well with Mithril. The bination acted as something of a supp structure for her spirit, stabilizing both it and the Sculpted entment base that sustains her. She is in no…physical danger.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” Honoka said with a frown. “I couldn’t find anything wrong with her during my examination.”

  “The problem is…I’m not sure about her personality matrix,” Grey said uainly.

  My brow furrowed for a moment, as I cast my mind back to our lessons about Sculpted stru and entment. I had learned quite a bit about how Sculpted worked when I was initially designing my rept arm. Not as much as Grey, but enough that the words were familiar.

  When I remembered what that was, my eyes shot open in dread. “You mean…” I breathed. “Her memories?”

  Grey gave me a weak smile before nodding. “Yes, I’m afraid so,” He said sadly. “Even as quick as you were to save her life, Nathan, some injury was unavoidable. In this case, I detected some damage to that portion of her entment. It is my belief that Sylvia will have…lost some of herself to this wound.”

  My face fell at the news, shocked into silence. Meanwhile, Honoka looked betweewo of us wildly. “How much?!” She asked, helpless fury in her voice. “Is she even still going to be her?!”

  I didn’t have an answer, simply looking at Grey helplessly.

  Grey didn’t have an answer either. “I ot say,” He said quietly. “You know as well as I do the plexities of the soul, Honoka. I ot prehend the enormity of it. Not even the gods could do that.”

  Honoka defted then, slumping bato her chair. “Then what do we do?”

  “All we do,” Grey answered, reag across the table to y a hand on hers. He squeezed her hand in his best attempt to reassure her. “Is wake her up and see what the damage is.”

  I bli that. “Wake her up?” I said disbelievingly. “It ’t be that simple. She’s been out of it sihe fight with Nerexxa.”

  Grey turned a small smile my way. “That’s simply because you don’t know how to do so,” He said. “Sylvia is…not quite the same as all other Sculpted that exist. There are certain plexities, certain fail-safes to her entment that lie withihat were streamlined from those that came after. Remember, she was the first of her kind, and was initially naught but a ‘test-bed’, so to speak.” He paused for a sed, before tinuing. “Well, before she came to full sapiehat is.”

  “Oh,” I said quietly, a little taken aback by how Grey eaking of her. I…didn’t like being remihat once upon a time, Sylvia had been little more than a lifeless doll.

  It really was some kind of System born miracle that she erson now.

  “After she gained her soul,” Grey tinued, oblivious to my unease. “I was extremely hesitant to try and alter the firmament that it relied upon. As such, when she has sustained damage to this extent, she requires my personal input to be roused to sciousness.”

  “Then what are you waiting for?” Honoka said eagerly, leaning over the table. “Get on with it!”

  “Very well,” Grey replied with a sigh, standing up from the table. Honoka and I did the same, joining Grey as he walked back over to the medical cot that Sylvia was resting upon. The older woman and I stood baxiously as Grey k back down a one of his hands over only inches above Sylvia’s brow.

  Grey took a deep breath, and then visibly trated on something. I felt a shift in the enviroal Aether as the gravity of his own Mana interfered with it.

  In the space between his hand and her forehead, I saw a small blue spark fsh briefly into being.

  Sylvia’s sapphire blue eyes immediately fshed open and her back rose off of the bed, arg beh her. She gasped an involuntary, rasping breath in a futile attempt to fill lungs that did within her Mithril frame. After a moment, she flopped bato the bed while her eyes remained open, staring almost unseeingly up at the roof of the ic above.

  I was frightened when I didn’t see any further movements from her at all, nor did I see a spark of true life in her gaze. Her eyes were shogly dull, in an almost mockery of their normal brilliance. For a moment, I was terrifyingly reminded of how Porous Pete had looked all those months ago, uhe effects of a sve brand.

  Mindless, ay.

  “Hold,” Grey said sharply, knog me out of my terror. I was fused for a moment, but he wasn’t speaking to me. Honoka had frozen i his and, looking like she had nearly lu Sylvia in her own panic. “Everything is as I suspected. The light of her sciousness is repairing the base of her entment, as it is meant to. In much the same way that we recover from injuries, so to a Sculpted recover from damage such as this."

  Honoka slowly settled back down, as the two of us waited with bated breath for any sign that Sylvia was rec. Meanwhile, Grey was watg her with a focus so intehat I could almost feel it.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, I started to see life begin to creep bato Sylvia. It started with her body, which had grown almid. She rexed, untensing in a manner as if she had muscles under her Mithril skin. Her fingers began to twitch almost involuntarily, in an effort to clutch at something only she could see. And then…

  Light bled bato her eyes, transf the dullness of her gaze into a sharp brilliance.

  Abruptly, Sylvia coughed, lunging upwards into a sitting position on her bed, hunched over her palms. “Wha…” She said roughly, in aremely fused tone. Slowly, she looked up and around, blinking rapidly.

  Oddly, her eyes flew open wide in deep shock when she saw Grey. A massive smile grew on her face, and she lunged for him. “Father!” She said joyfully nearly hanging off of his skinny frame. fused but happy, I saw my mentor return the embrace readily, ing his arms around her. I rexed o Honoka in absolute relief, nearly slumping into her. She didn’t seem to care though, as the older woman had softened as well now that Sylvia was awake again.

  Sylvia’s words erased all of that.

  “You’re free!” The Mithril Sculpted said in delight, leaning back to look Grey in his suddenly frozen stiff face. “Where were you?! The Order and I looked all over!”

  Slowly, the smile that had been on my face fell away, to be repced with something else.

  Horror.

  My lips parted in my shock, as I struggled to e to grips with what Sylvia’s words were telling me.

  You’re free…

  That…that implied…

  Grey took a deep breath and grabbed one of Sylvia’s hands with both of his, cupping it between them. Sylvia looked fused for a moment, finally looking away from Grey for a moment to take in everyone else. She brighte the sight of Honoka, but…

  I felt a dagger of ice lodge itself in my heart at the fusion she looked at me with. I looked over at Honoka to my side with a helpless look, desperate for any kind of reassurance.

  I found none. Honoka just looked armed herself.

  Sylvia looked back at Grey when he spoke again. “Sylvia,” He said slowly. “I must ask…what is the st thing you remember?”

  My…partner looked at him in deepening fusion. “What do I remember?” She asked him, blinking. “Ah…well. It’s…odd. Where am I?” She said, looking around. “Moments ago, I eaking to ander Hook about a personal mission to locate you. We were in ional aer in Blutstein. I…don’t reize this pce, though.” Now Sylvia was starting to bee ed herself, now doubt influenced by the shod horror on the faces she saw around her. “Father, what’s…happened?”

  Grey slowly closed his eyes for a moment before taking a deep breath. He opehem once more and then did his best to project a f smile to his daughter. “You…were injured, my dear,” He said, audibly pained. Sylvia blinked rapidly at his words, looking down at herself. She was visibly taken aback by the sight of the gold oorso, her mouth falling open in shock. Meanwhile, Grey tinued speaking. “I’ve been free from my captors for…some time now. I believe you might have lost…time yourself.”

  Sylvia raised her head to look at Grey. “Oh,” She whispered. “How…how long?”

  Grey let out a heavy breath. “Four months,” He said heavily. “I was freed from my bondage over four months ago now. You...might have possibly lost some more than that, sidering when that...assig was issued.”

  I was frozen, now, unwilling to aowledge the truth that was unfolding before my eyes. I wouldn’t believe it until I heard the words from her own lips.

  But I was afraid to catch her attention.

  Honoka moved forward now, finally willing to take her own ce. “Sylvia…” She said in a fragile tone. “You do still remember me…right?”

  Sylvia sat bolt upright then, knocked out of her own shock. “Of course I do!” She said desperately, clutg at Honoka’s hands. “I could never fet you, Lady Honoka!”

  I saw Honoka slump in relief before leaning forward to Sylvia in a hug.

  I didn’t miss the almost guilty look that Honoka snuck my way, before burying her fa Sylvia’s neck. Over Honoka’s shoulder, I saw Sylvia look over the other woman’s.

  Right at me.

  “I’m sorry…” She said apologetically. “I’m…not sure who you are?”

  I felt a shudder run through my soul at her words, as she kept talking.

  “Are you perhaps…a rade?” Sylvia tinued, her eyes lingering on my Order armor. I saw her blink rapidly at the sight of my elongated ears, but she didn’t ent on them. “In the Order maybe? I…apologize if I’ve fotten you.”

  Honoka didn’t look at me, but Grey did. There was an impossible sadness for me evident in his gaze, but he didn’t speak up. I think…he didn’t know what to say.

  Gcially, I reached down for the mask that I had stowed in my pouch earlier. I brought it up to adhere to my fad raised my hood. At the sight of the pleted Noe Divisialia, Sylvia visibly brightened up in her own clusion. “Yes,” I said slowly, fighting with myself harder than I ever had to keep my voice steady. “I was here…on behalf of the Division. I was…ordered…” I choked on the words, before f them out. “To witness your revival by the…Headmaster. I’ll…show myself out…now.”

  At that, I turned in pd began to shuffle towards the door, moving in a haze that threateo e me. My steps stuttered, though, when I heard Sylvia speak up behind me.

  “Please give my regards to ander Hook,” She said almost absentmindedly, bringio a momentary halt. I nodded without speaking or turning to face her and then slipped outside the door.

  Numb, I stood just outside in the alleyway as white noise began to drown out the world around me.

  A drop of water hit my hood, pierg through my devastation. I slowly raised my fa time to watch as the heavens began to weep down onto me.

  Eventually, I wasn’t able to tell if the droplets that coated my face came from the sky.

  Or me.