Having slept through the entire day, Miguel was still wide awake by the time Sung and the others finished explaining to him what the blue holographic projection was for and retreated into their tents to rest. He sat cross-legged outside his tent, and stared blankly at the hologram. Just yesterday, he made up his mind to lead them, yet already has he been left behind by them again. Frustrated, he buried his head and groaned.

  He so desperately wanted to do something right now to at least level himself with the rest of them, but what could he do in the dead of the night? They'd be found by another enemy team again if he tried to saw down trees, all the commotion would give their location out instantly. He didn't know how to get this hologram thing to work either, otherwise he could've added some stuff here or there, stuff they would've overlooked at first.

  Seriously, what there for him to do in the middle of the night?

  He pulled his head back up, only for the glowing hologram to flash his dark-accustomed eyes and burn into his retina. The hologram, however, doesn't light up the floor at all. Miguel's eyes darted towards the pitch-dark forest instead, his eyebrows raised as he blinked hard to try and recover from the flashbang.

  Remnants of the hologram continued to flash before his eyes as he blinked and rubbed his eyes.. The halos slowly faded, decaying from white to blue, then green, then red, but it never disappeared entirely. A strange, faint red shimmer remained. Confused, Miguel forcefully blinked his eyes to try and "refresh" his vision, but still it didn't disappear.

  Miguel shifted his sight to the left, hoping that perhaps a change in scenery could wipe it off his eyes. And to his surprise, it did disappear. Miguel celebrated a little inside, for a moment he thought the obscenely bright hologram had done permanent damge to his eyes. Relieved, he turned his head back, just for the faint red glow to appear once again. "D'oh!" Miguel cried out loud in disappointment.

  Then again, if the red glow wasn't from the hologram burn-in, then where could it be coming from? Miguel thought. Curious, he squinted as hard as he could and stared deep into the wooden abyss, the abyss's red glow stared right back at him, yet everything around the red glow seemed to still be pitch black.

  Unable to contain his curiosity, Miguel tried to get closer to the source. Initially, he only crouched and sneaked slowly on the grass, hoping the source of the red light was at least slightly close to their base. By the time he crept to the edge of the forest, though, the light was still showing no signs of getting closer, and his legs were getting painfully sore.

  Perhaps he should've gone to the gym with Sung and Rin, he thought.

  Miguel got up from the crouching and started to walk slowly at the light. Desperation crept in, and he walked faster, waded deeper. The walk hastened, the forest grew denser, he broke into a sprint, the wading turned into a fight against the forest. Slowly, the light inched closer and closer. Miguel's poor stamina was already begging at him to take a breather, but a strange feeling inside his chest tugged him along, compelling him to stride deeper and further into the forest. Nor did Miguel understand why he was so desperate to get to the red light, he thought it was just a spur of the moment thing. He already ran so far to try and reach it, Miguel saw no merits in turning around and going back.

  As the light grew brighter, his surroundings slowly faded away, until all that was left in his vision was the light itself. He was pitifully out of breath by the time he got to the source of it, that he just crashed onto the ground as soon as he stopped, hand clasping his chest as he panted patheticly on the ground, temporarily blinded by the fatigue. His lungs were burning up, every breath felt like a stab to the chest. He could barely breathe, let alone open his eyes and move towards the red glow.

  It took an excruiciating amount of time for Miguel to recover from that. Although his breath was no longer ragged, his legs still felt like jelly. Miguel rolled his head over to its side, and finally opened his eyes to find himself staring directly at a tiny red crystal shard, barely budding out of the ground. A warm glow radiated from within the crystal, rendering the surrounding patch of dirt and grass vibrant blood red.

  Miguel's hand searched around the ground a few times before it knew where "in front of my eyes" was - Miguel was so tired that even his limbs felt alien to him. As his hand grabbed onto the shard, a sharp freezing pain was felt, as the crystal melted right in his hands. Miguel watched in horror as the crystal - now a puddle of liquid on his palm - was slowly absorbed into his hand, streaks of red highlighted his veins as it migrated towards his heart, then his head, and into his eyes.

  His vision got dyed a dark crimson red, as it grew more and more opaque, blocking the dark forest from his sight, and instead replaced it with a scene of a shallow pool of water that stretched out to the edges of the horizon, rendered wine red by the bloodshot, cloudy sky. Miguel stood up instinctively, before his mind caught up and was shocked to find his fatigue relieved.

  Just as Miguel was surveying the liminal space he now found himself in, a sinister, deep voice echoed around this eerie realm. "For what did you seek out my domain, troubled one?" It rang out. Miguel was so startled that he tripped himself and fell right back into the pool.

  "Wh- who are you?!" He shouted, his mouth quivering.

  "Do not answer a question with a question, impudent one. You were the one who seeked me out, it is basic etiquette to identify yourself first." It replied calmly.

  "R- right..." Miguel muttered. "W- well, for one, I- I definitely didn't intentionally seek you out... Whoever you are."

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Your mind did not, your heart did. Jealousy, hatred, anger, it compelled you to me. So, then, for what did you feel these emotions?" It said.

  "I- it's nothing, it's just some trivial issues. S- sorry for bothering you, I guess. I'll just go back now." Miguel couldn't shake off the unease he felt since finding himself in this environment, the unfamiliar desperation had worn off. As reason slowly came back to Miguel, so too did the creeping unease.

  "No organism feels so strongly against something of trivial importance. Surely, these emotions manifest for a reason? Please, do fill me in." The voice goaded him on.

  "I- I- I'm not sure i- if that's a good idea. I- It's nothing, really!" Miguel stammered. He tried to find an exit from the place. Surely it can't be infinite, right? He thought. He tried walking in one direction, but once he stopped, and looked around again, it didn't seem like he moved at all, even though he could've sworn he was walking forward the entire time. Confused, and out of ideas, he gave in, and started to rant about his situation.

  "Hmm... You feel as if your teammates are undermining you as their leader, you fear that you are slowly written out of the team dynamic, and you hate the people who you feel will replace you once you've been completely shunned from the group. You want to grasp control of the situation once again, yet you also feel powerless against the tides of fate. Is that correct?" The voice summarized, Miguel nodded in agreement.

  "That is most delectable, indeed." The voice sounded pleased. "I look forward to our continued collaboration from hereon out." Before Miguel could protest or ask for details, the water beneath him congealed into a murky opaque red, and quickly trickled up his feet and covered his legs. Miguel cried in agony as his skin burned in contact with the liquid, leaving his flesh bare against the environment. He collapsed onto the ground, more liquid trickled up his hands and arms as they too got their skin corroded off.

  The liquid spread onto Miguel's entire body, he was rendered paralyzed from the debilitating pain. After it was done with his skin, the liquid seeped into his body, invading into every one of his muscle fibres, before leaking back out once again to form a new skin layer, albeit slightly more pinkish than normal.

  The burning stopped, Miguel tried to stand up, but was instantly knocked onto the ground again by a sudden splitting headache. The liquid shot up to his head, bled into the sclera, before migrating into his iris, turning his eyes from light blue to deep crimson red, his pupils narrowed to slits. The liminal space slowly decomposed and faded, the dark forest slowly re-emerged from the background.

  Miguel found himself lying on the ground again, drenched in cold sweat. Dawn broke while Miguel was out cold, so the forest had a bit of illumination and was no longer pitch black. Miguel slowly stood up, and patted the dirt off his coat. From the corner of his eye, he noticed a tiny pop up box appear on his interface.

  "MRS-110 Spectre Of The Blood Sword's Occular Filter equipped."

  Miguel pressed on the pop-up box, hoping for more details. A window appeared, showing his body alongside 8 boxes corresponding to the implant slots in his body. "So this is what Navis was talking about..." Miguel muttered under his breath. The implants seem to slot into places all over his body, four slots for the head, the rest for the torso, arms, legs, and back.

  From right beside the implant window appeared another info box, which showed the details of the new implant he had aquired. "MRS-110 Spectre Of The Blood Sword's Occular Filter", it read in bold letters, on the left was a picture of the crystal, under its name wrote "Part of the 'Blood Sword' series (1/4)". The window was mostly text, the content of which Miguel did not bother to read.

  "Do you not want to know what my abilities are?" A voice rang from inside his head, the same sinister voice from the liminal space. "Can't be too life-changing, eh?" Miguel said dismissively. "I get some shit, I lose some shit, ain't this how it works?" The voice kept its silence.

  "So what, you just live in my head rent free now?" Miguel asked. "You would've known had you taken even a slight glimpse at my ability info page." The voice said, annoyed. Miguel had a mental image of it pouting. "Well, I'm not quite the type to read."

  Slowly, Miguel trudged through the thick forest back to the camp. As the vegetation grew thin, rays of sunlight managed to pierce through the woods and land on Miguel's skin. He could feel a slight tingling, which he chalked up to "bugs and shit". After half an hour or so, Miguel could see puffs of smoke over a distance.

  "Oh there you are! We've been looking all over for you, Miguel." Sung shouted over as Miguel emerged from the edge of the woods. "You alright? That's a nasty patch you have on your arm." Rin said, worried. Miguel rolled his arm to reveal burn sores all over where the sun rays shone.

  "Eh it's probably just an allergic reaction to some plant in there, it'll heal." Miguel shrugged. "Don't worry about me though, let's go and split up work for the day. You have this base you want to build yes? We'll need a lot of nanites for that-"

  "Yeah, about that," Sung interjected, which peeved Miguel off a little, though he tried his best not to show it, the corner of his mouth still twitched a bit. "We'll build the structure bit by bit, we reckoned. Get the... uh... what was the name again... right, this Sub-Atomic Disintegrator, so we can convert with a higher efficiency, then..." Sung's voice trailed on, but Miguel couldn't pay attention for any longer. "They've made more plans without you, eh? You're just going to let that slide?" The voice said. "Oh shut up." Miguel snapped.

  "I'm sorry, what?" Sung asked, confused. "Oh- It- Ah, nothing..." Miguel replied sheepishly. "You've got more sores appearing all around you, you need some rest? Take this syringe to the leg and get some rest in your tent, alright?" Miguel took the syringe from Sung, and reluctantly hid back inside his tent.

  Inside the tent, Miguel chucked the syringe at the far end of the tent in anger. "They don't need you, they think. See, your fears are coming true, they're slowly pushing you out of the group. Retiring you as a leader." The voice sneered. "I know that much." Miguel retorted back. "You're just going to let it slide?" The voice went on. "Of course not, but I don't have the power or authority to do anything just yet." Said Miguel.

  "So it is power and authority that you seek?" Asked the voice. "Well, what man doesn't want those?" Miguel said, chuckling awkwardly. "I can grant you power and authority, if it is those that you seek. You just have to find my three other pieces and assemble me together. You think you can do it?" The voice proposed. "I'm not sure... I mean..." Miguel hesitated for a bit. "Fine, I'll try my best."

  "It is a contract then. I lend you my full power, you help me assemble myself." The voice said. "Yeah, I guess it is." The moment Miguel finished his sentence, he could feel a cool sensation over his body, as his sunburn sores started to heal rapidly on their own.

  "Do you have a name? It'd be nice to have something to call you with, even if it does make me look a bit like a schizo." Asked Miguel.

  "Me?" The voice said. "Of course I have a name. I am the Cursed Blood Katana, Muramasa."