Masenia: Chapter 8 The Confession To Air (Patreon)

Chapter 8

The Confession To Air

Maria was in her corner of the room cultivating by the time Anita came in. Seeing her twin sister looking so sedately sitting quietly in the corner by herself, Anita felt shame wash over her in buckets. Not just from what their mother said, but from the perspective of being a human being. Here she was, her sister of all people, the person who had been there with her from the very beginning, her rock, the person she felt she could always turn to for support, and what did she do? She left her bleeding in a ditch.

Yes, the conversation with mother had not been pleasant, and part of her was still angry at the fact that she had to sit through three hours of lectures from their mother, but really the biggest sense of regret came from the fact that she had let her own sister down. That fact alone, more than anything, made it so the shame of what happened, what she had done, just leaving her there stung the most. Who knows what was happening to her, or what she had gone through, what type of thoughts, the fears of being left alone, during a time of need, well it pressed on Anita.

“Sorry.” Anita said.

Silence.

Seeing the fully erect posture of her sister, it was clear that the only way someone could maintain such form would be if they were awake. Even Maria’s closed eyes spoke to the fact that she was fully awake and aware of her surroundings, but that she currently chose not to speak. Seeing her twin ignore her like that caused anger to rise up, I mean here she was, ready to express her sorrow for what she had done. She was trying to make it right, and she almost shouted that very expression, but she stopped herself. At the last minute, she realized that her sister was right to be mad. Hell, if the situation had been reversed, if she had been the one left bleeding and confused in a ditch she would have stayed up just to yell at Maria in her face. In a way, that was what she wanted, she wanted that rage, that anger to strike to be used as a whip to lash out at her, as that would at least mean that she still cared. This though, this distance, it was unbearable. It felt like her sister had completely changed overnight and she had ignored the warning signs. Yeah, she had been acting strangely all day, but that was still no reason to leave her lying dead in a ditch like that.

Words could not express Anita’s sorrow for what she had done, what she had let Juan talk her into doing. He had been so impatient to leave, that they left her, they all left her. Granted the teachers and staff were also at fault, as they should have been watching her, even if she wasn’t a part of practices. Yet, they let her rest in that very ditch, which was why Momma Alvarez was at this very moment calling the school board superintendent and making them aware of the situation. As much as Anita herself had gotten an earful from her mother, she did not for one second envy anyone who picked up their phone at midnight on a Monday night to deal with an angry Momma Alvarez.

Anita waited there for a minute, half expecting her sister to fly into a blind rage right then and there on the spot to leave her all alone. Yet, she didn’t even flinch, for the moment it was like Maria had well and truly cut herself off from her, and on some deep spiritual level that frightened Anita to no end. Their bond, that sort of intangible connection they all had was gone. She didn’t even know exactly when it went away, it had sort of just been there, but over the course of the day, it became clear that the cord that always bonded them together since birth was now gone.

“I’m sorry.” Anita said, this time, a tear coming to her eye as she visibly trembled from trying to hold back the deluge of emotions she was feeling. This moment right here, this was the moment she realized something had changed, that the world she was in had forever lost its balance. Her quirky beautiful sister was gone, replaced by someone who skipped school, who got random tattoos, and someone who was clearly crying out for help all along. That’s what stung the most to Anita, the cries for help were all there, the collapsing before lunch? Or was that after lunch, the whole day was such a blur now. All she knew was that there were plenty of signs. Signs that in retrospect were obvious, signs that had she been a better sister, she could have recognized them.

“Okay, I understand,” Anita began, but then continued. “You are angry at me, and you have every right to be. I’m sorry. Juan and I abandoned you.” A slight pause, “I abandoned you. It was clear that Juan didn’t care about anyone but himself. I thought I was better than that, and clearly, I wasn’t. Not when it mattered most, not when you needed me.”

Still, despite Anita pouring out her heart and soul to Maria, the girl didn’t move. For a moment, Anita almost thought that Maria had somehow fallen asleep like that, but there were no signs of even a remotely relaxed posture, her back and spine were straight, her body was rigid, and most impressively of all, Anita could almost swear that wind was picking up and being sucked into her twin’s body, but that was ridiculous, right?

Looking at her twin, the sister that she was always put against, the sister she always fell short of academically, seeing her like this, years of resentment came forward in her mind, as she felt sorrow well up inside. For years she had wished for something like this to happen, that her sister would finally fall off of her perfect pedestal that she had always been on. Something that would bring her down to earth. That was why she had been inwardly happy this morning when her father had taken away her phone. Yet, that was not how she currently felt. The way she felt now made her feel hollow and empty.

Anita was just about to turn away when she noticed something clutched in her sister’s hands. Staring closely, she saw that the items were held in a sort of death grip. Idly she remembered the broken and bleeding rabbit stumps that Maria had brought home with her, and wondered what had happened to them. Mentally she hoped that mother had thrown those away, though that might have been an argument that momma Alvarez would have had with the near catatonic Maria later.

Realizing that she was only speaking to the wind, Anita nodded to herself. Then began to turn, “well if you want to talk. I am always willing.”

The words felt hollow even to her ears, yet for whatever reason the right words to say in this situation didn’t quite come to her. Even Hallmark didn’t seem to have a card that expressed “sorry for leaving you dying in a ditch. I hope you get well soon.”

With a long tired sigh, Anita turned around, turned out the lights, then awkwardly maneuvered her way through the new room layout as she made her way to her bed. Fortunately, her bed was the side closest to the wall with the switch, meaning she mainly had to crawl her way over the foot of the bed and up to her pillow. Then once there, the full weight of everything that happened hit her like a freight train. For a moment she felt she would be too distraught to sleep, but fortunately or unfortunately sleep found her tired and exhausted mind easily. She was out almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Had she stayed awake for a minute longer, she would have witnessed something truly amazing.

***

WHOOSH!

Maria had done it; she had compressed her core. Not just compressed her core but had managed to do so with not one but three unique strings of energy. Well, unique to her strings of energy, the energy itself had been around the cosmos since the very creation of the universe, if legends were to be believed. So her using and manipulating these strands were nothing new in the grand scheme of things, in fact she didn’t even get a notification stating that she had done a world first, though maybe she did and she just missed it?

A quick check.

Nope, no new title on being the first to compress their core. Granted this was likely a standard evolutionary form, but she still felt it was worth celebrating, or at the very least getting a note of acknowledgement from someone. She opened her eyes and looked around, there even though the room was completely dark, her sister’s spirit glowed with a bright vibrant flare. Seeing her like this, Maria almost wanted to wake her up right then and there, to warn her, to tell her about what would happen later today? Wow it was after midnight already. She had stayed up, wanting to talk to her twin, to let her know that she didn’t take anything personally and that she too would have left given the circumstances. She also wanted to admit that the reason they couldn’t find her was that she was not in a ditch, but that she had teleported to a different dimension of time and space entirely to face off against Boss Tier Necromantic Bunnies. Well, just one bunny who controlled a whole herd? Flock? No wait, a herd of bunnies is a fluffle, of course, how could she forget such an important word. A fluffle of corroding zombie rabbits that were ten feet tall, but still fluffy, sort of.

She tried to tell her mom that her sister and Juan didn’t do anything wrong, but Momma Alvarez either didn’t listen to her daughter, or felt that her daughter was still a bit frazzled from the whole incident. In fact, knowing now what she learned from the little event, she felt amazingly better. In fact, had it not been for the walk home, Maria felt that she would not have been able to compress her core, or at least not compress the energy within her core to its current level. Granted she had been given a perfect core, but that was not the same thing as having perfect energy within the core. Now that she had both, she could begin to learn spells, and combat forms. Part of her didn’t want to diversify too much, but another part of her realized that without some diversity you became a glass cannon able to take on one particular role, but not much good at anything else. If she was truly to survive, well not just her to survive, but if she was to get everyone out of here safely, then she herself needed to be able to diversify. Fortunately her new Titles and bonuses from said titles all but made it so she could diversify without any real long term consequences to her development, at least not now.

Then a thought hit her, of what would have happened if she had actually been the Champion that those four spirits spoke so highly of. The Champion who was supposed to go see the Seers and likely other divine beings whose very mission it was to advance societies throughout the universe. Right now Maria’s Attribute pool had gone from 40, apparently the most a pre-evolved human could get to, and was now at a perfect 400 max. All before she could get another bonus or chance to evolve. If what she had overheard was to be believed, then this Champion, whoever they might be, had their attributes start at 400, and could only go up from there. Such was the unfair nature of life. Such was the way the world apparently worked, some were destined to soar, while most were destined for mediocrity, with only the chance at a few lucky encounters.

This time around, Maria was determined more than ever to make sure these encounters went well. The first thing she would do was to wake up early and tell her sister all about the immersion, the future of the planet, and most importantly how she died on the practice field last time. Even if it made her seem crazy she had to at least try.

She wanted to wake her up right here and now. With her core still compressed her body glowed and seemed to radiate like a Nuclear reactor. Yet, when she went to her twin, she saw the way her chest lightly rose and fell, the way she was clearly at the peaceful rest that would be near impossible to acquire tomorrow, as today was the day the immersion would happen, Maria was almost certain of it. The fact that she had been given a day to get her affairs in order were just a blessing, and one that she didn’t squander.

Mentally she went through a checklist, and other than getting her sister and maybe Juan to get their soul tattoos on their body to help their meditation techniques, a process that would be needed regardless of which path they progressed down, whether the path of the Magic User, The Cultivator, or even the Psychic. Honestly, Maria had heard about all three advancement paths, but the only one that she had been allowed to work with last time was the path of the Cultivator, with a few minor magical spells like Healing, andMagical Shield allowed for additional defenses. This time however, she could forge her own path, one that worked for her, and was not just the optimal course of action based on the way experts had predicted the fastest amount of growth with the minimal amount of effort and time available. This time, she would be the expert, she would set her own pace and she would dictate how and when she would grow.

With that, she felt slightly better about her choices and the future.

Realizing that her twin would likely need a lot more luck than she had last time, Maria took the two lucky rabbits feet that she had been holding the entire time she had been Meditating. Then looking down at them, she idly wondered if the lucky rabbit’s feet themselves had anything to do with her recent success? They almost had to, as she had been clutching them the entire time, afraid that her mother might throw them away or something else. Realizing this as a valid concern she paused, but then ultimately decided to go ahead with her plan. Her plan of course was simple, give her the rabbit’s feet so she could survive. It was her sister, and regardless of what might have come between them, they would always be twins inseparable, even in death. That was why she placed the two separated rabbit’s paws right next to Anita’s head, so she could see them when she first awoke and feel their power.

With her sister’s luck safely seen to, Maria silently crept back to her own side of the bedroom. There she wondered if she should call it a night and try to sleep. As a true practitioner of Meditation, she could get her body to use the energy channeled from the world to fuel her, in so doing she would bypass many of the normal needs for sleep and even food. Of course, she wasn’t to the true grand master levels yet, this was just her first day. Well her first day of starting over, after nearly a hundred years of painstakingly focused meditation.

That was another thing that this reset granted her, she would have a few hundred years easily to build up her own capabilities. Even with a few minor hurdles thrown in, she should be more than capable of handling anything the integration throws her way.

That was why, rather than focusing on cultivation, something she felt coming back to her with a form of spiritual repetition that belied how difficult the process she was taking truly was. For tonight, and tonight only, she would try to expand her horizons and delve deep into the true capabilities of a Psionic Hunter.

To do this, she would need a pen. Then placing the pen before her, she focused her full will and intent on the pen and slowly but surely began willing it to move.

She began by rolling the pen over on its side. Then once that was handled, she began lifting the pen with nothing more than her focused mind.

She didn’t open her eyes, she didn’t need to, as her spirit sight showed her exactly what she was doing the entire time. Her body seemed to fill the room with a golden glow, one that she could focus with and direct towards a particular area. Then once she was confident with her skills of being able to lift the pen, she was finally met with a new system message.

World First Notice: First Psychic

Title: First Psychic: You are the first true psychic of your world, and have been recognized as such. +10 Intelligence, +10 Spirit, +50% Psychic Focus, +50% Psychic Manipulation.

Those were huge gains, but they came at a cost as a white hot surge of fire filled her mind. In her past life she had never awoken as a Psychic, she had always been told to use her slots sparingly, and as such no one wanted to go down the path of being a psychic, especially when people could create Fireballs from their thoughts, or punch things with glowing fists, by comparison the ability to lift things with one’s mind often paled in comparison and was widely regarded as a wasted field. Yet, Maria felt there was something more to this, something that she would want to bring about to the mainstream, if only to show how valuable Psychics could be, when focused on correctly.

This was her new goal, to redeem the psychics and show that they could be just as powerful as Cultivators and Mages alike. These were the last thoughts she had, before she passed out completely, as her mind began to pulse and grow rapidly as her brain was expanded to make way for new mental links and connections that had never been apart of any human being in existence prior to this moment.

***

The next day, Anita awoke to find something soft, fluffy, and bony pressing against her nose. As she touched the item, she felt a surge of power course through her, and awaken her with what had to be an electrical charge.

Zap.

For a second, Anita’s mind raced with different calculations of probabilities and statistically improbable events. Then she awoke to find not one, but two bloody rabbit paws placed on her pillow.

“AHHHHH!!!!!!!!”