(TLO) Chapter 89: An Anomaly (Patreon)

There was something annoying about seven kids slaving through the torture of using their skills. In just the space of three days Anthony had seen more skills used more poorly than he had any memory of ever seeing. He’d completely forgotten what it was to see new born soul magi use their skills. In a single word, it was appalling. Still, he had to watch and let them bastardize the beauty of soul magic.

But there was promise among this group of children. If nothing at all, Barnabas was proving himself a potential asset to the seminary. For one, he had too many skills in his arsenal. And all from fragments that were not black. It was terrifying to think a child manifested skills that defied physics from simple fragments. If the theory that fragments simply used the gifts of the soul beasts they were taken from to magnify the nature of one’s soul were true, he could only imagine how powerful the boy would’ve been with a black fragment.

He turned his attention to the weakest of the group and held back a sigh. The one with the most dramatic entry into the seminary was nothing but dramatic. He’d expected a lot from a boy who scared away the mist. Watching him now, drawing a sword, with a combat skill, was disappointing. So why is the Monsignor so vested in boy?

His mind rolled back to the Monsignor’s words from three days ago.

“Whatever concerns the child called Seth is none of your business,” the man had told him, a little too serious in his words. “You are to train the others, raise them to Iron. Let Seth fend for himself.”

“Then how will he grow?” he had asked.

The Monsignor’s answer had been simple. “That is not your issue to worry about. Whatever happens with or to the boy, whatever happens, leave it. It. Is. None. Of. Your. Business. Got it?”

He had gotten it then and had nodded enthusiastically, refusing to question it. After all, the man was a legend in the seminary. The fucking Blood Baron. His actions during the Baron wars had been unrivaled, legendary. Not only had he evolved into Barony during the war, he had created a series of evolution.

He’d been nothing but an unsouled during the war. But ever since graduating, the few times he’d been outside the seminary had given him enough chances to hear the rumors, the whispers surrounding the Baron wars. The world did not appreciate it. They did not even understand it. Not really. The war had been aptly named. After all, in it the seminary had seen—at the guidance of the Blood Baron—the rise of over ten Barons.

That said, staring at Seth cut at a tree in the dying light of dusk, he found himself questioning the man’s instruction. Was he determined to let the boy simply fade away?

Part of the training towards evolution involved the seminarians using their skills against actual reia beasts. It gave them versatility and combat experience as magi. Was he expected to leave the boy to his vices even then? Did Monsignor Faust intend on having the boy die?

It made no sense. But there were a lot of things that did not make sense, that refused to make sense. To challenge them all was to believe himself capable of piercing the skies. It was a feat impossible even for Barons and Jedidiah.

So as he called the students to turn in for the night, planning the route to their hunting grounds tomorrow, he wondered once more if tomorrow would be the day he would wake up to find something had happened to Seth.

……………………………………

Jabari strolled in the depths of the darkness. The mist of condensed aura swirled around his feet, shirking away from them each time they touched the ground. He paid it no attention. That the seminary had made an entire style of cultivation out of a creature’s aura without even knowing it was good for them. There were a few of them who knew what the mist was, its very contents. Faust was one of them, so is his predecessor. There were at least four more people, but no more than six. He knew each of them by name but only Faust knew him.

He stepped over the head of one of the children. Jason, if he was not mistaken, and crossed the distance it took to get to the priest who supervised them.

The man had done his best to stay awake for as long as he could, keeping watch. Whatever his Monsignor had told him had born adverse effects. But his will was weak. Jabari had needed to do nothing to put the man to slumber. His very presence had sufficed. Perhaps it was the reason Faust had sent him instead of Igor. Perhaps not.

He passed two more students, one he stepped around and the other he stepped over, before meeting Seth. The boy was sleeping like the dead, unmoving if not for the constant, rapid rise and fall of his chest like a boy who had done too much and couldn’t catch his breath. It was good. It showed the boy had continued practicing, continued growing.

Beside Seth was a tall boy beyond six feet. This boy’s complexion was a light brown and he carried hair like wool. He was larger than a child his age had any right to be, but so was Fin. The child lay curled up in a fetal position, his arms wrapped around one of Seth’s. The contrast in size and height made it an odd sight to behold. But that was not what held his attention. He stared at the boy for a different reason.

The boy wrapped so vehemently around Seth’s arm was a child whose name he did not know. A child whose history he did not know. The boy was an anomaly. And he knew why.

Still, he partitioned his mind to a task as he squatted beside the boy, studied him for signs. They were there as expected, but he paid them little attention. Instead, he waited for his mind.

Lost in a part of himself he had not employed in too long, his mind searched through the annals of history treading a path from where he squatted and into the past. It was not long before he found what he was looking for.

“Oluwatimilehin Adio,” he said slowly, gleaning details from the past. “African,” he added. His mind traced back to his parents, before the birth of the boy, before they’d met, into their ancestry. He paused but his mind continued to trace. “Of the black warrior race. Intriguing.”

He terminated his survey. The boy had power in his history. It was unfortunate his family had had to give him up, cast him from their lands. But it was understandable. They had done what they’d had to after his mother’s death. After the events surrounding it. Once again, as had been the case with Seth the first time he had taken the boy, he was faced with two opposing decisions concerning at least one life related to the child. Violence or mercy.

He made his choice with the same nonchalance as he had done the last time. To let Oluwatimilehin Adio live was to allow a potential threat run free, as all anomalies are threats of some kind at some point in some timeline. But not all timelines were inevitable.

Taking Seth by the neck of his cassock, he stood back up, pulling the boy with him. Oluwatimilehin Adio’s hands tightened around Seth’s. Even in so deep a sleep enforced by the will of the world, the boy remained so attached to Seth. There was some good in it. He should take the boy as well, end a threat before it ever begins.

He did not.

A few minutes later he walked out of sight of any of the seminarians or the slumbering priest. He carried Seth with him, all five feet six inches of the boy dangling from his grip on the cassock. He did not pause to take a breath. Did not look back to ensure he was not being followed. All he did was walk because it was all he had to do. In his other hand he held an old friend, drawn from the depths of his pocket. To do what he needed to do, Seth would need the help of Masamune.

As he moved, trekking farther away from the seminary but deeper into the mist a notification came up before him.

[Anomaly Catalogued]

Divination Inbound

Possible Timeline Found

Report Divination?

He rejected the report but his thoughts did not leave the anomaly.

Report Denied…

It was almost interesting enough to warrant his attention. Almost more interesting than Seth. That he’d been found so early, so young, was almost troubling.

Looking at the boy’s sleeping form no one would believe the child capable of the things his kind could do. He’d looked so peaceful, so untroubled, so calm. Jabari knew better.

The seminary had interesting children in this set, to say the least. There was Forlorn, the child born to a man that should not be alive, a man that had escaped a future that was all but inevitable. There was Barnabas, a child who would be cursed by reality itself for a sin he would commit.

And then there was a child loved by a dead god.

Seth’s fate seemed only bleaker by the passing of time. After all, he would have to face each fate he connected enough with.

For the sake of a caution he did not need, Jabari queried his mind for a future inevitable. His mind flexed its will and pathed time in search of it. It found it were it had last seen it.

He nodded as it viewed it. The future remained inevitable. The presence of an anomaly had surprisingly not altered it.

So a man in a green cassock still stood with axes gleaming in the regal yellow of goldsteel in his hands, heaving in unconcealed rage against an army of over a hundred men, willing for war.

Good, he thought, affording a sliver of his attention to the boy in his hand. All he had to do now was ensure Seth lived long enough to play his part in it.