Cold woke Shion before awareness had a chance to....
He opened his eyes to obsidian glass against his cheek. The surface stretched every direction without visible end.
"Finally awake, dreamer?"
The voice was from directions all at once...
Sweet, but with something underneath that made his skin crawl. Shion pushed himself up, hair in his eyes as he ambled towards the speaker.
"I know you can see me." A laugh ran through the room. "Your gift suggests echoes of what was. I wonder what it suggests about what will be."
Hyacline…The first thing he thought of when he saw her, even though he could not understand why. White skin. White hair that cascaded in the lack of a breeze.
But there were more than one of them. Three, five, a dozen, all of the same, standing in a circle around him.
"Welcome to your new home, Shion." They moved in unison, voices merging into harmonies that shouldn't exist. "I am Hyacline, First Among the Chosen. Servant to Lord Tsuyari."
Shion stood up from the ground. His legs were shaking, though from fear or confusion he couldn't tell.
"Where am I? What do you know about my name?"
"Names are fragile," one clone moved forward. "Like memories. Like the bonds that make you weak."
Another edged in behind him. "This is a training dimension. A pocket world between thoughts. Time here is under our master's control. Here you will be taught how to grow stronger and faster than ordinary virelian."
"I don't want to learn anything from you." The statement came out more strongly than Shion intended. "I want to go home."
All of the Hyaclines smiled at the same time. The smile was out of place, the manner of a mask not fitting the face.
"Home? Tell me, what did your friends do when you failed those trials? When you lost to that girl with the flames?"
The arena flashed through Shion's mind.
The humiliation of defeat. The reaction of the crowd. His friends had been gentle in their words, but their eyes.
"They pitied you," another Hyacline read his expression. "They won. You lost. That's what you desire? To be pitied by them?"
"They didn't." Shion started, but the words stuck in his throat.
"Here, you will never again be pitied." The copies glided smoothly.
"Here, you will become powerful enough that nobody will ever scorn you."
One raised her hand…
The room had altered…
They stood in what appeared to be Silverstone's practice grounds. The configuration was right, but the rest was not. Black glass floor. Shadow practice dummies. Windows with views of other rooms containing unhuman motion with purpose.
"Your first lesson." Hyacline stated, and all her duplicates vanished except one. "Show your talent."
Shion hesitated. His Essence weighed him down here, like trying to swim through oil. When he did succeed in producing an echo, a memory of a method from weeks ago.it was vague and stuttering. A far cry from the vivid illusions he was used to.
Hyacline gazed with the uninterested curiosity of one observing an insect.
"Pathetic. You cling to what was instead of on what can be. Again."
For an hour, or what his mind tricked him into thinking was an hour, she forced him to make echo upon echo. They were each weaker than the last. Each failure was greeted with criticism delivered in that honey-poison voice.
"Your stance is defensive. A tendency to cower behind recollections at all times?"
"The echo stumbles because you lack faith in yourself. Faith is a luxury."
"Again. Do not let me down this time."
When she was done, Shion could not see. Sweat dripped off his garments despite the calm outside. His hands trembled when he tried to wipe away sweat from his face.
"Adequate," replied Hyacline. She did not appear to be believing it. "You have something deep inside of you that is talent. We will bring it out."
"I am not weak," Shion whispered.
"No?" Three copies were around him. "So why are you here and not at that dojo with your friends? Why did you lose when they won? Why did you lag behind a stranger through some portal like a lost child?"
Each question hurt. The worst was that he had no good answers. Or had answers that made him cringe with each one.
"The weak make excuses," another replica echoed. "The strong deliver results. What are you?"
They didn't allow him to respond. The training field disappeared. They were back in the bottomless nothing. Hyacline's replicas merged into one entity, somehow more tangible than before. As if his failures had been her sustenance.
"Rest now," she told him. Her words were weighted enough to droop his eyelids. "When you wake, we begin the real work. Unmaking what you were. Remaking what you should be."
Awareness receded. As it did, Shion felt something else lost. Something warm and unnameable. A memory of laughter perhaps. Or belonging. It drifted like smoke, and he was too drained to catch it.
In the darkness of forced sleep, Hyacline's voice followed after him:
"Soon you won't remember why you wanted to retain useless things. Soon you'll realize that only power is important. Power is gained at a price."
On another plane, one vibrating with erasure, someone knelt before a throne carved out of nothing.
Tsuyari sat in silence. His eyes reflected nothing.
"The boy is conditionable," the kneeling form informed. "Hyacline estimates complete conversion in a lunar cycle."
"His power?"
"Stronger than initial projections. His echoes show extremely high definition. When under stress, they begin to develop physical attributes. With proper training, he could be immensely powerful."
Tsuyari did not reply...Weighing possibilities.
"The loss of the Naoya boy will accelerate the procedure. Other factions are making gains now."
"Should I direct Hyacline to increase the rate of conditioning?"
"No." Tsuyari's grin was reluctant. "Let it go as it will. Forced conditioning produces defective tools, and I require this one operational...And anyway."
He gestured. Air shimmered, disclosing visions: a white-haired boy caught in dimensions unseen.
His friends searched desperately. instructors staring concernedly at one another over locked letters and protocols.
"The game accelerates. Soon enough, all the pieces will be moving. Then we'll see how committed the others are to their causes when there's real at stake."
The kneeling man brought his face lower. "As you desire, Lord Tsuyari."
In the pocket dimension, Shion dreamed of home.
But dreams were changing. Less sharp, less personal. Friends' faces blurring around the edges. Their voices growing increasingly indistinguishable from the murmurs closing in around him in the vacant space.
In his dreaming mind, Itsuki's black hair disappeared into gray, silver, and nothing. Kairo's eyes became cold, far-away stars. Takumi's flames extinguished, leaving ash and the thought of heat.
And in it all, Hyacline's voice wove its way through his dreams…
Let go…
Let everything go…
Only strength is required…
Only purpose. Only the will to be who you are meant to be…
Forget them. Forget yourself. Forget all but proving your worth…
Soon you will know. Love is weakness. Weakness is a luxury you cannot afford…
By dawn...if dawn existed in a world without sunlight...another shard of Shion would be gone.
Replaced by something harder...Cold...More efficient to the purpose Tsuyari had in mind…
But now he slept. Dreaming of faces that faded farther from him by the hour. Until even in sleep he could not remember why losing them should hurt him…