I. A Prison of Blue
In a vast, soundless expanse of perfect, unending azure, a boy wandered. Or, rather, a consciousness that remembered being a boy. The only things here were the blue—a color with no texture, no depth, no sky or sea—and the faint, fading echo of a name.
Rento.
He repeated it with every non-step in this non-place. A mantra. A lifeline.
My name is Rento. I am Rento. I will not forget I am Rento.
He did not know how long he had been here. Time was a forgotten concept. Was it days? Years? He only knew the Before was a blur of warmth, of studying, of a staff in his hands, of a teacher's voice… then a sudden, cold intrusion, like icy water flooding his mind, and then… this. The Blue.
A prison for his soul, while something else wore his skin.
A profound, hollow loneliness gripped him. He had no mouth to scream, no eyes to cry. He was a ghost haunting the empty mansion of his own mind.
Somebody… the thought formed, a desperate, shapeless plea into the void. Somebody… please…
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II. Flight Through the Woods
Back in the tangible, treacherous world of Balamony Forest, the three were learning the true meaning of regret.
Mizty, Lard, and Ram ran. They weren't sprinting; they were fleeing, a primal, scrambling terror that left no room for dignity. Trees became blurs of brown and green as the silent, blue-haired mage floated—after them with an eerie, unhurried grace.
Swish-THUNK! Swish-THUNK!
Needles of solidified water embedded themselves into the trunks around them, exploding bark into their faces.
"Mizty, DO something about that!" Lard shrieked, the stolen pack bouncing wildly on his back, threatening to trip him.
"Huh?! What are you talking about?!" Mizty panted, her face slick with sweat and terror. "There's no way! That's not normal! It's not even casting or spell!"
The mage—Rento's body—simply raised a pale hand. The air shimmered, coalescing a sphere of swirling water the size of a wagon wheel above his palm. It didn't roar; it hummed, a low, threatening frequency that vibrated in their teeth.
He gestured.
The Water Bomb shot forward, not in an arc, but in a straight, devastating line. It didn't impact a single tree—it vaporized a ten-foot-wide corridor through the forest. Dirt, roots, and shattered timber erupted in a geyser. The concussive force hit the trio like a giant's fist, lifting them off their feet and hurling them through the air.
They crashed into a thicket of thorny brambles, a world of pain that, miraculously, was not immediate death. The massive crater and the cloud of mist and debris, however, provided a momentary curtain.
"Move! Now!" Ram grunted, his practical survival instinct overriding his usual slowness. They scrambled on hands and knees, bleeding and whimpering, into a hollow beneath a giant, uprooted tree, pulling moss and broken branches over themselves.
In the dark, damp hollow, their frantic gasps were the only sound. Mizty clutched a gash on her arm, her earlier bravado completely dissolved.
Damn it… why did this happen? she thought, her mind reeling. We were just supposed to ditch the magicless freeloader and cash in! What kind of monster has that kind of power in such a small body? And those eyes… A shudder wracked her. "Shit!".
Outside, they could hear a soft, methodical squelch of boots on wet soil. Rento's body was scouting. It paused occasionally, its head tilting with that same mechanical precision, as if listening to instructions from a source only it could hear.
---
III. An Unexpected Signature
A few miles away, Foran was having a modest dinner. A rabbit, skewered and cooked over a small, contained fire. He ate with one hand while the other traced a complex, glowing symbol in the air—a Recon Card. It hovered, pulsing softly, projecting a faint, intangible wave that mapped the magical signatures in a half-mile radius into his mind's eye.
"Hmm. Bunch of Wood Sprites clustering by the creek. A sleeping Earth-Bear. Some anxious Radeo leftovers… all standard Balamony fare".
He took another bite.
"Wait?".
A blip. Faint, erratic, but potent. Not a monster's signature—that was a raw, bestial aura. This was refined. Humanoid. But it was… smeared. Like ink bleeding on wet parchment. And beneath the smear, a secondary signature, cold and parasitic, like a leech made of frozen shadows.
"Huh," Foran muttered, chewing thoughtfully. "Just a bunch of monsters and… wait, what is this signature?" He focused. The smeared signature was moving fast. And there were three other, much fainter, terrified signatures fleeing from it. Familiar, cowardly signatures.
A dry, humorless smile touched his lips. "Well. I guess I have to check it out."
He stamped out his fire, pocketed the recon card—its energy nearly spent—and melted into the forest shadows, moving with a quiet, predatory ease that spoke of more than just card tricks.
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IV. No Escape
Back at the hollow, hope died.
Rento's body had stopped wandering. It stood perfectly still in the small clearing before their hiding place. Then, it slowly turned its head, its single visible blue eye fixing unerringly on the tangle of roots and moss that concealed them. It had not found them. It had simply known.
"No… no, no, no…" Lard whimpered.
Mizty's last gambit. She fumbled in her pouch, pulled out a Fireburst Crystal—a cheap, one-use alchemical item. "Screw this!" she yelled, bursting from cover and hurling it. "EAT THIS, YOU FREAK!"
The crystal struck the ground at the mage's feet and detonated in a satisfying WHOOMF of orange flame and black smoke. Mizty allowed herself a sliver of savage triumph.
The smoke cleared.
Rento's body stood unharmed, enclosed in a perfect, shimmering sphere of water. Not a scorch mark on his robes. The empty eye blinked once, slowly, as if bored.
A single, unified thought filled the minds of all three: We are going to die.
The mage raised his staff high. The air grew heavy, damp. A rushing sound, like a distant waterfall, filled the clearing. From the ground at his feet, a Tidal Wave of summoned water roared into existence, not from a source, but from the magic-saturated air itself. It was a wall of churning, violent blue, taller than the trees, sweeping forward to drown, crush, and wash everything away.
"DAMN IT—!" Mizty's curse was cut off as the icy deluge hit.
The world became cold, dark, and roaring. They were tumbling, breath stolen, bodies battered against roots and stones, swept away like leaves in a gutter.
Just as consciousness began to fade, and the water pulled them down into its final embrace, something hooked them.
A sharp, forceful yank. Then another. A third.
They were hauled, one by one, from the torrent and dumped unceremoniously onto soggy, but stable, ground, coughing up water and misery.
Standing over them, dripping wet and wearing an expression of profound annoyance, was Foran. He had a thin, almost invisible magical wire—a Lash Card, now fading—retracting back into a card in his hand.
"So," he said, his voice flat. "This is how far you got. You sure are lucky I was still nearby. And that I'm a sentimental fool." He didn't sound sentimental. He sounded exasperated.
He quickly checked their pulses. Alive, unconscious. Good enough. He laid them out of the way against a tree.
Then he turned.
Rento's body had observed the rescue without reaction. Now, it looked at Foran. The empty gaze settled on him, and the staff pointed.
Foran's own gaze hardened, all traces of comedy gone. His eyes, a sharp brown, didn't just look at the mage; they looked through him, analyzing the flow of energy.
"Who are you?" Foran asked, though he knew he wouldn't get an answer from the puppet. His recon sense was screaming now at close range. "Wait… something is wrong."
He could see it—not with his eyes, but with his card-enhanced perception. The boy's natural magical core, a bright, blue-white star, was ensnared in a lattice of sickly, pulsating violet energy. Thin, needle-like tendrils of that foreign magic burrowed into the core itself, pulsing in time with the boy's heartbeat. A forceful, parasitic control.
A cold knot tightened in Foran's stomach. A memory, sharp and unwanted, flashed: a village square, a friend with the same violet light in his eyes, swinging a sword at his family. The smell of ozone and despair. The difficult, terrible choice he'd had to make afterward.
"A Soul-Thrall Curse," he whispered, the name tasting like ash. "I guess… I have to get involved in this one."
His demeanor shifted entirely. The weary adventurer vanished. What remained was a focused, dangerous calm. He reached into the inner pocket of his robe and drew out two Spell Cards, holding them between the fingers of each hand.
The first, "Granite Husk", glowed a steady, earthy brown. A defense card.
The second, "Akur", shimmered with that familiar, dangerous crimson. The surge card.
Across from him, Rento's body settled into a casting stance, water beginning to spiral around the staff once more.
"Initiate."
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V. The Dancer and the Tide
The fight was a brutal contrast of styles.
Rento's body was a fortress of water. He didn't attack in single spells; he layered them. A volley of Water Needles forced Foran to dodge left, right into the path of a rising Aqua Pillar from the ground. Foran activated Granite Husk; a shell of shimmering stone encased him just as the pillar erupted, shattering the shell but leaving him unscathed. He lunged, closing the distance, Akur's red aura flaring.
But the mage was ready. A Liquid Membrane—a wall of elastic water—appeared between them, absorbing and slowing Foran's powerful sword slash. Before Foran could recover, a whip of pressurized water snapped out, catching him across the chest and sending him skidding back, his robe torn and stinging.
"He's good. Too good", Foran thought, gritting his teeth.
He observed as he dodged another Crushing Sphere. The curse was driving the body mercilessly. Every spell was cast at maximum output, with no regard for the strain on the boy's magical circuits or physical form. He could see the boy's core flickering, stressed. If this continued, the core would burn out, or the body would simply break from the magical feedback. This was cruelty, not combat.
The fight escalated. Foran became a red blur, using trees as springboards, his sword deflecting jets of water. Rento's body responded with increasing area-of-effect spells—Water Cyclones, Downpours that turned the ground to slippery mud. It was a massive, destructive ballet that leveled the surrounding foliage.
Foran was tiring. Akur drained his Pillar Gem fast, and Granite Husk was spent. He needed to end this. Now.
He feinted a high charge, then dropped low, sliding through the mud under a sweeping Water Scythe. The puppet-mage advanced, sensing an opening, staff raised for a final, point-blank Torrent Blast.
This was the moment. This was what Foran wanted. To close the gap. To make contact.
He let the staff come. At the last possible second, he dropped his sword and slapped both hands together, a fresh, pure white card materializing between his palms.
"SEIN: ROUNDBOUND CARD – PURGE!"
He wasn't aiming for the body. He was aiming for the connection.
The white card dissolved. Foran's hands glowed with a gentle, but intensely focused, light. As the mage thrust the staff forward, Foran didn't block it. He stepped inside the thrust, took the impact on his already-bruised shoulder with a grunt of pain, and planted his now-glowing palm directly on the boy's chest, over the magical core.
A technique not of force, but of precise, resonant negation.
"Disperse!"
A pulse of silent, white energy emanated from his palm. It didn't explode outward; it tunneled inward, seeking the violent, chaotic signature of the curse. Foran's mind, linked through the card, saw it—the violet lattice, clinging like frost. His will, focused through the Purge Card, became a scalpel of pure order.
The lattice shattered.
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VI. Light in the Blue
In the endless azure prison, Rento felt a tremor.
Then, a crack. A sliver of blinding, beautiful white light pierced the blue.
The cold emptiness shattered like glass. Sensation rushed back—the ache of his body, the chill of night air on his skin, the smell of damp earth and smoke. The muffled, underwater silence was replaced by the crackle of a fire, the sigh of wind.
He gasped, a real, deep, aching breath, and his eyes flew open.
He was lying on a bedroll by a campfire. His body felt like it had been run over by a herd of Radeo. He was confused, disoriented, but beneath it… a fragile, soaring hope. I'm back. I'm… me.
He sat up, wincing. He saw three unconscious, waterlogged strangers piled unceremoniously nearby. And sitting across the fire, calmly stirring a small pot of stew, was a man with tan skin, black hair, and a torn black robe. A white scarf was neatly folded beside him.
Their eyes met.
"Wha… who…?" Rento's voice was hoarse from disuse.
"Easy," the man said, his voice calm. "You've been through a lot. My name's Foran. You were… unwell. I helped."
Rento looked at his own hands, then around at the scorched, water-damaged clearing visible beyond the firelight. Fragments of memory returned—the feeling of losing control, glimpses of violence through a haze. Shame and fear washed over him.
"Did I… did I hurt anyone?"
"Those three? Mostly just their pride and their dry clothes. They'll live. You, on the other hand, almost cooked your own magic core. Don't try to cast anything for a while."
Questions bubbled in Rento's mind, but exhaustion was a heavy weight. Foran handed him a bowl of stew. It was simple, but it was the most real, wonderful thing Rento had ever tasted.
As they ate in silence, Rento studied his savior. There was a quiet competence to him, a weariness that seemed deeper than physical fatigue. But something else was odd. In a world where magical auras were like subtle perfumes or loud shouts, this man… had none. It was like sitting next to a silhouette.
Finally, Rento couldn't hold back. "Foran… what are you? I mean… I don't sense any magic from you at all. Not even a flicker. How did you…?" He trailed off, realizing the question might be rude.
Foran looked up from his stew, one eyebrow raised. "What, you hate me now? Think I'm some kind of defective?"
"No!" Rento said, leaning forward, his blue eyes wide with a scholar's intense curiosity, not malice. "Actually, I'm really interested! It's theoretically impossible! Magic permeates everything! Even rocks have a trace signature! You're like… a perfect null field! How do your Abilities even work without a personal mana pool to catalyze them? The energy conversion must be fascinating! Is it purely external channeling? What's the conversion efficiency? Can I—?"
He had shuffled around the fire and was now far too close, his face inches from Foran's, his earlier trauma forgotten in an academic fervor. Up this close, Foran was struck by it—with his delicate features, long lashes, and that waterfall of blue hair, Rento looked astonishingly like a very pretty, very excited girl.
Foran placed a firm hand on Rento's forehead and gently pushed him back to a respectable distance. "Whoa. Okay. Calm down, professor. One near-death experience at a time. The short answer is: it's complicated, and I don't like talking about it. The long answer involves me going to sleep."
Rento blushed, realizing his intrusion. "S-sorry. I… I get carried away." The adrenaline crash hit him then, and a massive yawn overtook him.
"Sleep," Foran said, not unkindly. "Your body needs to heal from the inside out. We can talk more when the sun's up."
Gratefulness overwhelming him, Rento simply nodded and burrowed back into his bedroll. Sleep claimed him in moments, this time a true, dreamless, and peaceful rest.
Foran didn't sleep. He sat by the dying fire, watching the embers fade. He looked from the sleeping boy, to the three treacherous idiots, and then out into the dark, watchful forest.
The Soul-Thrall Curse. Here. Now. It wasn't an isolated incident from his past. It was a present threat. A pattern.
A cold whisper, not of wind, but of destiny, traced a line down his spine. He pulled his scarf tighter.
"Things are about to change," he murmured to the night, his breath forming a faint mist in the chill air. "I can feel it. And it's giving me the chills."
Beyond the circle of firelight, in the deepest shadows of Balamony, something that was neither animal nor man observed, and then melted away, leaving no trace but a faint, lingering scent of ozone and decay.
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