A light spell cast by Paladin Brava lit the way, the mana powered light offering a small but steady ring of light for the students to move by. The Forest rang with monstruous screams and snarls as shapes moved at the edge of the ring of light. Watching. Waiting. Stalking. Ready for any sign of weakness to strike.

Even with a Gold ranker's stamina spells, there was no way the students could run all night. Jun's body ached, her breathing ragged as she ran in formation next to Aya. More than once she considered using her snares to carry herself, but that was just her sore muscles talking. The extra speed would be wasted if she stayed with the group, and splitting off on her own would mean abandoning her friends. Even if she took them with her, it'd mean leaving the safety of the Gold rankers' protection, and that was a terrible idea.

Twice now those stalking shadows took form as twisted monstrosities that rushed out of the darkness, writhing tentacles and claws reaching out to pull them down. The first time, the Gold rankers quickly killed the monsters before they could do more than appear in the light of Brava's spell, but the second time, they'd all been forced to fight.

Running through the cold and dark Forest was hard on the body, especially with as little rest as they had. Paladin Brava's stamina and healing spells had helped them keep going, but they were no substitute for rest and it showed when one of Jun's classmates tripped over an exposed tree root, falling to the ground in a jangling tumble of armor. Several more of her classmates tripped over him and fell, adding to the chaos at the front. Jun was lucky to be far enough back that she could swerve around the growing pile and come to a stop to help them up, but stopping was a mistake. All of her classmates stopped to help those who fell get back up. It was only a few seconds, but that was enough for the monsters to sense weakness and attack.

Screams and snarls filled the air as mutated goblins flooded out of the darkness, deformed limbs reaching out to tear them apart. If they weren't still recognizable by their shape, Jun would've thought them abominations covered more eyes and mouths than any living being needed and waving about deformed limbs that turned her stomach to witness moving. Instead of the goblins' ferocious teamwork that made them a scary and intelligent foe, the mutated came at them with mindless fury, like a flood of nightmares.

"Warriors to the front! Form a circle! Mages support!" Brava shouted, taking an anchor position at the back of the group as he shot out blades of light into the oncoming rush. The advisor's attack shredded through dozens of the monsters, giving the students just enough time to make ready.

Crowded in the center with the other mages and the scouts, Jun conjured her snares on her back and lashed out, grabbing a pair of mutated as they came close, restraining them as she pulled at their mana. Roaring with rage, the two struggled mightily as they ripped at her snares, one of them wrapping the tentacle that replaced one of its legs around the snares as it tried to constrict like a snake. The contact only increased the flow of energy that she ripped from it. She could feel her spells getting stronger, and soon the stolen mana would fill her, fuel she could use for more spells.

She didn't notice her snares changing color from her normal light blue into a greenish black.

Not until the energy reached her mana channels, biting deep like poisoned fangs.

Pain and nausea assaulted her as the energy she stole from the mutated goblins flooded into her mana channels. Sending her intent into her snares, she ordered her spell to throw the mutated goblins away. The spells started to contract, only to stop, refusing her commands. On the verge of panicking, Jun forcefully tried to sever the links to her spells, but for the first time since she started learning magic, she struggled to control it, her spells resisting her control and continuing to flood her with the disgusting energy, her chest throbbing with pain as the tide of filth invaded her mana channels.

A jolt of fear, pain, and disgust coursed through her with every throbbing pulse. The vile energy advanced further, sending jolts of pain shooting down her limbs as it assaulted her spine and the mana channels alongside it, attacking her nerves and setting them on fire.

It hurts! Make it stop! Falling to panic, Jun retreated from the corruptive tide, her consciousness pulling back from her body as the disgusting thing snapped at it, seizing control of her nerves as she fell to the ground. In her mental place, time slowed to a crawl as the sensations in her body faded, the pain and nausea that physically assaulted her muted and far away here. It was almost peaceful. A reprieve from whatever it was she accidentally let into her body. But that reprieve didn't last.

Weightlessness, muted as it was, came over her as her body started to fall, her legs knocked out from under her as she lost control of her legs. The fall seemed to last hours, before it suddenly stopped, the slight pain of landing against the frozen ground lasting only an instant and hours at once, but it was nothing before the muted pain she felt as the energy advanced up her spine.

Aya's arms and mana channels burned as she pushed her mana into a spellform, the lance of fire taking form moments before she sent it spearing through a pair of mutated goblins, her spell adding a flare of red light to the Forest as the magical flames engulfed them. All around her, more spells went off in flashes of light as blades of wind, spikes of ice, and constructs of golden light and pulsing blood lashed through the monsters as they pressed in.

A faint blue glow appeared in the corner of her eye as she watched a handful of tentacles reach out and grab another pair of mutated goblins, but it wasn't enough. Dozens more abominations of warped flesh pushed around the corpses and restrained goblins.

A girl's scream ripped through the air next to her. Whipping her head around, she saw Michael already moving towards Jun as she writhed around on the ground, black veins marring her pale skin. More gold light appeared as Michael arrived and grabbed one of Jun's arms as she moved erratically.

Pushing her concern for her friend to the side, she channeled more of her mana into another spell, sending another pair of abominations up in flames, their screams adding to the cacophony of battle. She wasn't sure what got her friend, but she couldn't afford to take attention away from the monsters attacking them. Without Jun's magic to control the flow of battle, she would need to work harder to make sure they survived.

Jun huddled in a corner of her mind as pain wracked her body and soul. Again and again she tried to sever her connection to her spells, the source of the corruption, but the spells resisted her, the links reinforced by the strange energy that flooded in from the pair of goblins they still restrained.

As her mental attacks bounced off her spell links, the corruption advanced, curling down her arms and filling her chest. Every breath became labored as corrupt energy filled her lungs, her heart stuttering as it assaulted the vital organ. She felt control of her arms fade as her nerves were set aflame. Then the whispers started.

"Surrender," a voice seemed to call out in her mind.

Jun recoiled away from the whisper, retreating further in her mind as she desperately tried to push back the tide, flooding mana out of her core in a desperate attempt to push the corrupted mana out. The tide ebbed for a moment as her core flooded her channels, but it only slowed whatever was happening, not stopping it.

"Stop fighting," the voice whispered again, its insidious tone grating against her mind like nails on a chalkboard. She could feel the whisper resonating through her teeth and fingernails, shocks of electricity stinging at her with every word.

Jun flooded more of her mana out of her core, pushing against the tide. She envisioned castle walls to stop the flood, barriers to deflect it away, and channels to guide the energy and control it, but her efforts were meaningless. The failed attempts of a child playing in the sand. The ocean of corrupted mana crashed into her walls, crumbling them with battering waves. Her barriers melted like sand before the tide as it washed over and around them. Her channels faired better, capturing dregs of the energy, but there was too much and they quickly filled and clogged with debris, overwhelmed.

Throughout it all, pain, and whispers. "The pain is temporary," the depths whispered as it sunk its claws into more of Jun's body, it's vile touch eating at her nerves. Jun screamed as she pulled more mana from her core and threw it at the tide, pushing it back for a moment before it returned, engulfing more of her nerves in corrupt energy. "Give in and join us." More whispers assailed her mind.

Flailing, Jun tried to put distance between herself and them, but she was trapped in a corner of her mind, shrinking away from the whispered invitations as she threw desperate and futile attacks at it. She felt the corruption in that mana, felt her body try to reject it only for her best efforts to fail, for her to shrink away from it like a coward. Shame filled her mind at the admission. She wasn't strong or brave. She'd just been going along with Shiori, Sara, Aya, and the others. Letting them set the pace for her life, doing what seemed easiest or least complicated each time. Quietly certain that Shiori or someone else would save her.

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But Shiori wasn't with her now. Her adoptive mother stayed behind to confront something Jun couldn't understand, telling her to escape with the others. The other teams' advisors fought alongside them, but they weren't enough on their own. Her classmates fought on even as Jun struggled with the strange energy invading her body and pressing against her mind. As time moved sluggishly by, she saw gold and red light illuminating the Forest between the booted feet of her classmates in front of her, revealing hundreds more monsters looming towards them in a brief instant that lasted for minutes. No one was coming to save her.

"You are weak," the corrupted mana whispered as it brushed against her core. "Cowardly." Jun felt another of her mana channels fall to corruption. "Useless." With rising horror, she watched as her arm started to move on its own, jerking and twitching erratically as it pointed at Aya, then Keira, Cian, Michael, her classmates, the advisors. The corrupted mana started to move in a familiar pattern, one she recognized from a summer spent hunting and practicing with it, only to give it up for fear of hurting others. "All the power gifted to you and you do nothing with it. We will put it to better use."

Mana began to coalesce into dozens of spheres around her as time seemed to slow. Images of her friends' blood spraying into the air filled her mind. Taunting her for her weakness. Reveling in her despair.

Mocking laughter filled her mind as the spells formed at a glacial pace.

"I'm weak, Master," Jun said, collapsing tiredly on her bed and burying her face in her pillow. She thought she was stronger now, nearly fighting her teammates to a standstill, but Arwen said her teammates had still gone easier on her. Underestimated her, and she only did well because of surprise and the assistance of her Master. "Arwen's right, I only did well because you were there, telling me what to do and helping me fight. If I had been alone, I wouldn't have lasted nearly as long."

"Your so-called advisor is an idiot." Shiori said, jumping onto Jun's back and sitting down. She could feel her Master's tail flick about impatiently, heard her begin cleaning herself as cats did. "That idiot elf seems to think that the only power worth considering is the ability to kill. That any mercy is weakness."

Her Master went silent for a few long minutes as she continued grooming herself in a hushed whisper of tongue on fur. In the silence, Jun's mind raced. The ability to kill. She'd taken lives before. Hunted animals for food, first with her father on Earth, his way of trying to "toughen up his son," then in the Forest with Shiori for food, but that was different. She knew what Arwen and Shiori meant, knew her own failings. Sentient lives.

Even there, her hands weren't clean. Unbidden, an image of a bloodstained bottle of whiskey dropping from a nerveless hand came to her. A voice twanging with a strong accent. "Ray's dead," the voice said, its words an accusation, but not the only one. Goblins captured by Shiori that Jun chose to kill, driven by rage and anger as she saw the evidence of their crimes. More goblins as they tried to kill the first people like her that she'd seen on Merinthia, only for her to rip through them with magic. Her friends forced to fight and kill thugs who hunted them when they were only out because Jun needed their help selling things she wanted hidden from Arwen. A bounty gone wrong, her words and actions condemning a noble family to servitude and death. More lives taken, either by her hand or for her benefit.

What right did she have to take another's life? The question was one that haunted her every day, even as she trained to fight with weapon and spell. To defend herself. To kill threats. It all came back to killing in the end. Something she'd done before, but which ate at her every time. Arwen's words rang in her head. "Pathetic. You hold yourself back, restrain yourself out of cowardice. Restraint is weakness."

"Your instructor is an idiot, and wrong. The magic I have taught you is capable of many things, kitten. The least of my techniques, used without restraint, could be used to kill dozens with a single thought. Such power has been used for terrible things by good people because restraint means sacrifice. Sacrificing power, opportunity, freedom. Restraint means shackling yourself and your impulses. It is both weakness and strength. One side of a scale. True power doesn't come from lacking restraint, but from balancing it. Knowing when to hold yourself back, when to be merciful, and when to stop holding back. You spend so much of your strength on holding yourself back kitten, that you are out of balance. When the time comes that restraint no longer serves you, let it all out. True power is not overwhelming strength, unchecked ambition, or ruthlessness. It is a balance of all things. Overwhelming strength and endless flexibility. Ambition tempered by contentment. Ruthlessness and mercy. Seek balance kitten. This is the path."

The memory was a small thing. A half-remembered conversation with her adoptive mother from months ago. One she wasn't sure she remembered correctly, but her mother's exact words didn't matter so much as the feelings they inspired. She had always been embarrassed to admit her fear of killing. The guilt. The nausea. The regret. Her friends and classmates considered goblins mere monsters. Thugs and criminals deserving of death for crimes big and small. It was something the people in her hometown had thought. Something Jun felt directed at her for being different. Something she feared becoming a part of herself, and so she rejected it. Held herself back out of fear of hurting others like she'd been hurt.

That restraint had helped her get her feet under her. Moving with caution, holding herself back out of fear of upsetting or hurting others. Always reacting, never taking the first step herself if she didn't have to. But that restraint put her off balance. Too defensive. Too reactionary.

She needed to regain her balance. Deep in her mental sanctum, she could feel the corrupted energy seizing full control of her body, the spells made with her own mana aimed by an alien will at her friends and classmates.

Maniacal laughter filled her mind as the spells neared completion, the hostile entity sending her images of her classmates riddled with holes and feelings of anticipation and hunger.

Jun grabbed hold of her fears, her anxiety, her embarrassment. Every thought, feeling, and memory that ate at her, encouraging her to hold back to protect herself. Those thoughts and emotions were her strength, but they weren't all of it. The secret thrills she felt when fighting, the guilt-ridden pleasure of victory. The thoughts about how much easier it would be to simply send out dozens of attacks rather than struggling to restrain a single enemy. The feelings she held for another that she was too afraid to act upon, too worried that they would hate her for them.

All of these and more she gathered up, forging those shackles into spears as she poured what little mana she had left into them.

"Pathetic human emotions," the whispers laughed as the first [Piercing Missile] began to move, a point forming as it aimed straight for Aya's head.

Fuck that. Powered by the last of her mana, Jun's spears of intent shot out, not for the tide of energy controlling her body, nor the snares that pumped more of the vile energy into her, but into the attack spells formed from her mana, carrying with them a simple command. "Kill the abominations."

Jun's intent slammed into the spells, seizing back control as they coalesced and struck! The spell that had been aiming for Aya's head curved around her friend, billowing her hair as it speared through a mutated goblin as it pummeled Ivar. All around the circle, Jun's spells rained down on the battlefield, reaping lives. A spike of disgust stabbed her chest at the violence, but Jun grabbed the feeling and stabbed it deep into the vile energy controlling her body.

"What?!" The alien will screamed, recoiling as Jun abandoned all defense. As fresh mana flowed into her core, Jun injected her will into it, spinning the mana and intent into a new weapon that she sent charging through her mana channels. Gone were the failed remains of her defenses built on shaky foundations. Instead, her mana and will burned with the fury of the summer sun as it pushed the vile energy back as she purged it from her body.

Like a war torn battlefield, her body ached with every muscle and nerve she purged of the alien influence, every scrap of pain and fury forged into a new weapon as she fought like a rabid beast to take back her body, her territory. Inch by inch, she clawed back control, chasing the alien will as it retreated back into the spells that held her linked to the two mutated goblins. As she regained control of the spells, she paused for a moment, feeling the pain wracking her body as she moved her head for the first time in what felt like days, but had only been a minute at most.

Her body was hers again. Leaking corpses surrounded the students where Jun's spells met mutated goblin flesh. Jun groaned with relief as she felt Michael's healing magic flowing through her for the first time, its influence unnoticed during her battle with the alien will. Still, the sounds of battle filled the air as more abominations attacked, but they were fewer in number now, no longer surging towards them. Instead, they were hesitant, as if intimidated.

As Jun swept her consciousness across her body, the true scope of her battle with the alien will became clear. Thousands of tiny wounds covered her skin, and more ravaged her flesh beneath. The faint wetness she dismissed as sweat was blood, putrid and black as it flowed in small rivers from her sleeves, repelled by her enchanted clothing. Her body drank in the healing magic as it repaired itself, the pain she felt drifting away, leaving only relief and exhaustion behind.

She did her part in the battle, a small voice in her mind whispered. She fought back, saved her classmates from whatever infected her, and struck a brutal blow against the monsters that attacked them. It would make sense to stop here, sever the link with the spells where the alien influence retreated, and rest. Straining herself further would only slow her recovery. Restraint was important. But she didn't want to restrain herself right now.

Fighting off the exhaustion that demanded she rest, Jun gathered what little mana she recovered and sharpened her will one last time, infusing the snares that remained anchored to her with it. Under the influence of the alien will, her snares had changed, the individual tendrils fusing into a pair of thick tails, shining white at the base where her mana infused it, and black where she could still sense the corrupted mana. Pushing her mana further into the spell was simple for her now. A whim, her fears and doubts thrown in to fuel her mana's charge as it chased the corrupted mana out and back into the mutated goblins.

With her spells back under her control, Jun sent one final command to the glowing tails, unconsciousness claiming her as the sound of snapping bones filled the air.

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