Kalika stared straight into the murky water, watching as the shimmering colors of blue and green slowly dimmed with the encroaching night. The ground shook, marking Bjorn's approach and drawing her glance. In his hands, she saw him with a broken piece of a tree, with a large string holding a chunk of meat at the other end.
"What's that for?" Kalika asked.
"I'm fishing."
"In the dark?"
"Yeah. There's a special fish I want get. It's nice and juicy and only comes out during the nights."
"Is that so?
Without hesitation, Bjorn hurled the bait into the water with a crashing splash and continued to stand and stare at the water. "You should return to camp and practice controlling your blood magic."
Kalika rolled her eyes. "Yeah. yeah…" she continued to stare into the water.
"Oh, and Donovan said he was planning on cooking meat porridge tonight."
"He said that?" Kalika turned from Bjorn to the campsite behind him a few times. Despite some reluctance, she turned, leaving Bjorn to his own devices.
Bjorn glanced back, watching her climb up the small slope of dirt and yellow grass. "I'll never understand that woman and that food…" he silently remarked.
Not long after, Kalika managed to climb onto the flat grassland where tents stood, logs lay, and a campfire danced.
Donovan, with a calm focus, crafted a sturdy frame around the campfire and then hung a large cast-iron pot filled with some water. Finished, he exhaled and wiped his head and turned, Hearing Kalika's return, "Hey, Kalika. Sorry, but the porridge won't be ready for another hour."
"Oh… That's fine. I was only here to keep practicing anyway."
"Really? You should relax. The days are almost over and-"
Kalika passed the grey crystal to Donovan, interrupting him. "I'm here already, and I might as well do something to pass the time."
With a sigh, Donovan relented and filled the crystal with fire magic. " It'd probably would've been easier if he let us read that book. By the way, how close do you think you are to cracking your whole blood magic thing?"
"I don't know, it's kind of hard to tell." Kalika took the crystal in hand and sat on the log. For a few seconds, it remained lit before turning grey again.
"Wow. That's longer than last time." Donovan noted. He took the crystal back, filling it up.
"Ironically enough, I think I have Zorbian's avatar to thank for it."
"Zorbians… Avatar?"
"Yeah. His stupid crystal had so much magic that the flow of magic became a little clearer for me... Are you done filling it?"
"O-oh yeah." Donovan stammered to hand the crystal back.
Taking the crystal back, Kalika continued to concentrate. "Honestly, I-it's kind of strange to explain…but it feels somewhat like the blood in my veins are pulling and taking the magic into itself. I'm just not sure how to block it… or reverse it…" Seconds later, the Crystal once again dimmed to a grey.
Kalika huffed. Disappointed by another failure.
"So in short, you're halfway there."
Kalika glared. "How am I supposed to know?"
"H-hey, I'm just trying to help." Donovan took the crystal and stroked his chin thoughtfully. "So you can't stop the absorption, and you can't reverse it either… if that's the case, where does all the energy go?"
With the crystal refilled, he handed it back to Kalika.
"Like the heck I know," Kalika said.
" I mean. Think about it. All that magical energy has to go somewhere, right? Otherwise, you probably would've exploded by now."
"Who knows. Maybe it just becomes a part of me or something, or maybe I'm just an endless void destined to cuck all the magic in the world." Kalika took the crystal in hand and watched it closely."
"Endless void or not, there has to be a limit. By the way, how are you keeping yourself from fully absorbing the magic from the crystal anyway?"
"By keeping calm," Kalika explained. "For some reason, the calmer I am, the less I absorb into me."
Donovan, seeing the greying of the magic crystal, continued to ponder. "Hmm… Have you tried absorbing actual magic? Maybe that'll help?"
"I don't know."
"Hey. You never know until you try.'
Kalika shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Fine.'
"Alright." He pulled his hands and concentrated. Slowly, a ball of water formed in his hands. "Here. Try this."
Kalika placed her hands on the ball of water, seeing nothing happen. Her eyes twitched as she frowned. "Nothing's happening."
"Maybe you have to match its resonance?" Donovan suggested.
"Resonance?"
"You know, like the feeling. Water is wet and feels loose yet solid. If I had one of those blue crystals, I'd think you'd understand. Erm…" The water quickly shrank away, and Donovan cleared his throat. "Let me try filling the crystal with that magic."
Kalika passed the crystal and watched as Donovan turned the once grey crystal grey.
"Here. Try to remember the feeling from that crystal. You can do that, right?"
Keeping calm, Kalika closed her eyes and concentrated on the sensations and vibrations of the crystal itself. "Yeah… You're right… It's a little different from the other crystal."
"That's because the fire magic feels like everything is moving around super-fast. But water is more… how do you say…? Strand together and it feels more free flowing and a little weighty too."
The crystal greyed at once, and with a sigh, Kalika placed it aside as Donovan manifested water back in his hands. "Alright." Let's try this again," he said.
"Fine." Kalika placed her hand into the water, trying to mimic the feeling she had felt from the crystal. Slowly, the water shrank, and the magic that once filled the water flowed into Kalika's hands, surprising her.
Unsure. She looks at her hands.
"Whoa!" Donvan exclaimed. 'You actually did it!"
Suddenly, the ground shook with a loud thud. They glanced and saw a human-sized grey-eyed fish lying lifeless by the fire. Bjorn immediately stabbed the fish, gutting it. "So what was all that about?" he questioned.
Donovan, tearing his eyes from the fish, spoke. "I was helping Kalika with her blood magic. And I think we just made some big progress!"
"I wouldn't exactly call this progress. I don't think what we did was remotely the same thing."
"What do you mean!? C'mon, Kalika, think about it for a second. Just before you weren't able to absorb that water ball I made, until you matched how it felt, right?"
"Yeah?"
"Maybe that's the key to all this?"
"I don't know about that."
Donovan turned to Bjorn, seeing him tear a large green crystal from the fish. "Hey, Bjorn. What do you think?"
Bjorn raised a brow. "What do I think?" He glanced at Kalika, examining her. "Seeing that she was absorbing those crystals long before she became a demon, it's hard to say. But with Kalika's position as an immortal, anything could've happened to her."
Kalika exhaled exasperatedly. "You know that I have my memories back, don't you?"
Both eyes drew to Kalika as she laid on the log. "So I do have an idea why I absorb magic from those stupid crystals. It's annoying, but I can tell you what happened."
"Alright," Bjorn said. He sat himself down with a growing interest. "We're all ears, so tell us. Why exactly can't you stop absorbing the magic from these crystals?"
"Well, the whole ordeal happened around ten years ago. Back when Lily decided to completely abandon me in the care of that bastard Rakon. One day, when I was trying to escape with some other prisoners, Rakon managed to catch us just before we could reach the exit."
Kalika's eyes drifted to the fire. "He gave those stupid men a choice. Kill me ten times over for their freedom or die."
"So what did they do?" Donovan asked.
"What do you think? They took him up and tried to kill me… Naturally, I was forced to kill them on the spot as mere entertainment for that bastard. But afterwards, as some pointless reward, he gave me a magic crystal, all after escorting me back to my cell. That night, a stupid thought ran through my head, and I wondered what would happen if I tried taking in the magic."
"Hmm… And so you absorbed it into you. Hoping to gain its magic." Bjorn stated
"No. I ate it."
"You… Ate it?" Donovan repeated.
"Yeah. They're actually tastier than they look."
Flashes of Kalika secretly eating a crystal sped across Donovan's head. "I-I almost forgot she was doing that."
"Anyways. It seemed to have worked to an extent; with a single crystal giving me the power to do a single attack, so I figured that if I ate more, then I could be forced to be reckoned with."
Donovan, with crossed arms, pondered for a moment. "So you wanted… Power?"
"Of course, she was looking for power." Bjorn scolded. "Being the only woman prisoner, there's only so much respect she got from the prisoners back during that time. Even with that mentor she had. But still… assuming that you did get your hands on more of those crystals. Would you care to explain how?"
"Who else do you think gave me those crystals? I certainly didn't mine them from some cave. All I had to do was make Rakon happy. Killed a prisoner he didn't like, returned peacefully when other prisoners wanted to use me to escape. I was even being a good girl and… talked him into giving me more crystal."
A sly, somber chuckle escaped Kalika's lips with a gaze lost in the moment. "To be honest, some of the things I did to get those crystals were kind of fun… But after about eight years of collecting and eating all those crystals, something weird happened."
Kalika sighed and sat back up, staring somberly at the ground. "At first, I thought he gave me a faulty crystal, so I demanded another. But when he gave me the second crystal…"
"So that's when it started." Donovan finished.
Kalika's lips trembled with her eyes glistening as she tensed. She took a quick deep breath and cleared her throat. "So if you think some feelings are the solution, I'm afraid you're sorely mistaken. Besides, if that were the case, I wouldn't have had a hard time using that dark magic I had before."
"Can't you still use it?"
"No. It was taken from me by Zorbian."
"Taken. But how can your magic be taken from you?" Donovan stood at once. "Why don't you try it now. Maybe it'll work."
"You don't think I've tried?" Kalika turned with a scoff. "Look, I appreciate you trying to help me, but trying to use that magic again is pointless. From what Zorbian said, the only reason I was able to use it before was that I… brute forced it." Kalika stopped and pondered for a moment, mulling over her thoughts.
Bjorn stared at Kalika, eventually drawing Donovan's ire.
"If you have something to say, Bjorn, just say it," Donovan said.
Bjorn glanced, then stood up and returned to slicing the fish. "It's really hard to believe all this God stuff… But you weren't much of a believer in it back then, were you, Kalika?"
"No… No, I wasn't. I never really believed demons existed back then, either. But then I was proven in some of the worst ways possible."
"Well… Even if that god did take your ability to use that dark magic, maybe you can brute force the other elements too."
Suddenly, the iron pot exploded with the sound of boiling bubbles. "C-crap. Gimme a second." Panicked, Donovan quickly retreated to the campfire, leaving Kalika to ponder by herself.
From her shifting memories of the times she used her magic, an image of her childhood self resurfaced along with that white void. She pursed her lips as a new thought crept into her mind. "Hey Donovan… Bjorn…"
Both Bjorn and Donovan slowly ceased and glanced back at Kalika.
"What is it?" Donovan asked.
Conflicted, slowly turned her head. "Never mind…"
"Alright, let me put everything together so we can eat something."
"Donovan. Where's the salt?"
"I'll grab it for you. I have to get a few seasonings myself, I need to…"
Slowly, the conversation between Bjorn and Donovan became white noise to Kalika, with her thoughts boiling and stuck to the bittering memories. "Damn it. What was the point of all that training with Zelak!?" Her gaze stuck to her hand, and a frown formed. "I'll figure it out. I have to."