“She good?”

  Karaki avoided his eyes. “She’s fine.”

  “So she’s in her room?”

  “Yeah, sleeping. Ai said it’s because of some kind of growing treatment that Canadena has to stay in bed.”

  Ioha nodded. Outside evening had turned into night, and he had just returned from the washing room. Commoners washed their own clothes. Nobles had servants. “That’s good.” It had to be. She must have lost a lot of blood if she needed regenerative treatment. Not healing magic at all, according to Ai. “So, about…”

  “Look, man, I’m tired. Talk tomorrow?”

  Karaki still avoided his eyes. Why don’t we just sit down and have a nice chat about how I almost killed your girl right now? Cause that was what Canadena had become. Almost at least. Karaki’s harem had shrunk to two girls. The other five, almost at the same time, dropped out, smiling when they noticed feelings of affection developing among the remaining three. Ioha nodded again and left the room. The air felt too heavy for him to stay.

  The stairs down to the bottom floors were strangely dimly lit. For something built to be imposing, Ioha several times wondered why they weren’t flooding with light to hammer into the viewer once and for all how important building one was. But as it was, he barely had enough light to make his way down. I really did it this time, didn’t I? He held on to the banister. Applying abilities, and he’d jump down the stairs half a flight at a time, even in pitch dark, but right now, maybe he just didn’t deserve to use aura-enhanced abilities at all. It wasn’t like he couldn’t, but maybe he shouldn’t. Stumbling twice, he reached the school-yard, but when he finally stood on it, he forgot any reason to be there. So this is the kind of cat I became? Pushing himself beyond what was sound was one thing. Hurting a friend because he was so frustrated and tired that he got careless, well, that was hard to make up excuses for. Ten years earlier, sure. When he really was fifteen, going on sixteen. But that was ten years earlier. This was the adult version of him, even though he was still very young.

  Ioha draped his cloak tighter around him. He’d grabbed it on his way out, as if he’d already decided not to use any abilities depending on aura. Why? Because, right now, they felt dirty, just like he himself had somehow become dirty. Damn! What the hell am I doing? With a snort he took a few steps onto the gravel. They’re kids. I’m competing with kids. He needed to go somewhere outside the oppression of four gray stone buildings, because this wasn’t the place for deep thoughts. He collected his thoughts and made his way to one of the corners where a street connected the school-yard with the surrounding training fields.

  “Ioha.”

  Ai?

  “I’ll walk with you.”

  “I don’t feel too well, so I want to be alone.”

  Her steps never fell behind him. “I’ll walk with you.”

  “Didn’t you hear what…”

  “I need you. Please!”

  Being alone might be what he wanted right now, but pushing Ai away. He couldn’t do that. She didn’t intrude on him very often when he needed time for himself. “Alright:”

  On the roads between barns and fields, walking without a torch or similar was a hazard, but Ai’s reddish bulb of aura that sat attached to the crown of her head spread enough light to walk by while still allowing them to retain their night vision. Early on Ioha always thought of her as a Christmas-style cuddly monster outdoors at night, but now he was used to it. It was simply too practical.

  “You OK?” If she walked by his side, maybe silence wasn’t the best of moods.

  “I’m fine. She’s fine as well.” The answer had taken a few seconds to form, and Ioha wondered what Ai’s real purpose for being here was. Yes, she was worried. Their relationship wasn’t shallow enough for him not to read her silent language. But exactly in what way was she worried?

  Ioha let out a deep breath. “Karaki’s real angry.” Their steps had taken them almost to the mess-hall. From here the road led to paddocks for the little riding training the school offered, a couple of barns he had never seen in use with their attached training fields and finally the school store. It filled the same function as the shabby building squeezed in between the dormitories, but for those with real money to spend.

  “She’ll be back to normal come morrow.”

  Now, that’s not at all what you talk like. A curious gaze later, Ioha knew she was just as troubled as he. “Healing takes that much time?”

  Another two steps of silence before Ai spoke again. “Regeneration, not healing. Told you before.”

  “I don’t get the difference between…”

  “There’s a huge difference. Like I can heal just about anything that needs healing, but if they need to regenerate too much, they die while I’m watching! That kind of difference. Got it?”

  “I didn’t know you…”

  “I wasn’t. I’m a student. Teacher saved her.” Ai pulled her blazer around her, and Ioha unhooked his cloak and draped it over her shoulders. If need be, he could keep warm the cat way, not that he deserved it.

  “I didn’t know,” Ioha lied. He’d seen the teacher jumping in like a rabbit with his own eyes. “I didn’t know about regeneration,” he added. This time it was the truth.

  “Ioha, this is the second time, you know.”

  Second time? Oh, yeah, it is. He never once reflected on what it took to save Anthony’s life that morning. Well, he deserved it.

  “You almost killed someone again. I’m scared.”

  “I’d never…”

  “I know you’d never hurt me. I’m not stupid! I’m afraid because I don’t know what’s going on inside your head. Please, please, let me in!”

  “But there’s no way she’d die from…”

  “That’s not what makes me scared. You almost killed a friend. If there were no healers here, she’d be dead.”

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  Something was off. As if they almost, but just almost, talked about the same thing. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

  “And that’s even worse! Don’t you get it? Don’t you understand that those beautiful questioning eyes you show me right now scare me the most of all?”

  He still didn’t get it. “Just let me think it over, will you?” Thinking was good. Something he knew how to do as well.

  By his side, Ai simply bowed her head.

  “You know,” Ioha started when the silence got just a little bit too oppressive, “the difference between healing and regeneration, could you please explain it to me?” He wasn’t really all that interested, but it could come in handy to know one day. He just needed Ai to talk with him again.

  She let go of his arm and left the road to hug a fence. From her voice Ioha couldn’t really tell if she was explaining something to him or just felt a corresponding need to talk.

  “When I heal someone, there’s almost always a little bit of regeneration involved. Healing is kind of like putting stuff back together, and that’s pretty easy when you know what to do.” She dug her chin into the fence and rested her head on top of it. “It’s the parts that go missing, you know. I have to recreate those from a mix of my and the patient’s aura plus a small portion of our bodies to use as blueprints, if that makes any sense.” The fence made squeaking noises when Ai rubbed her chin along it. “It’s usually quick, and it doesn’t burn a lot of aura, and my self-healing as well as self-regeneration is quite frankly absurd. But bleeding is bad. Blood loss can take as long to restore as growing a new limb for someone. It’s the same amount of matter, after all.”

  So Canadena had bled a lot.

  “Ioha, healing is a matter of time. When that teacher arrived, Canadena was no longer in any danger. If he had arrived a few minutes later, she’d be dead. That’s what bleeding does. Get it?”

  He nodded. That made a lot of sense and forced him to rethink what he was doing here. Almost killing Anthony was not anything he’d ever regret, though. Yes, he’d almost become a murderer, but the victim was Anthony von Shithead, so there was no problem. Ioha knew he wasn’t wired like most people around him. Exterminating vermin didn’t pose a problem in his world. It just became cleaner, and he honestly couldn’t understand those who wanted to spend precious resources on those who never had an inkling of ever giving anything back. Helping the poor and helpless, sure, but helping the willing parasites, never!

  “You do know your coldness never scared me. I find it attractive.”

  That was new.

  “You not admitting who you are scares the shit out of me, though. If you can’t make friends with yourself, we’re over. I’ll break up with you.”

  That was, Ioha admitted, not so new. Ai was kind of bad with compromises, especially when it concerned herself, and if he was honest with himself, that was another reason he fell in love with her. The feeling of there being two of him right here got stronger. He believed he finally understood her fears.

  “Follow me,” he said and reached out with his hand.

  She let go of the fence and joined him. Breaking up or not, right now, she was very much in love with him. He had to be an idiot not to see that, and Ioha didn’t see himself as an idiot, and yet he had been one since he first arrived in this world. Ai almost had to run to keep up with him, but for once, he didn’t slow down. He had a destination, and he needed to reach it before he changed his mind.

  Ahead of them, a luxurious shack grew larger. In ways, it was the same shabby piece of junk as back at the school, but this one was built of stone, had better lighting and stood in a well-kept garden. It was probably cleaner on the inside as well. With Ai in tow, Ioha marched up the gravel path to the door and opened it. A bell chimed when it swung open, and he entered what just had to be an anachronistic fantasy. On walls and counters, weapons and armour of all kinds and sizes hung or sat on display with colourful price tags shouting ‘buy me if you can afford to’. The offered assortment didn’t merely span several types of military needs – it embraced at least half a millennium of the history he was familiar with.

  Wergaist was not Earth, but this kind of diversity indicated an inefficiency Ioha refused the local culture was guilty of. Maniacs from Isekai. I’m sure of it. “Guess why we’re here?”

  A look of confusion spread on Ai’s face. “Is now a good time to buy fancy armour for the excursion?” Her hands touched breastplates, mail shirts, vambraces, greaves, helmets and shields of all sizes. “Besides, do you really need any of this?” she asked with one hand firmly placed on top of a helmet that would make him all but blind if he ever put it on. “Does this have anything to do with what we talked about?”

  With a nod in her direction, Ioha searched the shop for two specific pieces of equipment. From his stool behind one counter, a balding shopkeeper looked at them both, but he didn’t say anything, not even a greeting.

  Ioha found one, an arming sword, but just beside it, a better fit hung from the wall. Broadsword? The basket hilt should save him quite some aura from self-healing not needed. On a counter close to it, he found something that looked a lot like a dragoon helmet, minus the decorations. Memories of wooden shrapnel flying in all directions made him give it a long stare. It was a piece of armour he hadn’t planned to buy, but he didn’t need to be a genius to understand why protecting your head was a good idea. On a mannequin in a corner, he found the second item he wanted. A gambeson was as close as he could get to Kevlar armour in Wergaist.

  Ioha dug after his purse, but just as on their date, Ai placed a hand on his. “Is this you making a choice?”

  “I learned something. I have to act on it. I don’t like what I’ve become.”

  “I’ll pay.”

  For a moment he wanted to refuse, but when he saw her eyes glimmering with satisfied egotism, those thoughts vanished. She wanted him for herself, and she wanted the best version of him. If he couldn’t afford it, she’d get less than she wanted. “Please don’t overdo it.”

  She smiled. “Don’t think you can go overboard just because it’s my wallet.”

  “Thank you.” Then he turned to the man behind his counter. “Sir, do you have something like this in my size?”

  The shopkeeper rose. “Are you having any armour on top of it?”

  Ioha shook his head. “No, I want to be as lightweight as possible.”

  While a smirk spread on the shopkeeper’s face, he didn’t voice any thoughts about Ioha’s hulking frame and lightweight. “I have one for independent use in the storage. It should fit even you.” There was a short pause. “Anything else?”

  Ioha brought helmet and broadsword to the counter after quickly trying them out. The helmet was close to a perfect fit, and the sword good enough. Perfect balance was something he’d manipulate with aura anyway.

  “Ioha?”

  “Yes, Ai.” Surprised by her voice from just behind him, he almost backed into her.

  “It’s beautiful!” In her hand she held a round shield typical of this world. It was meant to be strapped to the arm rather than held in the middle, and while the shield itself looked like someone made it with loving care, whatever spells it got imbued with were cast by a third-rate mage. It shone with an inner light, but it wasn’t from imbued magic, and Ioha couldn’t say what the material was.

  “It’s a bit old-fashioned, and I’m afraid the magic needs to be recast. If you’re willing to have it done yourself, I can give you a good price.”

  Ioha nodded. A shield was possibly the last thing he wanted, but right now, he risked losing everything truly important if he clung to a lesser dream. “Yes, I’d be grateful for that,” he said more to himself than to the shopkeeper, who already vanished into the storage to fetch the gambeson.

  Ai lost more coins than Ioha could ever hope to repay. “I want to see you using it,” she said after she ruined herself.

  Feeling more than a little ashamed, Ioha put the gambeson and helmet on. A cough from the shopkeeper told him any fashion shows were better done outside, and he left the shop with Ai holding his hand. Halfway through the garden, he strapped the sword to his belt and fastened his new shield to his left arm. “My dear lady, how do I look?” The broadsword left its sheath almost without a sound. He grinned and posed a little. A long dream came to an end, and he hoped he could pick up a new. “You are the love of my life. I believe that is unchanging.” Ioha bowed deeply, but much less in jest than he had planned. This felt real.

  “I yield. This was not the hill I was supposed to die on. I am no longer a cat. I am a tank.” His status display flared open and public. Whiteness filled his world.

  “Ioha?”

  A searing pain cut through his mind.

  “Ioha!”