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Noa saw a lot of blood as the days went on. 

He learned about scabs and scars, about perforated veins and how long it took a bruise to form and start to heal. Nagasawa was an expert on multiple schools of magic, but he was at best a mediocre phlebotomist. 

His days were filled alternatively with silence and with talk of blood. Annoyingly, some what Nagasawa was saying was actually interesting, and if he'd had anything to write with, Noa might have been tempted to take notes. 

As the experiments went on, though, he started to have more questions—ones about how long it took blood to replenish or how much blood exactly a body could lose before it became a problem.  

Because he wasn't sure whether Nagasawa was actually keeping track, and he was starting to get greedy. At first, it had been just a drop or two at a time. Then he'd started drawing vials-full, and then beakers.

Occasionally he touched the drawn blood directly to the Garden, and Noa got another glimpse of its insides. But more and more often, he'd begun testing the blood in other ways. 

He left Noa strapped down to the test bed as he boiled, bespelled and decanted, pouring his blood and other, more esoteric liquids between containers. He had a mad scientist's worth of tools in the testing room, with a few more appearing every day. 

Sometimes he still explained to Noa what he was doing, but more and more often his monologues descended into mutterings before trailing off into preoccupied silence. Noa occasionally risked a question, but lately Nagasawa had ignored even those. One day, he even snapped, "Silence!" and waved his stylus, dripping red, in Noa's direction. 

Noa's mouth had sealed itself shut, his own blood turning against him. 

It had taken Noa several minutes of silent struggling to figure out how to counteract it. When his mouth finally opened again, he wasn't sure if his efforts had worked or if Nagasawa had lost focus. Either way, he took the hint and stopped pushing his luck. 

Then came the day when Nagasawa came at him with a basin larger than Noa's head and a silver knife. 

Noa fought his bonds harder than ever when Nagasawa twisted his calf around and cut deep into it. The pain vanished far too quickly, and Noa could feel the heat of copious blood flowing out of his leg into the basin.

And then, soon, he could feel the basin—the shape of it, the depth. There was some magic in it, though he could only get a vague impression of what kind. But as his legs and fingers grew cold and began to tingle, and chills wrapped around his stomach, the blood that left him felt ever more hot and desperate. 

He threw his will into it, hardly knowing what he was doing, and tendrils of blood rose from the bowl. 

Nagasawa, who'd been silent till now, looked up in surprise. "What—" 

Noa willed the tendrils to move further, and they wrapped themselves around Nagasawa's throat. 

Nagasawa dropped the bowl, but the blood didn't clatter to the ground with it. Instead it flowed up and over, around Nagasawa's shoulders, soaking into his shirt. 

It was hot and alive, but soft—making it hard enough to choke took effort, but Noa did his best.

Nagasawa grimaced and swore, spitting as the blood tried to climb up to cover his mouth. He put a hand on his stylus and waved it, but couldn't seem to decide on a spell—or maybe Noa was managing to distract him. 

Then he jabbed the stylus into the restraints binding Noa, and suddenly they were so cold they burned. Noa bit back a yell, arching in his bonds, his attention split. Nagasawa grabbed for the bowl as the blood splashed down his torso, catching as much as he could. 

"Fascinating," he panted as Noa writhed. "Dangerous, but fascinating. Did you know you could do that, Noa-kun?" 

Noa swore at him instead of answering. Nagasawa grinned at him, blood streaking down his chin and torso. He left footprints of blood as he backed away. 

"Here," he said, and stepped away, setting the bowl on the ground a small distance away. He waved his stylus absently, and the burning stopped. "Try that again."
Noa heaved breaths through gritted teeth. "What?"
"Move your blood. Don't be shy. Oh, but let me get close again first—if I don't seal that cut, more of your blood might go to waste." 

It wasn't really up to Noa whether Nagasawa got close or not. After all that effort, it was difficult just to stay conscious. He gathered his will and tried to reach for the cooling blood across the room. It was harder, but whether it was because of the distance, his weakness, the distraction of Nagasawa sealing his vein with magic, or the lack of a clear target, the blood barely rose in a few weak tendrils.
"Absolutely fascinating," Nagasawa repeated, returning to poke at them. "I never thought to try that. Of course, moving liquids around is one thing, and even changing phase is possible—but you weren't freezing it. That sort of manipulation…I'm bringing it closer. Try to suffocate me again and I'll hurt you, but…try to make it go solid again." 

Proximity helped with the degree of Noa's control, but not much. 

Nagasawa set the basin aside and frowned at him. "Are you actually trying, or are you being difficult on purpose?" 

Noa shook his head. "Might be the blood loss," he croaked. 

Nagasawa narrowed his eyes at him, turning away. "No, I think it's something else." He stepped away, muttering about blood and magic, and took several more notes. 

Noa stared at the ceiling, willing the spots in his vision to go away. 

"I have one more idea," Nagasawa said. "Can you spare a little more blood, or are you going to be a baby about this?" 

Noa gave him a sardonic look. 

Nagasawa ignored it. "Well, we're trying it." He loosened the restraints, binding Noa's wrists again. "Grab the stool and sit next to the circle." 

Noa barely had the strength to get both himself and the stool across the room, so he didn't try resisting. He sat in the stool and take the chance to inspect the circle from up close. 

He recognized the symbols Miyori had described to him, days and days ago—some of them, at least. It was an interesting hybrid design. He wished, absently, that his mother could take a look at it…and then hated himself a little bit. As angry as he was with his mother, he was still glad she hadn't ended up down here with him. 

"Now," Nagasawa said, "we're going to try something different. You'll need to hold very still for this to work." 

He reached yet again for Noa's abused inner elbow, but instead of a needle he held a long glass pipette with a sharp point. 

He shoved it without ceremony into Noa's vein, and the two of them watched as dark-red blood slid lazily down its length. He angled it so the blood would flow into the symbol at the center the circle.

For the last few seconds before the blood connected, Noa considered what he'd experienced so far, made some very swift guesses about what was about to happen, and braced himself.

And then, as his blood hit the circle, the world spun out and down and away.