The Surface of the Lake

The place that had been a dense forest turned into a wide lake with nothing in it but rough water and clear sky.

The instant it appeared, Stella dropped as if she were choking, and Wendy went into a panic because her body had been inverted. Her eyes did not see. Her ears did not hear. She tried to speak and no sound came. She was close to suffocating because she could no longer breathe normally.

Calm down before I lose my sight. I remember seeing the place around us change. He said Third Level. So we're inside his domain already. If that's it, then the way my senses work has been reversed. Breathing has been reversed. I'm not actually suffocating. If I calm down, I can get used to it.

A few seconds later she was breathing steadily, and her condition stabilised.

The old man was impressed with how fast she adapted. He laughed and said:

"You're the first person who's managed to breathe normally without my permission. How did you work out how this place operates so quickly?"

She gave him nothing. While he waited for an answer he scratched his head and muttered:

"I forgot she can't hear."

He snapped his fingers, and she started looking around as though sound had come back.

He came closer and put a hand on her shoulder.

"As I thought. You have no heart."

"As I thought, someone wanted us gathered here for a reason. It doesn't matter now. I can take a step forward at last."

She went down on one knee, with her body in chaos, and started asking anyway.

"What exactly are you trying to do? I know we attacked first, but somebody like you wouldn't hesitate to retaliate with lethal force. And you haven't fought seriously. Killing us would be trivial for you."

"So why keep us in here? What do you want from people who lost their value in this world?"

"Good question. As I thought, you aren't just a quiet girl. You have something nobody else has."

"And since you're human, I imagine you understand exactly what this place is."

"The Third Level. Where you can let your power out in its true form."

"My power looks simple from outside. Reversing the path of things looks impenetrable. In fact it has flaws."

"Not in here. In here I can release the true shape of it and apply it to everything in this area. And don't think it's a simple reversal of objects. In here I can reverse anything at all."

"You understand that now, don't you? Why you couldn't see, why you couldn't hear, why breathing normally suffocates you."

"You're saying you reversed the way my senses work. What do you get out of that?"

"You're close. That isn't all of it. When I said everything, that includes concepts and truths in this world. Do you follow? More simply: if I'm hungry, I can reverse the concept and my stomach is filled with nourishment. If I'm sleepy, I reverse it and come back rested at my best. The same applies to illness, wounds, exhaustion and pain. Reverse them and I return to my best condition. The same goes for anyone inside this place. I can reverse anything here, including the flow of time. I could turn you back into a child."

She listened and understood where it was going, astonished by the enormity of the power.

"Is that even possible? Is doing something like that going to end well?"

"Wouldn't it break the order of this world?"

The old man laughed a little, involuntarily.

"I never imagined I'd be discussing this with a girl your age. I didn't expect anyone to understand what I'm doing. And yet why do you have that expression, as if you're talking about something ordinary that any girl your age might say?"

"Are you actually insane, or what?"

She did not answer. She kept the cold look on her face, and after a stretch of silence, he went on.

"As I was saying, my power can reverse anything in this place. The only thing I cannot reach with it is life and death. That is the one thing beyond me. We the Exiled lose the most important thing in our lives, and it isn't an accident or a fault. It is what we are, and it is the punishment we took on behalf of every race. So I've been thinking for a long time: if I reverse that fact, what happens to us? If we don't have the thing that matters to us, what do we gain when the fact itself is turned over? That was before anyone knew who the King of War was. It was when I was losing my identity as a person. When I reversed that fact, I became what I am now. So it's time to see what each of you turns out to be, and what I get out of this fight."

The scene before Wendy's eyes went from black to white. Suffering and pain gave way to rest and quiet, and she understood that she was out of that place. Then something violent flooded through her whole body. She opened her eyes and clutched her chest, struggling for breath as warm tears ran down her face. What is this heat in my chest? It feels like burning. Every kind of feeling came pouring through her. Was she happy? Sad? Angry? At peace? Was she laughing or crying? After one long breath, the haunting words came.

"Ah. So these are feelings. What a strange thing. It feels so good and my tears won't stop. So this is happiness."

The thought pushed away the pain that all that violent feeling had caused, and she looked up at the sky, completely calm, and said:

"So this is a heart."

A few seconds later she could see the world around her again, and the first thing she saw was the blue-haired girl looking up at the sky with two empty eyes, while horns like the branches of trees came out of her head.

Her hands were covered in scales of a strange shape. Stella let out a strange breath and then fell to the ground and did not move, as if her life had gone out of her. Wendy ran to her to check, and found no sign of life at all, which made her angry beyond belief. She barely knew her name and she could not control what she was feeling in that moment.

"At least you two look calm. That's good. Keeping your mind after a change that size is close to impossible. Thanks to that I won't have to deal with the two of you rampaging."

While he was talking to Wendy, Hiro came toward them in small steps, and when she looked at him she understood that he was the one the sudden change had altered most.

His body had matured, and it was covered in ominous markings. His hair had gone white and hung down to his feet. His pitch-black eyes showed no thought or feeling. And the most frightening part of his shape was the wings. Great ones. Utterly black.

She had expected something like this. She could not ignore how terrifying he looked.

"Well. Not all of you, at least."

Two wings, then. Not what I expected, but easier than dealing with a real monster. 


"You look even more pitiful now than you did as a loser."

Then Hiro screamed like a raging animal about to pounce on its prey.

"Are you excited? I like that. Let's play a little, then, little Jinn."

...