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Chapter 22: Training

The room full of dead people was silent as, well, the dead. Since yesterday, Fronea had been kind enough to bring over one the whiteboards from his apartment, which Keijutsu now had tacked to the wall. On said whiteboard was a list of all the observation he made so far about the soul, which he was currently reading.

'Let's see… So, a soul is composed of an energy similar in nature to the kind used by magic. Further, its presence is diffused across an entire living creature's body, and is slightly concentrated near its brain. The soul could act independent of the body, which means that idea of magic such as soul projection might have some merit to it. But could either the body or the soul function without each other?' he thought.

That was the question he would seek to answer today. Strapped to the table was another rat he had found, while next to it was a glass jar with several magic runes for binding and containment engraved into its surface. Hopefully, if all went well, he could extract the rat's soul from its body and then place it inside the jar, where he could study it without the rat's body being in the way.

"Well, here goes nothing," he said, rolling back his sleeves and extending his hand forward.

Three hours later…

"Damn it all to fire and sundering!" Keijutsu yelled, flinging his hand up in the air. In front of him, the extracted soul of the rat—which visually appeared like a mass of white smoke in the shape of a rat—dissipated into an indistinct cloud that then faded out of sight. Along with that, he could sense the presence of the soul disappearing, while the rat when limp and unresponsive. Not dead, but in a vegetative state it wouldn't recover from.

Pacing back of forth, Keijutsu hardly gave the catatonic rat any notice. "This is the sixth failure in a row! Every time I try to pull the soul out, it automatically tries to break out of my grasp, no matter how delicately in try! And once I do manage to get the damned thing completely separate, it breaks apart and loses any structure it had before!" he ranted.

Fronea, who had chosen to show up on account of having nothing better to do, added on "What's more, whenever the soul does begin to break apart once you've extracted it, it does so almost instantaneously, whether you have it inside the containment jar or not."

Kei nodded and sat down, glaring at the insensate rat. "This does mean, in all probability, that a living soul can't exist outside of a body, which flies right in the face of everything we've seen so far. If the soul and the body can't function without each other, then what do Grim Reapers harvest? How do ghosts exist? Is astral projection even real?" he said, grabbing handfuls of his hair. "It doesn't make sense!"

Fronea hummed and walked over to the table. Prodding it with one of her claws, the rat gave no response, staring dumbly at the ceiling. "Hmm… I'd honestly almost compare this to a balloon filled with air. The moment the air is extracted from the balloon it disperses and spreads out, leaving behind none of its initial structure behind while the balloon is just an empty husk," she observed.

"Exactly. Only while you can keep that same air if it's transferred directly into a sealed chamber, the soul keeps breaking down with or without being inside the jar. And it's not that the jar itself can't contain it; we've already triple-checked the runic arrays to make sure they're correct," Keijutsu said.

Neither of them had an answer, which left them with nothing to say, Eventually, once his irritation had calmed down, Keijutsu sighed and stood up. "Well, looks like it's back to the drawing board, then. And I'm starting to run out of rats."

Meanwhile, in the Underworld…

"Alright, it's time for you to get started on today's exercises," a clone of Elma composed of water declared. Standing before said clone were Tomoe, Ruruko and Saji, and all four of them were next to a very large pond—almost a lake, really—of crystalline water located next to the Sitri estate.

"For your first day, we're going to be focusing on building up your endurance. Being able to hit someone hard is all well and good, but you need to be able to get as much as you give if you're going to have any hope of lasting during a fight. Because of the draining nature of nature of your Sacred Gear, Saji-san, this is less of an issue for you, but it still needs to be focused on," she said.

Tomoe raised a hand. "Um, Elma-san? Not that I disagree with anything you said, but since I'm Sona-kaichou's Knight, shouldn't I prioritize speed over endurance?" she asked.

Elma nodded. "You're partially right, Meguri-san. As a Knight, speed and skill with your sword should be your primary focuses. However, despite not being an active observer of Devils and their Rating Games, I've been around long enough to pick up a few things. Especially that I have too often seen Knights that have trained their speed to the point that they'll run circles around the enemy… and then fold like wet paper once the enemy gets a single good shot in. While you'll never be as durable as if you were a Rook, you still need to work on your endurance to mask sure that doesn't happen," she explained.

By the end of her mini lecture, both Ruruko and Saji were nodding in agreement. After a moment, so was Tomoe, seeing the logic in her decision. Not that it stopped her from asking "So, what are we doing today to help with that?"

The female dragon smiled. "I'm glad you asked," she said, before waving her trident at the three of them. A blue magic circle flashed into existence beneath each of them, but all they were able to make out was an image of crashing waves before they were enveloped in light. When it faded, their school uniforms had been replaced with blue track suits. And standing next to them were a trio of sandbags with straps.

"One of my favorite methods of increasing endurance is to use sandbags. To start, I want each of you to grab one by the straps with both hands and hold it in front of your chest," Elma instructed. The three Devils quickly did so, although she noticed that Ruruko was having the most difficult out of all of them. Not too surprising; while being a Devil in general would increase her strength beyond that of a normal human, being a Pawn did mean that said boost was the lowest it could be. "Good. Now, I want you to turn around and throw the bag forward and away from you as far as you can."

Again, the three of them did so, and Elma said "Well done. Now, go run over to the bag, pick it up, and throw it back over. That's all there is too it."

Saji blinked. "Wait. That's it? We're just picking up these bags and throwing them back and forth, over and over?" he asked. To be frank, he had expected something a bit more… he didn't know, exciting.

Suddenly, Elma's smile turned sinister. "Trust me, Saji-san, while this may seem like a simple exercise, you'll definitely begin to feel its effects after enough repetitions. And since being a Devil already pushes your stamina past that of a normal human… we'll likely be doing this for at least an hour," she said.

That was when the color drained from Saji's, Ruruko's and Tomoe's faces. An hour?! Was she serious?! Looking at the dragon, they saw that, yes, she was. And so, the three of them gulped as one. What kind of hell did Sona's sister sign them up for?

In another part of the Sitri estate, the real Elma was standing off in front of Momo, Reya, Sona and Tsubaki.

"Today, the four of you will be working on building up your magic-casting abilities. Specifically, your ability to use defensive magic. One thing that your opponents, such as the Gremory or Bael, have in common that the Sitri and Reincarnated Devils do not is that they can call forth and release large amount of magical energy at a time," she told them.

Sona nodded while suppressing a grimace. That had been a point of contention between herself and Rias for years. Anytime they would have matches as children—not actually Rating Games, just small bouts between the two of them, sometimes with Akeno and Tsubaki joining—Rias would often strike fast and strike hard, bulldozing past any traps Sona had laid out. Then, before she could mount any amount of working defense, the redhead would take her out.

From watching that Rating Game against Riser, she could see that her tactics hadn't changed much over the years. Blasting through the opposition still seemed to be her favored method of fighting, only now she had evolved somewhat to include baiting opponents into the open or striking at points they weren't expecting. But the general idea of a fast-paced brutal assault was still there.

She refocused when Elma said "However, while a blitzkrieg-esque offensive will work often, if the enemy isn't careful, they can exhaust their power and resources against the foe fairly quickly. This would leave you the chance to hit back and strike while they're scrambling to recover. But in order to reach that point, you have to whether their assault until they've exhausted themselves."

Momo blinked, muttering "It's a classic example of the tortoise and the hare…"

Elma heard it and nodded. "Exactly. And how being patient and conserving your strength can ultimately lead to victory. Now, training one's magic, whether for offense and defense, isn't as straightforward as building up physical strength. One of the best methods I've found is, at first glance, a little barbaric. Can anyone guess what it is?"

"Creating a barrier?" Reya asked.

"Exhausting ourselves and then trying to cast defense magic?" Tsubaki asked.

Sona looked at her fellow Devils, specifically that there was an even number of them. "Break off into pairs and spar with each other?"

Elma chuckled. "That last one was close, but not quite. Simply put, I'll be attacking you, and your job is to defend yourselves solely with defensive magic until I say we're done," she said, looking directly at them.

Their eyes widened, and they had just enough time for Momo to shout "Say what?!" before Elma was enveloped in light. When that light faded, her massive dragon form stood in her place, looking down at all of them with a teeth-filled grin that was downright terrifying.

"Now, let's get started."

Training passed in this manner for a total of six days. Each day, Elma would change up the exercises they had to perform. There was swimming laps in one of the lakes, hours of meditation to obtain greater control over their magic, even fake Rating Games where the Student Council would break off into groups and fight each other. The sizes of said groups always changed too, which forced each of them to stay on their toes throughout.

There was also a number of team-building exercises as well, intended to help them work together better and fight as a more cohesive unit. To Elma's own surprise, however, such exercises were hardly needed—Sona had made sure that her peerage had great functionality and understood how each other fought.

Keijutsu hadn't been idle during this time either. After much testing and postulating various theories, he had finally come to the conclusion that a soul was truly incapable of existing outside of a living body under ordinary circumstances. Therefore, the only reason that the soul didn't scatter to the wind once a Grim Reaper harvested it was that the Reaper's scythe itself was able to force the soul's structure to maintain itself for a short period after death.

He had proven this by taking almost a half-dozen more rats—he estimated there were only five or so left in the whole colony he had been using—and having Undertaker reap the soul from each one, at which point he could examine its properties and take notes. By his count, the soul held together for about an hour after being reaped, at which point it broke apart as normal.

The same instances had also enabled him to take a closer look at when Undertaker took the Cinematic Records of these rats and then reattached them. Now he was sure that the Records themselves were just a physical manifestation of a being's memories, and that those memories were part of the soul.

It was on the sixth day of training, when Elma was giving lesson to the peerage as a whole about battle tactics and strategies that she had observed, that Undertaker chose to check of his captive/ally.

The silver-haired Grim Reaper found him sitting in a chair in front of his whiteboard, staring at it with an intense expression. Grinning, he snuck up behind the artificer and leaned over the back of the chair. "Shilling for your thoughts?" he loudly whispered.

To his immense disappointment, Keijutsu wasn't the least bit startled by his appearance. After being stuck there for nearly a week, it seemed, the two of them were getting used to each other. "Perhaps. I'm trying to work my way through a thought experiment regarding an idea I had," he said.

Intrigued, Undertaker stood up and pulled out a chair for himself, sitting next to and in front of him. "Oh? Do tell, maybe I can shed some light on this idea," he offered.

Keijutsu shrugged, not seeing the harm in it. "It was based off of something my familiar mentioned a few days ago. When we were discussing the problem of the soul scattering after I try to extract it from the body its in, she mentioned it being like air dissipating once it's been let out of a sealed container. Can you picture that as well?"

When Undertaker nodded, he continued "Now that has lead to a somewhat strange idea. What if, just like how a cloud of gas like air is composed of smaller particles—quarks, electrons, etc.—what if there existed something similar for a soul? Some sort of fundamental building block that they are made of which the soul possesses in large quantities. And the behavior of souls I've observed so far is just the interactions between these hypothetical particles and the environment around it?"

Undertaker frowned, thinking it over. "A particle that makes up the soul, similar the subatomic ones that compose matter…" he thought aloud. The idea was definitely one he hadn't heard before, and just picturing it had his mind turning itself into knots. "Can you elaborate?"

"Certainly. My idea follows that, if the soul is actual composed of a multitude of smaller particles—for the sake of convenience, we'll call them 'spiritrons'—then we've been looking at this issue in entirely the wrong way. If this is the case, then all the properties we attribute to the soul can be attributed to these spiritrons. Its diffused state throughout the body, its slight concentration in the region of the head, its incapability to exist cohesively outside it, even ideas such as consciousness and the formation of memories can be explained in terms of these particles," Keijutsu explained.

Undertaker was silent for a moment. "In that case, these spiritrons would be inherently unstable and decay quickly when interacting with the physical world at any time…" Underneath his bang, his eyes widened "Unless they had something they could bond with that would render them stable. Are you saying that a living body fulfills that purpose?"

"That I am. I suspect that the spiritrons bonding with the human body causes them to become rendered stable and capable of existing without decaying. Then, once they have bonded with that body in large enough quantities, consciousness begins to appear as an emergent property. It's at that point, once there are enough spiritrons within a single body that consciousness appears, that the mass of them can be considered to form a 'soul'," Keijutsu said.

"I see… In that case, in order to create a soul, all one would need to do is take a body that does not possess one and infuse it with a large number of these spiritrons, at which point they would naturally bond with it until a consciousness began to emerge within that body!" Undertaker said, beginning to smile widely as he could see how this could be used for his work in making his Bizarre Dolls truly alive. Sure, there would be the issue of exactly how they would expose one of them to these spiritrons, much less how they would collect and/or gather said particles in large quantities.

Then his smile faded as he thought of something. "Then what about the Cinematic Record? If they are a property of the soul, rather than something separate, how are they formed?" he questioned.

That brought Keijutsu up short as well, and he frowned. "That's the part I was at in my thought experiment when you arrived. I can't decide which idea is more plausible: that Cinematic Records and the memories that compose them truly are a separate entity than the soul, or if the soul somehow makes and stores them before being accessed by Grim Reapers," he said.

Both of them were silent for a while, contemplating the idea. Despite both of their efforts, this was the one part of the entire theory that stymied them. How did a mass of particles that bonded with the body, and that consciousness appeared from as an emergent property, form memories?

Eventually, when both of them had been contemplating the problem for over an hour with no solution in sight, Undertaker sighed. "I think that this is as far as the two of us will get at this current stage. Unless you or I obtain some new source of inspiration, I think we're just spinning our wheels in place," he said.

Keijutsu raised an eyebrow. "What do you suggest?" he asked.

The Grim Reaper stood. "You've been working on the issue of making a soul—something I've spent centuries trying to figure out—while only stopping to rest. That shows to me that you're intent on keeping up your end of our agreement. Therefore, as promised…" he reached to his side and, with a burst of green light, his Death Scythe appeared in his hand. "I'll teleport you back to Japan if you would like."

The Artificer stared at him for a moment, before smiling. Standing, he said "I would appreciate that. It'll be good to see Sona and the others again. And who knows, being around them might give me an idea as to working through the rest of my theory as well as testing it. How will I get into contact with you if needed?"

Undertaker thought about that for a moment, before extending his free hand. With another, smaller flash of light, a silver necklace with a scythe pendant made of polished black iron appeared. "Just turn this pendant over a few times in your hand, and it will inform me that you wish to speak. Teleporting just myself or one other person hardly takes anything out of me, even over long distances, so it won't be an issue to pop over and speak," he offered.

Keijutsu gratefully accepted the pendant and placed it around his neck. "Very well. Let's be going, Undertaker," he said. Undertaker nodded and tapped his scythe against the ground. With one more flash, both of them disappeared.