Once Again, ***** appears

"W-What are you talking about?" asked Ei with a sobbing face, looking confusedly at Kenshin.

"Dammit, it's weakening" Kenshin said with desperation in his voice.

The moment Ei's sword overcharged, he sensed a wisp of something different within the sword. He was only able to detect it because was in a place that made him extremely strong, and he had adapted to it. He was almost the master of this place, and yet, he almost missed it, that was how faint that feeling was.

What he sensed wasn't a soul, not even a fragment, it was too small to be called that.

A thought could be a more apt way to describe what he sensed.

It appeared the moment Ei's sword reached a certain energy, but the sword grew stronger by the second due to her panic attack, making the 'thought' almost disappear in the sea of extremely dense energy.

Kenshin knew that Ei was too broken, even if she calmed down and started 'ruling' again, now that she had confessed her impotence, she herself recognized that she couldn't do it.

She would try to retake her job as if nothing happened, but the door had already been opened and the next meltdown was imminent.

But Inazuma needed a strong Ei, and the only chance Kenshin could see right now to help this 'thought'.

He already knew that it was extremely faint, an almost microscopic fragment of a soul. He could help this thing grow again to its normal state, but the energy needed would be gigantic.

But then again, where was he now?

"Move and let me concentrate" Kenshin shoved Ei aside and put his hands on the sword under Ei's still teary eyes.

He willed for the energy in this place to revitalize this fragment, with him as the conduit. He filtered everything leaving only the purest of soul energy, and gradually inserted it in the fragment. 

The fragment was too weak to 'eat' the energy, but little by little, extremely slowly, it started to absorb what Kenshin was 'feeding' it.

Like a starved baby that wasn't able to eat at first, but the more energy it gained, the stronger it grew and the faster it would 'eat'.

Kenshin felt the fragment grow, but it was still 'empty' somehow. Like a marble inside a marble, the outer one was transparent and very big, but only the centre had colour, the small marble.

The same thing happened here. It looked like the fragment had grown, but the actual soul was still extremely small and Kenshin didn't know what he could do.

But then he realized.

"Ei" Kenshin said, still channelling energy to the fragment. "Ei!" he repeated when Ei was looking at the sword with a blank face.

But she still didn't answer.

Kenshin gritted his teeth and channelled the energy even faster. He wasn't using his own energy for now, she needed Ei to be ready.

The fragment grew until it reached the same size as a normal human's soul, but the actual soul was as small as it was at the start. But a faint silhouette could be seen.

"Makoto!" Ei shouted and tried to touch the fragment, but Kenshin smacked her again with a spectral hand that appeared in the air.

"Do you want to kill her!" shouted Kenshin, but now that he was aware of this fragment's identity, he realized that restoring her to a functional state was his only option. Ei will definitely break after losing her sister for a second time.

"W-What should I do? Can you help her?" Ei asked with a desperate expression, her normally calm demeanour lost, the only thing left was a little sister crying for her family.

"I can help her, but I need you to be ready" said Kenshin with a grim face. "If your sister recovers will depend on you. I know you are tired and in pain, mainly emotionally, but this is our only chance. Can you do it?"

Ei listened to Kenshin, and when she realized what was in play, she had the firmest look he had seen on her face.

"I failed her once, I won't fail twice" she said, and Kenshin could feel her burning determination.

"If we fail, not only your sister will disappear, even we will die, are you ready for it?" Kenshin asked, and took the fragment out of the sword, as it was stabilized now and wouldn't disappear.

"Of course" Ei said, and under her temporary restored mental state, her breathing quickly stabilized. She picked up the now empty sword and stood ready to follow Kenshin's commands

But Kenshin knew that this was a wall of paper. Ei's mentality was too fragile and wouldn't recover for a long time, maybe centuries. So he had to do it now, while Ei was functioning.

Kenshin took a deep breath and injected his own energy into the fragment.

And as he expected, they appeared.

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'I saw a boar dying. It was bleeding from an arrow a hunter shot, so I asked the hunter to let me see how it died, and he allowed me, Mondstadt is that weird. Watching him die, I could only think of how delicious the steak he was going to be was. I'm joking I felt a bit queasy just looking at it, waiting for it to die, but I needed to confirm it. Eventually, it died, and I followed his soul'.

'Of course, it didn't 'fly into the sky', it was disappearing inside the body. How did it disappear? I saw how some areas of the soul were being sucked into something. And I recognized that something, it was the same kind of 'hole' the soul came from in the Art of Khemia. I'm sure even you are tired by now, so will be brief. The boar's soul went to the Being, the same place it once came from'.

'It's obvious by this point, right? The Being was the afterlife. If you want to be practical about it, you could say that the Being is where souls go when their body is not alive any more. In other words'.

'The Being is the End'

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The portals that caused Kenshin nightmares for years appeared again, but instead of those tiny holes, huge portals appeared. They were as tall as Ei, and there were about 30.

Kenshin didn't know what was going to come out of them, but that didn't scare him.

What made him terrified was the Being.

If the Being noticed he was being looked at, Kenshin didn't dare to think what he would do after they tried to take back the soul of a powerful god.

Kenshin knew that once a soul disappeared after the body died, it went to this weird plane where the Being resided.

And his theory was that the soul of the dead was somehow 'introduced' or absorbed by the Being. It wasn't like the Being was feeding on souls, it was just his nature.

You die, your soul goes to the 'Weird Place', and joins the Being.

Once your soul joins the Being, it loses all its memories, or people would have memories of other lives.

So theoretically, to 'revive' someone, you would need to pick the exact same fragments that formed a soul, that were dispersed all over the being, that was beyond the mere concept of 'big'.

To summarize, reviving was impossible.

But, Kenshin had a hint. He had in his hands a fragment of the original soul. Unimaginably small, but it existed.

A 'guide' if you need a name for it. 

Kenshin's idea was for the fragment to use the energy he provided, the 'outer marble', to 'call' for all the other fragments, and pray it went well.

The Being was beyond size, so attracting fragments from an infinite distance would take infinite energy, so it would be impossible. But then again, souls aren't affected by gravity, you can't touch them, you can't blow on them.

They had other rules, and that was what Kensin was betting on. It was all he could do, he had no other choice.

"W-What is that?" asked a shaking Ei. She suddenly saw around 30 portals her size appear, but what made her scared what the 'nothingness' and 'wrongness' she could feel on the other side.

"What you need to protect me from" replied Kenshin, not daring to look again. "You need to protect me and follow my orders, if there comes a moment when I say 'don't look', you obey. I looked too much and lost my sight, I don't want to think what you are going to lose".

"O-Ok" Ei felt there were a lot of scary things in that sentence, but she needed to focus.

Kenshin decided to trust her and started channelling all the energy he could, the faster he ended the faster this would end.

Kenshin felt the fragment 'calling' something, but nothing happened. Kenshin was patient, and Ei was on guard, alert for anything that could disrupt Kenshin.

After a while nothing happened, and Kenshin started thinking that his bet failed. The fragments were calling at each other, and the one he was holding in position was attracting the others, but they were too far.

But-

"-------------------------"

Ei and Kenshin felt it.

It was not a shout so they didn't understand anything, it was not even a sound.

But like a wave, it reverberated through the Plane of Euthymia and the whole world. But its impact on the world was extremely reduced, as the Plane of Euthymia had no direct contact with the outside world, it was a place inside Ei's soul, so it acted as a buffer.

Ei froze, her existence not being able to understand what happened, and only after Kenshin's desperate shouts did she recover. She didn't know what it was, but she was sure to have nightmares about this.

"It's coming" Kenshin darkly muttered, sensing something come out of the portals.

'Something' came out of the portal, something that wasn't anything, but Kenshin realized that it looked like an extremely deformed soul, almost like a prime material of a soul.

It was as if you wanted a bag of chips and you received a cup of soil, you needed to cultivate the potatoes from zero.

In this case, this 'something' was the giant rock that would later be known as Earth, something so primitive that his mind wasn't able to comprehend.

Kenshin realized that the Being was far more than what he thought it was.

It was the start of everything soul-related, the thing that surged from the 'big-bang' of souls, the prime material all souls came from.

Morax, Yae, the Abyssal Order and even himself...every single soul came from this Being.

And they had been poking its belly. But he couldn't stop now.

For now, the rest of Teyvat was safe, the moment that he thought these things could exit this place, he would stop the process, Makoto be damned.

But he felt some tiny fragments start coming out of the portals, and that told him that they needed to hurry up.

"Kenshin!" he heard Ei's desperate shout and looked to see Ei trying to slash a 'something', but she couldn't even touch it.

"Bring you sword" shouted Kenshin, and sensing the sword near his face, he applied a sort of coating to it. He didn't know why, but only his own 'soul energy' was able to interact with this weird plane, hopefully, Ei could smack those things down now.

"Ei! Push them back if you can!" he shouted. If the Being was 'alert' because something was leaving his plane, killing those 'somethings' may alert him even more.

Ei was able to push that thing back to the portal, but it was a strange experience for her. It was like pushing air, only a bit of effort and the 'something' just floated back to the portal, with no resistance.

Ei turned to see how Kenshin was faring, but another 'something' was hovering over her, silent and unmoving. It didn't attack her, it didn't try to 'avenge' its companion. Ei didn't see how it crossed through the portal, it just 'appeared'.

She pushed it back, almost cautiously, scared that pushing it too strongly would cause it to snap. But it flew just like the first one.

She shivered in fear. It was weird, she had faced enemies as big as mountains and ferocious like a tsunami, and she was able to face them face-on. And these floating and almost transparent things, that didn't even move and didn't attack, were scaring her. They were too incomprehensible for her.

She turned again to Kenshin, but another 10 things had appeared all over the Plane of Euthymia.

Kenshin was able to sense how eerie these things were but didn't dare to look, he was afraid of seeing the Being through them, as if they could be a window somehow and it connected directly to the Being.

"Kenshin" Ei approached and whispered, scared to raise her voice too much and make things focus on her. "I can't do anything".

Kenshin nodded, and redoubled his efforts, making fragments appear faster. 

"Kenshin" Ei whispered again, but this time in fear. Kenshin looked up, and saw that the things were somehow focused on him, but still didn't move. It was scary, scary because they didn't understand what was happening.

The moment Kenshin felt the attention he was receiving, a pressure descended on him and realized that indeed, had he looked at these things, he would probably be catatonic by now.

"Ei, don't look. They are getting attracted by what I'm doing. The more time passes, the more attention we will get" replied Kenshin, gritting his teeth to swallow down the primal fear he was feeling.

"What can I do?" whispered Ei, looking down as afraid as him.

"Stay near, I will form a dome to protect us. Things will only get worse the more I progress" muttered Kenshin.

Ei nodded and sat near Kenshin, her body almost touching his, but no one cared about it now.

The process proceeded, and Makoto's soul was half-filled now, and more and more fragments of her soul were coming out.

tac

Ei and Kenshin stood still upon hearing that. They hadn't moved, so what was making that noise?

"Tell me it was you" Kenshin pleaded, speaking just to avoid the fear paralysing him.

"It wasn-"

tac

Ei and Kenshin were petrified to hear that sound again.

"Ei, look around, but don't stare directly at them" Kenshin said, channelling even more soul strength, and he was getting empty now.

Ei didn't answer, and Kenshin knew he needed to look, always avoiding looking directly at the things.

And he understood why Ei was frozen.

All the things that were dispersed over the plane, were just outside his shield.

tac

It was the sound of one of them trying to enter the shield, its purpose unknown.

Kenshin grabbed Ei's arm and pulled it hard, breaking Ei out of her trance.

"Just don't look any more" Kenshin said sweating and looking now at the almost finished Makoto.

tac tac

"K-Kenshin, they are pushing" said a trembling Ei.

Kenshin pushed his last energy in the process, to accelerate it as much as possible.

tac tac tac

"Kenshin, they are pushing harder"

Kenshin pushed even more of his energy in the process.

tac tac tac tac tac tac

"Kenshin"

tac tac tac tactac tac tac tac

"Kenshin!"

tac tac tac tactac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac

"KENSHIN!"

"I finished!" shouted Kenshin, stopping from channelling his energy.

""....""

Only silence greeted them, the process was finished.

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tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac

"AAAHHH!" Ei screamed in fear, and the only reason Kenshin didn't was because his lungs didn't answer him.

tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tactac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac tac

The beings couldn't pierce Kenshin's shield, it was almost like they had no strength at all, but every 'tac' was a try to get to him or Makoto, nobody knew who those 'somethings' were targeting.

"Fuck!" Kenshin shouted and made a second shield, larger than the first one, so the things were trapped between the 2 of them. 

He threw them at the portals, and the moment the last of them left through the portal, the portal disappeared, almost as if the Being had 'lost connection' with this place, rendering him unable to keep the portals.

Kenshin realized now that he was the signal, his 'soul energy' as he called it was able to interact with that weird place, and it gave the Being an 'anchor point'.

In the end, he wasn't able to understand what were those things or what they wanted.

But there was one thing he knew, they looked at him. So the next time he did something like this, they would come straight at him. He was marked now.

Ei recovered a lot faster than him, after all, she was merely scared of the wrongness she felt from them, and how she was unable to do anything to them, while Kenshin realized and sensed a lot more things.

"Makoto!" Ei shouted, seeing her sister in one piece, although 'sleeping'. "Kenshin! Do something!"

"I...can't" replied Kenshin, only now feeling tired about the absurd amount of energy he had to channel into Makoto's fragment.

The Plane of Euthymia had decreased a lot. If yesterday 100 people could be stuffed in, now only 5 could. The black ominous ball of energy had disappeared, as did all the pillars and sand, they only stood on a stone floor.

It was all the Plane of Euthymia had been reduced to, a 3x3 meter stone.

"What do you mean you can't!!" screamed Ei with a manic look.

Kenshin was scared now, he couldn't move and Ei was on the verge of a psychotic attack.

So he did the only thing he could do, call for help.

While Ei was grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him, a pink portal appeared and an anxious Sara and Yae appeared, instantly looking around.

Sara was stunned looking at the weird scenery, but Yae felt even more surprised by the current state of the Plane of Euthymia.

Both quickly dismissed it, and looked at the people a meter away from them.

"DO SOMETHING!" Ei was screaming shaking Kenshin's head.

"Yae, help!" Kenshin shouted, and Yae promptly tied Ei with some ropes and used a talisman to make Ei fall asleep.

She could only do this because of the extremely fragile mental state Ei was in, and how tired she was after the fight and the harrowing experience.

"Shogun-sama?" asked Sara weirdly looking at Ei's hysterical form and the 'sleeping' Makoto.

"Sara, simp about her later, I'm dying here" muttered Kenshin with a pained voice. He had spent all his energy so he was not able to keep his 'spectral' arm, and blood was flowing again.

"Kenshin!" Sara looked at him, and quickly applied first aid.

"Kenshin, what do you need?" asked Yae looking in astonishment at Makoto, but deciding that Kenshin was more important right now as Makoto looked fine, and if she wasn't Kenshin was probably the only one able to help her.

"Sleep. Don't leave the Plane".

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Well, if you are reading this you didn't die of cringe yet.

Just remember that this wasn't 'free' for Kenshin, his soul has been 'locked on', and the next time something remotely strange happens, well, that's for you to find out.