Abnormalities:

Arthur Leywin's POV:

My progress over nearly a year can be summed up in one word, unexpected.

My Mana or at least how it flows through my veins is different than before, almost like the perfected version of quadra elemancy. Not to mention that in private I was experimenting with the possibility of having new affinities. Although I had a suspicion that it would not work out, I was pleasantly surprised.

Due to the change in physique, I had received from Sylvie I am a completely unique existence, that was the basis of the theory for why I might have a new Mana Arts to work with, and that theory was fortunately correct.

The forms that my magic takes are rather interesting being what I like to call Pure-Quadra Elemental and Deviant Mana Arts. These arts combine all the aspects and abilities of the basic mana forms as well as their deviances into my pure Mana arts which I can manipulate near perfectly. This was a pleasant surprise, the other useful Mana arts was what I like to call Boundless Control and Conception, this form takes Mana and allows me to increase my control and understanding over it to previously unimaginable heights as well as allows me to obtain insight into using spells efficiently through experimentation.

My other two forms for the usage of Mana were not nearly as effective at the moment because they were simply far too expensive to be used practically at this point and they would raise questions from others that could potentially compromise my identity as a time traveler as well as an abnormal existence.

These Mana Arts were Decay Pure-Quadra Elemental and Deviants and Emitter Pure-Quadra Elemental and Deviants. What they look like is where things get interesting, in its pure form the spells look like balls of silver for the most basic of the three, onyx for the Decay and a bright green for the Emitter Mana Arts and within them all is more colors that reflect off the magics in a mirror like effect, the colors being red, blue, green, orangish brown, yellow, sky blue, gunmetal and purple.

The colors suggested that I had all the elements and their deviants available to humans, something expected.

There were pros and cons to these discoveries.

The pros were as follows: the magic I had seemed more potent as well as cheaper and easier to use in its most basic forms, I had very great potential versatility and finally my augmentation became much stronger with the attributes from the elements and their deviances all infused into my augmentation.

The cons however: two of the magic forms were, although useful, inefficient at best compared to the others invalidating them, my current versatility took a major hit being unable to form spells the way that I used to as something I hadn't mentioned was that it changed the way Spell forms are produced to something I am, as well as everyone else, completely unfamiliar with and finally although I had perfect control over the spells that I do make, it was reliant on a massive amount of micromanagement over every aspect of the spell that I produce.

Overall, I think those cons outweigh the pros by a fair amount.

Interestingly enough, when I gain insight into a spell and can conceive how it is performed, runes in a certain order appear in my core, like DNA, it allows me to cast spells I understand perfectly. I already have a few spells in there too. Additionally, after I reached the dark red stage, on the outer shell of my core numerous different runic symbols appeared that are found in the spells, they each have a meaning allowing me to create new spells based on the order that they are formed in.

Guess I'll have to start studying these runes…

On a brighter note I had figured out how to use my pillar abilities to some degree and they were to say the least powerful, however they were not growing any stronger much to my disappointment.

'Will you shut up! I'm trying to sleep you fucking monologuist, jeez for someone so curt with their words you really can't stop yapping about your abilities in your head.'

*Sigh*

'Sorry Regis, and remember we leave to go to Xyrus city tomorrow, be ready, I'll let you out when we get to Sylvia's dwelling.'

'Thank God, I'm finally free of you for at least a few months of peace once we arrive at Sylvia's dwelling! I was getting anxious being stuck in this tiny core you got here.'

A tick mark appeared as he hurt my pride with his comment about my core.

I'm not tiny…

—

Tessia Eralith's POV:

It's about five months until Arthur reaches Elshire and I'm finally supposed to meet him. After a long time of coordinating our efforts with Rinia I was finally allowed to see Art for the first time since I came back, needless to say I was excited like a child on their birthday. Wait, that's an apt description of me though… weird…

We were in the carriage on our way over to Rinia when grandpa asked me a question.

"Little one, are you excited? Because I am! I'm going to be seeing my first student and grandson-in-law today, how I could not be excited."

I blushed for a moment before drooping down remembering the state that Arthur was in when I last saw him, on the brink of death just like usual. I always wanted to be by his side, but I never could reach that place and stand there with him. It was an impossible task, just like changing the past, yet here I am, and for what? Am I going to save Dicathen and get Arthur to marry me, the happy ending I always wanted? No, I don't have near enough strength for that, all I can do is guide Arthur's sword towards his enemies.

And that's just what I'll do.

Arriving at Elder Rinia's yielded an unexpected result. I saw her there with her normal, albeit much younger appearance than before, and was relieved to see that she was doing much better than she had when I last saw her in the previous timeline.

But what was unexpected was the girl right beside her, she looked to be my age and had white hair and grey eyes, her white hair was radiant and beautiful, and her grey eyes seemed to reflect every color making a beautiful array appear on her eyes, I was jealous of her appearance, everything about the way she acted presented her as beautiful and regal at the same time, she had an icy and tired look to her making her clearly difficult to approach by anyone who didn't have a death wish.

Stepping out of the carriage to greet the two standing out front my grandfather was the first to address the elephant in the room.

"So Rinia, do you mind telling me who the little one here is?"

He gestured to the little girl that we were curious about. Rinia looked over and gestured for the girl to come forward and join her so that she could be introduced, arriving at Rinia's side she held her hand and bowed to show respect before introducing herself.

"My name is Celia; I was told that you knew of someone with a similar situation to my own."

Virion and I were visibly confused by the second half of the introduction, Rinia quickly chided the girl for being so vague saying: 'they are more than trustworthy for your secrets.' piquing my interest in the girl. After a moment she clarified what she meant to say.

"I apologize for being vague, what I meant to say was that I am a reincarnate, I was told that you knew of someone in the same situation as me."

Needless to say, both me and my grandpa were gob smacked.

But I couldn't help but think, was this Cecilia?

—

Caera Denoir's POV:

I remember charging at the enemy, proud and fierce.

But at the same time infinitely weaker than them, the only thing we had to balance the scales was Grey and he seemed to be a step shy of berserk.

He blitzed through the battlefield removing the heads of the gods from their shoulders one at a time until they could be counted on one hand.

But he was too lost in the kill to notice that the rest of us had been picked off one by one.

Until our voices faded to nothing.

"..."

The screams of the dying had been almost unbearable, it made me want to run, it made me want to hide, I saw Grey slaying the asura one after another, but our people were being killed off, I was the only one with my life still intact on our side.

And soon, after my body lay crumpled in the towering corpses. The only sound remaining on the battlefield was those words. The words I heard before my life faded to nothing and my consciousness was dragged into the void.

"Throughout heaven and earth… I alone am the honored one."

—

Tessia Eralith's POV:

I gave the girl in front of us an appraising glare, she seemed to have her interest peaked in me from my action, raising an eyebrow in response to it. Virion was still having trouble processing that there was another reincarnation around that I hadn't told him about, but once he had gathered his thoughts, he turned to me abruptly and questioned me.

"Little one, why didn't you tell me about her?"

The girl seemed confused like she had no idea what was going on, the cat wasn't out of the bag per say but it was peeking its head out. The girl was the next to ask a question.

"Why would she know about me?"

I sighed before beginning to explain the situation to the best of my knowledge to Virion and Celia. Rinia seemed to know the answer already and had the girl here to prepare for this conversation.

"From what I can understand, just like me there are other abnormalities in the timeline, whether they be reincarnations or time travelers, it seems like this situation just got many times more complex than it was initially."

"Exactly right."

Rinia was the one to respond this time, the rest of us looked over to her expecting her to begin explaining our current situation to us, however she gestured for us to follow her inside her dwelling and sat down. We didn't waste our time in following her directions and immediately sat around a table preparing ourselves for an explanation only to receive something entirely different.

"Now we will begin by showing you Arthur, as you mentioned he should be on his way out to Xyrus city now, Tessia, close your eyes and imagine what he looks like, I'm sure you know the procedure already for this spell, but bear with me, it will be enlightening."

I was confused about what she meant when she said that it would be enlightening, but there was really only one way to figure out what she meant by that. I followed her instructions only to hear Grandpa exclaim surprised.

"Little one you really weren't exaggerating when you said he was handsome!"

He started laughing too, I couldn't figure out why, I opened my eyes to see a boy that was not the Arthur that I knew from before but someone who looked different for whatever reason, he looked like a mixture of his parents and Sylvie and had his features were exaggeratedly beautiful to the extent that they felt unreal, ethereal even. But this was Art, so why does he look different?

Celia had come up to see too and her eyes widened in surprise, same as everyone else for that matter, well except Rinia, after all, Arthur was staring right at us.

"Rinia, I'm confused as to how this will enlighten me?"

She smiled before responding.

"Only a moment longer dear."

She was right, after all it was only a moment later that we were hearing his voice in our heads, Celia, Grandpa and I jumped up from surprise hearing him speak to us.

'Rinia, it would seem that our situations are identical, aren't they?'

Rinia had a smile on her face as she looked at my reaction. I began to tear up knowing that Arthur had come back from the future as well, but what did he mean that our situations were the same?

'Yes, boy it seems that you are indeed correct about our situations being the same. How is it having a brother?'

Arthur has a brother. No that can't be right, is that the change? That Arthur has a brother with him this time? But he said our situations were the same does that mean-

'Yes princess, my brother is a reincarnate too, it seems you had a better reaction than I was expecting you to have when you figured out about me.'

So, I was right, he was Grey in his past life. Virion seemed to have a question on his mind, Arthur decided to have him come forward with it already.

'Come out with it already Gramps.'

'Oho! calling me Gramps already, it seems you're comfortable enough to refer to me in a familial way already. Does that mean you'll rekindle your past life's relationship with Tessia?'

We heard him sigh before responding, during all of this Celia was just looking at us confused and surprised, although she could hear the conversation going on in our heads, she was learning many things that she wouldn't have been privy to before.

'To answer your question, I would like to pose another question, what would happen to your love for the love of your life if you lived another million years before seeing her again? Would you still love her, remember her even?'

All of our eyes widened with the exception of Rinia whose eyes held a solemn quality to it.

'I… I don't know.'

'Exactly.'

It seemed like I wasn't going to be able to rekindle my relationship with him so easily, even if only as friends…

—

Arthur Leywin's POV:

I have these nightmares hiding behind my eyes that come after me every time I so much as blink.

They aren't so much nightmares as memories, horrible memories, but memories all the same.

Every night I go to sleep I feel my own blade cutting through my wrists, a noose around my neck, the sensation of freefalling, or so many alternative dangers.

Yet they never kill me.

Not a single attempt…

To take my own life.