Chapter 12:Borrowed Power

Samuel was having a bit of an out-of-body experience.

Why?

He was seeing the future, or more accurately multiple versions of possible futures.

Like the very conversation, he was having with Lucia at the moment. Every line of dialogue that came out of his mouth gave him splintered visions of so many possible outcomes.

The process was, in fact, quite nausea-inducing and his heart which he controlled with extreme precision was being subject to turmoil.

In every line he spoke, he could see splinters of a future of what would happen because of it. His normal level of timber was heavily affected because of this.

So much so that he raised his voice to Lucia. Who was currently looking very dejected.

Normally Samuel would not know this, but he could clearly see her leaving, going to her room and sobbing. Blaming herself for some perceived slight she caused him.

"Don't... Leave..."

It was so hard to focus...

Even this line, was fragmented into hundreds of branching paths each leading to wildly different outcomes.

What was so fascinating about all of it was that he could even feel the emotions projected by the opposite party. As someone who was so blind to such intricacies up to this moment, this influx of new information needed some time to parse.

Time, he did not have because every small interaction was breaking off into so many more only perceived by him.

What he had said to stop her seemed to be the wrong thing to do as he could feel a surge of negative emotions from a hundred different Lucias bombard him at once.

Now he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He wanted this conversation to end so he could stop and think about this current problem. But he also realized, because of the very same problem, that if he ended this conversation he was going to hurt his friend.

A part of him reasoned that sending her off would be justified, given that he could see through her manipulations at the moment. But that thought was discarded instantly.

Despite some of the negative connotations this ability also showed him just how sad and remorseful she was being. And one thing that was common in every possible future he saw was her regret.

Samuel was completely out of his element here. Trying to understand the dead text of The Ancients would be easier for him than this.

Throwing out a last ditch effort, hoping it would help, he said.

"...Want a hug?..."

It was a random thought, coming from a time he had mostly erased from his memory. A darker time, one with very little good and an endless torrent of bad. In large part the contributor to why he was the way he was.

But there were moments he could sometimes recall fondly, an emotional hug was top among them. This current ability was showing him splinters of that past as if it was trying to tell him something.

The outcome of this was also shattered into a hundred different outcomes and for the first time, the outcomes were good ones. Mostly.

Samuel decided to pick one out, the one where he stretched his arms out.

He followed this thread and opened his arms. Up to this point, Samuel could see all these futures. The inquisitive part of him wanted to see if whatever was going on could affect it.

To his utter shock, it worked and Lucia rushed in. Given her raw power, it was less than a blink as she was in his arms her face in his neck. All the while she gingerly avoided the extra mass he was sporting.

There was a small whimper as she dug in.

"I am sorry..."

Again the future started branching off and again he chose the one that seemed to give him the best results.

One arm went around her waist while the other was on the top of her silver hair.

The next words coming out of his mouth would never be his own, not because he was unfeeling. But in his mind, the slight Lucia thought she had caused him was no slight at all and so there was nothing to forgive. But he still followed through.

"It is alright. I forgive you."

As he said this, two things happened. First, he was hit with a feeling of vertigo which he instantly controlled, and second, he could feel a significant tension leave Lucia's body.

"Really? You..."

Lucia looked up to see but her eyes went wide and her words stopped abruptly. The power activated again and Samuel could once more see the future.

What he saw confounded him. A small steady stream of blood came out of every facial orifice. His eyes were red and sunken in, a weary look on his face. Everything was happening rapidly and none of it made any sense.

"I am bleeding?..."

Before he could process this new development, yet another thing got piled on top.

The entity that was in many ways the culprit of this entire uproar. The catalyst for a new start that was filled with so many twists and turns.

With a deliberately slow wet sloppy pop, his first disciple Elizabeth finally joined back to the world of the living. And her eyes were glowing an iridescent gold.