3.2.5

Content warnings: drowning, passive suicidal ideation, torture mention, body horror (detail below; skip if you prefer surprises)

• A character very nearly drowns.

• Passive suicidal ideation, in that a character believes they don’t deserve to live.

• Visual descriptions of infinite torture

• A character’s body shatters, with liquid shadows seeping through the cracks.

~.~

Retrieving a soul fragment from the middle of the ocean, as it turned out, was not an easy task.

First there was the problem of how to traverse the seas without a boat. Luckily, Peter and Dani had the combined power of flight—Dani was able to maintain a sage green platform for the group to stand on, and Peter was able to move the shield at will, allowing them to search at their leisure. The sun was still out, so the group couldn’t rely on the soul fragment’s glow to guide them, but Peter’s bracelet was a reliable enough GPS on its own.

That didn’t, however, solve their second problem: how to actually reach the soul fragment.

“It’s right there,” Peter said, pointing directly below the platform. The dark water glistened and rippled beneath them with startling uniformity, providing no landmarks to help the others see where Peter was pointing to.

“I’ll just trust you on that,” Ilia groaned. “It’s not like any of the rest of us can sense it.”

“Trusting the guy who’s dressed like a margaritaville advertisement. Now I’ve seen it all,” Dani snorted. Her gaze turned to Peter. “You look ridiculous, by the way.”

“Well, Dani, some of us like to come prepared,” Peter said solemnly. “And who knows? Lian and Joshua didn’t meet any hot lifeguards on their swim in Myanmar, but maybe this will be different, and I’d like to be dressed to impress.”

Lian took one look at Peter’s outfit and burst into laughter. The bright red swim shirt and garish green swim trunks were objectively ugly. The shirt was patterned with bright yellow vertical stripes at uneven intervals, and the trunks were adorned with sequined margaritas and glittery purple frogs in the most chaotic and visually displeasing arrangement possible. The outfit was a neon disaster, and Peter was kind of proud of himself for creating it.

“Well, Peter, I don’t know which lifeguards you’re going to impress in swim trunks like those,” Lian said brightly, “but I support you.”

Peter grinned in reply. He had purposely chosen the ugliest clothes he could materialize because the ostentatious colors easily distracted the others from the real reason Peter had chosen to arrive in swimwear.

“So,” Ilia said, peering over the edge of the platform. “What do we think Haku was doing in the middle of the ocean?”

“Deep sea diving,” Peter said casually. “It was part of their journey of self discovery. It came after their brief stint with sunrise yodeling, you know.”

“Yodeling?” Lian shot Peter a look of complete confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“Inside joke,” Dani grumbled. “It happened when we climbed the volcano in Indonesia, and it doesn’t make any sense when explained out loud.”

“I see,” Lian said with a nod. “Well, at least the two of you are on good enough terms to have inside jokes now.”

“I wouldn’t take it that far,” Dani said with a shrug. “My murderous intent towards Peter has just slightly decreased. That’s all.”

“Gee, thanks, Dani! I’m honored!” Peter said cheerfully. He materialized a microphone and a cheap plastic trophy. “I’d like to take this time to thank everyone who got me to this point. I couldn’t have made it without—”

“Back to my question,” Ilia interjected. “Why are we here?”

“Oh, that’s simple,” Peter replied, tossing the trophy and the mic aside. “This one has nothing to do with location.”

“What?” Dani frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I took a look at Joel’s map yesterday,” Peter explained. “There are a surprising number of fragments in the middle of the ocean—which doesn’t make sense, because all the other fragments contain memories linked to their locations. But then I realized—this isn’t even our first time going after a soul fragment in the middle of the ocean.”

“The fragment on the cruise ship,” Dani noted, stroking her chin. “You’re saying that soul fragment was supposed to be at the bottom of the sea, too, but it ended up on a ship by chance.”

“Right,” Peter agreed. “And that memory—think about where it took place.”

“Oh, I get it now—the soul fragments in the middle of the ocean contain memories from the pocket dimension,” Dani realized. “So this one should, too.”

“That’s cool and all, but how is that supposed to help us get the fragment? I can’t reach it with my powers,” Ilia grumbled. She frowned at the waves below as if they could give her an answer.

“Makes sense,” Lian sighed. “It’s probably on the ocean floor—way out of range.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Peter agreed. “The soul fragment is actually at—” He materialized a book, then made a show of flipping through the pages until he reached a random one. “Aha! 2.3 miles on average.”

“Give me that,” Dani muttered, snatching the book from Peter’s hands. Her expression morphed into one of exasperation as she scanned the page. “This is a book about bees.”

“It sure is!” Peter said cheerfully.

You know, Peter, when you asked me for the depth of the ocean, I didn’t think you were going to use that information for a comedic bit, Karyme sighed. I should have known better.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Peter said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’m gonna use that information for a practical purpose, too!”

Before anyone could react, Peter took a deep breath and dove off the side of the platform.

As the waves engulfed Peter, he willed a diving suit into existence around him. Neoprene and fabric wrapped around his arms and legs, insulating him from the chill. It was still cold, and it didn’t solve the problem of how to breathe underwater, but at least he wouldn’t die from hypothermia right away. The air in his lungs would have to do for now.

Peter turned his attention to his next immediate problem: water pressure. A normal person wouldn’t be able to make it anywhere close to Haku’s soul fragment without being crushed like a soda can—but Peter wasn’t normal. Peter could force the water away from him. It was difficult, directing his telekinesis at the nebulous concept of water around him instead of choosing a specific object, but it was enough for now. A stopgap solution.

Problem number three: time. After asking Karyme for the approximate depth of Haku’s soul fragment, Peter had tricked Joel into doing some calculations (framed as science homework). If Peter swam at the average speed of an adult male, it would take him half an hour to reach Haku. Now, Peter was actively moving water out of his way, so maybe that would cut the time a little, but in no world would Peter’s lungs hold out that long, and even though Peter could reduce the pressure around him, his lungs, ears, and sinuses would probably still collapse eventually.

But Peter was not alone down here.

Peter’s gaze landed on the glowing orange bracelet around his wrist. After Peter had recovered from being shot, he’d asked Karyme to analyze the spell Haku had used to keep him alive. Her analysis yielded three answers. One: Haku had managed to rewind Peter’s injury by repeatedly superimposing a memory of healthy, uninjured Peter on reality. Two: Haku should not be able to affect living things with their tertiary power like this, but they had used healing magic to bridge the gap. Three: at the moment, Haku’s ability to heal was limited and unreliable—not to be trusted.

In other words, Peter could not rely on Haku to heal any damage to his body a second time, but he could get Haku to continually reset something nonliving—something like the oxygen inside Peter’s lungs, or the water around his body, or the air inside his ears and sinuses.

It was a gamble, admittedly. Peter had no way to know if Haku was strong enough to pull this off—but he had one last trick up his sleeve.

There was a lot of telepathic yelling coming Peter’s way, now, but he ignored it as he retrieved the source of the noise—the telepathy crystal—from his pocket. The orange light at the crystal’s core flickered weakly, almost fully extinguished now—and really, it was laughable to think that Peter had ever considered the crystal powerful. It had always been on the edge of shattering, just like its owner.

Peter took one last look at the crystal—his only guaranteed way back to the surface—and he smiled. This had been a gift from Haku to Peter once; now it was time to return the favor. Peter crushed the crystal with all his strength, and as it disintegrated, one last fragment of orange energy entered Peter’s bracelet.

Silence. Hopefully this would be enough.

Peter began his descent. Within minutes his lungs felt like they were about to burst. The lack of air brought with it a constant dizziness, which made it harder for Peter to focus on keeping the water away, and spots danced in his vision, making it hard to see in the darkness. With each passing minute, cold seeped further into his limbs, leaching strength from his oxygen-starved muscles.

But as Peter descended, he realized none of these problems were getting any worse.

Sure, Peter’s ears were popping, and his face hurt, and his legs felt like lead, and he couldn’t see, but as Peter continued to fight against the increasing water pressure, he realized that he no longer had to compensate for the liquid’s natural tendency to collapse back towards him. The water was malleable, now, almost like molten glass, and when Peter shoved the water aside, it stayed there, rippling and swirling in place—almost like it was stuck in time. Like a memory was being repeatedly superimposed upon reality.

Peter grinned, and even though water entered his mouth, air did not leave his lungs.

Peter continued to propel himself downward, using telekinesis instead of muscle power to push himself along. He had no way to track the time, and he definitely couldn’t see, but the magnetic pull from the bracelet around his wrist gave him a way to navigate and track his progress. Most people would have found it disconcerting to swim through complete darkness, propelled only by telekinetically-induced waves, unable to even feel a reflexive need to inhale—but Peter was not most people.

Peter was a man on a mission, single-minded in his purpose, and he didn’t let his thoughts wander in the slightest until his fingers closed around the last fragment of Haku’s soul.

~.~

Haku was sitting alone at the kitchen table when Kai, Mateen, and Jinal returned to the pocket dimension. In a flash of light, the trio stumbled into the room, looking like they’d just been through a tornado—which was appropriate, really, because they had been trying to dispel a cyclone of Yaran’s creation.

Jinal’s hair frizzed out of its ponytail, leaving the tie in her hair hanging freely, and her dress was almost completely covered in scorch marks. Kai’s windblown hair and dirt-stained tunic were nothing compared to the blood-encrusted tear in his leggings that ran from hip to ankle. And Mateen—well, Haku didn’t get a good look at Mateen as xe stormed into the depths of the pocket dimension.

“It didn’t go well,” Haku guessed. Jinal shook her head.

“It was like you said,” Jinal said bitterly. “We couldn’t save them.”

“Ah.” Haku swallowed a wave of acrid guilt. “Sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Kai grunted. His attempt at a smile quickly turned into a wince as he took a halting step forward, and then another, and another. Haku narrowed their eyes. Even without their x-ray vision, they could tell Kai’s leg was broken—and badly, too.

“Are you sure you should be walking on that?” Haku asked. “I can fix it for you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kai said, shaking his head. He continued to limp past Haku without so much as a pained hiss. “You’ve done a lot today. I’ll get Minerva or Ven to do it instead.”

“What?” Haku’s eyes widened in surprise. “But—”

“Oh, his bones are healing as we speak. He’ll be fine,” Jinal said casually, plopping down in the chair next to Haku. “See? He’s already made it to the exit.”

Haku flinched as they watched Kai stumble into the hallway, leaning on the wall for support. Kai’s bones would knit together over time, of course, but Haku knew from experience that spontaneous regeneration was painful. It always hurt less when someone else was healing the injury—but Kai was gone now, so maybe it was a moot point.

“To be honest,” Jinal said quietly, “I’m more worried about you.”

Haku tensed. They should have expected something like this, really, as soon as Kai had forced himself towards the door. That, combined with Jinal’s complete lack of concern for Kai’s condition made it clear to Haku that the couple had planned this. Kai had made a hasty exit so Jinal could corner Haku before they had a chance to disappear to their room.

Haku hated it when Jinal and Kai babied them like this.

“What is there to be worried about?” Haku asked, turning to Jinal with the most innocent smile they could muster. “I am perfectly fine.”

“Haku.” Jinal pinched the bridge of her nose. “I raised you. That might work on the others, but it will not work on me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Haku said evenly.

“I don’t know why you insist on lying, but—” Jinal let out an exasperated sigh. “You’re blaming yourself for what happened just now—and what happened yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. ”

“No, I’m not.” Haku averted their gaze. “Like I said, I’m fine.”

You are an absolutely horrible liar, Haku’s soul splinter crowed.

Fuck off, Haku shot back.

“Haku, I know what it’s like to navigate the timeline,” Jinal said quietly, taking one of their hands in her own. “I used to do my own future reads, because no one else could, and my vision was a lot more limited as a result—which means I know what it feels like to fail.”

She was probably better at reading the future than you, Haku’s soul splinter whispered. I don’t know why she even keeps you around.

Haku took a shaky breath in and shoved that thought as far away as they could. They had never understood why Jinal had brought them back from the dead, and there was no point in dwelling on things they couldn’t understand.

“I just can’t stop thinking about it,” Haku said glumly. “If I had found a timeline in which you saved those people, then maybe—”

“Stop.” Jinal squeezed Haku’s hand. “That line of reasoning leads nowhere. You don’t even know if that timeline exists.”

“But what if it does?” Haku cried. “And—and what gives me the right to decide that this timeline is the best one anyway? I spend countless hours sifting through timelines and picking who gets to live and who gets to die, and for what? In the end, people are still dying, and it’s all my fault.”

By the time Haku finished, tears pricked at the corners of their eyes, and their hands were alight with orange—which was completely unintentional, and really, after a century of life, Haku should have had better control of their emotions than that. Haku stared at their hands in abject misery, willing the flames to fade—and then, without warning, Jinal wrapped them in a hug.

“You’re doing it again,” Jinal murmured. “You’re not letting yourself feel.”

Haku stiffened. It was a silly thing to say, really, when Yaran’s curse responded so strongly to even the faintest of emotions—and sillier still, considering that Haku’s only death to date had been a result of unbridled panic fueling their powers until they burned from the inside out.

“With how our powers work, what else am I supposed to do?” Haku said hoarsely.

“Let yourself feel among friends,” Jinal said quietly. “And we’ll keep you safe. You know we will.”

Jinal hugged Haku tighter, and this time, Haku tentatively leaned into the embrace. It was selfish of Haku to take up Jinal’s time like this—they knew that—but they hadn’t slept or eaten in weeks, and they could barely think straight with all the timelines crammed in their head, and they were just so damn tired of working so hard and earning so little.

Jinal began to stroke Haku’s hair, just the way she’d used to when Haku was suffering from night terrors at seven years of age, and Haku struggled to suppress a sob as they buried their face deeper into Jinal’s shoulder. They hated feeling like a kid—hated being the baby of the group—but they couldn’t bring themself to pull away, either. Hot tears were running down their face, now, and their shoulders were shaking with sobs, and their chest burned as weeks of guilt and shame and frustration finally burst free.

For a while, Jinal simply held Haku as they cried. They were probably glowing orange from head to toe at this point, but they couldn’t find it in them to care. No one was around to see except Jinal, and she had already seen Haku give in to their emotions far more times than Haku could count.

Good god, you are pathetic, Haku’s soul splinter sighed. You don’t deserve her, you know.

Haku let out a shaky breath. Their soul splinter was right—Jinal was too good to them. Haku had left Jinal—had lost control and died right in front of her—and still Jinal had given Haku a second chance. She had given Haku a second lease on life, and they weren’t even good enough to use it correctly.

Haku pulled away from Jinal, guilt already settling in their gut. As they removed their glasses to wipe away their tears, they made eye contact with Jinal, and though their vision was blurred, they could still see the concern in her gaze.

“Maybe you should take a break,” Jinal said softly. “I can take over for now.”

“And if you do, who will help Michael?” Haku asked. They slipped their glasses back on. “He’s new, his future vision just set in, and he needs your guidance more than I do.”

“Ven can take your place, then,” Jinal pressed. “You know she wouldn’t mind it.”

Ven wouldn’t mind, Haku’s soul splinter agreed. But you would, wouldn’t you? You cannot stand being displaced. How else will you prove your worth, if not with your sight?

Haku bit their lip. Jinal would never understand any of that, so Haku would have to come up with a more logical argument.

“It makes more sense for me to do it,” Haku said firmly, making eye contact with Jinal. “The more I look through different timelines, the more memories I collect, and that makes my tertiary power stronger.”

“Well, yes,” Jinal said, voice full of exasperation. “But you don’t have to be the only one. It doesn’t hurt to have help.”

“I…” Haku trailed off. “I’ll think about it. If I need help, I’ll be sure to ask.”

Jinal narrowed her eyes, and for a second, Haku thought she was going to call them out—but for whatever reason, she didn’t press the point. Instead she rose from her seat.

“We’ll be here for you whenever you’re ready,” Jinal said sadly. “Just—don’t forget that.”

With one last smile in Haku’s direction, she left the kitchen. Haku breathed a sigh of relief.

That was a bold-faced lie, Haku’s soul splinter noted. I’m impressed.

It was, Haku agreed. And for good reason. If I do this properly, none of the others will have to suffer, and this way—this way I can use my borrowed time to give them normal lives.

~.~

Worldly sensations crashed down on Peter all at once. His legs felt like jelly, and his head was pounding from the overuse of his telekinesis, and his ears were popping, and his lungs were still remembering how to breathe, and Peter was given exactly five seconds to adjust to all of this before someone grabbed the collar of his diving suit and shook him like a maraca. His eyes were still reacquainting to light, so he could not tell whether that someone was Dani or Lian, but he could hazard a guess.

“What the hell was that, Peter?” Dani spluttered. “You just—you just fucking—”

“I dressed in a swimsuit,” Peter said calmly. “What did you expect me to do?”

“No one would expect you to jump into a fucking death sentence!” Dani snapped. She let go of Peter with a shove, sending him tumbling to the ground, and he was too tired to stop it.

With a sigh, Peter summoned a towel and began to dry his hair and face. His clothes were soaked, and he was starting to shiver from the cold, but fixing that problem would require stripping, and Peter had a feeling no one in the room would approve if he tried to do that. He began to shed his diving suit instead—that was the least he could do.

“That was incredibly risky!” Lian yelled, storming over to Peter. Their eyes were red, and tear tracks ran down their face, and Peter really hadn’t expected Lian to cry for him.

“It was a calculated risk,” Peter countered. He materialized a dry towel and wrapped himself in it. “Haku kept me alive when I got shot. Kai jumped in to save Auster. It’s natural to assume Haku would step in to keep me alive this time, too.”

“This is different, though!” Lian cried. “Those were apparitions, or—or extensions of existing power. None of the other soul fragments actually helped us reach them!”

“Well that’s just not true,” Peter said with a frown. “The soul fragment you got in Myanmar was underwater, and Morgan was only able to reach it because Jinal and Kai helped her get there.”

“How do you know that?” Ilia interjected, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I knew because I looked through the timeline, but I don’t think Morgan’s ever mentioned it to anyone.”

“I knew because I asked,” Peter said calmly. “Joel’s been keeping me updated on everything that’s happened to both teams in the past two days, and I’ve been asking Morgan to fill me in on Kai’s memories. I wanted to stay informed, because It’s stupid to go on a dangerous quest like this without having the full picture.”

“I see,” Dani said haltingly. “That… makes a lot of sense, actually.”

“Everything I do makes sense,” Peter shot back. “Even if it doesn’t make sense to you.”

“Ohhhh no, no, no, I’m not saying that your deep sea dive made sense,” Dani growled. “We’re not going that far. What if Haku hadn’t been strong enough to save you?”

“Please,” Peter said, rolling his eyes. “If there is one thing we can reliably count on, it’s the Ennead’s guilt, especially their guilt around us. Even if they’re not strong enough to save us, they’ll make it work, somehow, because they’re just that guilty.”

“Even if that’s true, you could’ve told us what you were going to do, you know,” Ilia said bluntly. “You clearly had this planned. It would have saved us some worry.”

“You would have tried to stop me,” Peter said evenly.

“We would have come up with a better solution!” Lian cried. “Or, I don’t know, worked together? Peter, you could have died.”

“And if there was no better solution?” Peter countered. “You still would have tried to stop me, because you’re too focused on what could have happened to me. But this soul hunt isn’t just about me—it’s about the world at large. I just did what was necessary.”

Lian took a step back, a wounded expression on their face, and they opened their mouth to yell at Peter some more—but Ilia got there first.

“You sound like Haku.”

Her voice was quiet, bitter, layered with hurt and betrayal, and given Ilia’s history, Peter could understand why she felt that way about Haku, maybe—but he couldn’t understand why everyone kept saying Haku’s name like it was a bad thing. Haku just made all of the hard choices that no one else wanted to make.

“Okay, look,” Dani said wearily. “Next time you have to do what’s necessary? Let’s make that call together. You don’t get to decide on your own that you’re an acceptable sacrifice.”

Peter’s first instinct was to argue that he hadn’t planned on sacrificing himself at all, actually, since he had trusted Haku enough to save him—but then he decided that was a waste of time.

“Sounds good,” Peter said with a shrug. “Now that we’re done with that, maybe we can figure out where we are?”

They were standing in a shed of sorts, surrounded by towers of hay and wooden shelves crammed with farming supplies. There was no true floor other than the dirt under their feet, and everything else seemed to be made of wood or bronze. The shed was more like a small barn in terms of size—it could probably accommodate a couple of horses or cows—but the immense amount of clutter still made it feel cramped. The only light source was a hole in the ceiling, about the size of a dime, and the single ray of sunlight landed on an empty terra cotta pot. As Peter’s gaze flitted from wall to wall, he realized that there were no exits.

“This is… small,” Lian said with a frown. “Kai’s mindscape was a lot more extensive.”

“I don’t think this is all of Haku’s mindscape,” Ilia said carefully. “It feels too… incomplete for that. Kai’s was—it showed a lot of different parts of himself, I think—but this feels very limited. I think this is just the part Haku is letting us see.”

“Of course it is,” Dani muttered. “Secretive bastard.”

“I dunno if it’s that intentional,” Peter remarked. “You’re probably right about Haku only wanting to show us one piece of their mind, but I think if they’d had complete control, they probably wouldn’t have chosen this.”

“What? Why?” Lian turned to Peter, brow furrowed. “What’s so special about this place?”

“Easy! This is the shed where Haku died,” Peter said casually. “The first time, I mean.”

“Oh.” Lian swallowed. “I see.”

“What do you think we’re supposed to do here?” Ilia asked. “There’s nowhere else for us to go.”

“Well,” Dani said slowly, walking to the center of the shed. She crouched next to the terra cotta pot, examining it with a frown. “I think we’re supposed to plant something. There’s a packet of seeds in here.”

“That makes things easy, then.” Peter walked over to Dani and plopped down on the floor next to the pot. “I’ll just make dirt and shovels or whatever.”

“Spades!” Lian said indignantly. “You do not use a shovel to plant a seed! And you need potting soil, not dirt, and the type depends on—”

“Okay, first of all, I knew the spade thing,” Peter interrupted, holding up one finger. “And second of all, I don’t think Haku knows or cares about potting soil, and since this is Haku’s mind, dirt is probably fine.”

“I’m surrounded by crimes!” Lian wailed.

“Woe is you, truly,” Dani said flatly. He tossed the packet of seeds to Lian. “Figure out how to open this while Peter preps the dirt.”

Peter’s head was still throbbing from his earlier stunt, so he settled for summoning a handful of dirt—just enough to fill the pot three-fourths of the way. As soon as the dirt was in place, Lian snatched the pot from Peter, cradling it protectively, as if someone was going to hurt the seed before it had even been planted. Peter rolled his eyes.

Lian’s movements were careful and precise as they poked a divot in the dirt with one finger, placed a single seed in the hole, and patted the dirt down over the seed. Then, they turned to Peter with an expectant look, one hand outstretched—probably in search of a watering can—but Peter had a better idea. He twisted the bottom of his dripping swim shirt into a rat’s tail, then squeezed, sprinkling water onto the soil.

“Peter!” Lian scolded. “You can’t just—”

“I’ve used my powers a lot today,” Peter said wearily. “Which is my fault and no one else’s. But I’d like to save the rest of my energy for Haku’s therapy session.”

Lian opened their mouth for a retort—but then their gaze landed on the pot in their hands, and they fell silent. A sprout had already poked its way through the soil, and it was continuing to grow. At first the stalk’s upward journey was slow, tentative, but as long, broad leaves jutted outward from the stem, the plant grew with increasing speed, unfurling with such ferocious velocity that Lian was forced to drop the pot.

By the time the plant was finished growing, its pointed top was mere feet away from the roof of the shed, and its stem was wider around than Peter. Several large, broad leaves diverged from the stem close to its root, running parallel with the stem but not reaching quite as high. At the top of the central stem was a flower with three colorless petals curving towards each other, almost like a flower yet to bloom.

“Whoa,” Lian breathed. “That’s. Whoa.”

“This is cool, I guess,” Ilia murmured. “But I have no idea what to do next.”

“This plant—I think it’s an iris,” Lian said slowly. “But the flower doesn’t usually look like that. I mean, those petals up there—they look like the inner petals of an iris—but the sepals, the outer petals, are missing.”

“So we need to make the outer petals grow,” Dani guessed. “That’ll probably be hard to do from here, since we can’t see anything, so…” Dani conjured a disc of sage green light at her feet, large enough to comfortably seat all four of them. Peter hopped aboard with a grin.

“No jumping off this time,” Lian scolded, wagging their finger at Peter.

“I’ll keep my seatbelt on,” Peter replied, giving Lian a salute. “You have my word.”

Once everyone had stepped onto the platform, Peter lifted them into the sky, doing his best to ignore the sharp pain behind his eyes. He started by taking them in a slow spiral around the stem so that they could see if anything was amiss. About five feet off the ground, Lian finally spotted something.

“There!” Lian cried, pointing to the stem. “I think I see a thorn!”

“Don’t flowers naturally have thorns?” Dani asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, some do, but I don’t think irises are supposed to have thorns,” Lian said with a frown.

“So we cut it off,” Peter decided. He materialized a pair of garden shears. “Who wants to do it?”

“I can, since I have the most experience,” Lian decided.

“Suit yourself,” Peter replied, handing the shears to Lian. “Don’t stand too close to the edge.”

“What?” Lian squinted at the thorn as they lined the shears up. “Why n—”

Lian’s shears sliced through the thorn far too easily, like a knife through butter, and Lian’s sentence was chopped just as short. They were still standing there, still uninjured, but their breathing was heavy and labored, and their eyes were wide with panic and horror, as if they were seeing something that no one else could.

Peter sighed. This was what he’d been warning Lian about.

“Lian?” Ilia asked, placing a tentative hand on Lian’s shoulder. “Are you—”

With a shriek, Lian stumbled backwards, and if Ilia hadn’t been there to catch them, they would have fallen. Tears ran freely down their face, and they were trembling like a leaf, but their gaze was no longer distant, and their breathing was more uneven, more natural. They were back. Peter gave them thirty seconds more to calm down before he asked his question.

“What did you see?” Peter said bluntly.

“Peter!” Dani said sharply. “Can’t you give them a moment to calm down?”

“I gave them thirty seconds, actually,” Peter retorted. “But we don’t have time to waste. The faster we get Haku back, the better.”

“Y-yeah, Peter’s right,” Lian said shakily. “It was—it’s fine, anyway. I was dead. I died trying to save Auster, and then Joshua was left watching us both bleed out, and it was horrible, but—” Lian took a deep breath. “It’s not real, it didn’t happen, and it’s not going to happen.”

“I—” Ilia bit her lip. “I think that was a future vision—not a likely one, but it sounds like the stuff I see all the time when I look at you guys.”

“You see this stuff all the time?” Lian said weakly. “Oh, god, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s… fine.” Ilia averted her gaze. “That’s not important right now. What’s important is that if I’ve seen stuff like this, so has Haku. Bad endings like this are probably most of what they see, actually.”

“Okay, hold that thought,” Dani interjected. “Look up.”

Peter craned his neck to get a better view of the flower—and sure enough, cutting the thorn had caused a change. From the center of the three inner petals, a large floppy petal extended outwards, casting a shadow over the group.

“One of the sepals is back,” Lian whispered.

“Yeah, and it appeared when you pruned the thorn,” Dani explained. “You seeing a bad ending when you pruned the thorn—I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I think the thorn was a bad ending, and when you used the shears, you got that shit out of the picture, allowing the flower to grow.”

“Which means the plant represents the timeline,” Peter finished. “And the flower represents Haku’s desired end.”

“Two more thorns, then,” Ilia guessed. “One for each missing petal.”

Peter wasn’t so sure about that, but it would take too much time to explain his doubts now. Instead, he turned his attention back to the platform beneath him. As Peter steered the group back onto the spiral course he’d mentally charted earlier, it occurred to him that Ilia could also make flying platforms—but maybe it was easier for him and Dani. He’d have to ask later.

Dani spotted the second thorn, and instead of using her words, she decided to shake Peter’s shoulder until he got the message. Luckily, Peter was quick on the uptake, and he landed the platform next to the thorn with ease.

“Okay! This will be quick!” Lian’s voice trembled as they approached the thorn, shears in hand, and Dani and Peter exchanged exasperated glances. Lian was so stupid. With a snap of Peter’s fingers, the shears flew out of Lian’s hands and landed in Dani’s instead.

“You don’t need to martyr yourself, Lian,” Dani sighed. “That’s the Ennead’s job.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Uh huh. Save it.” Dani’s tone was no-nonsense as he approached the thorn without sparing Lian a second glance—and then sheared the thorn off without a moment’s hesitation.

Dani’s horror was quieter than Lian’s, less pronounced, and although her eyes were glazed over and her muscles were tense, she hardly even stumbled when Ilia shook her awake. She just blinked a couple of times, checked to see that the second sepal was in place, and then her face settled back into its characteristic scowl, and it was business as usual. Dani’s quick rebound made sense—she had grown up in the mafia, and death came with the profession.

Which was why there was no trepidation in Peter’s heart when he brought the platform to the final thorn and grabbed the shears from Dani’s hands. Peter knew that there was nothing in this vision that could hurt him more than his life already had.

A flash of light.

Peter was in chains, hanging upside down from the ceiling, in a room made entirely of white tile—and upon closer examination, Peter recognized this cell. This was where Haku had been held prisoner for fifty years. Silver flames licked at Peter’s ankles and wrists, reaching towards his soul, and when Peter checked his wrist, there was no orange bracelet there to save him—yet something would not let him die, even as his soul was repeatedly ripped from his body. Peter’s lips curled into a defiant smile. At the very least, he would not give The Necromancer the satisfaction of hearing him scream.

As the vision faded, Peter huffed out a laugh. Luckily, he had been spared from feeling anything in the vision, and merely seeing himself get tortured wasn’t particularly disturbing. But. This vision was pulled from a possible future, and the implication that The Necromancer considered Peter and the others enough of a threat to place them in a prison meant for immortals—that was horrifying.

Peter pushed that thought aside and turned his focus to the sky. Above him, a third petal unfurled, and as if someone had spilled a drop of ink onto the center of the flower, color gradually bled into the petals, turning the entire flower a deep blue.

“Why’s it blue?” Ilia asked, wrinkling their nose. “Isn’t Haku orange?”

“It’s flower language,” Lian breathed. “Blue irises are a symbol of faith and hope—a reminder that better times are on the horizon.”

“Better times, huh?” Dani said grimly, gazing upward. “I dunno about that.”

As Dani spoke, the three outer petals warped and shifted until images projected across them like holographs on crepe paper. The closest petal portrayed a hall of sobbing patrons, all dressed in black, hugging each other for support as they crowded around a simple casket containing a corpse—and it was definitely Lian, though their hair was gray and their skin was thin and their face was marked with laugh lines and wrinkles. The next showed a smaller gathering, but it was a funeral, all the same, and Dani’s corpse was just as old. The last petal showed a black urn with a simple golden label: Peter, 2074-2149.

Well, that was longer than Peter had expected to survive, anyway, so that was good news.

“Better times indeed,” Ilia said bitterly. “You’re all dead.”

“Look closer,” Dani urged. “Look at how we died—how old we look. We’re all dead of natural causes, because that’s the best outcome Haku can see.”

“Ohhhh god,” Lian mumbled, covering their face with their hands. “Ven once told me—they told me it was easier for Haku to pretend not to care about mortals, because eventually we’ll all die, no matter what Haku does, and—of course this is the best ending they can see. I’m going to kill them. I’m going to kill them!”

“Well, that’s just great,” Ilia said miserably, kicking the platform. “Haku’s a nihilist, and they’ve got a death flower in their head. Why aren’t we in the void yet?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Peter said simply. “We’re missing a thorn.”

“There are only three petals,” Lian pointed out. “And three is normal for an iris.”

“That just proves my point, but I’ll get back to that,” Peter said dismissively. “We’ve cut one for me, one for Dani, and one for Lian, and you can see that on the petals. We’re still one short.”

“Peter, I’m immortal,” Ilia said emphatically. “I can’t grow old and die a natural death. That’s why there’s no petal for me—these petals represent a happy death.”

“No, they don’t,” Peter shot back. “Try again.”

“What do you mean?” Dani said slowly.

“Think back to the volcano memory,” Peter replied. “The conversation between Haku and The Necromancer. Haku said they didn’t mind having the curse because it allows them to shape a better future for the generations to come—for both mortals and immortals. Haku’s wish is for people to live freely, the way they never got to.”

“Yeah, I guess they said that,” Dani said with a frown. “But I don’t get where you’re going with this. How does this relate to the flower?”

“I think I get it. The petals here—they’re still the goal Haku is trying to reach, like we said earlier—but Haku’s goal isn’t just to prevent our deaths,” Lian said quietly. “Their goal is to keep us alive—to allow us to live and be safe and happy.”

“Right,” Peter said firmly. “The petals on this iris represent life. The fact that we died of natural causes in these pictures—that just means we got to live life on our own terms, like Haku wanted.”

“Now, correct me if I’m wrong,” Peter continued, tossing Ilia the garden shears, “but everything I just said—it applies to you, too. Maybe you can’t die, but that doesn’t mean you can’t live.”

For a second, Ilia just stared at the shears in her hand, eyes wide with shock. Then, her expression settled into one of determination, and with one last look at Peter, she summoned a thin disc of royal blue light beneath her feet. As Ilia took to the skies, searching for the last wayward thorn, Lian turned to Peter with a questioning look.

“What makes you sure that this iris has a fourth petal?” Lian said in a low voice.

“Do you remember, right before Dimension X, when the two of us were supposed to die?” Peter asked. “To the observer, it looked like there wasn’t a single timeline where both of us walked out alive. There were some where you survived, but I always ended up with a dagger in the neck—that’s what Ridwan told me, anyway.”

“But we’re both here,” Lian said softly. “Because Haku found a way to make it work—a way to make it look like you died.”

“Right,” Peter said with a nod. In the distance, Ilia came to a stop—she’d found what she was looking for. “Haku refused to accept fate as it was presented to them. You could argue that they defied the natural order of the world.”

A click echoed through the air as Ilia snipped off the final errant thorn. Peter smiled.

“If Haku can defy fate, shouldn’t their iris defy nature as well?”

A fourth set of petals unfurled overhead, just as brilliant as the others. This petal, too, portrayed an open wooden casket, lovingly carved and accented with golden trim. The person enclosed within was Ilia—no doubt about that—but, like the others, her hair was gray, her skin mottled and wrinkled, and that shouldn’t have been possible at all because Ilia couldn’t age.

Peter raised an eyebrow. That was interesting. They’d have to bug Haku about it later.

For now they turned their attention to the void settling into place around them. It was just as Lian and Ilia had described—an all-encompassing darkness, interrupted only by the presence of Haku’s floating corpse. From here, Peter couldn’t see any wounds on Haku, but the cracks across their body were deep, and half of their left shoulder had already flaked away.

“Haku!” Lian cried. “Haku, you idiot—”

A screech rent the air as shadows burst from Haku’s chest, coalescing into a humanoid mass in front of the group. Peter was a little curious about what touching a soul splinter would feel like, but he also knew Lian would kill him if he tried—if Dani didn’t get to him first.

“Haku,” Lian said miserably. “I know you don’t remember who you are right now, because Kai didn’t, either, so let me tell you who you are. You’re—you’re a self-sacrificing dumbass who works too hard and cares too much and you’re so focused on keeping the rest of us alive that you don’t even think about yourself. You—”

“Alive…?” The soul splinter’s voice echoed through the void, doubled and warped, like hearing Haku speak through a shitty tape recorder. “I don’t keep people alive. I just watch as people die around me.”

“Please,” Peter scoffed. “People die. That’s just a fact of life, and your future vision means you’re going to see it happen. You’re helping to minimize the amount of death, and that’s the best you can do, and you know that.”

“Is that so? And does that justify my ill-informed attempts to play god?” As the soul splinter spoke, liquid darkness seeped from the cracks in Haku’s body, and as the color drained from Haku’s limbs, the soul splinter’s hair settled into discrete curls.

“You’re—” Lian groaned. “You’re helping people, you idiot! Peter and I should be dead, and we’re not because you decided to ‘play god,’ but let’s be real—if god’s plan was to have me die like that then I’d much rather have you because at least you care!”

“I care? Is that what it looks like?” The soul splinter let out a bitter laugh, and now its broad nose and sharp jawline were clearly recognizable. “All of you are nothing but chess pieces to me, and this cosmic war is nothing but a game. You are pawns for me to move through the fabric of time as I please.”

“Yeah, okay, I’m going to call bullshit on that,” Dani cut in. “A chess player doesn’t make huge sacrifices to prevent their pawns from getting chipped, and a god isn’t going to bend over backwards just to support their believer’s idiotic plans. There was no reason for you to show up to support Peter’s latest deep sea suicide mission unless you actually cared about him.”

“It was asset management, and nothing else,” the soul splinter said coolly.

Lian and Dani both looked like they were about to strangle Haku’s soul splinter in response to that question, but that was a secondary concern for Peter. He was more worried about how solid the soul splinter looked. Its face was identical to Haku’s except for the nebulous darkness where the eyes should be. Haku’s corpse, meanwhile, was almost completely drained of color, and their hands and feet had all but crumbled away.

“Asset management?” Dani said hotly. “Are you—then explain Dimension X! Explain jumping into hell to save your goddamn assets!”

The soul splinter opened its eyes. The only thing missing now were Haku’s glasses. Time was up.

“I think Lian and Dani have made some good points about why you do actually care,” Peter interjected, pushing Lian aside, “but since you’re stubborn, I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere on that front. So instead, I want to ask this: why does it matter whether you care or not?”

“It—”

“Impact always matters more than intent,” Peter continued, cutting off Haku’s soul splinter before it could get a word in. “And you’ve messed up a few times, but I think even you would find it hard to argue that your impact has been a net negative, because the continued existence of the universe says otherwise. But that’s not what you’re really guilty about, is it?”

Peter made eye contact with the soul splinter, and a shark-toothed grin spread across his face.

“You’re afraid that you’re becoming like The Necromancer.”

“Peter!” Lian said indignantly.

“I’m right,” Peter said firmly. “And if you’ll let me explain, you’ll see why.”

Peter took a step towards Haku’s soul splinter. If he was right about the fact that Haku’s doubts were the driving force behind the shadows that cracked their body open and brought their soul splinter to life, then the game Peter was about to play was very dangerous.

“You never agreed with The Necromancer’s plan to reset the universe, but you always understood it,” Peter said smoothly. “You know what it’s like to go to extreme lengths for the people you love because you do that every single day. You practically kill yourself diagramming the future, just so the others don’t have to—so they can live normally.”

“But,” Peter continued, taking another step forward, “that was the line you drew in the sand. You were willing to trade your life for theirs, but you would never trade anyone else’s. That’s why The Necromancer’s plan to give all of you a better life didn’t sit well with you—it wasn’t a fair trade.”

Peter was practically in the soul splinter’s face, now, and he could see the fear in its eyes as Peter put words to the things no one else was willing to say. Peter’s gaze flicked towards Haku. The area around Haku’s heart still held color, and the soul splinter was still without glasses. Time to up the ante, then.

“Ten years ago, you violated your own rules, though, didn’t you?” Peter said slyly, circling the soul splinter like a snake surrounding its prey. “You sacrificed ten innocent mortal lives to save your family from prison. You changed your definition of an acceptable sacrifice, and that still scares you, because now that the line has been crossed, you’re afraid you’ll keep going in that direction until you become exactly the villain you’re fighting against. After all, that’s exactly how The Necromancer was born.”

“But you won’t,” Lian interrupted. “Because you’re not alone, and the others will always be there to save you from yourself. Ven would never let that happen.”

“Exactly,” Peter said firmly. “What you did—it needed to be done, even if it hurt a lot of people, and you might need to make a choice like that again. And I know that you’re scared that you’ll make the wrong choice next time, or you’ll take it too far, but—actually, I’m not the best person to say this.” Peter shot a grin over his shoulder in Dani’s direction.

“Dani,” Peter said sweetly. “Can you tell Haku what you told me earlier today, about making hard choices?”

“Of course,” Dani replied, her voice just as syrupy sweet as Peter’s. She turned to Haku. “Hey, asshole. You think you’re not qualified to decide what an acceptable sacrifice is? You’re right, actually. The next time you have to make a hard decision, ask your fucking pals for help, because none of us are good enough to make that kind of choice alone—even you—and that’s okay.”

The soul splinter exploded in a burst of shadow, knocking Peter back, but Dani was there to help him stay upright. A relieved smile crossed Peter’s face as the tendrils of darkness returned to their source, sealing the cracks in Haku’s body and restoring the parts of them that had crumbled away. The hardest part was over—now they just had to help Haku reach balance again.

Lian, Ilia, and Dani bolted over to Haku as soon as the immortal touched the ground, but Peter took a more leisurely pace. He watched, a bemused smile on his face, as Lian helped Haku sit up, and Ilia started to heal them, and then Lian started to chew Haku out.

“I cannot believe you,” Lian said hoarsely. “How do you still not get it? You—you promised that me and my friends would get out of Dimension X, and then you had the audacity to look me in the eye and tell me you were keeping that promise right as you broke it! You are one of my friends, too, and you—”

“I made it out, didn’t I?” Haku retorted, their voice barely above a whisper. Their fingers were still flickering with orange and black flames despite Ilia’s best efforts, but when they spoke to Lian, the flames faded just a little bit.

“I hate you!” Lian choked out, eyes filled with tears. “I hate you, and if you do that again, I will kill you for real!”

“I can see in Haku’s eyes that they want to argue,” Dani said casually, pointing to Haku’s eyes, which were still clenched shut. “They seem to be having a bit of a day, though, so I’ll ask on their behalf. How are you going to kill an immortal, exactly?”

“I’ll find a way!” Lian said wetly, giving Dani a playful shove.

“You hear that, Haku?” Dani said coyly. “Now you have to come back, or we’ll never get to see how Lian manages to kill you.”

The flickering at Haku’s fingertips faded even further, the strain on their face eased, and Peter could’ve sworn he saw the ghost of a smile on Haku’s lips. Almost there, then.

“Well,” Peter sighed, crouching next to Haku. “Unfortunately we can’t take Lian off the long list of people who hate you, but at least we can add Lian to the tally of people who hate you for dumb reasons. Morgan can go on there too, just for fun.”

“That would be counterproductive,” Haku said weakly. Their eyes fluttered open, and when their gaze met Peter’s there was a hint of levity there. “Once Morgan saw the list, she’d punch me again, and we can’t have that.”

“Get Dani to protect you,” Peter replied, jerking a thumb in Dani’s direction.

“No,” Dani said firmly. “Absolutely not. I’ve forgiven you for the prison shit, and I just talked your ass out of depression, but that is the end of my generosity. I will not be doing you any more favors.”

“Fair enough,” Haku said quietly. Their gaze fell to their hands, where the flames had long-since gone out. “Fair enough.”

As the darkness of the void melted away, Peter expected to end up back in the shed, so he was surprised when they ended up in a postal worker’s nightmare instead. The room was basically just a big box, and every surface—including the floor and ceiling—held rows and rows of neatly labeled and color-coded PO boxes. Peter absently wondered which box led to the shed from before.

“Your mind is a giant file cabinet?” Lian blurted.

“Do you always enter other people’s homes and offer judgment?” Haku said thinly.

“No!” Lian said quickly. “No, it’s just—“

“Functional,” Peter cut in. “It’s simple but functional. Makes everything easy to find when Haku has to retrieve a memory and make it real.”

Peter always carried his backpack for the same reason. A backpack might seem useless and inconvenient for someone who could summon items at a whim, but it was easier to keep an organized inventory of the things he knew he’d need on demand.

“Yes,” Haku said slowly, giving Peter a strange look. “That’s exactly it.”

As Haku spoke, the muted colors of the pocket dimension faded into view, the oranges and greens strongest among them. The foyer was not empty, however; Morgan was standing there, alone, doing an exceptional impression of a deer in the headlights. She didn’t even notice the rest of them until Ilia cleared her throat.

“Oh! You’re back,” Morgan said shakily. “And you’ve got Haku. Great.”

“Yeah, we do.” Dani frowned. “Why are you just standing here? Where are Joshua and Juli?”

“It’s—” Morgan grimaced. “They ran off as soon as we got back from Spain. I think Minerva’s memory set them off.”

“Oh no.” Lian paled. “It was that bad?”

“I didn’t think so,” Morgan said with a scowl. “But I guess they didn’t agree.”

“It was fire, again, wasn’t it,” Dani groaned. “Dammit! I knew this would happen.”

Peter glanced at Haku. The immortal was quickly fading, from the looks of it—not that anyone else seemed to care. Dani and Lian were now more focused on whatever emotional mess was brewing on Team Minerva, and Ilia was looking at Morgan with concern. That was fine with Peter, though. He could levitate Haku to the infirmary on his own, and if there was trouble afoot, it made more sense to relegate the emotional labor to the people who could handle it—people who were not Peter.

Peter did, however, have one last question for Haku.

“Before you pass out in a dramatic and highly inconvenient fashion—any suggestions on who we should search for next?” Peter whispered, leaning closer to Haku. The immortal didn’t even react to Peter’s voice—their eyes remained closed, their expression neutral, and for a second Peter thought he was too late. When Haku’s response did come, it was almost too quiet to hear.

“Mateen,” Haku mumbled. “Go find Mateen.”

“Great!” Peter said cheerfully. “Sweet dreams.”

With that issue taken care of, Peter turned his attention to the other problem in the room: the ongoing conversation. He’d missed most of it, but he tuned in just in time to catch Lian’s impassioned plea.

“Morgan,” Lian said urgently, grasping both of Morgan’s hands in their own. “I need you to tell me everything that happened in Spain. Please.”

“Fine, fine,” Morgan grumbled. “But you’re not going to like it.”

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Below is a set of two tracks that corresponds with the first scene of this chapter.

https://soundcloud.com/sanini-panini/sets/3-2-5p