Duwa hadn’t meant to screw Percy over.
He was grateful to his guest, not only for saving his life and granting him a second core, but also for keeping him company all this time. Duwa had tried not to dwell on it too much, but spending so many days alone had nearly driven him mad.
That was why he’d decided to take a break from training upon noticing the towering cloud of dust heading south. The storm marking the end of boreastrum would last for several days, and sparring against the beasts would be exceedingly difficult until the weather settled.
Ideally, Duwa had hoped for both himself and Percy to earn Obatala’s Approval. The last thing he’d wanted had been to cheat his guest out of the opportunity. If he completed the trial just as the storm was about to reach them, Percy would have found it much harder to follow suit.
Sadly, that was exactly the position Duwa ended up placing his benefactor in – albeit inadvertently.
He wanted to slap himself for not having had the foresight to move away from the cyots before the storm. The round, Orange-cored beasts he’d been fighting the day before weren’t particularly strong on their own, but they were numerous and a terrible match for the harsh weather. Their bodies were just light enough for the violent gales to lift them off the ground and hurl them at Duwa, yet just heavy – and hard-shelled – enough to punch deep craters wherever they landed, leaving the surrounding hills riddled with holes.
The creatures hadn’t attacked him out of malice – or even of their own volition. They’d simply curled up to shield themselves from the wind. The storm had done the rest, pelting Duwa’s position with deadly projectiles and forcing him to dodge by the skin of his teeth.
He’d done a decent job at first – at least until the accident happened.
Faced with a projectile shooting toward his face, Duwa instinctively raised his fist to block it. He didn't think much of it as he repeated for the umpteenth time the same simple actions that had defined his life for the past year. As luck would have it, his desperation in that moment pushed him just over the edge, allowing him to extract ever-so-slightly more willpower than before – and to fold it into shape just a bit more neatly than all his previous efforts...
Punching the Orange creature out of the way, Duwa stared at his hand in shock, feeling the invisible bubble of raw power already dissipating from around his fist. Any other time, he would’ve been elated to have finally achieved his goal – but right now, he wished more than anything to take that moment back.
'Percy… I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean to do tha–'
Duwa didn’t even get a chance to apologize properly for his blunder. Another Orange creature was already upon him, forcing him to sidestep. At the same time, a deep rumble permeated the heavens, somehow penetrating through the cacophony of howling winds and the heavy thuds of the falling beasts.
Casting a fleeting glance upward, he noticed that some of the rapidly drifting clouds were resisting the storm, forming a tiny island of relative calm above his head. The nebulous mass churned and rolled, gathering strength for something big. It was hard to make the details out through the screen of dust, but sporadic flashes of lightning illuminated it in glimpses.
Duwa felt a sigh escape his lips – but it wasn’t his own.
'Don’t worry about it,' Percy said. 'Mind giving me full control of your body for a few minutes? We’re running out of time.'
Duwa barely managed to nod before Percy seized control of his limbs. Taking a few deep breaths, Percy raised their hand to filter the dusty air as best as he could, rapidly drawing mana to their abdomen. It felt strange, suddenly having mana of a brand-new affinity flood channels Duwa hadn’t even possessed before.
Percy dodged the incoming creatures with practiced ease, dancing across the battlefield as Duwa’s muscles brimmed with unprecedented power. Their senses sharpened and their feet grew lighter too – though Duwa knew that last part was just an illusion. He must’ve weighed the same as before, or Percy would’ve struggled even more to stay grounded. In fact, the powerful gusts did carry them up the hill whenever Percy leapt, but he kicked off the loose dirt to return to their previous position every time.
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At first, Percy focused solely on dodging – at least until he saturated the new organ. Then, he began to actively seek out the cyots, punching at them as he desperately tried to replicate Duwa’s success. Duwa braced himself, expecting the blows to hurt as much as before, but the creatures no longer felt as heavy, nor did their shells feel nearly as hard.
Percy’s strikes boomed as they split the dust-laden air faster than arrows. Violent flares of mana burst from their chest with each throbbing heartbeat. Duwa could even feel slivers of Percy’s willpower peeling away from their mana, as his guest raced to gather enough of the elusive resource to complete the trial as well.
But time was running out.
Occasionally, Duwa couldn’t help but glance up at the roiling clouds. They had grown denser and deeper, arcs of crimson lightning flickering through them, painting the sky red as they prepared for their inevitable descent.
'Come on! Almost there!’ Percy’s voice echoed through their soul, snapping Duwa back to focus.
Duwa could feel how rapidly his guest was improving – their fists smashing through the shells like overripe fruit as they dashed headlong through the storm in search of more creatures. Like a grim reaper, Percy brushed across the battlefield, offering the cyots' lives as sacrifices to the titan's magic.
Suddenly, everything flashed red.
It took Duwa half a moment to register what had happened. The first of the god’s lightning bolts had struck him, planting something inside his skull. The sound came after, a deafening boom that nearly burst his eardrums and rattled his bones. At first, he thought that was it. But then came another bolt, and a third. The titan’s mana didn’t injure him, though it felt increasingly unpleasant. Like a hammer, it struck again and again, slowly carving something deep into Duwa’s very being.
'Percy, are you getting this too?' he asked, his voice trembling with guilt.
'Not yet,' Percy replied – not with accusation or despair, but calm determination.
There was something else too. A scarcely concealed spark of excitement, lighting the foreigner's soul ablaze. Something about the strangely coloured lightning bolt had rekindled Percy's motivation, filling him with eagerness to press on. Planting a foot on a hard patch of ground, Percy carved a crater into the hillside as he launched toward another cyot with renewed vigour. Duwa’s eyes locked onto their targets with startling intensity, his guest’s fists never missing their marks.
Chunks of Percy’s willpower flaked away one after another, rapidly draining the core in Duwa’s sternum, as a river of strength gushed through their arms. Duwa couldn’t feel Percy’s domain directly, but he could sense its influence on his own flesh.
Sure enough, Percy’s relentless assault culminated in a violent blow that not only crushed its unfortunate recipient into bloody mist, but even continued to smash the one behind it, the force nearly shattering the bones in Duwa's fist.
'Sorry for getting a bit rough toward the end. You’ve got a life affinity now – fixing your hand should be a breeze,' Percy apologized.
Duwa said nothing in response, not even caring about the minor injury. His gaze returned to the sky. The crimson lightning had ceased at some point, the clouds having started to disperse.
But the heavens stirred once more following Percy's achievement, as though reconsidering whether a single serving had been enough. New arcs of lightning lit up, brewing a fresh round for someone who had arguably earned it.
Neither the southbound rush of brown winds, nor the onslaught of Orange critters had stopped – but Duwa and Percy no longer worried about either of those things all that much. With two cores thrumming with power in their body, and their self-imposed restrictions now lifted, protecting themselves from the elements would be trivial.
A second volley of lightning ensued, this time focused entirely on Percy. Unlike before, Duwa's mind remained untouched, though his ears buzzed as they endured the booming noise for the second time in quick succession. Not that it made much of a difference. Like Percy had said, Duwa was a healer now.
The only sour note was that his second core was still at the very beginning of the Green grade, while his first core was ready to advance. He'd need to discuss with his father – and possibly even Obatala Himself, given his status as a Favoured One – to determine the best way forward.
All of that could wait, however.
Right now, Duwa was more than happy to indulge in his reward. While they waited for Percy's own Approval to settle into place, Duwa tapped into the new feeling in his head, sharing his senses with his guest.
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Duwa
Mana cores:
- [Mana core 1 – Green – Fire]
- [Mana core 2 – Green – Life]
Domain:
- [Pulse – Nascent]
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