Our squad moves rapidly through the smog-filled streets; the only sounds are the pounding of boots on pavement and the puffing of the soldiers breathing through their masks. Sentinels, as Calan explained to me while we were waiting, don’t have much to fear from ordinary illnesses — our bodies are reinforced by our mana. As such, breathing in the smog is only uncomfortable for us rather than properly toxic, even in our rest states.

  It’s not long until we reach our destination at one of the few nearby buildings to actually have an inhabitable base. The door to the building would normally be kept permanently locked and reinforced, but the GDF had mandated that the door be unlocked so the bottom floor could be used for triage.

  The building is properly surrounded by the time we arrive. Soldiers and groups of sentinels stand around it in a massive, protective ring — each of them looking properly pissed off. They must have been part of the group to go down and see the horrors committed upon those poor people.

  As we arrive, our jogging run slows to a quick stride, our soldiers calling out to the trigger-happy guards to make sure we don’t get caught up in friendly fire. The guards by the door, a pair of glowing sentinels, move aside to make way for us — they wear grim expressions but give friendly nods to our group of blue sentinels. Their part is finished; now it’s our turn to try and see what we can do to salvage this.

  We push our way into the building, and the others make way for us to move forward. I’m hit by the odor as soon as we walk through the door, the stench of unwashed bodies and excrement mixing with the sickly sweet smell of festering wounds.

  I glance around quickly, taking in the situation. The bottom floor of this building is obviously used for keeping cleaning supplies and general storage rather than habitation or business. As such, the chaos inside is surrounded by boxes, mop buckets, and other assorted cleaning paraphernalia.

  Laid out on the concrete floor are dozens of people in various stages of malnourishment and injury. Men and women in GDF body armor are already rushing around the injured, likely field medics. Without any kind of healing magic or considerably more medical equipment, though, they can’t do much but try to get the injured hydrated and their wounds cleaned in preparation for proper healing. It will be up to us, the blue sentinels, to really help them.

  “Hina, you and I will be splitting up to cover more ground,” Calan says, also taking in the scene. “Kaipo, I want you to take Serena and show her the ropes. This is her first time doing something like this, and she’s likely going to end up being combat-focused; you two should get used to working together.”

  Hina nods and breaks off immediately, dashing to one of the figures on the ground that isn’t moving at all. Calan only spares us a glance before following suit, moving to another unmoving patient.

  Kaipo glances down at me, his wide blue-eyes — in our assault states all of our eyes are blue — are full of concern. “What abilities do you have?” he asks, grabbing my arm in a meaty hand and gently towing me towards one of the smallest patients… a child.

  “Hands of the Healer is my only relevant ability,” I explain, taking in the emaciated little boy with horror.

  The boy has obvious Japanese heritage, like most people in Shinara, with shaggy black hair. His clothes are in tatters, the remains of his shirt so ripped and torn that I can see his stomach plainly underneath — the ribs stark under his skin. He watches me with large brown eyes that seem to have had their life stripped away. In his chest, the boy’s life force is a guttering candle, prone to winking out at any moment.

  Crouching beside the little boy — he can’t be older than seven or eight — I look up at the field medic who watches over him with a helpless expression. “Has he been fed?” I ask, doing my best to keep my voice calm and authoritative.

  The medic, a dark-skinned man with toned arms, shakes his head sadly. “Sorry, Miss. We tried to give him food, but he wouldn’t take it — said that he’d just throw it up.”

  I bite my lip with concern and gently take the boy’s small hand in mine as I meet his eyes. “Hi, my name is Serena, and this is my friend Kaipo. Can you tell me your name?” I ask in the gentlest tone I can manage.

  The boy looks up at me, eyes seeming to finally see me. “Nash…” he croaks out, his voice a rasping wheeze. “Are… are you… a sentinel?”

  I smile, finding tears starting to blur my vision. “Yes, Nash, I’m a sentinel. We’re going to make you feel better.”

  Nash nods weakly before his eyes seem to lose focus once more.

  Kaipo kneels down on the boy’s other side. “We’ll do this together,” he says, taking the boy’s other hand. “I’ll focus on purging him of illness and infection; you focus on the wounds. There are several nasty ones on his legs and feet that feel infected. Ready?”

  “How will we know when we are getting close to exceeding his mana toxicity limit?” I ask, hesitantly activating my Hands of the Healer.

  The lights that spread out before me look bad, his colors are blue, like mine, and so many of them are weak and sputtering.

  “I have an ability that can tell,” Kaipo responds. “Although, there is a testing device you can pick up from the GDF Infirmary. I recommend you get one next chance you have. They don’t cost any credits. For today, though, I’ll tell you when we need to stop.”

  I nod my agreement, eager to begin healing the boy. Kaipo closes his eyes and scrunches his brow, so I take that as my cue to begin.

  Narrowing my focus, I allow the rest of the world around me to fade away until I can’t see anything but Nash and the glowing nodes of light that make up the connections in his body. From Nash’s other hand, I can see a foreign power entering him — a light blue energy that surges out and flows back like waves on a beach. Everything that foreign energy washes over seems cleaner, somehow. Like battering waves smoothing out the rough edges of a stone, Kaipo’s waves of power seem to be smoothing away problems I can’t quite perceive.

  I decide for the moment to ignore Kaipo and focus on my own part of this healing. Nash has a lot of small wounds all over his body, resulting in a general weakness in all of his nodes, so focusing on the weakest of those first seems like a sound move. Carefully, I allow my own power to begin flowing into Nash’s body, a sapphire tide to join the lighter blue waves from Kaipo. Or no… my power behaves more like a fog bank rolling in, strengthening all the nodes it covers but swirling more fervently around the nodes that need the most help.

  Breathing in and out slowly, I hold absolute focus on controlling and guiding my power. This time, outside of the insanity that had been my first incursion zone, I start to pick up things I hadn’t the first time I’d been using my power. The first is a general sense of Nash’s mana toxicity level; it isn’t anything like the exact percentage that I have from my Status but rather a general feeling for how much build-up the boy is accumulating. This allows me to make my second revelation: my healing magic seems to be building up only about half as much mana toxicity in Nash as Kaipo’s.

  I consider this in the back of my mind while I continue working. Why is my power not building up as much toxicity? Kaipo is certainly more powerful and more skilled — performing his work with a master’s touch that makes me seem sloppy and wasteful by comparison. And yet, he causes more toxicity build-up…

  My title! I realize with a jolt. My title doubles the effectiveness of my healing magic! That must mean that each bit of my mana I inject into Nash is doing twice the amount of healing it would have done without the title — thus allowing me to do twice as much healing for the same amount of toxicity.

  Comparing my work to Kaipo’s, this fact only makes up for a little bit of the difference between us. My strategy of trying to strengthen all of the nodes is certainly effective but is far more mana-intensive than Kaipo’s gentle waves of power in and out. Even the power of my title can’t make up for the sheer difference in skill between us.

  The potential is there, though! With more training, I might be able to work more effectively on people with already high mana toxicity, which may allow me to pull someone back from the brink.

  I bet Kayne would be willing to let me work in the infirmary on some days to help augment my training; I’ll have to talk to him to see if he’ll let me test my theory.

  Focusing back on Nash, I notice Kaipo’s power beginning to withdraw — like a tide flowing back out to sea. A moment later, I feel a tap on my arm.

  “We don’t want his mana toxicity going much higher,” Kaipo says his deep voice calm and happy from a job well-done.

  I nod, withdrawing my power from Nash. “I think I managed to do quite a lot. How did you manage with the-”

  Nash’s brown eyes shoot open wide, and the boy pops up back to his feet as if spring loaded. “Wooaaah! That felt so weird!” he exclaims with a wide, goofy grin on his face.

  I blink, startled at the sudden explosion of life within the young boy. A part of my heart sinks, knowing what had been done to this sweet little soul. What kind of monster would put this kid in a cage?

  Swallowing, I force back those kinds of thoughts. Nash is feeling better now, and that’s what really matters. “Hi, Nash. How are you feeling?” I ask, allowing a gentle smile to cross my face.

  “You’re a sentinel,” Nash says, his eyes locking on me with wide intensity. He vaguely reminds me of Claire.

  My smile grows more genuine, “Yes, I am. Do you feel up to eating?”

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Nash’s eyes light up at the mention of food, but he shifts uncomfortably back and forth, distrusting. “My dad told me to stay away from sentinels. Said that you were bad news…”

  The boy watches me expectantly — as if wanting me to provide an explanation.

  I think for a moment before responding. “Your dad probably wanted you to stay away because we are usually trying to catch bad people. Maybe he didn’t want you to get caught up in that.”

  Nash nods as if this explanation makes sense to him. “Yeah…” the boy glances away, “those guys sucked. It makes sense you were after them,” he grumbles.

  Beside me, Kaipo stands, towering over both me and Nash. “Nash, let me introduce you to Corporal Bexley,” he says, gesturing to the dark-skinned medic who’d been hovering over us while we treated Nash. “He’s going to get you some food and water. Make sure you eat slowly, though, even if you feel really hungry. Otherwise, it might make you feel sick again.”

  Nash gives me another long look before turning towards Corporal Bexley and following him to a different part of the room where other healed patients are beginning to gather.

  Kaipo turns to me and offers me a friendly smile, “How was that? Not too bad, right?”

  I match Kaipo’s smile, looking up at him. “Honestly, it feels amazing to just help people. This feels much better than fighting the Volcora.”

  Kaipo nods, “I think so too. You should consider becoming a purely healing-focused sentinel; you’d be good at it. And you have a title already? Is that what I sensed? No need to tell me about it if you don’t want to, of course.”

  “Yeah, it was helpful for healing him without leaving that much toxicity,” I tell him, not wanting to say anything further on my title.

  “Healing bonuses,” Kaipo says, shaking his head regretfully. “Most blue sentinel titles have something like that. I’d love to get one.”

  My eyes widen at this; everyone else I’d spoken to about my title mostly considered it a downside. Losing the ability to heal myself is a pretty big cost, after all. For someone like Kaipo, though — someone who doesn’t have to be in danger constantly. Well, something like that would be annoying rather than potentially lethal like it is for me. Instead, it would be mostly upsides. Interesting.

  Instead of going further into the subject, I glance around the room, quickly identifying multiple others who need our help. “Next patient?” I ask.

  Kaipo and I work for hours, moving between patients and healing them to the best of our ability. We focus on helping the worst off and the youngest first — plenty of street urchins from the slums had ended up in those cages. Seeing child after child like Nash, with empty bellies and hopeless eyes, hurts me on a soul-deep level — not just because of what had been done to these children, but that the Reavers aren’t entirely to blame.

  Some of the children, the ones who had only been in the cages for a day or two, still look just as bad as the ones who’d been in there for weeks. I know how bad living in the slums is; of course, I’d lived there myself for a time. I’d never realized until now, however, just how much my parents had been doing to keep me healthy and safe there.

  Dad had never let me walk the streets without him or Mom with me. They would walk me to school and would always be waiting when I finished to walk me home. They made sure that I would never have to go to bed hungry and that I always had shoes on my feet. As for the air… well, they did what they could to shelter me from that too. After Mom got sick, Dad splurged on an expensive air purifier and placed it in my room — he’d claimed at the time that my room was just the best spot for it because it was near the center of the apartment.

  These children… they don’t have any of that. They learn to survive on the streets, to breathe in the toxic air, and to avoid gangs as best they can. I don’t dare ask about their parents, because it’s far too likely that whatever parents they had are dead or gone. Volcora attacks on outlying towns, lung cancer, and simple bad luck had left the slum streets full of orphans.

  Seeing all this, I’d expected these kids to be depressed and shattered like I was after losing Mom. Some of the children we help, though, are stronger than I ever was. More distrusting, too. The second they’re healed enough to move comfortably on their own, they scramble away from us. Usually, the soldiers find someone to take those ones back to whatever home they have — normally an orphanage or foster home.

  Some of the children, though, well… they act like normal children — Nash in particular. As soon as he finishes eating, he begins trailing Kaipo and me around the room as we move between patients. He asks an insane number of questions, about sentinels, about the GDF, and about dozens of other things as well. At one point, he even asks to see our familiars.

  Kaipo’s familiar, a creature resembling a large koi fish that swims through the air around him, had been utterly intriguing to me; Nash, however, took one look at Celeste’s fluffy form and grabbed her up in a hug. He’d been carrying her around and snuggling her ever since, and despite how indignant she looks, I know she's just happy to be able to help.

  Eventually, Kaipo and I finish up with our last patient. An older man who’d thanked us and refused the offer for a ride, disappearing onto the smoggy streets outside once more.

  Kaipo and I sit back, both of us exhausted. Kaipo had been doing most of the heavy lifting in the back half of our session together as my mana toxicity had climbed too high to continue safely. Even now, my toxicity level hovers around 86 percent — I have no idea how I’ll have the strength to go to school tomorrow.

  And yet, my heart feels lighter. I finally feel as if I’ve done something for the people not privileged enough to live up in the lofty streets of the skyway. Something small, sure, but I’ve done something. This is what my powers should be used for, to help others for no other reason than that they need it.

  I’m broken from my thoughts when Calan approaches where Kaipo and I have slumped up against a wall after finishing. He gives us an exhausted nod, likely having been helping people even before he got here.

  “You two did a great job,” Calan says, blue eyes shining in the dim light. “Now, you both need to go home and sleep. Doctor’s orders.”

  Kaipo waves his hand lazily, “You got it, boss… this one was rough.”

  Calan glances at me, and I nod in agreement.

  “Stay here a moment; I’ll find you a transport home,” Calan says with a gentle smile before moving off.

  After Calan leaves, Kaipo flashes with blue light — shifting into his rest state. The young man left behind looks startlingly normal, like a freshman in college who’d been up all night cramming for a test. Don’t get me wrong, Kaipo is attractive — most sentinels are — but seeing him outside of his assault state is interesting to me. It’s the realization that, under the shining lights of our powers, we’re all just normal people trying our best.

  With a mental shrug, I also release my assault state. Flashing with blue light, the now familiar surge of weakness rushes in. It’s bad, but not so bad that I feel like I’m going to pass out. I guess I really am getting used to this. What an odd thing to be used to.

  I close my eyes a moment before opening them to find Nash standing above me, staring down at me with wide eyes.

  “You look different,” he says, his voice hesitant.

  I nod weakly, “This is how I look when I’m not using my magic. I’m just a normal person, like you are.”

  Nash narrows his eyes; he still holds Celeste to his chest, although more loosely than before. “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be okay,” I say, although talking is getting me out of breath. “Using magic makes me sick; it will take a day or two for me to feel better.”

  “You make yourself sick?” Nash asks, frowning, “Why?”

  I offer the boy a weak smile, “Because using my magic also lets me make other people feel better. I’m okay with being sick if it helps people like you not be.”

  Nash tightens his hold on Celeste, who looks like she’s barely holding herself back from struggling free from the little boy. Nash closes his eyes for a moment, and I can see him trembling slightly. “My Dad got sick too. He didn’t get better.”

  I close my eyes, my mind inevitably flashing back to my mother’s death. “I’m sorry, Nash. I know how that feels. My Mom got sick like that.”

  “You didn’t make her feel better?” Nash asks. “Like you did for me.”

  I shake my head, “I couldn’t… I was like you at the time. I couldn’t do anything for her, just like you couldn’t do anything for your dad. That’s why I try hard to help people now.”

  Nash clenches his teeth and nods as if to himself, “I want to help people too — like you do.”

  I open my mouth to tell him that being like me isn’t necessarily the life he would want — that I fight the Volcora so little boys like Nash will never need to. And even discounting that, he would have to be incredibly lucky for a familiar to come to him. However, I don’t want to shatter this boy’s dreams. If he wants to help people, then… well, that’s a goal as noble as any.

  Before I come up with the words to respond to Nash, Calan returns, towing two of the military men behind him. “Your rides are ready,” he says, looking between us.

  Nash’s eyes go wide again, “You’re leaving?” he asks, his voice betrayed.

  I nod, “I need to sleep, but don’t worry. We’ll make sure you get taken home, too.”

  The boy still looks horrified at the fact that I’m leaving. “But… I want to go with you. I want to learn magic.”

  Calan glances towards me with a raised eyebrow — as if to ask, “Do you want me to deal with this?”

  Subtly, I shake my head. Looking to one of the drivers, I ask, “Would it be too much trouble to stop by where Nash needs to go on our way?”

  The man shrugs and shakes his head, “No, Miss. That shouldn’t be too much trouble.”

  Smiling at the man, I turn back to Nash. “How about that? I can bring you home and check up on you from time to time. I’m sure your home isn’t that bad.”

  Nash bites his lip, squeezing Celeste tight, but finally, he nods his acceptance. “No… Mr. Jenson is nice…” he murmurs.

  “Alright,” I say, grunting as I pull myself unsteadily to my feet. “Let’s get going. I need to say goodbye to my team first, though.”

  A few minutes later, Nash, the driver, Haruto, and I sit in the smallest transport I’ve ever seen from the GDF — more like some kind of hover car than a proper troop transport. Haruto had decided to come along with me, claiming that he didn’t like the idea of me going anywhere with mana toxicity so high without support from my team.

  I can't say I disagree with him either, to be honest. I feel mostly confident in being able to Mist Step out of whatever problem I might end up in, but right now, I’m feeling particularly weak and loopy. I’m honestly not sure how Audrey managed to hold herself together so well in the incursion zone when she’d had her toxicity so high.

  Luckily for both me and Celeste, Nash finds Haruto and his turtle-like familiar, Verne, fascinating. This offers me a moment to close my eyes while the driver works with Nash and Haruto to find out where the boy’s foster dad lives. It’s hard to keep myself from drifting off as I rest my eyes; it’s been a very long day. Going to the Mercurial’s compound, the training, the strategizing, and finally, this healing session had all worn me down. Now, I can’t think of anything better than finally getting to return home to the comfort of my bed.

  Still, getting Nash home okay and making sure that the boy is all right takes priority.

  With a groan, I open my eyes, looking over to Haruto as we fly. He’s still in his assault state, although he’d taken his helmet off. It had dissolved into green smoke like he’d put it into his inventory, but it can’t be a real item, right? Odd, I’ll have to ask him about it sometime.

  Nash keeps up a constant chatter as we fly, but luckily, at least some of it is with the driver, who eventually finds the location we need to go. A small apartment in the outer reaches of the slums, near the edge of Shinara. Of everywhere in the city, it’s the place most prone to Volcora attacks from strays who managed to make it all the way to the city.

  I’m too tired to worry about that right now, though. Later, I’ll consider if I can get Nash and his foster father into a better situation, maybe out of the slums entirely. That’s a nice thought.

  My eyes drift closed for a moment, and when I open them again, our transport is lowering itself down onto the street across from an apartment complex. This must be Nash’s home, I realize.

  All in all, it doesn’t look too bad. Maybe a bit weathered, but that’s alright.

  I turn towards the boy, trying to come up with the words to assure him that this won’t be the last time he’ll see us. I don’t want the poor thing to think that we’re abandoning him; he probably already has issues from the deaths of his parents.

  From somewhere nearby, I hear a soft click, followed by a loud hissing sound like a firework. What is-

  The transport explodes. My world becomes a sea of blinding flame, and I see a flash of brilliant green light before everything goes black.