Nar stumbled against the door. His legs trembled beneath him, spasming, and he couldn't lean any weight on the left one at all.

He glanced behind him once more, to make sure he hadn't left any bloody footprints behind him, and tumbled forward into the party room.

"Nar? Holy shit!"

Suddenly, there were hands on him, and he was being whisked into the boy's room.

"Jasphaer! Jasphaer! He's bleeding!" Mul hissed.

"Coming!" the healer shouted.

"Oh, my Crystal…" Tuk whispered, horror in his tone. "What did she do to him?"

"Quiet! Into the room! Now!" Kur snarled at them, and the door sighed closed behind him.

"What… What's happening?" Nar muttered, his already ravaged mind making no sense of what in the Pile they were doing, or why they were even awake at that ungodly hour.

"Where do you want him?" Mul asked.

"Just on the floor. That'll be easier to see," Jasphaer replied.

Jasphaer… Jasphaer? His battered mind considered, rolling the name around in desperate search for meaning.

"No!" Nar cried, pushing against the hands holding him in a burst of desperate [Strength]. "No healing!"

"What?" Tuk shouted. "Why not? Oh, shit!"

Nar tumbled back and crumpled down the wall, leaving a wet trail behind him.

"No… No healing!" he breathed, swatting away the hands that reached for him. "Please! I can't!"

"What in the Pile are you talking about?" Mul asked, his tone going flatter and suppressed. "You're down half HP and there's a hole in your leg!"

"It-it's okay… Training…" Nar muttered, blinking to make the boy's room return into focus.

And he kept his hands raised above him, shaking with the effort, to ward off any attempts at healing.

"Nar, what are you talking about? Explain!" Kur said, his tone was a mix of fear and party leader's authority.

"It's training… Get hurt… Then heal… Myself…" Nar muttered, every word causing his vision to momentarily blur.

Their faces were just darkened blobs around and above him, but he could imagine their expressions. The fear. The worry. The horror.

"I need… I need to heal… Let me focus…" he begged them. "Explain… After…"

"Then do it," Jasphaer said, his tone commanding. "But I'm watching you. Your HP is still dropping, and if it goes below 100 I'm stepping in. And there's nothing you can do to stop me."

Nar swallowed his coppery saliva and gave him a weak nod.

"Give him some space," Jasphaer told the others.

"Is he really going to heal himself?" Tuk whispered.

"I don't know yet," Jasphaer replied. "Just be quiet for now."

Silence descended upon the room, only punctuated by his quick and shallow breaths.

"From now on, as promised, I'm leaving you with homework," Tys had said, her tone light despite the darkness in her eyes. "You will leave here wounded and poisoned with aether, you will withstand the walk to your room in silence, and then, and only then, will you be able to start healing."

Nar had gaped at her. "What? But my party will…"

"That too, is a test of willpower," Tys said, unyielding. "How many times have you withstood all there is to face, only to crumble at a warm touch or a sympathetic word? No. Face your party, Nar. Face their concern. Their anger. Their demands for you to stop… And keep withstanding. Without breaking. Without crying. Without falling for the trap that is their care."

She raised a hand and tightened it into a fist. "Steel yourself, Nar. It can be a lot easier to hold on alone, than with the pitying and caring words and embraces of your family."

And by the Crystal, how right she had been.

Their concern. The gentleness of their touch… It had almost been too much, and it had indeed very nearly broken his resolve. All of a sudden, the pain had increased a thousand-fold, and his will trembled worse than his shaking limbs!

This was his party. His family! The people he relied on, and trusted and loved more than anything in the world. Perhaps even to the same level he loved his dad… They were the ones he was doing it all for. Suffering for! To ensure their future and freedom, and to give them a chance at more than just survival… To give them a chance at true happiness, and to lack for nothing.

But their care… Their worry! Crystal. He had nearly shattered! Nearly let Jasphaer heal him… Nearly given up the path opening before him.

He swallowed a sob, hoping it hadn't made it past his lips, and focused on his aura.

Within him, gray light and bright red fire fought for dominion over him, the liquid aether destroying him from the inside and forcing his aura to focus on what it perceived to be the most immediate threat as his very organs burned.

And maybe it is… Nar thought, as a fresh wave of scorching agony nearly tipped him over into oblivion. But he grit his teeth, panting heavily to keep from screaming, and yanked on his aura, forcing it down his left leg, and to focus on the gaping hole in his quivering flesh. A hole that Tys had done with her bare thumb… Pushing down slowly into his leg, his skin parting, his muscle screaming as it gave way, blood gushing out as she widened the hole with cold darkness upon her eyes.

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His aura, once it reached the damage, and after a few more torturous moments of failed attempts, finally got to work on patching him up. He clenched his fists as it did, and again, his willpower wavered… But just as he had to, he let go of his aura, allowing it to flow back to his core, where it returned its focus to fighting back against the fiery invader.

Jasphaer gasped distantly. "I see… By Genahu's soothing embrace! That's what you're going for?"

Nar didn't have the strength or spare brain capacity to speak. Not even to nod.

"What do you mean?" Mul asked. "What's happening?"

"He is self-healing!" Jasphaer breathed.

"How?" Kur asked. "He doesn't know how to! He never trained for it!"

The healer shook his head. "The training and the studying is for healing other people. Your aura, it seeps into you, and it changes you. Strengthens, you! It practically turns you into aurium."

"They told us about that today," Tuk whispered, looking down at his hands. "That we're made of aurium."

"Not fully… Not yet," Jasphaer said. "From the med reports you're just at 49% in the transformation, Tuk."

"But then…"

"Hold on," Mul said, his voice devoid of emotion as he interrupted the tall, skinny ring tosser. "What does any of that have to do with this… With this fucked up non-sense."

"You can heal yourself through aura, just like I heal you guys," Jasphaer explained, his tone awed. "The aura that imbues your flesh and bones, and everything in you, knows how things are supposed to be. It remembers your optimal state… That means that healing myself is actually a lot easier than what I need to do to heal you guys. But of course, without the knowledge and me guiding the process, aura would take a ridiculously dumb amount to brute heal."

"How ridiculous?" Kur asked.

"Check for yourself," the healer said, waving at Nar.

"Crystal…" Tuk whispered. "He's down to under 3000 aura. Down from 5000!"

"And that's with his [Mastery] and upgraded channels," Jasphaer said. "But by Genahu… He's not actually healing himself. Every time his aura starts to heal him, he lets go of it, and waits for it to return to his core. Then he starts again…"

"Why?" Mul asked, his tone laced with pain this time.

"I think… Genahu! No, I'm certain! He's teaching his aura to heal on its own… He's learning passive self-healing!"

"Yes…" Nar managed in the sudden, stunned silence. "Yes… To be unstoppable… More HP… Passive regen… Health and HP… Both… Recovered with aura."

"Holy Crystal Above All!" Tuk breathed, covering his mouth. "That's insane… Right?"

"But… But how?" Kur asked, his tone bordering on hysteria.

"Do it enough times, and aura will eventually learn to do it by itself…" Jasphaer explained. "But that's the theory! Not just anyone can do it. You need a massive amount of aura to support something constant like this, as well as the pathways to be able to handle it… But I guess, if it's him, it is possible."

The healer exhaled sharply. "Radiants Above. I'm seeing it with my own [Aura Sight] but I'm still having trouble believing it… Or that he's actually going through this. And there's even some kind of fire aether inside of him! I'm guessing it's to make the wounds last longer and keep his HP regen busy, so that he's the one actually healing…"

Kur sat down and hid his face in his hands.

"Why's he doing something like this?" Tuk asked, his voice barely a whisper. "Is he just getting stabbed over and over in there?"

"Not stabbed…"

Jasphaer grimaced and raised a thumb, then he made a downward pressing gesture, and wiggled his thumb as he raised it back up.

Tuk went pale.

"You're fucking with me," Mul said. "Tell me you are."

The healer shook his head.

"Kur. Do something," the brawler demanded, his tone suppressed.

"Do what? It's his…"

There was a low moan and Nar slid further down along the wall, his head coming down towards the floor as he tilted sideways.

"Shit. Did he pass out?" Mul asked, rushing to hold Nar's head.

"No, he's still in there…" Jasphaer said, kneeling in front of Nar. "But just barely. He's still continuing the cycle of healing. Genahu, the pain from that burning aether alone… What a will! You ex-Climbers really are as insane as they say!"

"No one's as insane as him," Kur said, sighing. "You guys go back to bed. Jasphaer, I'm sorry, but can I ask you to keep an eye on him?"

"Of course. I was going to anyways," Jasphaer said.

"Are you actually going to allow this?" Mul asked the party leader, looking up from Nar's frowned, sweaty face.

"And what do you want me to do?" Kur snapped at him. "We don't allow anything here, Mul! People make their own decisions, just like you did with that suppressor, let me remind you!"

"That's just how I fucking am. I'm not going somewhere every night and letting someone poke holes into me with their bare fucking fingers," Mul said.

Somehow, the muted version from his suppressor made it all sound even worse, and Kur's sudden anger evaporated.

"I-I know… I know! But this is his path. His life! Ugh!"

He passed a hand over his hair. "I'll talk with Gad in the morning and see what she says. But you have to understand, if he's doing this himself, there's no way for us to stop him. Just like we didn't stop you, and how we're not going to stop Gad if she decides to sign that contract."

"But it's not right…" Tuk whispered, staring at Nar's gasping form. "None of this is right!"

"She seems to know what she's doing at least," Jasphaer said, into the silence that followed Tuk's words. "It would take me minutes to heal something like this, and Nar's HP would probably close it up in half an hour, if not for the aether wrecking things inside him… Plus I can see the cloth absorbing his blood, even as it fixes and cleans itself."

He looked up at Kur. "This all seems to be done with intent and proper planning, I think. Not sure if that makes it better or worse, but at least it doesn't look half-assed."

"I suppose that makes it a little better…" Kur muttered. "But not by a lot."

"It's possible for melee DPS and tank classes to eventually accumulate enough damage that their aurium or aetherium bodies eventually learn to sort of passively fix themselves," Jasphaer revealed. "But that's something that takes years. Decades even! And I'm not actually sure it happens that often…"

He made a face. "My teacher at the time just told us about it at the end of a class, kinda dismissing it as being a real thing… So I think we have to ask Nar about it, and get the whole story from him to be sure."

Kur nodded. "We will."

He took a deep breath.

"For now, get back to bed you two. We're hitting the dungeons again tomorrow early."

"Even him?" Tuk asked.

"I don't think he has a choice in it," Kur said, shaking his head. "But I'll ask him anyway."

"Crystal… This is all so fucked up," Mul said. "Can we at least grab a pillow for him? A blanket?"

"Yeah, let's do that. It's best not to move him for now," Jasphaer said.

Tuk sighed and returned back to his bed, while Kur stared down at Nar as Jasphaer covered him with a blanket, and Mul gently propped his head on a pillow.

Crystal, Nar. What in the pile are you doing now? The party leader asked himself. Is this for your dad still?

At the back of his mind, however, he had a nagging sensation that told him he knew damn well why Nar was doing this. That perhaps, in his despair at having lost his dad he was now grasping for anything to hold himself together. Anything at all that would distract him from his dad and would keep him going, and there was only one other thing that could push him as hard as saving his dad had. The party. Them.

There was no doubt about it… And perhaps, having lost his dad, Nar was even afraid of losing more of his family now.

Yet, if Kur somehow removed that goal from Nar's sights, then what else did the swordsman have to latch on to? To hold onto as his entire reality came crumbling down around him? Worst still was that if Nar decided to persist in this path, the possibilities truly were undeniable… And so were the benefits to their party and future as well. And safety.

He pinched the nose of his bridge and sighed.

A few more hours of sleep, he decided, casting one last glance at Jasphaer, who had sat down besides Nar to watch over him. Then the dungeons, and then I'll talk with Gad. Crystal. If there's anyone that can sort this mess, maybe it's her.

For he doubted he could sway Nar from his decision. And he also doubted if he even should…

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