A Real Goddess Would Let Nobody Die

Over the millennia, the population of the world had boomed, and mages had thrived. Talents that would have appeared only once or twice in ten thousand years could now be found every few generations, and even rarer jewels might be found once in a very long while. The Goddesses had anticipated and been on the lookout for one of these. As Menelyn observed Her patient snuggling into Her younger Sister's hair, She had a creeping suspicion that They may have found one at last.

Her patient's sense of being unable to breathe in the presence of the Goddesses' passive mana effects, resolved after a desperate gasp for air after being shocked by Menelyn's magic, had felt subtly different from the usual reaction to treatment. Different from usual, but nevertheless familiar.

Izena chuckled warmly at Her fellow pinkish-red hair enthusiast's adorable antics. Izenakee's delight was surely weakening knees across the city, never mind in the room. Menelyn regretted disrupting the moment, but this...this felt very important.

<Sisters,> Menelyn said through Izenakee's link. <Look closely. Is Kenna...turning violet? To Your mage sight? It's faint, but I think...>

She could feel their confusion. Turning?! Mages don't just happen. And Violet?! That's not blue, black, white, green, or red.

"...How..." Izena breathed quietly, aloud, after a moment.

Menelyn's heart was pounding. Butterflies were in her throat. Not many things could surprise a multi-millennial immortal, but this was one.

<...As hard as it is to believe, she does have a pool,> Izenakee confirmed. <The mana in it is...hard to see, faint. But violet, yes. And it's very...viscous. How? What is happening?>

This was unprecedented in multiple ways. People didn't spontaneously become mages after being healed. Mages were born that way. The connection to mana was there, or it wasn't, and that was the end of it. A latent mage had never drawn from the source, into their 'lungs,' but the connection to it was still there. The pool was still there. The mage-sight color impression was still there. That's how mages found mages, even latent ones, like Menelyn at the refugee camp long ago.

The standard screening at Kenna's birth should have detected any signs of mage potential, and she would be in Ezenta. Even if it didn't, someone would have noticed that a girl couldn't use the ubiquitous enchantments of the modern world. She was young, but not that young. Izenakee had already shared with Her Sisters how often Kenna would watch and replay scenes of the Goddesses on her enchanted display.

And violet?!

Think, Menelyn urged Herself. What were the clues?

This girl had an extremely aggressive, inexplicably acute cancer. She had gone from reasonably healthy to being kept alive only by Menelyn's extremely potent materialized mana within days, from cancer. And now, this...weirdness, after being healed. After being in close contact with the Goddesses.

Menelyn had an idea.

"Has Kenna always been sickly?" Menelyn asked the room, as neutrally as possible. "Did she need treatment with My Essence, before being born? Or during birth?"

"Yes," Kenna's mother sobbed. She was a weeping, overcome mess in the corner. "We--, we--, but...nnnn...Thang...nnn."

Kenna's pediatrician took over while her father saw to her mother.

"She showed signs of severe distress before being born, and received intensive therapies with Your Essence. But, she was healthy enough, close to normal considering, until this most recent relapse. Do You suspect something?"

"Yes," Menelyn admitted quietly. "Something is odd. But do not worry. I am here. No harm can come to anyone who can see My Light."

Kenna's glow had already faded. This was much too fast.

"None." From this axiom, the Goddess of Salvation had derived an enduring utopia in which a diagnosis of 'incurable' cancer was only one more reason to feel happy, a sprinkle in the sweetfluff of life.

"None at all." She had resurrected one Goddess and created Another.

Menelyn felt that She could infer the general problem that the pre-birth mana infusions had solved. She stepped toward Her patient, to uncover the details of how Harm still dared to show itself in Her presence.

<What is it?> Izena asked. <Do You know what is happening?>

<Not completely, but I have an idea. My mana identifies causes of harm, and fixes them however it can, but it's not sentient. Her mana, this...violet mana, is somehow harmful, even more than black mana. My mana detected this, that it was hurting her, and did whatever it could to solve the problem. It plugged her link, sealed it off, severing her connection to the violet mana source, and making her seem like a non-mage. And now...>

Menelyn checked her patient, who was still too delighted by Love's hair to be aware of the rest of the world.

<Here's My best guess, consistent with what I know: After years of resisting the damage, the seal My mana made recently began to fail. She got sick. Then, being in the presence of Our mana gave her a sense that she wasn't breathing, and the healing finished the activation. Her gasp for mana broke the weakened plug, her pool filled for the first time, and now whatever this violet mana does is killing her again. Like before she was born, but even more rapidly because she's not latent. Look.>

The white mana left in her was nearly depleted. Harm dared to try, even now.

"Look away," Menelyn commanded the room. "Izenakee, cover Kenna's eyes."

The non-mages looked to Menelyn for an explanation.

"Kenna is an unusual kind of mage, and she urgently needs My help. I will fix this, one way or another, but it may be challenging. Seriously, look away now."

They turned around without another word.

For the first time since She had shielded the entire city of Umpoz and its surrounding region from a cataclysmic wave caused by a quake 1900 years ago, the Goddess of Salvation expended enough power that She found it draining, and the Sun hid sheepishly.

The Sun Goddess would investigate this violet mana. She would fix the problem, with the technique that always worked best: overwhelming brute force.

The first thing Menelyn noticed was that, as Izenakee had said, this mana source was viscous. Perhaps it had never been tapped!? Had it become stagnant? If true, it seemed likely that any being spontaneously gaining a connection to it simply died. Only the modern world's careful medical monitoring combined with the Essence of the Salvation Goddess had kept this one alive.

And something that harmful would be selected against. It would be very, very rare. Green magic was rare in humans, red was far rarer in anything, but they didn't kill those who had access to them. This color did.

Very rare.

Menelyn moved Her attention from Her patient's 'lungs' up to her mana source. What did this mana do? Why, how, did it hurt its users?

As She worked to agitate the entire source, roiling it, stirring it, with Her Own mana to make it more fluid like the well-known colors, She had an epiphany.

Who ever said mana colors had to be visible? It looked violet to eyesight, but what if...And if it shined like...

<Izena, I need to draw from Your pool.>

Thankfully, this Goddess of White Light had access to a large supply of light-devouring material.

Izena nodded Their head. <I see. Right. That worked before.>

Just injecting Izena's black directly would eat away at Kenna, but Izena's black interwoven with Menelyn's white? Menelyn and Izena had experience with that working well to absorb radiation. She coated Kenna's pool and the path to her source with the shield pattern She had used all those millennia ago. She could remember it perfectly.

When She finished, She released Her brilliance, and sat in a chair.

It had been a while since the Salvation Goddess had felt a faint tingle of mana exhaustion. Stirring the entirety of the ultraviolet mana pool so that it would be as functional as the others despite an eternity of disuse had been possible only for One who could direct most of the white light mana pool to the task.

Belatedly, Menelyn considered whether She should have been more concerned about the world enduring mana flows of that magnitude.

Meh, everything seemed fine.

She could already sense the protective spell that She had applied to Kenna's pool being eaten away. For now, she was glowing as brightly as the Goddesses, but she would require daily, no, twice-daily treatments, for the rest of her life.

Now, the only question was what this color of magic did.

----

Kenna felt a surge of energy, even more than before. It was streaming into her; she was drowning in it. It needed to go somewhere. She felt like she could jump through the roof. She wanted to jump through the roof. She needed to scream, but she couldn't scream indoors, especially not right in front of the Goddesses.

There was so much energy. It was starting to hurt, splitting her apart. Kenna held onto Love desperately and tried to figure out how to let it out.

She needed to scream, but couldn't scream. So, she screamed silently.

Screaming but not screaming, she jumped through the roof.

...Beyond the roof?

Love came with her.

After a moment of looking around at the sparkling cityscape, Love started giggling.

"That was an impressive scream!" She praised.

Love giggled a lot, Kenna had noticed. And she was glad. It was nice.

As the pair started to fall, Love pulled Kenna to Her chest, rested Kenna's head on Her shoulder, and turned Her boots into a ruby platform.

"I've been waiting for you, Twilight," She hummed into Kenna's ear. "I always knew fate must have plans for the full set."

Kenna was limp. This was way too many fuzzies.

...No, there was no such thing as too many. Kenna took a deep, content breath.

She would never get used to this, but she was willing to try.