I will strive beyond this cursed bloodline!

A blob of shadows rose from the floor, it warily looked around the room as if searching for something, after confirming no one was around the blob took the form of a girl.

 

The girl suddenly opened up and from the inside walked a black-haired young woman with scarlet red eyes dressed in a black hoodie with a red skirt with some gold decorations here and there.

 

Alice had decided to change her clothing while in the middle of the [Shadow Travel], just in case she didn't manage to land in her apartment, one could never know. Perhaps service was cleaning the room?

 

In the end, her precautions were for nothing as her shadows reported the coast was clear, so she finished the teleportation and soon enough saw their apartment as normal. Rossie wasn't around either, the girl must be still at the clinic.

 

Alice checked her phone for the time and saw that she had spent almost five hours in her little escapade, probably most of the time was spent in that weird pod where her mana had been cleansed...But still, it was plenty of time wasted.

 

She wasn't sure at what time she had gotten into it the thing, but it had been way before the assigned time for the [Induction], "Now...Deep breathe you can do it..." She only had one thing left to do.

 

And she...Didn't want to do it, "Believe in yourself..." Said Alice to herself while walking to [Her] room. "And believe that [We] can make this work..." She stood in front of [Her] room's mirror.

 

A small black-haired girl looked back at her with her red eyes, worry clouding her eyes, and a grimace on her face. Before committing, the girl wrote something on a piece of paper and put it in the mirror so [She] could see it first, and after that... "[Shift Release]." She said and immediately felt her body change, mana flooded her veins and muscles as her flesh turned into mana and then shifted.

 

Her legs grew longer, her back got straighter, her arms turned both more slim and somewhat longer, and her fingers turned from small and roundish to somewhat longer and sharp. Her face transformed from that of a baby-ish pre-ten into that of a young woman in the door to adulthood.

 

She tried to ignore the more obvious change that had happened in her chest area, as it swapped from a modest bulge to a full-fledged chest. And decided to focus more on the important changes, like her hair!

 

Her lovely blonde and silky hair, how had she missed it!

 

It was her joy and pride of her, even if it made it as if she was a cliche blonde, she didn't care!

 

It was silky, it was brilliant and it was hers!

 

"Really, I worried too much for nothing!" Said Elizabeth while giving herself a look over, gone was the face of [Alice] nor the worries of the girl.

 

Only [Elizabeth] was left with her blue eyes checking herself all over to see if something had gone wrong, she had to give credit where it was due, [Alice] had very good reasons to worry. Their [Mana] had been siphoned out of them and cleaned before being shoved back. She wasn't sure if that could change her...

 

Actually... Before moving on Elizabeth caught a look at the note [She] had left behind...The writing was different from hers for some reason?

 

But the note's message was obvious. "[Check your mana for influences]?" Why had she written that?

 

She wasn't sure...But since [She] had written it, perhaps it held some merit?

 

So Elizabeth would do that, "Why not...It was me asking for it anyway." And said to herself while focusing on her [Mana] she tried to do what she had done before as [Alice]. First flood her mana from the core of her [Soulscape] then flush it out...

 

"...What?" Said the girl while opening her eyes and looking at her reflection, there the blonde girl could see her flabbergasted face looking back at her. "...What the hell?"

 

Her mana felt...[Sluggish] Something was stopping her from working it right. It felt as if her [Skills] were fighting her against it. She summoned her [Status] and read it over, all her skills were still there, nothing new nor different was there...

 

Even her [Mana Attuned] skill that gave her the [Mana Manipulation] was there......

 

"Oh...OOOOOOHHH." She felt like an idiot, of course, the stupid skill was there. That was what allowed her to use her [Spells] like programs.

 

Right...She tried to use her [Skill] to do the deed unlike [Alice] who just worked the [Mana] by [Feels]. So she tried to do the same, she stopped giving orders to the [Skill] and sat down on the floor in a meditation position.

 

She didn't need to do that as [Alice] for some reason, but now? Now she felt...Slower.

 

She didn't want to give credit to [Her], but she now could [Feel it] too, her train of thought was...Blurred, as if something was affecting her. But why? She had been born like this, she was sure.

 

She had seen the pictures! She always had these blue eyes, this blonde hair...This adorable face!

 

[Alice] was the different form!

 

Why was she...

 

"[Focus]" Said a voice in her head, she didn't recognize it, but it brought her back from the spiral of self-hate she had started...Why had she started that?

 

She instead focused on the mana, the ethereal energy that was inside her [Core], she prodded it, nudged it, and tried to metaphorically lick it even, but she didn't manage the last one sadly.

 

Instead when she had enough control over the stupid thing, she started flooding her [Soulscape] with it, somehow unlike when she did it as [Alice] the thing didn't start billowing out and instead trickled up slowly.

 

Thanks to that she managed to find it starting out from...The library. She had thought it would start in the laboratory half, but instead, it started from the library.

 

She even had time to feel how Alexa ran towards a metallic door and closed it behind her when the mana started to fill out the library, and saw how it slowly crossed to the reception...Then to the laboratory...

 

And started flooding everything inside her [Soulscape], when everything was nice and flooded in her mana, she took a few minutes to get used to the feeling, whatever had affected her was messing around in her [Soulscape].

 

And she was iffy about if it was or not her [Skills], granted she remembered the [Threats] in the [Notifications]...But still...

 

So she instead of flooding outwards flexed her metaphorical muscle and drained the mana back into the core, then...Slowly build it up once more. She was getting used to the feeling of how her mana billowed slowly from deep within the library.

 

She repeated that mantra for half an hour till she got used to it and could now fill her [Soulscape] to the brim and drain it in half a second, she had gotten some idea of a [Foreign] mana in her [Soulscape] but the thing always stayed near the bottom of the [Library].

 

And she pretended to not notice it for now, and "Okay, one last time." Said the blonde girl while stretching on the floor, she closed her eyes without looking at the mirror, she wasn't reflected on it since that one wasn't a full-body one anyway.

 

So she didn't notice how she looked, instead, she focused on her [Soulscape] and drained the mana from it, and condensed it into the smallest form possible at the base of the library. She hadn't pinpointed where in the [Library] her mana came from, only that it was near one of the walls on the east side.

 

"[Flood]" And with a command fueled by [Idea] she flushed with all her might the [Soulscape] in an instant it was all covered in [Mana] and she didn't stop at that, unlike before she [Forced] all the mana to billow to the outside.

 

To the void outside her [Soulscape] her mana forced everything not nailed to the floor...Metaphorically speaking obviously. In the real world nothing had changed, a blonde girl was still sitting on the floor meditating with her eyes closed.

 

But in her [Soulscape]?

 

The orb of [Shadows] that represented the [Soulscape] was leaking mana, and inside that mana was a [Worm] that got flushed to the outside. Elizabeth caught the sight of the thing and recoiled at the mental image of it, but as soon as the thing was outside she closed the valve and looked at her [Status].

 

"30% mana loss...How much mana did I lose when I did it before?" Wondered out loud the girl while standing and looking at her reflection in the mirror.

 

She had done so at reflex since she liked to check herself to see if something needed fixing (She had a reputation to keep), "...What?" But right now she didn't pay attention to her appearance.

 

Not how disheveled she looked, not how her hair needed some fixing...No...

 

"Why are my eyes red?" But to her eyes, her normally blue eyes were shining red right now.

 

The color was fading true, and she could see some signs of dark veins around her eyes going into her face that were...Healing?

 

Was healing the right word? She didn't know, but the things were disappearing too. Almost like cracks in her [Face].

 

She...She didn't know what to think or feel, she wondered...If those were cracks...What would be shown behind them...Would it still be her?

 

Would it be [Alice]?

 

Would it be someone else? She...She didn't want to know...Maybe [Alice] would, but she didn't...

 

The only thing she wanted was to laze around...Not...Not whatever this was, this felt like something one of those [Protagonists] of Mother's stories would deal with. She...She was just a girl trying to get by.

 

Elizabeth dropped to the floor and hugged herself while silently sobbing, she really wasn't sure what to think about that, nor about [Alice]...She was half tempted to use the [Shift] and let her other self deal with the dread...

 

But in the end, she stopped herself and sat down in the room alone. Her mother hadn't raised a weak girl...And father had taught her to be stronger than this.

---

She wasn't sure how long she had stood there in the dark room, at some point her shadow had elongated and the little girl, Beatrice, had risen from it and scurried outside the room.

 

She had asked her about something and she remembered how after nodding her shadow had stretched and some scouts had flown outside, one was missing though... Probably the one that had stayed behind for her [Skill] to work.

 

The poor thing now was stuck in the lair of [Echidna], which made her smirk at the idea, she was probably among the very few who had a way to teleport into the maws of a [Villian] lair...

 

"Hah...Papa would be proud..." Said the girl while smirking to herself.

 

She wasn't crying anymore at least, and it seemed as if she had moved herself to the base of her bed at some point?

 

She wasn't sure when, but she was no longer sitting in front of the mirror... Her mirror that now was covered by a blanket of shadows. A flex of her will made the thing disappear and she saw her reflection, her eyes no longer red and once again blue.

 

No weird cracks on her face either.

 

"Eli-Eli?" And the voice of her Rossie caught her by surprise.

 

She turned her eyes to her watch seeing it was almost midnight!

 

Rossie should have been at home almost two hours ago!

 

Had the pink-haired girl been asking for her? Did she ignore her?

 

"Are you awake? Beatrice said you were..." Said her girl friend from behind the door while slowly opening it.

 

She was in full panic mode now, a quick look into the mirror showed her eyes puffy from her sobbing of before, so she summoned the hoodie [Alice] had used and put it on with the hood on "Coming!" trying to hide her eyes bellow the hood.

 

"There you are!" Said the pink-haired girl beaming at her, she tried to act as normal as possible.

 

"Yeah, just woke up, the [Induction] was...More than expected so I ended up too tired...I will just take a shower and sleep again I think." Said Elizabeth while trying to not show her face to Rossie.

 

For her part, the pink-haired girl just seemed to look at her, as if examining something only she could see, her pink eyes almost as if analyzing everything from top to bottom. Elizabeth slowly tried to close the door only to find the foot of Rossie there stopping it.

 

"Eli-Eli..." Said the pink-haired girl, "...No matter what I'm here for you okay?"

 

Elizabeth just grabbed the top of the hood and tried to get it down to cover her face, "...I know Rossie..." And gently pushed the foot of the pink-haired girl away from the door, "It's nothing too serious...I just found some stuff about myself that got me by surprise."

 

And after doing so she closed the door, then with her back against the door, she dropped to the floor, a smile on her face. Of course [Her Rossie] would be there for her.

 

She wasn't alone, and there was still Mother and Father...Perhaps Alexanders and Alexa could be counted?

 

Alexanders was in the same boat as her with the [Mind manipulation] if nothing else, so he should be on her side...Alexa...

 

Well, the little girl should be on their side too...She was the [Sister] of Alexanders after all...Actually...Why was...?

Perhaps she could skip the whole [Magical Girl] thing since she had already gotten the bad notes on the testing anyway?

But that was maybe overkill...She hadn't gotten that much of a bad effect in her [Magical Girl] form after all...And with the way to purge the [Taint] already on her arsenal, she would be able to deal with any bad effect...

 

Besides...The [System] while it had threatened her...It also helped her...

 

"Yeah...That is helpful..." Said the blonde girl while summoning her [Shift] menu.

 

There four slates showed up, first was the original shift she had...The black outfit she didn't use again...But that she couldn't get rid of for some reason.

 

Then her [Elemental Weaver] outfit, it was cute and it helped bring out her blue eyes more than ever...

 

Afterward, two pretty similar ones, neither had [Nodes] to prevent identification nor any of the things a normal [Magical Girl] would have since they were supposed to be for [Powereds].

 

First [Shadow Empress] then her normal form [Alice].

 

Without her skills these wouldn't be possible...Or not that easily anyway, would she even be a [Magical Girl]?

 

She...wasn't sure, she knew that she had the [Skill] to manipulate mana...But her [Alice] form seemed to be able to do so without help from the [System]...

 

And she had seen Zoe do the same...Even if she had arrived from a pure [Skill] approach...

 

She...Wasn't sure, her reflection looked back at her as if trying to imply that she was forgetting something?

 

A shadow of her [Alice] persona seemed to be back behind her screaming at her, but after trying to think what it was and not finding anything she decided to go and take a shower.

 

It was probably the stress of having been crying, such a silly thing...Why would she cry only because she had red eyes for a few minutes, she hadn't even seen anything out of the ordinary after her eyes flashed red for a second.

 

It was probably stress or something, she was feeling as if she was forgetting something though. But just to make sure...

 

She flushed her [Core] trying to get rid of any influences in her...When nothing came back she walked to the bathroom, this room had its own personal bathroom...

 

With a small shower in it, it wasn't as big as the communal bathroom in the apartment, but it was more private...And right now...She wanted to not think much of anything and just take a slow shower...

 

When she passed by one of the mirrors it was covered in shadows but she decided to ignore it.

 

[Something] told her it was a bad idea to take the shadow curtain down, so she didn't!

 

It was probably nothing important right?

 

Not like her eyes were shining red or something...Nor was her face covered in shadowy cracks. Yeah...she wasn't the protagonist of a story or something, such silly things those thoughts.

 

If anything she was in need of some moisturizing, her skin seemed to be cracking when she took her shirt out... Maybe Rossie had some?

 

She would ask her later, but for now, she would shower and go to sleep!

 

Tomorrow would be a busy day since she had [Magical Girl] work with her Rossie after all ★.