Mistwoven Healer

Unbeknownst to the people of Japan, untold amounts of formless mana begins to both collect on and sweep outward from the island in a massive tide in the early morning, marking the beginning of its journey across the globe. The mana is invisible to all but certain sentinels and volcora with the ability to see, hear, or otherwise sense it; however, all magically sensitive beings are able to feel its coming.

Japan is just one of the thousands of places affected by the global phenomenon, and the reports of the sentinels therein aren't any different than those from sentinels worldwide. Nothing currently on Earth has the senses to notice the complex web of natural magical formations occurring over the island. In fact, the only ones who do notice are a select few of the most powerful centurions, and even they can only see the forming nexus due to having been watching for it specifically.

Within the dimension known as Eidolos, the Council of Nine watches with smug satisfaction as the seeds they planted come to fruition. The Volcoran Alliance has already pulled a great deal of their forces from Japan, shipping them across the ocean to Australia.

Due to the massive conflict on the Australian continent and the truly unmatched protegees the sentinels there have turned out to be, it was assumed that the Earth's nexus would form there. The continent has many powerful sentinels and many more powerful Volcora, all warring for dominance across its landscape — all that power in one general location made for strong odds that the nexus would form there.

However, months ago, the Council found a way to manipulate that outcome. With enough powerful connections to Earth, all focused on one particular point, the Council could leverage their combined might to force the nexus to form exactly where they wanted it — in the planned location for the new Eidolon Isle.

Japan was chosen for several reasons: its favorable position, its relative unimportance in global affairs, and the fact that the Volcoran Alliance already considers the island nearly conquered, just waiting for a convenient moment for the final axe to fall.

The Alliance found out about the majority of the Council's children being sent to one specific city in Japan, of course, but the Council of Nine never once let on what their ultimate reasoning for sending their children there in the first place was. Even now, after their goal was accomplished, they hold information close in an attempt to slow its dispersal as much as possible. The longer it takes for the Volcora to realize where the nexus is actually forming, the longer the children will have to prepare.

When they realize what's happening, the Volcoran Alliance will be left with a difficult choice to make: abandon Australia to return and fight for the nexus or continue the war for the continent and give up that prize. Fighting for the nexus, however, would mean moving the vast majority of their armies to Japan, which would give the GDF time to reinforce the nexus, sentinels being much easier to transport quickly.

Either way, sentinel forces will hold the advantage so long as they continue to control the still-budding nexus, which is now situated directly in the center of Shinara. If the Volcora fight for the nexus, they will certainly lose Australia — whether they take the nexus or not — and if they fight for Australia, it will be made vastly more difficult due to the resources being supplied from the nexus.

The Council of Nine, of course, fully intend to win the battle on both fronts and have set themselves up for total victory. However, Althia does find a tinge of regret in her heart for having told Serena that the changes to come would be negligible. Information control is important in this critical stage, after all, and she can't have her daughter being the cause of the leak. Still, Althia can see how the lack of a proper warning might be… problematic.

Near the docks of Shinara, a small Japanese cherry tree sapling grows in a small crack in the pavement off to the side of the road. Still being incredibly small, the sapling looks more like a weed than a tree at the moment, but the loving care of the young girl who planted it has kept the sapling alive these past few weeks.

Being in the residential part of the docks — where dock workers live on the ground level of Shinara in order to have easier access to their place of work — the sapling is situated before the small home that the young girl shares with her father. While her father is often tired from work when he returns home, he always takes the time to indulge his little girl's curiosity about plants. No small portion of his earnings goes towards buying pots, seeds, fertilizers, and other such gardening materials.

Despite this, though, the man's daughter has always wanted to grow a tree, and for a long time, he simply didn't know how to accommodate this particular request. Their home has no yard, front or back, and there simply isn't anywhere to grow a tree. Still, he purchased the seed the sapling sprouted from and gave it as a gift to his daughter for her ninth birthday with the condition that she would be responsible for finding a place to plant the seed.

The sapling itself is not aware of any of this, of course. It simply knows that water and nutrients are delivered to it regularly. Despite this, and the girls best efforts, the location it was planted simply doesn't receive enough sunlight to properly sustain it. And so, while the sapling grows, it isn't healthy.

That is until, one day, mana begins to collect around the sapling in a dense swirling haze. To passing onlookers, it looks like the sapling is sparkling just slightly — as if someone covered it in glitter — but the fact that the mana is dense enough to be seen at all is truly remarkable.

Mana continues to build up around the sapling before being sucked into its roots, and over the course of the morning, the sapling begins to look much improved. More notably, however, the sapling begins to think.

Its first thoughts are a confused, jumbled mess. More a kind of base, animalistic intelligence than proper, ordered thought. However, even in this state, the sapling understands its purpose: to grow. So, while its thoughts are still messy, the sapling still knows what to do.

Over the course of an hour, it more than doubles in size and its root network quadruples. More than this, though, the sapling begins to use the mana suffusing it to make base improvements to its own function. By the time it's done, the sapling finds that it no longer needs much light, water, or really anything at all. Anything except for mana, which is now the main resource that the plant relies upon.

During this time, the sapling also finds its intelligence continuing to improve along with its senses. The sapling can now see all around it, feel the gentle breeze tugging on its tiny leaves, and smell the salty ocean air mixing with the smog flowing out from deeper in the city.

The smog, the newly intelligent sapling finds, is a problem. The chemicals within it damage its delicate leaves and will stunt its growth. However, the smog is mostly carbon dioxide, which the sapling can already process nicely. So, the sapling uses some of the mana constantly flowing around it to adapt itself to be able to make use of the other chemicals as well, pulling them out of the air and leaving clean air in their place.

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By the time the little girl returns from her school day in the mid-afternoon, the sapling that was once a tiny sprout is nearly as tall as she is. It bursts with leaves, sparkles in the light, and blooms with color.

Little Amyia's eyes go wide upon seeing it, looking up at the tree now before her, then down at the crack it grew from. While nothing she knows could explain how it grew so quickly while she was away, she is always learning new things about plant life. This will just be one more.

Still, deciding that her newly grown tree is likely thirsty from all the growing it's been doing, she rushes to fetch her watering can and fill it up from the sink.

Arriving back outside, she lovingly pats her new tree's trunk. "Don't worry, Florina. I'll take care of you," she says happily, beginning to water her most beautiful plant.

Florina looks back at Amyia, now remembering her own name and the little girl who cared for her all her life.

And while Amyia looks upon her tree with excitement, Florina looks back with love and gratitude.

Asumi sighs, wiping down yet another table at her family's restaurant and attempting to shake the exhaustion from her mind. Ever since her father decided to try and stay open until 3 AM every morning to better match their competitors, Asumi has found herself being worked half to death.

Having just graduated from high school and not having any better prospects, her father simply put her to work with her brothers, and tonight, she drew the short straw. Upon closing time, each of the four siblings would decide which of them would be required to stay even later to clean everything up while the others rested in order to be ready for opening in the morning. And tonight was Asumi's turn.

"Almost done," she murmurs, looking over the spotless front of the shop. Now, all that needs to be done is to organize today's shipment of food supplies in the freezer. It's a task she hates, but one she always saves for last due to the cold being able to keep her awake while she works.

So, in an exhausted haze, Asumi walks back into the kitchen and then tugs open the heavy door of the freezer. Luckily, there are only a few dozen boxes piled up in the walk-in freezer, so she should be able to get this wrapped up shortly.

With another sigh, she steps inside, hugging herself as the cold immediately begins to press in on her. Biting her lip and allowing the discomfort of the cold to keep her going, Asumi quickly gets to work and has every box organized and on its shelf within twenty minutes.

Smiling to herself in pleasure at finally getting to return home and get out of this awful cold, she heads to the walk-in freezer's exit and tugs on the door… then tugs again.

Swallowing, Asumi suddenly finds herself very much awake as she stares at the shut door before her — just a seed of worry growing in her heart. She pulls again at the handle, leaning back and throwing all of her meager weight into the effort. Nothing, the door doesn't budge.

By now, her seed of worry has bloomed into full-blown panic. Her phone is on the other side of that door, as is anything she could use to call for help. She pulls and pulls, throwing all of her weight into each effort. Then, shivering, she steps back to evaluate the door. Surely, there has to be some way out of this, right?

Hours later, Asumi's eldest brother Daizen unlocks the restaurant's door to begin his morning shift. Seeing everything wiped down and cleaned, he smiles at not having been the one to do it on this particular night and mentally thanks Asumi for her work.

Although, as Daizen walks into the back of the restaurant to toss down his bag in his father's small office, he frowns as he notices Asumi's bag and phone still there.

"Asumi?" he calls, looking around.

While Daizen notes his little sister's spray bottle and cleaning rag are still sitting out and haven't yet been put away, he can't find her anywhere in the restaurant. After checking every little corner to make sure she isn't there, he decides she must have forgotten her things when she left. However, that doesn't make sense to him either. Asumi would never leave her phone here, and her keys to the apartment are in her bag — she couldn't have gone home without them.

Eyes going wide and heart rate spiking, Daizen turns to the heavy metal door of the walk-in freezer — the only place he's yet to check. The latch is down over the door, and the small metal wall mount meant to keep it up lies broken on the floor.

"Asumi!" Daizen shouts, dashing to the locked freezer door and quickly throwing it open.

Just inside, he finds his little sister curled into a ball, unmoving. Her skin and lips are pale and slightly blue, and her entire body shimmers and sparkles as if covered in ice crystals. Asumi isn't shivering, which he isn't sure is a good or bad sign. She doesn't seem to be conscious, but her chest still rises and falls, showing that she's alive at least.

Eyes wide, Daizen quickly scoops his little sister into his arms before rushing her out of the freezer and into the warmth. Panicking and unwilling to let Asumi die, Daizen quickly produces his phone and calls emergency services.

Later that day, Asumi lies in her hospital bed, still unconscious but now completely surrounded by family. Despite all attempts to warm her, her body continues to shimmer as if covered in a layer of ice, and she feels ice cold to the touch. Despite this, Asumi appears perfectly healthy on all tests.

The doctors seem baffled by Asumi's condition, but Daizen refuses to leave her bedside. Silently, he vows to never let her close alone again.

Many kilometers away from Shinara, in an uninhabited bit of forest, a truly incredible amount of mana begins to swirl down from the sky in an invisible funnel cloud of magical power. And while the mana is nearly completely invisible, every living thing in the area can sense it.

Plants grow at a visible pace, warping and gaining a kind of animalistic intelligence. Animals grow larger and more intelligent, and some even begin to form the beginnings of the internal framework required to use the mana now invested within them as abilities. The true change, however, begins to occur under the ground.

Frequent small earthquakes quickly begin to affect the area, but instead of frightening the nearby wildlife away, more and more sprint for the mana-dense area, as if sensing the potential gains to be claimed.

The forest shakes and rattles, but none of the wildlife seems to mind, even as natural splits in the earth begin to form into a vast underground network — the ant colony that was once in the direct path of the mana flow expanding to incredible proportions.

Eventually, after hours upon hours have passed, the mana flow funneling into the area of forest begins to dissipate to something more akin to the flow of other points of power. However, the work of the massive amount of mana has already been completed.

Now, sitting lost within the tunnels of the former ant colony that now spans kilometers is a single smooth stone, resembling one might find in a river, and small enough to easily sit in even a child's palm. This stone, however, glitters and shines with brilliant golden light that doesn't just push away the darkness of the tunnels but negates it entirely.

No shadow, physical, magical, or otherwise, can stand true against the pure golden light of the Dawnseeker — that which purges all darkness.

From within her golden domain in Eidolos, Althia watches numerous points of power form across Japan and Shinara specifically with immense satisfaction. For now, the humans seem to just be putting the changes down as strange occurrences, and the few Volcora within the city have yet to realize exactly what's happening, not having the tools to properly measure the mana in Shinara when compared to other places in the world.

That will change soon. The Volcoran Alliance will likely find the location of the nexus within a week or two, but it will take them weeks more to properly react to it. By the time they do, Althia intends to make sure that Serena has had her pick of the potent artifacts popping up within and around the city.

Others will also be competing for them, of course. They will have to deal with volcora, their followers, and likely even other sentinels. However, soon, Althia intends to give her daughter a profound advantage.

After all, in a hunt for magical artifacts, what can be more advantageous than knowing exactly where to look?