"What the hell?!" he exclaimed, and he immediately seized both of the girl's wrists, pulling them to him and away from his sword, which remained planted on its spot. "What the hell was that?! Are you crazy?!"

  "Aether won't work," she said, looking at him dead in the eye with an intensity that took some of the wind out of his sails. "It won't work because it's not close enough to life force for my Od to properly reject it. So I just need something that is similar enough."

  Beneath Kurt's feet, the ground churned, and a thin root emerged from between Mila's feet. The wooden appendage coiled itself around Silver Demon's handle and, surfacing more of its form in the process, raised the sword, its blade piercing through the space between Kurt and Mila's arms, causing Kurt to wince back, but not to let go of the girl.

  "You used Primeval magic," Mila continued, unbothered by the proximity between the sword and her face. "But that won't work for me. But there's something that has some very good chances of doing so: Your life force."

  Kurt's eyebrows shot up in shock, and his hold on the girl's wrists loosened enough for the girl to free herself. His eyes went to the blade, his gaze centered on the line of red that was quickly slipping off the supernaturally grime-repellant metal, and, as he observed it, his mind pieced together the plan Mila was proposing to him.

  And, much to his chagrin, about how good an idea it was, despite everything else about it.

  "A blood pact," he said experimentally, almost hoping for Mila to shake her head and propose her real plan.

  Instead, she nodded, her expression earnest, her eyes never leaving his for a moment.

  "Life force is like blood, right?" she began. "And, just like blood, you can't simply pass it from one person to the other just like that, because there could be a rejection. Maybe, if we cause a rejection on purpose, and with me trying to take hold of my Od while that happens, then maybe I could grasp Pneuma." Something like shame appeared on her face, and she averted her eyes almost demurely. "It's a bad plan, I know, but it's the only thing I could think about."

  "No," Kurt said, shaking his head softly. "It is not a bad plan. In fact, it is the best idea we have by far." His eyes went to the blade once more. "And you better believe I'm telling you the truth, because I really want it to be a bad plan, because then I could reject it. But, since I can't..."

  He pressed his right thumb against the blade and, just like Mila had, threw his hand down, leaving a line of red on the edge of the blade opposite to the one Mila had used. Despite the slight pain, Kurt felt a weird satisfaction at the sight of the symmetry his blood had brought to the blade.

  Grabbing the handle and the root twined around it, Kurt pushed both out of the way and turned completely, so that he had one leg at either side of their 'bench', as if he were riding a horse. Then, he stuck his bloody thumb out and his arm forward.

  Catching up quickly, Mila imitated him, and soon their equally bloodied thumbs were but half an inch apart, with neither Kurt nor Mila braving to close the distance. Kurt looked at Mila and saw on her face a sudden influx of doubt, and a fair amount of blushing.

  After a tense few seconds, Kurt decided to be the brave one. First, he quickly roused up his Od and focused it on his thumb, marking each action with a deep inhalation and exhalation, respectively, even though he no longer needed to breathe to use Pneuma. Then, he pressed his thumb forward and against Mila's own. A slight and sharp pain rose from the point of contact, the normal reaction to putting pressure on an open wound, but Kurt cared very little about this. He had had far worse.

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  Mila, however, was certainly less accustomed to physical pain than he, as the slight narrowing of her eyes and gritting of her teeth were politely reminding him.

  "Are you okay?" he asked her. "Feel anything different?"

  Mila shook her head. "Just a bit of pain in my thumb," she said dejectedly, just as she began pulling her thumb back. "Sorry, I made you try something so disgusting for nothing. We can try something..."

  Kurt reached forward with his free hand and used it to press both their thumbs back together, enclosing them in a fist.

  "Wait a second," he said. "There is one thing else to try. Do you trust me?"

  Mila contemplated him in puzzlement and (slight) pain for a moment. A moment later, she nodded, smiling toothily. "Give it your best shot."

  Kurt scoffed through his smile and gave it his best shot.

  Driving his attention back to his thumb, and to the Od contained in it in particular, Kurt activated his preferred aspect of Pneuma and, though he could not see it through his closed fist, he felt the od-flares emanating from his thumb.

  Flaring was an advanced application of Pneuma, one that made use of the second level of mastery, which granted the ability to redistribute the life force throughout the body after it had been amplified. Only that, instead of redistributing one's life force while keeping it within the body, flaring dislodged it from the body, separating it from the flesh while still within the flesh.

  Under regular circumstances, manifesting life force outside a biological body would cause it to go through two simultaneous processes; it would cause it to turn into purely physical energy, but it would also cause it to weaken massively. Through the use of od-flaring, which separated Od from the flesh without expelling it, Kurt could cause his life force to go physical without weakening, granting himself a vastly superior measure of superhuman strength and resiliance than any other application of Pneuma could give him, at the cost of greater strain both on his life force and flesh, with the smokeless flames that gave the technique its name being simply the waste, the relatively small amounts of Od that exited the body before it could turn wholly physical only to complete the process on the surface of his skin, in the form of light and a very small amount of pressure.

  Today, Kurt was using that waste for a practical purpose.

  He felt the familiar pressure that came with the smokeless flames of his od, and immediately focused it on the slight cut on his finger. There was a feeling of release, and he felt the sense of strengthening vanish rapidly. On his mind's eye, the picture of what was happening was more than clear; by flaring in an area with an open, still bleeding wound, he had given the pressure an exit. He could imagime what was happening within his enclosed fist with great clarity: A great od-flare coming out from the cut on his thumb, like the flame of a blowtorch, alongside a fair amount of his blood, rendered invisible by the glow. And, since his finger was pressed against Mila's equally wounded one, that meant that both his Od and blood had nowhere to go but...

  Mila made a gutural, half-contained groan of pain-uhng!-and her face twisted in pain, cold sweat already shinning on her brow. And yet, she did not pull back, or ask him to stop. Even when the muscles on her forearm began twitching like the ones on a very fresh cut of meat, every strand of muscle dancing to its own tune, she did not pull back.

  "Mila!" Kurt called, his voice booming. "I think its working, you hear me? Your life force is acting up on its own! Now, I need you to take the reigns! Remember, you just have to breathe has deeply has you can!"

  Another groan escaped through the girl's gritted teeth, and she nodded. Letting herself fall back a bit, the only thing propping her up was her free hand, which was firmly planted on the section of root behind her, Mila took a deep breath, her nostrils expanding.

  The twitching on her arm stopped, and a sound like something being ripped apart exploded from behind Mila. However, before Kurt could question it, Mila breathed out, a ragged breath escaping from her lips, and everything around them moved with it.

  The root they were sitting on thrashed like a wild bronco, and they fell on an expanse of grass where every strand seemed to move with a fixed purpose, like the polyps of an anemonae, When Kurt propped himself up, he saw that a couple of trees-the ones closest to them- had begun to vibrate, as if they were experiencing an earthquake that only existed for them.

  It reminded Kurt of the stuff Ruth had managed to pull before Mila blocked her powers.

  And then, as quick as it had started, it stopped, and the forest fell in utter silence.

  "Kurt?" Mila caled, her voice weak, and when Kurt turned to her, he saw that she was lying bonelessly on the grass. But what really called his attention was the smile on her lips. "I did it, didn't i?"

  Kurt's eyes wandered to Mila's left hand, which was clutched into a fist, and settled onto the object held by it: A piece of wood, identical in color and texture to the root they had been using for a bench.

  "Yeah," he said, his mouth forming a smile of his own. "You very much did it, girl." His eyes then went to the second root Mila had summoned, the one that had held his sword, and found two changes on it; first, it had grown to at least twice its previous height.

  And second, it was no longer holding his sword, which was nowhere to be seen.

  "Uhm, Mila?" Kurt called, scanning the area around them, and he received a groan in response. "What you say we work on both our magical senses? Particularly any sword-finding features they might have."