Return of the Runebound Professor

Noah did what a god could not.

He fixed Aylin — or at least, he fixed the most pressing issues. A true repair to a demon’s soul would only come with the creation of a proper rune of self, but Sticky’s rune could be used as a very effective patch over. It would work to fix the vast majority of the demon race, and Noah could get around to helping the demons he personally cared about make real Self Runes when they weren’t on a time crunch.

The repairs were surprisingly easy. He only had a single Rank 3 Rune that was relatively new to his soul, so ripping it apart and replacing its demonic with the Fragments of Sticky proved to be simple.

And that was that.

The entire thing had only taken Noah about a minute. He’d jumped into the demon’s mind, patched him up, and hopped out. The Knowledge Demon had seemed a little loopy after the repairs. There were no external changes to his appearance, but something deep within Aylin’s eyes had shifted.

Noah didn’t press on the matter. He just sat down to think. There was a lot of thinking to be done in the near future. Thinking on what runes he would need to finish his combinations and advance to Rank 5. Thinking on his students and how he would protect them. Thinking on the Inquisitors. Thinking on Moxie — though those thoughts were liable to get away from him and best left for later.

He would have loved to just do every single demon one after the other, but the Fragment of Renewal limited him. It would only work once a day. He didn’t want to go around replacing runes without having a way to patch anyone’s soul up.

And so the first day wrapped to a close. And on the night of the second, while all the students were off with the other professors, Brayden sat down beside Noah.

The two of them were silent for quite some time.

“This is strange,” Brayden finally said, breaking the silence as he shifted his weight and cracked a stick beneath him. “Every time we meet, you seem different.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Depends on who you ask,” Brayden replied with a small smile. “I can’t help but find it strikingly ironic that Vermil died failing to summon a demon and now you’ve taken his body and used it to bring back an entire squadron of them.”

“Life is strange that way, isn’t it? I do still feel a bit bad about the whole Vermil thing.”

“About killing him?”

“No. About lying to you. There aren’t many Linwicks I actually think much of. The vast majority of them are insufferable pricks. Vermil got what was coming to him. I’m not much a fan of Father either — but you’re different. You looked out for the kids while I was gone.”

“That was more Jalen than me.”

“He’s an insufferable prick in his own way,” Noah said with a small smile. “But his help doesn’t invalidate yours.”

Brayden grunted. “Janice isn’t half bad either. She’s just… dedicated. But I was just doing my job. A lot of nobles have forgotten their duty, but that doesn’t mean we all have. We’re meant to protect people. That’s why the houses were established in the first place, back in the Long Night. The strongest mages grouped up to shield and train the weaker.”

“There’s a lot of bad that can be traced back to good intentions.”

“I hope that isn’t foreshadowing.” Brayden looked off in the direction that the students had gone off in. “Those demons are interesting. Nothing like what I thought they were… but at the same time, they’re not human.”

“I suppose that only remains to be found out. Good and bad can be pretty subjective. I don’t imagine the kingdom is going to think much of me if everything goes to plan. And demons are demons. I’m not trying to make them human. They are who they are.”

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“Well, if anyone can pull it off, it’s probably you. I couldn’t even imagine a world where demons and humans can live on the same plane. But that’s the benefit of not being from here. If such a future is really possible, I think I’d like to see it. And it might be wrong of me, but there’s a small part of me that’s happy you’re in Vermil’s body, Noah.”

“Really?”

That probably hadn’t been the best response to Brayden saying he was okay with Noah killing his brother, but Noah had been caught so off guard that the word slipped out before he could stop it.

“I know. Maybe it’s wrong of me, but I do mean it,” Brayden said. He looked up through the ashen branches overhead and into the late night sky above them. “Vermil was lost. Father destroyed him, and I let it happen. I was a bad brother. I didn’t try hard enough to keep him on the right path — so it makes a part of me happy to know that you’re giving him a legacy.”

Noah wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. It seemed that Brayden wasn’t expecting an answer. He pushed himself upright with a grunt and brushed the ash and dirt off his backside before stretching his arms over his head.

“Once this whole business is done, I’d like to learn more about who you really are,” Brayden said. “But I won’t take more of your time today. You’re going to need every second you can get if you’re planning to go up against the Inquisitors.”

“It’s not like I’m raiding their base,” Noah said, but Brayden was already walking away. The large man raised a hand in farewell before stepping into the forest in the direction of the other students.

Then the forest was quiet.

At least, it was for a few short moments.

Then Noah’s domain tingled. A delicate footstep pressed against the dirt behind him as someone walked up to the tree he leaned against. He didn’t have to turn to tell who it was.

“Yoru,” Noah said as she came to a stop beside him. “You aren’t with the others?”

“Their training is not useful for me at the moment. It requires the usage of Runes. My time was better spent here. You will not have time to repair all of our souls before your Rank 6 ally returns. You will have to choose the ones that attend the auction with you.”

“I’d gathered as much,” Noah said. “Are you saying you want to be one of them?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure? Fixing your runes is going to be… difficult. You’re a Rank 7, Yoru. The amount of damage you’ll take when I’m ripping your runes out and putting them back together will be really significant. I don’t know if it’s something we can even do in a single session. My plan was kind of to do it in stages, but we don’t have time for that.”

“I am the most useful demon to repair. Violet and Vrith will not provide a significant benefit in the auction.”

“I won’t argue that you’re powerful, but are you even sure you’d survive me cutting you up all at once? Did you use your future sight to confirm it or something?”

Yoru sat down beside Noah. “No. I did not.”

That was a surprise. This felt like more of a reason to use her Master Rune than any other. What was the use of being able to see the most likely futures if Yoru couldn’t determine if she’d survive him messing with her soul?

“Why?”

“Because Moonlit Prophecy did not want me to be here,” Yoru said quietly. “I do not want to be here.”

“But—”

“And that is why I must be here. It is why you must fix me. I have withdrawn my power from Moonlit Prophecy so that it cannot interfere, but I do not know how long I will be able to resist its pull. I cannot check the future. If I do, I fear I will not have the willpower to release it again.”

“I respect that, Yoru. A lot. And if you’ve done it once, you can do it again. I want to fix you, but I think we should do it properly. Rushing to get you ready for the auction could just end up killing you. I don’t want that to happen. This is a repair that has to take place over several days.”

“I do not believe that will be possible.”

Noah looked up to Yoru. And, for the first time, he realized that there was something dripping down the sides of her face, dripping from beneath her mask. Trails of blood glistened against her skin and soaked into her shirt.

He shot to his feet. “What did you do?”

“I anticipated that you would be unwilling to risk my life. I am too great of an asset to waste, so I accelerated the process. My runes are already shattered. My soul is currently crumbling under its own mass. If it is not repaired within minutes, I will die.”

“Son of a — you idiot,” Noah snapped, grabbing Yoru by the shoulders. The Fragment of Renewal was almost ready to be called upon after his work with Aylin. Yoru had timed everything to make sure he didn’t have a chance to fix a different demon first. “I can’t tell if you’re selfish or a genius.”

“That would depend on if you succeed. If not, then I will just be dead.”

Noah pushed Yoru down to sit against the tree, adrenaline rushing through his veins as he reached for Empty Proliferation and he grabbed his grimoire. Noah flipped it open to one of the copies of the Fragments of Sticky that it had made using power from the other runes stored within its pages.

Yoru really hadn’t left him with much option. He had no choice but to do everything he could to repair her soul while he still had a chance.

“You’re getting scolded once I get through this,” Noah said.

Then activated Empty Proliferation.

He had a Rank 7 demon to rebuild from the ground up.

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