A black-haired woman with a qipao and turquoise eyes stood in front of an amorphous mass of blood and flesh, who despite desperately trying to stay alive, failed to do so.
"Another failure..." she muttered, looking at the data she recollected, data that would surely prove to be useful. "But still not enough."
Despite obtaining valuable data, the woman's expression didn't change, as her dream was still quite far away.
Aeons...
The only word that could stir her heart, carrying a desire that would never stop pushing her to strive to understand them.
A word that sparked that feeling of need within her that made the whole grey world gain some colour.
After all, Ruan Mei wanted to understand the origin of life.
Her investigation, as some would call her desperate search of the understanding of the life of the beings mortals called Aeons, had drawn the gaze of one of them, Nos, the Erudition.
She had accepted entering the Genius Member Society in hopes of obtaining some information or clue that would help her in her path, but it had been all for nought, all she had gotten had been a subscription to what could very well be a monthly magazine, the monthly letter she received proved that.
And yet, there had been a letter that got her attention, one that was eerily close to her thoughts and plans, so close that she had to double-check that the sender wasn't another version of herself.
'Aeon' had been the word that caught her attention, and the rest had intrigued her.
Ruan Mei was a biologist, even if her intellect allowed her to branch out to numerous fields as her collaboration with Herta and Screwllum to make the Simulated Universe proved, but her speciality resided in creating and manipulating bodies.
After thousands of tries to craft the body of an Emanator, she had turned up to be the foremost expert in that area in the whole universe, but even that had not proved to be enough.
And that was what was required of her now.
"A body able to grow along a soul" she read aloud, looking at the elegantly written letter.
That didn't interest her, she couldn't care less about a random soul, but the letter had something more.
'A soul that may evolve to be an Emanator of an Aeon' was what was written.
She was now curious, after all, Emanators may be the clue to understanding what kind of beings Aeons are, as Emanators held within them the power of an Aeon.
She didn't even need to think, she packed up the minimum things she would need and left.
'Keith', that was the soul's name.
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"Keith"
"What now?" asked a dark-faced Keith. "Kafka, as much as I enjoy our usual banter, I'm too pissed off now. This stupid body is getting worse with every single day."
"Hmmm" Kafka softly smiled pondering what she should do.
Pissing Keith off was nice, and something told her that should she poke fun at him now, the man's reaction would be incredibly amusing, but she had her orders.
"We are leaving to Mythra" she said, making Keith look at her. "There is a member of the genius society there, Ruan Mei."
"....so?" asked Keith with a raised eyebrow. "That Dr Ratio was an asshole, and Herta made me this useless body, my opinion of them is not so high right now."
"You should at least show some interest in the world you live in" commented Kafka. "She is quite a big shot."
"So are you" rebuked Keith. "Didn't the IPC raise your bounty even more?"
"What can I say?" replied Kafka, not showing any excitement by the notoriety she was gaining. "Didn't yours also rise?"
"It's okay, nobody knows of my identity" shrugged Keith. "The Masked Enigma will continue being one."
Keith sometimes needed to accompany Kafka in her 'jobs', but for the vast majority he was the one who found himself in the middle of an altercation due to various occurrences, so his fame as Kafka's 'companion' quickly spread.
And yet, Keith was not willing to forfeit all chances of sometime returning to the Express, so he hid his identity.
"We need to leave" said Kafka, turning around to the door with her high heels echoing in the room.
"Why do you still wear those?" asked Keith looking at the uncomfortable shoes. "And even more, why do you wear them to those missions you know will require combat?"
"Because you gave them to me" replied Kafka with a soft smile. "If it's going to be my last fight, I want you to be by my side to some degree."
"....." Keith looked at her with shock.
And Kafka looked back at him with a small smile, her purple eyes shining with affection.
".....it's incredible" muttered Keith, closing his eyes and rubbing his head. "You were able to give even a puppet like me nausea."
"I learned from a shameless person" replied Kafka with a smirk, all tenderness from her eyes disappearing.
"Still, that was too disgusting" replied Keith shaking his head. "The only thing you care about is following Elio's words and your jackets."
"They are great" said Kafka, touching the one she had with her now. "I love the soft feeling of velvet."
"Then be ready for my vengeance, because now I know what to target" commented off-handedly Keith.
"The moment you touch my jacket is the moment only a head will be left of you" said Kafka in the same tone.
And yet, both of them knew the other was serious.
"Let's leave before I put a slime in your jacket" said Keith, making Kafka's eyes twitch. "But you made a mistake with your teasing?"
"Did I?" asked the smiling Kafka, with a smile that carried a warning with it. Her jackets were not going to be messed with.
"Of course" replied Keith with a smirk. "You know, both the jacket you are wearing and those heels were what I gave you last year."
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"Mythra, what a beautiful name" said Keith looking at the planet he found himself in. "For such an ugly place."
"How so?" asked Kafka looking around for the signs Elio told her to look for.
"We have been through too much to not know when a place reeks" replied Keith looking around with a frown.
Shifty gazes, whispered murmurs, and inspecting looks revealed that in one way or another, they were going to get in trouble today.
Not that it mattered, with Kafka any possible trouble would be solved in a second with her Spirit Whisper, but it was just annoying.
And with his faulty 'body', doing anything physical was a nightmare.
Kafka only hummed in agreement, but seeing the place they were supposed to be, patter Keith's shoulder.
Clang
"Pick up your arm and follow me" said Kafka to the dark-faced Keith, and entered a nearby building with a signboard depicting a dog.
"Dammit, she did it on purpose" grumbled Keith, but followed the purple-haired gir- woman now.
After a few years together, Kafka had already grown up to be a charming woman, one that drew gazes to her just by walking through a street.
The insides of the building were deserted, and its abandoned appearance made Keith question the necessity of meeting here. But he was just the ordered guy, nothing he could do.
"Can't you tell me what is our business with Ruan Mei?" asked Keith walking up to the woman and glancing around.
"No" she replied, and spotting a black-haired woman with an inexpressive face, she walked up to her. "Ruan Mei, I guess."
Said woman, wearing a blue and white qipao, stood up and inspected Kafka for a second.
But seeing the man walking behind the woman with a grimace and trying to reattach the arm, she lost interest in the purple-haired woman.
"I don't like that look" said a cautious Keith feeling Ruan Mei's intense stare. "I feel like I'm going to be a lab rat."
"You might be of some use that way" commented Kafka with a smirk. "After all, you just fall to the ground by walking."
"Keith" said Ruan Mei, and seeing Keith's wary nod, she now had her prey identified. "We will start now."
"Start what?" asked Keith, liking the look in Ruan Mei's eyes less and less.
"The study" replied the black-haired woman, crouching to get the suitcase behind her.
"Nobody will come to this building in 3 hours" said Kafka, revealing the reason for meeting in this building. "Feel free to study and dissect him as much as you want, but you should already know about the limits."
Ruan Mei didn't reply, busy as she was setting her tools.
"I will need some confirmation" said Kafka with her half-smile Keith knew meant trouble. "It's not like I don't understand your desire to study Keith, but I will be forced to move should you trespass the limits you agreed to by coming here, and I don't want to antagonize the Genius Society."
"I understand" said Ruan Mei with an inexpressive voice.
"And I don't believe you" said Keith with a frown. Even if his ability didn't detect any lie, the inexpressiveness the woman showed was concerning at best, and alarming at worst. "But why am I going to be a subject about some weird study? Even more when I didn't hear about it."
"Well, she is the best biologist, in a way, in the whole universe" said Kafka, smiling when she saw how Keith opened his eyes in understanding. "I thought you were too tired of your body."
"Please beautiful lady" Keith immediately took a step closer to Ruan Mei and opened his arms. "Study me all you want, just give me a body I can go to the toilet with."
To her credit, Ruan Mei's face didn't even twitch, but once she had set up all his devices, pointed at them.
"Lay down" she said, moving to one side of the complex machinery that looked like a capsule.
"How the hell did you store all this in a suitcase?" asked Keith, but promptly complied.
He wanted a body after all, one he could run with.
But as always, Ruan Mei didn't reply to what she didn't care about.
SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIING
With a high-pitched noise, the device Keith was lying in started shining and trembling, getting data only Ruan Mei didn't know the nature of.
30 minutes passed, and the device started to release smoke, making Kafka narrow her eyes.
She didn't know what Ruan Mei was doing, but as she was following Elio's orders, she just waited.
But that was the problem, the moment Keith was involved in her missions, Elio's orders had the usefulness of a diamond in a desert.
"Done" said Ruan Mei, ignoring the hesitant look in Keith's eyes.
"So, can you build me a body I can use?" asked Keith with eagerness in his voice.
But as always, Ruan Mei ignored him in favour of looking at the results she got, and for the first time, her face showed some expression other than her default white one.
Doubts and concentration.
Because the data made no sense to her.
Keith's soul had 'something' within it that didn't correspond with any known Aeons, and the signal was way too different from what she had seen from the corpses of other Emanators.
To her, it seemed that this 'something' she was detecting wasn't an Aeon at all.
In fact, she had only been able to detect it because there had been a black hole in Keith's soul and her device hadn't been able to obtain anything from that area.
It was a first for her, who thought she was able to at least detect everything in a being's core, or soul as some wanted to call it.
But there was something else that caught her attention.
"Your soul is growing" she said looking at Keith's grey eyes. "The puppet you are using is attuned to your soul, but when your soul grows creates a dissonance between your boy and soul, causing it to malfunction."
"Is that even possible?" asked Keith, but his attention was still put on Ruan Mei's response.
"No" replied Ruan Mei making Kafka frown in thought.
She didn't know about Keith's peculiarity and the reason for Keith being able to obscure fate, only Elio knew about it and she hadn't asked, but even she knew souls didn't grow.
Her own ability akin to hypnosis, Spirit Whisperer, interacted with the 'Spirit', or soul, to force her target to obey her commands so she wasn't a complete novice about souls.
And she knew souls didn't grow at all, which made Keith's case a lot more special.
"Can you craft me a body or not?" asked Keith with a tinge of hope in his voice.
"Yes" replied Ruan Mei, and pressed a button on the device.
And Keith fell unconscious after his soul was forcibly out 'asleep'.
Ruan Mei went to another suitcase and started rummaging through it under Kafka's watchful gaze.
"I need to put his soul to sleep if I want to move it to another body" said Ruan Mei, who now had all her attention on the task at hand.
She was a biologist, which meant that even if she had a rudimentary knowledge of souls, her speciality was still living creatures.
So her plan was to stuff Keith's abnormal soul into a body she could study, a body that would be able to grow with him and show her the evolution of such a particular and powerful soul, the stronger the better.
And Ruan Mei, the best biologist in the world, crafted her masterpiece.
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"Here again" mused Keith looking at the desolate scene.
A withered tree with dried up 'fruits', a vast expanse of dried grass and a cloudy sky that blocked the view of the possible stars or sun, making it seem like it was night.
"Well, better wait to get up again" Keith shrugged, and turned around to sit beneath the tree.
There was something about this tree that filled Keith with sadness, as if he had lost something, and the longer he stood here, the stronger that sensation got.
"Uh-Uhmm"
A soft inquisitive hum made Keith perk his ears.
He wasn't alone here.