After only a few days, results were showing. Which was a relief, because we were coming up on two weeks spent training.
Around this time was when I had gotten to the North with Alyssa after rushing there. It was also when I had met Rin, and when the Infectious Winter started to truly worsen and take over the area.
I was worried about her.
Sure, I had only known her for a few days, at most, but she saved my life. She fed me. She gave me a place to stay, and a reason to not just die and move on to my next life.
If left, she'd just happily finish writing out the last of her entries, and then die, alone, in a cold apartment.
When I thought about her dying like that in all of the other Regressions where I never met her...I couldn't help but feel a twisting not in my stomach.
I opened my eyes a peek, looking at Alyssa who was sitting on my left, and Jay, who was sitting directly in front of the both of us.
Alyssa was still struggling with focusing while sitting in place. Unlike Jay and I, who were beginning to get the hand of meditating while carrying out constant breathing exercises, she struggled with the idea of focusing for such a long amount of time at all.
"Mr. Manager..."
I shuddered at hearing Jay's voice. I slowly looked forward, only to notice those pitch-black eyes staring right back at me, an eerie smile spread across Jay's beautiful face.
"An extra hour of meditation for you."
"...alright."
"P-Pfft!"
I could hear and see Alyssa barely holding back her laughter next to me, shaking with the attempt. I was sure Jay could notice it too, but they didn't acknowledge it at all.
'What is this blatant favoritism?'
-----
The days passed, and, more and more, I felt my mind becoming sharper and sharper...Jay was following suit, no, they were slightly ahead of me.
Still...
"You're progressing surprisingly fast, Mr. Manager." Jay told me one day. "Your foundation isn't as well-established as mine, but...still, it's like you've been meditating for months already."
I couldn't really tell them the truth. After all, how much sense would it make to admit that I've done intense meditation for months when the world after the apocalypse hadn't even been around for a single month?
"Well...let's just say that meditation has always interested me."
I lied, to which Jay seemed immediately suspicious of, but thankfully didn't question. Instead they looked to Alyssa.
She was finally catching up with us, instinctively following the proper breathing that we had laid out for ourselves. Though she was still having trouble keeping long periods of focus, which is why she was the only one left still meditating while we had already finished a few hours for the day.
"I'm sorry to make her holiness go through something so fundamentally opposed to her nature...but if it really will help us weather the storm that is this new world better, then I'm inclined to do as many hours of practice as we can."
I nodded.
"I'm with you there. Besides..."
I looked down at my body. With the mental image I had created of it during the last regression, I could tell - something was there. Changing. Like every breath I had taken was slowly, but surely, drawing some invisible something into every centimeter of my body.
It wasn't a lot. Just enough to sense it. But that was a mountain of progress already.
"I think we're going to see the results of this training soon enough. Hopefully."
-----
Finally, after a week...
"-!"
Nearly both at the same time, perhaps because of our now synchronized meditation, Jay and I both felt it.
With each breath, not just air, but a small amount of some energy, now visible to our eyes, was entering us - stored within some place deep within our cores.
"This is it...!"
I opened my eyes. It immediately disrupted the flow of energy, but I didn't care. "This has to be it. Inner energy!"
Jay looked down at their small hands in amazement, opening and closing their fists. They seemed able to maintain the flow much more easily, even now that they were speaking.
"'Inner energy'...that's what this mysterious thing is called? It's amazing...I've never been quite strong, but I can already feel the vitality surging through me..."
"That's great and all for you guys, but could you shut up? I'm tryin' to focus over here."
Alyssa's voice broke through our momentary celebration, and the two of us chuckled, embarrassed, and headed off while leaving her to continue meditating.
"Still, I lost it as soon as I stood up...isn't that going to be a problem?" I asked, looking at Jay, They shook their head, a mysterious smile on their face.
"Not necessarily. That just means that there's another step of training waiting for us. Thankfully, we should be able to practice it while traveling, this time."
Jay reached out their hand for a high-five.
"Are you ready?"
I grinned.
"Aw, hell. You know I'm always ready no matter what we've got ahead, teach!"
I slapped their hand, and I knew then, there was no way we would lose to that damn polar bear.
Still, I couldn't help but give a worried glance backwards, and so did Jay. The Saintess was stuck, and we had no idea how to help her.
The fact that the 'idea of God' was already beginning to try and infiltrate her mind and soul wasn't any help.
-----
"Ngh...damn it..."
I grumbled under my breath, while watching Jay and that damned Manager walked away.
'How can I be this slow at getting this 'inner energy' stuff? I can't take this meditating crap anymore...it's really grating at my nerves.'
If you give yourself to me, I can help yo-
'Shut it, you creepy ass. Nobody gave you permission to stick around in my mind.'
With a bout of focus, the voice was carried away into the winds of silence yet again.
I sighed, my eyebrows furrowing as I restarted the process of getting into 'meditation' mode for what felt like the hundredth time this day.
I thought of the sight. Of the Manager and Jay smiling and walking away. Celebrating something I couldn't even begin imagining.
Then, my mind immediately returned me back to that place. The darkness. All of that yelling and abuse...losing every single friend I had just because I became different to them. Having my own family abandon me.
'Fuck...just let me get this over with, please...'
I bit my lip, hard. I didn't even notice the fact that it had started bleeding.
The Manager's stupid, smiling face. Jay's weird, but somewhat cute demeanor. The fact that they were all she had, in this fucked-over world...and that they were all a person like her might ever have.
'I don't want to get left behind again...'
Impure. It's because you're impure. My Devil.
'SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!'
My eyes flung open. Of course, nothing was there. I grit my teeth, washing away the voice with another bout of mental focus.
I almost said that out loud.
"This shit is really driving me insane..."
I muttered to myself, forcing my mind to again enter 'meditation' mode. Today was going to be long. But I didn't want to give up. I couldn't.