26 Stuck in a Flask

'W-What the hell man?'

All she saw when she opened her eyes was dark yellow.

She could not see anything around her no matter how close something would be.

'Don't tell me it's another one of those flower trial situations.'

She tried to move but was unable to do so.

'Tch. Just has to be even harder than the last time.'

She tried to focus on her surroundings but that just gave her a headache.

'Damn.'

She grunted as she just kept staring forward.

'My body feels weaker, smaller too.'

Then she realized.

'Wait. Am I in one of those jam containers? I'm kind of dead though.'

As she thought of this, she focused her mind and tries to leave the place, sort of like projecting her consciousness outward.

It took a minute but she succeeded.

She felt as her body grew and she regained her senses and control.

Opening her eyes slowly, she looked around only to see a small crowd discussing something in front of her.

Looking back, she only saw a small container.

'Was I stuck in that small thing? It would explain why it felt so cramped.'

She floated closer and looked inside.

'The particles that I threw inside. They're moving towards the small thing in the middle.'

She observed closer.

'Wait a moment...'

She tried to get a better angle so she could see the thing in the middle of the container.

'That... that's a human person.'

Making a light popping sound with her mouth she looked at the embryo.

'Was I stuck in there? Is that me, but like, baby?'

She reached her hand towards it. As her hand went through the container and touched the body inside, she felt as if she was suddenly being suffocated. Almost as if she were drowning and her entire existence was filled to the brim, ready to explode.

'I feel... bad. Ugh.'

Holding her head, she looked at her hand with squinted eyes, trying to ignore the uncomfortable feeling and focus on something else for the time being.

'What?'

She was confused as the tip of her middle finger was gone. It was not a joint of her finger, technically not even a part of her finger.

The tip of her fingernail was slowly turning to particles and being absorbed by the small embryo inside the container. Just, extremely, very, very slowly.

She spent a minute looking at her finger.

'Don't tell me it's something like that Dragon situation. I ain't going to be slowly devoured by a literal unborn child am I?'

She looked at the embryo inside the container.

'Why is my afterlife filled with so much stress? Does the Universe hate me?'

She paced around in the air. Both upside down and sideways, walking in the air.

'I guess I can't take full control of the body yet. Too young maybe? Right now, I think I can only project my consciousness inside but nothing more.'

She thought as she turned away from the container, looking back at it a few times after as if it was going to come to life and move if she wasn't paying attention.

'My soul and the fragments of it inside of that container are probably slowly being absorbed as the body grows. I might actually be able to walk around in a body that isn't ethereal if it grows enough as a vessel for my soul.'

She sat down and glanced at the container before focusing on the small crowd.

'I just hope I'm the only soul that is trying to use this body. It would be awkward if someone else already lives inside. Not that I think the soul could even scratch me if the tip of my fingertip is already enough power to almost overload the body.'

She concluded.

'I think...'

Or rather, she hypothesised.

'Maybe the body is just so full because an overpowered being is already inside? No clue.'

She guessed, which stressed her out even more.

'Or maybe-'

Her thoughts were interrupted as the crybaby man slapped one of the people in the crowd and started yelling at them.

The man who was holding his cheek sat there stunned as the crybaby man yelled some unknown words at them while occasionally pointing and glancing at the two containers on the table.

'I wonder what that's about. Maybe arguing over my future body and the other container next to it.'

The crybaby man walked to the other room where the Lotus was squished into mush and came back with all of the syringes in a briefcase and the buff guard that was strengthened.

Pointing at the people in the crowd one by one, he said something or other to each of them before the guard walked over to the table with two extremely large suitcases and placed the two Q-Series containers into each of the suitcases.

The inside of the suitcases was mostly made of soft and buoyant material while also having a large amount of some kind of strong metal to make the suitcase as sturdy and easy to protect as possible.

After placing the two containers in the suitcases, he bit his finder until blood came out and dropped some blood on the suitcases.

The one where Q-Series 001 was in had two dark red pentagrams drawn on its sides while the one where the more important Q-Series 001 was in had quite a few pentagrams drawn on all of its sides.

'What did he just do? Lock them with magic? Why is my one so much more important?'

She wondered as she saw the guard walk back to the crybaby man while nodding.

As he reached him, the Dragon Slayer herself was also dragged along.

She fell on her face as she was dragged along the floor until she arrived a certain distance away from the suitcase.

'So I can't go too far. Also, Ow.'

She stood up and floated next to the guard while looking at the crybaby man who kept on talking to the small crowd.

'Can't understand a lot of what he is saying.'

She looked towards the guard who seemed to feel a little awkward just standing there.

'This guy is pretty relatable right now.'

She thought as she jokingly put on the same face as the man currently had.

After the crybaby man was done, he left with the guard while quite a few people from the crowd started walking and following him a moment later, some stayed, however.

'These guys are weird. Masochists, I don't understand them.'

She followed the group until they reached an elevator about half an hour later, nearly no one spoke during the walk.

'Since when has this been here?'

She wondered as the group entered inside and started going down.

'Down? Why are we going down?'

After a few minutes, the elevator stopped and what greeted the group was a gigantic facility.

At the wall where their elevator had stopped, there were tens of other elevators to its sides.

Tubes filled with multiple different types of glowing liquid, water and even magma filled the cavernous walls of the place acting almost like decorations.

'What the hell? Actually. Since when the hell has this been here?!'

She looked around, hundred of scientists wearing different coloured clothing filled the area.

She didn't pay much attention to them, however.

As they made their way inside a massive quartz-white castle-like building that stood in the middle of hundreds of different boxes that seemed to contain elevators and research buildings, a few groups of scientists sneered at the sight of them but shut up as the guard that was carrying the suitcases glanced at them.

'What a location! God Damn!'

She could not stress enough how interesting she found the place to be.

After reaching the castle, the crybaby man showed his card and the two giant golden doors opened to let them in.

The group made their way through the castle.

'How beautiful. Now, this! This is fantasy!'

After a few turns and doors and security checks, they made it to a large room that stood in the middle of the castle.

The circular room was huge, taking up nearly 1/4th of the entire castle.

The circular room had thousands upon thousands of hexagrams and pentagrams drawn on its floor.

As the group made it to the middle of the room, they each stood on different pentagrams and waited.

'Oohhh! What now?!'

The floor suddenly shook slightly as it started to move and rise into the air while slowly spinning.

The drawings on the ground lit up, each glowing in a different colour, some were even as hot as magma.

A little while later, as the glowing drawings stopped getting brighter and the surrounding temperature stopped climbing, suddenly all the light was gathered in the middle of the platform where the group of people were surrounding it, facing the gathering light.

A second later, they closed their eyes as the light blasted out almost like an explosion. It was as bright as when the soul was injected into the Q-Series 000 container.

'Are we teleporting!?'

She wondered as she could no longer contain her excitement.

The light faded and she could feel nothing different.

Looking around, everyone was gone except for her.

'Huh?'

Suddenly she felt a pull.

'What?'

She started to slowly float upward and behind her.

'Aww, man... Was I not counted because I didn't stand or float above one of those drawings like the others?'

She concluded as she realized how she was picking up speed.

'I guess my body is calling.'

She looked toward the place her soul was being dragged.

'...That's a wall...'

As she tried to take a step back, it was like she was an irritated avian that was about to be slingshotted towards a green boar.

'Uh oh.'

Before she could react to the weird sensation, she found herself flying through the ground at astonishing speed.

Through magma, iron, coal, water, dirt and all the other minerals that were deep in the earth.

Even a huge ruin with giant monster skeletons inside and a deep and dark underwater river with a monster skeleton almost the size of a gigantic spaceship named Aurora.

She could barely see what she was flying through or where toward.

She still hadn't made it to the surface yet.

And although she couldn't see and neither could she feel.

It was extremely uncomfortable for her soul to be dragged through literally every mineral in the world. Dirt, mud and decomposing flesh included. Even if that flesh belonged to a 3 skyscraper-sized silver sandworm.

Saying that it was uncomfortable would be an understatement.

She almost fainted during her little flight.

She couldn't even think anything as it was so sudden.

After a while though, she reached the place where the rest of the group was.

Only to find the two suitcases open and sitting on a table, the crybaby man sat on a chair while looking at them both.

He touched the one on the left and said something. The container glowed and the crybaby man seemed to be in light pain.

He then did the same to the container on the left.

The container shined brightly and the crybaby man fainted.

'What... Now?'

Was her last thought as just as she had seen the man faint, so did she.

...

Kumi woke up sometime later.