Deviation

"There is a problem," Anwei shared her worry with Anxi. "I am not the Anwei from the textbook, and you aren't the Anxi you learned about either. Just by being here we have made a different future. My talent does not guarantee to be as good as hers."

"Don't worry!" He smiled brightly. "Since you're an alternate version of her, your soul must be just as good! The other Anwei managed to evolve all the way to A-grade not only by talent, but also by hard work! Also, I kept my feline beast type but it had changed into Moon-eyed Pogeyan instead of a Bright-eyed Lynx. Maybe yours improved as well."

"You're right," Anwei nodded decisively. "There's no use in worrying. I just have to try my best."

"That's not really what I said," Anxi mumbled to himself.

Anwei didn't heed his words and decisively sat down cross-legged on the floor, closing her eyes. In order to first find out what soul you had, you needed to be in a unified state of mind, whether it was calm, rage, or even being in the zone (also known as the 'flow' state) while performing an activity. The latter is the most common, and there are many anecdotes on how people found out what soul they had while doing math homework, painting, playing instruments…

But Anwei didn't want to do any homework yet.

She focused on her breathing, letting emotions and unformulated thoughts well up and ebb away, until eventually, they seemed to make room from something emerging from the depths. Anxiety and excitement clouded its appearance and made it slow down, and annoyance frightened it, even causing it to retreat!

Anwei had a tug-of-war with her soul, coaxing it upwards to her by letting the emotions tire themselves out like sugar-high toddlers until they fell asleep. Only then did it decide to emerge, and she felt a sort of mist slowly clearing.

She didn't dare look until it had fully awakened, because once it was out from her sea of consciousness, it would be instinctively reluctant to sleep again. As she maintained her state of mind, something soft touched her nose.

Anwei opened her eyes and came face to face with what looked like a newborn kitten. However, she knew that newborn kittens couldn't open their eyes and hold eye contact with her, Anwei just instinctively knew that the feline was female and had dichroic irises.

They also generally didn't float midair, and her tail seemed quite long. Its underbelly was white. It had dark patterns, that were actually rosettes upon closer inspection, on a cinnamon brown coat.

"Mew!" The kitten greeted her happily.

Anwei was suddenly overcome by a sense of doom. She also suddenly received the mental image of a small, pink feline clashing against a bigger, grey and purple one. In the middle of the standstill between the two energy spheres, the pink one turned to her, blue eyes full of warning. The copyright logo © appeared.

Her sense of doom intensified.

"-!" The floating kitten mewled again as she tilted her head at 45°, selling meng. "-?"

"Meow!" Anwei demonstrated a safer way to make sounds.

The kitten blinked, the colors in her eyes shifting, before copying Anwei. "Meow!"

Anwei sagged in relief, before dishing out positive reinforcement. "Yes, that's better."

"Meow!" She repeated happily, chasing her long tail while floating. "Meow, meow, meow!"

An inkling niggled in the back of her mind. Surely not…? The sense of doom returned again.

"...Meow?" Anwei asked hesitantly, afraid to confirm her hypothesis.

The kitten stopped and perked up, eyes trained onto her and tail swishing.

F*ck!

She just wanted to avoid getting a G*n*s*s S*p*rn*v* in her face, alright? So what if it was a fictional universe? She literally woke up in her alternative self, it's alright to be a little unscientific, yes? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, after all.

But it had backfired instead.

She had accidentally named her anima Meow.

"Meow!" Meow called her own name, utterly satisfied. Then, she purred.

"What's next," Anwei mocked herself. "A grandpa enters the stage? Wait, gender bender could apply, so maybe it's a grandma instead."

"Tuit!"

She looked around for the originator of the sound, but all that greeted her was the starry void.

"Tuit!"

She looked up, and felt something tumble down her back. Turning around, her eyes widened.

A tiny ball of blue fluff puffed up indignantly. "Tuit, tuit!"

Oh wait, it's a bird. A she as well.

Seeing that there was no reaction, the tiny quail chirped indignantly, and was suddenly replaced a fish swimming in the void. The fish was tiny, barely the size of a pinky toe. Her scales were a vibrant and deep crimson, and her stomach had a bulge. Wiggling her tail, she swam towards Anwei and nibbled at her cheek. It tickled.

A baby quail had suddenly turned into a baby goldfish. Were there special names? A quail chick? A goldfish fry?

"Meow!" Meow called out. Anwei felt two tiny paws on her shoulder.

Resolved to not make the same mistake she pointed at the fish-quail or quail-fish, and said: "Avis!"

Avis the bird-fish continued to nibble without a care in the world.

Anwei felt that this situation was highly aggravating. Who had ever heard of such silly anima?

Dissatisfied, she opened her eyes as she felt herself return to the external world, and almost fell out of her bed. "Wah! Stop hovering!"

"Sorry," he mumbled, before he instantly recovered and stared at her with large eyes. "How did it go? Is everything alright?"

"I have two anima, and one of them has two forms," she said. "They were really silly."

She described their behaviour to him. He calmly listened, before shaking his head with a smile. "Anima directly reflect you, the persona. A feline-type was as expected, but a form-changing one is rare… That's like an extra anima. You can consider yourself having two and a half animas."

"Is it alright to have two?"

"It's somewhat uncommon, but happens regularly," he explained. "Most commonly with twins, those who absorbed a twin in the womb, and those with mental ailments. Rarely, a second anima is born through suppressing trauma and negativity. The therapist then aims for recovery by merging the anima back together, but in outlier cases they are kept separate.

"A second anima can also manifest in times of change and turmoil, and merge into the primary anima or disappear after the phase has passed. However, such secondary anima can become permanent.

"But I think that you have two primary anima. Or two and a half," he concluded his lecture. "That is pretty rare, and you cover land, sea, and sky. You can become the ultimate scouting specialist. Or you could choose to specialize. Assuming that I come a future where you are Anwei, that is probably what happened. But I don't think you'd hide it after you reached peak A-rank."

He smiled, somewhat bitter but mostly excited. "We're in uncharted territory, sister mine."

Huh.

"So what now?" Anwei asked.

"You march back to the Union branch and get reassessed," he said. "They told me it's good that I took initiative, because every now and then there are some conspiracy lovers who have an anomaly and never get it checked out. They almost always result in heavy cases that take years to undo damage. There is also record of second anima they like to keep. After reassessment, you can be scouted by a faction if there is significant improvement. In any case, you would get benefits and might even be sent to a better school."

Anwei's expression turned strange. "Are you going to a better school? Were you scouted?"

"Well, kinda." He scratched his cheek. "My new data is still being analyzed, and some parties are interested in the result."

"That's great!" She clapped her hands together. "Congratulations, brother!"

"It's not out yet, don't jinx it." He flushed slightly, but was nonetheless pleased. "C'mon, let's go. We're wasting daylight."

After notifying Friedrich who will pass it on to Naming, they walked to the nearest shuttle and entered. Seeing the outside scenery blur into streaks of colors through the windows, she observed the passengers.

In the late afternoon, all kinds of people had to travel. From giggling schoolkids chaperoned by older siblings to office workers. Her memories reminded her that as a rule of thumb, she should always assume they were really two years older.

Because after the toddler phase, humans here aged slower in appearance. Additionally, with anima and cultivation, they were much sturdier and stronger.

Speaking of anima… Anwei looked at a senior citizen who patted a slightly translucent old dog, and a teenager cooing at the outline of a small snake around her wrist. Was there some trick to it?

A weight settled in her lap. She looked down, and it was Avis, who chirped in confusion. Just as she wondered were Meow was, did she slowly manifest with a yawn. Their outlines were clearly visible and their avatars had shades of color.

"Bro," she whispered. "Look."

He glanced down and smiled, blue eyes tinged with silver. "Oh? Your anima are adorable."

Meow glanced at him before curling up in her lap and going to sleep, fading away again. Avis puffed up her feathers, tilting her head to the side to see him better. Satisfied, she nodded and faded away as well.

"It's good that your anima approve of me," Anxi said. "Would be quite awkward if they didn't."

"Is it normal for them to be so independent?" Anwei asked.

"Don't worry too much, it's normal at the beginning." He patted her head, before stopping and retracting his hand.

Anwei realized that she had frozen. Of course she did. After being a single child, when did she ever have an elder sibling figure to pat her head with?

She stiffly glanced at him, who was fidgeting slightly. It wasn't that bad to be patted on the head, as long as it wasn't patronizing. But how was she supposed to convey that?

A hand was on his knee, and she slowly patted it once, twice.

He looked confused.

Nevermind then.