Meeting a Thing

Ignatius and Sebastian waited for Leus and Fia's arrival

Luckily, they didn't have to wait for long

Soon, the door knocked, and Sebastian went and opened it.

Ignatius had a friendly expression on his face, but once the door opened, the friendly expression instantly fell off and a solemn one took place.

'What the hell is that?'

Leus became within the range of his perception, and what he perceived was very strange

'Why isn't his soul properly aligned with his body?'

Ignatius sensed a subtle de-sync between the soul and the body

'It's like the soul possesses the body'

His mind was going wild

'Could it be a Demon in a child's body?'

He started putting pressure on the child's body

'If the connection between the soul and the body is weak, the pressure will cause it to break off, freeing the body from it.'

Yet, nothing changed

'The soul is deeply attached to the body, this means that it has been like this for years, it might have possessed it the day the body was born'

'It might also be that I'm not good enough in these things ... but the first option is more likely.'

As the situation was becoming more bizarre by the second, Ignatius decided to communicate with the thing in front of the door.

'I want to study its reaction to my questions'

So he sent a voice transmission to the Thing

'*What are you ...*'

Ignatius didn't send it with a questioning tone, but with a surprised and confused one, like he wasn't expecting an answer from it

'I don't want it to answer, I just want to know how it will react.'

'It's possible that it'd freak out and try to escape or attack from the very beginning'

Yet, what he perceived wasn't what he expected at all

'Genuine confusion?'

That Thing felt confused by the question as much as Ignatius himself was, which didn't make sense

'How come it's not feeling afraid or aggressive? Just confused? There's no way it actually thought that his deception would fool me ... could it be just stupid? Or maybe ignorantly confident in himself?'

Ignatius stopped pressuring the body

'It doesn't act like a demon, so it's either not a demon or a really stupid one, there's no point in pressuring it right now'

The thing entered the room and Ignatius was inspecting it with narrowed eyes.

First, it looked at Sebastian, and the feeling that Ignatius perceived from it was

'Slight surprise'

That was normal, people with Light Affinity weren't common, especially Elite Knights at that, so he ignored it and focused on its next move.

The thing shook Sebastian's hand, then it began inspecting the room

'Is it evaluating his surroundings?'

After it inspected the room for a bit, a strange smile appeared on its face.

Ignatius didn't feel comfortable about that smile and put some pressure on the thing's body, immediately erasing the smile from its face.

'That's better'

Ignatius didn't want anyone to hear what he wanted to ask, so he sent Sebastian a voice transmission

'Keep Fia busy, I want to talk to ... Leus alone'

He was about to call Leus the thing but stopped himself at the last moment.

'I'm still not sure of what this might be, perhaps I'm wrong? Though I highly doubt that.'

The de-sync between the soul and body was very clear to Ignatius' perception, he couldn't be mistaken about it

When the thing got closer to Ignatius, Ignatius perceived two things from it.

'Surprise and confusion'

'What is it surprised about? My look?'

It didn't seem important so Ignatius ignored it, but very quickly the thing felt something else

'Fear? What's it afraid of? Did it finally realize that it's in a bad situation just now? ... This thing is really slow on the uptake'

The thing approached Ignatius until it was right in front of the desk. And when Ignatius locked eyes with it, he realized that he was not wrong at all, his expression became even more solemn.

'This thing ... its eyes have no innocence nor curiosity like children'

At this moment Ignatius became certain

'This is no child'

He sent a transmission to the thing's mind

'*Are you a human?*'

instantly, Ignatius was able to perceive various emotions

'Surprise, confusion, bewilderment'

Several seconds passed and it still didn't reply.

Ignatius' expression darkened even more

'Why is it not answering?

So he sent another transmission

'*Answer with a yes or a no, are you a human?*'

As soon as he sent that transmission, the thing quickly replied

"Yes"

Ignatius clearly sensed that the being was telling the truth, he was indeed a human.

Hearing that, Ignatius' expression brightened up a bit.

But he was still solemn and confused

'It's good that it's not a Demon or an undead or any strange thing, but how is it a human? What is it doing in a child's body?'

After a couple of seconds of contemplating things, Ignatius asked

'*Then why does your soul not synchronize with your body?*'

The expression on the human's face became stupefied, and Ignatius was able to perceive shock, discomfort, and perplexity.

'Why is he taking too long to answer?'

Ignatius got annoyed, so he put more pressure on the human

The human quickly replied

"I - I don't know"

What Ignatius perceived was very shocking for him

'The truth?'

'How come he doesn't know? What exactly does he not know?'

The answer didn't make any sense.

How come this was a human who had done something that affected his soul itself, yet, he genuinely doesn't know what he had done?

'So weird ...'

Ignatius sent another transmission

'*How come you don't know?*'

Ignatius' mind was racing to find answers on its own, and because of that, he didn't notice that he was adding too much pressure on the human's body.

As a result of the pressure, the human replied in a slightly higher pitch than normal

"I do not understand what you mean by synchronize"

The loud voice pulled Ignatius out of his thoughts, and he grew worried that Fia would hear him

'I don't want anyone to know about this just yet.'

So he quickly sent two transmissions, the first was to Leus

'*Lower your voice*'

And the second was to Sebastian

'*Take Fia out of the room and keep the door open, come back when I send you another transmission*'

Then he began analyzing what the Human in front of him was feeling

He was looking at him with narrowed eyes, and all he felt was

'Annoyance and boredom huh?'

'What's it annoyed about? Ordering him to lower his voice? Or uncovering his truth?'

Ignatius sighed, he couldn't come up with any useful answer

'It really doesn't know about his soul being unsynchronized .. could he be unaware of this matter? but how could someone be unaware of what happened to him?'

'I don't think even Arno's crazy experiments can pull off something like this ...'

Ignatius just looked into the Human's eyes and sent another Transmission

'*You are not a child, you aren't fooling me. What are you?*'