Year 8 – Summer, Lunaris Academy
The moon had been red for seven nights when Ketsuraku found the hidden page.
It was buried deep in Codex of Sanguis, behind a binding of dried blood and prayer seals. The parchment smelled faintly of copper and burnt sage. Across it, in an older tongue, someone had scrawled:
"To learn twice, divide once."
Beneath the line was a diagram of a figure meditating within two overlapping circles—one of blood, one of light. Between them shimmered a single rune: Echo.
Ketsuraku touched the rune. It pulsed warm, as if something inside the paper still breathed.
"To study with both flesh and shadow," he read aloud, "the mind must remember both worlds."
He smiled faintly. "So that's how they did it."
The Experiment
At dawn, he went to the old observatory—abandoned since a student's soul had once burned through its roof. The floor was carved with constellations and blood sigils; perfect for what he needed.
He sat cross-legged between two circles—one drawn in his own blood, one traced in salt.
"Body learns matter. Spirit learns will."
He let his breath slow. Blood Qi rose like smoke through his veins. The air thickened. When he opened his eyes, the world had split.
His astral form stood beside him—translucent, red veins glowing faintly under the skin. It looked back with the same calm expression, but its eyes flickered with deeper understanding.
"You are me," Ketsuraku said."And you are late," the other replied.
They both smiled.
Two Teachers
He began the dangerous schedule that very night.
By day, his physical self trained under Professor Althea in the alchemy greenhouse. She made him crush herbs whose scents could drive spirits mad and mix elixirs in bowls of living silver.
"Alchemy," she said, "is persuasion, not force. You ask the world to remember a different shape."
He learned to distill his own blood into crimson dust that stabilized elemental reactions, to create Blood Catalysts—stones that burned eternally without fire.
By night, his astral self reported to Master Veyric. In the shadow halls of House Sanguis, he practiced forming blood into shape—threads, blades, shields. The astral body felt no fatigue; the magic obeyed instantly.
When Veyric saw both forms appear once in the same lesson—one of flesh, one of light—he merely nodded.
"If you can stand in two worlds, stand well. But forget not which breath belongs to which."
Ketsuraku bowed. "Understood."
The Breakthrough
Weeks passed without real sleep. His body worked in silence while his spirit whispered formulae through the air. Students began to whisper too—that he was in two places at once, that mirrors flickered when he passed.
On the seventh week, he performed the Twin Manifestation.
His body stood over an alchemical crucible, mixing Blood Dust with purified vitae. His astral self hovered above the circle, tracing runes in the steam rising from the potion. Each rune solidified into a floating crimson crystal—the first Blood Sigils ever crafted by a student.
When the ritual ended, both forms raised their hands at the same time. The crystals hung between them, pulsing like shared heartbeats.
The air in the observatory vibrated; even the constellations carved into the floor began to glow.
Hel's whisper drifted through the blood smoke.
"You learn as the gods once did—by division and pain."
Ix's laughter followed faintly.
"And here I thought mortals couldn't multitask."
Ketsuraku ignored both voices, focusing only on the rhythm between body and soul. For the first time, he felt complete.
The Consequence
He woke on the floor hours later, heart pounding. The Blood Sigils floated still, orbiting slowly like moons. But one mirror in the corner had cracked. His astral reflection smiled—not kindly.
"Careful, little river," it whispered. "The more you divide, the easier you forget which current is yours."
The voice was his, but older, tired. He blinked; the reflection vanished.
He stood, exhausted, fingers trembling. Blood seeped from his nose, mixing with silver dust on the floor.
The next morning, Professor Althea found him asleep over his alchemy desk, hands still glowing faintly red. She shook her head.
"You'll burn out both halves if you keep this pace."
"I can't stop," he murmured without opening his eyes. "There's too much to learn."
Her voice softened. "Knowledge is endless. You are not."
He smiled weakly. "Then I'll make myself endless."
The Observation
That night he repeated the experiment more carefully. The astral form kneeled opposite the body, eyes half-closed.
"One mind. Two vessels," he whispered. "Flow."
The body began grinding herbs for an elixir of restoration; the astral projection practiced Blood Sigils above the same ingredients. The two movements synchronized perfectly, each hand completing the other's rhythm.
For hours he worked like that—one learning matter, the other learning will. The line between them blurred until he could no longer tell which hand belonged to which self.
When he finally stopped, dawn painted the academy red. The elixir shimmered in its vial, half silver, half blood.
He raised it to the light. Inside it, something pulsed—a tiny spark of consciousness, like a seed that remembered him.
"So this is what it means to create twice," he said softly.
From somewhere deep in his chest, Hel's faint whisper answered:
"And pay twice."
He looked at his reflection in the window. Two shadows stood behind him instead of one. Both smiled.
He smiled back, quietly, and began to plan his next lesson.