"Wait."

Zeke stopped mid-stride. The command carried a weight that had nothing to do with volume.

He turned.

Seraphi had risen from where she had been sprawled moments before. No—risen wasn’t quite the right word for it. One moment she had been on the ground, the next she was standing, as if someone had simply decided she should be upright and reality had obeyed.

Too straight. Too still.

She held herself with the kind of unnatural balance that didn’t come from training but from existing beyond the need for it. Her weight was so evenly distributed as though she could stand there for centuries without ever shifting.

But above all, it was the change in her eyes that shocked him most.

Zeke had looked into those very same eyes before, when they had burned with loathing and contempt. Now they held something else entirely. Depth. The kind that made perspective impossible, where looking became falling and falling had no end.

"Be careful," Khai'Zar murmured. “Something has taken hold of the girl.”

Zeke released Maya's hand and positioned himself between her and whatever now inhabited the elven girl's body.

Around them, the chamber had gone silent. The scattered groups of young elves who had been whispering among themselves froze. Even the Treemother, who had been moving to check on her fallen student, stopped with one hand outstretched.

Everyone felt it. The shift in the air, the change in pressure. As if the entire Tree had taken a breath and held it.

"Seraphi?" the Treemother asked, her voice uncertain in a way it hadn't been before.

The girl's head turned toward the ancient elf. The movement was mechanical, lacking the small imperfections that marked living motion.

“Who—” The Treemother stopped mid-sentence, realization dawning across her weathered features. The color drained from her face. “Mother?”

“No.”

The single word made several of the younger elves flinch. One dropped to her knees without apparent thought, as if pulled down by invisible strings. Even Zeke felt a shiver crawl down his spine. The voice was Seraphi’s—the same pitch, the same melodic cadence—but beneath it resonated something else. Harmonics that didn’t belong in a throat made of flesh.

“I have… no children.”

That was all the attention it spared the Treemother before turning back to Zeke. He expected words—a question, a declaration, something—but what came instead was neither sound nor sight. It was sensation, pressing against his mind like water against a dam.

Not forceful. Not violent. Just... present.

Waiting.

Zeke had felt Mind Magic often enough to recognize an intrusion when he sensed one. But this wasn’t that. It was different, milder. An invitation, perhaps.

His instinct screamed at him to resist, to fortify his thoughts and bar the way. But curiosity won out. If this was who he thought it was, then there was no need to lure him in with tricks in the first place.

He lowered his defenses.

What flooded through wasn’t thought or speech: it was emotion, vast and ancient. Disappointment so deep it had long since curdled into resignation. Frustration hardened over millennia into weary contempt. And beneath it all, a hunger—not for food or power, but for something that had been missing so long its absence had become normal.

Zeke gasped, fighting for breath. The brief contact had left him feeling as though he’d spent hours submerged, enduring relentless mental strain without pause. Yet, even with his enhanced mind pushed to its limits, he doubted he’d understood more than a fraction of what had been conveyed. It had been solely his familiarity with the Soul that had allowed him to comprehend even that much.

This was a form of communication wholly different from anything he had encountered before. No words accompanied the sensations—no explanations, only raw emotion and intent, forcing him to extract meaning from feeling.

But one truth had become undeniable: this was indeed the incarnation of the World Tree itself—Yggdrasil—speaking through a vessel.

Seraphi’s body moved toward him. Despite his own uncertainty, the Tree seemed content with how much he had understood. She stopped three paces away—close enough for whatever was to come, yet far enough to avoid the appearance of immediate threat.

Her borrowed gaze settled on Maya.

Another transmission, this one more complex. Images without pictures, concepts without words. Zeke caught fragments: Rigidity, structure, paths worn so deep they had become trenches. Elves following elves following elves, each generation walking in the footsteps of the last until innovation had become impossible. Tradition hardened into dogma, creativity strangled by expectation.

And beneath it all, that hunger.

Zeke was beginning to realize what that hunger signified. It was the need for something different, something capable of diverging from established patterns.

Yggdrasil hungered for growth. For evolution.

But why show him?

The answer came not as words, but as another wave of sensation—hope, fragile yet persistent. A memory of success. Not recent, but not so ancient as to be forgotten.

A figure took shape in his mind. They were neither wholly elven nor entirely other. Cassius. The name surfaced unbidden, though Zeke couldn’t tell whether the Tree had given it to him or if his own mind had supplied it.

Cassius had achieved something. Learned something. Become something the pure-blooded elves could not. Cassius had glimpsed a fragment of Yggdrasil's true nature. It was imperfect, but closer than any before or since.

And now, the Tree wanted to try again.

Zeke's gaze snapped to his sister. Maya stood frozen, her eyes wide as she tried to make sense of what was happening.

"You want her?" Zeke asked slowly, testing his interpretation.

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Seraphi's head tilted. Not a nod, but acknowledgment. Somehow, he could tell.

Another transmission followed: affirmation laced with that same desperate hunger. Yes, it seemed to say. Because the alternative was accepting that everything had stagnated, that growth had stopped, that the future would be nothing but endless repetition of the past.

"Why her?" Zeke pressed. "What makes Maya suitable?"

The response came as pure feeling. No special quality, no hidden potential. Just... absence. Absence of the structures that bound the elves, the traditions that dictated every action, the rigid frameworks that turned students into copies of their teachers. Maya was blank in ways the elves could never be. Unwritten. Capable of diverging.

A canvas, not a coloring book.

"…And if she fails?" he asked.

Another transmission followed—this one carrying the emotional equivalent of a shrug. Failure was acceptable. Failure meant trying. The elves didn’t even do that anymore. They walked only the paths already carved, mastered the techniques already perfected. Safe. Predictable. Dead.

The Tree wanted something alive.

Zeke studied the being before him—not with his eyes, which saw only Seraphi’s borrowed body, but through the sensations radiating from it. Each pulse of emotion revealed more of its true nature.

The elves called it Mother,

but they didn’t understand its desires. In turn, the Tree didn’t view them as its children either. Not truly. There was no maternal warmth, no pride in their accomplishments, only disappointment that they had stopped growing.

Ironically, their worship of tradition and hierarchy had turned them into the very thing the Tree despised.

Nature was not static. It was not orderly. It was not neat.

Nature was chaos and struggle—adaptation, evolution, predator, and prey. Life and death intertwined, forever pushing forward.

The Treemother had managed to lift her head, though she still couldn't rise. "What... what is happening?"

Her voice seemed to break whatever spell had held the chamber. Several of the younger elves stirred, though none dared stand.

Zeke ignored them, focusing on the possessed Seraphi. "…She was never meant to teach Maya, was she?"

The response hit him like a physical blow. Contempt so pure it tasted like poison. That Child? That rigid creature who had spent centuries perfecting methods that produced nothing but more rigidity? No. Never.

"Then who?" Zeke asked, though he already knew. Still, he needed to hear it with his own ears, to get definite confirmation.

Seraphi's mouth moved, forming words in that alien, harmonic voice.

"Me."

The single syllable carried finality. Yggdrasil would teach Maya. Not through intermediaries, not through established methods. Directly.

Zeke felt his estimation of the situation shift. This was no longer about Maya receiving instruction from some elven master. This was about an ancient, inhuman being attempting to replicate a success that had occurred generations ago, using his sister as the test subject.

The risks had just multiplied.

But so had the potential rewards.

"What would this involve?" Zeke asked carefully.

The transmission that followed was intricate, layered with meanings his human mind could barely grasp. One truth stood out clearly, though—the Tree’s teaching bore no resemblance to any classroom instruction. It didn’t explain. It didn’t guide. It simply revealed glimpses of its vast perspective and left its students to learn—or fail—on their own.

Like scattering seeds into hostile soil to see which ones would take root.

“Is she going to be in danger?”

Negation, sharp and immediate. The Tree felt... offended? No, not quite. Something closer to insulted. It had sustained life for millennia. It knew how to keep things alive even when they wanted to die. Maya would survive. She would not, however, remain comfortable.

Fair enough.

Zeke studied the being opposite of him for several long moments. The Tree looked back with those borrowed eyes, patient in the way only something immortal could be.

He was being given a choice. Accept this arrangement, and Maya would receive instruction from an entity that had existed before human civilization. Refuse, and... what? Would the Tree allow them to leave? Would it accept the rejection gracefully?

Another transmission, this one gentle. Yes. It would let them go. It had no use for unwilling students. Forcing growth only produced stunted results.

It was his choice, but Zeke was unwilling to make it on his own. Just like the Tree said, forcing growth only produced stunted results.

"Maya," Zeke said without turning. "Come here."

His sister stepped to his side, her face pale but her posture steady. "What's happening? Who—what is that?"

"Yggdrasil," Zeke said simply.

Maya’s eyes widened. "The Tree itself?"

"Yes." He kept his gaze fixed on the possessed elf. "It wants to teach you."

Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. "Why?"

"It wants to try something different," Zeke said plainly.

"…Will I be safe?" she asked softly.

"Alive," he corrected, making sure she understood the distinction. "It knows how to keep things breathing… even when they wish they weren’t."

Maya flinched but didn’t look away. “And you… you think I should do this?”

Zeke considered lying—considered steering her toward a safer path. But he recognized that impulse for what it was: the stubbornness of his protective instincts, refusing to let go. His rational mind knew better. Avoiding challenges didn’t create safety—it only bred weakness.

The moment his sister had chosen to study magic, she had stepped onto a path of trials and tribulations.

“I think…” he said slowly, “that you’ll never receive another offer like this. What you could learn here might reshape you into something unprecedented. Whether that justifies the cost, I can’t say. Nonetheless, the choice is yours to make.”

Silence followed. Around them, the chamber remained still—every elf watching, their faces caught between shock and awe.

Then, because his conscience demanded it, Zeke added quietly, “If I were in your place, I’d accept.”

Maya hesitated only a heartbeat before nodding. “I want to stay. To learn. To grow.”

Zeke felt the Tree’s excitement through their link. Maya had, by sheer accident, used the exact words Yggdrasil wanted to hear most.

It seemed these young elves would soon have to contend with a new favourite.

"It seems… We have an agreement.” Zeke felt something in his chest twist, but he forced it down.

As if a spell had been lifted, Seraphi's body went limp, collapsing like a puppet with cut strings.

The Treemother caught her before she hit the ground, cradling the unconscious girl against her chest. Around them, the other elves remained frozen, too shocked to move.

Zeke felt one final transmission, aimed at him alone. Not words, not even clear emotion—just a sense of weight, of significance.

Then the presence faded, leaving only silence and the lingering smell of crushed grass.

Zeke looked down at Maya. His sister stared up at him with an expression caught somewhere between awe and panic.

"Are you certain?" he asked one final time.

She nodded, not trusting her voice.

Zeke drew her into a firm embrace, holding his sister as tightly as her small frame allowed. When he finally let go, he forced himself to take a step back—and with it, to release the protective instinct that had guided him for so many years.

“Learn well,” he said softly. “And if you ever need me, send word. I’ll come. No matter what.”

“I know.”

He turned toward the Treemother, who still knelt on the floor with Seraphi unconscious in her arms. The ancient elf looked up at him with an expression that might have been apprehension or might have been defeat.

"It seems," Zeke said, his tone conversational, "that a satisfactory mentor has been found after all."

The Treemother nodded slowly. "So it would appear."

"Excellent." Zeke's expression remained neutral. "Then I believe our business here is concluded."

He walked toward the chamber’s exit, his footsteps the only sound in the vast, silent hall. Behind him, Maya remained—surrounded by elves who had just learned that their Mother’s favor could be taken from them and given to an outsider if they proved unworthy.

That revelation alone could reshape elven society in ways he couldn’t even begin to predict.

If it ever became public knowledge, that was.

But that was none of his concern.

His focus was simpler: to survive long enough to see what his sister would become under such incomprehensible tutelage.

Zeke emerged from the chamber into the eerie light of Yggdrasil’s hollow. Lyriel was waiting beside the great crow, her expression unreadable.

“Done?” she asked. “Your sister—”

“Is staying,” Zeke said as he climbed onto the crow’s back. “The Tree has taken a liking to her, it seems.”

Lyriel’s mouth opened, then closed again. Her face flickered through several emotions before settling on disbelief. “T-The Tree?”

“…Why are you so shocked? You were the one who warned me that the being within wasn’t someone easily provoked.” He adjusted his position on the saddle. “Now, if you’d be so kind as to return me to the portal. I have a war to join.”

The elf nodded slowly, still processing his words. The crow spread its wings and launched into the air, carrying Zeke away from the hollow heart of the World Tree and toward whatever chaos awaited him in the Lowlands.

Behind him, deep within Yggdrasil’s core, his sister’s journey was beginning—a path that would shape her into something the world had never seen. Even Zeke, architect of this moment, had no idea what he had just set in motion.

But that was fine.

Uncertainty meant opportunity.

And Ezekiel von Hohenheim had always been very good at seizing opportunity.