Soul Merger

Alissa felt like shit. Physically and mentally. Like someone had taken a rusty knife to her insides.

Her mind caught up to that a few seconds later, which was a bad sign. If you were miserable when half asleep you were very miserable. The only good part was the warm weight on her stomach. Too bad it was attached to a loud rumble.

She managed to open her eyes, which didn't feel quite as terrible as she expected. She was in a makeshift room, on a cot. It was early morning from the light outside. The woman they'd rescued was on the other cot in the room, while Fili was asleep on a sofa chair probably stolen from the hostess club.

And finally the black cat from yesterday was on her stomach, purring away. The feline looked up at her when she stirred, letting its yellow eyes meet hers. Then the cat blinked and curled back up.

"I suppose I should thank you, but do you have to be so loud about it?" she muttered. The cat responded with an ear flick.

"Mph." Fili stirred and sat up. She blinked a few times herself before realizing Alissa was awake. "Ah. Morning."

"Hey." Alissa gave a weak wave. "Everyone's safe?"

Fili nodded. "Yeah." The mage hesitated a bit before adding. "I told them all about how succubi and incubi are the same demon type too. I figured they'd want the explanation."

"Good." Alissa closed her eyes. "That means I don't have to do it." After a few moments she sighed. "So what happened to me? Normally I don't get that hurt stabbing someone else."

Fili winced. "Soul poisoning is what Rosalina said. I don't understand the details but you somehow ended up with too much soul? It was pretty complicated and we were all pretty messed up last night. I'll go grab breakfast and see if she's awake."

"I'm not really hungry," Alissa said. In fact her stomach was the only part of her not complaining. Possibly because of the cat.

Fili nodded. "Yeah, but Rosalina said to get you stuff with lots of sugar when you woke up. Actual medical orders. Maybe juice or sweet tea? I'm sure a hostess club should have some."

"Sweet tea," Alissa said. "And I suppose if Rosalina said I should get more sugar, bring some pastries or something as well. If I'm not hungry you can eat them."

"I'll be back soon." Fili headed out leaving her with the unconscious woman and the cat. The elderly rosekin seemed to be doing fine, and the cat was probably the healthiest creature in the room, so Alissa took the time to stare up at the ceiling and hurt.

To her surprise Clara was first to arrive. The large woman was carrying a full breakfast set, and set it down on a side table. The cat stood up and stretched, helpfully stomping all over Alissa's guts before hopping over to the food.

"That's not for you," Akari said as she walked in. "You've been fed already." The cat tried to sneak past Clara's interposing hand a few times anyway before leaving in a huff back to its owner.

Rosalina and Fili followed in after. Rosalina looked almost as bad as Alissa felt, which was pretty impressive. "You didn't need to wake up for me."

"Kinda did," Rosalina said before draining half a mug of coffee. "Since you're the patient that still needs work. I couldn't give you a full treatment yesterday."

Alissa groaned and forced herself upright. It didn't hurt much more than staying still so it wasn't too big a loss. "Suppose I can stagger out to get the full details and not wake up my roommate."

"She'll be fine. Stayed up late with her cat is all," Akari said. "Rosalina on the other hand probably should still be sleeping but there's no use talking her out of this. I'll smack her if she tries any spellcasting."

Rosalina gave her friend a pouty frown but Alissa managed a grin alongside the others. Good to see someone was keeping the dragon priestess from pushing herself too far. She took the cup of sweet tea Fili poured and waited for the ice to melt a bit. "So can you explain what the hell happened? That incubus didn't get his hands on me so how did I end up with an excess of soul?"

"Your technique," Rosalina replied. "You called it Soul Drain. Given it was a true technique and you're a succubus merge it looks like you actually drained some of its soul. Except you just slapped it onto your own soul instead of coating it on like a merge. Which isn't healthy."

Alissa felt her stomach drop away and she put down the tea. "So that fucking monster in me pasted some other innocent victim's soul over me again. Isn't that fucking great."

"You didn't steal any innocent's soul," Rosalina said. "Based on what Fili told us it's just the bits of the incubus that-"

"It was someone's soul!" Alissa screamed. "Someone's soul drained out of their body. Another family destroyed just like mine!" Pain washed over her and she clenched her jaw to fight it off.

For once Rosalina didn't have anything to say. Fili reached out a few times, but always froze before touching her. Finally Clara quietly said, "It sounds like the succubus you fought didn't just kill your father."

Alissa's eyes blurred, "Killed? Death would have been kinder. He was drained almost to death. Barely enough soul left to keep him from being a vegetable. And where was that soul? Merged with ME. He couldn't even see me as his daughter! Just as the person who had the rest of his soul!"

The pain finally overflowed, hot tears searing her eyes. Everything seemed to bubble out of her. She sobbed and hiccuped, trying to wipe away the tears and snot blurring her vision.. Someone hugged her, but all she could do was cry while wiping her face.

Finally she ran out of tears just leaving her eyes sore and stinging. Akari was patting her on the back, while Fili was gingerly offering a tissue. She took it and made another pass at her face, trying to ignore the pity in her friend's expressions. She didn't want to deal with that now.

Finally Rosalina said, "I'm sorry. I should have started by warning you that you're going to be really emotional for a bit. Not that what happened to you isn't terrible. But it's going to hurt more than usual."

Alissa wanted to say something nasty about that, but it was stupid and her brain wasn't working anyway. Instead she finished wiping her face and offered Fili the tissue back. "Sorry."

"It's fine. It all goes in the laundry anyway," the slime mage said. "Might as well use it."

Clara coughed. "Want us to head out so you can rage at Rosalina in privacy?"

She didn't really want to talk to anyone. But given she still didn't know exactly what was wrong that wasn't a good idea. "Might as well spill all my secrets to everyone now. She's the least trustworthy anyways."

Rosalina paused then sighed. "I'm really tired. I should have a comeback for that. Anyway, you need a lot of sugar so drink that tea. Even if you aren't hungry."

Alissa glared at the dragon woman, but when Akari stopped hugging her and handed her the cup she forced herself to drink. She'd never liked sugar in tea, but it wasn't too terrible. And she did feel a little better after finishing it off. Enough that she felt able to take a light pastry off the table while Clara refilled the cup. "Okay. What else is wrong with me? I've learned a bit about helping people whose souls have been drained. But I don't know anything about too much soul."

"Well you probably feel like shit because I cut most of the excess soul bits out yesterday." Rosalina grimaced. "But it was a crude surgery, so I deliberately left some extra on to avoid hitting the parts of your soul you're supposed to have."

That seemed like a pretty good idea to Alissa. She liked having her soul intact. But unfortunately she saw what that meant. "You're gonna have to do this again aren't you?"

"And it's going to be longer and more intense," Rosalina said. "I'm basically going to have to sandpaper your soul back to its correct shape. And it's going to be as bad as that sounds."

"Wonderful." At least the sugar did seem to be helping. Alissa only felt half as terrible as she did before. "So I get to spend today screaming and bedridden?"

Rosalina shook her head, but Akari was the one to answer. "Tomorrow at the earliest, because I promised Rosalina I'd have Ibaraki knock her out if she tried healing anyone of anything today. And she was willing to agree because messing with souls requires finesse."

Alissa sighed but that made sense. She didn't trust anyone as messed up as Rosalina to do anything with precision. She ate another pastry. "The sugar really is helping at least. Why the hell is that?"

"No idea!" Rosalina admitted grabbing something to eat herself. "Think I slept through that lecture."

"It's super complicated and has a lot of guesswork," Fili said. "About fifty pages worth."

Alissa nodded. "I'll skip that then. At least today. So am I at least considered healthy enough to learn what the hell's going on in the city?"

"Yellow flag," Clara replied. That meant immediate danger was over and the labyrinths contained, but monsters might still be around. "As for the damage? A mess. We know the Crimson Maiden Order got gutted, and all that's left of the Sea Temple is smoldering debris. No idea on the number of people hurt. At least hundreds, probably thousands."

She forced herself to keep her voice even. "And that thing?"

Akari put her hand on Alissa's shoulder. "Gone. More powerful people than us are after it, and they'll deal with it."

Hot rage flashed through her again, but she managed to bottle it up this time. Akari was right. Fighting that demon was stupid. Especially with this group, and in her current condition. She forced herself to take a deep breath and let it out. "Everyone else okay?"

"You definitely took the worst beating," Clara said. "We all just had the joy of having our brains held hostage by a level five demon. And we got over our hurt feelings last night while you were sleeping."

"Cheaters." Alissa took another swig of tea. After a bit she felt almost normal, aside from the pain. "Sorry for the breakdown there. And thanks for sticking around to keep an eye on me. I think I'll be alright, so you can go off and tell your friends you're doing fine."

Fili gave a weak laugh. "Actually my friends already came by. They ran over here when they heard about the demon sighting. Wanted to kill and dissect it." Fili's friends were apparently weird. Well, she couldn't complain about wanting to kill demons.

Clara stretched. "Already got word to my family that I'm good through the merchant network. They're doing fine as well." Alissa felt a twinge, but managed to suppress it with the help of a donut. She should probably send a letter to her aunt as well.

"Rosalina's got patients here, and you all are my friends," Akari finished. "So we can all stick around for a bit longer."

"Thanks." Alissa finished off her tea and flopped back on the bed. "Well I guess I'll get back to peeling potatoes or something."

"You should rest," Fili protested.

Alissa snorted. "I'll be bored out of my mind. Trust me the potatoes won't beat me up. You all go help people." Everything was fucking horrible, but she wasn't going to stew in her misery. She'd done that enough when she was younger.

Fili looked like she might protest, but Clara put a hand on her shoulder. "Sure thing. Lot of cleanup to do. We'll be back for lunch so take care. And call for help if you need any."

"I'll be fine so long as the cat doesn't decide to sleep on my face," Alissa replied.

"Well now you've given her ideas," Akari said. Alissa looked down to see the black cat looking at her, tail twitching.

"Don't even think about i- ack!"