Crazy Awakening: My luck can copy Talents.

---

Rhea closed her eyes. Tightly. Brought two fingers to the bridge of her nose and breathed through her mouth.

"Ishtar Alastor."

"Yes, sister?"

"If you say one more word at this table before I finish my glass of wine, I’m sending you to the kitchen to wash dishes like in ’98."

"Fine."

Ishtar shoved an entire piece of pancake into her mouth and smiled around it.

Adrián, very slowly, very carefully, poured himself another cup of coffee. With both hands. Like someone handling explosives.

He looked at Rhea.

Rhea returned his gaze over the rim of her glass. Her golden eyes weren’t amused. Weren’t embarrassed. They were still evaluating him, as if this entire scene were a test and she was calculating how he was responding.

"She exaggerates," said Rhea, in a neutral tone. "The part about the ritual and skin contact is true. The part about ’all three of us’ is a lie."

"...okay."

"Well, technically all three of us were naked."

"...okay."

"But for logistical reasons. Not romantic ones."

"...I understand."

"Eat."

Adrián ate.

---

After breakfast, Rhea led him to a library in the east wing of the penthouse.

It was a two-story library, with wrought iron spiral stairs leading up to a second level of shelves, dark green leather sofas, a lit fireplace—though it wasn’t cold, which Adrián noticed but didn’t comment on—and windows overlooking the city from thirty floors up. The morning light came in from the side.

Rhea pointed to a sofa. Adrián sat. She sat across from him in an armchair, a second glass of wine already in hand, and crossed her legs.

"Alright," she said. "Questions. Go ahead."

Adrián breathed.

He had thousands of questions. He had a whole university’s worth of questions. But he needed a moment to choose the first one. Then the second. Then the third. Then he decided to start with the simplest.

"Am I dead?"

"Yes. And no."

"Elaborate."

"Your human body died on Mercier Street at ten minutes to eleven on Saturday night. Your soul didn’t. I transferred it before it could escape. Now you have a new body, reconstructed with demonic energy over the original’s structure. It’s the same body, but improved. Heals faster. Stronger. Lives longer. And it’s no longer technically human, though it looks like it at first glance."

"How much longer do I live?"

"Depends. Between three hundred and eight hundred years if you don’t get killed. Reincarnated demons with Minor Arcana live less. Those with Major Arcana live more. You have a Major."

"The Fool."

"The Fool."

"And that’s the worst card of all. That’s what you told me before I lost consciousness. ’Sorry you got stuck with the worst one.’"

Rhea took a long sip of her wine. Looked at him over the rim of the glass.

"I lied."

"..."

"Well. Not exactly. It’s considered the worst card by almost all noble houses, yes. That’s true. It’s a card that gets discarded. Given away. Used for reincarnates that demons don’t really care about saving. And that’s why I was willing to give it to you without guilt, because I was convinced I was doing you a minor favor."

"But."

"But when I got to the alley, I sensed that you weren’t exactly an ordinary human. And I decided to give you The Fool anyway, even though I’d already realized that card was actually the only one that could work with you. It wasn’t charity. It was..." she searched for the word. "My luck. The only card I had left turned out to be the only one compatible with what you were."

"And what am I?"

Rhea looked at him for a long few seconds.

Then she set down her glass. Placed it on the side table. Leaned forward with her elbows on her knees.

"I don’t know completely yet," she said. "I have theories. And I have a piece of evidence. But before I tell you the theories, I need to show you the evidence."

"Okay."

Rhea extended her right hand, palm up. On her palm, in the air, a small sphere of red light formed. The sphere grew, flattened, and transformed into a three-dimensional image the size of a grapefruit. The image showed the alleyway. Sariel with the spear raised. Adrián on his knees.

"Is this...?"

"A memory. Extracted from the body of the lesser familiar I sent to track you that night. I was able to see everything that happened just before I arrived. Watch closely."

The image advanced.

The spear descended.

And at the exact moment of impact—a fraction of a second before the violet tip pierced his chest—a mask appeared above Adrián’s head.

A black mask in the shape of a half-face domino. With gold patterns on the edges. Floating. Rotating very slowly.

From Adrián’s hands burst black gauntlets with silver knuckles. A pulse of black energy with silver flashes shot out and struck the spear in midair. The spear deflected. The wound entered on the wrong side.

And then, as quickly as it had appeared, the mask vanished. The gauntlets vanished. Adrián fell.

Rhea made a small gesture with her hand. The image froze at the exact moment of the mask floating above his head.

"This," said Rhea, pointing at the mask with her index finger, "is what caught my attention. This is what made me decide to give you The Fool instead of letting you die. And this is what’s going to make this apartment fill up with very dangerous people if anyone outside this house finds out it exists."

Adrián stared at the image.

Looked at the mask floating above his own figure.

Felt, very small, very faint, a pulse of recognition somewhere deep inside. Like when you hear a song from childhood you’d forgotten, and your body remembers it before your head does.

"...what is it," he said quietly.

"It’s called a Soul Relic," said Rhea. "A rare phenomenon. Very rare. Manifestations born within humans randomly chosen by the universe, without the intervention of any faction. No one controls them. No one designs them. They appear, and each takes the form that corresponds to the bearer’s soul. Most humans born with one never awaken it. They die of old age without ever knowing they had it."

"And I have one."

"And you have one. And it awakened right before you died. By instinct. By pure survival reflex."

"And what does it do?"

Rhea smiled very slightly. Without humor.

"That’s what we’re going to find out today."

---

The basement of the Alastor building was, technically, seven floors below the lobby. Adrián knew this because the elevator—a black metal grate elevator with gold details, the kind you only see in very old buildings—took a while to go down. Rhea pressed the unlabeled button below "minus one." The elevator descended in silence.

When the doors opened, Adrián was looking at a room twenty meters by twenty, with a high ceiling, obviously windowless, lit by hanging lamps with warm light. The floor was polished stone. The walls, rough stone. In one corner there was a rack with weapons—swords, spears, daggers, a mace, two bows, and something that looked like a trident but with four prongs. In another corner, a training dummy made of a material Adrián didn’t recognize, marked with signs of having been hit many times. In the center, nothing. Just the clean floor.

Ishtar was already inside.

She’d changed—again—and was now wearing black athletic pants and a short white top that left her abdomen bare. She was lying face down on the floor, legs crossed in the air, playing with her phone.

"Bro-in-law!" she said without looking up. "Welcome to the ’break expensive things’ room. It’s my favorite place in the house."

"Ishtar," said Rhea, "stand up. You’re going to be useful today."

"Boring."

"Stand up."

Ishtar stood up.

Rhea led Adrián to the center of the room. Stood in front of him. Crossed her arms.

"Okay. The Mask. We’re going to activate it."

"...how."

"Concentration."

"Great. Very specific."

"Vega, your Relic responded by reflex when you were about to die. It’s tied to your survival instinct, to your raw emotion. We need you to learn to summon it without being on the verge of death. Most bearers take months to achieve this. Some, years."

"Oh, perfect. No pressure, then."

"Close your eyes."

Adrián closed his eyes.

"Now think about the exact moment it appeared. Think about the alleyway. Think about the spear. Think about how your body felt when that appeared."

Adrián thought.

Thought about the spear descending. Thought about the cold of the pavement. Thought about Sariel’s yellow eyes full of tears.

Nothing happened.

"..."

"Do you feel anything?"

"Anger. A lot of anger. But not a mask."

"Good. Anger is a starting point. Now try to channel it outward. Like it’s a muscle. Like it’s something you push out of yourself."

Adrián squeezed his eyes shut. Pushed whatever he was feeling outward.

Nothing.

"Concentration," said Rhea, patiently.

"I’m concentrated."

"You’re squeezing your eyes shut. That’s not concentration, that’s constipation."

"Rhea."

"Vega."

"..."

Ishtar, from the back of the room, laughed.

"Bro-in-law, if I put on some meditation ambient music, maybe it’ll help. Do you prefer forest sounds or whale sounds?"

"Ishtar," said Rhea without turning around. "Shut up."

"I was just offering."

Adrián clenched his teeth. Tried again. Failed again. Tried again.

Ten minutes.

Twenty minutes.

Thirty.

After forty-five minutes, with sweat running down his temple and the exact feeling of trying to flex a muscle he didn’t know where it was, Adrián opened his eyes.

"This isn’t working."

"I can see that."

"What am I doing wrong?"

Rhea looked at him. Then looked at Ishtar. Something in her expression shifted.

"Ishtar."

"Yes, sister?"

"Come here."

Ishtar approached, curious. Rhea grabbed her shoulder firmly, spun her toward Adrián, and without any warning said:

"Vega. Ishtar is going to attack you."

"What?"

"...what?" repeated Ishtar, half-offended.

"Nothing lethal. Just enough to scare you. Your Relic responded to a real attack. We need to recreate the stimulus. Ishtar is the only one fast enough to get close to you without actually hurting you. Start."

"Wait wait wait," said Adrián, "this is a terrible idea—"

"Oh how fun!" Ishtar clapped both hands like a small child. "Can I use my Talent?"

"No Talent. Just speed."

"Boring, but I accept."

And with no further transition, Ishtar disappeared.

Adrián wasn’t exaggerating. She disappeared. One instant she was three meters away. The next she was ten centimeters from his face, one open hand coming at his cheek like a slap.

Adrián raised his arms by instinct.

And his body, without asking permission again, responded.

Above his head, the mask appeared.

From his hands, the gauntlets burst forth.

And from his palms, without any direction, without any control, a pulse of black energy with silver flashes shot out—much bigger than what had come out in the alleyway, much more chaotic, much less precise—that struck Ishtar in the torso and sent her flying five meters backward.

Ishtar landed on the stone floor with a dull thud.

Adrián stood frozen with his hands still extended, the mask rotating slowly above his head, the gauntlets still manifested. His heart was beating very fast. He didn’t know what had just happened.

"...Ishtar."

Silence.

"Ishtar, are you okay?"

Ishtar raised one hand from the floor. Then her head. Then sat up.

"..."

"Ishtar. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know. I—"

"Bro-in-law."

"Yeah?"

Ishtar stood up slowly. Looked down at her own torso.

The short white top was no longer a short white top. It was a handful of white strips hanging from her shoulders and neck. The Void energy had cut through the fabric cleanly, without burning it, without marking her skin, but leaving very little that could technically be considered clothing.

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