Kaito Ashwood pressed his palm to the dying man's chest and willed the light to come. Nothing came. He was a student-wizard sworn to heal the world and burn its shadows away, but his healing light had never once answered him. The wounded traveler groaned in the dirt. Dark blood soaked the man's shirt where a shadow-thing had clawed him. Kaito's hands shook. His staff lay useless beside him, still wood, still just a stick. "Feel for it. Stop begging for it," said Master Juro. The old warrior knelt across from Kaito. He wore a straw hat and a sword at his hip, and he had trained Kaito since the boy's father died. Juro had watched Kaito fail this same trick a hundred times. Now he did not look angry. He looked patient, which was worse. "The miasma will come back for him," Juro said. "Smell that? Ink and rot. It is close." Kaito smelled it. A shadow creature drifted between the trees, black as spilled oil, trailing haze. Its single pale eye fixed on the wounded man. Kaito knew that if it touched them, their bodies would turn to stone. "I can't," Kaito said. "I've never done it. Not once." Juro grabbed Kaito's wrist and pressed it back to the wound. "Your father healed with love, not fear. Stop thinking of the light as a weapon you might drop. Think of the man you are touching." Kaito looked at the traveler's face. Gray. Fading. A stranger, but a life. Kaito stopped reaching outward. He thought instead of the warmth under his own ribs, the same warmth his heart pendant sat against. He pictured the wound closing because he wanted this man to live. Light bloomed from his palm. Warm, blue-gold, soft as moss and blossoms. It sank into the traveler's chest. The torn skin knit shut. The man gasped and breathed. Kaito laughed, shocked. The light held. It was real. It obeyed. Then the shadow creature struck. It lunged, jaws of darkness wide. Kaito had no time to think. He swung his staff up and shouted, and the same light poured down the wood. The staff hardened, edges sharpening into a bright blade. The blade met the creature and split it. The shadow burst into smoke and thinned to nothing. Kaito stood in the settling haze, staff glowing in his fist, breathing hard. "There," Juro said quietly. He rose and set a hand on Kaito's shoulder. "Now you know it is yours." But the light did not fade. It climbed brighter up the staff, up Kaito's arm, hot now, too hot. His skin stung. The blade hissed white. Kaito tried to will it down and could not. "Juro," he said. "I can start it. I don't know how to stop it." The light kept rising, and it began to burn him. And with that his energy faded as Kaito collapsed. After the healing and now the uncontrollable state, Kaito became ill. “Ah the metamorphosis begins” Juro sighs as he flings Kaito over his shoulder making his way to Baba Malvi’s hut. Out running and slashing shadowy creatures in their way. “Hurry, iron-born so I can close off the force field around my home- these pesky shadows are getting on my last nerves..!” Baba Malvi quickly opens and closes the shield surrounding her hut as Juro hurriedly jumps in throwing Kaito to the ground. “The boy’s finally done it Malvi..! Let’s celebrate…”