“Oh, boss! Are you finally waking up?” came the chipper voice, Feather’s eyes blinking open with a groan and a wince, his body battered and bruised and in immense pain as he glared at the first thing he could lock his eyes onto. Ah, the full moon, so high and mighty above them. It sat there in its place atop the great blue sky, so elegant and beautiful, so powerful and influential. He wished he could fly up and touch the moon. He’d tried before, just out of curiosity, but had ended up not being able to breathe up there and fell to his death, waking up on the ground someplace he was unfamiliar with. So, all in all, he and the moon didn’t have a very good relationship with each other. And yes, that was a completely normal thing to say.

“Tch. Stupid moon,” Feather clicked his tongue, not willing to move his aching limbs underneath the weight of his pain while Leocadies and Kya hovered at his side, having lifted him onto a blanket after digging him up from all the rocks and debris his explosion had buried him under.

Though Kya was grimacing at his complaint, her pale skin and blood-red eyes illuminated by the moonlight as she impatiently flipped through a deck of cards. “The moon’s not what’s stupid here. Feather, what were you thinking? It took us hours to find your body underneath all that rubble,” the sensible woman scolded, Feather’s eyes shutting tight while he pursed his lips, trying his hardest to listen respectfully while she nagged him. “I bet it was pretty painful for you, too, and yet I doubt you’ve learned your lesson even now. You really need to learn to hold back. Would it kill you to not go crazy after you resurrect each time?”

“Ah! But if I don’t use all of my power in a fight, it doesn’t feel good!” he whined, sore arms going to rub at his eyes while Kya glared at him.

“And dying feels any better?!”

“It does!” he insisted, Leocadies only laughing while his cat-like tail perked up and flicked side to side. It looked like he’d used another one of his concepts to dig him out from under all the rock, and that he still hadn’t fully transformed back. Leocadies had three concepts under his control after all, and along with his telepathy, he could also turn himself into a lion. He still had pale round ears sticking out from fluffy ginger hair, and a tail that kept flicking back and forth while idle claws kneaded the ground.

“Hahah, it’s okay, Kya. It’s our job to get him out of trouble, so let’s not get too worked up,” he smiled leisurely, and the woman’s gaze softened when she saw Feather rubbing so aggressively at his eyes, clearly still overstimulated. This always happened after he revived back in full form, his body trying so desperately to get rid of all its overflowing mana that it sent their leader’s emotions into disarray and he became more destructive, his instinct to go crazy and let out all that excess power so his mind and body could relax. It usually only took one big burst for him to be fine, but the threat was already gone and entirely turned to ash because of the crazed mania he’d been in after his first death, so now he had no proper way to release anything after reviving for the second time and was becoming too anxious. But still, it wasn’t like they could just stand by and watch him hurt himself, so in order to stop that bad habit of his where he tried to tear out his own eyes, Leocadies placed warm and gentle hands over his leader’s and carefully peeled them away from his face with a cheerful smile. “Boss, you’ll hurt yourself if you keep doing that! If you’re stressed, feel free to punch a tree!”

“Huh? But what if I knock it down? Wouldn’t that be bad?”

“Like you ever think of those sorts of consequences before you do anything. Just go ahead, it’ll be fine,” Kya spoke pointedly, giving her deck another quick shuffle as she mixed up her cards, sitting on the soft blanket with her legs underneath herself in a position that was calm and poised. “Besides, you already blew up the dragon’s lair and sent a shockwave of intense mana that traveled across the entire planet. You’re lucky you have that presence-subduing magic activated on the three of us, otherwise we definitely would’ve been noticed.”

“Oh. Haha, right. Aren’t I the best?”

“You’re a handful,” Kya spat, but Feather laughed freely regardless of her mild aggression, having always put his full faith in these two loyal subordinates of his. And through his buzzing joy that felt like a fly running amok in his brain, he finally pushed himself upright despite all his aching limbs trying to keep him down and tried his best to stare into space and center himself.

Taboo magic was taboo for a reason, after all. In the case of concepts, there were simply things that someone just wasn’t supposed to do. Some of those things were taboo because they were seen as immoral, with prime examples of those being the concepts of necromancy, death itself, and the ancient concept of evil. Though all of those concepts were insanely hard to master, most notably the concept of death, where harnessing such a thing would essentially give you control over the lives and deaths of others. But other kinds of magic were forbidden simply because they were deadly to the user, and the Central Domain Alliance who made these laws wanted to protect the people. That was where the concept of anything fell under.

Once someone used it, even if it was only one time in their entire life, they would almost certainly die within the next century. The more they used it, the sooner their death approached. If they used it as their main concept, they could die within days. Feather was aware that the concept was sometimes used as a last resort by many different militaries, where if they were truly facing an impossible foe and there was no other way to win, someone would act as a martyr and develop the concept of anything, inevitably dying on the battlefield while overpowering all their opponents as their final act, hopefully earning their side victory in the process. One person’s sacrifice to win it all... that was the goal of those tragic circumstances.

Feather understood he was an anomaly. He’d overcome the concept’s drawbacks by simply embodying the fact that the concept of anything… truly let him do anything. And that included revival. No one before him had ever been able to envision something like that, making it impossible for them, and he knew they’d tried. But most people just couldn’t fathom coming back from the dead, especially in the face of it. They couldn’t imagine the possibility. And why was that? Well, it would be because most people saw dying as the end of things, and were incapable of changing that point of view. But Feather, when he was younger, had thought of death as his only option to live. If he wanted to live his life as he wished, if he wanted to live his life as the person he was, then he had no choice but to die. And to have that freedom, he was willing to do so. That was why it became possible for him, because he had a mindset no one else did. Now he could revive himself endlessly, no matter how much the process killed him. And his lifespan would reset each time. To him, death no longer had a meaning. It was just a tool to help him live, that was all.

“So hey, Kya,” he called out with a grin while moving himself closer, putting himself right in the middle of her personal space while he eyed that deck of tarot cards she hadn’t once stopped shuffling since he’d woken. “You’ve been messing with those ever since I got up. Are we gonna do a reading? It’s been a while!”

“Oh, yeah, Kya said something weird happened earlier,” Leocadies spoke up from where he was squatting like he really was some giant cat, tail flicking back and forth as his orange eyes gleamed. “When we were pulling you from the rubble, she used her concept of divination to pull a card out to help us, only for all of the major arcana cards to come flying out all at once like something had given them a big push.”

“That only happens when the cards want me to use them,” Kya explained further, Leocadies radiating a warm smile with his tail wrapping around himself as Feather gave the two nothing but a blank stare.

“Okay. Then do a reading. What are you waiting for?”

Which… Kya couldn’t even get mad. Even when his tone was horrendous and his words condescending, all he had to do was smile and grin and she could probably forgive anything. Still, she gave him a rough glare anyway, and kept her words sharp. “I was waiting for you to wake up. Because you acted like a fool and got yourself killed by falling rocks.”

“That is a rather lame way to die, boss,” Leocadies agreed as Feather blinked at the comments, dumbfounded to hear them instead of the usual praise. C’mon, hadn’t he done well defeating that hydra? It hadn’t even taken him that long! Sure, he was knocked out for half a day, but that just gave them more good time to scout for rumors…! He could really only be offended by this heckling, his face scrunching up into unconsolable irritation.

“Shut up about that! I didn’t do anything bad, okay?! Don’t make fun of me, I could solo both of you right now! As your leader, I command you to do a tarot reading this instant or face consequences!” he ordered childishly, Kya’s glare only moving into a look of defeat.

She ended up only heaving another sigh, shuffling her deck one last time before she evened them out against the ground. “Alright, boss, I’ll get on it,” she agreed obediently, Feather seeming to instantly glow with satisfaction before bursting into a triumphant smile, which led Kya to smile in turn when she pushed the deck in front of him. “Then, as usual, please knock three times while envisioning in your mind the question of your future… please ask the cards where your life is going. They need you to communicate with them first so that they can communicate back,” she explained comfortably, and Feather beamed at the instruction with a vibrant nod.

“Right! I’ll do that, I love to communicate,” he giggled, easily moving forward to give three slow knocks against the top of the deck, while internally asking them… what did his future hold? He stared at the black backing of the card that held a simple, singular golden eye imprinted on its frame, silently asking for its guidance on what was to come… though he wasn’t worried. Whatever it was, he could obviously take it.

“Alright, have you properly envisioned your question?” Kya asked him as she reached again for the cards, Feather giving a bright nod before she picked them up with both hands, already splitting the deck apart to shuffle them. “Good. Then let’s see which cards want to speak. Tell me when to stop.”

Feather was never sure how she did it, but Kya took a small chunk of the cards and lifted them up before mixing them back into the deck, one hand hovering over the other as she kept shuffling them between herself. He was sure he could learn if he tried, because after all, he could do anything! But card shuffling wasn’t the most interesting thing in the world, so unless Kya was doing it, he didn’t have much curiosity in learning how to do it himself.

He waited very patiently as a couple of the cards began to pop themselves out, eyes pinned on every movement the cards and Kya’s hands made, and he waited for a certain spot in time that sounded like he could finally ask her to stop, too curious to look at what had already displayed itself before them. And when the fourth card came tumbling forward, he raised his hand towards his friend, who promptly ceased in her shuffling and set the rest of the cards down at her side.

“Alright, let’s see…” she trailed, reaching towards the first card that had popped out from the deck right-side-up. “Hm. You got Death.”

“Ack! Is he gonna die for real?!” Leocadies screeched only for dramatic effect, succeeding in making Feather laugh while Kya could only give another tired sigh and kept to her duties.

“No, that’s not what this card means,” she explained seriously, carefully placing the card in front of Feather atop the blanket. “The Death card usually refers to transformation or the ending of something, which can be often linked to bad habits or phases of life. But let’s first see what the other cards are before I tell you what I think it means in this particular reading…” Kya trailed, carefully bringing the other three cards in front of Feather, who observed them curiously. “Ah, let’s see... together we have Death, Six of Cups, Wheel of Fortune, and Ten of Wands. That is… certainly an interesting combination…” she frowned, Feather and Leo both tilting their heads at her before Feather got impatient and started tapping the ground.

“Go on, go on! Kya, don’t be shy! What’s it mean?”

“Uh, I’m trying to think,” she responded sharply, Feather humming very happily to himself as Leocadies watched her face. “Well, the Wheel of Fortune and Ten of Wands is kind of a concerning combination, honestly. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything bad for most people, but I don’t think you’ll like it, Feather,” she answered after a moment, the man’s twinkling blue eyes staring at her as he leaned forward on both hands.

“Ohh? Why not, why not?”

“Because it basically says that some unexpected burden or responsibility is about to be put on your shoulders, and that it’s very much beyond your control. You can compare it to destiny.”

And she was forced to watch the way Feather’s smile slipped off his features and into a petty scowl, his thin blond brows furrowing together as his lips pursed tight. It looked as if he were itching to say something, and he most definitely was. He wanted to stand up and stomp all over those cards, but that would only make Kya kill him, and his body already hurt enough from having died in such a painful way earlier… he was still sore, so he didn’t want to die again so soon, which meant he shouldn’t be rash and stomp on Kya’s cards like he wanted to. Instead, he found that the best thing he could do was whine. “But… but I don’t want to be responsible for anything,” he frowned, almost like a child pouting over having to do their chores, and Kya and Leocadies both gave him a sympathetic look before the woman continued.

“Yes, well… I know you don’t, but there are just some things we can’t avoid. Six of Cups also implies that it’ll be something from your past coming to meet you again,” Kya explained dutifully, before Feather suddenly grimaced so hard he didn’t care any longer about how much his body was hurting, and stood from his spot on the ground to drive his fist into the nearest tree.