Logan did not understand the meeps, that was the first problem.
Bluebell floated in front of him, chiming in soft, bell-like notes while little blue sparks popped around its body. Goldie answered from Jinx's side with warmer lights, bobbing up and down like the motion was supposed to make things clear.
Logan stared at them for a full ten seconds.
Then he said, "I'm going to be honest. I got none of that."
Goldie made a sound that felt offended.
Bluebell spun in the air and threw three small lights into a triangle, then dragged one light through the middle, then made all of them burst.
Logan rubbed his brow. "That might be a warning about geometry."
The two meeps chimed faster.
Jinx sat on the flat stone nearby, still drying Ahri's hair with a cloth. Ahri was kneeling between her legs, her six tails spread behind her, eyes fixed on Logan like she was waiting for him to come closer. Every time Ahri leaned forward too much, Jinx slid a hand into her pink hair and gently tugged her back.
"Nope," Jinx muttered. "Stay. Good fox. We are not pouncing on the injured guy."
Ahri made a dissatisfied sound but stayed where she was.
Logan looked back at Bluebell and Goldie. "I'll ask again. Does the spiritual Bard have the same consciousness as the normal Bard? Is it one mind with two expressions, or are they separate beings?"
Goldie blinked.
Bluebell chimed once.
Then both meeps burst into another series of lights, gestures, spins, and noises.
Logan watched carefully.
He understood nothing.
"Okay," he said. "That was worse."
The meeps both puffed up.
Jinx looked up from Ahri's hair. "Are you bullying the floating beans?"
"I'm trying to ask a very important question."
"I don't even understand the question."
"..."
"Maybe ask the big guy himself instead of interrogating his snacks."
Goldie gave a sharp chime.
Jinx pointed at it. "Don't start with me. I carried trauma in your buddy's belly."
Logan exhaled slowly.
The worst part was that Jinx was right. He could descend into the Spirit Realm and look for the spiritual Bard. The problem was that the last and only time he had seen Bard there, he had understood almost nothing. Bard had spoken in meaning, music, movement, and nonsense layered together.
Logan had hoped the meeps might offer something clearer... they did not.
Which meant he would probably need to ask Thresh.
That thought made him tired before he even moved.
Logan looked at Ahri.
Ahri had stopped trying to reach him. She was watching his face, and that made the ache in his chest come back. Her silence was... wrong.
"She needs to go back to her world," Logan said.
Jinx's hand stilled in Ahri's hair.
Ahri tilted her head, not fully understanding, or not wanting to.
Logan said, softer, "Say goodbye to her for now."
Jinx did not answer at once.
Something passed over her face that Logan had not expected. Something sad. A quiet kind of concern.
Logan wondered again what had happened while he was unconscious.
Ekko had not seen everything. Jinx carried something now when she looked at Ahri, something that had not been there before.
"Can you make Ahri talk again?" Jinx asked.
Logan blinked.
Not because of the question.
Because she said Ahri's name like it belonged in her mouth. Familiar. Careful. Not like a rival.
"I'll do everything I can," Logan said.
Jinx looked down at Ahri. "Good."
"Why?" Logan asked.
Jinx's fingers tightened around the cloth. "Because it must feel terrible. Trying to say something and not being able to."
Logan had no answer for that.
He stepped closer and placed a hand on Jinx's head.
She stiffened at first, then did not pull away.
"I'll do everything I can," he repeated.
Jinx swallowed and gave a short nod. Then she leaned down near Ahri's ear. "Listen, fox. Next time I see you, you'd better be able to talk. I'm not guessing all your weird little noises forever."
Ahri turned and reached for Jinx's face.
Jinx saw the kiss coming and twisted at the last second, so Ahri's lips landed on her cheek instead of her mouth.
"Nice try," Jinx said, though her voice was softer than usual.
Ahri smiled.
...
The world loosened.
The clearing, the Snerf forest, the meeps, and Jinx began to blur as Logan pulled himself toward the Spirit Realm with Ahri beside him. Ahri grabbed his hand immediately, her fingers locking around his.
Then a chain wrapped around Logan's torso.
He had half a second to curse.
The chain yanked.
Ahri made a startled sound and clung to him with both arms. The descent turned violent. Colors smeared past them, pink, gold, black, green, blue, none of them holding still long enough to become anything. Logan felt himself pulled sideways through layers of spirit and dream at a speed that made his bones feel hollow.
Then the chain released.
He hit grass.
Ahri landed on top of him.
For a moment, Logan could only stare up at a sky that was not a sky, full of drifting petals and soft light. The air smelled of flowers, old rain, and something faintly bitter.
Ahri pushed herself up from his chest, blinking.
The chains slid away from Logan and vanished into the flowers.
He sat up.
Flowers spread in every direction, white and red and blue and violet, growing along a path that looked too carefully arranged to be natural. A quiet wind moved through them.
Thresh stood ahead.
The Akana's face was humanoid and beautiful, almost gentle in shape, which only made the anger behind his eyes worse. He was not looking at Logan.
He was looking at Ahri.
Thresh walked toward her.
"What the hell did you do?"
Ahri stepped back.
Her eyes lowered.
The movement was small, but Logan saw the guilt in it.
He stood and moved between them before he fully thought it through. "Thresh, wait."
"Be silent."
The words cracked through the air.
Logan's mouth closed.
Thresh's gaze did not leave Ahri. "Can you not see what she is now? She is a mockery of what she should be."
Logan's anger rose fast. "Treat her with respect. She is a Blossom God, same as you."
The moment he said it, doubt struck him.
He hated that it did.
Thresh looked at him then, and Logan knew the Akana had seen it.
"You already know," Thresh said. "By herself, the fox is no longer a deity."
Logan looked at Ahri.
She kept her head bowed.
That hurt worse than Thresh's words.
Logan began to understand the fury. Thresh was Ahri's rival, yes. But there was respect in that. A god could hate another god and still understand the shape of what had been lost.
Logan forced himself to think.
"By herself," he said. "What do you mean by that?"
Thresh exhaled through his nose, almost a sigh. "Where are her tails?"
Logan frowned. "I don't know what you mean."
Thresh stepped forward and grabbed Logan's left arm.
Ahri made a soft, distressed sound, but Thresh ignored her.
"Here," Thresh said.
He released the arm and pointed to Logan's left leg. "Here."
Then he placed one finger against Logan's chest. "And here."
Logan went still.
The arm.
The leg.
What was broken inside.
...
His throat tightened. "If she stays close to me, can she return to normal?"
Thresh's mouth curled without humor. "Look at it from the nefarious side, boy. If the fox is separated from you, from her tails, she loses her divinity. Her essence. Her entire being is tied to what she tore away." His eyes sharpened. "Without them, eventually, she will disappear."
Logan felt the world tilt.
Thresh continued, voice colder. "Do you know her as Ahri, the six-tailed fox?"
Logan looked at Ahri.
She would not meet his eyes.
He wanted to ask her why. Why she had been willing to fade away for him. Why she had chosen this without giving him the chance to refuse.
He could not make the words come out.
"So she has to stay near me," Logan said, "or she disappears."
"No," Thresh said. "Staying near you will only slow the process."
...
Logan's hands curled. "How does she get them back? Can I return them?"
"Not simply." Thresh looked at the scars on Logan's arm and leg with open disgust. "They are inside you, but they no longer fully belong to her. Perhaps she can recover them. Perhaps not. That is something only she would know. Every Spirit Blossom God has their own myth."
Logan turned to Ahri.
He stepped close and lowered his voice. "Do you know how?"
Ahri looked away.
Logan stared at her. "Ahri."
She did not answer.
He took her shoulders gently. "Do you know how to get them back?"
Ahri's eyes flicked up to his.
Then down again.
Thresh said, "Clearly, the fox does not want to tell you."
Logan looked at him, then back at Ahri.
Why?
If there was a way, why hide it?
Ahri moved before he could ask again. She stepped into him and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her face to his chest. Her tails curled low behind her. No words. No explanation. Just the weight of her body against him.
Logan's hands hovered for a moment.
Then he hugged her back.
There was a way.
He was almost sure now.
But she either did not want to do it, or the cost was something she did not want him to know.
A long silence passed.
Then another thought came, sharp enough to cut through the grief.
"Can she still guide souls?" Logan asked.
Thresh's eyes narrowed slightly.
Logan looked at him. "In the Spirit Realm. Can she still do what she did before?"
"What do you think?" Thresh said. "Perhaps, if you stay beside her and the two of you pretend she is the goddess she once was. Perhaps she can perform the shape of it for a time. But eventually, she will fade."
Logan looked down at Ahri's pink hair.
Lost souls.
If Ahri could not guide them, then they would wander.
They would drift.
They would be taken by something else.
By him.
Logan slowly raised his gaze to Thresh.
"Shouldn't you be happy?," Logan said.
Thresh said nothing.
"If Ahri can't guide souls, more souls are left for you."
The flowers moved in the wind.
Thresh's expression did not change, but something in the silence did.
Logan studied him.
Maybe part of Thresh's obsession had always been competition. Ahri guided souls. Thresh trapped them. Two myths pulling at the same. If she vanished, he would win.
And he was angry.
Thresh sighed. "Follow me."
He turned before Logan could respond.
Logan looked at Ahri.
She still held him.
He took her hand.
"Come on," he said softly.
Ahri nodded once and stayed close.
They followed Thresh down the flowered path. The Spirit Realm shifted around them with each step, but the flowers remained. Some opened with eyes inside. Some bent toward Ahri as if they recognized her, then drooped when she did not answer.
They walked until the path widened into another field.
Bard stood there.
The cosmic being was bent over the flowers, searching through them with slow, careful motions. A few meeps floated around him, chiming softly as he lifted one flower, looked beneath it, then moved to the next.
Logan stopped.
Thresh glanced back at him.
"There," the Akana said. "Ask your impossible questions."