All My Summons Become Divine Girls

Ferra opened a treatment channel no wider than Vella’s first two fingers. It curved through nullstone, avoided the reflected edge of the spatial glass, and stopped against the child’s outer soul membrane.

The channel offered no room for a weapon, healing construct, or second hand. If the prison tightened, Ferra could collapse the metal guide before it cut inward.

Vella knelt outside the opening with both hands visible and said through the physical air, "I will place two fingers near your wrist, and I will stop whenever you pull away."

The child sat inside the four walls with her injured arm pressed against her chest. She could not answer the language, yet her eyes followed Vella’s fingers as they entered the guide.

When the fingertips neared her bandage, she flinched without retreat, so Vella stopped and asked, "May I move closer?" while waiting through one complete twelve-needle cycle.

After one breath, the child lowered her wrist, and no one called the movement consent to anything larger.

Vella advanced until her fingertips touched the oldest bandage rather than skin, and Spirit perception entered the forced circulation through that contact as it tracked pain before supplying power.

The child’s memories arrived as broken sensations inside the treatment current. Hands restrained her horns while golden needles entered, and demonic heat dragged her core outward.

A familiar royal voice praised longer survival as evidence that the procedure improved, while other fragments held no obvious violence because a bowl arrived at the same hour and a lamp burned through the night.

One unseen attendant hummed as they changed bandages, a kindness that existed beside pain without making the room humane, and Vella kept those moments separate from pain without turning captivity into care in the private treatment record.

She shared none of the attendant’s possible identity until the child could decide whether the memory belonged in public evidence. Vella’s shoulders tightened, but she did not withdraw abruptly enough to hurt the patient.

"I feel where the current goes," Vella said as she kept her voice calm, "I will not change it yet."

The child tried to pull her wrist away, and Vella released all pressure immediately, leaving only the channel opening.

The retreat caused no seizure because Spirit mana had carried observation without a healing command, and after several minutes the child extended her wrist again.

"May I touch the bandage?" Vella asked as she repeated the same narrow request.

One small nod moved beneath tangled hair as Vella made contact and entered deeper, letting repeated extraction pain travel through her Spirit body as information rather than physical damage.

The pain remained specific as she felt the first victim’s failed settings preserved in the child’s scars, the second victim’s corrected needle order, and six years of adjustments that trained every pathway to fear separation.

Hajin felt none of those memories automatically through the Spirit Ring. Vella shared only the structural map she chose to provide, so the patient’s pain did not become household knowledge without permission.

"The braid has twelve primary anchors and one hidden Dominion seam," she said as she projected clinical lines across Aegis.

Vella continued, "Three anchors can be severed only after Didi suspends the claim, four require the Lever to expose them, and I must hold the remaining five until Sanctuary accepts circulation."

Ferra adjusted her guide around the new map while Didi rehearsed the refusal grammar without activating it as the sisters traced the safe route with both Wings closed.

Loccy held a blanket outside the outer opening, the same one the prison rejected earlier.

She did not push it through, so the visible object remained a stable landmark whenever Vella’s perception crossed an unfamiliar internal path.

Juna remained at the retreat door with her progression unchanged, so no surprise attack could trap Vella’s hand inside the channel. The child watched every person who came near the room.

Her pulse accelerated when the First Prince’s footsteps crossed the gallery above. Vella withdrew her perception from the painful memories and matched the learned breathing rhythm instead.

"May I keep holding your wrist while he is there?" Vella asked, keeping her voice low.

The child clutched her fingers before the question finished, and Vella allowed that grip without tightening her own hand.

The Prince appeared behind the glass, watched the contact with visible distaste, and said through the chamber wall, "Spirit imitation cannot interpret demonic pain."

The Prince continued, "You are teaching the subject to depend upon a construct that disappears when its owner dies."

Vella kept her attention on the patient and said, "I am Vella, and I will release your hand whenever you choose," offering the child her name rather than answering the insult.

The child’s fingers remained closed around hers. Hajin stepped into the Prince’s line of sight without blocking the child’s view of Vella.

"She is not my imitation," Hajin said, keeping his Rings dormant, "continue speaking if you want every claim recorded beside your treatment notes."

With the Prince’s blood key, one needle activated, and Didi froze its command before it reached the child’s core while accepting a shallow retaliation across her Shards.

Her grip tightened until Vella’s Spirit fingers deformed around her hand, and Vella allowed the shape to change because pain to a constructed body required no defensive withdrawal.

She continued asking before every movement, separating what she could endure from what the patient had authorized, as Didi looked upward and said, "No procedure begins without the patient’s permission, and your authorization no longer outranks her hand."

Vella asked before she shifted her fingers beneath the bandage, and the child gave another tiny nod.

Neutral Spirit mana entered one surface wound and stopped where healing would reach the dangerous core, but the touch did not remove old pain.

The touch prevented the wrist from bleeding around the guide and provided a stable route for the coming operation, while Vella withdrew before the limited healing could acquire the prison’s extraction command.

Aria recorded each response with every pause and withdrawal, while consent remained limited to the visible movement immediately requested.

It did not extend to Bloodline Sanctuary, extraction, permanent treatment, or any future decision. Eirwen witnessed the record from beyond the dangerous circle and contributed language rather than power.

She required every gesture to be described exactly, so later courts could not call one frightened nod a broad treaty agreement. Didi added her independent seal beneath that limitation.

Even if the rescue became politically valuable, no royal archive could honestly claim the child had accepted guardianship during treatment.

"She cannot understand the rescue plan yet," Hajin said privately to Aria, "do not convert these gestures into informed agreement for permanent anything."

"Permanent integration remains unavailable," Aria replied, "current responses authorize only the recorded treatment contacts."

Vella stayed inside the forced circulation until she mapped the entire twelve-count and experienced the repeated pain without calling endurance trust.

When the child finally released her fingers, Vella withdrew along the same path and let Ferra collapse the guide to its safe resting width, leaving Vella’s Spirit form wavering around both hands.

Hajin offered mana through the Ring, but Vella accepted only enough to stabilize her shape. She refused a refill that might obscure how much the coming operation would cost.

Aria recorded the expenditure beside every other resource limit while the child watched Vella’s empty hand remain outside the wall.

Vella turned toward Hajin and said, "We are ready to hold her body, but we are not ready to claim that she feels safe."

Hajin accepted the difference as the operation gained a living treatment route and the patient received one touch that stopped when she asked.

The route also gave the team a boundary no system panel could replace. If the child withdrew her hand during the rescue, every layer had to pause, even if the prison or the Prince used that pause to attack.

Vella copied the limitation beside the twelve-anchor map while Didi repeated it in the treaty record, and the first touch had not solved the prison but had made the patient’s refusal measurable.