In the end, it was the sharp pain that woke her. Lucy s.h.i.+fts, her body aching. Quickly, Lucy trances, and enters her inner sky. Lucy is forced to stop on the edge. Her inner sky was full to the brim, the sparkles so packed together that she couldn't even enter. Lucy watches with disbelief as her Spirit Seeds spit out another handful of sparkles, and the pain increases sharply. Her inner sky stretching, and a thin crack running through it. Why isn't it stopping? Lucy panics. It should stop when my inner sky is full!

Seeing the Seeds glow brighter, Lucy quickly grabs the closest sparkles and binds them. Since it was yellow, Lucy simply grabbed as many yellow sparkles as she could reach twisting them together, creating room in her inner sky for her to slip in. Grab. Twist. Grab. Twist. Grab. Twist. Grab. Twist.

Lucy runs out of yellow sparkles, the silver ones were crowded around, blocking her from reaching the loose yellow sparkles. Letting go of her giant yellow sparkle. Lucy grabs the nearest silver sparkles and twists them together. Grab. Twist. Grab. Twist. Grab. Twist.

In such a fas.h.i.+on, Lucy alternated between silver, and yellow sparkles binding all the lone sparkles of each color together. Lucy didn't notice the poor black sparkles. If Lucy paused, she might have. As it would happen, her luck was strong. A case of a blind cat stumbling over a dead mouse? As Lucy fused her silver, and yellow sparkles together. The neglected black sparkles b.u.mped into each other, and as the pressure increased they began to bind together. Not as perfectly as if Lucy had done it, but enough to prevent her inner sky from cracking. Truly Lucy had unnatural luck!

If only Lucy had noticed, maybe she would have been able to rid herself of the sharp pain. As it was, the combined yellow, and silver sparkles grew so big, that they ran out of s.p.a.ce in her inner sky. All three Spirit Seeds toss out more, and Lucy whimpers, as blood escapes from her mouth. What if this never stops?

No! Lucy shakes her head sharply. No! Lucy attempts to open her mental sea. Halfway through, Lucy lost focus and was shoved out abruptly. Lucy clenches her fist. If she let this continue her inner sky would split. No ifs, whats, about it. That way lay certain death.

Fiercely, Lucy squeezes the large yellow sparkle. Shrink d.a.m.n it! Lucy is happily surprised as it compresses, the energy becoming denser and purer. Lucy sweatdropped as she used every bit of strength to make it as dense as possible. By the time, Lucy stops the yellow sparkle was 1/10 of the size it had been. In contrast, the silver sparkle looked unwieldily big and murky. Lucy begins to squeeze the silver sparkle, enjoying the way it became smaller and brighter. As the pain faded, Lucy calmed. Done compressing both sparkles, Lucy opens her mental sea, guiding the energy into their respective streams. Lucy frowns, noticing how murky, and dim the energy in her sparkle streams seemed in comparison to the compressed sparkles.