The good old endless black void had returned.
A deep, ancient black… one I had stared at for far too long. I could swear that before ending up in this place, black used to be one of my favorite colors: beautiful, mysterious, elegant, and it went well with practically everything. Now, wearing something of that color would probably trigger some trauma… I was really glad the organization's uniform was gray.
Anyway, I was there again.
Or at least… something of me was.
I remained still, suspended in the void while my mind desperately tried to figure things out itself and organize everything.
I brought a hand to my head and took a deep breath, trying to calm the chaos inside me.
Or at least I tried to. I wasn't even sure I actually had a body in that place. My form was probably closer to some kind of projection.
One thing that felt very real, however, was the dull pain pulsing in my mind, as if someone were beating a drum inside my ears.
It was true that the memories were no longer fighting like before. They didn't clash violently anymore, nor did they try to erase each other.
But that only made things slightly easier.
Now they all existed together.
Every thought I had seemed to have more than one origin.
Every emotion carried shades I couldn't fully recognize.
I felt nostalgia for a quiet village in the middle of nowhere… and at the same time for a city filled with neon lights, loud and alive.
I felt affection for people who had never existed in the same world.
It was like a drunk writer had written two completely different stories on the same page and thought it was a brilliant idea.
"…This is a problem."
My voice echoed in the void.
For a moment I was surprised—I didn't remember deciding to speak.
The thought had simply… turned into sound, as if my consciousness had decided to manifest itself.
I closed my eyes.
*Kian.*
The name appeared in my mind.
Every detail of his existence resurfaced: his childhood, the village, the orphanage, the cold nights, the old man, the anger, the pain.
All of it was part of me.
But when I tried to fully associate it with myself… something slipped away.
I couldn't quite understand it. It didn't feel wrong—it felt more like something was missing.
So I tried the other one.
*Terence.*
The sound was different, and so was the meaning.
It carried images of books open on a desk, novels and video games, rain-soaked streets, the bitter aroma of coffee, loneliness worn like armor, sarcasm used like a shield, and the patience of someone who watches the world from the outside.
That name was also mine—deeply mine—and I could clearly feel the connection.
And yet…
It didn't work either. The same problem appeared again: it was right, but incomplete.
I remained still for a long moment, trying to understand the source of that strange feeling.
Then, slowly, realization came.
It had never been about choosing between Kian and Terence.
Both were part of me, but only that—parts of a whole. They couldn't exist separately without losing something essential.
A small, incredulous laugh escaped me.
"Fantastic."
I paused and sighed deeply.
"I haven't even been born for five minutes and I'm already having an existential crisis. What's going to happen in ten minutes? Will I pass out again and wake up in front of a god?"
I stayed silent for a moment, then sighed again.
"Okay… calm down and think…"
I murmured the two names slowly.
"Kian…"
"…Terence…"
I let them float there, mentally observing how each influenced the other, how their memories and emotions blended with my perception of the present.
I needed a solution—something not too complicated, but something that still carried the right meaning.
In the end, after thinking for a while, the answer came almost naturally as the syllables joined together on their own.
"Ki…"
"…te."
The word lingered in the void.
"Kite."
I repeated it, and the sound felt strangely natural and harmonious.
It didn't erase anything.
It didn't reject anything either.
It was simply… something new born from the old—a bridge between everything I had been and everything I had become.
"Kite… yeah, that's perfect…"
When I pronounced the name once more, I felt a resonance ripple through my consciousness.
It was as if a rusty gear had finally clicked into the right place.
And at that moment, something changed.
In front of me still floated that white sphere that I could now confidently call my soul.
There was no longer any trace of the line that had once divided it.
The fusion was complete.
I observed it for a few seconds, and then suddenly its surface began to tremble.
Small sparks appeared—first one, then two—multiplying rapidly.
After the sparks, a thin strand of green energy slowly emerged from the sphere: a bright, vivid green, like leaves illuminated by sunlight.
Shortly after, another type of filament appeared—this time dark purple: a deep, mysterious, hypnotic violet.
The two energies continued to slip out from the surface of the sphere.
At first they were only faint traces of light, almost indistinguishable in the void, but gradually their presence in the surrounding space began to grow at an increasing pace.
The green spread like the current of a river, while the purple expanded more slowly, fluid and silent like liquid shadow.
The void began to fill.
The two colors moved with elegant motions, intertwining in some places and separating in others, yet never merging into a single strand, creating an incredible sight.
The contrast with the darkness was magnificent, producing something that looked like an aurora in the night sky.
For some reason, I couldn't look away.
It was…
Simply beautiful.
"Wow."
That was the only way I could describe what I was seeing.
The phenomenon continued for a long time, yet I never grew tired of the sight.
Then, just as it had begun, the flow of energy gradually slowed until my soul completely stopped releasing new strands.
The energy now filled the space, but it didn't remain scattered for long.
It began to move, gathering toward two distinct points as if an invisible force were pulling it in.
The green currents gathered together, and the purple trails did the same.
The two masses of energy slowly compressed, becoming denser and more solid.
Eventually the movement stopped.
Now, beside the white sphere, two new spheres floated—fully formed, though slightly smaller.
One glowed with a warm, bright green.
The other was dark violet, with deep reflections that seemed to absorb the surrounding light.
They floated in the void, and for some strange reason I had the feeling they were judging me.
…That was probably just my imagination.
"…Okay."
I crossed my arms and started thinking again. After the initial amazement, I more or less understood what was happening.
The fusion of the souls must have temporarily blocked my awakening, but now that the process was complete, nothing could stop it.
So if my thoughts were correct, the things floating in front of me should be—
At that moment, the world trembled.
At first it was a light vibration, almost imperceptible.
Then came a second, stronger tremor.
The void around me rippled with each new shock, like a lake struck by a stone.
The white sphere and the two newly formed ones trembled in resonance.
I frowned.
"Uh… I think—"
I tried to speak, but my voice failed me.
My vision began to blur, and everything suddenly tilted.
"Oh come on, I was jok—"
My consciousness wavered.
The last thing I saw were the three spheres suspended in the void, glowing more and more intensely.
Then everything turned black.
Not metaphorically.
Actually black.
I had lost consciousness… again.
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Cancel what I said a few chapters ago. Long live fight scene. And I will never write two consecutive chapters about character developement and emotional growth again.