In the world of Lord of the Mysteries.
The instant Bernadette's soul came crashing into him, Vincent had managed at last to cut off the devouring impulse — only to watch helplessly as she flew straight into his body and vanished inside.
After a brief, hazy sensation of fullness, he became dimly aware of something new inside himself. Something that hadn't been there before. Another person's soul.
Bernadette's.
Oh, bloody hell.
Vincent scrambled to his feet. He looked down at himself and shouted: "Bernadette!"
The only reply was that familiar view from Bernadette's body — the one that made it impossible to see one's own feet.
He tried again, this time mentally: Bernadette! Can you hear me? Bernadette Gustav! Queen Mystic?
Silence.
He frowned. Was it all just a hallucination?
Or — had he failed to stop the soul-devouring in time, and Bernadette's soul had simply been... consumed? Wiped clean?
He quickly took stock of his spirituality and the various Beyonder abilities of the Mystery Pryer pathway. Everything remained exactly where it had been last time.
Vincent took a slow breath and sat back down. He murmured the incantation: "Ruler of the Realm of Chaos, Restorer of the Unbalanced Scale, Shadow of Order and Regulation."
The faint background noise of the Realm filled his ears, and he stepped in.
On the vast stone platform at the Thirty-Third Heaven, the levitating Scale hung in the air as it always did, pouring out its golden mist. No one else was here but him. He raised a hand and spread his spirituality into the mist, letting "his own" image emerge within it.
She was sitting on the sofa, blank-faced, hands folded in her lap. Not a single movement.
Vincent watched for a while, confirming that Bernadette's body remained still after his soul had departed. He turned, pushed open the door, and stepped into the sitting room. He wrote in the notebook: "Bernadette, are you alright?" Then returned outside immediately.
About ten minutes later, he stepped back into the sitting room. The notebook was blank. No reply.
His heart grew heavier.
Had Bernadette's soul... truly been consumed by him?
Had she actually...
But — setting aside how he was supposed to have survived absorbing the soul of a Sequence 3 Beyonder — if he truly had consumed it, his spirituality ought to have shifted somehow. It should have grown stronger, even marginally.
He returned to reality and spent a long, careful moment focusing inward. No change whatsoever.
"Then there's only one explanation. I stopped the soul-devouring in time. What appeared to be Bernadette's soul entering the body was real — but she had already crossed to the other side. She's in my body now. She'll have woken up there by now."
He let out a cautious breath. After so many exchanges, he and Bernadette couldn't claim any deep bond — but they were certainly comrades sharing the same boat, comrades who trusted each other. If she'd come to harm because of him, that would have been entirely unacceptable.
And setting aside sentiment entirely: if Bernadette were truly gone, would the soul-exchanges even continue? Without a soul on the other side, his body in the Hogwarts world would become a vegetable.
Or worse — die outright.
And even if wizarding-world corpses don't decompose immediately, the thought of crawling out of a grave every seven days was, frankly, deeply unsettling.
"Haah—"
At that moment, a quiet sigh drifted into his ear from somewhere very close.
Vincent went rigid. "Bernadette? Is that you?"
A pause. Then Bernadette's voice came, low and careful: "...It's me."
He looked around rapidly. "Where are you? Are you alright?"
"Inside you. Or rather — inside my body."
"???"
"What did you say?"
"Yes, I'm in this body right now." A pause. "During the soul exchange just now..."
Bernadette gave a brief account of what had happened.
"And the other half of your soul that split off?"
"If I'm right, it should have made it to your world."
"Wait — really?"
The soul cut in half, one half going to Harry Potter's world, the other staying in Lord of the Mysteries?
"What exactly... is your situation right now?"
"Strange. I can see, smell, hear, and feel everything through this body — but I can't control any of it. It's like being possessed by a wraith."
"Can you mobilise your spirituality and use Beyonder abilities?"
"..."
She went quiet, as though attempting it. Then: "No. I can't draw on the spirituality without going through you."
"...I can't use it, and you can't use it either — is your spirituality off having adventures on its own?"
"Strictly speaking: using Beyonder abilities requires the Spirit Body, the Astral Projection, the Body of Heart and Mind, and the Ether Body to act in concert. Right now I only retain the Body of Heart and Mind and the Astral Projection. The spirituality belongs to the Spirit Body, and the Ether Body is under your control — so being unable to use abilities is entirely expected."
She added: "But if all four can be brought into alignment, it should be possible to use them."
"How do we align them?"
This is starting to sound uncomfortably like syncing up a Jaeger.
"That's still to be worked out."
Something occurred to him. "There's a point you may have overlooked. I have my own Spirit Body, Astral Projection, and Body of Heart and Mind as well. If we're genuinely trying to achieve this 'alignment,' don't you have to account for me in the equation?"
"Mm. That's fair."
Bernadette sounded somewhat hesitant, though her tone was easy. "Well, there's nothing I can do right now in any case. Plenty of time to think it through."
"Even if we work it out — won't it be moot once the next exchange comes and you're back to normal?"
She gave a small laugh. "But we could recreate the same conditions again. I don't think this situation is entirely a bad thing. At the very least, I can offer you useful advice whenever needed."
Vincent stared. Wait — have I become Leonard?
Only instead of a parasitic old grandfather in his head, he had a parasitic old grand— ahem — a parasitic great beauty.
"This is still your body, though. You're reduced to a passenger, watching from the sidelines while I, an outsider, move it around and speak with it. That's..."
Is this some form of body-snatching?
"For what it's worth, I don't mind at all. I've actually been curious for a long time about what you're like when you're impersonating me."
"Ah."
Strange. Bernadette's personality feels... a bit different.
Bernadette spoke again, her tone breezy now: "This soul-exchange experiment was rather unexpected in its results, but perhaps it counts as a significant breakthrough."
"Perhaps a few more attempts and we'll crack the secret of our exchange altogether."
Vincent stared. "...You want to try this again?"
"How else? All of my 'Mystery Reproductions' were built through repeated trial and error."
Then she seemed to think of something. "Oh — tell me: Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Cinderella..." She rattled off a string of fairy tales and fables. "Do these exist in your world?"
"They do."
"And Für Elise, the Nocturnes, Wedding Dream... these piano pieces — are they from your world too?"
"They are."
"And Oedipus Rex, Hamlet, Othello... those plays?"
"Also from my world..."
Vincent was puzzled. Why has Bernadette suddenly started 'catching on' to all of this?
She continued asking about poetry, novels, and various inventions. After receiving confirmation after confirmation, Bernadette began to laugh, soft and low.
"So that's how it is."
The great Emperor Roselle. Celebrated poet, pianist, novelist, playwright...
Turns out he was nothing more than a plagiarist.
And not even a shamefaced one — he'd had the gall to put his own name on every last thing.
Ha.
I can't wait to find you, Father. I genuinely cannot wait to see the look on your face when I throw the originals at you.
To be continued…
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