21 [Ego]

->A/N: I'm gonna try something this week. Will be posting chapters daily, but making them shorter. If I like it, that's how the novel will go all the time. This will probably give me more time to continue my Pkmn fic, bcuz time is the only reason I haven't continued.

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'Ah…'

I blinked, the soap bubble clouding my reasoning popping and revealing the gray world around me once more.

That was... embarrassing. The fact that I wasn't even paying attention to the fight and was just thinking of cool things to say the entire time makes me cringe.

Every moment of that fight, if you could even call it that, is still vivid in my mind. Whatever caused that didn't feel like a complete paradigm shift in my thought process. It was just more... intense.

The question now, though, is why?

And why am I suddenly in this gray void again?

"Ya done brooding over there?" A gruff voice calls out to me, one that I recognize can only be-

"Cain! Sorry about what I said earlier," I begin, grimacing as I remember calling him an old sealed-up fool.

I mean, most of that wasn't wrong per se, but it was rude to word it like that and tack on an insult at the end.

Instead of getting even slightly annoyed, he just laughs, "Hah! Don't worry about it, kid. I know you weren't right in the head at the moment."

So he saw everything after that, huh? Yeah, probably. I'm pretty sure he's the one who just stopped me from almost killing half of the devil students in my delusional justification.

"Yeah... what the hell was that?" I ask, wondering if maybe he has an answer. "And on a more scary note, how the hell did you just pull me in here? I was gonna disintegrate everyone present before you did."

In a more serious situation, that could be a huge setback. I'm way more concerned about that than this. The fact that he has that much power over my body is terrifying since I was high on adrenaline and my own self-inflated ego.

"That first question is a bit of a long story. But the second one is easy. You let me do that, remember?" He questions.

...Nope, nothing.

"No, no I didn't." I refute. Seriously, I didn't. I don't even know how to do that.

"Yeah, ya did. You decide how much power I have over you and I decide how much you have over me. Well, mostly." He mutters that last part. I think me forcing out Revelation Shatter at the end there is what he's referring to.

That, or some dark history with other wielders. Probably both.

"Either way, you gave up complete consciousness control during your training. If ya don't like it, just take it back." He waves it off flippantly.

Oh yeah, I did say he could do that. Is it really that easy to relinquish control over myself to him? Just a few words? That's…

I'm not gonna think about it.

"Right, well.. what about the other thing? Why did I act like that? And can I stop myself from doing so?" I start rapid-firing questions at him, very much wanting whatever this is to be gone.

While feeling that confident in myself is nice, I'd rather not resort to murdering people when they get slightly in my way.

He raises his hands to placate me, "Whoa, Whoa, slooow dooown. I don't have all the answers. Really, all I have are theories based on observation and speculation."

"Now, before we start. Take a look at this."

He steps back, raising his foot, before slamming it into the ground of the void. A huge veil fell down like a void-colored curtain, revealing a monstrosity behind it.

Attached to the ground was a twenty feet mass of gore. Flesh, bones, random bits of skin, and squirming… limbs were covering it. Every so often it pulsated, making a gross squelching sound.

I must've immediately made a face because Cain said, "Agreed. It is an eyesore."

"But that is only half of the reason you ended up like that."

"What... what is that?" I was still baffled at the sight of it. It looked as if someone just ripped out a piece of eldritch horror and slapped it into here.

Isn't 'here' inside me? Why is this... mass anywhere near my body?!

"That is what I have dubbed the cardinal sin of Pride." My head almost spun with how fast I looked in his direction. Though, he either didn't care or didn't notice, because he just kept speaking.

"Or Ego. I don't know; both sound pretty accurate to me." He comments, still looking over it intensely.

"From what I can gather, it's some sort of hyper-intelligent symbiote.

It takes in any information that you take in, analyzing it and internalizing it at speeds unprecedented. Then, it implants that analyzed information straight into your soul.

When it first appeared, it was no smaller than a pea. Still, I couldn't destroy it for some reason. And each time it implanted new information into your soul, or updated old information, it became smugger.

Recently, its pride has become so bad that it's manifested as a physical thing. However, it can't exactly just give you its pride. So it's been seeping the information it gives you in some red... thing.

From what I can tell, it bolsters your ego. Only a little, however." He finished off his rant, studying it from every angle.

That was... a lot to take in. From the sound of it, it was just my [Pride] ability in physical form. But I can't exactly get rid of that, it's one of my greatest assets.

And if it 'bolsters' my ego, that means every time that confident feeling surged through me, it wasn't just putting ideas into my head. That was my own pride and thoughts, just turned up to 11.

"Wait, if it only bolsters my ego a 'little' bit, why did I act like that just now? And why didn't this happen so heavily before?" I ask a bit frantically.

Cain looked in my direction, before letting out a deep sigh. For the first time since I met him, he looked weary. From what, I don't know, but it wasn't normal exhaustion.

"That... is the result of what happens to my wielders. I don't know if God intended it to be there, but there is a passive ability on my Sacred Gear. I usually just call it the Sin of Hysteria.

To make a long story short, it takes whatever cardinal sin you're most inclined to, and temporarily boosts it when the user feels insulted."

Oh. Oh fuck.

"Yup. I think it's a nod to when I killed my brother. A fit of jealousy in a moment of weakness." He muttered, looking more drained than ever before.

That look reminded me that Cain is, or was, an immortal. After he committed that sin, he was marked with immortality as a punishment before walking the earth for a very long time.

And he still didn't get a reprieve. With him sealed in this sacred gear, he'll probably exist as long as humanity does.

I don't see how that's a proper punishment just for murdering someone. Sure, it's bad, but being forced to live until the end of humanity? That's fucked up.

Wait, did he say whatever sin the user is inclined to?

"...So what happens to lust users?" I blurted out.

He slowly looked at me with a blank expression before searching for something on my face. Apparently, he found it, because he started chuckling again.

"Those, alongside gluttony, are the most terrifying type of wielders. But even disregarding the rapists and sexual deviants, the lust users who aren't sexual are even scarier." His face makes a disgusted face at the mention of rapists.

I don't even wanna hear what gluttony users do. They probably try and eat their opponents or something equally as gross.

"The ones who aren't sexual? How?" I ask genuinely. I always thought of lust as just being extremely horny, to be honest.

"Lust is an intense desire or need. A craving. Some wielders have battle lust, for example. One of my past wielders managed to conquer an entire nation simply because he had a strong desire for winning." He shudders at the mention of that wielder.

Huh. Is that why some people are just so much better than others in history? Because they had a Sacred Gear to push them above everyone else?

That definitely makes sense. Especially if there are weaker ones like a pen that writes for you.

Still, while it is interesting, it doesn't solve my current problem.

"Is there any way to suppress that feeling?"

"Hm... not that I know of. For a very long time, I strictly avoided interacting with or helping my users any more than needed. It was painful to watch them spiral out of control as time passed. It was one of my recent users that convinced me otherwise." He commented, a smile forming on his face at the memory.

Oh yeah, Sona did say something about no one ever speaking to Cain. I assume that Sin only put me in this body at this point in time simply because Cain would be more inclined to help out.

Instead of asking further questions, I decided to leave for now, the look on his face spurring a feeling of pity within me.

To be forced to watch your biggest mistake reflected in people again and again for centuries without making any actual connections?

Truly, a pitiful existence.

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Question: He eventually will need to master a weapon that is bigger to counter spears and the like. What weapon type would you give him?

(I was personally leaning to trident bcuz he looks like Chara Dreemurr and... Asgore. Either that or a gun bcuz no one uses guns besides weaklings for some reason.)