1

I was lying on the bed, although it was more like a sofa where I couldn't even stretch my legs out, and I was staring at the ceiling, trying not to move because the sofa was squeaking and cracking violently. It felt as if one wrong move and it would fall to pieces. It was uncomfortable to lie on, the springs digging into his back, and it smelled damp and musty. And it wasn't the only one. The room I was in smelled of dirt and wood dust, which made my nose itch and I sneezed a lot. I looked up at the ceiling and knew immediately where I was, for it was the bottom of the steps of the wooden staircase under which the room lay. The cupboard was where I was. Unfinished wood, dust and cobwebs with a spider sitting defiantly on it, moving its furry paws. In more ways than one: There were 'living' sections in every corner, so my new acquaintance had many neighbours of the same species.

I was coming to my senses from the memories that were coming back to me. And now, frankly, I didn't know who I was. My head was a jumble of memories and images, and my heart a storm of emotions, alternating like milliseconds on an electronic stopwatch. A mask of detachment was frozen on his face. The cracked glasses were a little distracting, distorting the image, but I didn't have the strength to react in any particular way.

- Who am I?" came a deep, lonely voice from the closet under the stairs. - Naruto Uzumaki, the Shinobi of Konoha? A dragon god? Empty Eme? Ichigo Uzumaki? Alex Davydov? Alex Mercer? Venom? Bill Fungrave from Fairy Tail? Demon of Sin Oszadan? Harry? Sumerian wizard Omanden? Who am I?" without speaking, I blacked out because my brain was overloaded by the flood of endless information from past lives, and my body lacked the nutrients to sustain the brain work that was happening to it.

And as soon as the boy passed out, his body began to emit a strange bluish haze that enveloped his body like a cocoon.

I woke up... still there. But my body felt strange. Not like before. As I immersed myself, I began to feel everything around me, but not with my hearing, sight or anything else, but as if it were my skin. I could feel the air currents, the heat and the cold. Uncomfortable beds and stiff legs, but that wasn't it, and I began to sink into meditation, gradually releasing myself from the touch and discomfort of the bed, until my head began to ring with emptiness, and then I felt my own heart. "Knock-knock, knock-knock, knock-knock," I began to feel as if my heartbeat was being duplicated. It was as if the outside world itself had begun to create this sound and vibration, as if you were being hugged by someone huge and soft, fluffy but cool, and you could hear the heartbeat of this indescribably huge beast. The heartbeat of the world. I began to try to respond to it with my own soul. I created vibrations within myself that interacted with those of the world. Gradually this became clearer and clearer, until there was a wave of heat in my chest that travelled through my body and felt like a string being pulled in my head. I seemed to be free of whatever was holding me back.

In an instant I was... lying on the sofa next to my body. But I was already in spirit. Examining myself, I sighed dejectedly. The body sighed in time with me. It was me after all. It was me now. A boy who looked about nine years old. I don't know exactly, though. Skinny as hell, with a lot of bruises, small scratches from beatings, and a few large whitish scars on his legs and arms. And most striking of all was the zip scar on his forehead. Dark hair, greasy and unbrushed, long and uncut. Green eyes, a smooth nose and thin lips. I was a good-looking kid, and if it weren't for my thinness, everyone would have fondled me. But that was not my case.

After looking at my new self for a while, I returned to my body and began to dive deeper into meditation until it felt like an explosion. My ears perked up, that was the feeling I had when my auras first tried to sense the world. And then... the world opened up and I felt two people sleeping in a room on the first floor. In the room next to them was a chubby boy, their son Dudley. My perception was about to expand further, but I stopped it and directed it inwards, not outwards, into my own body. And the outside world disappeared inside. I felt my whole body. Every cell was seeing and hearing what it needed. Food, light, water and more. The body desperately needed nutrients to activate normal growth and the brain to build nerve endings.

But I went deeper until I felt the energy of my own body and saw an energy ball in my chest. It was as if it was made of a piece of rainbow, as colourful as this. But it was unstable. Something was interfering with it. I began to search for the interference and found a strange formation of alien energy that was not allowing the source of power to build up smoothly. Drawing on my emotions - resentment, anger, rage and even a bit of hatred - I directed a large amount of energy at this obstacle with the sole desire - to destroy. And my energy responded by crashing into the barrier like a tsunami, sweeping it away. The Source burst into flames and immediately began to blaze. Softly and harmoniously. It was natural. The energy channels, like capillaries running through my entire body, began to grow and strengthen rapidly, taking in the energy they needed. As soon as the capillaries grew sufficiently, a large number of tenketsu - outlets for energy from the body to the outside world - began to form. In terms of energy, they were like tiny whirlpools.

But when the energy reached the scar on my head, something flashed through it and it began to fade rapidly. And I thought I heard a hiss, like water in a heated frying pan.

Once the magical core was in its optimal operating mode, I turned to my body cells and heard a literally deafening buzz of food and energy demands. There was energy, but it was not coming in, for without food it could kill the host. Such is the law of regeneration and mass. Nothing comes from nothing.

He awoke quickly from his meditation and staggered to the door, staggering with weakness and terrible hunger. He pulled the doorknob, but it didn't open. My insides exploded with irritation and anger, but I immediately controlled my emotions and looked around. In the corner, hanging from a partially screwed-in bolt, was a stiff wire that was quite usable. I took it off and made a hook at one end, slipped it through the gap in the door, fumbled for the latch and began to push it back quietly. When the door opened, he crept into the kitchen, opened the fridge and burrowed inside. There he found a strong broth that my aunt had prepared for some dish, and he began to drink it, feeling how his stomach almost instantly began to use the nutrients from the energy of the Core, leaving almost none unused. However, because of this, the 'broth' went into the heart-accelerated bloodstream and went to the body cells that needed it. However, I did not feel satiated, so I finished five litres of broth and took in the rest of the edible stuff: sausages, bacon, greens, cabbage, fruit, dairy products, cakes. I was amazed at how quickly my stomach digested the food, as I hardly felt full. Finally, I had some eggs with bread and mayonnaise and only then did I feel full. There was only rubbish and inedible uncooked food left in the fridge. That's what I ate. What am I going to do with so much food?

I went back to the cupboard and sat in a lotus position on an unoccupied piece of floor, dirty though it was, and once again delved into my own inner world and saw how my body cells, receiving nutrients and energy, began to rapidly repair damage, remove disease and aberrations in the body caused by lack of nutrition. My muscles ached and ached as if I had been training to the limit. I was also running a fever and my bones were stiffening. Ligaments and tendons were stiff. I was surprised to find that my body had grown larger, with more flesh and even a little fat. My bones were stretched and hardened. I no longer resembled a victim of dystrophy, but a normal teenager of about eleven.

Nodding to myself, I turned my meditative attention to my mind and saw a strange web encircling it. I didn't like it at first. It was slowing down impulses in the brain and creating its own. It was clearly an unknown version of a mental bookmark, reducing the speed of information processing and adding its own information, distorting thoughts and memories. A scarlet ball of rage erupted in my mental body and I immediately channeled energy into this net. It fought back and recovered, my nose was bleeding, but I still managed to burn the whole thing out before I was knocked out, and then after removing the destructive energy I channeled the restorative energy. I also noticed strange flashes in my eyes and immediately wiped them from the energy. It was clearly some kind of curse. And then I came out of the meditative state and switched from energy to physical resources and thinking. The speed of information processing slowed, but not critically. I also noticed an oddity in my head and, using my mental skills, discovered a sleeping personality within it. I was surprised to find that I had entered the personality's sphere of activity and began to unravel the tangle of memory. I was stunned.

I read books and fanfics in the unrealistically distant past, and my memory is not something I would be proud of, but the meditative practices of Sumer, as well as working with spiritual shells, have helped me recover my memory almost perfectly. Why practically? Because every now and then I started to remember new layers of information that I should not have remembered, I checked. And then came the shock when I found a double (!) connection to the information field of the planet. One I had developed myself for mystical practices and psionics, but the second connection was weird as hell. I could not use it, but it constantly sent me a stream of information, which then opened up as a memory.

As I studied the phenomenon, I realised what it was. And it clarified a lot of things. I am a shard. A shard of the divine soul. The soul that 24 hours ago was cradling her five year old son in my lap, playing cards with the Shinigami and the Zashin, who was in fact none other than Zael Apporo Granz! The core soul does not know that it has shards, but it supports us because of its divinity. And it does not even notice, because the energy does not go outwards, but into the depths of the soul, where it becomes a web and spreads out into the world to the splinters. There are many of us and we are all different. But we all know who we are.

Dragon Parturnax in Skyrim, Sky Greyfin in Fairy Tail, Void in some strange form of the world of Chlorine, who has no idea of our existence because of his emptiness, he has somehow unknowingly fallen into a reflection of the world of Naruto. In the beginning, he was a multiple personality, but he has no memory of it as he matured. And then, after his tragic death, he became a void in the flawed world of "Chlorine" and then in the equally flawed world of "Naruto". Strange that he still doesn't remember anything...

But we've all matured in other people's souls. Like chickens in an incubator. And only after many rebirths and soul restorations were we born as ordinary people and lived our own lives. Many of us remember the lives of other splinters, and some of us have even learned to shut ourselves off from them. I can shut myself off too, but I wonder how my other selves are doing. We are all one and different at the same time.

So in the head of this body there was a boy whose life I know from books and especially from films. But not everything. It began to be perceived as blatant nonsense and blew my mind with every new image.

But for the boy who survived, the reality was much more brutal. Life with the Dursleys? You couldn't call it a blessing a priori. Why not? What good is blood protection and the like when the boy survives only thanks to his magic, which constantly patches him up, not only by consuming nutrients from the far-from-good and very scarce food, but also, out of desperation, Harry himself, in order to repair his multiple fractures, bruises, internal organ damage and concussions. After all, Vernon Dursle has no sense of proportion when he hits a child. And he's a big man, and the boy was just a little boy. How he survived, I don't know. But somehow he survived.

How did I get there? It turns out that one night, while watering his aunt's roses (!), he saw falling stars and remembered a conversation between adults about making a wish. So he made a wish. A wish that was most desirable to him. Death, so that he could finally get rid of his torment and meet his parents. Instead of death, he was hit on the head by something, and when he looked around he found a strange glowing violet stone, which he thought was a fallen star, and he kept it, crying every night and sharing his pain and sorrow with it.

And then, just yesterday, a drunken uncle beats the child for no reason, taking out his irritation at his business failures on him. And yet he spoils his offspring beyond all measure, giving him piles of very expensive gifts for nothing, and a mountain of them on his birthday. The presents there were worth a lot of money. And Harry's birthday present was to be locked in a cupboard for twenty-four hours. No food, but at least he had water, which he discreetly poured into plastic bottles he'd picked up from the rubbish with a flower-watering hose. He hides them in the cupboard where he lives.

When I saw this, I realised that this fat boy was going to live a painful life from now on.

After the last beating, the boy, crying bitterly, held me in his hand and said only one thing: "Why, Lord? Why?!" And then he fainted, and the pebble in his hand melted from his tears and soaked into his hand. That's how I woke up. I gently touched the boy's consciousness and probed him. He was asleep. Happy as a baby's sleep, dreaming of Mum and Dad holding him, talking to him, listening to him. Tears flowed involuntarily from his eyes.

You know, I felt sorry for the guy. He didn't deserve this life. Not at all. And he shed tears, because the mental is dangerous, because it makes you feel what you're feeling. The boy didn't want to wake up, so I strengthened his sleep by immersing his mind in his inner world, in the lake in the middle, where he would live in a dream with his parents until it was time for me to leave. Don't worry about his lack of training. My memory is perfect, so in his dream he will go to school, university and even learn to use magic. And not with the wand they teach here, but with much broader variations. The boy will be versatile.

Now... he wriggled out of his subconscious, stood up and checked the source of the magic. It was working, but the energies within it were strangely unstructured. That would make it a bit more difficult, but not fatal. Leaving the cupboard, he cautiously climbed the stairs and approached his cousin's room.

- Let's start with you, you bloody pig," he said, and with a wave of his hand began to transfigure the glass orbs on his doorstep. Then he attached a heat rune to the door handle and warped the floor vector, tilting it slightly towards the stairs and creating a friction cancellation. This piggy would fly further than he could see.

- Hehehehe," he chuckled softly, covering his mouth. He chuckled very quietly, covering his mouth. He had been trapped everywhere in the morning, even caught in his own traps a couple of times, but thanks to the gods and magic, no sneaking around. I went back to my wardrobe, covered the latch with my telekinesis, which made my head ache and my eyes well up with tears, and fell back onto my bed to sleep. I certainly didn't want to miss the start of the show.

- Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee," I chuckled softly, anticipating sweet revenge...

I awoke a few hours later to the sound of a falling and screaming body. This scream was momentarily interrupted by the thump of my chest against hard surfaces, constantly changing its volume. I realised it was Mr Dursle.

- Mummy! I'm asleep! - I guess the piggy opened the door and went for a balloon ride. Boom, rustle and a new body jumps up the stairs and crashes down on the older pig as he tries to get up. Then another rumble from above - it's Madam Otter running, and in a second she's joined the pile of mala at the bottom of the stairs. Again, I made the floor eerily slippery and used a repair spell several... dozens of times, which has the significant disadvantage of damaging the surrounding surface, and so the floor crunched and collapsed into the cellar, to the renewed screams of the inmates. Straight into the water, where the oil was floating, and then the fluff from the stolen cushions collapsed on top of them.

Shouting and screaming, they started to get out of the cellar, but Mr Dursle screamed as he opened the door, burned himself on the handle, and was hit on the head by a springboard, flying back into the cellar, knocking the relatives down with him. As they tumbled down, another spring went off under the floor and from there came the roar and shriek of pain and foul language from the stabbed family in many places.

Smiling a little at his revenge, he continued to sleep, his hearing muted. It would take them a long time to get out of the cellar. If they could make it at all. They wouldn't get to me. There are so many traps around my door that they'd be better off surrendering. And their condition would hardly be conducive to punishing me. Even the slightest movement would be painful for them.

When I awoke, I could hear the pitiful moans behind the wall and the family's screaming mats. They were persistent when they got out of the cellar. They must have a knack for it. And I thought they'd gone mad. But the traps in my cupboard gave them something to think about. And they must have been thinking when they saw the latch on the outside of the cupboard. I think they will try to take their anger out on me anyway.

Soon I heard a siren wailing from outside. It must be the ambulance. And so... A snap of my fingers and all the traps disappeared as if they'd never existed, the broken floor instantly restored. And all traces of my activities were gone. Except for the family's wounds and bruises.

When the doctors came in, the family started screaming that it was all my fault. They came to the door and through meditation I could see the policemen there. They were inspecting the cupboard door and questioning whether I was really there. The Dursleys, apparently out of idiocy if not otherwise, said yes. Then they were asked when the baby had been locked in, and they said yesterday morning. They haven't opened it since.

The policemen looked at each other, opened the latch and looked inside. The first policeman looked at me in astonishment and ducked out, radioing something. No wonder he recoiled. The inside of the cupboard was a branch of the rubbish tip, and a frightened and battered boy, horribly dirty and in torn old clothes, did not look like anyone who could have done what the Dursleys were complaining about. Especially as the boy huddled in the corner under the stairs, whimpering:

- Don't hit me, please don't hit me again!

The police called for an extra patrol, and while they were on their way they tried to get me out of the cupboard, but were met with hysterics, cries of 'save me' and a flood of tears. The police looked at the Dursleys as if they were monsters. They were heavily bandaged, but they kept screaming at the top of their lungs that it was all my fault. Can you picture the scene and tell me who they believed?

When the second team arrived, the Dursleys were arrested, the trustees took Dudley away and they took me out of the wardrobe for three hours, but I didn't give in easily, I came out hysterical and terrified. But they got me out, wrapped me in a blanket from the sofa and put me in a police car.

Fifteen minutes later I was sitting in the police station and literally everyone was trying to get to me and somehow calm me down and feed me and clean me up. But they were confronted with the look of a frightened child and they recoiled. Even the prisoners in the cells looked at me with genuine concern and pity and advised the police on how best to approach me. But when the paramedics arrived, I pretended to faint when one of the doctors touched me with a syringe of sedative. And then, out of nowhere, two magicians appeared at the station, showed everyone some records and everyone started calling them Captain Mi-6. Well, well, well.

And when they tried to use the local memory wipe, they were unpleasantly surprised to find that it did not work. They were also surprised by the fact that they had guns pointed at them, their wands taken away from them, and they were put in a cell without being handcuffed or stripped down to their trousers. I don't think these boys have ever been so shocked. Soon a few more men in robes appeared, unpleasantly surprised to find that their spells did not work, and they too were placed in the cell in the same condition as the others. When there were eight people in the cell, a group of orderlies took them away and put straitjackets on them.

And so, after an hour of this show, while I was sleeping on a bench, a white-haired, long-bearded old man in a star-spangled robe and a pointy hat appeared. Unfortunately, the negator magic had no effect on him. Strong, Zar-raza! He tried to come up to me and take it, which was quite successful as he was invisible, but one of the Cons shouted, pointing in my direction, that the boy was missing. But the old man had moved... to the Dursley house. That old goat... As he entered the house, the Dursleys were already there. As soon as they saw me, they turned pale and fell to their knees, for I immediately removed their livery and they remembered everything.

Dumbledore tried to push me towards them, but was met with such a barrage of rejection that he froze in astonishment. Especially as the Dursleys were all huddled against the wall, staring at me in horror, so sweet and smiling with the smile of a kind and understanding anatomical vivisector. The white and blah blah blah wizard was unpleasantly surprised when they fell to the floor in a faint. Only Dudley remained conscious, huddled in a corner, crying desperately.

Dumbledore cast a mental spell on them several times and it fell off several times until I got tired of it and stopped sneaking it off. The Dursleys calmed down and took me in, right in front of that old... no words to describe the situation, Vernon hit me, and the old man just grinned, only to shield himself from my surge of mana the next moment, which threw the Dursleys away from me like lint. And I myself sat on the floor, screaming in despair. Dumbledore sighed and carried me to the cupboard, the brute, where he locked me up, then went to wipe the family's memory again and repair the damage from my 'spontaneous' mana surge. I stopped affecting space, and the asshole was gone. So much for good old Grandfather Dumbledore. Yes, a hundred times!