28

Volition 3.6

After that, we went back to the warehouse but she gave me the silent treatment. She continued working on our new armoured costumes while ignoring me.

"Don't be like that Amelia, it was just a joke."

"I know," she said.

"Then why the long face?"

She didn't answer me.

I left the warehouse and bought some ice cream.

When I got back she was sitting down despondently on a crate, not doing anything.

I put an ice cream cone in front of her. "Here, have some of this. You'll feel better."

She glanced at the cone, then gave me an insulted look. "I'm not a little kid!"

"I know," I said, in a mirror of her words and tone to me.

She turned her head away.

I kept the ice cream cone where it is, in front of her, and started eating my own cone. "Haven't had one of these in a long time. It's really good."

After a while, I finished my cone. "I guess I'll have another one then," I said, and retracted the cone I had in front of her, bringing it towards my own mouth.

She stood up with her hand swept out and grabbed the cone as she gave me a fierce glare. I let go and she started eating the ice cream.

"Listen, I won't ever make you use your powers on the brain if you really don't want to. But working on brains is very dangerous if you don't get any practice. If an enemy Master brainwashes one of us, I would hope you could undo it. I don't want to see you fall apart because you made a mistake at a critical moment."

"You're…not afraid that I'll do more than just undo it? Change a little extra while I fix you?"

"I've known you could affect the brain all this time and still let you heal me," I said, looking at her seriously.

"Why do you trust me so much?"

I watched her pained expression with bits of ice cream surrounding her lips, and considered what to say. Her reaction to my joke about brainwashing Coil seemed to be going in a different direction than I initially expected. I thought she might be suspicious and angry that I might want her to do something reprehensible, sulking that I wasn't who she thought I was.

"You've been nothing but good to me, so why shouldn't I trust you? Besides, like I said, I sought you out specifically because I knew what kind of person you are."

"But I'm not a good person, not really. I'm not sure I really would have helped you if I'd had a choice, if things didn't blow up at home. I stopped caring about the injured and sick a long time ago. Healing was just a chore, something I made myself do because people wouldn't understand if I stopped. I'm—I'm heartless, aren't I? I'm so fucked up."

"You're good enough for me."

"But…! Why? I just…don't understand!"

But in reality, she wasn't really upset over the wrongness of brainwashing somebody, of destroying a person's personality or changing someone's personhood.

She was upset that she didn't care more about it.

She was afraid of being unable to stop herself from doing much more, once she started, unable to resist doing the things she secretly wanted to do, deep down.

Just like that creepy tree-human thing that she used to make new costumes, it didn't bother her at all, to the point where she didn't even notice it.

And mixed with all of that self-hate was a fear of losing the one person she still had to keep the loneliness at bay. Me.

"You still don't get it?" I said in a soft voice. "I've seen how bad things can get. I've seen what sorts of terrible things you can do when you lose control. I've seen you at your absolute lowest point, when your worst fears came true. When you used your powers on Vicky."

Her face went white.

"When, in a moment of weakness, after Bonesaw paid you a visit and forced you to break all of your rules, you were desperate and alone and you just wanted to disappear, but Vicky didn't let you. When you let yourself just one little indulgence before the end, and made her love you the way you love her."

She flinched. The unfinished ice cream cone fell out of her hands, hitting the ground with a splat.

She protested weakly. "I-I w-wouldn't do that!"

"You wouldn't. You wanted to fix it right away, only she didn't let you. She was afraid that you'd mess up her mind even more and ran away."

"Stop! I don't want to hear this!" She shut her eyes and covered her eyes.

I moved closer and loomed over her trembling self.

"Then, she was catastrophically injured. You saved her life, but there was so much damage, you needed more time and new biomass to fix her. You fixed her body, but not her mind because you knew she'd fight you if you fixed her mind first. It was done and you were ready to say goodbye. But you wanted to see her smile again. To have someone hug you before you left forever. Victoria wouldn't remember, it was just a way for you to get closure."

"N-no, don't say anymore, please!" She stumbled backwards, then hit the crate behind her, and fell down. The crate, being empty, was pushed back while she hit the ground.

"You wanted her to be happy. You could tweak, adjust, change things to make her better. You had all this leftover material to use, from the healing cocoon you made for her. So you start making her better. When you're done, you start undoing everything, all of the physical and mental changes. But you're so tired, so scared, so lonely, you need take a break first."

I could hear her beginning to hyperventilate as I surreptitiously switched my words to the present tense.

"You change more things. More things you have to fix. Days pass. She's a giant mess of spilling flesh now and twisting curves now."

She curled up into a ball and made a strangled cry.

"You lose track. You don't remember what she was supposed to look like. You can't change her back."

I fell silent, observing her sniffling and crying. It occurred to me that if I wanted to, I had the means to break her completely. More so than Jack Slash and Bonesaw even, because they were known monsters and I was somebody she trusted.

The past few days she had been going with the flow, but she had already been teetering on the precipice the moment she decided to break her rules and run away. I was her last hope, someone that could tell her what to do so that she didn't have to think about it and drown in all her self-hatred and guilt.

But I wasn't Jack Slash. Unlike that madman who simply wanted sadistic entertainment, I had goals.

I bent down and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her head to my chest.

"Don't touch me!" She struggled against me, but I was fully clothed and carefully avoided letting her touch my exposed face.

"It's not your fault," I said in a soothing voice. She continued struggling, and I pushed on.

"It was Vicky's aura and your shard sabotaging you!" I said in a strong voice.

She stopped struggling. "W-what?' She asked in a quiet whisper.

"Don't you see? It was never your fault. Vicky's aura was pressuring you for years. Then, at your lowest point, your shard took advantage! It took away your ability to fix her! It took control of you, and made you change Vicky into an echo of the Entity that died! It wasn't your fault! It was Vicky's aura and your shard that was at fault, even if the deed was done by your hand! There's a monster hiding inside of you, giving you dark thoughts pretending to be your own, and you've been holding it back all this time!"

Her eyes finally found mine and I saw the horror etched in them.

"But it hasn't happened yet. It doesn't have to be that way. I'm here now and I won't let you fall apart like that again!"

There was a glimmer of hope in her expression again.

"So, don't worry. Don't blame yourself. Blame your shard. Blame Vicky's aura. You're already on a different path. You're in control of yourself now."

"But…what if…" She whispered, gripping tightly onto my coat instead of fighting me now.

"But nothing. You don't have to fight this alone. I'll be with you every step of way. I've already seen you at your worst and I'm still here. We're a team and we're in this together now. When you lose your way, I'll hold your hand and guide you. When you fall apart, I'll gather the pieces and put you back together. When you can't hold back the monster inside anymore, I'll bear the burden of your sins with you."

I grabbed her hand that was clutching at my coat with my own left hand, skin exposed.

She flinched and panicked, trying to pull away, but my grip was iron. "Look, you are in control Amelia Claire Lavere! You're on a different, better path now! You have escaped the chains binding you at the Dallons! You are the master of your own power now, not the other way around! You—"

I choked and fell forward, eyes bulging with a shocked look, and collapsed on top of her, twitching spastically.

"Kaleidus!"

"Oh god, oh god, what did I do? Kaleidus!" She shook my body and channeled her power into me. From her hands her power traveled into my nervous system, forcibly calming down the randomly firing signals.

A massive headache struck me as the feedback from the nerve signals wound back up into my brain. But my seizure didn't stop, instead it grew worse and I started foaming at the mouth.

"A-am I losing control? Why can't I fix this?" She said to herself in fearful, panicky tones.

I started hallucinating. A kaleidoscopic swirl in my mind—it shattered into a trillion reflective mirrors —the crack of thunder and fire burning through my veins—a white hot rod sinking into the base of my neck—my muscles contracted unnaturally and tore themselves, blood vessels popping everywhere, and my whole vision was red.

"This can't be happening!" Amelia cried with tears falling down her cheeks.

My heart constricted oddly and cells began dying en masse. My skin and bones cracked and blood exploded outwards like a fountain.

I heard a shrill scream before my body froze completely and I felt another white hot rod sinking into the base of my neck—

[-]

—saw Amelia holding my unmoving body in a cocoon.

It was a strange sensation, being disassociated from my body, and all of its sensations. I floated around as if being controlled by something else.

'Kaleidus, I can't do this anymore, you might actually die from this!' Agate thought in a painful tone to me.

I wanted to tell her that I had to be harder on myself than anybody else, but for some reason that wasn't working.

My thoughts felt sluggish, barely coherent even to myself. A white hot rod sank—

'Kaleidus! Oh no!' Agate's voice came into my mind one last time before an excruciating pain—

[-]

I gasped and opened my eyes.

"Oh thank god, Kaleidus!" Amelia's tearful and bloody face loomed over mine, the walls of the cocoon covering the rest of my vision.

"Amelia…" I said weakly. She buried herself into my neck and sobbed.

"I'm so sorry!"

"It's okay, Amelia, everything's fine. I'm fine now."

"No, it's not! I lost control and you almost died!" Her voice was muffled and distorted by sniffing.

I stroked her hair slowly. "But I'm fine now. I knew you would come through for me in the end. It's like I said, you're on a different, better path now. You've broken through and reclaimed control."

The distraught girl simply continued to cry on me.

'Kaleidus, please don't ever make me do that again!'

'Sorry, Agate. I'll try not to. That was pretty freaky even for me,' I thought back.

I had asked Agate to use her ability to send signals to my brain in an offensive way, instead of sending me her thoughts and senses to me, followed up by inappropriate Reinforcement. She couldn't use the actual Reinforcement spell, but I knew generally how it was supposed to work, in particular the part that adding too much prana to an object would destroy it.

Thus, I had her repeatedly attempt to "Reinforce" my body without the proper spellwork, resulting in my body destroying itself. My brain didn't get any "Reinforcement" of course, otherwise I might have just died right away without Amelia being able to save me.

Still, it was a very risky, potentially deadly, or even torturous, course of action. But to be a magus is to walk with death. If there was anything I wouldn't ever forget about the Fate universe, that had to be it.

I continued to whisper reassurances to Amelia for a long time, until eventually she lifted her head when her tears were dry. She looked at me with an expression that looked like total despair.

"I'm sorry," she said monotonously.

'Kaleidus!'

There was a kaleidoscopic swirl in my mind—it shattered into a trillion reflective mirrors—

—darkness came over me, my consciousness slipping away—

—the crack of thunder and fire burning through my veins—a white hot rod that was in the base of my neck lit up again—

—I woke up again and saw Amelia running for the door with her head hanging low.

—and we moved.

—Energy surged through me like an unstoppable torrent being forced through a single tiny straw—

I crossed the gap in what seemed like an instant, running with truly Reinforced legs and our combined prana racing through our new artificial magic circuit converted from nerves.

Our body was incomparably stronger—far too much to be the result of a shoddy Reinforcement.

We knew instinctually that this was Amelia's parting gift, making us superhuman before disappearing forever.

But how could we let her go?

Our arms closed in and wrapped around her from behind.

"Wha—"

"Did you forget what I told you already?" I spoke loudly with a hint of anger. "When you lose your way, I'll hold your hand and guide you. When you fall apart, I'll gather the pieces and put you back together. When you can't hold back the monster inside anymore, I'll bear the burden of your sins with you! You think you can just give up and decide to disappear on your own?"

"K-Kaleidus? How?" She said. I couldn't see her expression from behind her, but I knew it must have been shocked.

My voice kept rising. "People don't die when they're killed! They die when they lose their will to keep going! I promised that I would be with you every step of the way, do you think I'll let myself die that easily? You weren't the only one fighting to revive me back then! We were fighting together! That's why I came back! That's why I'll continue to come back whether you like it or not! Compared to death, how could a little sleep keep me down? If you want me to let go of you, then you'll have to kill me!"

After that, there was only the sound of our heavy breathing.

A few minutes later, she leaned back and sank into my hug.

"Sorry..."

"Stop apologizing already!" I replied in an annoyed tone.

"…then, thank you…."

"Are you going to try to run away again?"

"No," she said softly. I relaxed my grip on her and turned her around to face me.

"Why are you still crying, then?"

"I'm not!" She wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

"Yes you are. I can still hear your sniffs," I said.

"That's 'cause…I'm…happy!"

O O O