Mystery of Lost Memories

"How can this be?"

Gilgamesh stared at the finger as he considered the implications of what it had just confirmed. In every corner of his mind, he felt as though he had heard something impossible.

"How can I be my own inherent nature?"

The finger seemed to stop for a moment to consider something, but it was hard to tell as it was just a finger.

Who could understand the meaning behind a finger's movements?

It started writing again, and Gilgamesh looked on with overwhelming interest.

"You don't remember, do you?"

"Remember what?" Gilgamesh rapidly responded.

"You don't remember your first life. I don't know what could have caused you to forget. Your soul should still be perfectly intact..."

"Unless..."

Gilgamesh suddenly felt a spark of realization, and he thought back to what Little Feather had told him.

His eyes narrowed as he slowly began to suspect something.

The finger continued writing in the air, "Is this your first time reincarnating?"

Gilgamesh shook his head as unease steadily crept under his skin.

"You died in this dimension already? How many times?"

"Does it count if it happened in a mystic realm?" Gilgamesh asked nervously.

"It's even worse if that's the case. The power that your soul needs to thrive would be pitiful in such a place. It's the worst kind of environment for you, but the best place for..."

Suddenly, the finger seemed to seethe with rage.

"That must be what happened!!!"

"That fucking Bright Speck! So it still refuses to submit to me!?"

Gilgamesh was taken aback. His suspicions so far had seemed to be on the mark.

His inherent nature had yet to fully awaken in any of his past lives. However, during his first life in this world, he had possessed memories that he no longer had.

While he was regaining core memories from his soul, none of them were of things that he recognized. He saw glimpses of a time he could not place- a time either long past or yet to come.

He could not tell, and it filled him with bewilderment.

Judging by the finger's reaction, he could only assume that something untoward had happened to him. At that, he was no surprised.

As for the 'Bright Speck,' he did not recognize the term.

"Are you going to explain to me what's going on?" He asked, slightly impatient.

"I can explain what I know for sure to be true, the rest is merely guesswork."

Gilgamesh nodded, and finger wrote with increased vigor and speed.

"The fact that you died after reincarnating means that I was still in a state of dormancy. I do not know why such a thing occurred; an inherent nature is something that awakens once you're born."

"In theory, the process was flawless. Your memories should have remained intact even if you died billions of times."

"However, you said you died in a mystic realm. Can you explain that a bit further."

Gilgamesh proceeded to explain the events of his death and involuntary entrapment within the mystic realm.

He also revealed how that realm was connected to the ancient dwellingplace of the Omniscient Author, and had been tampered with by the Divine Ones, who served The Light.

"Omniscient Author? As in, the Author of Existence?"

Gilgamesh gave a half nod, thinking it wasn't a stretch to assume they were one and the same.

"That is an inherent nature that I recognize. If what you say is true, then it is just as I feared."

Suddenly, a somber air surrounded finger, and it heaved as though it were sighing.

"It is as I feared. Your death in such a mystic realm was, in no way, an accident. The events that led to the Severance of Fate, and even the acquisition of this... Omniscient Author."

"Everything was orchestrated by that detestable thing... I never would have thought it would grow a backbone."

The finger paused for a moment, as though it were lamenting something.

"Whether you remember or not, your life will be sought after by everything and everyone. All that exists, once existed and will exist will come at you in one way or another. You cannot escape it."

"Worst of all, you can barely touch your greatest weapon."

Gilgamesh did not actually expect anything less. He had grown, over billions of years, getting use to the feeling of having Heaven eternally against him.

Though the scales were, admittedly, much larger now. Still, there was something he did not understand.

"So everything is against me, right?"

The finger bobbed its tip, "Not so much against as... everything just wants to kill you."

Gilgamesh slowly nodded.

"But why?"

The finger stood straight, and it suddenly appeared proud and domineering, despite the fact that it was just a finger.

"Because I am their subjugator. The all-powerful tyrant that crushed them under my foot. Now that I placed myself in a position to be killed by them, they would be foolish to waste it."

When Gilgamesh heard this, he was struck with a sense of profound satisfaction.

That was because he finally, truly understood why he was compelled to act the way he did, and why he felt like it was simply the right thing to do.

"So that's why. I am the King of Everything. Then how did I end up here?"

The finger suddenly fell limp again, "Those matters are of a time before I was an inherent nature. I remember only the things that happened once I was split off from your soul."

"We were meant to be two, and at the same time, one. My memories of my existence from that point, and your memories of everything that occurred prior."

"In that way, there would be a duality to us that would not force us to reunite no matter what, despite the fact that we are the same entity."

"That is why I said that, in theory, the process was flawless."

Gilgamesh folded his arms and pondered in silence.

"As for the reason I lost those memories..."

The finger hurriedly wrote, "Because you soul was forcible reset, true energy is a necessity for it."

"Without abundant true energy in the environment, and after dying enough times, it would be possible for both of us to perish forever."

"It seems, however, that the interference of those Divine Ones was a chaotic factor. Something that the Bright Speck could not control. It was not able to kill you, but your memories were somehow lost."

"And this Bright Speck? What is it?"

The finger's aura became fiery, and it twitched on occasion.

"Everything I know about it, I learned from you after I was split off from your soul. Now, I have come to hate it as much as you did."

"The Bright Speck is the antithesis to the Dark Speck. It is a one-way passage leading to somewhere even you claimed to have never seen."

"In a timeless period, three beings came out of it, and those beings created the First Book of Existence, that held within it all things."

"Those beings were given orders from the Bright Speck to weaken the Dark Speck as much as possible. After employing all manner of methods, they succeeded."

"Thus, when you came out of the Dark Speck, you were an incomplete being. You needed to be born anew in the First Book, and you lived in a universe there."

"I do not know the details of how you came to subjugate the First Book, but you did. Across the universes held in its pages, you conquered and destroyed."

"Those three beings were killed by you, but you could not destroy the Bright Speck, just as they could not destroy the Dark Speck."

"You decided to wait for the Bright Speck to act again, but out of fear, it sent beings out to try to make peace. After a while, it stopped doing so entirely."

"Henceforth, your life as the Absolute Authority continued. That is the Gilgamesh that I once knew."

Gilgamesh felt as though these words resonated with him. When he reviewed the memories he had gained from slowly mending his soul, he realized that they were memories of that very life.

He was seeing glimpses of the things he did when he traversed the First Book of Existence and brought it under his rule.

There were perhaps trillions upon trillions of years worth of such memories. He felt that he could never regain them all.

Finally, he voiced the penultimate question.

"So why did I decide to split myself in two? Why did I desire an inherent nature that was myself?"

The finger ruminated for a few seconds.

"I once asked you the same thing. You said that, as the only being birthed from the Dark Speck, your inherent desire for conquest is what drove you all your life."

"When you came to realize this, you sought change. You did not like the idea of living the way something else intended. So, you erased your soul's inherent nature, and subsequently severed all relation to the Dark Speck."

"Then, you found a way to split your soul into two selves, and made one of those selves your inherent nature. A process that was extremely volatile, and risky."

"Althought that was your explanation, in the end, I think you were masking your true intent."

Gilgamesh perked up as his expression changed. "Then what do you think was my real reason?"

"Heh," the finger wrote as it doubled over.

"I am you, and you are me. If you think about it hard enough, I'm sure you'll figure it out."

"You were bored of that life. Bored of the Bright Speck cowering in fear of you. You reset your soul and cast it out into Existence because you wanted to have fun again."

"And this time, you would be guided by none other than yourself, not a nature forced upon you by something else."