Void...

"No… enough of this back and forth," Hubert muttered under his breath.

The shadow looked at him, and its expression remained unchanged since the start. Not even the slightest bit of emotion was present in his blank eyes, and not a single strand of muscle twitched in his face.

He was tenseless, almost like a corpse.

"Hubert, no matter how much I tell you, you will never understand. Your eyes are blinded by darkness and your ears are deafened with nothingness. Not a scrap of my voice, not a bit of my cry and struggle reached you… I've pleaded, I've pleaded not only to you, but to those around me that I know of," Hubert said, remembering Robert in the slave camp.

His traumatic experience.

"And to those I don't know of, whom I thought was the protector of my well being," his voice was hoarse as he remembered the knights of Trilly and their ruthless and merciless repeated torture and healing.

"And to those who were of power in this place, where I believed tha-that… nobleman would be punished by the instructors and headmaster!" he spoke with a roar, in his memory, a quick image of Aadish and his wickedness, the corruption of those of noble blood.

"And even to the Goddess herself, which I've never got the answer to my worries to," Hubert said, looking above at the abyss, hoping for even a point of light.

It never came.

Nothing ever came to him.

"And I'm tired of pleading with them, I'm tired of begging and kneeling down to those, I'm tired of having to dry wiped tears when I get rejected! I'm exhausted and I realize…"

The shadow stared, awaiting.

"Stop looking at me like that, I've said, I realize that I'm weak, I'm mere paper in a page of a book, a mere raindrop in the face of a waterfall. I know! I know, copy…! I'm tired of it all. A part of me, well, maybe it's you… anyway, a part of me hopes for rest, and longs for the laps of that white woman with a fragrance so soft I feel like I'm in a flower field," Hubert vented.

"Hube-" the shadow opened his mouth, his words barely started to flow when Hubert cut him off.

"I know, your persistent offer of power. You'll offer me the same thing, power and power and power, one that I desired and needed and maybe, if you're myself and I am you, then accepting would be the best course of action, copy," 

"Yes," the shadow responded affirmatively.

That was the first time.

"Exactly. Yo-you've heard my rant, forgive me for doing so, Hubert, I-I just don't know where to go or where to look at, I don't know of when this weight will be lifted from my puny shoulders, I have not a single idea on that," Hubert continued, turning around as he covered his weeping face.

"Hubert…" the shadow called.

This was the second time.

Wiping his teary eyes with his sleeve, he turned around and continued.

"Ha… talking to you has provided me with some relief from those weights, maybe, just maybe that... you're truly the one I needed to talk to…"

"Hubert…" the shadow called, this time with a smile.

This was the third time.

And Hubert noticed what was happening.

"Yo-you… wha-what is happening?" he noticed, but he understood not.

He looked around as color came from the void.

Vibrant it was, warm, and welcoming also. All that, like the gentle stream of water or the waving of the finest silk, flowed from the darkness, out of nothingness, and into the shadow.

His face was gray, but now it gleamed with unknown sources of light.

His uniform of the academy was once colorless and boring, now it's variations of color like a canvas that has been painted, even brighter than the real Hubert.

And emotions, too, existed in the shadow.

"Hubert," the shadow was now exactly like him.

"Hubert…?" Hubert called the shadow.

"Yes, it is me, yourself," the shadow said, his tone fluctuating up and down.

"Y-you, what happened to you? What's with the sudden transformation?" Hubert mentioned, as he looked around, that the last strands of color were now entering the shadow.

"Hmph, I don't know either. Maybe you need to ask yourself that, wait… I'm yourself!" the shadow burst into laughter and was joined by Hubert, the likeness of themselves could be felt even in the deepest of parts.

"Bu-but, are you really me?" Hubert doubted, this time, his sentiment toward the shadow wasn't that of frustration, but of confusion.

"Of course I am you, what more do you doubt of me?" the shadow asked.

"But yo-you seemed… happy with an everlasting smile etched on your face, compared to you, I'm like a gloomy person filled with dread and exhaustion," Hubert spoke, his tone calm and relaxed, but his loudness descending in the end.

The shadow looked at him, his unending smile like a beacon of hope in the darkness that surrounded them. His eyes were brimming, sharp and straight, not out of hatred, but of proudness.

"Worry not, Hubert… I am you and you are me. But truly, seeing how you handled what happened in life, I will need to applaud for what you did. Even when life gave you the hardest of sieges and when fate… fate… allowed you to be tortured and those around placed you in misery, you never turned around and ran," the shadow told, as if he were with Hubert from the start.

"One could see the other side of the coin, though…" Hubert retorted.

"I know, I know, but even then, you faced all troubles while clinging to barely any hope, even I am surprised that you even lasted this long!" the shadow smiled, applauding Hubert's actions.

Though his words struck Hubert a bit wrongly.

"That sounds like an insult rather than a praise,"

"Hahaha," an awkward laughter.

"Besides that, what are you? Hubert? Or…" Hubert questioned.

"You're asking? Hm… how would I put this. I'm someone who has been stuck in here, since the start of your creation. Someone who could only look at what happened outside by the small lenses of your eyes. Someone that was crazed by the lack of light and the lack of warmness of this place. I am someone who, in the end… became what surrounded me,"

"Darkness? Void?" Hubert asked.

The shadow nodded.

Hubert curled his brows.

"N-no way…"

"Yes, way, Hubert," the shadow tone was once playful, now, his tone was sharpened, and his tongue soon became like the edge of a sword of truth.

"I am void and I was created from you and for you. Even I don't understand what my purpose here is, to guide you? Or to tempt you like I previously did…? Who knows,"

"Th-the-" Hubert said. The shadow interrupted.

"There is no "then", Hubert. This is all part of a greater plan, maybe one that fate… had brought you two, even the meeting with me, yourself," the shadow spoke.

"But, you don't look a bit like darkness was…" Hubert argued.

"Void has no shape, it is simply nonexistent, yet its presence proved otherwise. And I am just one of its presences. I am void, a void of nothingness, a void that was in you, for you, and of you," the shadow said.

"Ugh…" Hubert groaned as he placed his hand on his head.

"We have not much time left, it seems,"

"What? No, no! I need to find out more about you, your existence, your being, and yourself! You are the sole being that lifted the weight on my shoulders, you are the only one who heard my plight when everyone hated me!" 

The shadow stepped forward.

Hug

Hubert felt.

His skin was cold, like a corpse, his flesh was hard and stiff, his odor was not there. Yet to Hubert, it was warm, like a friend, and his flesh was soft and delicate, and his smell was comparable to that of the refreshing wind or smell of water that calmed him.

"Thanks, for coming here, for surviving all that relentless barrage that life threw at you… it is sad, hah, but our meeting must be cut short now," the shadow whispered to his ear.

"N-no…" Hubert teared up, his heart was in trouble, as he knew of the upcoming end to their conversation.

"Hubert," the shadow released his hug over Hubert's body, then he placed his both hands, clamping on Hubert's shoulders.

"Ye-yeah?"

"Believe in yourself because, from now on, there is no more me, there is no more us. From now on… you are me, and I am in you," the shadow said, his words shaky, even he knew.

"Brother…" Hubert called.

"Yes, brother," the shadow smiled, then knelt down in front of him.

"This power of mine—no, the power of yours—is for you to claim, I am merely a messenger in this ploy of play. With this, may your worries be nothing to you, Hubert," the shadow mentioned, his head was bowing down.

Hubert knew what to do, he knew, yet he hesitated.

"I-I can't…" 

"You can, believe and it shall be given to you," the shadow spoke.

"..." Hubert's hands trembled, his arm was stiff and numb, it was hurting for him. It hurt him, the choice of sacrificing the one in front of him, for his own greater good.

"I…"

"Do it, Hubert" the shadow urged.

"I… accept," Hubert placed his hand on the shadow's head.

Woosh!

A large wind blew from the darkness.

"Brother…" he called, the shadow was disintegrating into essences, essences of nothingness that were invisible but feltable.

"I'm glad… now... I'll be able to understand... you," the shadow said as his body was dismantled, his lips curled, smiling.

Millions of essences flew into Hubert, like a horde of fireflies.

Reinvigorated was he as he wept, he wept and wept, tears trickling down his face.

Now, the shadow was still, it was clear, the shadow's life had ended. And his being was in Hubert's hands, now.

And his being was called.

"Void,"