The Skeleton

Vittoria undid the cloth and, very carefully, brought the wrapped up skeleton out from behind her.

Aside from being a bit shaken up, the skeleton was perfectly intact and preserved. Gilgamesh wondered how she kept it all together.

"Everything I know, I was told by this person. They knew everything about the history of the Fractured Sphere, and also a lot about the nameless world." Vittoria sighed emotionally, and stared longingly at the skeleton, not saying another word.

Gilgamesh blinked. "So... who was it?"

Vittoria snapped out of her melancholy state of yearning and turned to Gilgamesh with a flat expression. "This is the skeleton of the First Demon King. When I found her, she was still alive. Since then, she has died and deteriorated, but I have never left her behind." Vitorria stated this plainly, and then returned to her yearning.

Gilgamesh's brow raised questioningly, and he looked carefully at the skeleton. With Vittoria's permission, he undid more of the cloth wrapping the skeleton up, and took a good look at the pelvic area.

Finally arriving at his conclusion, Gilgamesh redid the wrapping and folded his arms. "Yeah... I don't know how to tell you any other way so..."

Vittoria glanced at him with minimal interest, continuing to stare at the skeleton.

Gilgamesh swallowed, "This is the cadaver of a human woman. Are you sure this wasn't a Human Sovereign? Sovereigness- I don't know."

Vittoria shut her eyes and responded with an exasperated sigh. "These are the remains of the First Demon King."

Gilgamesh didn't bother arguing, and just ceded the victory to her. If she said it was the First Demon King, then it was the First Demon King.

Facts and evidence be damned.

"I found her completely by accident, in a collapsed cave that I was led into while on my quest to become the next Demon King."

"I believe she was the one that led me into that cave-- that she was the one responsible for setting me on this path to begin with. She chose me, out of everyone, to embark on this journey through the hell that is the Fractured Sphere."

As Vittoria went on glorifying the First Demon King, talking about her lot in life and about how amazing the Demon King was, Gilgamesh pondered upon what he had learned.

Then, something occured to him.

"How did the Fractured Sphere break? Are there any other broken spheres?"

"Not that the Demon King knew of. She told me that the Fractured Sphere was the only broken Sphere in this nameless world. As for how it broke, she suspected it was because of the True Ideas."

"How did they do that?" Gilgamesh asked, taking a sip of his cold tea and spitting it out.

"Well, True Ideas were not always able to come into the world as Thematic Beings as freely as they could. Only after they focused and concentrated their efforts at a single point were they able to break into the world of their imagination." Vittoria suddenly became solemn.

"They would stop at nothing to attain their perfect world. Even if it meant breaking an entire Sphere and eradicating countless lives in the process. Those that survived were the lucky few."

"After they broke this Sphere, and it became the Fractured Sphere, True Ideas were able to pour into it in droves, and step into this nameless world for the first time."

"The Fractured Sphere became the only place that Thematic Beings could cross over into."

Gilgamesh paused, "But didn't you say the First Demon King came from another sphere? If Thematic Beings can only appear in this Sphere, and Demon Kings are beings who reject the mantle of Thematic Being, then how could she have come from somewhere that isn't the Fractured Sphere?" Gilgamesh was genuinely puzzled.

Vittoria looked at him like she was looking at a sickening child; she was incredibly annoyed.

"Is it that you think a True Idea tries to become a Thematic Being and fails, thus a Demon King is born?" She asked, overflowing with attitude.

Gilgamesh was hesitant to answer, but Vittoria's expression coupled with her hauntingly sickly eyes fixated on him was enough to force him to.

"Uh... yes?"

Victoria scoffed. "Dumbass."

"Thematic Beings are Ideas in physical form. If you tried to imagine yourself living in a world of ideas, you would be imagining a version of yourself that is a Lesser Idea, all within your mindspace."

"It's the same concept, not so?" She posed the rhetoric to Gilgamesh, who was about to answer before she carried on.

"Therefore, it isn't possible for yourself to not want to be yourself. So how in the hellfire-fuck could a Demon King be born in that scenario?"

Seeing her get so upset and energetic about the topic made Gilgamesh realize that she was actually a normal human being, and not really a half-dead zombie girl.

He really did need to be reminded of that; she looked way too much like the living dead.

"So how does it work then?" Gilgamesh hurried to ask, desperate to stop her from staring at him the way she was.

"When someone absorbs a Thematic Being, they are basically trying to absorb the physical form of an Idea. This is a process by which one can further their understanding of a True Idea, but it is still not possible to attain the kind of perfect understanding a Thematic Being has."

"Your understanding can only be improved once before the act loses its effect on you forever, no matter how many more Thematic Beings you absorb. You only get once chance, so it all comes down to your own comprehension capabilities."

"However," Vittoria paused, and stared at the skeleton again with the same kind of melancholy.

"There is a big risk in absorbing a Thematic Being. That risk is the exposure of yourself to the purest form of a True Idea, and hoping to survive by relentlessly resisting its attempt to commandeer your physical body."

"In other words, absorbing a Thematic Being can possibly lead to you becoming one yourself," Gilgamesh surmised.

Vittoria nodded, "Yes. In those moments, you struggle within the very womb of All-Matter, trying your best to not be born again as the Thematic Being of some True Idea."

"This is most difficult, and can only be overcome by your own conviction. If you lose yourself in that conflict, then you will be gone forever." Vittoria sighed.

"The Demon King realized that absorbing Thematic Beings was the only way to actually gain real access to All-Matter. She tried to use a Thematic Being to breach All-Matter, just like the True Ideas breached our world."

"Instead, when the very idea of her existence touched upon All-Matter with the intent to break through into it..." Vittoria slowly stroked the skeleton's face.

"She... the idea of her... was erased."

Gilgamesh frowned, and watched the scene with somber eyes.

"So that's how she died. You were there with her?"

Vittoria nodded.

"So... why did she tell you all these things?"

Vittoria smiled in response to Gilgamesh question, then drew the sword from her bag and raised it high.

"She told me because she believed in me and my potential. She knew I was the only person that could make a real change." Vittoria smiled thinly and pointed at herself.

"As for you... You are an anomaly that I doubt even she could understand. You probably have to look deep inside yourself if you want to know what latched onto you."

Gilgamesh sat back in his seat and exhaled slowly.

"In the end, I'm still left wondering. As for this 'nameless world,' it sounds more and more like a steamy pile of dung. Why couldn't I have ascended into a quiet world?"

Lamenting for a bit, Gilgamesh then decided to ask a few more questions and get a better understanding of as much as he could.

He learned that the Demon King Vittoria claimed to have met was called Scarlet, and she came from another Sphere after sensing the aftereffects of the Fractured Sphere's formation.

Scarlet was not the only one that sensed the disturbance in the world, but she was the only one strong enough at the time to effortlessly traverse the Void and find the central point of the Sphere's explosion.

At that time, Scarlet was among the most powerful people in all of the nameless world, yet she still lost to a True Idea in the end.

Although she managed to wrest control of her fate once, refusing to become a Thematic Being, her second attempt at such a thing ended in failure.

She underestimated the power of True Ideas when confronted inside All-Matter.

Finally, Gilgamesh asked the last question on his mind.

"Are there True Ideas that cannot manifest as Thematic Beings? Like Ideas that aren't allowed?"

To this question, Vittoria shrugged. "If there are, then they would have to be Ideas that we are yet unable to fathom. You think that could be the case for whatever it was that latched onto your soul?"

Nodding, Gilgamesh stood up and gathered the teacups and saucers. "It's possible. If there's something that's trying to use me, I want to be able to understand as much of it as I can. Even theories like that are good enough for a starting point."

Vittoria seemed to agree, and laid back in her seat as she stared out the side window.

"If there is a way to find out what that Idea is... it can only be revealed by you growing in power."

Gilgamesh paused, and looked over his shoulder at her. Vittoria did not notice him staring; he was unsure of why he did it in the first place.

Something about what she said... had provoked a feeling in him.