A Good While Ago…

Baltay Kojirough looked on in horror, hand grasping at empty air, as Mariana pan Helios' body hit the floor. She'd run her sword through her own chest, all the way through, the blade protruding from her back. Blood spilled freely over the floor, mingling with Nigen's.

He screamed. It was a hoarse, desperate sound, bouncing off the walls of the training arena. This wasn't what was meant to have happened. He hadn't meant to kill him, never kill him -- just beat him, just show that they were equals, that they'd always been equals.

Two steps back, and then Baltay Kojirough emptied his stomach on the floor. How had things ended like this? This was… this was a disgrace, this was… no…

His gaze drifted to the device in his hand, the trigger that had activated the toxic pellets he'd slipped into Nigen's drink that morning. When Nigen's attacks had become overwhelming, he'd clicked that trigger and…

…and…

No, no, that wasn't what the device was. There was no way that was the purpose of the device. Baltay wouldn't have done such a thing. He wouldn't have betrayed his friend like that. He was an honourable warrior of the Supremacy. He was stronger than that, damnit. He didn't need to use cowardly tricks like that. That was a goddamn lie.

And yet the thing was in his hand. He hurled it out of sight and memory, choosing to look instead at the sight of his victory. Yes, victory. He had to believe that. That was the most important thing. If he doubted himself, he was done.

He'd beaten Nigen Rush. He'd beaten Nigen Rush in a fair duel. He was the best swordsman in the Supremacy. That was fact. That was undeniable fact. He wouldn't allow anyone to deny it.

Baltay Kojirough told himself that again and again, in the cold room, so many times that he thought he'd go crazy. In reality, of course, it was only a few seconds -- but that Cogitant brain of his was going into overdrive, desperately trying to pull Baltay's fracturing psyche back together.

It didn't take. No matter how much he lied to himself, the truth remained unblemished in his memory. No matter how much he obscured the memory, the guilt continued to rest in his chest. No matter how much he ignored the guilt, he could feel the blood on his hands.

Baltay fell to his knees, looking down at Leviathan. At some point, he'd dropped the blade, and now its uneven green surface looked back up at him. The slightest scratch -- perhaps across the chest -- and death would be quick. Would that not be better than living with this?

Slowly, with shaking hands, Baltay Kojirough reached out to pick up the sword --

-- and Nigen Rush took the shortest, shallowest breath.

Baltay gaped down at the body on the floor, at the blood dribbling from the mouth. He wasn't dead? How the hell? He'd run the man through on his sword, his poison sword, and he was still breathing?! He hadn't even beaten him?! Baltay shook, pulled between frustration and panic…

…and an awful, awful idea began to crawl into his head.

Present Day…

Atoy Muzazi felt numb as he spoke.

"That's a lie," he whispered, clutching the hilt of the destroyed Luminescence with all his might. "Shut your mouth."

Baltay shook his head, looking down at him. "It isn't a lie. You are Nigen Rush. You just don't remember -- but that'll soon fix itself."

Muzazi shook his head, stumbling back, his feet unsteady on the floor. "That isn't true!" he shouted. "His ability has infected me, true, but --"

"There is no such ability." Baltay's voice was merciless and calm, each syllable like a dagger in Muzazi's heart. "You don't have any powers like that, Nigen. Everything you have, you devote to swinging the sword."

Muzazi put a hand to his head -- it was killing him, it was killing him -- and gritted his teeth. "That is not my name!" he cried.

"It is," Baltay said, walking forwards steadily, driving Muzazi back. "You were on the verge of death when I made the decision to save you, Nigen. My friends at the Absurd Weapons Lab were able to get you back on your feet, but you were little more than a hollow shell. You were no good like that. I needed my rival back. You were always the only one worthy of my consideration, Nigen."

Muzazi went to take another step back -- and fell back, right into the cold jacuzzi in the middle of the floor. Spluttering for breath, he dragged himself out, water dripping from his hair and clothes. As he looked up at Baltay, standing on the edge of the installation, the other man seemed to tower above -- like a god looking down at his creation.

"That's… a lie…" Muzazi wheezed weakly.

"In what way is it a lie?" Baltay's expression did not so much as twitch. "Do you perhaps have memories that conflict with what I'm telling you?"

Muzazi scrounged in his brain, reaching for the recollections that he knew would prove this man wrong, only to find…

…nothing.

"I have a life," he insisted all the same. "I have a past. My name is Atoy Muzazi!"

It did not ring true.

Baltay's gaze was dark. "What past is that?" he said, relentless. "Tell me about it. What was your family like? Who were your friends? What were your fears, your hopes? What makes you cringe when you try to sleep at night? What brings a smile to your face from back then? Can you name even one thing?"

He knelt down, looking Muzazi in the eye.

"Anything you have, 'Atoy Muzazi'," he said quietly. "Is only what we gave you. When I saved you, you were little more than a puppet, a doll, a toy. Empty. Gretchen had to give you that damn sword just to give you some memories, some form of consciousness -- enough to stop your mind from caving in on itself, anyway."

Muzazi shook his head frantically, the water clinging to him and making every movement heavy. Hollow breaths ran up and down his throat. He could feel a perilous burning at the back of his eyeballs.

But no more words of denial could find their way to his lips. They were fruitless.

Baltay lashed out with a hand, seizing Muzazi by the hair and pulling him halfway out of the water.

"I let you call yourself Atoy Muzazi. I let you go free, so you'd be ready to take up your sword again, to finish our duel. I let you run around playing at being weak."

The Cogitant's face was a mask of utter focus. The Cogitant's eyes stared with such intensity Muzazi almost felt like he'd burst into flames. The Cogitant's mouth moved, and spoke more cruel and honest words.

"But it's time to wake up now, Nigen."

The pain in Muzazi's head reached a crescendo -- so much so that he couldn't even hear his own screaming. His vision flared red. His arms fell limp. His thoughts ground to a halt… and stopped.

Baltay frowned.

The eyes that looked back up at him were dead and empty, just as they'd been so long ago. Atoy Muzazi's chest rose and fell with his breathing, but there was nobody home. This was just another living doll he was holding.

"Damnit…" Baltay muttered.

His grip loosened, and the thing called Atoy Muzazi dropped back into the water, sinking down, making no effort to rescue itself.

Everything was white.

A vast plane of white, the product of a bleached mind. There was no horizon because there was no distance -- and there was no distance because there was no existence. This was a place of consciousness alone. The last retreat for a psyche under assault. Muzazi floated there, bodiless and thoughtless, until it occurred to him that he needed to breathe.

In order to breathe, he needed form, and quickly found it. He dropped onto the white ground, panting for breath, collapsing onto his hands and knees. This was not happening. He knew that this was not happening. The air he felt as if he was breathing was nothing but an illusion.

But any illusion was better than reality right now.

The words that Baltay had spoken crawled out again, and his mind repelled them, trying desperately to deny what had been said -- to deny what, horrifyingly, seemed to make just the tiniest bit of sense. But it couldn't be. There was no way. He was Atoy Muzazi. Special Officer of the Supremacy. His life was his own.

He wasn't just… someone else.

Atoy Muzazi looked up.

"What do you want?" he mumbled, his voice a croak. Sound came into existence to facilitate speech.

Nigen Rush was in his usual garb. Golden war-robes and that damn helmet, with a sword sheathed at his side. As Muzazi rose to his feet, distance came into existence for the purpose of separating the two figures. For a long time, Rush just silently regarded his counterpart.

Then, he reached up and removed his helmet.

Muzazi watched, eyes dull, wishing that he could be surprised. In some far off corner of his heart, he had hoped that the face behind that helmet would be bizarre in some way. Someone that couldn't possibly be him. Perhaps someone else he knew, and this was some shocking reveal.

But no. He saw what he'd expected, deep down.

His hair was short and white, and his features might have been slightly different, but those grey eyes were unmistakable. Atoy Muzazi was looking at himself. Nigen Rush was looking at himself. Time and surgeries had left their mark, but this was two of the same person.

"You're no ability…" Muzazi admitted. "No spectre choosing me as your champion. Just me, remembering myself. Just you, slowly coming back. That's right, isn't it?"

For a moment, Muzazi thought -- hoped -- his counterpart would just be silent again, but no.

"That's right," Nigen Rush replied, his voice so soft. "Gretchen Hail's weapons can contain memories. Morgan Nacht told you that. Do you remember?"

Muzazi nodded grimly. "Yes…" he sighed.

"The two swords called Luminescence were her creations. The one destroyed on Panacea, and the one destroyed just now. Their purpose was to imprint 'Atoy Muzazi' upon our empty shell. Once they were destroyed, the remnants of your former life began to return, shattered and incoherent as they were. That is what I am. The corpse of your memories."

"And now you're coming back," Muzazi said numbly. "There's no more need for me."

Nigen Rush frowned, an expression Muzazi had seen in the mirror a thousand times. "Is that what you want?"

"It doesn't matter what I want…" Muzazi said, squeezing his fists and pressing them against his temples. "I don't want anything! How could I?! I don't exist!"

Nigen Rush began to walk forward, growing larger as he did -- and Muzazi could feel himself diminishing in the process, becoming less, fading away. He looked down at his hands and saw them flaking away like leaves, skin abandoning his body to reveal blood and muscle and bone.

He would disappear soon. He would disappear soon and Nigen Rush would appear again. If a life like this could be said to have a purpose, he would have fulfilled it.

Nigen Rush spoke as he walked. "None of it was real, then?"

Muzazi shook his head, looking down at the white abyss. His hands were gone, and he could see his wrists starting to fade as well. Bone protruded from the stumps, but even that was cracking and disintegrating. A false face falling away.

"If you still have a mouth," Nigen Rush snapped, with uncharacteristic aggression. "Then use it! Was none of it real?"

"No…" Muzazi whimpered. "No, it wasn't."

He felt something, the sense of touch becoming extant in that moment. The barrel of a stun pistol, pressing against his back. The warning warmth of a stun shot, ready to be fired.

"What about this?" Dragan Hadrien asked, from behind him, his voice echoing insistently. "The anger you felt at my betrayal, the drive you had to track me down? Was that not real?"

"No," Muzazi said. "It wasn't. Anything I felt back then was because I was made to feel like that. Filled with false memories and sent to dance. A thing like me can't feel real anger."

The sensation faded, and Nigen Rush continued to approach.

Muzazi glanced to the side, and saw Jean Lyons standing there, grinning maliciously. His hands were covered with blood.

"What about this?" the dead man asked. "The righteous indignation you felt when I made you go against your ideals, the resolve you had to defeat me? Was that not real?"

"No," Muzazi said. "It wasn't. Those ideals weren't mine in the first place. The whole thing was a joke." His arms had vanished up to his elbows.

Nigen Rush stopped in front of Muzazi, looking down at him, as big as the world. His face was expressionless, his grey eyes impassive. Slowly, he reached down and seized Muzazi by the collar, pulling him up.

Muzazi squeezed his eyes shut, letting out a deep breath. Finally. At least, with this, there could be no more lies.

"What about the time we spent together?" asked Marie. "The things we saw and felt? Were they not real?"

Muzazi did not intend to move before that moment. Before he heard those words, before he remembered the two of them kneeling in the snow, he had truly intended to give up. He had wanted to disappear utterly from this world, and leave the falsehoods behind.

But… all the same… in that moment, he moved.

He opened his eyes, and saw what he had done. He had rammed the stumps of his arms forward right into Nigen Rush's chest, the broken ends of his bones skewering the swordsman's heart. Slowly, fearing what he would see, Atoy Muzazi looked up.

Nigen Rush was smiling down at him. Even as blood trickled from the edges of his mouth, he smiled at Muzazi.

"Thank goodness," they said softly, and bled into one another.

Baltay's mind broiled as he walked away, squeezing Leviathan so tightly it felt as if he'd crush the hilt. It was okay. Everything was still okay. He'd just get Gretchen to make another Luminescence, and they could try again. Nigen would come back. In the end, Nigen would come back to finish their duel.

He took a deep breath, looking up at the Heir, who was pressing herself against the wall -- trying to get as far away from him as possible. There was always the chance she'd rat about what she'd heard here. He had to shut her up, if nothing else.

Baltay took a step forward and --

Splash.

-- whirled around, a grin of excitement on his face.

The swordsman had leapt out of the water, liquid cascading off his sodden limbs and robes. He was perched right on the edge of the jacuzzi, breathing heavily, recovering from the time he'd been submerged. His face was down, long black hair falling around it -- but now a streak of familiar white ran through those locks.

"Nigen!" Baltay cried -- only for his excitement to die as he looked closer at what he was seeing.

The warrior had dropped the hilt of his sword in the pool, abandoning it. Instead, blades of white light had erupted from his palms, stinging Baltay's eyes where he looked too close at them. The man looked up, and those grey eyes glared at Baltay with utter rage.

Baltay narrowed his eyes. "Nigen Rush doesn't use an ability like that," he said coldly.

"No," replied Atoy Muzazi, Special Officer of the Supremacy. "He doesn't."