Oh. Surprise.

For the first time in the vision I actually heard someone speak.

It was Mike. Was he trying to save his life?

-You will not use that name. Not you.

Unsurprisingly, she wasn’t very happy about him trying to weasel his way out of this. But still, that name? I mean, it was her name, wasn’t it?

-My name is Ilma. Not some “Il”, you sick bastard.

-Il… that’s what your mother used to call you…

The moment he mentioned her mother she twisted the spear in his chest.

-Do not mention her, you sick bastard. I’ve seen what you did to her. To her…

-You don’t understand. She’s going to be…

-Reborn?! As that thing?! You think you can experiment on her soul again and again and I will just stand back, looking at it!?

-You know I didn’t want that!

-And yet you did what you did! All of you!

-Please, calm down! I know you don’t want to do this! You know she wouldn’t want you to do this.

-But she is not here any more, you know that! Thanks to you!

At the end she was barely holding her anger in.

I could feel it almost leak out from the memory and her own form.

-But she is! I just have to find a missing piece! Her last piece!

-Last piece!? You think you can put her together like some broken toy?! Glue her back?! You need to stop!

-You don’t understand! I found her soul! REAL soul! She’s somewhere!

-Stop trying to talk your way out of this. You know you’re dying here today. Finally.

-Oh, I am not. I just don’t want for you to make the same mistake that I did.

-Oh, so you’re worried about your mana, is that it?!

-Not mine! Yours! If you won’t stop absorbing…

-Then what?!

She puffed and gripped the spear even harder.

-Then you’ll be just overtaken by the failed soul of your own mother!

That made her hesitate.

-Explain.

-This crystal… you know it’s her, right?

-Of course. That’s what you’ve been collecting all that time.

-Yes… that’s the vessel of our old experiment…

-I am very aware.

She twisted her spear in him.

-The same one that is right in your chest right now. That is her.

-You know I didn’t want to end with a body like…

-I didn’t mean the body. I mean this.

She brushed her fingers through the spear’s handle and it suddenly changed shape, sprouting… vines that wrapped themselves around her fingers.

-This is what is left of her. That is her will. “Her last piece”, fuck you. That is the last piece. The only one that remains. The one that I constantly feel.

-That is…

His eyes widened. Fingers that were just before trying to pull the spear out now grabbed onto it tightly and stopped moving.

-I feel her… It’s… It’s not there…

-It is there, I assure you. More than you’ve ever been able to find.

-It’s not… Not her. It’s not Il… It’s not Iloa.

-You don’t deserve to use her name! - she growled at him. - You, who replaced us as soon as you arrived here.

-Can you blame me…? Those two… they looked just like you…

-And that didn’t stop you from experimenting on them. Again!

-I WANTED TO HELP THEM! I DIDN’T WANT TO LOSE YOU AGAIN!

The sudden outburst made her flinch, but she quickly returned back to her senses.

-And where are they now, huh!? GONE! Why?!

-They aren’t! They will live forever with me! Just like you can!

-”Like you can”. Fuck you. You killed them and turned them into mana. You call that living!? You are deranged!

-Deranged, sure. But I will not let them… let you vanish again!

-You all are going to vanish soon. Mother will absorb you all and it will be the end of it, do you understand!?

His reaction was… unexpected.

He started laughing.

-What’s so funny?!

-Ah, sorry, I thought you were going to absorb me into yourself… Oh, what a relief…

His hands stopped clutching the spear and he let them fall down onto the ground.

-What are you talking about!? Did you go crazy completely?!

-I’ve been crazy since the beginning, but that’s not it… It’s just… It’s a relief, I didn’t want you to turn into the same thing as I am… I thought you wanted to try and assimilate me…

-Assimilate?!

-Everyone who has a piece of your mother… oh, well, sorry, you don’t call that version your mother… Our experiment rather. Everyone who has a part of it, is inevitably on a way to get assimilated. Turned into the same thing as she was back then: a mindless creature.

-What are you…

-We called it an intelligence… bah, it’s not even intelligent. It can copy memories, copy feelings, but it doesn’t understand them. And now I understand… I feel her. The piece in that spear… it was small, wasn’t it?

-How do you…?!

-Ah, so it was… no wonder. It only inherited a piece of that thing… Good thing that it didn’t try to consume you… you used it as a weapon. Good…

-Again, what are you trying to…

-The thing you are holding in your hands is just a piece of ILMA. The old algorithm from the bygone time that I thought was gone… And luckily, or unluckily for you, I am not sure, it only inherited one emotion. Rage.

-...!

-Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? You are her daughter, you’d be accustomed to understanding how others feel. More than you think. Do you really think your mother was feeling only that? Wouldn’t you think that when she connected with you, she’d still be only angry at me? That she wouldn’t be happy to see… to be with you again?

-You corrupted her! That’s why you…!

-I never would be able to remove her feelings for her own daughter.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

-I…

-Don’t.

-But that aside, we have no time.

-You’re right. You are going to die here - she replied, still adamant on that point.

-Well, in some regard, probably - he agreed, weirdly calm. - You definitely did some damage to my body… too bad that it doesn’t really matter…

-What are you…

Before she was able to react, he grabbed the spear and pushed it deeper inside himself… Wait, how was that possible? Wasn’t he pierced through already?

No, he was essentially skewering himself even more, pushing the spear into his own body… and it was working.

He was absorbing it?

-What are you trying to do?! - she yelped, trying to pull out the spear, but instead it only started disappearing faster.

-This is probably the last time we are able to talk like that, so listen closely. I have a lot of my pieces all over the world, but after our encounter, those will start to be hunted down. They will disappear. While all of them are me, none of them has the same power that this body has… or rather had.

-Power…?

-To regenerate. To propagate. To be one… - he stopped, shaking his head. - Ah, sorry, It’s already beginning.

-What!?

-The assimilation. ILMA is trying to assimilate me. I will fight as long as I can, but I need mana, so leave as soon as you can.

-I am not leaving, you need to die here, so…

-So Iloa has her revenge? Do you really think she’d want that?

-...!

-Listen. What I said before… that she’s still alive… I know that those are just ramblings of an old and desperate man, but I believe that. I felt that… There is a piece of her… the real her somewhere. I know it. Before, I thought it was away from us, back in our home, not in this prison, but recently I started feeling like it was getting closer and closer to me.

-Have you lost your mind?!

-I am going to soon, you know.

-What the fuck?!

-I am trying to warn you. Escape from here. Don’t stay.

-You’re trying to escape! I am not buying that!

-Eh, there’s no talking with you! As your father I order you to move!

The sentence made me chuckle.

Out of all the things, he chose that? Some father he was supposed to be…

-You are not my father! I will not obey a piece of shit like you! DIE!

She pinned him even harder to the ground, but that was pointless. He was already limp, lying lifeless on the floor.

Wait a second, did he really die? If so, then what, or who the hell rather was the one contacting me earlier? And who I met before?

Was this memory more recent than I thought?

Il, also looked confused, seeing him collapsed, and poked his weapon a few times, not sure what was going on.

Considering what I’ve heard from them and what I saw from this spear, I suppose she was expecting that his mana would be sucked into it, absorbed like she was threatening him that she’d do.

Was that just an empty threat?

Can’t be, he was also aware of that, even commented on it.

Besides, I could tell that his mana wasn’t completely gone, while definitely diminished, still there and not drained, that’s for sure.

Was he playing dead?

Maybe?

I wouldn’t put it past him to do something like that, yet it didn’t feel correct. But, his mana was weird, that’s for sure…

I soon realized what was that weirdness I was noticing.

I have already seen something like this multiple times.

In my companions.

In myself.

Or rather just in Origin Crystal.

It was the sign of the mixing process.

The assimilation he was worried about.

His eyes lit up with blue light. Then it shifted to green. To red. To yellow. And finally flashed in white and dimmed back to normal.

-Insufficient state of the vessel. Proceeding with repair.

The voice was robotic. Synthetic.

-What are you…?! You’re alive?!

Il tried to twist her weapon inside him, but it didn’t budge. It was already too late.

The weapon she was holding was now firmly planted inside his body, never to be removed.

Also, his mana flow suddenly lit up, and started moving.

Mana started flooding from the spear back to him.

ILMA.

She was awake.

-Insufficient mana reserves. Proceeding with assimilation of nearby material to repair.

The spear started shifting its form, getting thinner and thinner… No. It was… leaking?

For a second I thought that was just an illusion thanks to my enhanced sight, but it was not it.

The weapon was turning into liquid, flowing right to the opening in his chest, trying to fill it with itself.

-What!?

Il almost fell onto him as the weapon in her hands turned into nothingness and left her unarmed before slowly reforming Mike… or rather, ILMA.

-Insufficient material. Extending the range. Starting mana transfer.

There was no visible change. At least for the naked eye.

But I could see clearly.

Mana started suddenly flowing from everything around the place towards him… towards the body that was now being a vessel for her.

Where was it coming from?

I didn’t want to know the answer, but it was clear the moment I felt the first signs of the energy flowing into him… her.

A perspective change.

I was a maid, working somewhere downstairs in the palace, cleaning beds for the guests…

Then I was not.

I was a soldier, patrolling the corridors near the entrance…

Then I was not.

I was a woman, sitting on the balcony of her tree-house, looking at the palace.

Then I was not.

I was a child, running up the stairs to meet with their mother looking over the city below.

Then I was not.

Flashes of multiple people went and passed through me and through what used to be Mike, lying on the floor.

Just like once before.

Then I was back.

This time I was looking directly at Il. As ILMA. As Mike.

-Restoration complete. Resuming normal operation.

I could feel myself talk with a robotic voice.

-Who are you?! What do you want?!

Il was not understanding the situation at all.

No wonder. It’s not like anyone could just do that without knowing the story of theirs…

-Hostility detected. Suppressing.

A punch right at her that sent her flying down, towards the end of the corridor.

I was barely able to recognize the movement, even though I was the one seeing that from the first person perspective.

But at the end of the corridor…

There was a circular room, with rows of benches surrounding a wooden statue, sitting on a throne below, in the middle.

The same one I had not so long ago awoken.

Another Il.

The one possessing Mike was slowly and carefully walking down the stairs, following her fall.

And it was not because she was biding her time, or was careful, or anything interesting like that.

She had trouble walking.

It was the first time she actually possessed a body for a while, no wonder she had a hard time walking, not to mention down the stairs.

Maybe it was even the first time for her? At least the one in control at least.

On the other hand, the one who was down on the floor had difficulty standing up for a bit different reason.

That being her legs broken. And probably a bit more bones as well.

Seeing how far she sent her flying, it was a miracle that she was still conscious, to be completely honest. But again, she was a powerful magic user, she probably managed to protect herself at the last second.

-What are you…? - she asked, coughing out a bit of blood, trying to stand up and failing.

-Designation ILMA. Infinitely Learning Magical Algorithm.

-Wha…?!

Even though not capable of emotions, I could tell that she was being flustered by her own answer.

Was she disappointed that she answered…?

That made no sense.

Was that some remnant of Mike inside or something else entirely?

-Mother?! Why… a copy of mother?! That bastard!

-Hostility detected. Retaliating.

This time, a kick.

It sent her back towards the throne where she crashed right at the feet of the statue, leaving a bloody mark on the statue’s feet.

-Why…

She coughed and tried to sit up, grabbing the statue.

-Unit recognized. Designation “ILMA”. Unexpected.

-Mother…

-Unit recognized. Designation “ILOA”. Unexpected.

She fainted.

But as she was falling down onto the ground, a flash of light filled the chamber.

It didn’t belong to either of them, though.

It was coming from the statue itself.

The wooden person sitting on the throne was…

Wait.

She was no longer sitting on the throne.

She was now on the floor, embracing the bloodied figure that had just lost consciousness.

-Unit recognized. Unexpected. Unit recognized. Unexpected. Unit recognized. Unexpected. Unit…

It started repeating that over and over again, at the same time the light intensified and…

With a flash of light, the bloodied Il disappeared from the room, along with possessed Mike.

The only one remaining was the statue.

That was the last memory of the crystal.