"Kid?"
Dante snapped out of his thoughts, turning a confused look to his lanky doctor, who responded with a frown.
"You gonna tell what’s going on?"
"I... don’t know..." Dante replied.
Casting his gaze down, Dante went through everything his resident AI said. Sothing has happened to his soul, sothing even Volcan didn’t understand. What triggered was the installation of the upgraded Ares SRE into Bella’s body. That seed to have established a connection between their souls, but if that were the case...
"Doc," whipping his head in the doctor’s direction, Dante pinned him with a stern look. "I need to see Bella. Now."
"Don’t tell this has sothing to do with her..."
Though he sounded quite annoyed at the prospect, Larry quickly led the way to the operating room. Bella was still on the operating table, lying on her stomach. A light blue sheet covered her body, which gave Dante an ominous feeling until he realized her head was uncovered.
"I don’t know what your relationship with the girl is, so it doesn’t feel right to show you her bare body," Larry said.
"This isn’t the ti for jokes," Dante said. "How are her vitals?"
"Relax, she’s doing perfectly fine." The doctor seed to stare at empty space for a mont before nodding. "Yup. Perfectly fine."
Dante almost sighed in relief, but then he stopped himself. Grabbing the sheet covering Bella, he pulled it down far enough to see the entire implant. Though she was injected with the necessary dose of Nanods, it would still be a while before her wounds closed, so her back was entirely covered in bandages. Seeing that, Dante realized that he didn’t really need to remove the thin sheet. After all, it wasn’t sothing that could block his Absolute Awareness.
[Dante, you need to see this.]
No sooner did his resident AI say that than Dante’s vision turned monochro. He saw an outline of Bella’s figure, which was white in color. Then he saw an outline of her soul. Nothing seed odd about it—nothing except the black thread rising from the implant on her back, connecting her to him.
’What in the world...’
[Fascinating...] Volcan said. [It seems that her soul has already adjusted to the altered shape of her vessel.]
’... What?’
Dante looked again and realized that it was indeed the case. After obtaining Absolute Awareness, he had examined several other cyborgs to better understand how the souls adjusted. For example, Henry from the Daggers had a better ti, with his soul having mostly adjusted to his Ascended body. Riot, on the other hand, had yet to adjust to his bionic heart, even though it had been years since he had it implanted. In the latter’s case, the outline of his soul seed to wrap around the implant, leaving a dark hole in it.
In Bella’s case, her soul seems to have already adjusted its shape to accommodate her new SRE. At first, Dante was impressed, but then he understood why Volcan seed surprised. The process of a soul adjusting was gradual and usually takes weeks, if not months. In that regard, Dante’s soul was especially malleable, taking only a few days to adjust whenever he received a new implant. Compared to that, Bella’s seed to be completely fluid, imdiately taking on the shape of its vessel.
"This is starting to get on my nerves." Throwing his hands in the air, Larry turned away. "If you’re just going to stand there and say nothing, I’ll be taking my smoke break now."
"Yeah, sure..."
Dante didn’t pay much attention to the doctor as he tried to comprehend what was happening. It felt like they were making so very important discoveries, and that required all of his focus.
’This... isn’t normal, is it?’
[Yes. It is not.]
’She’s not injured, is she?’ Dante asked. ’Her soul, I an.’
[It seems to be a bit strained.] Volcan replied. [That is the only proof that its shape has changed.]
’That’s not going to be a problem, is it?’
[I do not believe it will. It might be a while before the strain vanishes, but there is no fear of her soul reverting to its previous shape or suffering any tears.]
’Tears!!? You an it could...’
[If you stretch a piece of fabric beyond a certain point, it will eventually be torn apart.]
’Damn it...’
As he understood it, it was less that Bella’s soul had adjusted to the new shape of its vessel and more like it was forced to. The cause was obviously her new implant, or to be a little more precise, it was the upgrade Volcan had applied to it.
’You said this isn’t one of your functions, right?’
[Indeed.] Volcan replied. [The implants might have been integrated into VOLCAN, but that connection is supposed to be severed once they are removed from the host.]
’But... if that’s really the case, then... how...’
Though he asked the question, Dante had already deduced the likely cause. His resident AI had just inford him that his soul had undergone a significant change. The trigger was likely Bella installing her new implant, or it might be her soul adjusting to it. Either way, that caused his own soul to transform, and even Volcan was struggling to understand what was happening.
’Her soul is normal, right?’
[Yes. I have confird as much through my sensors and the connection that has been established.]
’How do we sever it?’
[I do not know if that is possible. At the very least, I do not have anything that could help achieve that. I do not know what effects doing so would have.]
In other words, cutting the thread might cause them harm in so way.
’Shit...’
Though he understood very little of it, Dante felt that the thread was nothing if not a source of trouble. The very idea of having a part of his soul outside his body seed terrifying, and knowing the implications, he had every right to be troubled.
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