"Are you ready, Curie?" I asked, standing before her, Alala, and the still-unconscious Yueya, holding Amari Ren. Alala, for once, was actually awake, laying on her bed as she was, eyes open wide, a small smile on her lips. The muscular woman had propped herself up on her elbows as she looked at and Curie, forcing her lucidity to remain in place despite how quickly it drained her. As for Curie, said woman was obsessively, though not in the bad way, checking and rechecking her calculations.
"Yes, she is," Alala answered for her, shaking her head fondly. "We both are. I'm tired of laying here, weak as a newborn."
"Based on my calculations, it will take a while for us all to combine together properly. Afterwards we will see a period of ti where we are resting, healing from our wounds like you were when you lost your arm, and then we will be fully functional. It is likely that after the initial combining phase, we will need to find a place to ditate and work on ourselves. Like you said and did; travel into the void, and focus exclusively on healing." Curie said, narrowing her eyes at so screen only she could see. "The added rot will be a significant boost, if it absorbs into us the way I predict. I just want to add a few more touches to my search-and-destroy programs…"
"You are getting excited about this," I said mildly, sticking my tongue out at Amari, who giggled and wiggled. "I thought you were worried."
"It has been a long ti since I have been one person. What will it be like? I admit to my curiosity." Curie said firmly.
"I'm just looking forward to not being in pain anymore." Alala said. "And being able to be awake for longer than ten minutes at a ti."
On this, I had no disagreent. And despite my internal nervousness, I had no reason to deny them this choice. Well, I did, in truth. But the right thing to do was to allow this. I felt it in my gut, just as I had felt that slaying Morgan was the wrong choice, and many other things. But here, today, I knew what had to happen.
I bounced Amari Ren on my hip to entertain them, the little one clinging to my robes with pudgy little fists. They were growing far slower than the other children - even Sequoia, Xing Wu and Inesa's daughter, and Kei, who had been much larger at this age. Perhaps it was because they were a child of two universes, and of two origin deities.
"Then let us go," I said, booping Amari on the nose with my thumb. They giggled and blubbered, Alala's expression softening as she watched play with them. I stood then, power warping around us as I called upon the Authority of two entire universes, my own, and the Authority of the One World, all three parts of which were laid before . Yueya, who still slumbered, what remained in Curie, what lay in , and what Amari Ren had attracted to themself.
Reality warped, and suddenly we were floating above the giant corpse of the Oshun. All of us. The Rival was already there, perched atop her forehead tapping on the stone flesh with a ball-peen hamr. He did not so much as look up as we appeared, a ball of glowing golden light that hovered over the land, my power suffusing the area and keeping the healing aura flowing. Without it, the current Oshun would struggle to rge. Amari Ren burbled at , wobbling their little head to and fro and wriggling in my grip as they peered around, and down at the ground.
"Easy there," I whispered, patting their head. Now ca the hard part. I let out a long, slow breath, rolling my shoulders, slowly bringing us down to the giant body’s chest, calling upon the Rot I had been collecting for so ti now, instead of rely burning it all away. "Curie, Alala, let's begin."
***
To call becoming one person again a “strange experience" would be a bit misleading. Not because of how it was stranger than rely 'strange,' but also because in so ways it wasn’t strange at all.
It started with three puzzle pieces. One was relatively whole, but would bend if you touched it too much. Another was torn in half, yet could stick together if you placed it right. The third was the right shape, but without any color or definition.
And in the very middle was a tiny piece that was missing. Perhaps a single percent of the entire puzzle, but enough that the pieces didn't fit together perfectly.
It should have irritated her that these three pieces, seemingly broken, were not perfect for each other. It was, she suspected, why she had not tried to put them back together before, beside the fact that she hadn’t needed or wanted to. But with the final piece just within reach, and the golden light of the Heavens flowing down to touch her, she had little choice and much need.
However, the mont she placed the first two pieces together, the intense relief that ca with it washed away any of the strangeness that ca with to wills and minds, connected though they were, becoming one. The broken one was set into the colorless one, and power flooded between them. First a trickle between the edges that touched, a connection that had once existed slowly reforging itself, then as a proper flood. Light returned to the colorless piece, bit by bit, not enough to fully color it, but enough to make it not so dim and dreary. anwhile, the broken piece began to nd, threads slipping from one end to the other, the golden light of the Heavens finally allowed to soak in and properly work its healing magic rather than lay on top as a stop-gap.
Cells were reforged, the flat, static image upon the broken piece gaining dinsion.
Then she slotted in the third piece, and a nuclear reaction sparked. Three pieces, feeding off of each other, silver light racing through each individual piece in a latticework display. She paused for only a mont, watching it go off, admiring the beauty of it as her third Will rged, settling into place like a long lost friend.
The display had been similar when she’d been separated, as well. Powers feeding off of each other, each piece three dinsional and whole, yet made stronger by the others. In fact, the distance had helped them - it had kept the missing piece at bay, and filled it in with space. Perhaps that is why she failed to fight her Shadow. Rather than find and address the problem, she’d let it exist as it was, perpetuating the problem it represented.
Now, though, there was sothing else added to the nuclear reaction of power. A tightness to the bond that hadn’t existed before. The edges of the puzzle pieces blurred together, not completely rging, but creating a whole picture versus the three separate snapshots she'd been before. Still beautiful, just in a different way.
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And there was movent, too. Instead of a net of silver light that connected the pieces, creating the illusion of movent between the spaces of her separated self, the whole picture itself moved like little ants running across the ground, building things. She did nothing for a ti, rely watching. Slowly the picture started to beco clearer - though the more it was fixed, the clearer it beca that sothing, at one point, had been carved away to make room for Authority.
Authority, of which she only had one third. Yet this did not displease her, surprisingly. She'd known what she'd given up. Now she had to fix it, and fill it with sothing else.
She turned her face toward the Heavens, and asked kindly for the next stage, accepting that she needed the Heaven’s help, no matter if the tiny bit of pride in her rankled at needing it, and the desire for the Heavens balked at asking for more, and potentially coming off as needy or helpless.
That was when the Rot ca.
It ca in pieces, tiny little droplets of sludge that were dripped down onto the three pieces, careful not to overwhelm them. Obsession imdiately flooded her, mories of Statera, of fun nights and long days spent together and without them racing through her mind’s eye in a dizzying display. Of the child, the little one, whom she had grown within her and now was forced to watch grow without her as punishnt for her own mistakes.
Fury ca to her from two parts, and quiet acceptance from the third, directed solely at herself.
The Rot wasn't just part of her, it was the worst of her, the pieces that had been too weak to be present when she beca an Origin Deity. It was the obsession she'd had when she'd been a goddess of beauty and the feminine form, back in her original universe. It had been the desperate desire for a family, not in the pleasant way, but the toxic. When she'd wanted the perfect little family, practically dolls rather than people.
These had not been good desires, nor had it been the only things shaved away. But they had been the pieces she’d focused on.
She knew better now. She'd known better in her previous life, but had never fully cut them away, unable to face the fact that they’d been necessary to leave behind. They had been things to cut away, and she had never had the full motivation to completely separate herself from those toxic traits. She slamd her fist down upon the rot, crushing its obsessiveness, accepting that she had been that person but no longer. No longer! She would be that woman no more!
It was a constant battle. Every inch that was dropped upon her had to be subjugated and put into line, then smoothed into the cracks - for that was what it was. The cracks between the pieces of the puzzle, that which made the puzzle a puzzle and not a singular whole.
Every inch acted like glue, as it was slowly absorbed, slowly transforming back into the puzzle pieces, its natural state. She focused hard on sticking the pieces together, narrowly avoiding losing herself in the process. Fingers twitched. Her spirit rose and sank. And through it all the light of heaven filtered down upon her, helping her in the process.
The [System] blinked into her vision, little ssages flickering to and fro as the science part of her took control for a mont, in a mont of extre cognitive dissonance. What had been one part of her acted on its own, rising up however briefly and grabbing part of the puzzle, the [System] flashing intense warning she was in no state to read.
[Search and Destroy Program Initiated] it blared into her ears instead.
She thrashed against this rebellious piece, aided by the [System] as it was, so final algorithm and program activating. Yet there was nothing she could do - it acted too quickly, too decisively, cutting into her Will and -
A thick, throbbing mass of sothing was wrenched out of her soul, small as her fingernail yet as powerful as the rot itself. She lunged for it - or, part of her did. The other two pieces, free as they were yet limited in their autonomy, held her back, as the mass was crushed with malicious force.
A shudder ran through her, and a tension she hadn't known she'd been holding fled her form. The rot trembled and lost cohesion, the driving force of it drooping, as the Oshun finally allowed herself to rge together once again, the [System] backing off, her separate pieces allowing the bit of Will they’d held back from the rge to finally join in with the rest. Completely. Fully, not just weakly.
"We are one," she said softly, the droplets of rot raining down faster now, filling in the cracks that she smoothed out. mories flooded her, things she had forgotten, things that the core had made her forget.
Words were foremost among them.
HO. Ironically. That had been one of her first words. It had created a canvas for her, not just a house or a place to live. A place for her to work her art, to play the gas she loved as a girl, and to experint as she pleased.
LIGHT, of course. She needed to see in order to make her art.
CANVAS. Canvas had been an actual word she'd said. It had created the primordial chaos, where she’d been able to shape and twist it as she saw fit - a world, for her, that ca with everything she'd needed and wanted. She spent far too long crafting it and - there. She saw the mont it hit her. Two other words had mirrored it – LAB, and ARENA – both aning the sa thing as Canvas but carrying different weight.
COMPANY. Her soul split into three, loneliness making her split herself and allowing three artists of three different disciplines rush about, doing whatever they wanted while still being the sa person. It was that mont that the Rot had given itself its form, leaping from the husk she had left behind, her corpse itself becoming the original core of the One World. From her, all of the planet had been created.
She turned away, not wanting to see any more. Because she knew what ca next. She rembered what happened, now, how Yueya had fallen, what all the plans and scheming had been, how it all lay upon her soul. Including little Amari Ren.
She wept despite the necessity of her actions, and let herself heal.
***
It would be a mont or two yet, before the Oshun would wake properly. A scant few years of watching over them. To my eyes, she was still healing. To my eyes, she was going to be powerful, a being to rival myself, just as I’d predicted. Separately she had been more powerful than individually, and, as I had said before, I had worried she would be more powerful than if she combined.
Now, I knew that would not be the truth. Not because she held more power than – I had already known she would hold more power. No, it was because my power was simply more. Hers was a hundred pounds of feathers. Mine was eighty pounds of steel. Functionally, it would hit harder. I had rely misunderstood what “more powerful” ant – she, as always, held quantity over my quality.
"How does it feel?" the Rival asked, floating beside , arms crossed, eyes turned heavenward
"How does what feel?" I asked numbly, pressing the heel of my palm to my forehead.
"You're clearly feeling sothing. When one pantheon subjugates another, their understanding of the universe and reality passes over as well. It's like, well, like when a society takes over another. If they're smart, they can completely absorb their philosophies, their science, their everything. Take what works, and add it to your own. I think, if I'm rembering right, Ro from Earth was pretty good at that? Until they weren't, and they died." The Rival pressed.
"I'm not subjugating them," I countered weakly.
"Right. And I’m not older than you by an order of magnitude. Statera, because you are trying to do the right thing, this is what is happening. It’s even more interesting that she’d handing over her understanding willingly. Right? That is what’s happening?” He asked. I squinted at him, vision blurring slightly as sothing within clicked.
Ho. That was a word she had used. No, not a word. A Word. A Word of Mr. Boxes…yet I understood it in my own way, didn’t I? Mr. Boxes and I had different anings. Like how Xing Wu had a different Dao than mine. My brows furrowed slightly, as I looked back down upon the Oshun, color slowly returning to the stone giant. There was…a lot to think about here, because the Rival was right.
I was gaining insights into her Understanding. My Dao was deepening, and if I wasn’t careful, right here and now, I would go into ditation for a long, long ti, during a ti I could not afford to.
My teeth grit. A cluster universe. Maybe the Rival had been onto sothing with that idea.
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