{Master... please do not take his words for it. Do not co into contact with him than you already have. He is dangerous to you, as you are dangerous to him.}
[Stem?! So you feel the wrongness too?]
And as Benjamin watched the other person standing only a few ters away from him, his blue eyes locked onto Tensei’s golden ones, Sys also chipped in with its own analysis and warning, adding another voice to the growing chorus of concern—
{Master, I believe the winged individual is correct in his assessnt of the situation. There are unusual compositions within his soul, a strange structure that I am detecting, and it reacts strangely to Master’s.}
However, in less than a single second, less ti than it takes for a human heart to complete one full beat, Benjamin had teleported across the distance separating him from Tensei and appeared directly in front of the winged man.
{?!}
{?!}
And without any hesitation, Benjamin imdiately grabbed Tensei’s hand in a firm and friendly shake, gripping it warmly as if they were old friends reuniting after a long separation.
"See...?" Benjamin smiled, his brown hair shifting slightly with the gentle breeze that was blowing through the area. "Just a little bit of paranoia and overthinking. Nothing more than that. Let’s get along from now on, Ten. I have a feeling we are going to be seeing a lot of each other."
anwhile, Tensei, Sys, and Stem were basically all sweating buckets inside their respective consciousnesses.
Their internal alarms were blaring and their defensive instincts screaming, waiting for sothing catastrophic to happen:
An explosion of conflicting energies, an annihilation of both individuals, or perhaps a fusion of their souls that would destroy their separate identities forever.
Seconds stretched into what felt like long minutes, the silence between them growing heavier with each passing mont, before Tensei finally relaxed his shoulders and allowed so of the tension to drain from his body.
Then he glared at Benjamin with an expression of disbelief and exasperation. "You are honestly deranged!"
Benjamin scratched his head with his other hand, the one not currently occupied with the handshake, and grinned. "Thanks for the complint. I’ve been told that before."
Tensei also felt Benjamin’s hand in his, noting carefully that while their souls were reacting to each other’s presence in so way—so subtle vibration or resonance that he could detect.
But nothing physical or spiritually serious was actually going on between them.
But before he could open his mouth to speak, to ask questions or demand explanations, a strange and childish voice entered the space between them, seeming to co from everywhere and nowhere at once.
"Nothing happened...?"
Benjamin and Tensei snapped their heads sharply to their left, turning in unison toward the source of the unexpected voice, and found a sad-looking lad standing there.
The child had short white hair that stuck up in ssy tufts, wore black shorts and a white long-sleeved shirt that was held to the shorts with old-fashioned suspenders.
He was completely barefoot with his toes wiggling against the ground, and his face looked alarmingly sullen and disappointed, as if soone had just canceled his favorite holiday.
He said again, his voice flat and emotionless: "You both touched each other’s hands, made direct physical contact... but nothing happened...? Fate is so... unfair to ."
Then, without any warning or visible effort, he bleeped out of the area, disappearing from sight as quickly and abruptly as an eye blinking shut and opening again.
"Who was that kid?" Benjamin was genuinely alard by the sudden arrival and the even more sudden exit, his eyes wide and his body tensed. "And did he just use a type of [Reality Jump] to leave? That movent looked exactly like what I do."
"I... never thought I would see him again, to be completely honest," Tensei mumbled, his golden eyes fixed on the spot where the child had been standing just monts ago. "But as I suspected, he has so kind of connection to the both of us."
"Us...?" Benjamin turned to face Tensei more directly, and the winged man finally removed his hand from Benjamin’s grip, breaking the contact between them. "Did you know that kid? Have you t him before?"
"Yes. He may be a god... or sothing even older than the gods," Tensei looked at his own palm for a while, studying the lines and the skin as if expecting to see so mark or change from the handshake.
Then he began speaking again in a quieter and more serious tone. "If Chröma is this keen on observing us... and waiting for sothing to happen between us, then I think we should take this situation a bit more seriously than we have been doing until now."
"Ch... Chröma?!" Benjamin imdiately entered a defensive mode, his body shifting into a combat stance and his eyes scanning the surrounding area for threats. "You an the Intergalactic criminal?! Was that pale, sad-looking boy the infamous Chröma that I’ve heard gossipped about in the most terrifying way? Uh, should we not be running away from here now?!"
Tensei then looked at Benjamin with an expression of intrigue and curiosity, studying his face and his reactions with renewed interest. "Tell , Benjamin Mark-sama..."
"Call Benjamin, or else I won’t answer you, you know."
"...Ahem...! Tell sothing, B... Benjamin," Tensei corrected his address imdiately, showing that he was capable of adapting when the situation demanded it. "What did you do just now? How did you prevent whatever was supposed to happen?"
Benjamin perked up a little at the question, his posture straightening and his expression becoming more thoughtful.
He looked around at their surroundings, checking to see if anyone was listening to their conversation, and then faced Tensei seriously too, his blue eyes eting the other man’s golden ones with direct focus.
"You know, there IS a strong pull towards us, a gravitational attraction that I’ve felt ever since I first entered Shishi-no-su and beca aware of your presence in the sa world as ," Benjamin began explaining, his voice low and confidential. "I have an ability called [Form Manipulation]. It allows to transform my physical form and spiritual essence into whatever kind of horror or monster or eldritch being I wish to beco. I sealed that ability away a while ago because I wanted to remain sowhat human in nature, but I can still access its echoes and residual effects."
"So...?" Tensei, now even more intrigued by this revelation, asked for more explanation, leaning slightly closer to Benjamin as he spoke.
"My theory is, for reasons I don’t fully understand, we might rge into a single being if we co too close together without proper precautions," Benjamin explained carefully. "So to prevent that from happening when I touched your hand, I turned my soul and my DNA slightly off from their original signatures. I am essentially hiding the fact that I am Benjamin for the duration of our contact. Honestly, it’s really difficult to maintain, like holding in a severe need to pee while soone is running water next to you."
"I did not need such a visceral and disgusting illustration to understand the concept," Tensei deadpanned, his expression flat and unimpressed. "And it wasn’t paranoia, after all...! So, what would happen if you were to release your hold on that ability? If you stopped hiding your true signature?"
"We would likely rge and beco sothing else entirely. Maybe a new person with a new identity that is neither you nor . Or maybe we would both remain conscious inside, but forced to share a single body between us, taking turns controlling our movents."
"And... why are you so calm about this?" Tensei raised a brow in suspicion, his golden eyes keen as he studied Benjamin’s relaxed posture and his easy smile. "Are you not afraid by the idea of losing your identity? Are you not terrified of ceasing to exist as the person you currently are?"
Benjamin smiled softly and looked down at his own hands, turning them over and studying his palms as if seeing them for the first ti.
"I am , Ten. I’ve always been , and I’ll always be , no matter what form I take or what changes I undergo. So I’m not afraid. I am forever ... even if it turns out that I wasn’t the original version."
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