Jade had secluded himself, in a lab he none of them had known he had kept, for months after Asch's return. They had all thought that throwing himself into his work was his way of mourning Luke, but had Luke been there, he could have told them their error. After all, he couln't be mourning someone whose death he didn't accept.

All Jade's theories had been bourne out, proven true on the one facet of fomicry he had most hoped to be wrong about. He had been surprised and proven wrong, or at least not-quite-right, in every other way when he had tried to predict how it would go between those two, so why would he now have to be correct?

But if he had been correct once, he could be correct again. He just had to figure out how. He knew he was being obsessive over bringing a dead friend back to life again and wondered if they'd approve, not that that really mattered to him. Would Luke even want his life back? Of course, it wasn't like Luke was even truly dead, the Big Bang wasn't nearly that cut and dry, but something important was eluding Jade. He hated knowing that the answer was there, but being unable to see it.

It wasn't until he was taking a break in a field and was suddenly drawn into a monster battle that it hit him. As he separated his spear with barely a thought to thrust at the monster, it occurred to him that the Big Bang effect was based on the contamination effect he took advantage of to store his spear, just on an organic-organic basis, not an organic-inorganic basis.

He had to get back to his lab right away to begin on the theories thundering through his mind, so he had fled the battle immediately.

Fonons of organic material and inorganic material are basically different. That made the chances of rejection during integration for something like his spear much greater, but separation quite simple. All he had to do was find the inorganic fonons out of those on his arm, and reassemble them. With two sets of organic material, like a replica and original, the integration is almost assured to go smoothly, but could separation even be possible?

Firstly he'd need Asch to be able to separate himself from Luke-self, then be able to use his hyperresonance to break down the Luke-bits and reassemble them separately from himself.

There were many risks. Hyperresonances were still poorly understood and barely controlled at best. And even if they could re-separate his body, there might not be anything of his mind left to inhabit it, leaving them with a comatose Luke and a traumatized or possibly dead Asch, or they could end up with Asch's dead body and short-haired Luke exactly as they were immediately before the Big Bang. And, on the off chance that it all went off without a hitch, would there be any way to prevent the Big Bang effect from happening all over again?

He had too many questions and too many dark, nasty answers to get everyone's hopes up over the tiny chance.

But he wasn't just going to give up either. So he decided to bring Asch in, to try it in secret. That way nothing important would be lost either way.

He disclosed all the risks in detailed and explicit manner. Nobody would be able to say Asch hadn't known what he was getting into. Asch had insisted on doing it anyway.

Jade had to run some tests first, learn about his hyperresonance, his control, his ability to differentiate what was his and what had been Luke's. Asch let him, despite his aversion and twitchy response to doctors and experimentation. Anything to bring him back.

The results came back satisfactory, but not overwhelmingly positive. They had each known they would be going ahead anyway, no matter what the test results came back as, so even this was moralizing.

They decided to do it the next day. That would give Asch time to rest after the tests and Jade time to make a few preparations.

The next day, early enough, both were in the lab room, ready to begin.

Asch stood before the lab table, a patient examining table covered with a fresh cloth, and took a few slow, deep breaths before diving into his task.

The power was easy enough to call, to mould. The glow spread from his hands down into a cloud of seventh fonons he had called into hovering over the table. Once the basic form was set he turned inwards, focused on drawing out all the pieces of Luke he had absorbed in the merger, forcing them out through his hands, into the form beginning to coalesce out of the cloud on the table.

Then he felt a deep golden power, mind, flooding into him, both acutely foreign and achingly familiar, gently taking control of the process from him.

He knew he could stop it if he wanted to, but somehow, he couldn't want to. It felt reassuring and forcibly soothing, and he couldn't even be terrified as he knew he should be. He could make no outward sign of this terribly intimate, terribly dangerous invasion either. He wondered detachedly if Jade could tell what was happening.

It was scouring him, much more quickly and effectively than he could himself, for any remnants of Luke he had missed. He supposed that he should be grateful that this entity that had moved into his body and taken control seemed to share his goal, but then he was distracted as it dragged into him something so familiar that he couldn't help the word slipping out.

"Luke."

His mind, or his soul, or whatever piece Jade had been worried would be missing was being dragged into Asch from what felt like a huge distance, and once there forced out his hands into the body on the bed. It was a body now, Luke's body, with Luke's memories and Luke's fonons waiting in it for that last piece.

The final bit of Luke drained from him, and Asch would have slumped to the floor from exhaustion, from the hollow feeling of sudden emptyness, if the entity wasn't still in him, holding him up. The Luke on the table blinked and looked up at him.

Asch had a moment of intense vertigo where he could see both Luke on the table and himself leaning over the table before there was a sharp pain and wrenching in his mind. When it passed, he was entirely just himself again, looking down at Luke on the table. All that remained in him of the entity was its voice.

I've severed you two, lest the merger happen again. Live, and be proud of all you have done.

And it was gone. Only while it was leaving, after hearing Luke whisper his thanks, did Asch realize it had been Lorelei who had invaded him, helped them.

But then Luke was smiling up at him, looking at Jade, sitting up, and trying to say and do fifty different things at once. His eager, lively eyes made Asch feel hopeful for once. He wasn't sure what exactly he was hopeful about, but it was such a pleasant feeling that he didn't bother to worry about that detail.

Blinking when the room swayed before his eyes, he lay down on the table Luke had just vacated. While Luke spoke with Jade, he decided that it'd be alright to pass out for a little bit, because he knew things would still be better than alright for the first time in three years when he woke up.