What I promised is debt.
As you can expect, this chapter also has some in-universe music.
Here's the list:
Final Fantasy VII - Aerith's Theme Piano Remix
Megaman Zero 4: Fate... Theme Of Weil * (remember this * means you should look for an extended version)
Final Fantasy 1 Opening Demo.
Three Days Grace: I Am Machine (Official Instrumental). Although if you prefer the regular version, listen to it if you want.
Megaman Zero 4 - Falling Down Epic Orchestra Remix by OrangaStang. Another good option is the one called: Final Fantasy VII - J-E-N-O-V-A (BIRTH/DEATH) Remastered.
Then there is a part where no music should be played.
Super Mario Galaxy - Gusty Garden Galaxy Piano (Nostalgia Edition)
Super Mario Galaxy - Rosalina's Storybook/Luma Theme (Piano Lullaby)
Technically the last two ones happen when the character is not dreaming anymore... but meh, it would feel weird to do not end with music. (Besides, let's just say it's the music he hears in his mind)
I hope you enjoy it!
Science vs Faith
Luis deactivated his energy shield once his spell had finished doing its job.
He was levitating since the whole area got transformed into a gigantic crater.
The "matter" that had been destroyed by Artema was so considerable that it didn't matter in which direction Luis decided to look... the crater seemed to continue until the infinite. He just couldn't find the end.
Well, it was perfectly logical considering he had decided to use all the force of Artema in a single attack. Technically speaking, this spell should be called Artema x 20 or Artema lv 20.
Yet, he highly doubted this level of destruction could even be comparable to what the meteor that caused the extinction the dinosaurs had occasioned on the planet a long time ago.
With his opponent seemingly erased... Luis didn't feel satisfied though.
Something he couldn't ignore was the detail that, apparently, no matter how much he imagined the persons that were supposed to be his friends suffering or dying... this caused no reaction from him.
He just didn't care... even if his memories indicated this, at the very least, had to cause him a slight discomfort.
He could perfectly remember the fury and stress he felt when Xander was about to kill Alfonse... yet nothing happened in the present time.
Another thing that crossed his mind was that occasion when a noble had insulted Lyndis because of her nomad lineage. He remembered hating him for being a racist piece of scum...
He remembered how he had cried whenever one of his beloved pets had finally reached the end of their lives...
But now...
There weren't coherent words to describe this due to it being an emotional phenomenon... he simply didn't feel that thing that allowed him to feel the happiness, pain, and sadness of other people...
His empathy was gone...
It was true he had trained himself to reduce this particular emotion to control it better so he could totally turn it off when it was about dealing with a certain kind of people so he could claim their lives without much trouble... and it also helped to do not become into a hypersensitive idiot... but now even when his mind determined that these people should be considered the "good" ones... he felt nothing.
The best proof of this was how he had so easily killed "Lyndis" without a single hesitation even after going through so much trouble of training to master Forblaze and Aureola so he could always protect her.
Heck, even the image of her stabbing him on the heart didn't cause anything.
What in the hell had happened?
He snapped his fingers to materialize the image of what he had considered the most similar to an angel thing that could exist even if the angels themselves didn't exist in the first place.
Again, even if he had compared her eyes to a quasar, being those objects the brightest objects ever discovered to the point they were what you usually could see of other galaxies... and even if he had bright memories of enjoying her smile...
...
...
...
No, nothing.
This face didn't make him feel anything.
So she disappeared as easily as she materialized.
Luis reflected on the fact... that now he had no opponent to face... he actually didn't have any motivation to do... well, anything.
This wouldn't last long though.
"GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Luis backed off a little "W-What?..."
Matter particles began to accumulate in front of him. Progressively they started to take humanoid form... after a while, Luis was seeing again to the enemy he had considered terminated at this point.
Duncan denoted brutal levels of stress as he breathed and exhaled very quickly... not to mention the red color his face displayed.
"You... you shouldn't be able to regenerate from something like that..." granted, in the dream world, the laws of the universe meant nothing... but only the owner of the mind could, in theory, be completely invincible.
"I... I... I told you..." Duncan coughed. "That I could accomplish anything... if I have faith in it!" this time, it was Duncan who smiled.
Luis rolled his eyes, crossed his arms, and answered. "Correct, that's why you managed to beat me and no the other way around, right?" he shook his head. "Yet... this is..." for a second, Luis's clothes started to resemble more to a lab coat and his shirt became black, his hair turned white and his skin seemed inhumanly pale "Fascinating..."
This sight made Duncan felt even more rage than usual. This guy was pretty much the modern Nergal. "Shut up, Caulder."
"Aaah, you know that?" Luis laughed as his avatar recovered its standard appearance. "Got busy checking my memories?"
"I know that because I'm Kiran Mark!" Duncan yelled.
Luis growled. "NO! I'M KIRAN MARK!" he responded.
"I'M KIRAN MARK!" Duncan repeated.
"NO, I AM!"
"NO, I AM!"
Their argument got interrupted by a new apparition of the migraine and the fixing of the cracks.
"AAAAAAARGH!"
"AAAAAAARGH!"
Both of them growled as the horrible pain didn't seem to have any kind of mercy on them until, again, it just vanished.
Duncan removed his hands from his head. "Is there a reason why everything today seems too eager to make my head explode?" yet, his rage seemed to have been reduced a lot as his voice tone denoted.
"I could ask the same question." Luis laughed, this time being more similar to a casual laugh like the old times. He looked at the sky.
"Although... If I have to guess what has happened to my brain, Naga must have done something..."
"You mean my brain." Duncan said. This time, he also crossed his arms.
"Meh." Luis didn't think it wasn't a good idea to continue arguing with this idiot. "Let's do something different."
Luis snapped again to transform the environment.
Duncan clenched his teeth as he saw a familiar temple where the walls seemed to be painted in green.
A big stair was present in from of him... and at the top part... something new
Sitting on a throne made of swords, Luis had his face resting on his fist.
"Hey."
"Why did you bring me here?" Duncan looked around in discomfort.
"I don't know, this place brings me memories..." Luis commented as the humanoid figures materialized around Duncan. "Well, not really. If you really believe you're me, then perhaps watching this could be useful."
Duncan narrowed when his final battle against Nergal and his morphs was being recreated.
He could see Eliwood having problems dealing with Linus.
Lyndis facing Keeneth.
A copy of himself fighting Ursula.
But then he saw...
"Stop it..." Duncan said.
Luis, in particular, made sure this scene was perfectly visible. He snapped his fingers to "stop the time" to let the scene be displayed for a while. "Let's see how do you react to this." Luis rubbed his chin.
"PLEASE STOP IT!"
"But I already have." Luis smiled.
"YOU GET WHAT I MEAN!" Duncan growled like a beast.
Considering Duncan had in front of him a recreation of the Brendan morph about to claim the head of Nino, it was pretty understandable why he would react this way.
"So you actually feel pain because of this?" Luis scratched his chin.
Seemingly having increased his intelligence, Duncan decided to replicate the snap of Luis, causing the recreation of the historical event to vanish.
Duncan narrowed as he looked at Luis. "Would you mind telling me what exactly you meant by that?!"
Luis seemed ready to stand up from this throne. "I was trying to understand again that feeling..." then he leaned again on his chair as he looked at the sky. "Without my empathy... it seems the only thing that gives me pleasure is making you scream..." although that was partially satisfying... in the long term, it would become boring. "Such an empty life..."
"I highly doubt a soulless monster like you could even feel anything." Duncan started going stairs up.
Luis shook his head. "Oh, please. You're not going to give me that stupid retarded speech of Eliwood, right?"
Duncan prepared his fists. "If you truly were me, you would never insult your friends!"
"And if you were me, you would know that the fact they are your friends does not change what they are." Luis's smile was a mix of boredom and sarcasm.
"Shut up! you don't consider them your friends, if you don't have faith in them then you see them as nothing but tools!"
Luis materialized what, at first, seemed to be another Espada Maestra. "I may not care about them anymore, but I still remember what I used to think. A "true" friend is not the one that always shares your opinion. It's the one that wouldn't abandon you just because your ideals and theirs aren't exactly the same."
However, the sword was monstrously huge. The blade and guard were totally black, the triforce engraved on the blade was inverted and red... and the blade had a lot of points through the whole length.
It was Demise's version of the blade... La Espada Maestra Oscura (The Dark Master Sword).
Luis stood up from his throne and, in less than a second, he was already slashing Duncan who barely managed to protect himself summoning the Espada Maestra Azul.
"Having faith in your friends?! only a fool has faith in something!" Luis kicked Duncan, making him fall through the stairs all the way down. "They aren't perfect, not even I am." he made his dark sword land pointy on the ground. "There are infinite timelines and therefore all the possibilities are true. Every day is a career for survival against my parallel selves in finding who's gonna survive another day. If I decided to entrust a task to someone just because they are my friends, I would have been one of the losers since a long time ago!"
Duncan summoned his Breidablik and shot at Luis, who only needed to place his shadow blade in front of himself to get protected.
"Let me guess, you like to claim that your friends give you strength, right?"
Luis continued making his way down. "It's partially true..."
Duncan backed off a little. "What?"
Luis giggled. "What, did you think I'm one of those retarded villains that can't comprehend "good"? please." He shook his head. "What friends give you is motivation... but motivation and strength aren't the same things the same way power and strength aren't synonyms." Luis pointed at Duncan with his sword. "Proof of this is the fact that the only thing that seems to actually motivate me now is to make you feel miserable, something that is obviously less motivational than having multiple friends that love you, and you are still my bitch."
Duncan raised his sword as a thunder fell on it, charging the blade with celestial power which he immediately threw at Luis.
Unlike the previous times, Luis wasn't able to counter this and he got hit.
"You have no right to speak about this! you have let the darkness take control of your heart!"
"Do you realize that if you're me then it necessarily means there's darkness in your heart too, right?" Luis asked as he stood up.
"Even if I let some of it corrupt me, I would never accept it and I would get rid of it!"
Luis's eyes went red and, using hyperspeed, he pretty much "teleported" and stabbed Duncan directly on his heart. Then he quickly pushed him against a pillar. Strangely, unlike the previous times, Duncan actually coughed blood. "For real? fascinating... but what is the "light" and what is the "darkness"? because what is good for someone can be evil for someone else! is perhaps the good something relative to the circumstances or is the good absolute?"
Duncan aimed at Luis with his Breidablik and shot, forcing the blue warrior to back off. "And you said you comprehended good. Why it doesn't surprise me that you're unable to differentiate between good and evil?!"
Luis coughed. "What does give to these two concepts any value or real meaning anyway? as far as I remember, even when I had emotions, these things didn't have any intrinsical value!"
Duncan's eyes went wide as he recalled Negal's speech.
Nergal was grinning miserably, his newly summoned army of morphs behind him was ...
Scary...
"This..." Eliwood's face was pale... not that the others present did have a very different expression, including Mark.
"Old enemies... and members of the Black Fang... Nergal!" Mark clenched his fist in anger.
"What have you done?!" Eliwood screamed.
"I gave these morphs the appearance and abilities of people who had the quintessence which I crafted them with... although it is not entirely true, I took the trouble to increase their capabilities too!."
Nergal laughed. "This is perfect for hypocrites like you! You continue to cause harm and kill the people around you, it doesn't matter when you regret that you claim to suffer for it! At the end of the day, once the action is done, the result is always the same! It doesn't matter if you enjoy it or not, you are just the same!"
"Your mind is twisted, it's clearly not the same!" Hector gritted his teeth.
"If you don't feel horror when taking someone's life... you're not even alive in the first place!" Eliwood exclaimed.
Nergal slowly shook his head, that smile still on his face. "Hehehehe! such a weakness... you could never understand it! The concepts of good and evil are devoid of any value or meaning! Those miserable ideas keep humans from reaching their true potential! "
"I KNEW IT!" Duncan charged a plasma shoot. "I'M SICK OF YOU! I WILL VANISH YOU!"
"Oh, for the love of-" Luis laughed maniacally. "is this for real?!" Luis demanded when he imitated Duncan's previous action by raising his sword, collecting energy from a thunder. However, Duncan focused so much on expecting the celestial disc that he couldn't react in time when Luis preferred just to slash him with the power of the electricity.
"AAAAArgh!" Duncan screamed, releasing the hold on his weapons and making him vulnerable.
"HOW DARE YOU TO COMPARE ME WITH THAT TRASH!" Luis, once again, stabbed Duncan on the stomach. The remaining electric charge continued hurting him for some seconds.
"He was an idiot who didn't understand the evolution! I don't know if somebody has told you this... but there's no such thing as an ultimate life form!" Luis punched him with his free hand.
"There's no such a thing as the law of the strongest one because the only real important thing is to survive long enough to be able to leave descendants! sometimes what matters is to be slow and require not much food. In those scenarios, the strong and big one will die and the weak and tiny one will occupy the place in the niche!" Luis used wind magic to blow Duncan away.
He raised his index finger as a light particle formed on the edge of the finger.
"This is the reason why the "almighty" dinosaurs ended up perishing allowing the mammals to take over the world!" Luis threw multiple particles.
Tiny as they were, they moved insanely fast and caused multiple holes on Duncan's avatar.
Duncan got worried when Luis's hands displayed certain blue-colored energy. As Luis placed his two hands together and prepared what seemed to be a wave of blue energy, Duncan prepared himself to replicate the attack.
The only problem was that it wasn't either the Kame Hame Ha or the Hadokuen as he expected.
Instead, the energy was a single ball that in less than a second had already impacted on him.
Duncan didn't feel... well... he looked at himself, horrified, as the blue essence started to take over his aura... he felt he couldn't move...
The effects the Cherenkov radiation was going to cause him would doom him.
"Nergal believed good and evil within you limited humanity... the existence of all those marvelous things that are too much complex for a single human to comprehend every single aspect of them, created through cooperation and science, debunk that stupid idea. Because most of this success is thanks to the people thinking good and evil have a meaning." Luis raised a prism from which a rainbow ray got expelled, hurting Duncan even more.
"People like Nergal would never be able to reach the moon."
Luis looked at his hand in disappointment... "And while it is true the fact that people value morality, it does not mean it has any intrinsical value... and yet... and yet..." his hand became a fist. "I don't feel it... I don't feel it anymore!"
Duncan coughed multiple times, had this been his biological body instead of an avatar, he probably would suffer a lot because of the radiation. He was barely able to stand.
"F-F-Feel what?"
"Why create when it will only be destroyed?... why cling to life... knowing that you have to die?! nothing would have meant anything once the end comes..." Luis's two hands became fists as he growled like a beast and his aura became erratic.
Duncan had to place a hand on the ground to kneel appropriately. "That's why we need to have faith in the creator. Without faith, our lives have no meaning, and we get lost in the darkness!"
"STOP SPEAKING BULLSHIT!" The frustration and stress in Luis had got multiplied at least ten times. He snapped once more to transform the place they were fighting. This time, it seemed like Luis had decided to transform them both into something similar to Galactus because the whole place was filled with tiny planets and stars... even if it didn't make much sense. "Those who need to believe in a reward in an afterlife to behave decently aren't good people, they are nothing but trained dogs!"
Luis put his right palm on display...
Duncan expected another energy-based attack, perhaps more radiation... but his face deformed horribly as he comprehended what was happening.
He saw darkness in Luis's hand... and the matter around him started to move in the direction towards his hand.
A black hole!
Duncan turned around and attempted to run which in itself was very painful because of the blue radiation. He collided with a planet, then with a star, then another planet.
He collided with multiple objects as he tried his best to do not get absorbed by that space-time abomination
When Luis closed his palm, there was nothing but them there. All the matter that belonged to the other solid objects had been lost into the void.
Duncan fell on his knees again. Yet, he wasn't going to lose... not even in a fight of ideas. "How would you be able to determine what's good and bad without the authority of the creator to give you the moral laws?"
Luis shook his head. "What is that needing of presupposing that god is good just because he's god? that without mentioning that people from multiple countries seem to struggle a lot at defining god. The believers of different eras and places always end up believing in different gods." having closed his palm, Luis put his right hand down and this time he raised his left hand.
That hand was still in fist mode.
"Is god good because of some moral standard that exists independently of god? or is god good because good is defined as anything that god does or is? if it was to be the former we don't need a god to determine what is good, we only need to look at that standard. If it was to be the latter it would be a pointless tautology! it would be the same as saying that god is godly!"
Then Luis opened his left fist.
"Oh! for the love of god!" Duncan yelled.
All the matter that had been sucked into the "black hole" was now being ejected by something extremely bright, a type of object whose existence was suggested as a result of Einstein's equations along with wormholes and which some thought might, in fact, be described as a Big Bang.
The space-time counterpart of a black hole.
A white hole.
"AAAAAAAAAAARGH!" Duncan yelled, jumping to the left and jumping to the right multiple times, covering his face with his hands.
"When people like you don't know the answer to something, you invent multiple ones and accept as true the one you like the most. When I don't know the answer, I wait until I have the sources to confirm my answer." Luis growled. "BECAUSE WHEN YOU CARE MORE ABOUT REALITY THAN ANY BULLSHIT YOU WANT TO BELIEVE IT'S TRUE, ALL THIS CRAP IS UNABLE TO KEEP STANDING!" Luis increased the speed at which his white hole was releasing matter.
One, two, three, ten, twenty, fifty planets or stars collided against Duncan.
It was only until another migraine attacked them that Luis was forced to stop.
"UUUUUURGH!"
"UUUUUURGH!"
The remaining cracks on the walls had almost completely disappeared.
Duncan couldn't stand on his own anymore... his avatar had been weakened so much.
Luis approached to him and used the force to raise him and make him levitate.
Duncan coughed a lot. It took him at least a minute to be able to talk. "Y-You... claim... to do not... have faith in... anything... yet... you have faith in your science! you... you have faith that the universe can be understood by humans!... where... where is the evidence of that?!"
Luis growled so much that his voice got distorted to the point it sounded demonic.
Certainly, this debate was causing even more migraines than anything else could. "You don't have faith in science, the whole point of science is to attempt to check if an asseveration has evidence to back it up!" Luis started to walk in the direction to Duncan. "And I don't even have faith in the second thing you mentioned. There's a reason why Hawking, in his book, explained the concept: reality depending on the model or model-dependent realism." Luis kicked Duncan on the face with so much force that he ended up colliding with a wall Luis generated behind him. Luis then ran transforming himself into particles and rematerializing by grabbing him by the neck.
"Perhaps some of the unanswered questions are unanswered because the real answer is totally incapable of being processed by our limited human mind in the same way that a monkey cannot differentiate between a building and a mountain!"
Duncan screamed as Luis put more strength in his holding
"I trust in ideas that seem to work, perhaps they aren't even true in the sense of true you mean here... they may be totally illusory but as long as they allow me to predict and navigate consistently into the illusion land they are worth employing!"
Holding Duncan with a single hand, Luis transformed his hand itself into a knife and he stabbed Duncan in the heart.
The green warrior, using the remaining forces he had left, attempted to hold the knife and pull it out. "Why... urgh!... why..." he coughed blood. "Why would you trust... a mind that was... urgh!... created by a mindless unguided process?!"
"Doesn't it make sense that a mind made of matter and energy would be able to deduce the laws of matter and energy since it works under the effects of those laws? why the fuck would you expect a non-physical mind, whatever the hell that means in the first place, to be better at understanding physics than a mind that in itself is a physic process?" Luis transformed the knife into a chainsaw.
"AAAAAAAH!"
"And please don't tell me that bullshit of: any law must have a lawgiver... the laws of the universe are descriptive, not behasts! that is the same retarded mistake the people that claim that because a clock cannot form by probabilities then a self-replicating molecule cannot do it too! they have so many different characteristics that applying the same logic to them is retarded! not to mention people don't understand how "random" works in science! they think random is based on nothing! using that logic, you could throw dice with the exact same velocity and altitude and you would get different results!" Luis transformed back his hand to its normal form and continued punching Duncan on the face.
"For someone who claims to be me, you don't even have a half of my brain!" the contempt displayed by Luis's avatar had pretty much transformed him into a "demon".
"Even if our minds were created by an intelligence, they were apparently designed to be fallible." However, he wasn't going to stop with just that. A monstrously large sword appeared on Luis's right hand, the sword had a white and purple blade, a red gem, and a golden handle. "Sometimes we make mistakes without even noticing that they are mistakes." He pushed Duncan away, only to immobilize him within a "magical gravitational field."
"A mind created that way is also not totally trustworthy." Luis raised his sword as his aura started to alternate colors.
"The universe behaves in a way that seems to violate the common sense, just ask to the quantum physics! that's why we need science to discover the truth. To confirm our ideas!"
A message inside a textbox appeared over Luis as his blue aura denoted even more energy.
Limit Break!
Duncan's eyes went wide as he realized what was about to happen.
Luis smiled like a bastard. "Pray to your god... go ahead... he does not exist! he won't be able to save you!"
Duncan struggled with whatever energy he had left... until he just stopped moving.
Just when he was about to do what his enemy suggested, he got interrupted. "You know what? I take that back!"
The point of the Artema weapon started to show a tiny flashing "orb".
"There's no need to wonder where your god is... " Luis's smile became even more sinister than it had ever been. "Because he's right here! And he's fresh out of mercy!"
Omnislash
Luis advanced at hyperspeed and proceeded to use a fifteen-slashes attack, each one causing a glow of the same color that his aura had at the moment of the attack.
A diagonal slash from up to down in green: 9999
A direct red thrust: 9999
With the sword still encrusted on Duncan, Luis jumped causing an ascending purple cut: 9999
Followed by the obvious descending black cut: 9999
A diagonal descending yellow cut: 9999
A horizontal slash from left to right in orange: 9999
Another thrust in cyan: 9999
Another cut through a jump in blue: 9999
Another descending cut in crimson: 9999
Another thrust in pink: 9999
A diagonal ascending silver cut: 9999
Another diagonal descending golden cut: 9999
A horizontal turquoise slash: 9999
While jumping, an ascending lime cut: 9999
And finally, to finish off once and for all his foe, Luis remained levitating as the Artema weapon absorbed all the colors for a single rainbow final attack!
"I guess this isn't how you imagined it, right?"
Duncan's eyes began to lose their shine as he saw the last attack ready to complete the limit break. At the same time, Luis's ones also looked dead... but in the sense that they became "black holes" and all of his clothes turned cosmically black.
"It's time to face reality... this was never going to end any other way."
Luis started descending and Artema cut Duncan's avatar in half.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
9999
As the sword landed, it released the power of the spell it was named after.
Once more, everything there ended up consumed.
At the same time, the remaining cracks finally disappeared.
No music in this part.
Naga looked at her patient with a worried facial expression.
She not only had caused damage to him when he had come here to ask her to cure him, but she also wasn't sure if her efforts in repairing his mind would leave some secondary effect on his mental health for the rest of his life.
After all, she had divided his being into two different beings...
Not only the very brutal and unnatural way of doing so... but also the immediate fusion back to one... she had never experienced this before so she couldn't make predictions regarding the subject. The previous times she had a patient with split-brain was because it had been a necessary process to stop a certain mental problem called epilepsy.
Her concern only could increase when Kiran's body started to move erratically as if he was having a nightmare... but even worse...
That explained why he was chained up to the table to keep him immovable.
Given the fact she had needed to repair the connection between his two hemispheres, she hadn't had the opportunity to enter his mind to see what was going on.
Corrin used a towel to clean Azurita's nose as it still was releasing some blood. At the same time, Lucina caressed Azurita's hair. The little girl had stopped crying at least...
Kagero, being this a situation where technically she had to protect everybody else from Kiran, was also looking at the sleeping tactician.
"Mmg... urh... UUUUUUURH!"
The sounds of Kiran waking up easily got the attention of the goddess. In less than a second, she was already by the alien's side.
Kiran Mark blinked multiple times as his consciousness, recently merged back into one, got activated in the real life.
He growled multiple times in pain, not only because of the mental one but also because he felt pain in his hands as he attempted to place one of those hands over his forehead but couldn't.
"Relax, star child." Naga gently caressed his forehead as her fingers shone. After some seconds, Kiran Mark sighed in relief.
"How are you feeling?" Corrin asked. As expected, everybody was around him again.
"Like... like... I don't know..." he shook his head slowly.
"I... I must apologize, star child." Naga sighed as she sat by his side.
Kiran Mark turned to see her. "Eh... does it have something to do with the strange... dream I just had where I was two persons fighting each other?... it hurts to think I remember the combat from the two perspectives..."
Everybody blinked because of this question.
Naga gave a nervous smile. "Eh..."
Definitely, she hadn't thought about the possibility that the two hemispheres of the brain would go to war against the other... in a technically not just metaphorical way. To say that the others present were also confused would be an understatement.
"Or was it your idea to... I don't know... divide me into two so my two halves could determine which one would become the dominant personality through a fight?" Kiran Mark still was trying to comprehend the situation.
"I'm afraid that... was the result of an accident. It's true that I separated your mind into two... but that happened because, during surgery, I accidentally damaged your corpus callosum."
To everybody's surprise, Kiran Mark narrowed in confusion. "My what?"
"It's what connects the two hemispheres of your brain, star child. Once that happened, you became two... and I guess it's then when your dream happened."
Kiran Mark blinked as his mind attempted to process what he just heard.
"I... didn't know that..." he nodded slowly. "I must suppose you have repaired it then."
Naga nodded. "I did... as an apology, I'm willing to make you a second weapon besides your sword."
"Thanks, I guess... but... well... I gotta admit this was fucking awesome!" Kiran Mark smiled and laughed.
"Awesome?..." Corrin smiled nervously.
"Of course! I mean, it's everybody's dream to have a stupidly epical battle against a copy of yourself! and I remember the battle from the two perspectives!" Kiran Mark laughed more. "And it happened in a dream!"
"Fitting, I suppose," Kagero commented.
"Independently of how you feel about this, I need to know how you feel right now... how is your mind?" Naga asked.
"I... technically I feel different... but at the same time I don't..." it was just crazy how, being he a fusion, could experience these mixed feelings and memories. Kiran forced himself to think regarding the existence of souls... regarding the idea of the existence of hell and heaven... regarding the possibility that morality was something objective...
"The migraines... they are gone..." Kiran Mark nodded.
"Are you sure?" Naga's eyes denoted surprise. Had she somehow repaired the problem... by making a mistake?
"I no longer feel that pain resulting from the rational scientific thinking conflicting with mystical theistic thinking... I... no longer have faith... "Kiran Mark nodded when he felt completely sure that he cared more about the truth than about anything he wanted to believe to be true.
A familiar sensation... but at the same time, it felt like it was the first time he felt this way.
"I don't feel different in the way that... I feel like I have returned to be myself... even if technically one of the fundamental aspects of the personality of one of my two halves has died... it is... strange and fascinating. " Kiran giggled and sighed in relief. "I feel so good that... I could sing!"
Lucina, Kagero, Corrin, and Azurita grimaced at the idea. Naga, on the other hand, giggled. "You really are a box filled with surprises, star child."
"If You can hold the stars in place
You can hold my heart the same
Whenever I fall away
Whenever I start to break
So here I am, lifting up my heart
To the one who holds the stars!" Kiran Mark had closed his eyes during the whole song.
Naga grimaced and covered her ears just like all the other women present in the room. Using the most polite tone she had, she decided tos share her opinion. "No that I have something against you, star child... but... let's say your voice..."
Kiran Mark laughed. "Yeah, sorry... I may be a Jack Of All Trades Of Science... but when it's about art I just suck!"
"Yeah." Corrin nodded.
"I think your singing is gonna hurt Azurita more than your fist did." Lucina said.
"Than my fist?" It was then when Kiran Mark noticed the little girl holding a towel on her nose...
His face got deformed in horror.
"Oh..." Kiran Mark felt pain in his "heart"
Wait a minute...
HE FELT PAIN BECAUSE ANOTHER PERSON HAD BEEN INJURED... BECAUSE OF HIM!
AND HE REGRETTED DOING IT!
He turned to see Naga. "May I... May I...?" he gulped.
The "goddess" comprehended immediately what he wanted and she removed the chains from his hands.
Once again free to move, Kiran Mark got off from the table and he knelt to look at Azurita at the yes... "Azu... I... I..." he extended his arms to make her understand he wanted to hug her.
The little girl, of course, didn't want to approach...
He couldn't blame her... he had promised he would never hurt her... and now...
Corrin knelt too. "He didn't do it on purpose... it was an accident, he was sleeping..."
The girl didn't speak at all.
"What about... telling you more about the story for the rest of the day? you can even go to sleep as late as you want! I will continue telling you what the warriors of light did!" Kiran Mark exclaimed.
It took at least five minutes of Azurita looking at him with distrust.. but when she finally hugged him...
He felt so good...
Not only because the girl had forgiven him...
But also because he was able to suffer if people around him suffer...
Because he was able to smile as a result of making other people happy...
The void one of his two halves had started to feel during the battle had been filled...
He had recovered what was one of the reasons he still wanted to live even if, in the end, he knew nothing would really matter.
He was able to feel empathy again...
He couldn't help but let a tear come out from his eye.
"So... does this mean you already know who you truly are?" Naga asked once enough time had happened.
Kiran Mark stood up and turned around, still hugging the girl.
He gave a smile filled with determination...
"I am Kiran... Kiran Mark!"
And so, we have reached the end of this mini-arc.
Although Kiran's personality has become the dominant one, pieces of Mark's personality are still there to be found. After all, the memories of Mark still live on inside Kiran's brain.
And because the quintessence still remains inside Kiran, he still is able to cast magic. He's finally completed as an Expy of Robin. Because that's what's he is. I mean... the coat and being the tactician of a blue-haired prince and all that.
Since now, our main character's name is Kiran Mark. His mind physically speaking is Kiran's one... but after obtaining the memories of Mark, he just can't be the same one speaking from the perspective of personality. All this trip was a way to correct the problem that caused that specific aspect of Mark's personality... but now that it's gone, the rest is perfectly compatible.
After this chapter, we won't see Kiran Mark for a while. The protagonists of the next... seven or eight chapters are gonna be Alfonse, Ephraim, Nino, Raigh, Robin... and others I guess.
White Holes' existence hasn't been confirmed unlike their black cousins, but they are still an interesting concept to explore in fiction. The most common explanation of what they are is that... well, they are the other side of the black hole. All the matter that is absorbed by the black hole would travel through the wormhole between the two until it reaches the other side and then it would be released into another universe.
According to a book I once read when I was a kid, a hypothesis is that the white hole is the equivalent of the Bing Bang. Every time a black hole is generated, an universe would have a "son" that, similar to what happens with animals, would inherit the "DNA" (In this case, the Laws of Nature) from the "father" universe. However, eventually, some "mutations" will appear to one of the sons.
So... why am I commenting on all this?
Well... the FE Universe is very similar to ours... with some extra laws...
Yeah.
Of course, Kiran Mark will never be able to demonstrate this is true, this is something that I, as the "god" of this multiverse, reveal to you. In case you want to learn more about this subject, just search in Google: Cosmological natural selection.
Of course, I know that perhaps this hypothesis will be refuted one day (or perhaps it has been already refuted and I don't know) but, in this story. That is what happens.
Just a detail. Theory and hypothesis in science aren't the same things. A hypothesis is something that hasn't been proved... while Theory is an explanation demonstrated and consistent of a phenomenon, being the difference that law is the math expression of the theory. Some theories don't have a law because there are many factors implicated that is hard to create the math expression for them.
So let's go the talk about the references this second part contains.
Advance Wars:
Caulder is a mad scientist unable to feel any empathy who likes to make experiments like for example: creating a disease that makes plants grow from inside your body and kill you slowly... just to see how humanity would react to such a scenario. The only thing that drives him is his curiosity. Caulder is also a nihilist who sees no real value in the concepts of Good and Evil, being him a modern war version of Nergal.
Because Kiran Mark is not a hero, he's pretty much comparable to these guys. Remember that chapter when Kiran got a burn on the eye?... it had another purpose, it wasn't just a way to make a reference to Avatar The Last Airbender.
Zelda La Estúpida Aventura
"But what is the "light" and what is the "darkness"? because what is good for someone can be evil for someone else! is perhaps the good something relative to the circumstances or is the good absolute?"
A very similar phrase is said by Dark Link to Link in this series. Zelda La Estúpida Aventura is a web series made in Flash. As its name suggests, it's a parody of Zelda. It has three seasons and some extra chapters. The voices of the series are executed by a voice synthesizer program called Loquendo.
The phrase is also said during a mental battle actually. However, the purpose of that battle was different.
If you want to watch the series, search for it on Youtube, however... it's only in Spanish so... have that in mind.
Science Kombat
A flash game where the fighters are scientists. The sprites can be easily found in Google.
The attacks that are used here are:
Radiation: Marie Curie uses a Kame Hame Ha-like made of radiation. The radiation is blue because, contrary to what people usually think, the normal color of radiation is blue instead of green... why do you think Godzilla's atomic breath is usually blue?
The particle of light: An attack used by Einstein.
Prism of the rainbow. An attack used by Newton.
Although Stephen Hawking generates a black hole to fight in the game, the way it works in the game is not like what was displayed here so... I don't know if it counts... although I guess it could count as a reference to Miroku from Inuyasha.
Sword Art Online Abridged:
Unlike its canon counterpart, SAO Abridged is actually a very good written series. One of the proofs is this gem said by SAOA Kirito (who actually has a personality):
"There's no need to wonder where your god is... because he's right here! and he's fresh out of mercy!"
Final Fantasy:
"Why create when it will only be destroyed?... why cling to life... knowing that you have to die?! nothing would have meant anything once the end comes..."
Kefka, the villain from Final Fantasy 6, says pretty much the same thing when he dies in Dissidia.
Limit Break Omnislash: Cloud's signature ultimate attack.
"The laws of the universe mean nothing" a thing the final boss of Final Fantasy 5 says, as the protagonists fight him in what seems to be the "void" itself.
Before I forget.
The name of the song Kiran Mark attempts to sing is Skillet Stars.
