LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 21: Myself and I
Lilith sat down next to Raphael, giving the girl a worried look. “Hey, you alright? Carmen didn’t do anything weird, did she?”
Raphael started, as if she hadn’t noticed that Lilith was there. “What?”
“I was just wondering if Carmen said or did anything weird and making sure you’re fine.”
Raphael gave Lilith a conflicted sort of look. “No, I’m fine.” She was silent for a long moment, clearly struggling with herself over what to say. “Um…I’m…sorry.” She finally said. “I shouldn’t have attacked you, I guess I was just…I dunno, too caught up in wanting to be a hero to really pay attention.”
Lilith shrugged. “It’s fine, I get it. If I thought there was something fishy going on, I would want to take care of it too. More importantly, how are you doing? Do you need me to try and get you changed back? We’re in a stressful situation and I don’t want anything unnecessarily adding to that.”
Raphael shook her head. “Didn’t I already say I don’t care? Angels really don’t care about that sort of thing, so it’s not adding stress. Besides, if this is a punishment, then I…guess riding it out is the responsible thing to do.”
Lilith smiled weakly. “Perhaps, I just…worry. You’re just a kid, and I don’t want you to end up traumatized because of me.”
“That’s…” Raphael stopped talking, giving Lilith that same sort of conflicted look.
“I know.” Lilith replied sadly. “I probably already traumatized you, getting you dragged out here with me, I –”
“That’s not it!” Raphael said quickly. “Honestly, it’s not that big a deal, Kali will get us back in a couple of weeks and we’ll be safe until then. It was scary at first but now it’s fine, boring even. I just…” She trailed off then shook her head. “Look, can we talk about Carmen?”
A small knot formed in Lilith’s stomach. “So, she did do something.”
“No. Look…is it true that you’re going to end up ‘putting Carmen away’ like Carmen said you would?”
Lilith frowned. “I’ll be honest, I kind of want to, but I really just can’t bring myself to, not unless she does something really bad. It…well, it feels like she’s her own person now, and I don’t want to just take that away from her.”
“Carmen doesn’t seem to think the same, she says you two are the same person at the end of the day.”
“I…well, I dunno. I guess that’s up to her if she wants to think that, but personally I don’t, we’re just too…different. And now that she has her own body, I think she might as well be able to just…go off and live her own life if she wants to. I’ve sorta been keeping those thoughts to myself when we share memories since I don’t want to influence her, but I’ve been thinking it for a while now.”
“Have you…talked to her about it?” Raphael asked.
“No, things have been sorta crazy and…well, there just hasn’t been a good time.”
“Maybe you should.” Raphael suggested. “You two seem to be of differing opinions on the matter and I think that it’s probably important to be on the same page about it.”
Lilith sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll do it after we finish up here, whenever that ends up being.”
There was an awkward silence after that, eventually ended when Raphael spoke up again. “One…one more thing.” She said nervously. “Why are you being so…nice? I attacked you and was always rude to you so I…well, I just don’t get it.”
Lilith shrugged. “You’re what, ten? You were probably just trying to look cool in front of your friends, and I get that. You thought you saw a problem and you tried to fix it. Sure, it probably could have been done better if you just went to the teachers, but I can get why you didn’t. It’s really not a big deal.”
“I’m actually eight.” Raphael corrected. “Come to think of it, how old are you? It’s hard to tell with Perfect Chimeras.”
“Twenty-five, so…still in my prime, I guess.” To Lilith’s surprise, Raphael snorted, causing her to give her a confused look. “What? Did I say something funny?”
“Yeah, that bit about being in your prime. I mean, your prime is kind of a super long time. Like, I’m pretty sure it’s literally forever, you have access to every single anti-aging ability in existence.”
“Oh.” Lilith…hadn’t really thought of it in that way before, and it made her sad in a weird sort of way. She was probably going to outlive her friends and family, and that just felt…lonely. After a moment of reflection, she shook her head to clear her thoughts. “Why are you still here, anyway? It can’t be that exciting watching mom beat me in a fight over and over again.”
Raphael shrugged. “Well…Carmen was right. I’ve always wanted to know more about Perfect Chimeras, so this is a good opportunity to get more knowledge. Not everyone has this sort of opportunity, you know?” She paused, studied Lilith’s face for a moment, then, apparently satisfied, continued. “You can do some weird stuff, you know that?”
Lilith laughed. “You’re preaching to the choir, kid. You’ve got no idea how weird the past few months have been for me.”
“What’s up? Is it about Raphael?” Carmen asked, sitting down across from Lilith. She wasn’t sure why Lilith had asked her to meet so suddenly, so she was more than a little curious to find out what was going on.
“N-no,” Lilith stuttered, looking away, “it’s…about us.”
Carmen raised an eyebrow. “Just share your memories with me and we’ll talk about it, it’ll be faster that way.”
“That’s the problem!” Lilith said, almost wailing. “I can’t just keep going on like this!”
Carmen stood up and walked over to Lilith, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Get a grip! If I’m that troublesome, just put me away when I’m not doing other things. We’re not in a situation where I’m terribly useful, so if I’m causing you stress then just don’t deal with me. It’s not exactly rocket science.”
“No! No, no, no!” Lilith shouted. “I can’t just treat you like…like you’re a thing! You’re a living, breathing person with emotions and everything. You think, therefore you are! I can’t just ‘put you away’, that’s awful! You’re not just a tool for me to exploit!”
Carmen stopped, staring at Lilith. She hadn’t been expecting something quite like this but…well, knowing her other half, it made sense. “Ah, so that’s it. Let me guess, you don’t want to share your thoughts about this because you don’t want to influence how I think about it. Well I don’t have any hang-ups like that, so let me just put it like this. I am you.” She said, punctuating those last three words with a spike of her emotions.
“Like it or not, I will eventually return to you. As such, it’s ridiculous for you to resist communicating your emotions to me like this when it’ll happen eventually. At some point in the future something’s going to happen to this body and I’m going to, however temporarily, end up sleeping inside you again. Look, I’m thrilled to be ‘out’ more and would love to stay out more permanently, but all you’re doing by agonizing over this is–”
She was cut off, a window appearing in front of her. And, through another set of eyes, she could see as Lilith got the same one.
|
You and an alternate personality have decided you both wish to coexist, unlocking Parallel Processing! Parallel Processing Parallel Processing has been folded into the Avatar skill, gaining the following effect: |
Carmen groaned, clutching her head and closing her eyes. Her brain was not built to process two sets of senses at once, and it was already beginning to hurt.
Fortunately, Lilith was on the same wavelength, swiftly disconnecting their senses.
“Thanks.” Carmen said, opening her eyes again. “I’m assuming that was hurting you too?”
Lilith nodded. “Yeah.”
The two were silent for a long moment, and then Lilith spoke up. “So…I guess that solves that, then. You’re going to be able to be out as long as you want, you’re your own person. When we get back, you can go…well, do whatever you want, I guess. You don’t have to stick around me just because.”
Carmen raised an eyebrow. “Really? We’re still doing this? Look, if I wanted to leave you, I would have been making an effort to this whole time. And it’s not like I’m magically some completely independent person now. We’re still connected, if something happens to either one of us, we’re going to end up right back in the head of the other. You’re still the ‘main personality’ here.”
“I just…I’m not sure what to do, you know? What if you change your mind?”
Carmen sighed. “Fine. Look here, this is what I’m saying, talking like this is inefficient. Your belief that we are, fundamentally, separate is getting in the way of things. We can’t act like we are, not without ignoring reality. I know you, and you seem to have become fixated on this, so I know words aren’t going to satisfy you. So, I’m just…going to share everything. Words are inefficient. Feelings aren’t.”
Before Lilith could protest, Carmen let loose, sharing her full range of thoughts and feelings on this subject with Lilith through their link. “There, does that convince you? That’s everything I feel. If I change my mind later, we can talk about it then, but for now I think it’s silly to not use something like this when it’s so…useful.”
Lilith nodded slowly. “Alright, I…I understand.”
“Good. Now, let’s go tell mom about this, I’m sure she’ll want to be informed.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s go.”
The two walked to the main room, where Siph was lounging in her dragon form. “Mom, we have some news for you.” Lilith said, prompting Siph to change back into her humanoid form and give her a curious look.
“What news? Did Kali figure out a way back already?” Siph asked hopefully.
Lilith shook her head. “No, nothing like that. Um, we just got a new ability, it…well, it effectively lets Carmen stay out forever. It’s from stuff like hydras and trolls that have multiple heads and personalities. And it raises Carmen’s capabilities and lets us make a new avatar and stuff too. Oh, and if my body dies, I automatically get sent into an avatar too, just with some temporary penalties.”
Siph’s eyes sparkled, and she scooped the two up into a huge hug. “Score!” She cheered. “Two daughters for the price of one! This is great news, it makes you way safer! Create another avatar ASAP and store it somewhere out of the way, that way if anything happens you have a fallback, alright?”
Lilith nodded. “Does that mean I get to fight with you and Carmen if something happens?”
“Nope!” Siph said. “Still way too risky. You said you get penalties for dying, right? I don’t want to risk those, so unless it’s absolutely necessary, I would rather you stay out of combat.”
“She’s right.” Carmen said. “But I’ll be sure to let you know if it becomes a problem and we need your help.”
Siph maintained their hug for a few moments longer before she separated from the two. “Now, as overjoyed as I am about this news, I need to make sure you’re taking care of yourselves.” She said firmly. “You two rushed off as soon as training was over, so you’re coming with me now.” She grabbed both of their hands and began to tow them further into the cave.
“Where are we going?” Lilith asked.
“To eat. I’m going to sit there and watch the both of you to make sure you get enough food, and then you’re going to bathe and go to sleep, understood?”
“You have a bath?” Carmen said. “Since when?”
“Since earlier today. I used some acid to dig out a rough hole in the part of the room you dug out for me, and then I had Kali, Alex, and Vithi help me fill it with water.”
As they progressed, the smell of cooked meat became stronger and stronger. Eventually they reached a room where the moose they had brought back earlier was hanging on some sort of hook, having been skinned and then cooked by Siph’s breath, if the scorch marks on the wall were any indicator. Siph turned one of her hands into a claw and reached over, slicing off a huge chunk of meat from one of the beast’s flanks, which she then cut in two, handing a piece to Lilith and Carmen. “Eat.” She said. “There will be no malnutrition on my watch.”
Carmen smiled and dug in. This certainly hadn’t been how she was expecting her day to end, but now she wouldn’t have it any other way.
