Die. Respawn. Repeat.

Chapter 28: Choice

Gheraa snaps his fingers, and the air pulses; this time, it's strong enough to make me stagger beneath the weight. The two initial options are still there, but the two new ones that appear feel strangely heavier. Gheraa holds one in each hand, and he does it carefully, reverently.

Above one hand, I see shards of glass, divided into four perfect quadrants. They shimmer with a strange light, and the Interface's name for it is the longest I've seen yet.

[ The Mirror Twice Shattered ]

"We begin with the past," Gheraa says. There's an abrupt change in the tone of his voice like he's now speaking to a camera. The so-called mirror floats above his hand, shimmering in the light, and I catch a glimpse of myself; in every quadrant, I look a little different.

Determined. Angry. Sad. Frightened.

"You're quite the contradiction, aren't you, Ethan?" Gheraa looks me up and down, and I see something in his eyes, though I can't make out what it is, exactly. An apology? He hums. "Determined and resilient, like a little cockroach... But compassionate. Almost too compassionate. It's a bit artificial, don't you think?"

He smiles at me, his expression entirely genial. I try to ignore the way I freeze at his words.

"You know what being compassionate is supposed to be like," he says, like he's enjoying exposing me. These are thoughts I've never shared with anyone uncertainty that my compassion is real, when it feels so forced; uncertainty that my empathy is complete. "That's the person you've chosen to be. But you worry so much that what you've chosen doesn't match who you are, on a deeper, fundamental level... You've been broken and reforged twice over, and you worry it's left scars."

I stare at Gheraa, and clench my fists. I see his expression flicker, but it's gone almost as soon as I notice it.

I take a deep breath and calm myself. I'll think about this later. What he's saying isn't wrong, but it's also something I've been working on. Before this before the Trial I was better than I had been in years. I can't say dying four times in a row helped, but I like to think I've been dealing relatively well.

"And now for the present..." Gheraa hums. He lifts up his other hand, and above it, Firmament crackles.

I can't see it. But I can feel it, dense and powerful, despite everything else being near invisible to my Firmament sense. It whirls into the shape of a dagger, a sword, a hammer.

The Interface's words above it are comparatively simple.

[ A Weapon Forged And Wielded ]

"You've forged yourself into quite the weapon, haven't you?" Gheraa says. His voice is playfully condescending. "I was impressed with the way you handled that Raid. Only three tries, and you still managed to pull victory from the jaws of defeat... Or maybe you got lucky. If it's luck, then your luck has landed you quite the Inspiration. The Weapon is one of the most powerful Inspirations we've seen far greater than the personal Inspirations."

I stare at the Weapon, and then at Gheraa. Something tells me to step forward and take the Weapon, to use it and wield it against the Integrators. It's a powerful voice that thrums in my head, urging me to step forward, to take it. I've taken a full step forward before I realize what I'm doing and force myself to a stop, glaring firmly at Gheraa.

His expression is innocent. There's something about the way he phrased that one of the most powerful Inspirations we've seen. Not all Inspirations are unique, and this one has been seen before; other people have picked it up, even.

"...Does Naru have this Inspiration?" I ask after a moment. Gheraa cocks his head at me.

"Now that would be telling, wouldn't it?" the Integrator says, nodding to himself. I stare at him for a moment more.

A Weapon Forged and Wielded. The first two Inspirations presented to me have nothing to do with me, and have more to do with my accomplishments; Gheraa has made it clear, however, that the latter two the Mirror and the Weapon are both direct representations of me.

But the Weapon doesn't feel right, exactly. It doesn't feel like what I am; it feels like what the Integrators want me to be. Not a representation of the present, but of the future.

"I don't suppose you can tell me what each Inspiration does?" I've more or less made my decision, but I want to be certain. If he can tell me just a little more, I might change my mind.

Gheraa smiles. "Not even if I wanted to," he says. "Even the Weapon is different, when placed into different hands. Your Firmament changes the nature of an Inspiration."

That's not exactly useful.

"Then I want the Mirror."

"Oh?" Gheraa cocks his head at me. He doesn't seem upset, though he does glance up into the air, as if someone is speaking to him. I notice the smallest of winces, but when he looks at me, there's no hint of any distress just gleaming interest. "What an interesting choice. Well... I wish you luck."

Strange. He sounded pleased.

The world flashes bright, and shatters into four.

In one dream, I am determined. I've been held up in school, by my coach who simply refused to believe I had an emergency, and physically barred the door; I leapt through the window instead, crashing down through trees and branches to limp out of the school and hail a cab.

In another dream, I am angry at the world. I remember being like this in the days after my brother's death, ruminating solely on the unfairness of the world at large. I remember lashing out at everyone that delayed me and made me just that little bit slower in getting to see him before he died.

I remember punching my coach. It's a satisfying memory, even now.

In the third dream, I am despondent. The house feels empty without him, and neither of my parents speak to me much; they are grieving in their own ways. My mother gives me brief, accusatory looks, and I know she blames me for his death. My father doesn't, but he doesn't have the energy to defend me.

In the last dream, I am frightened. I've made my way out scavenged enough money through odd jobs and scraping together all the savings I can. It's barely enough for a down payment on rent.

For the first time, I am alone, and it is overwhelming. Frightening.

I wake up, in a manner of speaking. I was never really unconscious, but the process of gaining the Inspiration appears to have embedded something in me. Color returns to the world around me; Ahkelios and Mari are both staring at me, concerned.

"Your Firmament strange," Mari squawks at me. "What happen?"

I hold up a hand to get a moment to myself. Something inside me continues to churn, my Firmament sense telling me that the Inspiration is not yet complete, although it's settling quickly. I might have an opportunity here to modify it.

The dreams aren't the full picture. For all that they're things that happened for all that they do, in fact, reflect my past they don't carry the most important fragment of all.

Getting away from my mother's angry looks and my father's drunken nights started me on the path to healing. That was the reason I'd done all of it. It was what I needed to stop blaming myself. For the longest time, I thought myself responsible for them that I needed to help them heal, too but I couldn't do that without helping myself first.

The Mirror showed me four of the most significant moments in my life. It didn't show me the fifth the one where I got over it all.

I suppose that's because something like that never really happens in a single moment. It was a dozen small things; learning to smile again, to laugh again, making myself stop in the street to talk to a beggar and give him some food, instead of walking past. Talking to a therapist, engaging with the world.

My past isn't complete without those moments. The Mirror is still coalescing inside of me, and as I think about how I've gotten this far, something within it seems to resonate. A fifth fragment forms, and settles among the other four.

"I've already been through that particular character arc, thanks," I mutter to myself, and when Mari gives me a confused look, I chuckle. "Don't worry about it."

"I watch your Firmament," Mari says. "You stronger now. But your Firmament more unstable."

I flex my fingers, calling upon Firmament Manipulation and gently twisting a stream of my own Firmament into a helix above my hand. The amount of Firmament I move isn't enough to be visible, but it does feel surprisingly... lighter. Easier to manipulate.

"I just got an Inspiration," I say. "It's an Interface thing, apparently. I had to speak to an Integrator, but... he said I can use it to modify my skills?"

Mari frowns. "You trust him?"

"Not in the slightest," I say. "But there was something weird about him for sure. I think there's more to the Integrators we don't know about. He told me something... He told me one of Naru's inspirations is something called The Weapon Forged and Wielded. I didn't take it."

"Hm." Mari frowns. "That sound right. Sometimes I see Naru's Firmament change. Become wicked. It good you did not take."

"That's what I thought," I say with a sigh. It seems even with the Interface, I may need to be careful. Hopefully, I won't have to deal with too many poisoned rewards I'm not even really sure the Weapon was poisoned the way I suspect.

I could be wrong. Or it could just be an Inspiration that makes you thirst for power, for growth, in which case I can accomplish that all on my own.

"You need test your power," Mari declares. "You not go and fight without testing. That suicide."

"Not like dying in this loop matters that much to me," I mutter, and Mari gives me a severe look.

"That dangerous way to think," Mari says. "What you do after Trial? You forget you not invincible? Dangerous! You not stupid. We spar. You learn Inspiration thing. Then we talk. You need figure out better plan than fighting Naru. He too strong for you."

She sounds like she's figured everything out. Mari speaks with the conviction of someone that's decided on a path and won't be budged from it. She's not wrong, though; it's something I'd already started thinking about last loop. If I make Naru my target, I'm not going to be able to cure Tarin in time, even if I train in the Fracture. He's leagues ahead. I only got the better of him because he has anger issues.

Distract, get the plant, and finish the Hotspot? That way, I won't have to deal with him in future loops; he won't get the alert that brings him here in the first place. Gheraa's mention of temporal banding being difficult to travel through makes me think that Naru's access to outside information is more limited than he made it sound, and that matches with his lack of information on me in our second encounter.

"Does that mean I get to watch Mari beat you up?" I'd forgotten Ahkelios was there. He looks way too excited for this. "I'm going to go find some flowers to munch on while you fight. Wait for me!"

He zips away, and I stare at Mari.

"He also not stupid," Mari says, and grins at me. I swallow.

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