Draft Update 24/08/23 (Patreon)

(Second to last Utsushikome Misery Backstory chapter, then we'll be into the finale of this part of the story. I kinda miss-paced the little action cut-ins at the start and am not entirely sure what to do about it. May mess around. May also add a bit more to this chapter just to get through this sequence faster, even though it's like 6k words already.)

I barely know anything about pneumenology, and I know even less about Egomancy - if I did, I wouldn't have spent 12 years trying to have a single conversation with the only expert I knew. The Oathguard makes it an impossible subject to educate yourself about beyond the bare minimum, and it's not just about preserving the secret of Induction. Even arcanists only get enough details to understand what's happening to them. Hell, even the pneumenologists themselves only learn about the subject in the way that a medical doctor learns about the human body; the problems that can happen, the set procedures to fix them... And should those fail (as they inevitably do, with associative collapse dementia) the best sorts of palliative care to perform.

There's a good reason for that, and it's that Egomancy is fucking scary. By containing what was once a decentralized, natural process in every neuron to just the pneumaic nexus, the Ironworkers had created a back door to the human mind. Egomancy was banned because it was a wonderful vehicle to reprise the latter half of the Imperial Era, where 99.999% of the population were lobotomized electric slaves to a caste of god-kings who had turned themselves into logic engines.

But still, there are certain conclusions you can draw just from the information you do get. For example, even though it's never done in the modern day, the fact that the Tower of Asphodel contains a massive repository of billions of extracted pneuma implies, definitionally, that there's a way to extract them from living humans and store them in the first place.

And... If Induction is only made possible in the first place by way of the hole wrought from the resetting process at birth, using the 'normal' to fix the 'abnormal'... Why should the donor pneuma have to be from the old world, so long as it works?

This, and countless other observations about Egomancy, were contained in Samium's journal - even if it was only one volume among several and I hardly understood what I was reading, even during that second time. Funnily, it was only an incidental detail in notes that were largely concerned with controlling the results of Induction through fiddling with various parameters - what extra-planar 'channels' you used for delivery, what sort of 'stimulation' you applied to make the native pneuma view the transplant as something to be healed into itself. (The circumstances under which these experiments were conducted is something I've wondered a lot about, to say the least.)

Yet... It was enough for an idea to take root in my mind. Seeing the name of the same condition that doctor had described written on those pages. Like the first sign of a prophecy. Fear and possibility and impossibility.

At first, it was nothing but an idle fantasy. A spark. Another strand of escapism for my cloudy mind to follow.

But then it persisted the next day. And the next. And slowly, it became something dangerous. A question.

It's ridiculous, my mind insisted at first. It's a joke. A childish daydream you're taking inexplicably seriously. If you really think this is even possible, then you've gone wholly delusional.

But the thought persisted.

It's irrational, my mind advanced to. The whole concept is predicated on multiple assumptions. About this technology. About your ability to even make contact with a famous politician, and his motives. The biggest possibilities are that it goes nowhere or you end up in prison.

But the thought persisted.

It's insane, my mind finally arrived at. Evil. A deranged and monstrously perverse thing to want to do to one of the only people who ever showed you kindness. You've already acted like an obsessive freak, but this...

Why would you even want something like that?

Why would I want something like that? Why did this idea stir something so deep in my heart, just as it had all those years ago?

Minds, not just for humans but for all animals, are machines designed to draw connections; that's what it means to 'learn'. At first, you experience stimuli and extrapolate the cause based on your environment. Then, you extrapolate from those extrapolations, and then extrapolate from those extrapolations from those extrapolations. It's a chain of association, one that, theoretically, could be followed all the way back to the first time a person opens their eyes while still in the womb.

But minds aren't evolved to deal with the world that we humans created. Civilization creates too much abstraction and indirect causality, and the unconscious part of our brains can't understand what's happening. Positive and negative stimuli cannot be traced to anything cohesive, and it flails and grasps at shadows impotently, giving rise to things like phobias, sexual fetishes, and the belief that 'economist' is a real job.

As I said earlier, it had all become muddled in my mind. My love of Shiko. My envy of her, of everything she had that I didn't. My hatred of myself and my shoddy, broken and mass-produced physical form.

No, it wasn't something new. It'd been there all along, ever since the idea of 'someone else becoming Utsushikome of Fusai' had been planted in my head, lying in that closet as a frightened, malleable child. All that the knowledge that I'd destroyed our relationship forever swirling through my head every day did was bring it to the surface.

The demon spoke to me.

What if you could be the one to become her?

If you could not just be with her, but possess everything that is hers?

A huge room and an unimaginably comfortable bed to wake up in every single day. Fine and beautiful clothes to wear every single day. A glamorous house filled with all the expensive things you could ever want. A world that seems unconditionally kind.

A loving family there for her every day. A beautiful, healthy, utterly unique body. An ingenious mind that breezes through every challenge.

And everything within it. Her dreams, her innermost thoughts.

Her shining future.

Her self.

If anything had else happened to me around then, anything at all, maybe things would have been different. But there was nothing to distract me from that poisonous train of thought. No one who came to check in on me. No opportunities that wouldn't require years of proactive effort on my part. Just a year alone in that box with nothing but a logic bridge and my own thoughts.

I tried to contact her (even though this was itself a terrible idea), thinking that if we could just talk, it would at least ground my perspective on the situation. But researching her details, all I could find was news of her winning another contest on the mainland. Surpassing me and leaving me behind more and more.

At first, it was anger pushing me forward. I wanted revenge on her for abandoning me for reasons I didn't even understand; for making me dream a better life was possible, only to snatch that possibility away. The idea felt, in my twisted conception of reality, like justice.She was so filled with ignorance of just how blessed she was, about the sheer asymmetry of our situations, that it felt right that I ought to have it instead. Or that it ought to be some sort of punishment.

But hate is like burning magnesium; bright but brief, unsuitable for calculated action. (There's a reason most political massacres are poorly planned and have no specific target.) After a few days, my feelings sputtered. I didn't resent Shiko, not really. In the depths of my heart, she was still the angel who saved me. Those feelings, even tinged with loss, still burned brighter than anything else.

So I turned away from it. Again, I buried the thought and tried to numb myself. But this was no resolution, as it wasn't like anything had actually changed. I received no thanks but further loneliness. My memories of her still sat at the front of my mind, rotting like fruit in the sun. Pain. Anguish.

And then... Well, I explained this part in depth earlier.

I think what provoked it, in the end, was just an ordinary day where a slightly annoying thing happened. The first was that, while out getting groceries, I ran into someone who shared my seed. Not in the sense that I had a prosognostic event - we were all obviously wearing veils - but insofar as I felt that tingle in my spine where you know the possibility of a contact paradox is close.

This wasn't the first time this had happened to me. But it was the first time I hadn't even been able to guess who it was. Because the group I was passing on the street appeared to be a wealthy family. They were about as typical as you'd imagine; a man and a woman, an elder daughter and a younger son. Chatting and laughing together.

None of them had even secondary features close to mine.

And in that moment, I realized: I could have been any of these people. I could have had a normal, happy life.

But... I just didn't. And the world itself, within my heart, broke. I thought about all the things that had happened to me, all the suffering I'd steeled myself to in reaching for a better future, and it was like the math didn't compute. Everything ceased to make sense.

There are always people who care about you.

But some people have no one at all.

No one is entitled to anything from anyone.

But with nothing, people cannot live.

Love yourself and move forward, and you can become happy.

But some people have no future.

I despaired, and rejected everything. My escapism into stories and my blind belief that I had some special destiny became one. I saw my life itself as one narrative. I saw myself as having a destiny.

That's right,the demon whispered to me. This is how it was supposed to be all along. It's why you met her in the first place.

This is how you will be together.

It's not that you're doing something wrong. No, it's the world itself that's wrong! You've always felt it deep down, ever since you were a child. That you're living a life that isn't yours, a life that's missing things that you know should be there, like how you can feel the phantom pain from a severed limb. That you're supposed to be somewhere else.

And you were. The gods made a mistake. You were supposed to be the same person from the beginning! That's why you met in the first place. It was fate. All of this is fate.

All this would be is setting things right!

It was all based in magical thinking - at no point did I really understand what I was getting into, and how my mind interpreted what Samium had described would be experientially like changed the more I thought about it. Sometimes I imagined us as distinct people in the same body, and how I'd be able to speak with her as much as I wanted, and she'd have to forgive me or we'd both go insane. Other times I thought of it as nothing more than myself living her life. And other times I imagined myself disappearing into her mind completely, becoming nothing but a thought...

Yet the final nail in the coffin was what I managed to convince my rational brain of. You see, while Samium's journal had given me quite a lot of information about the specific ways you could induce assimilation failure on purpose,it hadn't offered much in terms of what the process was normally supposed to be like. And based on what I'd overheard, both Samium and Shiko's grandfather were assimilation failures themselves.

So naturally, I concluded that it happened to everyone. Which of course led me to a very stupid conclusion.

Shiko wants to become an arcanist, the demon said. That means someone else is going to merge into her mind anyway. If you can't stop her, don't you think she'd rather that be someone who knows her, rather than a complete stranger? They would have no reason to respect her; they could do anything to her life, her family, her body. But you... You care about her. You could be entrusted with her dreams. It would be like nothing had happened at all.

You have to do it. It's the only way to save her. You're the only one you can save her.

Of course, this line of thought didn't hold up under scrutiny either. If I'd genuinely cared about 'saving' Shiko from her fate of becoming an arcanist, there were numerous less psychotic options I could have pursued than doing the thing myself. Even if I couldn't get a hold of her over the logic bridge, I could have sent her a letter to warn her. I could have taken a ship and physically gone to her address. At the very least,I could have made a proper effort to research pneumenology in the way that Ran and I later would to confirm my suspicions.

But my mind found ways to dismiss these options.

There's no way she'd believe you after what happened. She'd just think you were trying to insert yourself back into her life.

You searched for these terms in all the big logic sea libraries and came up with nothing. It's probably all some vast conspiracy. You could get killed trying to confirm what you already know.

Just do it. Do it. It's the only way.

It felt less like I was making a conscious choice - though I was making one - or that part of me ever stopped feeling horror at the very concept, and more like the other paths before were  being erased one by one. My whole life, condensing to a single point, tunnel-vision, the eye of a needle. Until I felt dragged towards it like a puppet on a string. Until there was no alternative.

This was always meant to happen. Cast off your disgusting and worthless 'self'. Grasp the source of everything good you've ever known in the world in such a way that it can never be taken from you.

Become Utsushikome of Fusai.

...no, that's not right.

You already are Utsushikome of Fusai. You always have been, from the very beginning.

You just have to confirm that reality with your own hands.

It's as Samium said. Love is madness. The soul fixates on a target, and everything else unravels and reforms around it, like matter around the heart of a black hole.

But even if I'd convinced myself, the world wouldn't bend simply because I wished it to. There was still the howdunnit.

Again, I knew it wouldn't be easy - at first, I had far less of an idea of how to contact Samium than to contact Shiko. Because he was a public figure, there was a surprisingly large amount of information about him available for anyone who just cared to look; I remember reflecting on how, as a child, my limited understanding of celebrity as something confined to singers and drama stars meant I'd completely failed to pick up on just how important the person sitting across the table from me was. There were all sorts of details I could discern just from old news articles.

I learned, among other things, that his political career had begun with him being elected as a district council in Tell Raima - one of the central Ysaran city-states near Old Yru - in 1031, at what must have been an abnormally young age, presumably having rode to the position partially on the back of his family's prestige. After serving a full term, he then ascended in 1054 to a non-elected position on the Tell Raima Synod, the governing body of the state, serving as the Minister for Urban Development. He was then promoted - briefly - to treasurer in 1089, before stepping down from local politics in 1107 and taking a role in the diplomatic service of the Ysaran Consensus, within which he bounced between various positions before finally becoming one of their three Colonial High Commissioners in 1183, an incredibly important position at the time, since it was during the Great Interplanar War.

Within that role, he'd been part of the original Old Yru Convention, helping to draft the Military and Covenant Unification Treaty, the document that had given birth to the Grand Alliance. He'd then left the Ysaran Consensus to serve the new order directly, serving in 1211 as Underseer of Decolonization, then briefly and most grandly as Administrator of Diplomacy between 1225 and 1230,before finally settling into a long term role as Underseer of Economic Integration, a post he held for over a century. Finally, he resigned his post in 1357 to take up the more humble role as an economic consultant that he held to this day. Oh, and over the course of his career, he married a woman from another important Ysaran family, had four children with her, and then divorced her at about the same time as his final resignation.

Seriously. Administrator of Diplomacy. The man had been within spitting distance of the post of First Administrator, who ruled over twenty billion people ­- practically the entire world. And I'd been sitting there getting bored by his old war stories because I'd wanted to rush upstairs to watch camp horror dramas! I should have asked him for a fucking house!

I'd be asking him for a lot more than a house this time. I was able to find his address (a veritable palace in the upper districts of Old Yru, overlooking the hanging gardens, which by the time Ran and I moved there had been sold to some nouveau riche echo scripting tycoon who'd renovated it into some neoclassical nightmare structure with more superfluous pillars and marble statues than you could fit on an Iconist propaganda leaflet) and, unlike Shiko, even contact details for his logic bridge. But his family lived there. Even if I got an unverified summon through, I couldn't well have the conversation with him that I was planning on a link he shared with his great grandkids.

No, he had to have some personal line. Rich people like him always kept their private residences, their own private lines of communication no one knew about but their confidants. But how was I supposed to figure something like that out?

The idea came to me quickly. The logic bridge at Shiko's house. Samium had used it, and he'd obviously been in correspondence with her family before visiting. Assuming her grandma hadn't replaced it - and she hadn't seemed like the type to replace things often, his details would probably still had me in the system.

But how would I get in? I couldn't just... Go back.

She'd always acted fond of me. But that was when I was still friends with Shiko. Even if she somehow hadn't heard about us having fallen out - an extremely unlikely prospect, considering how far she'd pushed things - she wouldn't just let me into her house again for no reason, after so much time had passed. What could I do? Tell her I was homeless and beg her for enough pity to let me stay the night? The thought of the face she'd make at me, grovelling at her doorstep, was enough to make me feel sick to my stomach.

No. There was a simpler way. A cleaner way.

From my time with Shiko, I knew she left the island for one weekend every other month to visit friends on the mainland, and that she'd never broken this pattern in all the time I'd known her. And I knew from one incident early in our friendship that she kept a spare key buried in a flower pot hanging at the side of her little guest house.

So I waited. And then, when the weekend came - close to midnight on Saturday, furthest from when she'd have left or be returning - I snuck towards the house, taking a back route through the woods I remembered from when we were children so it was less likely I'd be spotted. I confirmed there were no lights coming from the house, and that, as best as I could possibly tell, no one was watching. I retrieved the key, thanking the gods it had been in the proper place, and slipped in through the back door.

It was haunting, to be back there again. A few superficial details had changed - there was less furniture out in the open and it was generally a little less tidy, probably the result of her grandmother not caring about appearances nearly as much as her mother did - but otherwise, it was like I'd traveled through time. I stepped through the kitchen where we'd prepared so many meals, and the dining room where I'd eaten with her so many times. I felt the familiar texture of the floor, smelled the same earthly and lightly perfumed scent.

It was painful. Countless memories flashed through my mind, each cutting in their own ways. Being back in this place that had once felt more like home than anywhere else, now as an intruder... It felt awful.

Not for long, I thought. I'll fix everything. Everything...

Creeping slowly through the darkness, I proceeded to the living room, past that same closet where I'd hid (it looked so small, now). I stepped past the sofa towards the logic bridge, and sprung the pump to turn it on. Once it was done powering up, I pressed the tip of my finger against the False Iron, leaving as little a trace as I could.

And by some miracle, nothing went wrong. It wasn't even hard to find Samium's information.

Part of me felt terrified. Like I'd been expecting the universe to have stopped me from even getting to this point, when I really would be committing to this. I hesitated.

But I couldn't stop now. There was nowhere for me to go but forward. Knowing that it would be far more likely to attract his attention (though no less likely to incriminate me if things went wrong, since it would still carry my citizen registration anyway) if I used this logic bridge instead of my own, I opened up the writing interface and, with my minds eye, began to compose a letter.

Samium of Ur-Ysar,

Sorry to bother you, but please read this message.

You might remember me from when we met here 6 years ago. You told me a story about how you'd met Utsushikome's grandfather, and then we had dinner together later that night.

But what you probably don't know is that I overheard the entire conversation you had with him afterwards, and the one with Autonoe of Koranthia. I was out of my room because it didn't have a logic bridge, and I couldn't sleep and wanted to watch dramas. When you arrived, I got scared and hid in the closet. I guess you never thought to check if anyone else was attuned.

I lied about having actually been in the closet all along because, even knowing what I was about to do, somehow that was the part which felt too weird and embarrassing.

I also made a copy of your journal. I've read all of it, and made multiple copies of the contents.

What I'm about to say is going to sound like it will lead to extortion, but I promise you it isn't. I sincerely believe there's a way we can both help each other. I've included the link address for my personal logic bridge. Please contact me there and we'll speak further.

Please know that, if you do not contact me, I have set things up so that the contents of the journal will be sent to multiple journalists, to the Censors, and to the Oathguard if I do not intervene to delay this process at least once per month. Despite being a man of great influence and close to the end of your life, I'm sure you understand the implications of the contents and the impact they could have not just on you, but your entire family.

This wasn't a bluff. I really had done it. Like I said, I can be pretty determined once I set myself to a goal.

In addition, I've also set things up so that █ █ █ █ █ will learn the truth about how you lied to him.

Again, please contact me as soon as possible.

I lingered on the message for almost twenty minutes after I'd composed it, feeling like I was about to slip a noose around my own neck. If this didn't go the way I hoped it would, I could go to prison, or even die. All the possibilities that had seemed so remote in the planning stage rushed through my mind. And still the guilt, the horror at what I was doing lingered deep down.

But it didn't stop me. I have nothing to live for anyway.I crossed the Rubicon, and sent it.

I wiped all the data I could from the logic bridge, and my fingerprints from the physical surface. I left that house for the last time, and carefully replaced the key in close to the exact position I'd found it.

Then I fled through the woods, back across town to my gloomy apartment, my heart hammering more furiously than I'd ever imagined possible.

I spent the next several days in what was essentially a constant panic attack. It didn't take me long to regret everything, and after checking my bridge inbox what must have been over a hundred times, I managed to absolutely convince myself that at any moment, my door was going to be broken down by the Oathguard, who would disappear me to some black chamber where I'd be tortured for the rest of my days. That was the only explanation that could possibly exist for why he was taking so long to reply.

I was so scared that I could barely even drink water, let alone eat or properly sleep. I thought about trying to flee the country. Going as deep into luxury debt as I could booking a holiday to the Duumvirate, then disappearing into the underworld of one of their habitats, scraping by and dodging immigration officers through a life of organized crime. (Of course this was an absurd fantasy; with my credit, I could never have afforded a trip to the Duumvirate.)

A week passed, and the focus of my anxiety shifted. Had he just... Not got the message? Were those contact details out of date? Or maybe he just felt so secure in his position that my threat didn't even reach him, and he'd dismissed it along with countless others he got regularly?

I didn't know what to think. Should I go through with my threat? What was I supposed to do?

Another week went by. I almost started to try to forget about it. To try to pretend none of it had even happened.

But then... After 18 days, late in the evening as I was idly watching the news... The bridge notified me I had new mail.

And I recognized it. That same handwriting I'd become intimately familiar with in recent months.

The contents were blunt.

'This is Samium.

I received your message and understand. I am willing to speak with you.

I will contact you at 9 tomorrow evening. Let me know if this is not acceptable.'

I couldn't believe it. I felt like my skeleton was going to jump right out of my skin.

He was really going along with it. It had actually worked.

But then one type of anxiety was swiftly replaced with another. How the hell was I going to have this conversation with him? At this point, I could barely even talk to the people at the distribution center. How could I convince him of something so deranged, and what would I do if I'd misunderstood his feelings? Would I try to use my flimsy blackmail to push forward anyway, or...?

I didn't have time to worry about it this time, because before I could blink, it was the following evening, and the bell on my logic bridge was ringing.

Don't be afraid, the demon whispered. This is what you want. This is how you will be happy.

I shouldn't have been surprised, but Samium's demeanor was incredibly different to both his conversation with Shiko and her grandmother, and the one I'd overheard that night. He was ice cold,more serious than almost anyone I'd encountered in my entire life. The whole time, his projection stared at me with this level, statue-like gaze, his emotional state indiscernible - though at the time, I unquestionably interpreted it as contempt. He barely spoke, the only words he uttered prompted being, 'you're that child who was friends with Utsushikome' at the start of our conversation.

Meanwhile, I was a mess. I stuttered and stammered my way the entire interaction. I had this whole speech in my head where I'd try to justify what I was about to propose, and how I could possibly betray someone who he'd known as a friend of mine so spectacularly. But he had no patience whatsoever. He stopped me, demanding I get to the point.

So I did.

"I... I, uh... I found out I have this condition. You wrote about it-- You wrote about it in your book. Your journal, I mean."

Samium stared at me, waiting for me to continue.

I couldn't face him, not even over the logic bridge. My face was so hot with shame that it felt like I might pass out. "It's called, um... Um, it's called... Pneuma-- Pneumaic Hyperactive, uh..."

"Pneumaic Hyperactivity Syndrome," he finished for me.

"Yes," I said, nodding quickly. "In the book, uh, you said... Y-You said that people with that condition, that their minds... That they can be used as donors. Like the ones they use to, um... To normally make people arcanists. ...right?"

This time, there was a brief pause. "That's correct," he said.

So I hadn't misunderstood.

I hesitated for a long time before getting to the next part. I took deep breaths, sweat drenching my clothes. I sincerely considered breaking the connection right there and then.

"H-Her grandfather.. Your friend," I eventually muttered. "By now, his, uh... His dementia, it's got worse, r-right? I mean, it has to have. So... He probably doesn't have a good grip on things. On what's happened. Right?"

Again, Samium stared at me with what felt like silent judgement, his face unmoving.

"So... So...." I bit my lip. "D-Do you... Do you still want to go-- To go t-through with it?" I asked, stammering desperately. "With fooling him, I mean? Trying to, uh... To make him happy?"

"Please get to your point," Samium once again insisted. I thought I saw the smallest hint of a wince, but it might have been my imagination.

"I-- I..." I gulped. "I'll do it. I'll... I'll pretend to be her."

His face remained still.

"I don't know who you planned to use originally," I said, the words suddenly streaming out faster than I could contain them, almost panicked. "O-or whose pneuma, I mean, or however that stuff works. But-- But I remember that woman saying that you didn't even know if they'll, um, go along with it. But I will! I'll pretend to be Wen, or whatever her name was. I'll follow w-whatever directions you give me, and I won't screw up. I'll do that for him as often as you want. For as long as it takes until he passes away. And even after that, I won't mess with her life or act suspicious, s-so no one will ever know it happened. I'll take the truth to the-- To the grave."

His face continued to remain still.

"I know her," I added. "W-We were good friends. So even if-- Even if something goes wrong, somehow, like you talked about in your journal happening sometimes, I'll still be able to act like she does. I've-- I've even practiced her handwriting. And I'm from the present day! So I won't get confused about anything. Plus, I don't have any family or friends, so n-no one will go looking for me. I'm a perfect candidate!"

"You want your pneuma to be used for the transplant," he asked, seeming to be seeking unambiguous clarification.

"Y-es," I said, the word starting confident, but ending frail and small. "O-Or rather, I'm offering that... If it's something you can do."

Samium was silent for some time. At first, he kept glaring at me as usual, but then he broke eye contact for the first time in the conversation. He stared towards the ground for about half a minute, appearing deep in thought.

"...I see," he finally said, clasping his hands together and looking back up. "Very well."

My eyes boggled.

"Y-You mean... You'll do it?" I asked, stunned.

"That depends on what you mean by 'it'," he said bluntly. "I am not sure what outcome you are hoping for. If you're hoping to gain wealth and status, your mind won't simply be transplanted into her body--"

"No, I know!" I interjected. "L-Like I said, I read your journal. I get it!" I held it up as to drive the point home. "I don't... I don't want to kill-- To erase her, okay? In fact, i-it would be better if what was left was mostly her. If I thought like her, but just knew I was someone else. Or maybe not even that much..." I looked downwards myself, my face contorted with incredible embarrassment. "I don't care about the specifics. I know it's complicated. If you agree, then... You can just do whatever you think is best, okay? Whatever you think would work."

This time, Samium's stony expression definitely shifted slightly. It looked like something had occurred to him, and he was evaluating me in a different light. He frowned very slightly.

"The process will be permanent," he spoke gravely. "Extracting your pneuma will destroy your brain. Your body will have to be destroyed, as well."

"That's, uh, fine," I replied awkwardly. "I mean, I k-know."

"I have other obligations, so I will contact you within the next two months with a meeting place in your city," he instructed. "I will use physical mail. You will reset your logic engine and bridge to factory settings and not speak of this to anyone. You must also not change your behavior in any way, such as making abnormal purchases or altering your routine. If there are any unwilling disruptions to your life, act as if you would were this not happening. Have I made myself clear?"

"Yes," I said, my head spinning.

"As I said, I will contact you within the next two months." With this, he cut the connection.

A few moments after it was over, I sat down. I had to.

Oh my god, I thought. Oh my god. It's really going to happen. It's really going to happen.

I was overcome with emotion, the numbness in my heart dissolving instantly. I laughed and cried, felt hope and despair, joy and crushing self-loathing incalculable. My psychotic plan, which should have been the stuff of delusion, was actually going to happen! Everything had gone exactly as I'd hoped, without so much as a single complication!

Why are you surprised? The demon said. I told you. This has always been your fate.

Yes, fate. There was no word for it other than that.

I'm not sure how to describe the state of mind I was in over the course of the following month and a half. It was like I was perpetually in a state of shock. Every time I remembered what was going to happen, my mind spat it back up. It was less like anticipation and more like inside-out grief. A change so monumental it didn't, couldn't feel real.

I immersed myself in perverse fantasy, my mindset somewhere between a child on the eve of their birthday and a prisoner awaiting a death sentence. I thought, obsessively, about all the things I would do once I became Shiko. At first these were thoughts primarily of petty luxury. I thought about how I'd eat all my favourite meals every single day, and try even fancier food I could never even afford before. I thought about finally being able to play all the echo games I'd wanted-- How good it would feel to pick up a pile of them I'd obsessed over second-hand as a kid like it was nothing and spend all weekend binging them. I thought about what it would be like to wear beautiful, custom-made clothes, and to even pick out whole new outfits myself.

Yes. A life where I could have whatever I wanted! Where I'd never even have to think about luxury debt again!

But quickly, as it slowly felt more real, my thoughts fixated on the personal. I imagined what it would be like for everyone to call me her name. What it would be like for her family to be my family. For her mother to hug me and tell me she loved me. For her little brother to call me his sister. To sit at dinner with them every single night and not be an outsider.

And most of all, for it all to be natural-- To feel like they were my family, too. Because, as I had to keep mentally reminding myself, it wouldn't be like I was an imposter. I'd share her thoughts. Her feelings.

I found a photo taken a couple years into our friendship, one of only three I owned since I didn't have access to a camera; her grandmother had taken the picture and given me a copy. It was the two of us sitting at her dinner table, smiling, while her mother sat in the background. I'd avoided looking at it for over a year because it was too painful, but now I could look at it in a different light altogether.

I folded it to hide my own presence... No, rather to hide the presence of a stranger who wasn't supposed to be there. I stared at the other two figures.

That's my mother, I said to myself. Kataoka. And that's me, Utsushikome of Fusai.

That's my mother, Kataoka. And that's me, Utsushikome of Fusai.

My mother... And me...

As I forced myself to believe those words, I tried to imagine us sitting at dinner, like in the picture. What would it be like? What kind of conversations would we have? What did families talk about when other people weren't around? Soon, I'd finally know. And it would be an everyday, ordinary occurrence.

That prospect... Of obtaining something that I'd thought so fundamentally unobtainable, no matter what I did... It thrilled something in the deepest place of my soul. We humans force ourselves to be content with using the future to soothe the flaws in our past. We talk about 'clean slates', 'found family', 'second childhoods'. But on some level, we acknowledge these are imperfect substitutes. Retroactive change. That's what we all wish we could tear from the arms of the universe. To rewrite our lives so that we were always the person we desired to be.

But above all else, I thought about how eager I was just to be reunited with her. To see her smiling face. To hear what she thought about the latest novels and dramas. To hear her gentle voice tell me that everything would be alright. Even if I had to do all those things in a mirror.

We'd never again be parted, not even in death. Everything we faced, we'd face together. Together...

Despite Samium's instructions, I couldn't help but change my behavior. The form I inhabited stopped being something I made an effort to cope with, and became an object of open disgust I couldn't wait to dispose of. I stopped eating or taking care of my appearance. It felt, in a way, like ritual purification. Like I had to let my current, vulgar 'self' wither and die so I could ascend to a higher nature. Some days I did nothing but check my mail, then lie in bed until it was dark.

Weeks went by, and I grew restless. I memorized some information about her neighborhood and school, even though I knew rationally this would be pointless. I found an announcement that her and two other kids would be representing her school in another contest three months in the future, and felt a peculiar combination of annoyance and trepidation when I realized I could be the one going there. It was so strange, when I looked at it that way. Like my life was being lived without me there.

After a month, I grew anxious. Why hadn't Samium contacted me yet? What if I never heard from him again? I couldn't go back. I couldn't.

But then, the letter finally came. An unmarked, brown envelope, presumably delivered by hand, containing a single sheet of parchment on which was written a date and time - the following Thursday, at 10 PM - and an address, alongside a small, metal key.

Not even the events in the Sanctuary made me shake with as much terror as I did when that day came.

That afternoon, I said farewell to my apartment and all my earthly possessions, and set out from my apartment for the final time. First, I spent a little time walking around the island. I went back to the Isiyahlas' house and stared at it from a distance. I went back to my old school, and the beach where I met Shiko. I visited the school we'd attended together. I looked through the windows of the restaurant she'd taken me on that wonderful birthday.

Then, when the Great Lamp had long set and the city had fallen into relative silence, I walked to the address.

I'd expected some kind of shady medical facility in a quiet part of town, but to my surprise, it ended up being neither. Instead, it was a recently-constructed office building in the small business district of the city. It was modern in design, with long windows standing in contrast to vaguely brutalist stonework, and there was still some activity inside from people who were presumably pulling all-nighters. A nearby sign identified it as 'Tokoropi Tower', and advertised that there was still space to let.

The directions pointed me to the service entrance, which I unlocked using the key. Then, I climbed the rear stairs to the fourth floor. Its plain wooden doors were unmarked  (presumably it was one of said spaces) but already unlocked, beyond which was a long, dark hallway with light from a single room in the distance.

Somehow, I knew that was where I was supposed to go.

With slow, anxious steps, I walked. It suddenly felt very, very quiet, and the moment seemed to drag on for an almost supernaturally long span of time. Part of me suddenly wanted to run. Samium could have feigned compliance to lure me here to kill me; this certainly didn't look like the sort of place to undergo a complex medical procedure. Although was it that? How was it even supposed to work?

One doubt made room for others. My conscience made a last stand against what I was doing. Was I really going to do this? Even if I could convince myself it wasn't technically murder, it was still an intrusion of the most horrific degree imaginable. Wouldn't it do nothing but confirm all the horrible things she probably felt about me? How could I possibly live with myself...?

And what I'd misunderstood how this all worked? I mean... If a pneuma was only part of your mind, what about the rest? Back then, Shiko's grandfather had outright said that Was this effectively suicide? Was I about to die here?

I kept walking. Clack, clack. My sound of my cheap, distribution center sandals against the uncarpeted floor.

Finally, I came to the half-open door, and taking a breath, stepped around the corner.

Even though there was little remarkable about it, the sight of that room has been seared into my memory, a place I find myself in my dreams time and time again. The circumstances certainly played a part, but it was somehow so stark. The curtains were drawn tightly, and the light was coming from a single, utilitarian gaslight at the far end, resulting in everything else casting long shadows. There were only two pieces of furniture: A large, bronze table which fit in well with the office environment, and a slightly askew wooden chair with a heavy black bag on the seat.

Next to that chair, staring me dead in the face as I stepped in, was Samium. I felt so afraid seeing him. It was that same face he'd had as over the logic engine: Utterly, utterly cold, his eyes boring into me like drills. But seeing him in person again, the light and darkness hardening the lines on his face and leaving a yellow glimmer in his dark, heavy eyes... There was so much implicit judgement. Like I was staring down the grim reaper himself.

I gasped, not knowing what to say. Again, I wanted to run.

"Sit down," Samium instructed.

"I-- Wh..."

"Sit down," he repeated.

"Uh--Uh, okay."

My body feeling rigid, I stepped towards it.  I pushed myself up by hands and followed his command, perching myself on the edge of the cold metal.

"Do you have it?" he asked.

I stared stupidly. "Have what?"

"The copy," he replied.

"O-Oh." I looked downward. "Yes..."

I reached into my bag, and withdrew the small echo labyrinth I'd used for the copy of his journal. He reached out a hand, and I passed it to him.

"I'll verify this later," he warned, stepping over and placing it in his bag. "And the other?"

I reached into my pocket and passed him a sheet of crumpled parchment. "This, um... This is the address for the remote terminal. I'll give you the password when I've... Uh, when I've..."

I couldn't even say it out loud, now that we were in person. I felt so ashamed I couldn't even look at him. I could only stare at my own reflection on the metallic sheen below.

He took it as well, pausing for a moment to ponder something. "You're rather naive," he said flatly. "This ID is for a free data housing service based in Dorthedon. They wouldn't even put up a fuss if one of my lawyers asked them to remove the content outright."

My eyes went wide with panic. Of course he could do something like that! How could I be so stupid?I jerked my head up to face him. "I-- N-no! I have a, another..."

"You don't need to make something up," he said dismissively. "It won't affect our arrangement."

I stopped speaking, my mouth hanging open slightly. Then I closed it suddenly, taking a heavy breath through my nose.

"Have you done as I instructed?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, with a quick nod. "I haven't acted abnormally... I've kept going to the distribution center every week like normal, and used my logic engine to keep watching the same stuff. And I haven't done anything that might make it look like something was going to happen to me, either. Like buying weird stuff, I mean..."

"What about social engagements?" he asked. "Have you--"

"I haven't had any," I interjected. "I don't really, uh..." I trailed off.

Samium hesitated for just a moment. "I see." He turned back to his bag, this time withdrawing a notepad and a small, rectangular wooden box. He spent a few moments looking at the former. "I'm going to explain how this will work. Please listen carefully, and do not hesitate to interject with questions if you feel it necessary."

"O-Okay," I said, nodding.

After that, Samium talked for a long time. First, he told me about what he expected to do, alongside some information on her grandfather and his current state. As it turned out, I'd been right in my guess that he'd significantly mentally deteriorated... But you know that already. He was still often lucid, but now needed regular care more and more often, and frequently became distressed and confused. And even though it was information I'd more or less inferred already, he spoke about his assimilation failure, and how reuniting with Wen had motivated his entire life's work.

He also told me a little bit about Wen herself, her personality and interests. Apparently she'd worked as a historian and had grown up in an agrarian community and had been a big fan of dark comedy and fantasy media - Samium went into detail about some specific stories she'd really enjoyed, alongside her taste in music, which was apparently important to her. He told me that she was boyish, often sarcastic, but had a subtle but firm kindness to her that came out when people she knew were in pain.

To say the least, I didn't know how the fuck I was going to pull that off, since it wasn't like I was getting any of her mind in this process.

"Don't fret too much about it," Samium told me dismissively. "You're not supposed to recall everything about her life or be entirely the same person, anyway. Just pretend to let it come through occasionally, and that will probably be enough."

What he didn't talk about, rather conspicuously, was her relationship to whoever her grandfather had been in the old world. He said it was irrelevant, because he'd never wanted her - as Utsushikome - to realize who he was anyway-- That it would only bring him shame and embarrassment. He said that I ought to just follow his lead, and let him wanting to believe do the rest. He also told me very little about the old world itself, again stating that it didn't matter.

...which was a little peculiar, in retrospect.

As the conversation went on, I noticed his tone subtly change. It took on a casual character, and he seemed more and more tired, like just the process of explaining all this was draining something deep within him. A little disgust entered into his tone, which at the time I interpreted as directed towards me, with even more shame swelling in my chest.

Removed from the situation, though, it seems more likely he was ashamed of himself.

Finally, he told me about the process itself.

"Are we, uh, really going to do this here...?" I asked. "It... Doesn't really look like somewhere you can perform surgery."

"I chose this property because an unexpected intrusion was unlikely, and in the rare event one did occur, because one of the stakeholders is a friend of mine," he explained. "We will be going somewhere else, but you will not be conscious. I cannot perform Egomancy in a place where the Censors might detect it, so it will have to be done somewhere remote."

Oh. I'd sat on the table instead of the chair because I'd thought he was going to do it here. Now I probably looked like a crazy person.

"Where?" I asked.

"That's not your concern," he replied. "This half of the process is also somewhat complicated. I require access to facilities that are not available on this island. The nature of those facilities, and the process itself, is not something you need to know about."

I swallowed the air, my lips feeling dry. Of course he wouldn't tell me. I'd used the last piece of sensitive information to blackmail him.

"If it serves to calm you, it will make no difference to your perception of events," he told me. "I will sedate you here, and the next time you will be conscious will be when the process is fully concluded in several weeks."

"Several weeks?" I asked, a little shocked.

"Yes," he said. "I will need to find a good window of opportunity."

Oh, right.I suddenly remembered that part of his plan from all those years ago, where he talked about abducting Shiko. The one that had upset me so much at the time...

I hesitated. "Will it... hurt her, at all?"

Samium blinked, then frowned at me, like he was annoyed for making him have to think about it. "Hopefully not. My plan is for her to sedated during a routine medical exam--"

"No, I mean... will ithurt," I tried to clarify.

He stared at me like I had brain damage. "...no," he eventually answered. "From her perspective, it will be as if she just suddenly remembers having experienced what you have. There will otherwise be no pain or alteration in her consciousness."

See?The demon said. That doesn't sound so bad, does it?

But the words felt deeply unconvincing.

"Did you have any other questions?"

I hesitated for a moment, then nodded stiffly. "What... Will it be like? For me?"

He stared at me, speaking sternly. "When we last spoke, you said you were indifferent to the specifics."

I flinched awkwardly, looking away.

"What you said then is most convenient for my aims as well," he said, switching to a more technical tone. "Assuming everything goes well, you will retain unchanged explicit memory - that is to say, autobiographical memory - of both Utsushikome's life and your own, but will experience a stronger emotional connection to your episodic memory and her semantic memory respectively. Combined with the fact that the pneuma does not store implicit memory at all, that should result in an outcome where your mannerisms and manner of thought more closely resemble her own, but your present identity retains primacy." He narrowed his eyes slightly. "However, Egomancy is not an exact science. It is impossible to predict precisely how this will manifest from your perspective, especially at first. I will be present when you awaken and respond accordingly."

I only understood parts of that explanation at the time, but again felt uncomfortable pushing for further information. Even if it sounded like what I wanted in abstract, hearing precisely about how my soul was going to be cut open and rearranged just made it seem much more frightening. I fidgeted, trying not to think about it.

"And... Will anyone else know about this?" I asked.

"No," he answered instantly. "No one but you and I."

I nodded a few times, then a few times more. I felt the color draining from my face as I realized I had nothing more to ask that wouldn't just be dragging out the conversation, but also determination.

Yes. I could do this. I could make this impossible thing real.

"Okay," I said, my voice shaking. "Uh, one more thing..." I reached into my pocket, withdrawing a small metal container. "Can you give this to me? When I... rather, when it's over?"

He peered at it. "Just this?"

I nodded.

"...I suppose that's fine." He took it, placing it in his bag as well. "Shall we begin, then?"

"Yeah," I said, the word almost a gasp. "L-Let's do it."

"Very well," Samium said, nonplussed.

Part of me was surprised he didn't give me a chance to back out. But then, why would he?

He reached over and opened the wooden box. Inside was a syringe and a tincture of fluid. My heart leapt out of my chest.

"Should I... Take off my clothes...?" I asked, for some reason.

"That won't be necessary," he said. "I only require access to your lower cerebrum. Lie down or move to the chair, please."

I felt even more awkward about the idea of standing up and sitting down again, so instead I just shifted and leaned back. The cold metal pressed firmly against the back of my neck, and my hands left a trail of sweat as I got into position. I took one last glance at my lower body and reflection. This is it. This is the last time I'll see this.

I steeled myself. Samium pulled away the fabric of my tunic, exposing my right arm.

"I'm going to inject the sedative now," he said. "If you haven't had surgery before, it should only take a few moments for you to lose consciousness. After that, you'll wake up without feeling like any time has passed at all."

Oh god,I thought, panic rising in my chest. Oh shit. Oh fuck. I can't really do this, can I? This is nuts!

Stay calm. All I need to do is relax. Close my eyes, and in just a moment, I'll be with Shiko again. All the pain will be over...

I felt the needle slide into my arm, and a hot, pinching feeling as the anesthetic flowed into the vein.

I don't want to die!

It's not too late. Say something. Tell him not to do it!

And what? Crawl back to that filthy little apartment to live your empty, disgusting life? I'll never be with her again. Remember that pain?

Life is long. Anything could happen. I was just a kid. I could get a career. Meet her again when it's all far in the past.

That's just a fantasy. It will never really happen.

My head felt light. My eyes started to grow dark even as my heart still welled with indecision.

This is murder! There's no taking it back! How are you going to live seeing her face in the mirror?!

No, you're saving her. Without you, a stranger will be wearing her face. Think of what they'll do to her.

That's just an assumption! You don't even know she still wants to be an arcanist! She could have changed her mind...

I can't wait to wake up behind her eyes. I'm so excited to finally not be myself.

I don't want to die! I don't want to disappear...

Gonna buy a really nice steak at a restaurant... I'm hungry...

No, no, I need to say something... Samium...

I wonder what kinda friends she'll have? I wonder what her house will be like...

I don't deserve to touch such a brilliant light.

Can't move.

My dad... I never saw him again...

Shiko, I'm so sorry. I love you so much.

I'm so tired.

Goodbye, me.

I'm so happy I met you.

My back hurts.

We'll be together forever... Forever...

Wait, what was I thinking about?

I... I can't...

I...

...

And there, in that small room on the fourth floor of the office building, on the island on which I'd been born and never left, my old self ceased to exist.