Chương 111: Feels Like I’m Fourteen Again

The world was black once more. June could feel his body moving with purpose, automatically, with a destination in mind, but his eyes beheld a dark void that felt more familiar each time, less and less like a realm, a place, or a concept.

"A body… my body?" The once indistinguishable nothingness was now contoured against each other, a seamless place growing in familiarity in his mind. How was it possible to recognize nothing as something? His mind was a haze; he felt so present and gone at the same time.

'It doesn't make sense…' He sensed a subtle, noiseless shifting behind him and fell back with full trust. An incredibly comfortable chair had manifested behind him, but to the naked eye, it simply looked like he sat on nothing.

"Care to tell me why I'm here, Voice?" The figure, who stood flush with the background, began producing a small rectangular box of circular, chocolate-glazed pastries. It lifted the dark circular pastry with its fingers and dropped the snack into its palm as it slowly sank in.

"You know, June… I don't need to eat; I just do so because it reminds me of better times!" Voice picked up another pastry and threw it over June, but as if an invisible funnel were behind him, it arced around and right into his hand. June raised an eyebrow and, with a single bite, consumed the familiar snack.

"This isn't the time for this…"

"…"

"There's no right time for anything! You asked for a convenient power-up a few days ago…" If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. He scratched his voided nose and tossed the rectangular box up, allowing it to weightlessly float away.

"So… I prepped you one! at a price, of course!" June sighed and tilted his head back behind the chair to behold the figure standing behind him now.

"And my physical body?"

"I'll make sure nothing happens to it until the endgame! Then you're on your own!"

"Endgame?" The figure waved his hand dramatically.

"Oh, you know… The minute before you go back home!"

"Hmm…. This convenient power-up of yours is temporary, I assume?"

"Nah! I know you wouldn't take it then; I also know you were considering asking me to descend into your body if you came face-to-face with ONI… the noble-class Nightmare… Anyways, after some thinking, I think I won't descend this time, since it's a growth opportunity for you, but I'll help a little." A gentle hand dropped to June's shoulder.

"Hm, sure… fine… what's this power up?"

"Well, it's less of a power-up and more of a chance of enlightenment! Oh, and I'll drop in a hint for the next technique you want to learn, at your request, of course!" June thought to himself for a moment, forgetting his thoughts were connected to the voice, but even then, his inhuman alter patiently waited for a response.

"…. What's the price? You want my left nut or something?"

"No, I can make a billion of those if I wanted; there's no demand for that, too. What I want is… for you." The figure presses their finger against June's chest.

"To confront your past!"

"…"

"What?"

"It's not a therapy session; I'm just trying to separate the muck from gold in your memories. Now, I'm not going to pretend I know what's best for you, because you're me, and I have lived for an incomprehensibly long life compared to you, and yet, my home life, with our birth family, still hasn't been resolved, but we both know that in bad there's good, and in good there's bad."

"I still don't get what you're insinuating?" The figure let out an exaggerated sigh.

"Jeez, I know I'm stupid, but damn…. I'm going to make you relive some of our memories, like uh… 2020, when we were 14? That was objectively bad?" June shrugged.

"It wasn't too bad."

"Look, you know me, I'm just throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks. I'm trying to help you resolve some stuff, and maybe the new you could figure something out! I mean, I could just fix you, but that goes against my code of ethics to just fix people with my abilities; it's unnatural!"

"… So if you have me relive my memory, I might get some enlightenment, and I'll get some powers anyway."

"So… is that a yes? From an external POV, because it's a bad memory that lasts 7 months, and I don't want to bother sitting there the entire time." June shrugged.

"Fine, why the hell not?"