Chương 44: Bangarang

Earth - Walking Home from Dojo Tim walked through the quiet evening streets, his mind still buzzing from the trust exercises. The memory of catching Riku repeatedly, her flirting as he caught her in the trust exercise, and the way she'd looked at him each time. Lia wasn't the only one falling for someone, he thought. The mental wall he'd constructed was holding steady, keeping Lia's emotions from bleeding into his male consciousness while allowing her the freedom to be feminine when needed.

It seemed like the perfect solution—two bodies, two personalities, minimal interference. As he climbed the stairs to his apartment, Tim felt confident that he'd found the right balance. Lia was safe in the palace, as he got her ready for bed after their eventful day, while he could process their Earth experiences without emotional contamination from her responses to Varek's advances.

Cultivation World - Palace Guest Quarters Lia stood under the cascade of perfectly heated water in the most luxurious bathroom she'd ever experienced. The shower was carved from a single piece of white stone, with formations that heated the water to the exact temperature her body craved and infused it with subtle qi that soothed her tired muscles. She'd needed this.

The day had been overwhelming—the beauty of the Crimson Crater Kingdom, the political implications of representing them in competitions, Varek's unexpected kiss, the weight of their decision to fight for the Crimson Crater. The hot water washed away the stress, at least temporarily. Wrapped in silky robes that Elena had provided, Lia settled onto the enormous bed with its impossibly soft sheets. For the first time in days, she felt truly safe.

Protected by royal formations, surrounded by luxury, with Varek in quarters nearby and a month of training ahead before any real danger. She should have been able to relax completely. But as she lay back against the silk pillows, something began to crack inside her chest. It started as a tightness, a pressure behind her ribs that made breathing difficult. Then came the images—flashes of memory that the constant running and fighting had kept at bay.

Ami's face, bright with excitement as they'd gotten Lia's loot appraised. The way Ami had looked at her with such trust, such faith that Lia would keep them both safe as they fled. The sisterly bond they'd shared since being recruited to the sect as children, growing up together, training together, dreaming together about becoming powerful cultivators who could protect the people they loved. Lia was starting to receive more and more memories from this body's past. Then came the memory of Ami's final moments.

The casual cruelty of the blade across her throat. The gurgling sounds as she tried to call Lia's name. The light fading from her eyes as she reached out desperately with blood-covered fingers. Lia's breath hitched as the full weight of loss crashed over her like a physical blow. It wasn't just Ami. Elder Cho, who had been like a stern but caring mother figure, was probably dead when the Flaming Saber Sect invaded.

Master Chen, the appraiser who had warned her about hiding her treasures, was certainly killed in the assault. The junior disciples she'd been teaching just days ago—young cultivators full of hope and determination, all likely slaughtered. Her entire world had been erased. Everyone she'd ever cared about, every familiar face, every place that had felt like home—all of it was gone. She was completely, utterly alone. The tears came then, hot and unstoppable, pouring down her cheeks as sobs wracked her body.

The grief was overwhelming, a tsunami of loss that the constant danger and adrenaline had kept dammed up inside her. Now, in the safety and silence of the palace, it all came flooding out at once. Earth - Tim's Apartment Tim paused with his hand on his apartment door, suddenly aware that something was wrong. He could feel emotion bleeding through despite his mental wall—not the sharp, immediate sensations he was used to, but something deeper and more devastating.

Lia was curled up on the bed, sobbing with an intensity that shook her entire frame. Tears streamed down her face as she clutched one of the silk pillows against her chest, her breathing ragged between broken cries. It was him too. He was Lia, but the lack of emotion he was feeling in his male body as Tim made it feel like he wasn't. Tim felt... almost nothing. His male body registered that something was wrong, that Lia was in distress, but the emotional impact was muted, distant.

The mental wall was working exactly as designed, protecting his masculine consciousness from the overwhelming feminine grief.

"This isn't right," he whispered to his empty apartment, watching Lia's breakdown through both sets of eyes, but the barrier he'd constructed stopped the emotions.

"I should be feeling this too." The realization hit him with uncomfortable clarity. By protecting himself from Lia's body's emotions, he was also disconnecting from her experiences, her memories, her very real trauma. He was treating her like a separate person when she was literally him—the same soul, the same mind, just expressed through a different form. Tim closed his eyes and carefully began to dismantle the mental wall he'd built.

The process was like removing a bandage slowly, allowing sensation to return gradually to a numbed limb. The first thing that hit him was the depth of Lia's memories. Not just her own experiences, but the original Lia's life bleeding through—nineteen years of relationships, friendships, dreams, and connections that had been severed in a single night of violence. Then came the grief. It struck him like a physical blow, doubling him over as the full emotional weight of the losses crashed into his consciousness.

Tim found himself crying—actually sobbing—as he experienced the devastation from Lia's perspective. Ami hadn't just been a fellow disciple. She'd been like a sister, someone who had shared Lia's dreams and fears and hopes for the future. They'd planned to advance together, to become powerful enough to protect their sect, to see the world beyond their mountain home. All of that had been cut short by casual cruelty.

"Oh god," Tim gasped, tears streaming down his face as he felt the true scope of what Lia had lost.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't understand." The mental wall hadn't just been protecting his male sensibilities—it had been cutting him off from genuinely understanding his own experiences. Lia's grief was his grief. Her memories were becoming his memories. The trauma of losing everything and everyone she'd ever cared about was something he needed to process, not hide from. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Earth - Riku Walking Home Meanwhile, Riku strolled through the quiet residential streets toward her family's mansion, her mind focused on something far more abstract than her Earth surroundings. The trust exercises at the dojo had been fun, but Varek's Dao comprehension was fascinating her.

The way he'd fought Zhao Venom—seeing attacks before they happened, finding the perfect angles to redirect superior force, understanding the fundamental principles of cutting and separation—it was like having access to a completely different level of martial knowledge.

"The Dao of the Saber," she murmured, raising her index finger and trying to invoke the same understanding Varek had achieved. Unlike Tim's careful mental compartmentalization, Riku had never tried to separate her consciousness from Varek's. She'd embraced the cross-gender experience completely, allowing his confidence and fighting instincts to flow freely into her female mind. Now, as she walked past a tree whose branches overhung the sidewalk, she focused on that understanding. What did it mean to cut?

What was the essential nature of separation, of the edge that divided one thing from another? Varek's knowledge ran through her consciousness—not just technique, but true comprehension of the principles that governed all cutting implements. The saber wasn't just a weapon; it was the physical manifestation of a fundamental universal law. Riku extended her finger toward a low-hanging leaf, concentrating on the Dao concept rather than any physical action.

She could feel the invisible line where the leaf existed, and where separation could occur. The boundary between connected and severed, between whole and divided. With a gentle motion that looked like nothing more than pointing, she traced that invisible line. The leaf fell to the ground, cut cleanly in half despite her finger never coming within six inches of it.

"Holy shit," Riku breathed, staring at her index finger in amazement.

"It actually works here." The Dao comprehension was harder to access on Earth—the lack of ambient qi made it feel like trying to write with a nearly empty pen—but it was possible. Varek's understanding of fundamental principles could be channeled even in this qi-starved world. She looked around to make sure no one had witnessed the impossible feat, then continued walking with a satisfied grin.

Earth - Tim's Apartment & Cultivation World - Palace As Tim sat in his living room, tears still drying on his cheeks, he came to a crucial realization. The mental wall hadn't been protecting him—it had been fracturing him. By trying to split his consciousness into separate personalities, he'd been fighting against the fundamental truth of his existence. He wasn't Tim controlling Lia's body. He wasn't two separate people sharing experiences.

He was one soul, one mind, expressing itself through two very different forms. The male and female aspects weren't contradictory—they were complementary parts of the same whole.

"I have to accept both," he said quietly, as Lia's sobs began to subside into exhausted hiccups.

"The masculine and feminine, the logical and emotional, the protective and vulnerable. They're all me." Instead of rebuilding the wall, Tim allowed the connections to remain open. It was overwhelming at first—feeling Lia's grief while maintaining his own centered consciousness—but gradually, he found a different kind of balance. He could acknowledge the feminine emotional processing without being consumed by it. He could appreciate the masculine analytical approach without dismissing the importance of feelings.

Rather than compartmentalizing, he was integrating. In the cultivation world, Lia's breathing slowly steadied as she felt a sense of completeness return. The grief was still there—it would probably always be there—but it no longer felt like it was drowning her. She had acknowledged the losses, honored the memories of those she'd loved, and could now begin the process of moving forward.

"I won't forget you," she whispered into the silk pillow, her voice hoarse from crying.

"Any of you. But I have to keep living. I have to become strong enough that this never happens again." Tim wiped his eyes and took a deep breath, feeling more genuinely himself than he had since the soul-splitting began. Two bodies, one mind, infinite possibilities.

"We're going to be okay," he said softly in both bodies at the same time.

"We're going to be strong and protect what's dear to us." Both bodies said in unison. Earth - Himari Walking Home Himari closed her eyes as she walked back to her small apartment, her steps confident despite the darkness. She focused on the steady trickle of qi flowing from Kira's body across the galactic divide—a thin but constant stream of power that made her feel less vulnerable in this qi-starved world.

In the cultivation world, Kira had moved from the underground Shade Sect facility to a luxury penthouse she maintained in one of Azure Sky City's tallest residential towers. The apartment's advanced formations provided the perfect environment for the dangerous qi transfer technique, and the privacy allowed her to channel as much energy as possible without interruption. The efficiency was still terrible—maybe two percent of the qi she pushed through the shadow realm actually reached Himari's developing dantian.

But even that small amount was transforming her Earth body in subtle but significant ways. As Himari navigated the quiet streets with her eyes closed, she marveled at her new perception. She could feel the shadows cast by streetlights, buildings, even parked cars. Each shadow told her a story about what had created it—the sharp angles of a fire hydrant, the rounded bulk of a delivery truck, the swaying branches of trees lining the sidewalk.

"I can see without seeing," she whispered, her voice carrying Kira's cold satisfaction despite Himari's naturally cheerful tone. The question that had been nagging at her crystallized as she walked: how much of Kira's abilities came from the body, and how much from the soul? The original Kira had died, her consciousness scattered by that final, devastating soul attack. But her understanding of the Dao of Shadow felt as natural to Himari as breathing. Perhaps comprehension of Daos was stored in the brain and soul.

When Himari's expanded consciousness had claimed Kira's body, she'd inherited more than just memories and techniques—she'd gained the enlightenment in the Shadow Dao that had taken the original Kira decades to achieve. Himari opened her eyes as she reached her apartment building, a small smile playing across her lips. She was no longer the helpless young woman who'd fled the orphanage with nothing. She was becoming something far more dangerous, armed with the skills and understanding of a master assassin.

"Never again," she said quietly, her voice carrying the promise of both identities.

"I'll never be powerless again." Earth - Abandoned Warehouse, 5km from Himari The bass thundered through the empty warehouse as Derek Morrison danced around his latest victim, while Skrillex Bangarang blasted on his portable speaker. The homeless man was zip-tied to a metal chair in the center of the ritual circle Derek had carved into the concrete floor.

"Oh yeah, this is the good part," Derek grinned, spinning a long iron nail between his fingers like a drumstick. The warehouse's broken windows strobed with the distant city lights, creating a makeshift rave atmosphere that perfectly matched his manic energy. It was the first anchor point of his grand formation. Fifty carefully selected deaths to power an array that would drain millions. The homeless man had been perfect: no family, no friends who'd miss him, just another forgotten soul in a city full of them.

Derek's head bobbed to the electronic beat as he examined the ritual circle. Five concentric rings of symbols, each one carved with the nail that would be used for the ritual. The outer ring would channel the victim's life force, the middle rings would set up the rules of the formation, and the inner circle would store the condensed death qi until he was ready to link all five anchor points together.

"You picked the perfect night to die, my friend," Derek said to the struggling man, though his voice was lost under the pounding bassline.

"Skrillex makes everything better." The song built toward its climactic drop, synthesizers climbing higher and higher as Derek raised the iron nail above the man's heart. This was the moment—when the bass exploded, he'd drive the nail through the victim's chest and begin the life-drain process.

"You gotta wait for the bass drop," Derek laughed, his entire body vibrating with anticipation.

"It's all about the timing!" The crescendo reached its peak, electronic sounds swirling into a frenzy of anticipation. Derek's head nodded faster and faster to the rhythm, the nail poised like a conductor's baton over his victim's heart.

"Here it comes," he whispered, eyes gleaming with madness.

"Three... two... one... BANGARANG!" The bass drop hit like a physical blow, and Derek drove the nail down with savage precision.