Chapter 22

Chapter 22. In the Abyss.

If you peer into the Abyss for a long time, then the Abyss will begin to peer into you.

Friedrich Nietzsche.

We have nothing else to do?

Inhabitants of the Abyss.

Sephiroth. Two weeks ago.

"Well, at least the initial stage was successful," I thought, looking at the raging ocean. Since my last appearance here, almost nothing has changed, but at the same time, very, very much has changed. The size of the "reservoir" has increased significantly, the four rivers feeding it have also changed - some complex structures have appeared on Ognennaya, somewhat reminiscent of a dam and, apparently, controlling the flow and delivery, is this increased control displayed? The Rivers of Life and Death almost did not change and everything also remained in an intact state, except that they became somewhat wider and fuller, the river of Darkness ... there were no controlling (or conditionally controlling) structures on it, moreover, the very structure of the "river" became much more difficult - now in it I could clearly observe thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of separate streams, calm and fast, hot and cold, devil, and some generally flowed from bottom to top, in the opposite direction. Darkness is multifaceted, many paths are hidden in it ... was that my thought? Or not? In any case, I still feel a strange desire to get to the source, last time I lacked strength, now I have at my disposal the power of hundreds of magicians and their souls, diligently collected by the creators of the tower for decades, and even spiced with Etherion on top ... Barrier? The effort of thought and it is swept away by the raised hurricane. Another? Likewise ... I don't know how long it lasted, but in the end I came to the source - a small spring with anthracite-black water gushed out from under a stone overgrown with dark moss. And it's all? So much effort and risk and nothing but a small source? I knew my subconscious mind was pretty creepy, but so much? However, something kept me at the spring, and the desire to get to the source was still present, but I was already there! Or not? I take a step into the "water", the liquid seems icy, but you can stand it, now a small step to the stone ... and I sink into the bottom with my head, the light fades very quickly, I feel myself sinking deeper and deeper, it's good that at least there are no such conventions as pressure, temperature and the need for air ...

An indefinite time later.

Does this thing even have a bottom? How can? Okay, let's go further (anyway, there is no special alternative, getting out of the subconscious into the world is a mediocre waste of kilotons of energy, I'm afraid, in this case, the Hamster will lynch me regardless of any past merits).

A little more time passed ...

Suddenly my journey ended and ... I emerged from a lake with black water. The autumn forest rustled around, the trees quietly rustled with golden leaves, the air was clean and transparent, it was difficult to determine the time of day - twilight and twilight, either before dawn, or after sunset. It was raining ... it was very beautiful around and somehow peaceful or what? Hmm, I would say that the local environment and the weather would be to my taste, if only a mansion on a hill, always with a hall in which you could place a fireplace and sit comfortably in front of it in an armchair, taking a book on the way from the library, well, take a bottle of wine with you, if the mood is appropriate.

The first suspicions that something was wrong here arose in me when I went to a small hill on which stood a mansion, immersed in cherry blossoms. The trees in the garden did not bother that now, (judging by the plants in the forest), in fact, autumn. However, I did not feel any danger or uncertainty, and I can "wake up" at any moment, so why not look at such an interesting house? No sooner said than done, the house greeted me with peace and quiet, but not with the abandonment of an abandoned dwelling, rather, it seemed that the owners had just gone somewhere, for a walk there or to the store ... That's just an incomprehensible feeling at the limit of sensitivity, as if someone was watching behind me, but ... no, I don't feel anyone, did you think? Perhaps, but it's best to be prepared for trouble. Is this still my inner world or not?

I walked, led by some vague feeling, as if knowing the location of the rooms and passages, although, why not, if this is still my world, then the house was really built by me. I wonder what any (brain-biting) shrew would have said about such an "inner world"?

-You would not turn to him, Sephiroth, not in your nature.

-Yes, perhaps ... uh? - I myself did not notice how I ended up in the hall. With a fireplace. There were two armchairs in front of the fireplace, separated by a table with a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses. One of the chairs unfolded to the entrance to the hall. An amazingly beautiful girl sat in it - a waterfall of black hair, a golden gleam of eyes framed by long eyelashes, a neat nose and thin lips, however, in moderation ... a figure ... could not cause any complaints either - tight jeans and a blouse leave little room to doubt the forms.

-Do you like it? - the girl raised an eyebrow in a strikingly familiar gesture, I often see this ... in the mirror.

- It's hard to say, visually - yes, but looks can be deceiving.

- Distrustful, cautious, but at the same time can be reckless and adventurous, how interesting, - the girl sipped wine from a glass on the table, so when did she manage to open the bottle and fill the dishes? After all, when I entered, the glasses were empty and the bottle was sealed. For some reason, I now remind myself the girl Alice, that with a fool I stuck into the rabbit hole, hmm, then why not relax and start having fun? I sit in the next chair and fill my glass ... mmm, what a scent.

-Can you introduce yourself? And then you know my name, but I don't.

- You know who I am and what my name is - another sip of wine - and you always knew.

-Hm, don't I know better what I know?

-You, - the girl nodded, - just what is "you"? - For some reason, I got the impression that I am being bullied in the most banal way.

- A little - they also read thoughts! "No, that's not necessary — I just know you very well," I think my eye twitched. So, you need to calm down a little and think. Where am I? In your subconscious? Hmm ... probably, but then what is someone else doing here, it would be fine just a shiz. But female shiz is a little too much even for me. It means that it is unlikely, but, she clearly can somehow influence this world, but I can?

As it turned out, I can, albeit with some difficulty ... unless my interlocutor had arranged it. In order to unnecessarily confuse, damn it, brains really begin to curl up into a knot, and paranoia screams good obscenities. So, let's say we both can influence the world, which means that it is our common ... hmm, taking into account the division of me into many pieces and sending me to different worlds ... no, hardly. I would not scoff at myself, and change the gender to female ... nope, I am not drawn to such experiments and my copies are unlikely to be different in this. But the facts are on the face, unless ...

- You originally sent me to Symbiote?

-Hmm, good analytical skills. Close. But not really. You still don't understand me ... my essence.

-You but not you? Are you different?

- True and false, - the girl melancholy took a sip of the scarlet liquid, but I had a desire to beat the wall with my head.

- Okay, let's leave this. And what do you want from me?

-I AM? Didn't you come here?

- Didn't you pursue some goals by showing yourself in front of me? - Hmm, a conversation between two Jews.

- Like any woman, I was curious.

-Curious? - I tried to unleash it to develop thought ...

-Yes, curious - ... to no avail.

-And ... are you satisfied?

- Not really, I saw more than I could have been, but less than I wanted. You still look too narrowly at the world. However, you are still young ... and you have to go - time here flows a little differently than you think. Come when you can open the road yourself, and without using such a kind of ... master key, - the stranger somehow appeared right in front of me, our faces were separated by mere centimeters, I could feel her breath on my skin, the scent of wine from her lips ... the girl leaned a little closer and ... I again found myself on the river bank, examining thousands of black threads, and her laughter rang in my ears.

- I don't understand, - I shook my head, - but why does it seem to me that I have been trolled corny?

It's the same time, the mansion on the hill.

-Did you know what you wanted? - the girl turned to the man who took the place of the guy who left the world. The man looked about twenty-five years old, black hair up to his shoulders, aristocratic, delicate features ... the image was completed by a "Mephistopheles" beard and a black leather cloak.

-Yes, Isis, I must admit that I settled down there very well, although the data obtained in this way is devoid of an emotional color ... although, you know all this yourself, don't you? - the girl just smiled slightly and took a sip of wine, - besides, the memory lock turned out to be really ... useful.

-Indeed? - The named Isis raised an eyebrow, to which her interlocutor only chuckled.

- Unlike you, I am not eager to mock a certain Walter Mayer and his variations. This is exclusively your prerogative ... well, also of Laura, of course, "the man smiled warmly at the mention of the last name.

- You seem to be getting used to me ... that's good. Well, the beginning of the path has been laid, it remains to wait, but for now, I still have some things to do, see you, - Isis simply disappeared into the shadows, leaving her interlocutor to listen to the sounds of the rain. Admire the flames in the fireplace and sip wine.

-Eh, I would like to catch you and pull out the answers to my questions, but capturing the embodiment of freedom ... heh, you can only with the consent of this embodiment, - the man took out a second bottle of wine from the air and closed his eyes.

Sephiroth.

Hmmm, welcome to this wonderful world! It is bright, bright and in general, ponies live in it, eating rainbows and pooping with butterflies! And people are kind and smile at each other. Perhaps, living there would be wildly boring, so the world where I woke up was much more realistic. And the first thing that met me in the new world was pain. A monstrous pain that makes you want to rip your brain out and throw it out. The worst thing is that turning off the sensitivity of the body did not help much. With a shudder I climbed to see what happened to my carcass. Maybe the work will distract a little from the feeling of a nail driven into the skull and molten metal in the veins instead of blood.

The carcass data did not create a mixed impression. On the one hand, passing such a burst of energy through it noticeably strengthened the body itself, its endurance and vitality, on the other ... burnt skin, damage to muscles and tendons, burnt eyes ... it's all bullshit. Maximum. Simba worked half a day, but there was also an energy in which I also felt big problems, moreover, like my body. So it is with the Symbiote, but ... magic can be seen with the help of the dragon's eyes, and they burned out a little ... and even such an abyss of energy began to draconize, fortunately, the magic of life prevented it from being carried out, otherwise my condition would be much worse - not I am sure that the body would have withstood significant changes and restructuring. So, how do I look now and ... by the way, where am I at all? By filling the empty eye sockets with Simba. I began to look around ... hmm, well, the first thing - I am lying on the bottom of the sea, neatly crushed by a pebble, more precisely, only one leg is crushed, but my body cannot float to the surface. And Vidocq ... slightly changed hands, ending in impressive claws, there are similar devices on the legs (more precisely, the only leg that I can now observe) skinless and magic-drenched meat has acquired a light purple hue, the hair has already begun to grow back and is now reaching to the middle of the back, but, for some reason, completely black, and massive horns stick out from the forehead, not yet a dragon's "crown", but no longer some kind of "lamb". The wings are also present, but now they look very deplorable. The picture is completed by cute glowing dark blue lines all over the body, hmm, it seems that there should be magic channels. But if they shine like that without magical vision, then it becomes somehow uncomfortable. So, if you look a little from the side ... hmm, well, hello Illidan, there are even scorched eyes, with illumination (all the same dark blue), only a pair of blades is missing for complete resemblance. I was saved from a nervous giggle by the incessant pain in my whole body - it clearly did not add to the mood of humor. You need to get out of here, preferably as soon as possible - the water procedures have already become boring. But it also hurts to move ... the carcass, for all its vitality, is clearly at the limit. Then something strange happened - a dark fog escaped from the body and enveloped a sphere with a radius of twenty or thirty meters, a second and the pain weakens, and the feeling of life, which previously told me how inhabited the local waters are, now signals that there is nothing living around I'm gone. A familiar effect ... Zeref's Hunger of Death? So, I hope this is temporary, otherwise it will be completely shitty, but now we need to get out of here!

About how I crawled ashore and came to my senses, you can write a separate book (more precisely, dictionaries. Two - a short handbook of the mother and, accordingly, an expanded edition with explanations and detailed directions on the routes), the worst thing was the lack of magic - the reserve was full , but, the restored eyes reported that if I did not want to turn into a second Jose, but only with the presence of a reserve, then magic should be abstained from - the energy structures in the body, with all their massiveness and potential power, at the moment were not stronger than a crystal vase - the impression was that one had only to touch and everything would be scattered to smithereens. And I could not imagine how to cure this dirty trick, all hope for "will dissolve by itself" and on Polyushka (though I do not know which will be safer). The Hunger of Death gradually faded away when the body more or less recovered (from the state of "almost a corpse" to "almost healthy" in just a couple of minutes and ... a dozen kilometers of dead forest). But fatigue and pain from the damaged energy were in no hurry to pass, as a result, the journey from the coast to Magnolia took almost five days, instead of one - I could not move quickly, and going out into the city under the "Hunger" ... could cause additional problems, which in such a state it would be very bad. Of course, the attacks of killing all living things around me passed pretty quickly, but you never know, it is better to keep an eye out and be afraid for a few days than to fly in at the most unnecessary moment, and then I was simply too far from the habitable places.

And now, finally, Magnolia, as I understand it, two weeks have passed since the moment in the tower, hmmm, that's truly, "has gone into himself and got lost." It was raining, or rather, a downpour, and judging by the state of the canal, it had been raining for a long time - look, a flood would begin. There was not a soul in the Fairy building itself, I had to go to the meeting of my cells in girls and Natsu, and what did they forget outside the guild walls in such weather?

Very soon I found out that - the grave with your own name, you know, is not the architectural monument that any normal (relatively normal) individual seeks to see, the worst thing was to feel the emotions and the state of the guilds - it covered so that the legs could hardly hold , and magical injuries should not be forgotten. But when the Council pressed on ... oh, Oog was great, short and succinctly, you can always pour a generous hand on the dead - you can't take it anyway, and even this type of emotions, on the one hand, he really felt sorry for the death of the magician, but on the other hand, the acting head of the council could not help but breathe a sigh of relief knowing that his headache had passed? Tell me, how not to spoil his raspberries in such a situation, how?

-Hmm ... dear Council, do you know that you violated several dozen regulations with your shot and that you won't get rid of me so easily? In addition, I took the God-Chosen from the body of the enemy myself, and where to put the place among you, Mr. Dragneel has already suggested to you, - the "respected" Council turns slowly, their gaze sees my battered, but quite lively carcass, and now their faces begin to change - the joy of Ultear, mixed with something that can make very, very many begin to blush, the surprise and joy of Yamych ... and the melancholy and doom in Oug's gaze, it seems that he is now thinking that if I was not in the grave, then maybe is it better to lie in it yourself? The idea, of course, is an interesting one, but this can be postponed. Heh, hold on, because ...

-I am back!