Chapter 4 - past and changes

Hati's childhood in his previous life had been extremely troubled. His emotions were constantly going out of control. He basically had four aspects to his personality, a prideful and cold asshole, a raging lunatic who blew up at the slightest provocation, a lustful idiot that tried to stick his dick in any woman that came close to him, and finally, the original aspect who desperately wanted to keep it all together. 

To Hati, his other aspects were like extra limbs that he could feel the existence of but could not control. It was like they had a mind of their own, a mind entirely dominated by its instincts. Those three limbs were constantly in something like a threeway arm-wrestling match, driving Hati almost insane by bombarding him with continually changing emotions of pride, lust and anger.

Only when Hati found himself in a situation where one of the three aspects was being fed with Hati's own emotions did that aspect win out on the others for a while. For example, if Hati himself was angry at something, the raging lunatic won the arm-wrestling match, and Hati would suffer from uncontrollable anger until the status quo was restored.

It didn't take long for him to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and they started trying to keep him under control with drugs. This led to Hati discovering the first use of his abilities. Anytime he swallowed the bipolar medication, he felt a strange warmth spread throughout his body, and the drug would have no effect.

During this time, he discovered more abilities, starting with a certain level of resistance to physical damage when he was in his prideful aspect, an increased strength in his raging aspect and an aura of desire when he was horny. This aura would bring people's desires to the surface and make the affected people act on them. 

Basically, chaos followed wherever he went. Obviously, with every new ability discovered also came a new police report and some time spent in juvenile detention. Broken limbs, bloody noses, accusations of rape, it never ended. Of course, they were all true, even the rape. 

He never purposefully forced himself on anyone, but under the influence of the auro of desire, as long as a girl desired him, they would act on that desire. And with the girls later not knowing why they jumped on him, conclusions were quickly drawn about him somehow drugging them. Which, again, was true. He just had no control over it.

Naturally, not every incident ended with the police involved. Otherwise, he would have long since been tried as an adult and tossed in a real prison. By the time he turned 18, the original aspect of his personality had long since given up on controlling his other aspects. Instead, he started enjoying the feeling of power that came with it, even if he hated the lack of control over it. 

Unfortunately for him, his parents had more than enough of him at this point. They weren't bad parents in any way, they simply had no way of controlling the uncontrollable. There were even some physical altercations between his father and himself. 

The only reason they didn't throw him out after that was because, as loving parents, they could see his struggle to control himself. But they also noticed how, over time, his struggle to control himself lessened. And even loving parents have a breaking point.

Eventually, it got to be too much, and they decided there was no saving him, so they kicked him out with nothing but the clothes on his back. Luckily for him, he already had contacts in the criminal underworld of Norway to make money for himself, which started after he decided to stop trying to control his aspects. 

So, he became a full-time criminal, eventually leading to his first kill. It wasn't anything special, just a random gambling addict without a family who owed the wrong people a lot of money. But this moment still meant a significant turning point in Hati's life. Not because he felt particularly bad about it, though. 

After all, he had long since decided to simply embrace his aspects, and the prideful aspect was helping to deal with any negative emotions. But instead, it was because his bosses had ratted him out to the police since they needed a patsy for some other crimes. Or perhaps they were simply suspicious of his abilities and wary of his instability.

Whichever it was, they underestimated his abilities, and he managed to escape. He decided to flee the country and eventually ended up in Russia. Once in Russia, he joined the local criminal underworld and would subsequently meet Luna to form that mysterious connection with her. 

Through this connection with Luna, he finally gained control over one of his extra limbs, the pride aspect, and thanks to this, he not only had one less out-of-control aspect wreaking havoc on his mind, but he also managed to focus the pride aspect on suppressing the other two, still out of control, aspects.

Like this, the original aspect of his personality was able to shine through again. At this point, though, the other three aspects had heavily influenced his 'original' aspect. His original self had also acquired a strong desire for control because of his early attempts to control his aspects and the betrayal he suffered in Norway. Regardless, his personality became much more stable, allowing him to finally and truly work towards a future.

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Having reminisced about this past, Hati started thinking, 'I should try to do things differently this time. I don't yet know anything about my father, except that my mother doesn't want people to know who he is, but my mother seems like a good person, and if possible, I want to have a better relationship with her than I did with my previous mother.' 

As Hati thought about all this, Sif tried to engage with him by poking, prodding and kissing him. She was a fourth-revolution Einherjar, after all. Giving birth was still difficult, but it wouldn't tire her out or require serious recuperation. But Hati, who was deep in thought, was giving her very little response, which worried her a little. 

"Little Hati, don't you want to play with your mother? You don't seem tired from being born, so why can I not get any reaction from you?" As she asked herself this, she couldn't help getting a worried look on her face. "Is there anything wrong, little one? I know Aunty Lisa checked you over already, but what if she missed something? Maybe I'd better call her here. She did say I could do so whenever I needed anything…"

Hati, who heard all of this, quickly realised that he should probably start interacting with this woman before she blew things out of proportion. This was also a good time for him to begin his plans of having a better relationship with her. 'And what is the best way for a baby to worm their way into their mother's heart? Being cute! Time to start the naturally born cuteness engine that any baby is born with.'

Still wondering if everything was alright with her son, Sif quickly noticed a serious expression on her son's face, causing her to worry even more. But that worry quickly faded as her son's face suddenly exploded in a cute smile, while his arms started reaching out for her hair and his pupils seemed to grow a little. 

Sif immediately forgot her earlier worries and started squealing in glee. She was happy to see her baby not only act more baby-like but also look incredibly cute. Her motherly instincts went into overdrive, and she started cuddling, poking, prodding and kissing Hati on almost every part of his body. Meanwhile, Hati was dutifully playing the role of a cute baby, giggling along with her antics.

Hati quickly realised that he was actually having a lot of fun like this. In his past life, his first few years had been hell as he tried to control his various aspects. Then, his later years were a little better, but he still never had a moment where he could have such casual, unencumbered and sexless fun. That being said, he was still missing the feeling of control that he had over his life from the moment he met Luna.

At first, he was simply enjoying the moment, but then he suddenly realised the strangeness of this situation. 'Wait a second. There's a reason I never had any situation like this in the past. Before I met Luna, I had too little control, and after I met Luna, I had no mother to pamper me like this. 

Since I lost my connection to Luna, I lost the control I had over my emotions, which means that at this point, either my unreasonable pride should have flared up for losing control or my irrational anger for being played with like this.' He chose not to even think about his lust not showing up for being so close to a beautiful woman and was simply attributing that to the fact that the woman was his mother.

Realising the situation, his face became serious again as he stopped responding to Sif's prodding. This caused Sif's worry to rise again. Still, Hati couldn't be bothered with that now, as he remembered the short flare-up of his irrational feelings earlier and how his pride had quickly suppressed them. 

Before, he was too busy thinking about other things, but now he realised the strangeness of that situation as he started feeling around for the extra limb representing his pride. What he found was the familiar feeling of a three-way arm wrestle match, except the participants seemed much weaker than before. If he had to guess, his wrath and lust were up to 80% weaker, while his pride was 60% weaker. 

It seemed that, because of the difference between the two, pride managed to suppress the other two, but because pride itself was weaker, too, its effect on Hati was significantly weakened from what he was used to. Whatever strength his pride aspect had left was being used to suppress his feelings about Luna's unknown fate. Pride was like this. It would always baulk at anything trying to influence Hati before it tried to influence Hati itself.

This meant that his current personality was very controlled and stable. 'This is different from the control that my connection with Luna gave me. That connection is still gone. Instead, my abilities' benefits and detriments have been somehow reduced. I suppose I should consider this a good thing, as it certainly gives me a lot more control over myself, but I do hope I gain the full benefit of my abilities back in the future.'