[The regretful death of an unnecessary enemy. +10 Justice.]
[A Fragment awakens. Host, prepare yourself.]
Asher wasn't listening. He crouched next to her body. Reaching his hand out, he closed Stella's eyes for her. Because those glazed eyes reminded him of his own failure.
He knew that something was truly wrong with him. This person was the one who rended his legs to paste, who gave him indescribable agony.
But through the combination of his reviving ability and Sophie's Nostalgic Room, he was no ordinary person.
Asher saw the pain that Stella went through, fractions of it.
He felt sorry for her, despite everything she did to him.
She didn't deserve this, at least.
Asher took a glance at his surroundings.
She also didn't deserve to be left here.
[Important!]
[Yes / Yes]
"...Wha?"
A prompt popped into his vision.
The tone was urgent, in a way Asher had never seen before.
[...]
[Yes / Yes]
Was the System glitched?
"What's going on? Explain it more. What happens when I click yes?" Asher squinted, propping Stella's body to lean on the wall as he conversed with the System.
[AAAAAA*%^@[Yes / Yes] FRAGMENT ))885# #!==INT======]
[JU"""*&5%7$1#C!E]
[:)]
[Yes / Yes]
Asher felt a sickening feeling in his stomach. The System's text turned black in his vision, slowly melting off the prompt. He had never seen the System so corrupted before, not even when he borrowed power from his future self.
The ground sizzled as black ooze dripped from the melting text into the real world. Coarse and blackish material, filled with liquid despair.
"'Fragment of the Universe'... This must be it, huh?"
[Choose. Reward? Justice. Satisfactory.]
[Yes / Yes]
The System was entirely taken over. Now it spoke with the strange, choppy manner of the Fragment of the Universe.
A frightening chill bubbled in Asher's chest as he felt his insides liquifying. At least, that's what it felt like.
"Okay... So setting it straight. I gained a lot of 'Justice', so you could get out of your incubation inside me? My stats reached a threshold?"
[Correct. Reward. Power.]
"I'll get a skill or something if I choose yes."
[Yes / Yes]
'There isn't a 'no' option though...' Asher chuckled slightly. Laughter was the only way to cope with the fear and stress.
The System, who Asher had always trusted with all his being, had been hijacked by his future self and the Fragment of the Universe in quick, frightening succession.
It was scary. He didn't like this.
But he had no other choice.
The System tried to replace the text, but within seconds, the white words would dissolve into despairing goop again.
The ground covered itself in black liquid.
Soon. He had to choose soon.
The Fragment of the Universe didn't answer any more questions.
He asked one anyway.
[Yes / Yes]
...
Asher nodded his head. Sure.
In fact, he was reasonably sure that the Fragment of the Universe was incomparably nicer than his future self.
The creature gave him a fighting chance in its punishment mission, and didn't even kill him when he failed.
So, fine.
"Yes."
Asher shivered as a soul piercing chill coated his organs, like an undying frost. He looked at the sky above him.
Eyes. Millons. Billions. Layers upon layers.
With a blink, they disappeared.
Though it wasn't him that blinked.
They did.
His arms felt like they were turning into liquid. It felt like his entire body was turning into that same ooze on the ground.
'Am I turning into the Fragment of the Universe? I don't want this.'
Flashes of Mei, Pete, Aiko, Mangchi, Sayako... He knew so many people now. He didn't want to leave them. And he didn't want to leave Stella's body in this filthy place.
[Worry. Not. Will. Not. Die.]
"...I'll take your word for it." Asher closed his eyes. The cold, just like when he was lying in the dumpster, was surprisingly comfortable.
Asher sighed as he felt his chest split open.
So he really was going to die.
'Might as well open my eyes for the last moments.'
Usually he wasn't afraid of dying, but this situation suffocated him with an unknown fear. If even the System was taken over by the Fragment, would he still be able to revive?
So he opened his eyes. A grizzly sight awaited him.
His chest had split open, in an eldritch flowering pattern. Ribs turned and spun, creating a vortex of flesh and bone.
And in the middle was his own pulsing heart, still connected to shivering veins.
[Eat. Reborn.]
"...Eat my heart."
[Not. Heart. Eat. Fruit.]
He looked at his arms. His skin was crumbling into shards of light. It was hard to move.
His mortal body couldn't handle the Fragment's awakening form.
[Host, this is the Fruit of the Universe. It isn't your real heart, so don't]
[Reward.]
Asher huffed a faint breath of relief. The System was still looking out for him.
'Alright, System. Wish me luck.'
He pulled his shivering arm forward with difficulty, grasping at the faux heart.
A wince of pain jolted him, before a warm feeling spread out across his entire body. He brought his heart to his lips.
The moment he took his first bite, he nearly vomited. The taste of raw flesh and blood assaulted his taste buds.
But he couldn't stop.
Second bite, and the blood began to taste sweet.
The third bite merged with his fourth.
And when he was finally done, the sheer cold overtook him.
Asher's vision faded away.
...
Asher opened his eyes.
His back felt cold, like he was lying on pure ice.
He sat up.
A pure black plane stretched as far as the eye could see, until the orange line of the horizon.
The beautiful contrast of black and glowing orange took his breath away.
Hundreds of enormous eyes blinked in the distance, each several times larger than the sun. Childlike renderings of hearts and stars twinkled across the sky, illuminating everything around him.
He had returned to the Universe. He didn't die after all.
"See? No. Die."
The warbles of the Fragment grabbed Asher's attention.
It waved its tentacles beside him, mimicking a childish laughter from the scrawled smile on his body.
"Oh... sorry for the misunderstanding. You showed up at a bad time; the devil hijacked the System just before you did."
[My apologies, Host. I have no control over when stat points are assigned. The successive malfunctions of my defenses were merely coincidental.]
"Laughter. Satisfied. Reward?"
The Fragment of the Universe lifted up one tentacle, giggling to itself in that same, warbling voice. It was kind of cute.
In fact, Asher inexplicably felt himself warming up to the Fragment's physical form, too. A flesh flower for a head, attached to a simple egg-like body with a thin tentacle.
Its form was laughably simple, like a child's drawing of a monster. Recreating its figure in a sketch would be hilariously easy. Oval body. Wavy line legs. Scribbly flesh-vortex head.
And it helped that it had absolutely no inherent malice toward him.
"Sure. Do I have choices for it?"
"Correct. Three. See?"
"You can give me a preview of the three rewards I can choose?"
"Correct."
Asher looked at the System for advice.
[It tells the truth. Using its tentacles, it can recreate a mindscape where the ability's functions are revealed.]
"Okay then."
Asher, with the System by his side, held a renewed bravery. He welcomed the tentacle that stabbed into his brain.
...
The hazy static faded away. Asher saw a vision in front of him, a vision of the Backstreets.
He saw a shadowy form of himself far away, in the middle of the street.
This was the first reward the Fragment was offering him.
The figure paused for a second.
Blackish ooze began to seep out of its body. The shadow swelled to massive proportions, its arms and legs stretching out to form four blackish tentacles.
And the head also transformed into a replica of the Fragment, a glistening red flesh flower. The howling melody that flowed from it was even stronger than what Asher obtained from its mission. The whistling noise didn't only affect people, it affected buildings as well.
The street began to twist and corrupt into horrid black shapes, crushing the people inside them.
The vision stopped when a building crumbled onto Asher's head.
He was given some time to review what happened, as the static prepared for the next preview.
That form was certainly powerful. And if it retained the innate characteristics of the Fragment, nigh invincible. But the collateral damage was nothing to be scoffed at.
[Distortion: Transform into the Fragment of the Universe. Host's actions and control over their body will be severely restricted during this time. Capable of using all abilities of the Fragment of the Universe. Each use permanently lowers Justice by five. May draw unwanted attention from the City and Beyond.]
[Duration: Seven minutes. Cooldown: Seven days.]
Hm. The form really was godlike, hence the massive restrictions and drawbacks. But when would he ever need this? For people stronger than him, he had [Frenzy], which also wouldn't cause as much collateral damage as this ability.
And it would draw too much attention. It didn't help that he had no E.G.O or Synchronization of the Fragment, so using this ability out of nowhere would also be incredibly odd.
'Pass.'
The hazy static faded away.
Asher saw a vision in front of him, a vision of Mei's bedroom.
Again, there was a shadow in the middle.
It stood still for a fraction of a second, waiting for Asher's attention to fall on it.
Then its chest opened, just like Asher's did earlier. It grabbed the shadowy heart from its chest.
The shadow's other hand began to leak out blackish liquid, forming a replica heart that fit snugly onto its open palm.
The squirming flesh flower closed, and the figure was left with a beating heart in its left hand.
It tossed the pulsing ball into the air.
As the heart fell, shadows coalesced into it, into the figure of another being.
The result: Another shadow, this time of a long-haired girl. Asher was well familiar with that figure. His breath unconsciously quickened.
That was Sophie's shadow. Was this what he thought it was?
[Fragmentation: Transfer one of your souls into a Shell of the Universe. It can perform functions of any human being and is indistinguishable from them as well. Its stats match your own, and you may mentally communicate with it at any time. However, you cannot use that soul's abilities when it is shelled. If it dies...]
[Duration: N/A. Cooldown: N/A]
"Is it permanent?"
[You may reabsorb it through direct contact.]
"Then let's do it. I don't have to see the other one. I choose this one, [Fragmentation]!"
Asher's consciousness sunk to oblivion.
The Universe imbued him with its power.
[A hasty choice.]
The System clicked.
The Universe blinked by its side,