Like identical twins, Vikram and Avi looked like each other's doppelganger.
Although, Vikram was missing a hand and his body was covered with black and red liquid; there was no mistaking the similarities between them.
~get up!~
Avi's muffled voice rang Vikram's ears, however, even upon multiple calls, he didn't open his eyes.
Due to the blood loss, Vikram was closer to the god of death, Yama, than he was to Avi, who was standing right in front of him.
*slap...*, Vikram's cheeks turned red at the force of Avi's tight swing as the humanoid continued to scream in pain.
*khatchak...prattle... prattle*
In the distance, the humanoid's back started to morph and two tentacle-like hands appeared in the air.
The tentacles were menacing to look at and the humanoid's eyes were bloodshot with anger, however, the humanoid could do nothing but stare at Avi's image in bewilderment and surprise as he was still stuck in its place as if he was glued to the ground.
'Huh-?', meanwhile in his visions Vikram saw Yama's image disappear as his eyes slowly opened.
He felt lighter; as if the metaphorical chains binding him in his place had just come undone.
'What's happening-?'
Just as the black shade from his eyes started to fade, a vision of a 17-year-old boy standing on the knee-deep water appeared in front of him.
"H... How-?"
He shuttered as his eyes went wide like a saucer. He couldn't believe that he was looking at his current self standing upright like he was looking into a mirror.
Be it a whining and deformed humanoid of his past in the distance, or the boyish Avi with a steel sword in front of him; either of the two phenomena would have been too bizarre by themselves.
And yet, both of them seemed to be playing out in front of him at the moment.
"There is no time, use that recovery ability and stop the bleeding first!!!", Avi shouted.
He extended his free hand towards the humanoid again, activating the gene-power.
"KREEECH-!!!! Whaa-", the screaming suddenly became louder and the nerve-racking sound continued to be heard for a while, "... Why... Rrrrr... UUu... doing this-!!!", the humanoid pieced together a few words within the excruciating pain.
"How rrr Uu even alive?"
The thousand-year-old parasites couldn't believe that they had misread Avi's existence in Vikram's body, being fooled by a 17-year-old didn't sit well with the parasites that always selected their host with meticulous calculations.
**
Vikram stumbled due to the dizziness from blood loss as he tried to stand up. His right hand was covering the clean sword cut on his left arm.
With the dripping sound of red pearls leaking out of the sword cut, Vikram slowly applied Prana on his wound and was somehow able to keep his consciousness awake.
The adrenaline was acting as morphine for him right now.
"Why-!"
He asked the boy, unable to fathom why Avi would help him.
"... I'll do anything for Maya!", Avi uttered with a somber expression.
Like autumn leaves departing to be one with the soil that gave them life, his expression was full of the tragedy of separation and hope of union.
Even if Vikram's ruthless and cold personality hadn't resurfaced completely yet, he still felt void of any emotions at Avi's reason.
His pragmatic self, like always, was doubtful whether Avi's words meant the same thing he thought they meant.
Irrespective though, Vikram was happy that he could live a little longer.
"Huh-?", just then Vikram felt something strange happening inside his body.
The Prana he was using to heal the open wounds suddenly smoothened as if he reached a similar level of proficiency he had in his last life.
He looked towards Avi in surprise and noticed that the more gene-power Avi used to restrict the humanoid's movement, the shallower his image was becoming with every second.
'Is he delegating the control of his body back to me-?'
The color of Avi's skin was fading at a speed visible to the naked eyes, and at the same time Vikram felt a new source of energy being born and rapidly rise with every breath Avi exhaled.
"is this gene-power-?", he said rhetorically.
[ ... With every cell in the body being reborn and transformed, the mutation unlocked a path for humanity that was not only their singular hope in the dystopian world but also the last boon from the ancient Gods.
Vikram remembered the line from the first chapter of the Diaspora part I and felt an overwhelming existence being awakened inside of him.
At that moment, as Avi's influence weakened on his mind, he could finally recall every bit of his past self.
The feeling was similar to the moment in the Icarus High School when Vikram had unlocked a part of his memory. It was a feeling of being woken up after a long nightmare.
'... It is like I'm currently the center of the world', he thought in the state of trance.
His thought being present, and not, at the same time. In his imagination, there was only him and a spotlight shining upon him from the distance. Both Avi and the humanoid had disappeared from his sight.
"NOOOO-!!!", a reverberating sound from the humanoid could be heard but Vikram was completely drunk in the feeling of enlightenment to even remember what it said.
He had entered a state of limbo, neither here, nor there. He imagined himself being sandwiched between two lives, standing at the junction where his life and Avi's life met.
He was both Avi and Vikram at that moment, and neither of them at the same time.
He couldn't help but feel surprised as he awoke to his extravagant cruelty from his last life, while also feeling absurd at Avi's action of endangering his life for the sake of a sickly and dying sister.
~Huh-?~, his face distorted as his brain went through a hypersonic neuronal activity.
The formation of never-felt-before neuronal circuits in his mind overwhelmed Vikram with memories as vivid as an 8K movie.
His last life played behind the curtain of his eyelid on a screen, while another screen sprung up from the sides of the first with Avi's life on it.
As the movie continued to play, Vikram felt like many hours had gone by, but in reality, it had only been 10 seconds.
*****
"WHAT-!! IMPOSSIBLE-!!!"
"NOOOOO-!!! WE CAN'T LET IT HAPPEN-!!!!"
"YOU NEED TO STOP IT-!! RIGHT NOW"
".... OR ELSE WE WILL BOTH DIE-!!!!"
The humanoid suddenly screamed from the top of its lungs, momentarily, the humanoid seemed to have forgotten the pain of being erased from existence by Avi's usage of the [Adaptation] ability.
Even Avi seemed surprised at what was happening to Vikram.
*whizz... whirl*
His body was covered in a green-black glow that seemed to have emanated out of nowhere.
"What is happening to him-?", Avi asked, visibly confused by the new development.
In the distance, a deflated humanoid figure of Vikram II groaned in pain as it looked up at Avi and then at Vikram.
"It's too late... he is... regaining... control", the humanoid groaned as the tentacles on his back disintegrated into dust.
Its black eyes had formed a red hue around them, probably because it had cried in its own alien ways due to the excruciating pain of being purified by [Adaptation].
"What do you mean?"
*silence*
Avi didn't get an answer.
The parasitical Vikram II simply stared at the image of Vikram being baptized with black lights and for the first time, its stone-like black eyes seemed to have an emotion, fear.
*whirr... whirr... silence*
After another minute had passed, the whizzing sound made by the whisps of black and green color surrounding Vikram suddenly stopped and the dead silent lake was back to its previous state.
For a minute after that, there was no sound in the dead atmosphere. The humanoid's silence and weird energy from Vikram made Avi nervous.
Vikram, who had fallen to his knees during the ordeal suddenly sprung up from the waterbed. As he opened his eyes, the looks in them scared Avi. His eyes were colder than before as if he was being possessed by a cold ghost.
Although his appearance still resembled Avi, his eyes were as deep and endless as the humanoid.
*tap... tap...tap*
He walked slowly over to Avi who was standing only a meter away from him with a steel sword in his right hand.
"... What happened to you- *khwap*... *splurt*"
Before Avi could finish his sentence, a mouthful of blood appeared on his lips.
"... Talk respectfully-!", a heavy voice was heard right after.
Avi choked at his own blood as he turned his shocked eyes towards his chest.
A black sword had appeared in his chest from behind. In an instant, the humanoid had moved the distance of tens of meters in one swift motion and had penetrated Avi's fading body with the tip of its sword lade with blackish parasitical energy.
Although the humanoid couldn't use his lips and facial muscles to show emotions, the little estrangement of his brows was enough to tell how shocked it was.
"Wh... Why-?? How-??", blood from Avi's mouth dripped slowly over his chin as he looked Vikram for answers.
"... I. said. show. some. respect."
As he said that, the black sword started to twist and turn inside Avi's chest, sending millions of his neurons a pain single equal to having his skin ripped off without anesthesia.
Vikram's voice was heavier than before, there was a qualitative change in his demeanor after the ordeal of black-light-baptism.
The fear of death and helplessness in Vikram's eyes was gone, replaced by the eyes of a predator. A black glow covered his whole body as if he was being constantly bathed by black light.
"HOW-!??", the humanoid voice cried in the midst of the eerie stare-off going on between Avi and Vikram, his lips still sealed.
"VILE HUMAN-!!!"
"LET US GO-!!!"
In desperation, the parasites used their last bit of effort to utter profanities at Vikram who seemed to be lost in thoughts.
"Oh-!", Vikram made a surprised expression, "... I guess I still can't control it very well"
Both Avi and the humanoid looked like scared puppies on the side of the road. Within a split second, everything had gone out of control.
The battle to take over Vikram's consciousness and reclaim Avi's body that was supposed to be fought between Avi and the parasites had suddenly become a fight for survival against Vikram's attacks.
At that moment, Avi suddenly changed his target from the humanoid to Vikram, with both his palms facing in Vikram's direction, he let go of his sword and tried to gain control of the gene-power inside Vikram, "... DIE YOU VILLAIN-!!!"
But then came a shock, "HOW-!", as if he had been slapped awake by someone, Avi's already ghost-like body became even pale.
"... Very simple", a grin appeared on Vikram's face, "... I woke up. All thanks to your little tussle, I might add."
"... Now, let's have this meeting in earnest-! Shall we?"