"—illia... Lady Quinctillia. Wake up!"
A youthful voice called out to Nysa, stirring her from a numbing slumber. As her consciousness slowly resurfaced, the first thing she felt was pain.
Excruciating, piercing, unbearable pain.
It was akin to a mind-splitting headache drilling into her skull and left eye, digging deeper and deeper through her flesh until it invested every nerve from her left arm upwards.
"We don't have much time, Lady Quinctillia. Wake up."
The youthful voice echoed again, but it felt oddly familiar this time.
Nysa tried raising her heavy eyelids, chasing away the fading white fog that blinded her. However, she realized that only one side of her sight received the feedback of blurry colors—the other one remained pitch-black.
"Focus on this." A vague, mostly blue-colored shape seemed to be talking to her. "It'll hurt momentarily, but it should help you gather your thoughts."
The humanoid silhouette raised its arm, revealing what appeared to be a wisp of red light. It shimmered innocently, moving from right to left as if in a dance.
Then, it flared for an instant, brightly enough to hurt her eye and instill a new, scorching-hot form of agony in her wits.
Nysa jolted awake, recalling everything that had happened previously with perfect clarity—the investigation of the transitional base, the fight with the Temple of Stars' magi, the arrival of the Henosis Seekers, and the subsequent explosion of pale light.
She also remembered the daggers diving deep into Jonam's throat and skull as well as his shocked expression.
"Jonam is... dead?"
"As luck would have it, I am not," the youthful voice answered her mutter. "Now, if you'd please start moving. Reinforcements from the Temple of Stars are sure to arrive any minute now, and we won't deal with mere Occultists this time."
Nysa's confusion only grew. She directed her half-available gaze toward the talking silhouette, focusing on its appearance. It had dark blue hair, blue eyes, a pale complexion, and a faint scholarly air, though its childlike traits overshadowed it.
"Jonam?!" Although he looked much younger by at least a decade, she couldn't mistake his doll-like, inexpressive face. "How? I saw you die."
"You saw Segment XIV Jonam die," he answered dispassionately. "I am Segment XV Jonam—the Homunculus born from his death. My predecessor started the protocol for copying his core's information shortly before meeting his demise. I hold all of his memories, so I hope you won't mind the physical difference."
"I... I'm confused—" Pain abruptly flared from her left eye, and she soon realized she couldn't dissipate the pitch-black curtain on that side of her face, no matter how many times she opened and closed her eyelids. "What's... happening?"
"You got caught by the explosion, though Segment XIV Jonam's corpse protected you from the worst of it." Jonam adjusted his gauntlets, slick with a mixture of amber-colored oil and blood-like liquid.
"Unfortunately, it still infected you with the Pale Malady. I took out your left eye and some flesh from your arm to stop the sickness' advance, but there's around four percent of the feathers still inside your body. You'll most likely die in five or six years."
Jonam's delivery was so calm and impassive that it took Nysa an embarrassing amount of time to grasp its meaning.
She glanced at her left arm and found it wrapped in the same enchanted cloth she had used to heal her bones from the Homunculus' injury. Then, she carefully tapped her burning cheek with a finger, sliding it all the way up to her vacant eye socket.
Just as she was about to abandon herself to the tugging in her heart, a mournful cry made her look elsewhere. It came from the magi from the Temple of Stars a few meters away.
The red-haired boy, barely above fourteen, had half his body covered in pale-white feathers. Nevertheless, he was the sole moving one among his companions, all reduced to vaguely humanoid mounds made from the plague-induced plumage.
"Semele! Aeson! Cleonicus! Please... move... Please!" The boy yelled their names one by one, pulling at their clothes through the feathers to wake them up.
"The Henosis Seekers outmaneuvered us," the new Jonam said. "They're usually tricky but never this unpredictable. Fortunately, I believe I have figured out the reason for their deviating patterns."
He got up after recovering the vials he had scattered around him, probably used to save Nysa's life.
Not far behind, the blown-up cadaver of Segment XIV Jonam was laid face-down on the ground with a gaping hole on his back. Strangely enough, it seemed like that hole had been opened from the inside, not the outside.
"Can you stand on your legs?" Jonam asked.
Nysa silently nodded, hoisting herself up with what meager strength she had left. Her legs were shaky, and her inner ear throbbed painfully, worsening her disorientation and overall daze.
"This explosion caused quite the stir on top of spreading the Pale Malady to the entire slums... perhaps even more. I'm afraid the Divine Capital will have to deal with the worst plague of its history in the near future."
Segment XV Jonam, now a little under Nysa's height, helped her move across the crumbled warehouse and towards the ruined buildings surrounding it.
"Still, this bodes well for your plan. Once we launch our assault on the Henosis Seekers, the Temple of Stars won't hesitate to intervene. The ensuing chaos will let you easily slip into the Great Sanctuary unnoticed."
Nysa's bloodied lips opened and closed with no sound. After a while, she blurted out in a bemused tone, "Why... do you talk as if it's a good thing. Wouldn't the Temple of Stars intervening mean greater losses on your side?"
"It'll also mean more significant losses on the Henosis Seekers' side," Jonam sharply replied. "When hunting those mad dogs, we do not count our deaths, for they don't care about theirs either."
Perhaps it was because the blast had left her light-headed, but Nysa spoke with much less restraint than usual. "You didn't have to save me, then."
"Self-sacrifice and wanton waste are very different. Furthermore, this is something I inherited from my previous Segment—the faint inclination towards preserving your life, I mean."
"Your previous Segment...?"
"When migrating its core's information from one Segment to another, a Homunculus mostly inherits its predecessor's skills, Mana, and memories. However, in rare cases, it's possible to receive the emotions tied to said memories, especially if they're particularly recent, or strong."
Segment XV Jonam paused, raising his head to cross his blue gaze with the now one-eyed Nysa. After careful consideration, he declared in an even voice:
"I believe Segment XIV Jonam was rather fond of you."