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I suddenly thought. I've never been cruel or ruthless. In my past life, as in this one, I was a nice, intelligent boy, a joy to my parents. Why did it become so easy for me to kill people? The old man who wanted to sacrifice me to the grimoire - there was self-defense, but even then, I felt a slight tremor, although I ignored it. I killed Malfoy without a doubt, and as casually as if I chop off people's heads every day. I also killed Pettigrew just because he's an asshole and would have brought Voldemort back to life, and I was worried about keeping the canon events intact until recently. Yeah... Maybe some of it came from the demon, but just a little. It made me feel better about life, so to speak. And maybe I had always been like that, but I hid that attitude from myself.

I took the diadem with telekinesis, dragged it to a clean spot on the floor, and knelt down next to it. Whatever the outcome, all options were good except for absorbing a piece of Voldemort. Yes, all are good...

"Do it already," I encouraged myself. "Or you shouldn't have even started."

I took the diadem with my hands. I need mental contact, like with a grimoire. If I simply shatter it with my sword, it may so happen that a shard of Voldemort will either perish or be absorbed, but the artifact will be irretrievably ruined, since the parseltongue from the basilisk I got, as I believe, is by absorbing the soul, not by killing the creature itself.

"Eh..."

Without a second more, I quickly took and put on the diadem. One second, two...

"Oh?" without hiding my surprise, I began to look around the gloomy, monumental hall without windows or doors but with many columns. There were various bas-reliefs everywhere, heavy and crushing in their massiveness, and the semi-darkness gave the hall a slightly frightening atmosphere.

"Hmm..."

I turned around at the voice. The grown-up Tom Riddle from the diary, a tall brown-haired man in a black business suit, obviously old-fashioned robe, and a cheeky but benevolent smile. I attributed the facial expression to the closet for a simple reason - a mask. The most natural one. I've never seen such a fake smile in my life. I can't even figure out what it is, but just the sight of that smile made me want to burn the place down with Fiendfyre, and maybe it would burn like everything else around it.

"Inquisitive young wizard," the man spoke up. "Looks like the mystery of the Room of Requirement is no longer mine alone."

"Maybe with..." I want to attack him now, but it's like something's in the way.

"Tsk-tsk," Riddle stopped my speech with a gesture of his hand. "No need to waste your energy, my inquisitive friend. May I ask you a question?"

But it's clear from his tone that he doesn't need an answer.

"I sense that you are pure-blood, but I cannot recognize in you the traits of any of the English families. I don't mean to sound overly boastful, but I know them all. You do not want to answer? Ah yes, where are my manners?"

Riddle threw up his hands pathetically as if addressing a huge audience.

"I am Lord Voldemort!"

He stared at me for a few seconds, but without waiting for a reaction, he just moved his hand a little. A powerful invisible force pressed down on me so that I almost collapsed to my knees, but I held on, concentrated, and threw off the obsession.

"Оh?" Riddle was a step away from me. "The younger generation isn't so hopeless..."

I waved my hand from my hip, forming a magical construct of a spiral air fist.

"Cumilaris."

The spell slammed into Reddle, tearing the right half of his torso and scattering shreds of dark substance around. The remnants of Reddle stood smiling at me, conjuring up the image of Alucard from Hellsing in my mind.

"An intriguing knowledge of magic, my inquisitive friend."

Riddle recovered in a split second.

"Interesting, but useless."

With a simple wave of his hand, he sent me flying, and then with my own spell, Riddle sent me to the floor, knocking out the spirit.

"Interesting," Riddle looked at me with the same smirk, standing beside me. "You're tougher than you look."

Then his gaze slid to my left arm.

"Black? Great!"

As I had done during the battle with the grimoire demon, I sped up to maximum speed. In the intangible world, my acceleration limit is much higher. Immediately I materialized my sword and began to shred Reddle, but the effect was about the same as a spell. It took only a couple of moments for the smiling soul shard to catch up with my speed and deftly dodge the sword.

For a few moments, Riddle stared at the sword flitting past his head, and then his smile wiped away, giving way to a completely neutral expression. In the same instant, he was gone, a dozen yards away.

"That's what I don't understand. I think you will become a wonderful vessel. Don't you think so, my inquisitive friend?"

Surprisingly, not even a short moment passed when I was again next to him, accelerating even faster. Still, I heard what he said as if we were having a leisurely conversation over a glass of whiskey.

"That's enough."

Just one word, and it was like I was paralyzed, and Riddle plunged his hand into my chest with a swing. It went like a knife through butter. I felt like Neo and Agent Smith against me.

"I think..." Riddle was saying, and I suddenly began to realize that I was acting in a one-sided and strange way.

"...you, my inquisitive friend..."

It's like I'm limited. Limited in my actions. It's as if the world around me won't even let me think of a better course of action. But it's a fictional world. A mental projection of Voldemort's will or the essence of an artifact.

"...you had no idea..."

But since it's a fictional world... Wait, idea, where are you going?! Don't give up! This is something important!

"...how it will turn out..."

Use your brain! Use your mind! This is a battle of the mind, even if it looks like a fight. The mind...

"Triad of Being." The shard is a damaged soul. The shard's mind is just as damaged, and even if it were stronger, it is incomplete. The soul...

"...your curiosity..."