Vualla had her hands behind her back and slowly walked up wooden stairs, not in control of her own body. One of her hands was clenched on the woolen shirt of an unconscious body, dragging it over the lip of every stair. The concern in her chest was extremely active, but she couldn’t do anything about it.

Why are you going to him? Vualla asked. There was no response. She simply continued to mechanically climb up the wooden steps toward the ruined battlements of Lady Iellaya’s fort.

The strange darkness was currently manipulating her movements and there was little she could do to stop it. With no real other choices, Vualla cast her mind backward, thinking of the times when the darkness had been very vocal and all the things it had told her.

As the battle had been winding up, Vualla had stood nervously at the edges of Lord Terith’s camp and listened to her commanding officer worriedly whine about what was occurring in front of them. After Randidly’s stunning performance earlier at buying their ground troops time, the Nether King had lost his patience and sent the wave of Nether Gatekeepers down to fight against them.

Still, it had been nothing they couldn’t handle, even if her commanding officer continued to act like the sky was falling. Or at least that’s what Vualla told herself.

Don’t die on me Randidly, Vualla had tapped her metal gauntlets lightly together as an offering to the god of luck. Don’t die before we can tear down this System together.

At that time, as Vualla thought those words, she noticed the special activity that the darkness took, quickly cutting through all the superfluous emotions that she felt and grasping at the core of her feelings. She ignored these movements. By this point, she had grown rather numb to the strangeness of the darkness she suddenly carried.

But when that darkness tasted her core emotions and then spoke to her, Vualla had stilled. This hadn’t happened before.

Do you wish to win this battle?

Vualla had frozen. The strange dreams had been one thing and suddenly dealing with the darkness while walking around was another. But also now the darkness spoke to her…?

Without waiting for Vualla to respond, the darkness asked another question. How many foes can you handle at your current strength? Enough to save these people?

“What…” Vualla began, but already the strange darkness shifted forward in her core. Vualla had felt the way it was pulling itself more tightly together. Where before it seemed like a layer of heavy gauze that muffled her entire experience, now it spiraled together to form a heavy iron lock that seemed to be directly binding Vualla’s heart. Small tendrils spread outward, undulating hypnotically.

The darkness had observed Vualla’s reaction for a few more seconds. It was a heavy moment, likely where it was considering whether it would use those tendrils to control her. Then it had spoken again, its voice lined with curiosity. You know how to take more power. Absorb it from these departing souls. You cannot deny that your own power is insufficient. Or that this will provide you with more power.

You refuse out of principle, but are your principles worth allowing so many people to die…?

When the darkness had asked that question, Vualla had felt for the first time that she had the slightest insight into the darkness. When it had asked that question, it revealed a gaping wound in its soul that had haunted it for a long time. As it spoke, it revealed itself. Vualla could hear the true question that it was asking.

Why did you not choose my path…?

It was like a switch was flipped and Vualla understood the truth. The darkness was Vualla. The other Vualla. The Vualla who had never gotten up the courage to even try and go see her father before he had died. The Vualla who had never had the pleasure of meeting Randidly Ghosthound. The Vualla had learned to profit off the deaths of others. The Vualla who so pursued power that she had let everything fall away. To the point that she had no desire to use the formidable power she had gathered.

Compared to achieving the power to prevent anything she didn’t desire from occurring, nothing mattered. Nothing remained of the old Vualla who had cared enough about the world to seek this power.

Rather than fear, Vualla had felt empathy toward the darkness. So she had answered honestly. “People’s lives matter. Taking them, sucking their energy away at that moment where they are about to die… I don’t know if I believe something happens after death. But if these lives that we can feast on are truly over… would we be able to take strength at all from them…?”

Vualla’s question had hung in the air. The core of darkness with its undulating tentacles had considered it. It is true. It is much more likely that we are harvesting their energy immediately prior to their death. But it is certain that they would soon die anyway. Is there any meaning in allowing them to suffer for a few more seconds? Especially when our power can save so many.

“Have you used that power to save so many…?” Vualla had begun to walk forward, ignoring the questioning darkness in her chest. This situation, the realization that she was connected to her past self and that it was such an empty, cold thing, had been unnerving. But that didn’t mean that the Nether Gatekeepers would wait for her to come to terms with that knowledge. The enemy was here; she couldn’t waste time engaging in a philosophical discussion with the darkness.

Yet even as Vualla tried to move forward, the darkness moved and seized control of her body. Perhaps… perhaps you are correct. My path brought me nothing. It is why I am so weak right now. So weak that I needed to feed on your emotions to try and balance out my own negativity to the point I could rediscover the willingness to move.

The truth is… you are strong. Strong in a way I am not. You… don’t need me.

But I need you, self that might have been. I need you to make sure that a sad, sad man isn’t able to escape his own karma.

It was at that moment that Vualla’s consciousness had been shoved to the side by that brutal cold. Those tendrils of darkness stretched outward and seized her limbs and joints. It was jerky at first, but soon the darkness had complete control of Vualla’s body, ignoring her desperate struggles to recover control. Gritting her teeth, Vualla could only watch as her body surged forward to meet four Nether Gatekeepers with stiff strides.

Needless to say, the initial conflict didn’t go well. Even if the darkness could suppress her movements, it couldn’t truly empower her body very much; it basically just had control of Vualla’s own strength. So she had been quickly pushed back, dealing with attacks from too many directions in a body poorly controlled by darkness.

Perhaps out of habit, to ease the burden, the darkness had stretched a tendril out into the air, slowly gathering the energy of death from this chaotic field of battle and pulling it toward itself. And in that moment, Vualla had drawn on every bit of strength that she could manage and smashed her Willpower against that stretching tendril. Instantly, Vualla knocked away the energy it had gathered. It dispersed into the air, returning to the swirling maelstrom of darkness.

The darkness-Vualla was so surprised by the interference that she let Vualla’s body get smashed backward by an attack from a Nether Gatekeeper. Why?

I believe I made my feelings on this subject clear. Vualla refused to budge.

We will die otherwise. Your Randidly Ghosthound will be quite sad to see you gone.

Even so. I… I’m willing to die for this Path. I can be strong without stealing life from others.

It is absolute nonsense to try and hold your own life hostage to threaten me. I have taken control of your body already. There is nothing you can do to stop me.

Vualla couldn’t resist the laugh that was bubbling up out of her chest. It was your own words. You need me. Not the other way around. I don’t understand what is going on with you… but I won’t just let you desecrate my choices. This is my body.

The darkness had considered that for several long moments. While the discussion was going on, darkness-Vualla had been focused on defending herself but was largely smashed back and forth by the strikes of the Nether Gatekeepers. Due to the pressure, she had to constantly give up ground. If she gave up much more, some of the average Aether soldiers would become involved.

And then the darkness spoke again, with an answer that surprised Vualla.

...fine.

Vualla’s body seemed to shiver and then she had stepped forward and swung her fist. This time, Vualla could see how the darkness controlled every minute detail of her body. True to her reputation as the most ingenious manipulator of energy in the history of the System, the darkness-Vualla created destruction just from the mechanical movements of her body. When the punch smashed into the Nether Gatekeeper in front of her, it was strong enough to knock the Nether Gatekeeper backward.

Again the darkness controlled Vualla’s body like a puppet, but the direction and application of force was so close to perfection that suddenly Vualla’s body seemed to have transformed into something that she didn’t recognize. Yet the darkness binding her body didn’t reach for the death energy again; it was content just using her movements.

Perhaps Vualla’s shock had been extremely obvious because the darkness answered her unanswered question. It is not that I agree with your decision. But we… are one and the same, bound by the same karma. I can certainly… respect your wishes while I use this body.

Then the darkness had controlled Vualla to look upward. Besides… my existence is just… one half of this. The other portion of myself is already utilizing the grand formation that I created along the frontlines to accomplish our goals. But you will be glad that she is because without that strength, we would not stop Eliot.

Vualla’s body shook, even through the darkness’s control as Vualla heard the response and could sense the truth of it in their intimate connection. Eliot… my brother…?

Then a surge of sadness and confusion ran through Vualla even as she was aware of her body methodically beginning to push back the surrounding Nether Gatekeepers.. But he’s… did Ileot copy him too…? I should have remembered… he already died long ago. He’s already-

With every movement, the darkness grew more adept at controlling the force through Vualla's body. Her sharp image of physical destruction running through her muscles got stronger and stronger. As it became more dominant in the fight against the Nether Gatekeepers, the darkness hummed and seemed to be considering something.

...I suppose there is no harm in this truth. Our brother Eliot truly did die all those years ago… but not before discovering his true strength. He was always a boy interested in fantasy, did you remember? Locked in his room, devouring books. Until the day he was forced to follow in his brothers’ footsteps and fight on the frontlines. There, at the moment of his death, his desires morphed into an extremely twisted image. With the full realization that he would die, he gave himself another chance; he duplicated his life and became Ileot.

He… copied himself…? Vualla frowned. Then why did he copy me now? And why didn’t he say anything? And these other copies-

The darkness had shaken itself softly. You are missing the terrible symmetry of his power. Eliot, and Ileot Swacc after him never simply duplicated people. Ileot Swacc’s game is duplicating entire worlds.