Mordret watched the body float in the ocean amid heavy silence.
It was calm, as if the heat of the previous battle had never existed.
For a moment far too long, nothing happened.
Then the ocean began to react.
Small ripples formed around the corpse, as if the water itself were breathing unevenly. The dark surface touched Toshi's burned skin with almost tender delicacy… and then began to seep in.
Not like water, but like liquid shadow.
It slid through the nostrils, infiltrated the ears, entered through the half-open mouth. The body trembled violently, even without life, as if trying to cough it out.
Mordret remained still.
'We don't have all day.'
"Right…"
When he took the first step toward the corpse, the ocean responded, parting beneath his feet as if guiding him. With each step, fragmented echoes began to surface around him—disconnected voices, exaggerated laughter, the distant sound of someone shouting attack names with childish pride.
They were memories, all scattered or fragmented.
Mordret saw a childhood filled with obsessive training.
The constant need to prove he had value.
The childish desire to be seen as a great hero.
One memory in particular, where Toshi and a girl were excitedly talking about heroes, caught his attention.
"So, what's your catchphrase going to be?" the girl asked.
Toshi pursed his lips, thinking deeply, before his expression opened into a confident smile.
"It's going to be: It's fine now! Why? Because I am here!"
"And will you be my hero?" the girl asked, her cheeks slightly flushed.
Toshi turned red as a tomato before placing his hands on his hips in a heroic pose.
"You bet I will!"
The memory shattered.
Mordret extended his hand.
When his fingers touched the dead man's forehead, something broke.
There was no light.
There was darkness expanding inward.
Toshi's skin began to crack into thin fissures—not from the outside in, but from the inside out, as if something were trying to wear that human shape from beneath the flesh.
The body arched abruptly.
The eyes, once empty, rolled to look directly at Mordret.
The mouth opened.
And spoke.
"I am still here."
The voice did not echo in the air.
It echoed inside the mind.
For a second—only a second—Mordret felt resistance.
Not physical, but as if the Awakened's soul were clinging to the edges of its own being, refusing to be erased.
The ocean convulsed.
Waves rose violently, crashing into one another. The water grew thick, almost viscous, like blood diluted in darkness.
Mordret's hand pressed harder against the corpse's face.
The fissures spread across the entire body.
And then, slowly, the flesh began to come apart—not rotting, not burning—but unraveling into fragments of reddish light that detached like ashes in the wind.
Each fragment that touched Mordret did not disappear but fused deeply into him. It was as if they were becoming a single being.
He felt the other's bone structure align with his own.
Felt muscles that were not his connect to his nerves.
Felt duplicate heartbeats, out of rhythm, competing for dominance.
For an instant, two hearts beat within the same chest.
One pounded in panic, seeking not to be assimilated. The other beat coldly, as if no struggle mattered.
The memories began to blend.
He saw through Toshi's eyes.
Saw the moment he decided to destroy the portal.
Saw the conviction of delivering justice.
Saw the fear of facing the "monster."
And, for the first time, Mordret saw himself from the perspective of someone who genuinely believed he was saving the world.
Something inside him wavered for a moment—an instinct screaming for him not to do it.
Even so, Mordret did.
The final resistance came like a silent scream of pain, an indescribable terror hidden within the voice.
The entire ocean trembled.
And then… it gave in.
The second heartbeat vanished.
Toshi's body collapsed inward like a puppet without strings before dissolving completely into particles that were absorbed by the liquid surface.
When silence returned, Mordret was not exactly the same.
His posture had shifted slightly, darker somehow.
His fingers flexed as if testing new joints.
He breathed deeply, feeling the hot, heavy air.
Runes began to appear around him, one by one—but they did not form smoothly. They were torn from the water, as if being pulled by force from depths too deep.
[Name: Toshinori Yagi]
The letters trembled.
Soul Fragments: [1000/1000]
For a brief instant, the number flickered.
[1000/1000]
[—]
[1000/1000]
As if something had been consumed—but not entirely erased.
Flaw: [Eighth Grade Syndrome]
Description of Flaw: [Show everyone your strength!]
"That explains a lot…"
Mordret closed his eyes.
Inside him, echoes still whispered.
Pride in being a knight of Valor.
Desire for recognition.
The childish need to announce every strike.
He clenched his teeth.
"Silence."
The voices dimmed, but did not disappear completely.
When he opened his eyes again, the reflection in the ocean was not perfectly his.
For a fraction of a second, there were two gazes staring back.
Then they aligned.
Leaving only one.
It was the first body he had taken since the fusion.
A hollow laugh was born from deep within him.
Mordret inhaled slowly as the runes around him faded away.
The ocean returned to absolute silence.
He observed his own reflection in the water.
Then his voice spread across the infinite expanse of the sea:
"Do not fear…"
A pause.
A slow smile formed on his lips.
"Because I am here."
The ocean's surface rippled.