In front of his home, Noctis hesitated slightly as his hand stretched out for the doorknob.
It wasn't the same house, nor did the door look like his old one, but an old, now-refreshed memory stopped him just for a moment.
"This is stupid," He spoke in a dismissive way.
At the same moment, his hand finally stretched out and reached the knob, slowly turning it. The shadow of hesitation still gnaws at the back of his mind like an unseen ghost. It felt almost like there was something waiting behind that door.
When it finally opened, there was nothing. A silent, illogical hope quickly left him.
Well, what did I expect?
He shook his own head in exasperation as he strode in with wide strides.
The apartment was a bit bigger than his stay at the academy, and a lot bigger than his shared one with Stone. Considering that this one was rented only by him, rather than in a shared apartment, it was a huge step up.
As a whole, it had three rooms, including a bedroom filled with all of his things and equipped with a window offering a beautiful view. The beautiful view of the dark grey cement wall of the towering building beside it, placed only ten meters away. At least one could see the torrential winds that came with the height of his apartment.
Then there was the small and mostly barren living room, which he had yet to equip with any of his sparse possessions. A comfortable-looking chair, Captain Darron had recommended a small table placed in front, where a few books lay stacked atop.
And most importantly, the luxury he did not ever want to give up: again, a bathroom.
He simply could not go back to a community, toilet, and bath. It was so incredibly unhygienic, constantly smelled like shit, and the fluids that covered the floor could not be distinguished between piss and normal water.
Not wanting to think about those awful days, Noctis took a comfortable seat he had bought a while ago, rested his left leg on a table placed in front, and pulled out a book from a stack of others of its kind. His leg had miraculously healed without leaving even the smallest of scars, but this did not mean there were no repercussions.
At the very least, Noctis had to let it rest for a while. According to the doctor, the treatment they used could not be repeated in quick succession. To add to this, his leg would become more brittle and weaker in the coming days. Summarizing, he was to let his leg rest during that span of time.
All things considered, this was a great trade from Noctis's perspective, even with the small downsides.
Well, "downsides" sounded a bit harsh, considering he had first believed that they would amputate the leg. Now he was simply walking away with the doctor's orders to take it easy.
It was basically a free vacation. He just had to get himself brutally beaten for it.
Nahh, who was he kidding with this? Not himself at the very least.
At most, he'd have spared himself from more physically grueling tasks for a while, and even that only to a limited extent. Considering how they worked him to the bone since first starting half a year ago, this seemed most likely.
Musing inwardly, Noctis' eyes wandered over the book he held in his hand, his expression growing complicated.
The book title "Split Souls".
It was a truly weak attempt at better understanding his relationship with Ouroboros. And its existence as a whole.
Maybe to find a way to restrict him aswell… DAMIT, dont think about it directly!
Let the books know that this is simply a precaution and nothing more!
Noctis tried to tread lightly and avoid thinking such thoughts. But learning about something without directly thinking about its contents was more difficult than one would expect.
By this point, he knew some of the limits of that cursed book, but constantly treading on the limit and controlling every thought… Turned out to be more difficult than expected.
He had experimented a bunch with the contents of the book, and what exactly was written in it. It was truly a peculiar experience to read one's own thoughts as one thought them.
Of course, he could simply forbid Ouroboros from reading the awful thing, and he had to to a certain extent. But who was to say he would listen forever? And how could he tell if he wasn't just pretending to listen?
Noctis had not assessed Ouroboros as the manipulative kind. He thought of him even as a dullard at times, but who could say what was behind the facade?
Noctis wasn't arrogant enough to fully trust his intuition. Only an arrogant fool would do so.
As he read, his mind focused on not letting his thoughts drift too wildly or in any malicious direction.
This wasn't the first, nor would it be the last, he would read. It was not that he had no findings, just that everything he had read about… didn't perfectly fit what he was experiencing.
Some things sort of sounded like what Ouroboros had told him. Others did not do so much.
At this point, he just felt stuck.
Most of the books he could rent at the government facilities focused on change, heart, and destiny, while time and space were a bit sparser.
The information on fate was the least represented of them all, right next to death, woefully insufficient and far too sparse. While the information he did get was at best incomplete, and, at worst, was built out of one-liners that Noctis felt the ones who wrote them did not understand the contents themselves.
The whole search was a giant mess, which could only be topped off by the fact that many of the more in-depth books were restricted.
Rubbing his head without even noticing, annoyance building up while simply mulling it over.
After reading for a short while, Noctis casually placed the book back onto the stack of its brethren. His mood had already lowered because of that damn dream, so he had little patience at the moment.
Thinking about taking a quick nap, Noctis's many chores that were forming quite a mound ran through his mind.
"I should probably check on him before slacking off." Letting out a disgruntled sigh, he muttered to himself.
At the same time, Noctis stood up unenthusiastically, walked a few steps, and plopped back to the ground, hard ground.
Sitting there in a meditative position, a few thoughts couldn't help but intrude.
The floor was quite uncomfortable. Should he buy a mat of sorts?
On the side, the idea of standing up, only to sit down on the floor in a slightly changed position, is a bit redundant.
Can't I skip these steps and meditate on the chair straight off the bat?
Shaking off any more random whispers that he had heard a thousand times at this point, Noctis concentrated on the sensation weakly tugging at the back of his mind.
Closing his eyes, he could feel it faintly. It was stronger and louder than when he first felt it, yet it was still weak and inconsequential. Quite similar to the call, which had to this day only taken minuscule steps towards him. To him, it truly felt more like a whimper, a blocked-out voice, than a real call.
As he started collecting strings before his mind's eye, he felt little resistance as each individual illusory thread floated towards his outstretched palm, almost wrapping around it in a flimsy embrace, pulling him in. Back when he first began exploring his soulsea, the threads did not come to him so willingly.
Was it a side effect of the high progress of the souls' assimilation?
A more stable bridge was being erected between body and soul? Or was the barrier between the two being chipped away at?
The latter had been his personal theory so far, and from what his colleagues told him, they seemed to have similar experiences.
Either way, it wasn't important at the moment. Considering the speed of the changes were minute, almost unnoticeable even. As long as there wasn't any qualitative change when advancing between ranks, it wouldn't become relevant for years to come.
No longer resisting the sensation that had grown quite substantial after a large bundle of illusory threads gathered in his hand.
Plop.
Noctis' face made contact with the cold, shallow surface of a silent sea.
Disoriented for a brief moment, Noctis' gaze traveled back to a figure made of translucent, slightly murky, darkened water. Knelling exactly at the center of his soul, motionless, yet not lifeless.
It had a barely formed mouth, and watery still as ice hair hanging down, its length just stopping before the surface of the soulsea.
As Noctis stared at this mostly translucent figure, his foot still halfway submerged in it, he felt a peculiar connection to it. Hanging right above the figure was the golden web that once resembled a ginormous gondola, now on the verge of breaking the waters of his soul more than ever before.
It was so malformed at this point, creating a sharp funnel of sorts.
Just five meters away, holding a vast droplet of water, now streaming down drop by drop, hitting the figure from time to time. Just as it had formed.
It was quite the sight to behold.
Feeling a few barely noticeable ripples hit his rear, Noctis quickly freed his foot from the figure faintly resembling him and stood up.
As he pretended to wipe off the water that had, or should have been soaked up by his clothes. The action was more out of habit than necessity.
"Still having problems adjusting to the changes? Well, I can't blame you. I'm just as bad at that. Ha ha"
The lighthearted voice was a simple yet stark reminder of his failure to find a way to deal with the unwanted intruder. Mulling over his annoyance, the ripples evenly hitting the soles of his feet grew stronger by the second, hearaliding the arrival of his counterpart.
Seeing the white robe-like outfit, Noctis noted the similarities between it and the robe… no, kimono Little Lightning wore.
Was it a coincidence?
Shaking his head lightly, Noctis put on a friendly tone.
"So how have you been?"
Stopping beside Noctis, Ouroboros ' gaze wandered to the kneeling figure built of still water, which Noctis had crawled out of.
"I think you know how I've been. You really had your fun out there."
Walking over to the motionless figure, Ouroboros leaned forward slightly.
"I was really worried about this thing. You know, when your entire soul shook, it felt like the heavens were on the brink of falling down.
Just imagining the giant web above falling was frightening."
Noctis added to Oruboros' words, a bit of exasperation in his voice.
"Especially when it would first hit the physical manifestation of my humanity. My human core, so to speak."