* * *
Clarisse stared at my current formless self.
Yes, my former vessel.
Discarded hardware.
It was cooling rapidly, a useless husk now that the data transfer was complete.
Inside this new skull—Clarisse's skull—my mind was already running diagnostics, processing data at incredible speed on an unfamiliar operating system. The host's biological responses were erratic; her panic was inefficient.
I raised this hand—smaller, softer, weaker than my last one—and wiped a warm splash of blood from the cheek.
[GET OUT! STOP MOVING MY HAND!]
[THAT'S MY OWN BLOOD, YOU LOWLY TRASH!]
I ignored the background noise. I forced the unfamiliar facial muscles to obey my command. They resisted for a microsecond before curling into a half-smile.
felt foreign on this innocent face, a cruel twist of features that had never known true calculation. Perfect.
Reborn? No. That implies some spiritual nonsense.
Instead, I migrated.
And yes, that's true.
Into Clarisse's vessel.
Exactly.
The integration was jagged, incomplete—I could feel the edges of her consciousness scraping against mine—but the critical territory was already seized.
Her heart was beating frantically against my ribcage, a pathetic, terrified bird. I clamped down on it with an iron will, forcing the organ into a steady, strategic rhythm. The trembling in my new hands ceased instantly. I wouldn't tolerate such weakness.
I narrowed these wide, tear-filled eyes until the vision blurred and refocused into something sharp. Something icy. They were weapons now.
"My, my..."
I tested the audio output. The timbre was hers—soft, high-pitched, irritatingly meek.
But the cadence I forced through that throat was pure poison.
It was the sound of the apex predator who had been finally stepping out of the shadows of the code and into the meat space. Finally embracing her current self.
I looked at the empty air where the almighty System had just imploded, annihilated by my paradox, and let the words drip with satisfying arrogance.
"Now look..."
"Who has been defeated by her own silly game?"
Here is the scene rewritten to emphasize Yui's cold, possessive perspective, treating the body as an asset and the former owner as an uninvited occupant.
"Clarisse."
I spoke her name aloud, testing the vocal cords of this new vessel. The sound was soft, breathy—entirely too weak—but the power behind it was mine. It felt surreal to command a throat that wasn't currently choking on its own blood.
"Your stress was highly effective," I murmured, the words smooth and clinical.
"Thank you for the quick transfer. I really appreciate it."
I felt the parasite flinch behind my eyes, a pathetic ripple of horror in the subconscious.
I ignored it. I had work to do.
I flexed the fingers of my new left hand.
The bone structure was subtle, the skin uncalloused and soft—delicate compared to the scarred hands I'd just left behind. But the response time was perfect. The cold clarity of being back in the driver's seat was more than just a relief; it was intoxicating.
For the first time since the paradox began, the world wasn't a blur of dying static.
The air in the cavern felt sharp.
My thoughts were no longer dragging through the mud of a failing heart.
Yes, I was awake.
But this time, I was the pilot.
"And for as long as I could keep this parasite's pulse from settling, I was in absolute control."
I stepped over the cooling wreckage of my former self, my stride measured and predatory. The cavern felt smaller now, not because the walls had moved, but because I had expanded to fill the space.
"And no one could ever stop me," I whispered, the words echoing with a dual-layered resonance that made the shadows crawl. "Not even the God of this world."
The parasite surged in the back of my mind, a pathetic, frantic heat.
[You're insane! You're talking about Gods? You're just a ghost in a shell! A mistake!]
A mistake that killed your self, parasite.
I countered, my internal voice a razor-thin blade.
"God? It was a messy, illegal operation. I have deleted the crime case."
"I have executed the warrant. Now..."
I tilted the head—Clarisse's head—to the side, a slow, clinical movement. I could feel the tendons in the neck stretch, a physical reminder of the hardware I now owned.
"I am writing my own report investigation. And in my version..."
I stepped out into the light, my eyes narrowing as they scanned the landscape for the next target, the next lead, the next suspect.
"...there is only one and absolute law."
I reached the exit of the cave, where the jagged horizon of the new world met the sky. I felt the parasite's terror spiking—a delicious, acidic stress that acted like a stabilizer for my grip on her nerves. As long as she hated me, as long as she feared what I would do next, she was providing the very fuel I needed to keep her locked in the passenger seat.
I raised our hand toward the rising sun, watching the light filter through the translucent skin of the fingers.
"The System is dead,"
I told the wind, my half-smile widening into something truly chilling.
"Long live the System."