[Do you understand what you have agreed upon?]
"Yes," I muttered. The sound of my voice startled me.
[Do you understand what it costs?]
"I do," The words left my lips, as if they possess a voice of their own, "I have offered myself as a sacrifice. My life, my end. I've given it all."
[Then hear the terms as they are made complete.]
[You have offered continuity]
[You have offered selfhood]
Each sentence pressed itself into my awareness like a seal being set.
[In return, you shall not contradict what is revealed to you.]
[You shall not persist in falsehood once truth has taken root.]
[Each wisdom received shall overwrite the self that denies it.]
[Each insight shall narrow the shape of who you may yet become.]
And then it happened.
The world split. Suddenly, the "I" that thought and the "I" that breathed were no longer the same person. I suddenly became a spectator of my own biology. I stood directly in front of "me", observing the slump of my shoulders and the vacant, glassy stare of my own eyes.
I was the reflection, looking back at a ghost made of meat. But it wasn't the face of Claude Belmont staring back.
It was my true self. My original self.
It was jarring. The "me" that stood there wasn't the sickly, failing vessel I had grown to resent. This version was vibrant with skin clear, eyes sharp, possessed by a terrifying, healthy vitality. I was staring at the greatest "what if" of my life, a living monument to a path I wasn't able to take.
'Was this the right choice? Tell me,' I demanded.
It didn't respond.
It's laughable. Why am I even asking such stupid question? Obviously, no one can answer that, even myself... I was looking for absolution from a man who didn't exist. I was screaming at a phantom.
A hand snapped into existence, reaching out to me. As it reached out, it didn't simply touch me. I saw the indentation her thumb made in my cheek. I saw the way my head lolled slightly toward her palm.
[Swear it.]
[Swear your life and the continuity of your self.]
[Offer all that you are, and all that you would yet become.]
It spoke, my voice whispered but unwavering: "I swear it."
[Thus, it is bound.]
[Henceforth, you shall carry what has been bestowed.]
Something had changed irreversibly. Something had begun. The sense of imbalance, the quiet pressure all faded into the background.
Then the voice returned, distant yet intimate, divine and absolute:
[But each gift demands its cost: the fragments of your former self shall yield to what you have sworn.]
[You shall not contradict what is granted. You shall not resist what is given.]
I felt it then.
First Bestowal: Knowledge.
[I shall bestow understanding beyond the limits of this world.]
[I shall grant sight where ignorance once sheltered you.]
And I knew it then. I was observed. Not merely by her, but by something greater, older, and indifferent: the God of Separation, the arbiter of all that is divided. Its presence was neither cruel nor kind. It existed to enforce the inevitable: what must be lost, what must be given, and what must never return.
Second Bestowal: Vessel.
[I shall bestow a container capable of enduring the Absolute.]
[I shall grant a frame that does not shatter when truth is poured within.]
The sensation was terrifyingly hollow.
It felt as though the "inner" parts of me: the organs, the heat, the messy vulnerabilities of being human were being scoured out to make room. I wasn't becoming "more"; I was being emptied and reinforced.
Third Bestowal: Authority.
Divided. Paths from outcomes. Self from self. What was claimed… from what must be abandoned. The God of Separation stirred.
[That which you name apart shall remain apart.]
[That which you sever shall not rejoin without cost.]
I understood then: this was not meant to conquer, but power meant to decide. And every decision would leave something behind.
Fourth Bestowal: Perception.
The sound of droplets echoed. I looked down to find a pool of crimson liquid widening between my feet. When I touched my face, my fingers was coated with something slick and hot. My eyes were weeping with blood. Through the haze of blood, I saw it: a complex, crystalline web of invisible wires etched into the space around me.
[All that is hidden shall be revealed to the one who bears the oath.]
Fifth Bestowal: Control.
I understood the mechanics of influence, of subtlety, of cause shaping effect. Not as a power to dominate blindly, but as a principle. Every action, every choice, every reaction: each threads stretched out before me, that I could tug, redirect, guide.
[The one who swears may shift the path, but never escape the cost.]
My body, my mind, my decisions; all now instruments bound to the laws of the oath. I felt myself divided again. A portion of instinct, of spontaneity, quietly surrendered to the mandate of the contract.
Sixth Bestowal: Continuity.
This tide pressed inward, deeper than the others. The time itself constrict, expand, and mold around me. Choices, consequences, the very march of existence threaded into me.
[All that you are shall flow forward. All that you gain shall define what you may yet become.]
The God of Separation watched, patient, impartial, as this bestowal sealed the structure of my existence. I was no longer merely me. I was a vessel of sequence, of inevitability, of division, and what remained of my former self would follow the rules of the oath.
Seventh Bestowal: Irreversibility.
The shape of possibility itself. I felt doors seal behind every choice I had ever made. There would be no undoing.
[What is sworn may not be unsworn.]
[What is begun shall not return to its origin.]
All of it, closing.
A version of myself that once hesitated quietly vanished.
Eighth Bestowal: Witness.
I was no longer alone inside my own existence.
Every action I took carried weight, simply not out of morality, not emotionally, but ontological. I felt myself being observed not as a subject, but as a process.
[You shall be known to the structures that endure.]
[Your choices shall leave marks where gods may read them.]
I understood then: I could no longer pass unnoticed through the world. Even in silence, even in isolation, I would be counted.
It did not judge.
It recorded.
Ninth Bestowal: Sovereignty.**
Something shifted.
For the first time, something was given back.
I felt it settle around me, not dominance, not control over others, but ownership of self under law
[You shall remain unclaimed, save by covenant alone.]
[You shall kneel to no force that has not paid its price.]
This was not freedom.
This was recognized authority.
Even the God of Separation acknowledged it, not as mercy, but as balance. What was taken demanded structure. What was shaped required boundaries.
I was no longer an object of the contract alone.
I was now a participant within it.
Tenth Bestowal: Separation.
It passed through me.
I felt the boundaries of things: the edges between self and other, cause and effect, promise and betrayal. I could sense where connections strained, where bonds would break, where division was inevitable.
And worse—
Where it was necessary.
[You shall know what must be severed.]
[And you shall not confuse loss with cruelty.]
The God of Separation's presence deepened, not closer, but clearer. For the first time, I understood:
This god did not exist to destroy.
It existed to prevent false unity.
[Final Bestowal: Completion]
The God of Separation did not speak immediately. When it did, the words were not instruction, nor warning—it was declaration.
[All that could have stood apart from this path has been severed.]
[Let no self remain that may stand in contradiction.]
This was not a gift.
This was completion.
The version of me that could have turned away and complain—
The version that could have begged, regretted, or broken faith—
Had been cleanly, perfectly divided from what I now was.
Not destroyed.
Separated.
[Let it be known: the God of Separation watches, measuring all that is divided, all that is given, and all that is lost.]
For the first time in a long time, I wasn't trapped in a place by the limits.
[By the Severed Path, I grant you, your true name: ■■■■■■■■]
For the first time, and the only time, the true name was permitted to exist.
[ Wear it as a crown of glass, or a shroud of iron. ]
The world rushed back in a violent surge of color and heat. Everything collapsed into a single, terrifyingly precise point of existence. I stood alone in the quiet, the blood on my face now nothing more than a memory of a price paid.
"By the law of the exchange," I declared, "I grant you back what you have taken. I name you..."
What name should I give her...? Her face... remined me the beauty of the moon.
"I name you Diana."
[ It is... accepted. ]
I felt alive, like carrying a second skin.
I was moving forward.
And for now, that was enough...