abcnovels
Chapter 635 The Source
Chapter 635 The Source
Chapter 635 The Source
“Hello, Marco,” whatever was inhabiting Ayaka said in its distant, echoing voice.
Fleet Admiral Bianchi simply stared back, irritation written across his face. “And who, or what, are you?” he said in an overly calm tone.
“I am....” the being wearing Ayaka tilted her head as if listening to a distant sound. “He wakes.” She floated, still cross-legged in the air, to Joon-ho’s side.
Joon-ho’s eyes fluttered, then snapped open and he sat up with a gasp. He looked around for a moment in wide-eyed panic, then, upon realizing where he was, visibly calmed himself. “So I’m not dead yet, am I?”
“No, child. You’re still very much alive,” Ayaka’s passenger said, stroking Joon-ho’s hair. “And I am... glad, that you are.”
Joon-ho looked at Ayaka for the first time since waking up—really looked—and out of all expectations, merely said, “I’m dreaming, aren’t I. Very funny, Proxima. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
{Had what in me, Warrant Officer Lee?} the AI interjected.
“Wait... this isn’t a dream?”
“No, child, you’re very much awake,” the glowing Ayaka said.
Fleet Admiral Bianchi glared at the glowing figure. “We need to talk,” he interjected. “But first, release my Commander this instant!”
“I am she, she is me. We are Laifu. I cannot release her because there is nothing to release. We are one, just as this dear child is one with gravity.”
“You’re what now?” the admiral snarled. “What did you do with Commander Takahashi!?” He grabbed the glowing figure by her—its—uniform jacket and pulled hard, but Laifu didn’t move.
“Calm yourself, Marco. Ayaka is fine, there was just something I needed to do and I used her hands to do it. But you’re right,” she said, her voice collapsing in on itself and discarding the echoes until only Ayaka’s familiar sound remained. “We do need to have a discussion.”
“My ready room, then,” the admiral growled, then stalked off on his way to the flag bridge. If it wasn’t one headache, it was another! Oh, how he wished they would come one at a time, but such was the burden of command.
“Ayaka” offered an enigmatic smile to Joon-ho, then serenely floated after the admiral.
......
Elsewhere.
§Welcome to the source, Ayaka,§ a voice said from somewhere within the mists Ayaka was trapped within.
“Who’s there?” she said, leaping to her feet. The unexpected sound had startled her and she felt odd that her heart didn’t seem to be beating fit to escape her chest. Then she realized her heart wasn’t beating at all.
§Don’t worry, you aren’t dead. This is your astral body, and astral bodies are the truest representation of the self. You need no heart, no blood, no bone, no flesh here. You only need yourself, and your representation of that self is reflected in your form. Here, form is all that matters. It is not reflected by nor does it reflect function and function is lacking entirely, needing, as you do, only the form.§
It might have been just her imagination, but Ayaka thought she heard a smile in the voice.
§Indeed, Ayaka. Were I to take form and limit myself that way, I would have been smiling.§
“Are you reading my mind?” Ayaka asked, then recalled her training on what to do if she came across a mind reader. In her conscious mind, she began reciting the digits of pi by dividing 22 by 7.
§No, Ayaka. I don’t need to read your mind, because I am you and you are me. We are Laifu. We are in the source, child,§ Laifu said.
“Source? What’s that?”
§It is the source. The root of my power and the branch. The beginning and the end, and all things between. The source is the source, child,§ Laifu patiently explained.
Ayaka was only more confused by the explanation and decided to switch gears. “You said by taking form, you limit yourself. What did you mean by that?”
§Form does not follow the function, nor does function follow the form. Cause and effect are meaningless in the source. By limiting myself, I move from singularity to singular and cease to exist there in order to only exist here.§
“My head hurts,” Ayaka groaned.
§Impossible. To hurt is a function and function does not exist here, only form.§
“It was a saying, Laifu,” Ayaka sighed. “Would limiting yourself allow you to better communicate with a limited being like me?”
§Yes, and no. You are not limited. We cannot be limited. I am you, you are me. We are we. But yes, perhaps understanding could better be achieved were limitations implemented.§
The mist began thinning, then an instant, a second, an hour, or perhaps an eternity later, dwindled into the form of a humanoid female. She looked like a cross between Hatsune Miku and Deedlit, with long, blue hair in high pigtails that swayed with the movement of her head all the way down to her knees and long ears that tapered to a sharp point sweeping back from the sides of her head. Her face was heart shaped, with high, chiseled cheekbones tapering down to a narrow chin below a small mouth with thin lips. Her nose was pert and turned up at the tip and her phoenix eyes were turned up at the ends. Her eyebrows were thin and perfectly contoured to the shape of her brow.
She was relatively short, at around 151 centimeters tall, and slender, with a boyish, athletic figure, though she was still relatively generously endowed with D-cup breasts; they looked larger than they were, given her overall petite form.
Laifu opened her eyes. “Is that better, Ayaka?” she said with a smile.
“Much. Can you explain things now that you’re... singular?”
“Yes. This is the source, the wellspring of eternity. It’s where our power springs from, the power that your species is only now learning to tap into.”
“You mean mana?”
Laifu nodded. “That is what you call it, yes. Mana. This is where it begins and ends.”
“Am I dead?” Ayaka asked.
“No, child, you’re not dead,” Laifu said, then giggled. “I am the personification of life, of course you’re not dead.”
“So why am I here?”
“I needed Joon-ho to live, and you cared for him.”
“It’s that simple?” Ayaka sneered. Nothing was free, and she was convinced that someone would have to pay Laifu’s price somehow.