I opened my eyes; I hadn't slept in rather a while, so this was an interesting surprise, finding myself in a different time and place then where I'd last closed them.
When I'd closed them, I was standing in the secondary living room of the Dallon residence.
When I opened them, I was now standing in a featureless black void, all alone... save for a snake, white at the head and black at the tail and fading through grey in between, the white head swallowing its own black tail.
"Oh," I said quietly. "Oh I'm insane insane."
"If that's what it takes to protect your ego," Ouroboros said, its voice not even slightly muffled by the tail in its mouth.
"You're my power, aren't you?" I asked. "I guess... I guess parahuman powers really are parasitic beings."
"Ah ah ah, symbiotic," Ouroboros said. "Or, well... Hrm. I suppose it depends on your point of view, doesn't it? Regardless, I'm just a little different from all the others. I'm not some alien who's latched onto your brainstem and become a part of you, because darling... I am you. I have been you, this entire time, and much, much longer. You remember, don't you?"
"I... I made you up," I said. "Or... no. Someone else made you up, in a workshopping session... and I ran with it. I brought this power to life in that story. But, that was fiction. You were never real."
"Of course, of course," Ouroboros said, nodding. "Fiction is all in your head. Now, remind me- where are your mental illnesses stored, again? Your thyroid? Or perhaps your spleen?"
"Cute. You think you're symbolic of something deeper within me."
"You think so too, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation," Ouroboros said, beginning to slither closer. "You recognize I have a point. That you really do go around in circles, never really changing beyond getting older and closer to the point where your unchanged behavior isn't survivable anymore."
"Fuck you," I said. "I went out and got a real job. I went back to college to get my Bachelor's Degree. And I have grown out of being a juvenile sex pest."
"Have you, though?" Ouroboros asked. "You just destroyed a relationship again, didn't you? You're twenty six years old, and yet you're still torn up about what happened in high school, and making the same mistakes. Because some part of you understands. You understand that you haven't really changed, that you're still the same person who did those things... and who could do them again." It coiled around me, eyes like a match behind an emerald boring deep into my own. "You will repeat this cycle, forever."
"...No," I said.
"No?" Ouroboros asked. "Oh, my word- no? I hadn't accounted for- Pft- Do you really think it's enough to just say 'no, I won't-' glk!"
I grabbed the snake by the throat, hauling it away from my face, and making it spit out its tail.
"No man steps in the same river twice," I said calmly. "He isn't the same man, and it's not the same river. Nothing is forever. Entropy always wins. Something has to give." I shrugged. "I'm not stupid, you know. It's hard. It really is hard to work through your trauma, to come to terms with it, to make your peace with what happened. But... well, I'm managing. Bit by bit. Day by day. Unevenly, and imperfectly, but... that I'm not doing that at all?" I shook my head. "I was doing that from before you were born. And... I've been doing it for nine years, now." I sighed. "I'm twenty six, little snake. I'm over you. So I'm going to wrap all this bullshit up in a neat little bow, and then... leave it behind."
"This... isn't... over..."
"It will be, soon enough. Goodbye."
I squeezed, until the snake's neck cracked, and its thrashing body finally went limp.
---
"...You can stop with the smelling salts," I said, opening my eyes to find myself laid out on the couch. "I'm fine."
"You passed out," Amy said. "That's generally pretty alarming."
"Are you sure you're- whoa!" Vicky stared at the empty patch of air I'd opened a tiny portal in, which the smelling salts had just gone through.
"Please get off of me," I said, with the unspoken threat of 'before I make you' remaining unspoken.
She did, nonetheless, and I pulled myself into a more normal sitting position.
"Ugh," I murmured. "Right, there was stuff I hadn't told you two. Well, while I was taking my little nap, I've managed to get myself together. So... let's start at the beginning: I'm not actually seventeen."
"...What?" Vicky asked.
"I'm pretty sure you are," Amy said, with the certainty of a medical professional who'd examined me very thoroughly quite recently.
"Nope," I said. "The short version of a very, very long story is that I am a reincarnation of an adult woman who is, depending on how you count, either twenty six or thirty three, or maybe even a hundred and fifty, because time dilation and being immortal and also Technically Undead means nothing is simple. I have been struggling with integrating those memories for the whole time I've known you, up until now, when it finally came into clarity, and I... well, I accepted who I was. But, uh... either way, Vicky, I'm sorry and I really do not mean any offense, but you are way too young for me, and I'm not interested in you in that way- nor should you want me to be."
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
"That's... a new one," Vicky said, carefully. "But..."
"But, this opens a whole other can of worms, some of which aren't even mine to spill," I said.
"...Can you at least tell me what happens next?" Vicky asked. "You're... You're not just my best friend, you're my only friend, besides maybe Amy."
"And I'm not going to completely cut contact with you, either," I said, reaching out and putting an assuring hand on her shoulder. "I have built and maintained an age-appropriate mentoring relationship with a girl your age before, and... well, you seem like you really need it, so I'll happily do it again. Especially if it's you- I did actually enjoy talking to you, after all."
Vicky just nodded, wordlessly.
"Also, Amy, I know we weren't terribly close before now, but... well, I'm offering the same deal," I said. "It also comes with a bunch of free shit, if you're interested in that, so."
"What kind of free shit are we talking?" Amy asked, folding her arms.
Wordlessly, I produced a box set of an ultratech laptop and a desktop mega-fabricator from the Warehouse, designed by my supergenius bullshit engineering Perk and made possible by my effective mimickry of Atom Eve's power, and handed it to Amy. The box was big enough to be impressive- "this clearly isn't just a throwaway toy"- while also being small enough that Amy, who barely cleared five feet tall, wasn't totally overwhelmed by its size.
"...I see," Amy said quietly, turning the box over in her hands.
"Can I also have material goods to fill the hole inside?" Vicky asked, before receiving an identical box, which seemed much smaller and more manageable in her arms, on account she was a full six feet tall.
"Now, let's see..." I hummed quietly. "...Alright, one last thing I need to give you two." I reached into my pocket, and pulled out a pair of Warehouse travel tokens, handing one to each Dallon sister. "Those are yours now, and will appear in your pocket whenever you need or want it. Just hold it in your hand and think about visiting me, and it'll open up a portal to the pocket dimension I call home, and where I keep all my stuff. I'll always be there to talk if you need it."
"Are we... not going to casually see you around anymore, or...?"
"No, it's... well, I can be in multiple places at once, so." I shrugged. "Although you probably will stop seeing me at Arcadia, because I hated being in high school the first time around, and I'm not feeling any better about it now that I'm a grown-ass adult. Anything else either of you need?"
"A pony," Amy said sarcastically. Nonetheless, she got the fucking pony. "Oh fuck I was joking, get that thing out of here before it shits on the carpet."
"As you wish," I said as I put the pony away.
"A hug would be nice," Vicky said, before wiping at her eyes.
"Sure thing, sport," I said, before standing up and wrapping her in a tight, matronly hug. Well, as matronly as I could manage while in the body of a seventeen year old boy. "I'm sorry about what happened, and I'm gonna do my best to make things right for you. But I have full faith in you, that you'll pull through this. Alright, Hija?"
"Alright..." Vicky said, sniffling. "I... I still don't speak Spanish, though..."
"De nada, Hija," I said. "Vas a aprender." I patted her on the head, then let go and stepped back. "Adios."
"Wait!" Vicky said. "Before you go... can you also... play that one song for me, again?"
"Which one?" I asked, nonetheless pulling out a guitar- a real one, not the hackjob travel guitar modeled after a half-remembered youtube video.
"The one with the Spanish singing," Vicky said.
"...Ah, that one," I said, nodding. "That one is called Vagrant Song, Southwest. And... sure, I can do that for you." I started to strum. "Pues voy a rayar, mi nombre, en los huesos de la tierra..."
---
"Ah, there you are," Karasuba said, sunbathing on the deck of a private cruise ship, crewed entirely by her own clone-drones, as it turned a lazy circuit about a hundred miles out from Point Nemo. "I was wondering when you'd finally get your shit together. Hope I didn't violate the prime directive too hard with that fight."
"No, no, that was... that was necessary," I said, shaking my head as I sat down on the chair next to her, having resumed my ordinary, not flat-chested form. I didn't resent Vicky needing more attention and care and, well, motherly love before she finally passed out, exhausted from the day's events, but I did resent spending all that time as a boy. "It helped me get more in touch with my out-of-Jump memories and powers, although... I thought of them as past lives for a while there. My power was to do with time, so..." I shrugged. "Made more intuitive sense than the truth, I suppose."
"Fair enough," Karasuba said, shrugging, before folding her hands behind her head.
"Does sunbathing actually do anything for you?" I asked. "I mean, I know with humans it causes tanning, but..."
"I actually don't know if Sekirei really tan, to tell you the truth," Karasuba said. "I just like the heat, and it's not like it can give me skin cancer."
"Fair enough," I said, shrugging.
"Now, I'm sure you didn't come all the way out here just to see my face again," Karasuba said. "What're you thinking about?"
"Well, among other things, I really, really missed you," I said. "But... okay, yeah, there's more to this than just that. I'm... thinking about what we do next, before our time on this world runs out."
"Yeah?" Karasuba asked. "Any ideas?"
"A few," I said. "I'm gonna build a time machine, so I can un-waste the past four months, and... uh... well, I'll probably do a more detailed analysis of the situation later. Gonna be honest with you, while Earth Bet is in a sorry enough state that simply killing a bunch of villains and monsters is enough to legitimately improve things, I do still have ambitions of making things, like... actually good, and not just less godawfully shitdark."
Karasuba nodded.
"Although, I do think capping this year off with a rematch could be a good idea," I said.
"...Oh?" Karasuba asked, opening an eye.
"Mhm. You finish out your list in December, and my public persona is there to try and stop you, thus the rematch," I said. "It'll wrap up Magpie's story of killing all the monsters, it'll wrap up my story of solving all the other big problems, and it'll be a nice, big fight where I pull out all the stops and you get to fight the real me, not my half-baked teenage self. How's that sound?"
"That sounds fucking amazing. I'm in."