Studies into the mental health of a samurai is always interesting. Most Samurai are usually young, on the brink of death, and have to fight a lot of aliens when they are initialised; it would be strange to think that they are mentally sounds after all that. That is not even speaking about the fact that the only one they can talk to at most times is some alien creature that is stuck in their head.

It is of no wonder then that most samurai, in the eyes of the common observe,r seem rather strange after all that, if not downright insane.

-- An advertisement to create more awareness for samurai mental health, by the Purple Truth.

Once the priest has finished looking over my wounds and bandaging a good chunk of my face, he takes me upstairs. There are quite a few children cramped together in this small space. Thankfully, they don’t look like they have been abused or are extremely malnourished. Just the normal amount of malnourishment you would expect from undercity people. The amount that makes it hard to guess how old someone is because everyone is small.

“And this will be your room,” the priest says as he knocks on a door before opening it.

The room has two bunk beds and two small desks crammed into a small space. Clothes and other items are thrown around the room haphazardly. There are two other girls inside the room. One is sitting on her bed, brown curly hair going every which way as she stares into space, while the other, a girl with short black hair, is sitting behind one of the desks reading some kind of book. Both of them look up as we walk in.

“Ashley, Skylar, this is Evelin. She will be staying here for a while. Please make sure she feels welcome,” Father Donovan says as he shows me inside. “If you need me, I'll be downstairs. I still have some stuff to take care of,” he says before leaving

I look at the two girls. “Hey, nice to meet you,” I say a bit awkwardly.

“You look like a model 6 stomped on you,” Ashley says, jumping down from the top bunk, her brown eyes staring at me intently.

“For all I know, that is what happened,” I say, a bit taken aback by the girl's sudden closeness.

“You don’t remember?” Ashley asks in surprise.

“Yeah, everything is a bit foggy. Honestly, now that I think of it, I might have hit my head when I fell into the undercity,” I say with a bit of doubt.

“You are from the surface?” Ashly asks excitedly as she grabs my hands. “Are you important? Are people going to look for you?”

I pause, surprised at the sudden outburst. “Maybe. Why are you asking?”

“The force field, of course,” she says, smiling.

“The force field?” I mirror her in confusion..

“Yeah, there is one around the entire undercity, basically trapping us in here, and even the new saints can’t break it open. We can’t even ask for help since all signals are blocked. But if you are here, people might come looking,” she says, bouncing up and down.

“I see. That definitely can happen,” I say with a smile. I have two girlfriends, after all, who will probably start looking for me.

“That is great,” she says, jumping up and down.

I smile. “Uhm, sorry to cut this conversation short, but I feel really tired. Would you mind if I rest for a bit?”

Ashley’s eyes go wide. “Right, of course, that makes sense.” Then she looks at me. “I think we are the same size, so I can lend you one of my pyjamas. No offence, but your clothes are kind of falling apart.”

I nod. “Thank you, that would be amazing.”

Ashley goes into one of the dressers, takes out some pink clothes, and gives them to me. I accept them and start to undress.

I hear Ashley gasp. “You have some cool tattoos.”

I blink with my one remaining eye. “Tattoos?” I ask, surprised.

Ashly points at a mirror, and I take a look at myself. She is right, on both of my underarms I have a tattoo of a sword pointing downwards. When the hell did I get those? I poke at them only to realise that my skin feels different on the black spots, harder and firmer.

“Would you look at that? I do have tattoos?” I say, not exactly sure how to feel. I don’t hate them, but I still feel a bit violated about my body being changed without my input.

“You don’t remember getting them?” Skylar asks, looking up from her book.

“I don’t remember a lot of things,” I say offhandedly.

“Do you have amnesia?” Skylar asks, a bit surprised.

I look at them both, then just shrug. ”No, it is something else. I think it was called dislocated identity disorder or something like that.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“What is that?” Ashley asks, a bit confused.

“Dissociative, not dislocated! It means that she has multiple people in her head and that she can’t always remember what the other person does,” Skylar says.

I look at her. “You know about it?” I ask, hoping that she has some more answers.

“Yeah, it is not all that rare,” she says. “You don’t?”

“Honestly, I don’t know much, but I am learning from my experiences,” I say a bit awkwardly.

“I guess that makes sense. Have you talked much to your headmates?” Skylar asks.

“Talked, how?”, I ask, a bit surprised.

“I don’t know. I am no expert, but in most cases, you can at least communicate with each other a bit.”

“I should really try that sometime. Being left in the dark is not a good feeling,” I say.

“I will help you if I can, but I don’t know much, and since we have no internet, we can’t really look anything up,” Skylar says with a smile.

I nod. “Thanks, I'll think about it for now. Which of these bunks is mine? I am about to fall over.”

“Top left is the only one that is not taken,” Ashley points.

I thank them both, then climb up, crawling under the blanket, but before I can close my eyes, I decide that I still need one more thing.

‘Lyssa, is there anything I can buy that would help me talk to the other me?’

Lyssa can give you a cocktail of drugs proven to induce a certain amount of lucidity that allows alters to speak to one another.

‘Okay, lets do this right now.’

Certainly.

New Purchase: Tranquil Mind Palace

Points reduced to... 84,191

I suddenly start to feel drowsy and almost instantly fall asleep. I am woken up by the ping. I look around at all the colours flying around me. I walk forward each of my steps, generating a new pattern of different colours. I suddenly walk into something invisible making a indignant squawk as I rub my nose

“Ouch, what in the mother of all Protectors is this place?” I say out loud.

“It is pretty, right?” A voice suddenly says.

I jump up in surprise and turn to see a familiar girl lounging on a stroke of green colour.

“Who are you?” I ask, still a bit out of it.

“Me? I am Maniac. Your trusty roommate.” the girl says, laughing softly to herself.

I pause. I thought I was Maniac, right? That makes some sense. “Can we talk?” I ask nervously, but determined to get the answers.

“Of course, that is why we are here.”

It is strange that she somehow radiates this cold determination, making me feel safe. It is like I somehow know that she will always be there to protect me. But also that she is dangerous enough that having that feeling actually means something

“What is this place?” I ask, looking around again.

I hear Maniac laugh. “How am I supposed to know? This is also my first time here, probably just a space where random thoughts collide, or something, or the drugs you took did a real number on us. Who knows?”

I laugh. “Okay, that is unfair. You take way more drugs than I ever did.” I say, looking at the maniac who is laughing to herself, finally speaking up about what has been bothering me. “I don’t like this.”

“The situation is not ideal, that is for sure, but it is not all bad. I would never do something that would be against you.” Maniac reassures me, somehow knowing exactly what I mean with that statement.

“What about the tattoos?” I say, showing her my arms.

“That was an emergency, and Lyssa assured me the effects could be reversed if you did not like it.” she says, raising her hands in a placating gesture.

I pause. “I guess that is fine, but I still don’t like not knowing what is happening.”

Maniac tilts her head as she brings one of her hands to her chin in a thinking gesture. “What about our digital brain?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, what if we use it to record our memories, so that whoever is in control can access those memories, basically removing the blank spaces.”

I nod. “That could work. You think that it is possible?”

I feel the uncertainty radiate off her. “Not sure, but we do have a lot of points, so we can probably ask.”

“Right, points. What should we do with those?” I ask, a bit awkwardly. Since Maniac does all the fighting, I feel like I don’t have much of a right to them.

Suddenly, she disappears, appearing next to me as she wraps her arms around me. “It’s okay. What is mine is yours.” she says as she strokes my hair.

I’m surprised at first, but quickly meld into the overwhelming feeling of protection and security that she radiates. It makes me feel safe, something I have not felt in a long time. We stay like this for a while, just staying close, not saying much of anything, and enjoying the safety.

“Thank you.” I say after collecting myself and wiping the tears away. “We should still decide what we are going to do with the points.” I choose to address the simplest problem first.

Maniac shrugs. “I guess that is true. Well, besides the memory, I would like a new mask and a weapon since I kind of need those to do anything useful.”

I blush. “Sorry, I kind of gave your swords away.”

I feel her cold hand pat my head. “It is fine. I think that was not a fight we could have won. I mean, one person with a samurai gun almost killed us already. I don’t like our odds against an army of them.”

“Do you need anything else?” I ask, still a bit embarrassed but feeling a lot better about it now.

“A new eye, but I feel like you have more specific requirements for one than I have, so you should pick one out. It is not like I need my eyes to see any more.” she says.

I smile. “Thank you. I guess that is all, then?”

“Yeah, we should still try to save as many points as we can, we might need to buy something expensive to get out of here.”

I nod. “Yeah, that makes sense” I pause. “What about other things?”

“You will need to be more specific.” Maniac says in a soft voice.

“Like, how do we decide who is in control when?” I ask.

“When there is a fight, I am in control. When we need to hack something or talk to people, you are in control.” she says, as if it is the most logical thing in the world.

“That is fair, but what about other times when we are just living?”

Even though I can’t see it, I feel Maniac smile at me. “I would like it if I were in control once in a while. I don’t know if my feelings are inherited from you or are my own, but I would like some time with both Cierra and Bubbles as well.”

I frown. “I guess, but should we tell them about this.” I say, gesturing between us, starting to feel unsure.

“That would be the smart thing to do. I don’t think deceiving them is a good idea.” Maniac says.

I pull up my knees against my chest, hugging myself. “What if they only like one of us?”

“You are afraid that they won’t like you?”, Maniac asks, at the same time putting an arm around my shoulder.

“Maybe? I mean you are this super warrior fighting monsters. Compared to that, I am just a nerd.” I say, while looking at the ground.

Maniac laughs. “I guess that is true, but I would like to remind you that Cierra fell in love with that nerd, and not the warrior.”

“That is true, but what about Claire?”

“I have my suspicions that Bubbles’ thoughts are not as cute as her appearance suggests, so we should be fine.”

“But what if they don’t accept us as we are?” I ask, still a bit unsure.

“Then, would you prefer to get rid of me instead?”

I feel cold fear grip me as I think about the possibility. “No! Never, you… You are important. I don’t know exactly why, but I could never get rid of you.”

Maniac pulls me closer. “Then we will figure it out together. We are more than smart enough.”