Randidly glanced sideways at Vualla, then looked at the grave in front of them. He shifted from foot to foot, wondering what to say to the lovely and exhausted woman next to him. But then the Grim Chimera stirred inside of him, urging him to stillness.

This was not a moment when Randidly should fill the air with words. Besides, Randidly felt so incredibly connected to Vualla as they stood side by side. There seemed to be a burning warmth running between them that filled the air with building electricity. It was along this connection that Randidly could so clearly feel the emotions that surged through Vualla.

Her exhaustion, her sadness, her hesitation… and a newer feeling, a deep guilt. But there was also a resolve in Vualla that had the Grim Chimera buzzing with energy.

Vualla interlocked the heavy fingers of her gauntlets and bowed her head in front of the grave of her father. Randidly stood beside her and waited, feeling a vast and vague guilt that was all his own swirling around in his chest. It would not be long until he could no longer avoid this issue.

No sooner had Randidly returned from the clash against the Nether Beasts with his Riders than Vualla had turned up and asked if they could talk. Seeing her solemn azure eyes and feeling the strange empathy that burned between them, Randidly was almost helpless to reject her. And he was also slightly shocked to notice that Vualla had somehow grown to possess five and a half stars. Despite the fact that that the array was currently engaged in its defensive mode.

But there were so many strange things pulling at Randidly’s attention, that was one that he let drift away as more pressing matters kept rearing their heads. Like the cauldron of emotions being mixed in his chest as he looked at the long, messy braid of azure hair down Vualla’s back.

So he had followed Vualla back out of the area between Lady Iellaya and Commander Terith’s camp, walking to the vast graveyard below headquarters.

Honestly, Randidly had walked past the graveyard before, but it was another thing entirely to walk amongst the tall graves for the Commander and the low pits they kept for the foot soldiers and remain calm. This place was heavy with death that even Tellus wasn’t able to match. And the difference was simply the depth of history that it had.

This place had seen too many souls perish. That energy seemed like a physical thing, weighing on Randidly and Vualla as they walked calmly toward their destination. Weirdly, the energy of it seemed to follow them, swirling like a building hurricane above their heads.

When they had arrived, Vualla had remained silent and Randidly did not begrudge her this. But as he stood before the grave of Vualla’s father, Randidly’s thoughts shifted from their current situation and turned ominous. Because he wondered whether, when he returned to Earth after fighting on the frontlines, he would need to bury his own father for his sins.

A man who so directly grew stronger from killing… likely, Ezekiel Ghosthound would love living on the frontlines. This was the sort of place where those dangerous impulses could be turned against a foe. But on Earth, especially while the planet was in a state of peace… that man was just a liability.

Randidly pressed his eyes together. But he did save that woman… I just wish I had more information-

“Are you alright?”

Blinking, Randidly looked around. Vualla was staring at him with her brow furrowed. That strange heavy energy of death that had been around them was abruptly gone. Releasing a breath, Randidly waved a hand. “I’m… fine. I was just… this is insensitive to say, but I was wondering how long it will be until I stand in front of my own father’s grave. He… he is not a good man. I might… when I go back to my home planet...”

Seriously? What the fuck are you saying to someone in front of their own father’s grave, Randidly thought as his mouth continued to blithely pull the focus from Vualla’s pain to his own theoretical pain in the future.

But to his surprise, Vualla just smiled. He felt the warmth passing between them pulse reassuringly. “Randidly, relax; I can… I know how concerned you are for me. And also, I feel how truly worried about your father you are. But I think you are misunderstanding something… my father was not a good man either. If he had been…”

A tear made a break from the corner of Vualla’s eye, aiming for her chin and then escape to the wide world. But she rubbed it away with her heavy gauntlet before it had made it to freedom. “...if he had been, it wouldn’t have ended like this. And I…”

Then Vualla shook her head and laughed helplessly. “And honestly, that wasn’t really what I was asking. You’ve been… I don’t know… different, since you came back from the Great Rift. How long did you spend there? Did something… happen…? It… feels like something happened. That you aren’t telling me.”

“It was a year and a half,” Randidly said slowly. But after a hesitation, he followed those words up with pressing his lips together. Obviously, he couldn’t say that nothing had changed, especially with the way that he treated her. She would see he was lying in a second. That warmth running between them would reveal him in a heartbeat. And then if she asked what had changed…?

Nothing had really changed.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Randidly’s budding feelings toward Vualla had just been faced with a truth about the Vualla in front of him.

And that had changed his perspective. Which changed everything.

Vualla sighed as though she had watched the entirety of Randidly’s past few thoughts play out across his face. Some of the light in her eyes dimmed. “...maybe I really am just being… emotional. Ever since I fought that Nether Gatekeeper… I came up barely short, you know. And now, with my Fate being injured…”

“...how long will it take to recover?” Randidly asked, glad to hop on this tangent.

Vualla shrugged, but some of that brightness returned to her eyes. Then she began to carefully unbuckle her gauntlets. “Here, I’ll show you. There’s already a bit of crystallization along the edges of the wound… Which means its changing, likely to something not as pure. But you know, I almost think it’s better this way. Because as it heals… it feels like I’m growing. Growing in a way that… well, considering the weird sleepwalking I’ve done through the rest of my life, seemed impossible.”

With a heavy crash, Vualla’s left gauntlet fell to the dusty ground. Then she began to work at her right gauntlet. Randidly’s breath caught in his throat.

Something clicked into place in his mind as he watched her working with the gauntlets to reveal her Fate. In that instant, the Grim Chimera’s heart trembled. Even Randidly couldn’t help but feel a vast sense of loss as he stared, almost blind, at Vualla’s serious expression as she removed her equipment.

Suddenly, several things Randidly knew connected. He had known Vualla’s identity was unique. But he hadn’t known-

Crash.

The second gauntlet hit the ground.

The truth that the main body had brought back with it, that led to such a conflict with the Grim Chimera’s emotions, stemmed from a relatively simple premise: that the individual who had taken an interest in Shal’s world, and Randidly by extension, was the same one interfering with his arrival to the frontlines.

It wasn’t even a clever anagram. Cail Tweocs.

Ileot Swacc.

Or more importantly, the nickname that Randidly had been given for this individual.

Ileot Swacc, the Duplicator.

And what does he duplicate?

In front of the slightly numb Randidly, Vualla began to pull something off of her right hand. “God, I wish my Fate would heal as quickly as my palm did…”

A person. And if Ileot Swacc did duplicate someone, he would duplicate someone who would get close to me. Does he control the person? It doesn’t seem like that’s the case, because ‘duplication’ doesn’t usually involve modification, but it’s impossible to tell. And if he simply hasn’t been exercising that control thus far-

Vualla offered the fingerless leather glove she removed from her right hand to Randidly with a teasing smile. “It’s a very intimate thing, you know, to let someone else touch your Fate. They say you can see someone’s secret desires that way…”

Randidly’s own right hand was burning as he carefully reached with his left arm and took the glove from Vualla. There was a large hole in the center of the leather glove. The soft brown material was so intimately familiar. And as Vualla had indicated, crystals had begun to form on the edges of the hole, perhaps indicating that it would soon heal inward.

Looking solemnly at the glove, Randidly’s mind continued to race. It was rapidly becoming obvious that he had been altogether too self-absorbed in his initial assumptions about the duplication.

Even if Ileot Swacc had duplicated someone to get close to Randidly, Ileot Swacc was someone who was playing a much larger game that just Randidly. The person he would duplicate would serve multiple purposes for him. Vualla was more than just an individual who Ileot suspected of possessing compatibility with Randidly. She also was someone who had a very high potential for growth. And for a very specific type of growth.

Which explained why Vualla had somehow risen to the six Nether core level, even while the grand array was turned toward defense instead of growth. Because she-

Randidly pressed his eyes together. The glove in the trunk that had saved Randidly’s life was Vualla’s Fate, from the original Vualla who had lived an untold number of years in the past. And also Randidly suddenly knew why the Aether around the glove felt so ancient and so familiar. It wasn’t because he had met Vualla, because the Aether of the ‘her’ Randidly interacted with hadn’t yet developed that distinct flavor.

But there was a distinct tang to the Aether that Randidly immediately recognized as having been submerged in at the frontlines. The Aether on the ancient Fate was the Aether of the grand array that condensed the Nether stars.

Randidly shook his head helplessly. A brief conversation from the first time that Randidly had met Vualla popped into his head.

“Is there an upper limit on Nether stars then?” Randidly had asked aloud.

“Ten.”

“So someone’s gotten all the way to ten, huh…”

Vualla had shaken her head, causing her braid to bound back and forth across her shoulders. “No, I think the actual record is eight stars. After that, the individual couldn’t even move properly and retired from the frontlines.”

Frowning, Randidly asked. “Then why did you just say ten?”

“I honestly don’t know. An instinct, maybe?” Vualla flashed Randidly a smile.

An instinct, or a subconscious memory from a past life. And Randidly wasn’t sure what the relationship between Vualla and the array was, but some part of him knew that it did not mean rosy things for ancient Vualla’s health or sanity.

“...Randidly, is something wrong? You’ve just been…” Vualla trailed off. Then, of all things, she blushed. “Uh… it’s not… true that you can see my desires in my Fate, right? Maybe you should just give it back…”

Randidly passed it back over, unsure of what to say. And as she looked at his expression, her eyes crinkled at the corners in sorrow. As the blushing face cracked, Randidly realized that it had been a forced joke. Something to push away the heavy truth that lay between them.

With the steady beat of a heart, that warmth that connected the two of them pulsed with the truth of what they felt. Fear surged up from the bottom of Vualla’s heart, spreading through the connection between them. After licking her lips, Vualla spoke. “So… so it’s true. I started to have my suspicions after talking to Cail today, but…”

Vualla did her best to smile. Tears coursed down her cheeks. “I’m… I’m not real, am I…?”