The reason I asked who she wasbeven though we literally had the exact same face was because I simply didn't recognize her presence at all.
It was just like when I met Denial. Denial had a completely different air about her. The way she looked, spoke, and carried herself had strongly reminded me of the old Manaka back when I first met her.
But the person standing in front of me didn't have any of that. Her atmosphere was entirely different from Denial's.
It felt incredibly serene, untouchable, and distant, yet strangely warm and comforting.
"Just like Denial said, I am you," she answered gently. A soft, knowing smile appeared on her lips. "You don't want to go back and forth trying to argue about that like you did with Denial, right~?"
I sighed, my shoulders dropping as some of the tension finally left my body. "No, no, I already understand. I guess after seeing another version of myself for the second time, it's not as shocking as I thought it would be..."
"I understand that. Fufufu" she giggled, bringing a delicate hand up to cover her mouth in a refined, graceful motion. "You can call me Void, if you need a name to call me."
"Void..." I muttered the name to myself. It fit her peaceful, completely still vibe perfectly. I looked back up at her, rubbing my temples. "Then, can you tell me one thing?"
Void tilted her head, the smooth fabric of her pristine white kimono shifting slightly. She looked genuinely curious about what I wanted to know and gave a small, polite nod, waiting for me to continue.
"How many people are actually inside of me???" I blurted out, unable to hide my exasperation anymore. "First of all, there was Denial, and now you? How do I have so many personalities living in my head???"
"Calm down, Rikka."
As she said that, I suddenly felt something warm gently rest on top of my head. Void had stepped closer and placed her hand on my hair. She started softly caressing it, petting me in a slow, soothing rhythm to calm me down.
...Not going to lie, it felt really nice. Is it weird if I'm being comforted by someone who is basically me?
"There is only me and Denial here," Void said with a gentle, reassuring smile. "You don't have to worry about having too many personalities."
I let out a long, heavy breath. Well, that was good. If there were any more of them in here, I was definitely going to have a full-blown existential crisis.
But as I finally started to relax under her gentle touch, a sudden realization hit me. I had been so distracted by Void that I completely forgot about what had just happened a few minutes ago.
That dream I saw. The burning city, the darkened Servants, the terrifying beast... maybe she knew what it meant. I should ask her.
I looked up at her, opening my mouth to speak.
"That's the future... No, that's a possible future that you saw, Rikka," Void said softly.
I blinked in surprise. She seemed to know exactly what I wanted to ask, answering the question before the words could even leave my mouth.
"Wait, the future? What do you mean a vision of the future??" I blurted out, the panic immediately bubbling back up in my chest. "That makes no sense! If it's a future vision, why was everything burning? Why was Manaka sitting on top of that weird, giant beast? And why did all the Servants look so different?"
Void let her hand drop from my head and gave a small, gentle sigh. "Explaining all of that is going to take a very long time, and you don't have the time for that right now. It's almost morning in the real world, and you have been dreaming for a while."
She turned and walked away from me, gently gesturing with her hand for me to follow her.
I hurried after her as we walked out of the hallway and moved into the living room of the house. Void gracefully sat down on the familiar sofa. She looked up at me and lightly tapped the empty cushion right beside her, inviting me to sit down too.
I walked over and sat down next to her, still feeling anxious but ready to listen.
"You heard from Denial before that we are you, right?" Void started explaining, her voice keeping that same soft, whispery tone.
"Yes," I nodded, keeping my eyes focused on her.
"You saw a vision of a possible future," Void said softly, looking at me. "Because we have the ability to see them. But that ability has been locked away deep inside since the day you were born."
"Wait... what?" I stared at her, my jaw practically hitting the floor. "I can see the future? Like, literally see the future? Why would something so broken be locked away from me?! Do you know how useful that would be?!"
Having a cheat skill like that and not being able to use it felt like an absolute waste with it i can probably be more careful about the future.
Void just gave me a sad, gentle smile. "Because if it wasn't locked away, and if the three of us had been born as one single mind, you wouldn't be 'Rikka' anymore."
I blinked, the excitement immediately dying down. "...What do you mean?"
"Your bright personality, your desire to help the people around you, even your love for reading your manhwa... all of those feelings would disappear," Void explained, her voice entirely completely calm but carrying a heavy truth.
"If you had access to that vision, along with mine and Denial's personalities combined, you would become a completely emotionless human. When you can see every possibility and know the outcome of everything before it happens, you simply stop caring. You would be perpetually bored with the world."
A cold shiver ran down my spine. Me? Emotionless and bored with everything? Not caring about the people I love or the hobbies that make me happy? The thought alone was terrifying. It sounded exactly like the dead, empty look Manaka had in my vision.
"You've noticed it before, haven't you?" Void continued, tilting her head slightly.
"You often get flashes of information or know things that you realistically shouldn't have any way of knowing."
I slowly nodded. She was right. There were so many times where I just knew how to do something, or understood a complex situation out of nowhere without anyone explaining it to me. I always brushed it off as just having good intuition.
"That is the other reason we had to split," Void said, pointing a slender finger toward my forehead. "That constant flow of information leaking into your brain comes from our connection to the Akasha Root."
"The Akasha Root...?" I repeated the strange term. "What is the R-"
Before I could even finish my sentence, Void gently pressed her index finger against the center of my forehead.
Instantly, my breath hitched. It felt like a floodgate had been violently thrown open inside my head.
I didn't hear a voice explaining anything, but suddenly, I just knew. A massive wave of pure, concentrated information poured directly into my brain.
The origin of all things. The record of the universe. The swirling vortex of absolute truth that sits outside of time and space, observing every soul, every timeline, and every concept of magic that has ever existed.
The sheer scale of it was so vast and incomprehensible that my head throbbed, making me dizzy for a few seconds as the cosmic concepts forcefully carved themselves into my understanding.
I gasped, falling back slightly against the sofa as Void pulled her finger away. My eyes were wide open, staring at her in absolute awe and slight terror at what I was actually connected to.
Void simply rested her hands on her lap, giving me that same serene, knowing smile.
"You understand now?"
"..."
I didn't answer her. No, it was more like I couldn't answer her. My mind was completely overwhelmed by the vision and the sheer weight of the concept I had just forcefully absorbed.
That huge, endlessly swirling blue vortex that had flashed in my mind... it felt so incredibly familiar.
It was exactly like what I saw when I first lost consciousness after awakening my Mystic Eyes. I still vividly remember seeing that exact same blue swirl in my dream back then.
"But..." I muttered, unconsciously placing my right hand over my chest. I could feel my heart thumping rapidly against my palm, beating in a strange, excited rhythm.
I remembered the feeling I had when I saw it the first time... and it was the exact same feeling washing over my entire body right now.
It wasn't fear. It wasn't the terrifying, suffocating pressure I had felt from thar beast just a few moments ago.
It felt... like home.
A deep, overwhelming sense of nostalgia and warmth spread through my chest, wrapping around my heart.
Looking at that boundless blue swirl in my mind felt like looking at the place where I truly belonged. It didn't make sense at all as I was just a normal girl from a completely different world.
but my soul was practically crying out in relief, longing to be near it. It felt like a warm embrace pulling at my very core, a purely instinctual pull drawing me in deeper and deeper.
Before I could lose myself completely in that warm, comforting sensation, I suddenly felt a light tap on my forehead.
I blinked, snapping out of my daze, and looked beside me.
Void wasn't smiling anymore. That serene, peaceful look was gone, replaced by a blank, slightly serious expression as she lowered her hand.
"Don't let yourself get swallowed by that feeling," Void said, her voice soft but carrying a firm edge that immediately grounded me.
"Huh?" I rubbed my forehead, the heavy, nostalgic warmth fading away. "What..."
"I think that's enough for now," Void said, her voice cutting through the heavy atmosphere as she gently placed her hand back on my head, softly rubbing my hair.
I blinked, snapping out of my daze as the overwhelming, nostalgic warmth of the Root slowly faded away, replaced by the physical sensation of her touch.
"We're still young. You, me, and Denial," Void continued, her serene smile returning as she looked down at me. "For now, you just need to do what you want to do."
She kept gently stroking my hair, her movements incredibly soothing. "Don't bother with any of that. Just think of it like a weird dream," she said softly.
'What the hell?' I thought to myself, staring at her. She really was acting exactly like an older sister.
Is this how it feels to have one? I didn't have any siblings in my previous life, so I had never actually experienced this kind of thing before.
It felt a little strange coming from someone with my exact face, but... it was really nice.
"Okay," I nodded.
After having all of that massive, world-breaking information forcefully downloaded into my brain, and then being comforted so gently right after... honestly, agreeing with her was all I could really say.
---
---
---
"By the way, where is Denial?" I asked, looking around the quiet living room.
I had been here for a while now, but I hadn't seen her at all. The last time I was in this mindscape, she had literally pushed me out the front door to wake me up.
"Well, thanks to the memories from your past life, she's been locked up in the bedroom," Void answered, her gentle smile turning just a little amused. "She never really comes out. She just stays in there, reading all the novels and manhwa from your memories."
"It can't be helped," Void added softly. "In this world, such things don't exist, so I understand why Denial loves reading them so much."
"Huh" I sweatdropped slightly. I really hope Denial isn't going to turn into a complete NEET or a hikikomori I think that was the word people used for a loner who just locks themselves in their room to read and watch anime all day. Having one of my own personalities turn into a shut-in otaku was definitely not something I expected.
"What about you?" I asked, tilting my head. "Are you not going to read them too?" I was genuinely curious if someone as serene and detached as Void actually enjoyed reading my manhwa collection.
"I do read them," Void admitted, a quiet, elegant giggle escaping her lips. "Those stories do not exist in the past or the possible futures that I can see, so of course I am interested in them too. But you are here right now, so I am accompanying you until you wake up to reality."
"I see. Well, at least you're here so I'm not alone," I smiled back at her, feeling genuinely grateful. "Also... thank you. For explaining everything to me, and for warning me too."
As I sat there, I realized that seeing the future really wasn't a useful ability at all. In fact, if I thought about it, not seeing the future was actually better. If you know what's going to happen, your vision gets completely narrowed down to that one specific outcome, blinding you to everything else.
Besides, I had read enough stories to know how that trope usually worked. Whenever a character tries desperately to avoid a bad future they saw, their actions to prevent it usually end up being the exact thing that makes that bad future happen in the first place. I definitely didn't want to fall into that trap.
For example, if I had actually believed that vision and knew for a fact that Manaka was going to turn into that terrifying monster, I would probably try to avoid her completely and never even try to be friends with her.
But now, that didn't matter. Like Void said, that was just a possible future. The current Manaka is just a cute, adorable little girl, so there's no way she's going to do something like that. I wasn't going to let a bad dream dictate how I treated my friend.
"So, how do I leave?" I asked, looking back toward the hallway. "Just the same as last time? Do I just walk out through the front door?"
I felt like I had been asleep for a long time now. Added together with that horrifying nightmare from earlier, it had to be morning in the real world already.
"Yes, you can leave through the front door," Void nodded, her hands resting neatly in her lap. "Also, you can come back here anytime you want. Just think of this place before you fall asleep, so instead of wandering into the Garden of Avalon, you will appear here."
"Sure! I really loved talking to you, and I want to see Denial again too..." I smiled, before pausing as a sudden thought hit me. I sweatdropped. "Wait, does it make me look like a massive loner if I'm this excited to hang out and talk with my own self?"
"Fufufu, of course not~," Void giggled gracefully, her eyes curving into happy little crescents.
I waved goodbye to her and walked down the hallway. Just like I thought, the moment I opened the front door and stepped outside, my vision was instantly enveloped in a blinding white light.
I felt my consciousness shifting rapidly, a heavy sensation settling back into my limbs. The next thing I knew, my eyes fluttered open. I was waking up in the exact same place where I had fallen asleep.
I slowly sat up, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. Looking over at the nearby window, I could see that the outside was no longer pitch black. Soft morning sunlight was already streaming into the room.
I let out a long, exhausted sigh as the reality of my current situation finally hit me all over again.
"Right... I'm still getting kidnapped..."