Death... and me

Suddenly, from inside the Soul Gem Orb, the projection of a man appeared. Rean and Roan obviously recognized him as Soul Gem. After all, they had seen him in the past during the illusion that explained what happened during the Universe’s Division. “Soul Gem!”

Rean and Roan were even more shocked now. Wasn’t that guy dead? “No, wait! You said it was you who changed the destination for spatial transfer?”

Soul Gem looked back and smiled at the twins. [I guess this is the first time we’ve properly met each other. I wish I had done it sooner, but I lacked the power to keep my consciousness awake for long, so I had to stay silent. I’ll go back to sleep once more once I’m done here.]

The skeleton couldn’t care less about that, though. “Friend, you say? Is that the kind of thing you do to a friend? Huh?! Give me a very good reason to not wipe you out, this orb, and the twins behind you!”

Soul Gem scratched the back of his head…or so he pretended to do since he was just a projection. [Come on, Reokkeor. You know I had no other choice. If they had gotten all the fragments, this Universe would have been destroyed already.]

“Hmph!” Reokkeor didn’t seem less angry with that answer. “Then look at me right now. I couldn’t even try to reincarnate because of this damned fragment. If not because there would be no Universe to reincarnate after, I would have given it to the Wafrol Forces a long time ago.”

Soul Gem laughed in response. [Hahaha! See? I was right in the end. You couldn’t bring yourself to let everyone die. Don’t worry, my friend. You can go and reincarnate now. These twins will take care of the fragment from now on.]

Reokkeor looked at the twins and snorted in response. “Ha! These two brats? I wouldn’t be surprised if they died in the very next second.”

[It’s fine, it’s fine! They’ll be able to pull it off.]

“How?” Reokkeor asked, not believing Gem’s words very much.

Gem then made a heart sign with his hand as he replied, [With the power of brotherly love!]

Rean and Roan almost vomited blood after hearing that! Now they knew why Sister Orb was so adamant about this brotherly love bullshit. It was all Soul Gem’s fault!

Reokkeor nodded after that. “I see… then that’s fine…”

…

…

…

“You ass! Go to hell with brotherly love! Are you fucking with me?!”

Rean and Roan vigorously nodded in agreement. ‘That’s right, brother! That’s the right reaction!’

[Tch… why can’t people understand the power of love? Oh well, whatever.] Soul Gem then continued, [In any case, you did well to keep the fragment safe. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure the Wafrol Forces won’t be able to detect it. That’s why I created the Soul Gem System, remember?]

The skeleton looked at the twins in surprise. “So they became the first users of that system you created… no, wait! Wasn’t it supposed to have just one user? After all, you needed someone capable of using Dark and Light Element by him or herself. Why are there two of them?”

Soul Gem bitterly smiled as he looked at Rean, saying, [Let’s just say that a certain someone has some problems with passing away…] He was obviously accusing Rean of dragging Death with him into the path of reincarnation. If not for that, the only one to have reincarnated would be Rean, and he would hold the power of Light and Darkness alone.

Roan also looked at Rean, once against, obviously insinuating that it was all Rean’s fault. “In the end, I really didn’t need to come.”

Rean didn’t feel the least bit of remorse, though. “Hmph! How the hell would I know that? First of all, it wasn’t my fault, but his! My life was pretty much useless before my death because of the system, you know? How could I accept simply losing all my memories and pass away like that?”

Soul Gem pretended to not hear Rean’s accusations before continuing, [Anyway, they aren’t bad at all. In fact, they turned out better than I expected if only one person had reincarnated, and that was on the very first try. Trust me, they’re quite good.]

Reokkeor still had his doubts but decided to leave them aside. “So? What about the rest?”

Soul Gem knew what Reokkeor was talking about. [Don’t worry, we’ll recover the rest. For good or for worse, the Extinction Sphere is now gone, although it caused the Universe’s separation and its actual calamity. Nonetheless, it’s still better than if it was still around. At least we have a chance.]

Reokkeor nodded in response. “Fine! I’ve been waiting to reincarnate all this while. Fortunately, I put myself into hibernation since that period. Otherwise, I would have gone crazy if I had to wait all this time. You can at least help me with that, right?”

Soul Gem nodded in response. Soon after, the Soul Gem Orb shined before a ray of black and white light hit the skeleton’s forehead. No, to be more precise, it hit Reokkeor’s soul. [This mark will prevent the Wafrol Forces from finding your soul in the path of reincarnation. You can go ahead and reincarnate anytime you want. But before you do, I’ll send you and the Foundation Fragment into my Dimensional Realm.]

Reokkeor didn’t mind. “Go ahead, bring me over.”

Immediately, Reokkeor felt some spatial power pulling him away. He didn’t fight it before he was dragged into the Soul Gem Dimensional Realm. Soul Gem wasn’t any slower and disappeared from that place as well.

The twins looked at each other and immediately tried to access the Soul Gem Dimensional Realm. Unfortunately, it was blocked for their entrance. They couldn’t even feel what was happening inside. “The hell?!”

They then saw a ray of light coming from the place where the Soul Gem Orb had first appeared. Following that, the light began to fade away until nothing remained. Roan could tell, though. ‘It was the skeleton’s soul. It has gone to the path of reincarnation.’