I woke up wrong.
The morning light felt too bright. The sheets felt too rough. My own hands - lying on the pillow, palm up - looked unfamiliar.
Whose hands are these?
The thought came unbidden, and for a terrifying moment, I didn't know the answer.
[ECHO STATUS: 48%]
[Identity coherence: UNSTABLE]
[Warning: Integration window narrowing]
I forced myself upright. Forced myself to breathe. Forced myself to remember.
I am Ryder Cross. Host of the First Fragment. Devil. Survivor.
The mantra helped. A little.
"You're deteriorating," the Fragment observed. "The boundaries between you and the Echoes are breaking down."
I noticed.
"Integration must happen today. Tomorrow at the latest. Any further delay risks permanent identity fragmentation."
I said I noticed.
I stumbled to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. The reflection in the mirror stared back - familiar features wearing an unfamiliar expression.
Contempt. Dohnaseek's contempt, bleeding through.
I gripped the sink until my knuckles went white.
The day passed in fragments.
Breakfast with the peerage should have been normal. Instead, I caught myself judging the food with an aristocratic disdain I'd never felt before.
Too common. Beneath me.
Rias's thoughts. Rias's preferences. Not mine.
I pushed the plate away, appetite gone.
"...senpai?" Koneko watched me from across the table. "Not hungry?"
"Just tired."
She slid a chocolate bar toward me. I took it without thinking - craved the sweetness like it was oxygen.
That's not me either. That's her.
The flavors mixed wrong in my mouth. Too sweet. Too bitter. Everything tasted like someone else's memory.
Training should have helped.
Instead, it made everything worse.
Akeno led the session - lightning drills, evasion practice, the usual. But every time her power crackled through the air, I felt it differently.
Pleasure.
The pain of exertion. The burn of near-misses. The satisfaction of pushing past limits.
I was enjoying it. More than enjoying - I was savoring it.
"Ara ara~" Akeno's voice cut through my focus. "Someone's getting into the spirit."
I froze. My expression - I'd been smiling. Not my smile. Hers.
"I need a break."
I fled the training room before anyone could question it.
The courtyard was empty. I found a patch of sunlight near the old oak tree and sat down, back against the bark.
*Just need to think. Just need to - *
My eyes closed.
When I opened them, an hour had passed. I'd been napping in the sunlight like a cat.
Koneko. That's Koneko's habit.
The boundaries were collapsing faster now. Every Echo bleeding into the next, mixing with my own personality until I couldn't tell where I ended and they began.
"You're running out of time," the Fragment warned. "The Watcher is accelerating your degradation."
How?
"Unknown. But each bleed brings you closer to the threshold. Cross it without Integration, and - "
I know.
I became something else. Something wearing my face and speaking with my voice, but not me.
The Fragment fell silent. It had made its point.
I found Asia in the training room.
She practiced alone - healing magic flowing between her fingers, green light dancing in complex patterns. Her concentration was absolute, her focus razor-sharp.
She'd grown so much since the church. Since I'd saved her. Since she'd become family.
Weak. Pathetic. Always needing rescue.
The thought came from nowhere. Cold. Contemptuous. Wrong.
*That's not me. That's - *
The shadow formed behind her.
Not a person. A silhouette. Winged. Cruel.
My silhouette.
"Asia - " I started.
It moved. Faster than me.
Slammed her into the wall with one dark hand.
"Pathetic," it whispered in my voice. "Always needing rescue."
[MANIFESTATION: DOHNASEEK ECHO]
[ECHO STATUS: 48%]
[Manifestation: PHYSICAL SHADOW]
Asia's eyes went wide with terror. The shadow - my shadow - held her pinned, its form flickering between solid and smoke.
"Ryder?" Her voice trembled. "What - "
"That's not me." I stepped forward, power gathering in my hands. "Asia, that's NOT me."
The shadow laughed. My laugh, but twisted. Wrong.
"Isn't it?" It turned to face me, keeping Asia pinned with one negligent hand. "Every cruel thought you've had. Every moment of contempt. Every kill you've enjoyed."
It smiled with my face.
"We ARE you, Ryder Cross. All the parts you pretend aren't there."
I attacked.
Not with Light Lance - that would hit Asia. Not with Phoenix Flame - too uncontrolled. With will.
I reached toward the shadow with everything I had, every scrap of identity I could muster.
You're not me.
These are my thoughts. My hands. My CHOICE.
The shadow didn't flinch. "The cruelty. The contempt. The killer."
"Integrate or be consumed."
It flung Asia aside like garbage and charged.
We collided in the center of the training room - shadow and source, Echo and origin. Its hands wrapped around my throat, cold and familiar.
I fought it.
Not by rejecting - by accepting.
I HAVE cruelty.
The shadow's grip loosened slightly.
I HAVE contempt.
Its form flickered.
But they don't RULE me.
I grabbed its wrists - solid, somehow, despite the smoke.
They inform me. They teach me what NOT to be.
The shadow screamed.
"You can't - you can't just - "
You are MINE.
I pulled it into myself. Not destroying - absorbing. Taking the darkness back where it belonged, under my control, subject to my will.
You serve ME. Not the other way around.
[INTEGRATION PRACTICE: SUCCESS]
[Echo Status: 48% → 46%]
[Manifestation: DISPERSED]
The shadow dissolved. The cold faded. The training room fell silent except for Asia's ragged breathing.
I helped her up.
Her hands trembled in mine - the hands that healed everyone, shaking because of something I'd created.
"Was that...?"
"Me. Yes." I didn't look away. "But it's under control now."
"Is it?"
The question cut deeper than any blade. Was it under control? Or was I just fooling myself?
"It will be," I said. "Tomorrow."
Asia studied my face for a long moment. Then she nodded - not convinced, but trusting.
"I believe you." She squeezed my hand. "Whatever that was... you're still Ryder-san."
Am I?
I didn't voice the doubt. She didn't need to carry it.
Rias found me on the roof as the sun set.
I'd been staring at the horizon for hours, cataloging the day's bleeds, preparing for what came next. Her footsteps were soft on the tiles, but I heard them anyway.
"You're not acting like yourself."
I didn't turn around. "I'm not sure who 'myself' is anymore."
She sat beside me - close, but not touching. Giving me space while refusing to leave.
"The others told me about training. And about what happened with Asia." Her voice held no judgment. Only concern. "You're getting worse."
"I know."
"Can you... stop it?"
"No." I finally looked at her. "But I can survive it. Tomorrow, I enter the Soulscape. I face the Echoes directly. I integrate them or - "
"Or?"
"Or they integrate me."
Rias's expression didn't change, but something shifted in her eyes. Fear. Real, genuine fear - not for herself, but for me.
"Whatever you need," she said. "I'll be here."
"You might not like what comes back."
"I'll take that risk." She reached for my hand - hesitated - then took it anyway. "You asked me to be here when you come back. I will be. No matter what."
The warmth of her touch anchored me. Not enough to stop the bleeding, but enough to remember why it mattered.
Night fell.
I isolated myself in my room, preparing for what came next. The Fragment walked me through the process - meditation, focus, the mental architecture required to enter the Soulscape.
"The inner landscape is constructed from your memories," it explained. "Every Echo has taken residence there. You will face them. Challenge them. Prove your dominance."
And if I fail?
"Then they prove theirs."
Not reassuring.
"I aim to prepare, not comfort."
The preparations took hours. When I finally finished, my body felt hollow, scraped clean of everything but purpose.
"Tomorrow," the Fragment said. "The Watcher cannot reach you in the Soulscape. It is the one place you will face only yourself."
Only myself. And every piece of everyone I've absorbed.
"Semantics."
The mark on my wrist pulsed. The Watcher's voice slithered through my mind, amused and hungry.
"Five more days, Ryder Cross."
I ignored it. Tried to, anyway.
"Five days, and then you belong to me."
I don't belong to anyone.
"We'll see."
I didn't sleep.
The bleeds came and went throughout the night - flashes of other lives, other preferences, other fears. Kiba's precision. Rias's pride. Akeno's duality. Koneko's silence.
Each one threatened to consume me. Each one I fought back, holding onto my identity with bleeding fingers.
By dawn, I was exhausted. By dawn, I was ready.
The Fragment's voice echoed through my consciousness, calm and certain.
"It's time."
I closed my eyes.
And prepared to fight myself.