NOVEL WEB Chapter 17: Omake #3
Side Story 3: Losing Yourself
Her hands were colder than the sweet embrace of death, so cold in fact that Issei thought that what was surrounding him was in fact the lowest circle of hell. Issei couldn't tell from the pain if it was hot or cold anymore. His mind was on the pain, and the strange numbness he could feel all around his body. He just didn't know what was happening to this body, slowly morphing into a clone of the older woman choking him. His mind felt fuzzy, as memories of a life he never knew flashed over and over in his mind. The smell of black powder, soot and blood overwhelmed him, of burning. Feelings of pain, treachery and betrayal. His hands burned, the roots of his hairs painfully lengthening behind him.
"Here's to a wonderful partnership, partner!" the girl said cheerfully. What was once a blindingly white void turned into a burning hellhole, fire reaching all the way to the empty ceiling. A massive skeletal being appeared before him, ignored by the feeling on his hand. Smoke and soot flowed out of every hole, making him hack and cough violently. In his delirium, he saw many more things that he did not know personally, yet felt like he should. As if she(...?) participated in those actions herself... Many names came through her mind. One, Hashiba, then Toyotomi, Hideyoshi, her right hand man and beloved friend. They had gone through just about everything together, and his camaraderie and wit were things to be held at as inspiration. Two, Tokugawa Ieyasu, a boring old man she never knew would be one of her greatest advisers. She didn't always agree with his ridiculously slow tactics, but she felt that he did the job well whenever it counted, which was all that mattered, no? And three, her name...
What was her name? Hyoudou Issei asked herself this, despite an inner portion of her soul telling her already that she already knows. Of course it was, she knew what her name was! Her parents gave it to her when she was born, after all, even if she had left it behind so long ago for her new name. Yes, she nodded to herself, accepting the name that she had always known. That was her name. Oda Nobunaga.
Issei's body shifted, her hips rearranging, shoulders moving, and the inside portions of her body rearranged to fit the new plumbing. Her crotch gained a strange warmth that she welcomed for whatever reason, sucking in her outer genitalia and forming a new organ. The transformation was almost complete at this point, the clothes the former boy was wearing slowly turning a darker color, turning into a military officer's uniform, her shoes turning a metallic gold and lengthening slowly to her knees, and a hat forming seemingly out of nowhere on the top of her head. The child blinked, and each time her facial features were molded into an exact copy of the girl who turned her into this, and her eyes turning from their brown coloring to a bright red. One last thing had to be done, and if she were to be the successor of the great unifier of Japan, then so be it.
The older girl watched all that had happened with dull eyes and a knowing smirk, then recoiled as a headache struck her head. Her vision blurred as her irises gained a shine that wasn't there earlier, her face contorting into a frown. She blinked in pain as new memories surged forth, a girl she never knew, a goodbye that hurt her, and parents that actually loved her? No, that wasn't right, was it? She asked herself, then looked at the object she was gripping tightly, the throat of a young girl who looked just like her, Suddenly she realized just exactly was happening, but even as she tried to remove her hands from the girl who was now deliriously staring at her in a rather creepy fashion, she simply couldn't. Bile formed on her throat as she began shaking the kneeling girl, shouting at her. "Who are you? Tell me Your name! Please!"
The other girl looked at her funny, as she asked back tiredly. "Who am I...? I'm Oda Nobunaga, silly, just like you!" The shaking stopped as Nobunaga took a moment to process what the younger had just said, who was content simply grinning at the older girl, her hands going cold as she realized just how deep the brainwashing had gone. A heroic spirit could resist mind control at this level, no doubt, but a child with absolutely no experience with the supernatural could do nothing about it. She felt an emotion she hadn't experienced in decades, fear. Yet it wasn't herself she feared for, but the child whom she incidentally choked and transformed into so as to possess her. The very same one she now shared memories with, and in desperation reached into her inner mind to make the kid remember.
Calling the girl's attention once again, who had almost began sleeping on her hands, she asked. "Miki, Goro, Shidou, please! Remember the people who took care of you, who loved you and gave you the life you had now! Don't give up on me now, please! You have so much to live for, you don't have to become me to do that!" Yet her words did little to call on her attention, her newly baptized clone tilting her head in apparent confusion. Looking up to the 'sky', as it were, she took the moment to see the world around them shatter, a darkness enveloping the entire area. It was here that she noticed something peculiar, the tips of her fingers melting and dematerializing at the same time, as her body, her soul closing in on the girl she was embracing. This, Nobunaga knew, was the final step. This was where their souls would fuse, every inch of her being with another to create something new. The younger girl had fallen unconscious, tearing up in acknowledgement, knowing all too well in a way that they had both lost.
As the world around her fell apart, Nobunaga hugged the girl who lost everything, and was unlikely to come up ever again as a sentient being. She was the only one capable of living through such a horror, after all, so no matter how much she detests having to do this, having to strip the life of someone practically brain dead was the only way to do it. A clone who was her in everything except where it counted. She hugged the girl closer, tears falling from her eyes with her arms locking onto each other.
Almost every fabric of her being were inside of the girl who suddenly seemed much older, a good 7 or so if her calculations of their physical age differences were correct, and all she could do was wait out the storm. As their minds melded, their bodies fused and the rest of their being turned into a new one, with her on the driver's wheel, she soberly said one last thing. "I am so sorry..."
Her words became the cincher, the last thing that was needed before everything went black for good. Her thoughts became his, and his thoughts became hers, and suddenly they were one. A bright flash enveloped the brimstone and fire, and suddenly there was nothing.
At this moment, Issei woke up with a start, his face meeting the ground. He lifted his body slightly off the ground and with an ache in his head. With a yelp, he pushed himself off the ground entire, his beloved Gameboy falling to the ground by his weakened grip. Issei backed away from the dull red circle, heartbeat accelerating.
By some instinct, Issei reached down to his waist and pulled a gleaming katana from the sheath on his side before the circle that had scarred him for life. He felt safer for a moment, until rational thought had pointed out that he had never touched a katana in his entire life, yet here he was, holding one with his gloved(?) hands as if it were drilled into him. He also wasn't the type to wear hats as a fashion sense either, yet the feeling of fabric around his forehead was quite clear to him.
With a practiced motion that Issei never practiced, he turned the flat portion of the blade to face him, and suddenly it all made sense to her. The reflection held no resemblance to her former form, a hand rubbing her teenaged face. Oda Nobunaga had taken over for the most part, and yet Hyoudou Issei existed just the same, even if only subconsciously.
There was no chance for her to return home, not like this, and so, steeling her resolve, she sheathed the blade and moved away from the park, making sure to avoid any conflict that could bring her into attention. Abandoning her former life was not ideal, but would her parents believe her claims? Would they be so optimistic that for one moment they would believe, that the boy who just left home teary eyed upon learning of their best friend departure had aged 7 years and turned into her, a one-to-one clone of one of Japan's great unifiers? No, the part that was distinctly cynical and Oda Nobunaga told her, they wouldn't.
With any luck, her parents would try to create a child again that would fill in the vacant position she had inadvertently created. She looked back at the fountain upon hearing a woman shout her name in the distance, looking at her former mother scoop the GameBoy in the floor in confusion. She ran all over the place, looking for someone who didn't necessarily exist anymore.
She teared up a little bit at the sight, her mother asking every single passerby if they had seen a small cheery little boy who ran all over the place. She really wanted to help, she really did, but there simply wasn't much for her to do. Sighing deeply, she turned her back away from the sight, and walked away.