Chapter 58: Where Pain Becos Doctrine and Devotion
Ti, within my Mindspace, had a funny way of stretching. A single mont of silence could yawn into eternity. A quiet breath could last for what felt like days. So when I say Onyx refused to let wake up for "a while," I an that in the way a glacier refuses to lt under moonlight—slow, immovable, obsessive.
She was glued to . Not figuratively. Her body was wrapped around mine like so obsessive, biochanical compression blanket with emotional issues. Every inch of her fra curled around mine like a jealous parasite that’d mistaken affection for fusion.
Crystal probed into my Mindspace once out of worry—probably after realizing I hadn’t co up for air or quips in a while—but upon sensing the emotional wreckage and the full-body cuddle siege I was trapped in, she respectfully backed out and muttered sothing about "clingy Stalkers and their terminal spooning disorders."
Fair.
Still half-sinking into Onyx’s limbs, I kept one hand gently stroking the arm wrapped tightly across my ribs.
"So..." I began softly, "do you feel coherent enough to tell what actually cracked your skull like a lon in a microwave, sweetie? Or do you need to cry on my clavicle for another eon?"
Her body flinched—an instinctive, traumatic spasm. A reflex born not of sha, but of mory. Whatever she was about to tell , it had left claw marks inside her.
"...Okay," she whispered, tightening her embrace. "My love... I’ll tell you."
The vibration of her voice against my chest sent a strange pang through my ribs—tension, sorrow, and a touch of sothing heavier.
"When you commanded to return to your Mindspace," she said, "and my emotions ca rushing back... sothing else ca too. A vision. Not one of those standard-issue Hive foresights. No. This one was different."
She shuddered. Her chitin creaked.
"It was like a mirror from a worse tiline. I saw myself—truly saw myself. I didn’t hesitate. I lifted you from the water while you were weak. And then... I drove my blade through your chest."
A single drop of fluid hit my forehead. Then another. Her tears—not taphors, not data proxies—actual tears fell from above.
"I cut the vision short. Forcefully. Before it could finish. I think... I had to. Because if I’d seen more, I might have broken sothing vital."
Her voice cracked.
"My psyche... couldn’t handle it. The possibility that I—I, your protector, your shadow, your Stalker—could be the one to destroy you."
I felt her body beginning to quake again, the tremors rising with each syllable, so I did the only thing that made sense in a world this insane:
I wrapped my arms tighter around her, repositioned her head to my chest, and started stroking her tentacles like a nervous dad soothing an eldritch therapy dog.
"Shhh. Shhh. You ridiculous, overwrought, lovely little murder machine," I whispered. "Nothing happened. It was just your stupid precog trying to scream through the cocoon fog. It finally got through once you returned to a familiar place."
She nodded slowly against my skin.
The motion was barely perceptible, but it ant everything.
And so, I spent a week—an entire subjective goddamn week—trapped in a loving death-snuggle, coddling her fractured ego and massaging the crazy back into alignnt.
It worked.
Mostly.
---
During that ti, while my mouth was soothing her, my mind was chewing on her vision like it owed rent.
She almost killed .
Because of a fucking training mishap.
That stung.
I’d died before. Not taphorically. I’d been there. I’d seen what ca after. I didn’t want to go back.
Not yet.
So I made a promise to myself in the soft, slow silence of Onyx’s recovery: I’d double my growth rate. No more procrastinating. No more hoping Kimchi’s lesson plans would do all the work. My psionic strength and my physical prowess had to evolve together—like a two-headed monster doing pushups inside a black hole.
As I plotted training regins and power route enhancents, I beca vaguely aware of Onyx watching . Not the way soone watches a loved one. No. This was deeper. This was spiritual hunger mixed with scientific curiosity.
She stared at like I was both microscope slide and ssiah.
Because in her mind, she’d failed.
She hadn’t been my cloak.
She’d been the blade.
That failure—it scratched sothing ancestral in her. Sothing primal and forbidden.
Then, sothing terrible happened.
She had a thought.
A dangerous one.
What if...
What if the order that forced her to act like a blade hadn’t co from within?
What if it had been implanted?
She knew the consequences of such thoughts. Every mber of the Hive carried within them an immutable thread of loyalty, hardcoded into their geno like a divine watermark. To question a superior was to court agony.
The mont she began to dig down that path—her head snapped back. Pain cracked through her skull like lightning through glass.
Thoughts of betrayal scraped the inside of her bones.
But she didn’t stop.
Her body shook. Her hands trembled. But she kept thinking.
If I serve only Irvine... that’s not betrayal. He’s our King. He commands the Hivemind. Technically. He’s the center. My everything.
The agony beneath her skin writhed like a living parasite—sniffing for treason, testing her thresholds.
Then—
It stopped.
As if the Hive itself exhaled.
The pain dissipated.
And a new law was born.
She was allowed to disobey the Queen... if it ant serving the King.
Her loyalty had shifted—but not broken.
Her mind returned to the mont. Her three fingers slid gently through my hair. I blinked, snapping out of my planning trance, and tilted my head upward to et her gaze.
She was smiling.
A real one.
Not manic. Not forced.
Joyful.
But—
Her eyes had turned green.
Not erald. Not neon.
A deep, wet green.
The kind of green that ant soone had just made a decision.
"...You good, sweetie?" I asked carefully. "You’re glowing a bit mossy."
She giggled. Actually giggled. Like a happy psychopath watching a blender comrcial.
"Yes, my love," she said. "More than good. For the first ti in forever, I know—without foresight—what our future holds. And I love it."
I decided not to ask questions.
Crystal warned hard about asking Onyx for glimpses of the future. Sothing about tilines, insanity, and dinsional implosions. So I smiled, nodded, and returned to my ntal To-Do list.
---
A few hours later, I deed her restored. No more suicidal sha spirals. No more emotional paralysis. Just the usual obsessive affection and mild sexual tension.
So I excused myself to find food.
With a goodbye kiss and a double check on her stability, I left.
And behind , Onyx’s smile widened.
She wandered my Mindspace with a spring in her step, dragging her chains like happy ribbons. A few minutes later, she arrived at her second favorite spot—the prison-sword-shrine of Kiya, the other cohabitant of this neural zoo.
"Oh Kiya," Onyx cooed, lounging beside the blade. "Why must our love hurt and feel so good at the sa ti~?"
The sword, being a sword, said nothing.
It did, however, vibrate with deeply offended tal energy.
"Oh don’t be like that~" she sang. "Still sulking just because you couldn’t even scratch in our little duel? Co now. You’re a Queen. Don’t pout."
The sword’s chains rattled.
"You know we want the sa thing, don’t you? To be near him. Always. To protect him. To feel him beside us as the stars burn and civilizations fall."
The sword paused.
Listening.
"I may have fucked up," Onyx said, voice softening. "But I learned sothing. Sothing huge."
The chains stilled.
"We only need him. We don’t need the Hive. We don’t need the Queen’s edicts. He’s our King. Your King. Doesn’t that excite you?"
The sword shivered.
A shadow rose from it.
Huge. Hollow. Ghostly.
The outline of a woman made of holes and hunger. Fragile. Fading. But full of fire.
The shadow nodded.
Then vanished.
Onyx’s grin beca a rictus of delight. Her mandibles clicked open in glee.
"Perfect~ We shall serve him alone. Together. No Queen. No system. Just our King."
At the center of my Mindspace, the Origin stirred.
If it had a face, it would’ve been giving them side-eye.
But it trusted them.
Onyx, insane or not, had always had its back.
So it said nothing.
Though it did flinch when she turned and shouted, "Thank you, sweetie~!"
The sword rattled in amusent.
I, anwhile, was elsewhere.
Munching on what I hoped was a Ker’min burger and sipping a warm bottle of carbonated sin.
And suddenly—
I shivered.
Like I was being undressed by a concept.
I glanced sideways.
Saw no one.
Shrugged.
The two most unstable things in my world weren’t with , so it had to be fine, right?
I kept eating.
Blissfully unaware of the oath that had just been made in my na.
---
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