Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ 皆既金食　～ kaiki kinshoku. ❯ Permafrost Gravitation ( Prologue )

 The world is black, cold, and silent.

 I am suspended in absolute "void." There is no sensation except myself.

 My memory is discontinuous here. Between now and when I entered the Bounded Field, there is only "blank." If it weren't for the circumstances, this "discontinuity" would almost serve as an interesting locked-room mystery.

 It's a shame that I'm probably going to die here.

 I try to focus into the distance, making an attempt to determine if there's anything here other than nothingness. All I succeed in doing is straining my eyes. It seems there truly is nothing in this world except for me. To be honest, I'm not even sure if there's an atmosphere, even though my lungs should obviously have ruptured by now if there weren't.

 The world is empty.

 Yet, in this world of emptiness, there is a pressure on me.

 That's not entirely accurate. I can feel myself being subjected to a pressure, but there is no sensation. It is less like "I am being pushed" and more like "the space inside my body is expanding."

 ...

 Come to think of it, how can this world be cold when there's no medium to transmit heat? Clearly, the solution is that this cold must originate from my own body.

 Below a core temperature of 35°, hypothermia should set in. However, my heart rate is normal and my cognition is unimpaired. If I am to believe that this "sensation of cold" is the result of feedback, then my core temperature should be around 12°.

 In other words, my biology is fundamentally no longer human.

 The idea briefly crosses my mind that this is the end state of the partner bond, but that's impossible. I am alone in this world of emptiness. Right now, we're not connected. My partner is—

 [A threat.]

 I shake off the thought. It's nonsense. I'm more of a threat to her than she is to me. I've already hurt her, haven't I?

 [I want to rip her neck open.]

 ...

 Ah... I understand.

 So this is "Inversion Impulse."

 Not a mere intrusive thought, but to be overwritten from the outside in, from the body to the mind.

 This eldritch pressure, then, is being exerted by the unnaturally cold blood circulating through my heart.

 I really am going to die here. Or rather, my body will go on living, while that which makes me Ruki Makino will cease to exist.

 It's funny. It's pathetic. I don't fear my own death, but I fear being used as a weapon afterwards.

 The growing pressure of this overwrite is starting to make me delirious. My thoughts are racing in every direction at once, just barely managing to remain coherent.

 That idiot Matsuda's going to get himself killed trying to save me from something that can't be reversed, isn't he?

 [Such hubris. I want to spear Matsuda through the heart.]

 Enough of this. Stop this mockery and just finish me off already.

 ...And what about my partner? I don't have the confidence to say for certain that my love for her is mutual, but I can't shake the thought that she'd let me kill her. More than anything else, this is what terrifies me.

 I dare not think her name. This one thing I will not allow my frozen blood to take from me. Yet if all other trace of my existence is destroyed here, I pray that she might at least hear this last thought.

"To the one I cherish more than anything..."

 Even though they're not being spoken, the first few words are halting, like an unoiled motor locking up. However, it doesn't take long for them to come out as naturally as breathing.

"To the one who proved I was alive, the one whose face I would engrave in the stars, the one whose side will always be my only true home, the one I lived to protect... the one I hurt, the one I foolishly abandoned.

 When next we meet, I shall be your enemy. Your enemy may bear my face, but 'the me that loved you' will meaningfully exist no more. I can't know how your enemy will act, if there will be any trace of me left in her. But it is inevitable that you will be forced to face her. When that time comes...

 I can only hope you will survive at all costs."

 ...

 There's no way our connection runs that deep, of course.

 It's impossible for her to have heard me just now. It is merely a selfish prayer, a false assuagement of regrets.

 To live as a human is to permit yourself to move on by blinding yourself to your mistakes, after all.

 My blood crowds me out of my own body, and now "myself" does not exist.

 There is only "void."