The first thing we thought about was darkness. I felt Jane near me but couldn't see her, so I began to experience a movie with her. Jane heard what I was thinking, and I heard her thoughts.
More than that, I was living a memory, his memories, and so we lost every bit of intimacy we might have had, for not only do we now share memories and thoughts, we share the pain, the pleasure—in short, everything.
Little Jane loved her family, and they loved her. Given her status, there's no denying that she was a little princess dictator. It warmed my heart and made me laugh watching Jane as a child ordering the servants around and tricking them into not going to the bathroom.
From a young age, she was forced to study hard, and the little red-haired girl refused; however, she always ended up being forced; therefore, from an early age, one could say that Jane was quite intelligent and even strong for her age.
One of the gods most attached to the family was Kain, the one who supposedly brought me into this world. He acted like an uncle to the bossy little princess, even teaching her sometimes.
I was able to witness Adam's memories and the ancient power of the gods. However, even though all of that was toxic and the society of the gods was dangerous, each looking out for their own interests, Jane was removed from this and able to enjoy her life.
Until the War of the Gods happened. They had to flee. Little Jane didn't understand why she had to leave her home. Fear, she really didn't understand what was happening. Everyone was fleeing. Her sister and mother were extremely desperate as they searched for valuables that might be useful to them.
Jane didn't understand it at the time, but after the war, bandits attacked the dragons' small citadel, knowing it was a moment of weakness.
That's how they fled, aimlessly, with no one to help them. Everyone Jane knew, and probably her family, was either a dragon or a god. There were no gods left, no strong dragons left. They were used to maintaining a humanoid form around the citadel, but they were used to flying and stretching their wings. Now, not only were they forced to, but the power they were born with was taken away from them, to the point where they couldn't really defend themselves.
Her mother and sister's fear was mirrored in little Jane; they were being followed, and it didn't take long to catch them. Their looks of terror were seared into my mind, and I lived through it all. I saw her mother's death, her sister's death, murdered in brutal ways as if they were merely tools to be used. Now, I, too, shared their pain on every level, and I can say that even as a grown man, someone unafraid of death, they were breaking me. I began to beg like little Jane. When will it end? I wanted to kill them, but I can't. I don't have the strength to travel back in time, just as Jane didn't have the strength to murder them and run away.
The happy years passed quickly, but the painful ones seemed like an eternity. I was a reflection of Jane, crying and trembling. For the first time, I heard her speak, I heard her inside my mind.
"They're memories... That's why you live them every second with me... Sorry, this is my burden." She seemed much calmer than I was.
I, on the other hand, screamed loudly.
—Not so! From now on, it's our burden.
That was my reaction to the memories, that was my problem, looking for the answer in the war.
"Even if it's going to take me a while to recover from this..." He notices me trembling violently. "I swear from today that I will fight by your side, I won't let anyone hurt you again."
I felt the words. I felt their pain, I felt the warmth of those bastards. I don't know how much more time passed, Jane didn't know either, but by the time it was finally over, we were too tired to still have any fighting spirit.
That's how time suddenly sped up, Jane living in a loop, her years flew by, and that's how I experienced it. She was desperate, the memories don't go away, and certainly, it wasn't just the pain of her mother and sister's death, the humiliation, what they had done to us wouldn't go away, no matter how hard we tried, it wouldn't go away... It's as if the world stopped moving after that, our chests ached, and Jane's choice was to take her own life.
She was about to slash her abdomen with her red katana, a katana she'd managed to find in the ruins of the citadel. That katana means a lot to her; it represents her family; it's the last thing she has left.
That's when I called her. At first, she was going to let me die, but when she saw that she would be the bad guy if I did, she healed me. She wanted to die in peace, but she knew her god wouldn't let her, probably even force her to merge. Because of that, she had decided that if I suggested it to her, she would kill herself right there.
Yes, being with us helped her, but it was when she was on the verge of death that she realized she already had things to fight for, a future where she herself could be happy and have friends; it wasn't fair to die after having found the answer to her suffering.
That brought us to today, even though I couldn't see her I felt her warmth, I felt her hug
—Thanks to you, I want to live.
There was still a feeling she couldn't decipher from those words, the answer was that she didn't know either.
But then we saw my past.
From Jane's perspective
Seeing my memories didn't hurt as much now, but it affected Sean greatly, which made me curious. But sharing my memories, far from humiliating, was like a weight off my shoulders. Perhaps because Sean offered to help me, and even after going through what I had, he didn't insult me or try to stop the merge; he simply accepted it. Now it was my turn.
Little Sean, lonely since birth. He had a family, but they were all at war. Every now and then, he saw some of his relatives, who even tried to keep a smile on their faces for little Sean. The problem was that he wasn't an idiot; he could see that everyone around him was suffering. Even the nanny who looked after him worried about her relatives at war.
Their world was completely different from mine, but it wasn't any better. Without magic, they still tried to kill each other, developing weapons that could scare me. However, for little Sean, this was normal. I was educated by private tutors, but Sean went to a residential school for the children of soldiers.
Indeed, they were all similar to him, but he had an irrational hatred. He didn't understand why life had to be miserable, and he refused to accept it. So he used his parents' connections to study the war at a young age. He wanted to get his parents, his sister, and his uncles out before it was too late.
Day and night, he studied and trained, fueled by an enormous hatred, fueled by a bloodlust similar to the one I felt toward my captors; it was sickening. After studying so much, what he feared most finally happened, and suddenly: his entire family was killed in the Battle of Cuba.
Not even I'd had that kind of response, but I understood. After all his effort, after training until his hands bled even as a kid, it had all been for nothing. He burst out laughing, but it wasn't funny; he'd truly gone mad.
I knew it, I knew I wouldn't make it in time, I knew it was only a matter of time. I'm an idiot for thinking I could save them, I'm an idiot for thinking I could be happy. But I'll make sure to bring this pain back to them, you filthy rats. I'll kill them one by one, no matter what I need to sacrifice, I'll kill them, I'll kill them.
Even I was horrified, I was trembling with rage next to him.
Sean spoke
—That's why I always correct them. Me, a hero? I'm a murderer.
Years passed, and he was sent to lead a small group of six soldiers to Cuba. Sean couldn't help but smile.
In their first confrontation, his anger led him to make a mistake, to be more aggressive than he should have been, and as a result, two of his group died. There, for the first time, he received a slap in the face; two of his comrades had died because of him. However, their leader didn't lose his temper and led them on. He was a man of great respect, and Sean followed him, learning from him what it meant to be a leader. The problem was that four months later, enemy reinforcements arrived in Cuba. The island was practically lost; the entire chain of command was wiped out. The leader of Sean's group, Sergeant Paul Gomez, was killed. In the confusion over the radio, only one voice took command. It was him.
Sean took command because everyone was dead, or so it seemed. All his studies backed him up. He gave a tremendous speech, and with his tactics, they won the Battle of Cuba.
When he returned, he began his military career plan. The plan he'd long fantasized about was finally achievable. The group he'd fought with in Cuba were his first comrades in the new military company Sean had formed.
That's how it all began. Sean was in serious trouble, and his companions noticed this, so they distracted him and taught him things to get him away from his own obsession with the war. Little by little, it worked; they managed to calm the beast.
They became his friends and brought love back into Sean's life. He even had a girlfriend, a dark-haired woman whom Sean fell in love with because he admired her; she was his canary; the one who would pull his ears when Sean went too far with his war crimes.
There came a day when he took it too far; it was difficult to get the slaves out of the fields alive, so he had truly decided to bomb them. If he did, his opponent would completely lose his last producers, and his economy would completely collapse. All this to keep his soldiers from being in danger was logical. Did he really not know those people, so why should he care?
The one who slapped him was Sofia, his own girlfriend. "Pain is the only thing that exists in this world. They can take your life, they can take your freedom. Continue down that path and you'll lose yourself. We swore loyalty to you, but we swore loyalty to saving these people as well."
Honestly, it wasn't logical, because if they lost more soldiers, future military plans could be complicated, but through study, Sean realized there was a better plan, something to follow. He had chosen the easy way out.
He disgusted himself and burst out laughing again. It was because he hated people; he had never known anything but the love of his family. There, for the first time in his life, he resolved to love his neighbor.
I understood, because I felt similarly when I was fleeing my captors. Sean, on the other hand, ended the war, and with it, a lot of information began to reach him. It was a government takeover, it was simple politics, but what caught Sean's attention was how dark it all was. He had learned to love people, learned to protect them, and realized that to protect them, he had to attack his own government. He didn't give it much thought, but he asked his entire company for approval. That was his mistake. He asked because he was unsure. He asked because it wasn't his own ambition. His people had already told him it was important to them; there was no need to ask, but when he did, someone overheard, someone who shouldn't have, and before he could even act, it was all over. The entire army that had once been an ally trampled the rebels.
This last thought is not mine, it was Sean's.
"I failed because I lacked ambition. That won't happen again. After this, after this war, I will lead this empire. I will strive to create a country we can all call home without sorrow, a place where people don't have to worry about having their lives taken away or being enslaved. I want to create that not just for those who have died for me, but for Ashley and for you, Jane."
Those were Sean's words.
The perspective of both.
What was an eternity for us, was instantaneous in real life, I felt incredible, we had completely healed, although this only happens at the moment of fusing for the first time, it is a rather biological change where regeneration is enhanced, so if we were on the verge of death again, this time drinking each other's blood would not be enough.
We smiled as we stretched and looked at ourselves in the mirror. Indeed, the god remains primal, but Jane's features appeared on my body, like the fact that I now had red hair. Our attire was a kind of all-white ceremonial suit. This was created by Jane, who knows how to do this, because otherwise we would be completely naked.
"Sean, Jane?" Azumi had stood up, her face completely pale.
"Did they merge?" Ashley asked, sitting up, covering her mouth with her hand, not out of surprise, but because she was coughing up blood.
At that moment we made the decision to undo the fusion, our fusion had been true, we had joined with each other, that caused me to be able to read her thoughts and feel what she feels even if we were outside of it.
When we unfused, I felt alone, thanks to Jane knowing how to do it, we both unfused recovering our previous clothes.
We looked at each other and smiled, but we quickly lost it. Jane, seeing my memories, learned something, how dangerous radiation is for us, however I was completely cured, the problem was Ashley.