The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 419: Gestalt

Chapter 419: Gestalt

The moment Crimson informed Akane that she was on the other side of civilization, She sensed that something was off about the elf.

Instead of reacting with shock, Akane simply seemed to freeze up, a brief moment of panic disappearing from Her senses as the foreigner compartmentalized the information, leaving nothing but a sense of eerie non-feeling and a... desire for some specific kind of interaction.

She was definitely feeling something specific, but while Kordia was used to having a higher degree of empathy, Lapins and Sin were not, so Her interpretations were muddled. She almost didn’t realize when the conversation turned back to Her, with the motion of Akane’s head snapping Her out of her reverie.

"I’m sorry, what was that?"

Akane bowed her head again, regressing into a shout. "I was expressing my sincerest thanks for the air formations that saved my life, which Kamui Crimson attributed to your magic craft!"

"Oh. You’re very welcome. Again, please don’t shout."

"Sorry! I mean, sorry miss onmyoji. May this humble soldier ask the name of yourself? Your reitai self, that is."

"Reitai? I already told you we are Kordia, Lapins, and Sin."

"Y-yes but you are embodied as one with a kami’s power, yes? I mean... onmyoji typically just operate as one person and one spirit, but I can tell all three of you seem to be sharing and I’ve never even heard of that and typically the embodied form has an awesome name like Reikaito or Shinryu..."

As Akane babbled about onmyoji and spirits, She kept two sets of ears on her as she thought about her situation. Though it seemed like such a small thing, having a name for whatever state she was in... just felt right.

She knew she was Kordia, Lapins, and Sin, but she was also her own self in a way that wasn’t them. A lot of that probably had to do with Silver’s magic and how it had resonated into the world to form connections, but more concentrated. Wait. Was She a construct? Didn’t constructs require a massive amount of spells to function?

"Korlasin!" Akane’s exclamation pulled Her out of her thoughts.

She felt a bit of mild disgust at the name which was clearly a portmanteau of her three aspects. "That feels... lazy. I’m not calling us that."

"Oh. Uh... I could suggest a few names in High East Rethani. Maybe... ’Kogetsu’? Some of your hair has a silvery quality to it. Like the light that passes around the moons."

"Is that name at all related to Kangetsu?" She blurted, surprised to hear something so similar to the name of Kir’s sword.

"Well, uh, I think Kangetsu would mean something like ’icy moon’ which would be a complete misnomer since Heaven and Hell clearly aren’t icy at all... what a weird name! Is that what you want me to call you?"

"No." She went back to thinking. Kir had postulated that modern Common was descended from older languages, and that parts of those old languages might be preserved in some way as High or Ancient tongues. Yet as far as she knew, the four civilized continents all used the same alphabet...

A sudden realization occurred to her that the reason Kir hadn’t been able to find very many links to the languages of his past life was because of that... She’d have to bring it up to him next time, it would be a nice gift to make him excited, but in the meantime, Akane was still throwing out names.

"How about... Reiko? It means ’spirit child’, and you’re definitely fitting for a being without a body although in your case..."

Reiko... She tried it out in her head. It was simple, and more to the point gave her a sense of identity that had little to do with her three aspects... though she did feel a tinge of jealousy from Lapins, owing to her ignorance of her own rabbitkin ancestry.

"Or maybe Kagero-no-Kitsunebi?"

"I like it."

"Oh, well that is a bit of a mouthful but..."

"Not that one, I mean Reiko." She smiled. "Call me Reiko."

Akane beamed. "Nice to meet you, Reiko."

"Not to cut this precious moment of bonding short, but that thing is spreading, and that other thing is still waiting for us out there." Crimson’s thoughts slid into the conversation.

"What thing?" Akane asked.

"A lightning dragon spirit. But one that seems to be in the early stages of its corruption."

"WHAT?!"

As Akane blanched and panicked while Crimson filled her in, Reiko noticed the crystallization of the dungeon room was a quarter of the way done. At most, they would have a few hours before having to choose between being forced out or staying and finding out what would happen when the effect reached them.

As if responding to her notice, a denizen of the room - a stripey deerlike animal with horns that twisted their way out from its shoulders - chose to touch a crystallized mass of air with its nose.

What happened next would fuel her nightmares. The crystallization suddenly expanded to encompass the creature, which struggled with an eerie, panicked cry before disappearing into the facets. One blink, and there was no sign of the creature ever having been there.

"Akane... do you know what is happening to this dungeon?" Reiko asked.

"Not at all, Miss Reiko."

"What was your mission?"

"Escorting a box. I didn’t really ask what was in it but it was glowing with a lot of mana... Mostly I just tried to keep my people alive and let the cultists handle the box, but I wasn’t strong enough..." Akane’s face lowered as she thought about her team. "I shouldn’t have even been on the team, but the cult insisted the daimyo send someone, and she didn’t exactly like them, so I guess it made sense to send someone as useless as me..."

Reiko could feel Akane’s self-doubt and loathing. Surprisingly, while Sin was the most uncomfortable with those feelings, Lapins seemed to have a sense of how to interpret Akane’s particular mix of emotions.

I was trained to exploit people like her. She doesn’t know who she is and has the self-confidence of a toddler trying to do algebra. Reiko winced at the uncharitable thoughts she was having, before deciding the best course forward was to focus on survival.

"Akane, I know what you just went through was hard, but it’s not over yet. If there’s anything you can do to help us, one of our parents are the rulers of the land outside this dungeon, and more to the point our boyfriend might be one of the most powerful beings in existence."

"All of yours’ boyfriend?"

Of course she’d focus on that. Reiko resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "It’s complicated. We’re complicated. Especially now."

"Oh... uh... I suppose I could show you some onmyoji meditation techniques... Not that they ever worked for me... It’s mostly a feelings thing and my feelings were never enough to attract a kami so I just got stuck being plain old me... Plain, useless Akane..." she said the last in a tiny voice.

Reiko pinched the bridge of her noses between her fingers. There was clearly more to Akane than what she said about herself, given how dense her mana was inside her body. That likely meant she was at least decent at bodily enhancement magic.

Again, the feeling of Akane’s emotions just disappearing shifted Reiko’s awareness. She looked up to find Akane with a sort of placid expression on her face.

"Are you alright?" Reiko asked.

"S-sure! I don’t really know what’s going on here other than I seem to have crossed the planet but just tell me what you need me to do and I’ll do my best! Hehe..." She took a deep breath and then continued, "It’ll probably be better if I show you the onmyoji meditation forms. Anything I try to cast always comes out as something else."

Reiko’s eyes widened. "Are you sure you aren’t connected to a spirit then? I knew someone who had a partial connection to an undine - a water spirit - and it caused her spells to come out as liquid no matter what she cast."

"Oh. No, I’m just bad at magic, hehe. Unless it’s making fortifications for some reason. Looking for a spirit connection was probably the first... No, more like the third thing I tried after realizing how bad I was. It’s just me... probably." Akane scratched at her cheek.

Having partially learned what to look for, Reiko drew on Kordia’s experience to try to trace the mana around Akane, only to come up with nothing. A closer look at Akane’s mana made her feel muddy for some reason, and she also sensed that Akane wanted to be controlled for reasons she was not comfortable prying into, so she decided to leave it at that. "Alright then. Tell me about this meditation."

"Yes Lady Reiko," Akane sat and crossed her legs in a way that made all of Reiko’s bodies slightly envious of her flexibility. "Uh... you should all probably sit close together for this. From what I understand contact is usually important."

Reiko brought her aspects together and sat cross-legged, linking hands in a circle. It required a lot of shifting to close the circle, but in the end all three of her were linked together and she began to steady her breath just like with mana meditation.

"Can you do lotus position? It’s better for concentration-" she flinched as Reiko glared at her "-bu~t not that important. The most important thing is feeling out the boundaries between your spirits and yourself. The gestalt form is usually the pinnacle of an onmyoji’s bond, but I guess in this case you should work backwards? I’m guessing Crimson is probably your kami..."

Crimson huffed. "There is only one woman I deign to share my power with. These three are bonded through another kyubi, one who has traded her mana for a new vessel."

"Oh..." Akane swallowed heavily at the statement. "That might complicate things..."