Chapter Ninety Four - Kyan and the System

Kyan felt old and yet he felt young. It was an indescribable feeling and not wholly pleasant. His body in the real world was just sixteen years old when he had entered the archive, so he felt as if he was young.  Yet his mind had experienced thousands of years in various worlds within the archive, he felt so old.

At first he had told himself that these worlds were not real and the people were not real, they were memories at best and moving holographs at worst. But the people he interacted with, the things he touched, the tears that moved him, the pets that gave him joy... how could he not become effected by these things?

The System had told him the same story that the men who had recruited him had told him; he was going into the archive to free the V.I.P's stuck in its virtual data banks. It had added that he would need to enter the worlds, push certain individuals together through various actions. These 'protagonists' acted as keys to those men and women's escape from the archive. He had found out his role was generally a stepping stone, antagonist or cannon fodder. He simply had to follow the tasks set, continuously stay in character and fulfil the storyline so that the 'protagonists' had their happily ever after.

He was so naive.

The first world he had entered gave him the first realisation of how difficult this was going to be, despite the fact this was supposed to be a world with a low difficulty. He had felt as if his soul had been forced into his new skull through a sieve and if that was not bad enough, his host brain released all its memories at once. Suffering a blinding headache and having had to relive another person's life in less than five seconds was not an experience for the faint hearted. His new sixteen year old self had ran to the bathroom in his shabby apartment to throw up. The System had offered sympathy and soothing words, but he had had to rest for the remainder of that first day in order to recover. The next day, the System, through an ancient looking mobile phone device, had sent him several tasks. Some had seemed really stupid. Looking back, he believed now, that it had all been a test to see how well behaved he was.

His role had fortunately been fairly minor, it was barely even memorable now and he had lived in the world for ten years until the System insisted he need to move to the next world. His job there complete.

The second world had also been a test, he realised. Would he kill himself or allow himself to be killed if the System told him too? Considering the fact that he had honestly believed he was doing the right thing, he had run in front of a car. It had hurt like a bitch!

There in fell a pattern. Arrive in the world and suffer. Perform tasks whenever and wherever; even at 2am, when he was trying to sleep, even if it was ridiculously embarrassing, even if it caused his death or the death of another. Then leave the world and if he was lucky, it was painless... but that was infrequent. The longest he spent in one of those worlds was probably 25 years and at least five of them was suffering under the torture of his Emperor. In all of this, he clung to the belief that he was helping people, clung to the thought his body would be restored when he was finished, clung to the System as the constant in this existence.

So when the System was no longer there, he felt somewhat freaked out and helpless, set adrift with no anchor. But his small ship had found a rock for him to cling to, a boy who although was just as much code as anyone else in these worlds, got close to him and enveloped him in warmth. His gratitude hadn't shown itself and he foolishly thought that this boy would be his rock until he had to leave that world, but he had almost lost him too. He would never be able to express how he felt when he realised that that boy, that man, had just been waiting for him to love him as well. Aidan had become his new purpose, his new anchor and he believed that even though he would eventually leave him one day, to continue his missions, the memory of him would sustain him until the end.

Their time together was brief and he had had to leave that world abruptly. He did not know this, at the time and he had not woken up in the System's space. Instead he had woken up as a newborn baby, with no memories of his former life and doted on, while he was small, by his two parents. The System was not satisfied with this and split his soul trying to wake him. It felt weird even now to know that for a time he had been two people in one body; one trying to live up to his father's expectations and failing and another trying to complete the System's cruel tasks. And during all of this, the man he had forgotten, the man he sworn to always love even though he couldn't be with him forever had chased him down and reclaimed him. And he did not stop there.

How could the love in his own heart compare?

His mind felt old, because of all of the lives he had lived and the experiences he had. But his mind felt young and refreshed when he saw those warm eyes gazing upon him with love beyond love that they had shared.

And that was what he was thinking of when he finally woke, his broken heart stitched together beautifully with the love of his husband. Kyan blushed. Referring to him that way felt strange, but they had been wed in more than one life and married in all but name in others. He glanced about and realised he was lying on a white bed, covered by a white sheet and froze. Had he returned to the System's space? A small black sphere appeared above him, it's eye all white. It sort of resembled the System, but he quickly sensed that it was not the same.

"Ah, you woke up," a deep voice with a slightly metallic nature called out. Kyan turned to the source and saw a man painting with white paint on a white canvas. The easel also happened to be white. Kyan blinked and recalled that this was the man that Yu Long... Aidan called 'Master.'

"Where is this?" Kyan asked. "This looks similar to the System's space."

"I suppose you could say it is similar, but this is my domain," the Master replied.

"Why am I here?" Kyan asked.

"Hmmm," the Master replied. "The simple answer is because I am teaching that which you call System a valuable lesson. Saving your life happened to coincide with that."

"Saving my life?" Kyan shook his head, then chuckled lightly, "I think you best share the complicated answer."

"I'm not entirely sure what that System told you," the Master said, placing his white pallet of white paint upon his white throne and the white brush beside it. "But from what I have learned, you were sent into this archive to die." Kyan froze, the smile on his face like fragile glass waiting to shatter.

"What?" He questioned when he found his voice.

"There is a long story behind it, I might share it sometime," the Master told him. "But simply stated, the System wanted a body in the physical world and yours was compatible. All he had to do was weaken your soul to the point it could not prevent him from absorbing it and taking you over."

"Th-that can't be true!" Kyan denied, getting to his feet swiftly. "If that was true then..." then he'd been betrayed by those people who had plugged him in. There was no full body restoration. There was only death. He fell to his knees. He had not lived all these lives without gaining some insight to human nature. It made too much sense if he thought about it. The System wanted a body, perhaps it had used the V.I.P's as bargaining chips. But the governments would never allow something so dangerous to move about. His body, his completely useless unmoving body, was the perfect trap for it. He would just need to be sacrificed in return.

"The people I was supposed to rescue...?" Kyan asked with a whisper.

"The System released most of the trapped souls sometime ago," the Master explained. "It was the first time I had realised something was odd, I had been busy fixing some... problems and was unaware of what he was doing. I tried to confront him, of course, but he has been evading me by world hopping. I can't reach him easily without damaging the files. Fortunately, I discovered someone who wished to help you, thus helping me in return. He's very devoted, isn't he."

This brought a small smile to Kyan's lips and warmth to his chest. He nodded gently. "He is," he replied, regaining balance in his heart. He pulled himself up to sit upon the bed. "Wait... where is he? Where is Aidan?"

"Ah, some of the files are becoming corrupted and I do not know why," the Master grimaced, a very human like expression appearing on his usually static face. "The world where you were called Willow, that was not meant to suffer earthquakes. And the galaxy that he and Yang are in is suffering from vanishing worlds."

"Yang?"

"Master!" The black sphere floated over. "The galaxy stabilised."

"Oh well done them," the Master said, cheerfully.

"Yang claims it wasn't them," the sphere replied after a brief pause. "Master, this backup system found an anomaly at the same moment of stabilisation."

"What type of anomaly? Has the golden child program activated?"

"No, the anomaly is something different, something that did not occur in the evolution period between the seventeenth era and eighteenth era. The reincarnation program is recycling too much sentient data. This did not occur when the world's vanished. There was no reduction in sentient data. Yin is worried that this will effect the internal investigation."

The Master tapped his small, metal casing. "Well then, I suppose I best request some additional assistance," he turned to look at Kyan.

Kyan thought about it for a moment, whatever was happening could cause problems for this Yang and for Aidan? He sensed that Aidan would want any repayment for all that he had done for him, but it didn't mean that Kyan wouldn't wish it to do so.  "What do I need do?"

"A suitable host?" The Master turned to Yin.

"Found, but Yin will need to adjust it first," the little sphere declared.

"Proceed," the Master agreed. It was not long before Kyan's senses went blank.