(Written while listening to: "Kaikai Kitan" by Eve on Youtube
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"(...) there seems to be a common agreement that Yog-Sothoth visually manifests as a mass of glowing orbs, with eyes or tendrils in some versions, and in others simply the orbs."
-Quote from The H.P Lovecraft Wiki page.
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Laito's first instinct was to open his eyes.
Then he realized that he still couldn't feel them.
'C'mon, what's going on now?' His exasperation continued.
'First, just before waking up, I hear some random animal bleating sound… INSIDE MY DAMN SOUL. And then I can't… see?'
Laito's internal tirade slowed and halted by the end as he noticed that, in fact, he could see.
It was just that he was somewhere really dark... and tight.
'Is that… red? Wait, this looks like some sort of… flesh? Wait! I still have my "more than byakugan" vision! What the heck!? I should be back inside my body!'
What Laito was about to realize was that he was indeed "inside his body".
Quite literally.
'Are these… lungs? And heart too! Damnation! I gotta get outta here!' He noticed a lot of weirdness in his direct environment.
He tried to move and somehow, purely on newly acquired instinct, he did.
An infant head's sized orb of pure white light has shot up from the chest of a teenager who just awakened from a coma just to end up in a vegetative state.
But that boy was no longer Laito.
He was a Hollow.
An empty husk, that had its body left without a soul.
And the soul in question… was now hovering just below the ceiling in the dining room of the house, he had spent the first ten years of his second childhood.
Laito tried to think of something.
But his "brain"(he had none, literally) ended up just releasing useless farts while trying to comprehend everything that he was seeing.
He saw the familiar figure of his second father, Tomio, approaching… his body and saying something.
Laito realized he couldn't hear anything.
He had perfect vision channeled through the(apparently invisible for mortals) light his current body gave off.
But he lacked any other senses.
And more than that.
He didn't feel thirst, or hunger or even any pain at all.
From that moment his true self was just a floating ball of light.
While Laito contemplated his new predicament, he noticed his dad reaching out for a phone.
Some time later, people came in and started to take away his old body.
'Wait! Damn it!' Laito got worried, as he, in the end, wanted his body back, so he chased them.
Although he never consciously used his light-orb body in the Nightmare, he instinctively knew how to move it.
That's partially because of the [Not-To-Be-Named One] Attribute.
It described him being able to "become anything" part of the perks of that Attribute was that now he had insane adaptation capabilities.
To move, Laito had to release a small steady stream of Essence in one direction. Like some jet-propulsion engine.
Usually, the Spirit Essence was taking the form of silvery colored energy. One exception from that rule was Shadow Essence, which was pitch-black.
Spirit Essence came from Spirit Cores.
Shadow Essence came from Shadow Cores.
The Essence that Laito had…
It was pure white… like everything about his looks recently.
He was slowly getting tired of it.
He followed his father and the other guys as they took his empty body and put it into a car.
Then they drove off.
Laito easily followed.
It was also a quite good occasion to test the limits of his new form.
First thing: he was completely incorporeal and invisible to the mundane eye.
Second: he could develop quite a high speed when needed.
And the last thing that he noticed was that there was one thing that was capable of interacting with him…
Gravity.
Despite not being a material being anymore, Laito noticed that he still could "feel" the lessened, but still present, pull of gravitational waves.
He could easily offset it by releasing a steady stream of Essence downwards to counter it… but it was still annoying.
Laito kept following the car.
In his vision he also saw the much missed neighbourhood.
A proper modern city. With well dressed people, that carried a certain kind of… softness? As if they didn't need to combat vile abominations on a daily basis.
Of course it was not JUST any modern society!
It was a world of quirks, where even walking the road you could see various people transformed by their quirks.
Everything was colorful and lively.
Quite the contrast to the gloomy besieged keep Laito had to live within the past few months.
And not to criticize the Incandescent… Within the standards of medieval-like eras, the city they governed was quite astonishing.
But it's difficult to run society with eldritch monsters breathing down your neck.
With villains at least you could somehow communicate. They are humans after all… although that's what sometimes made it worse.
And not to say that there were no bad people under the Nightmare Spell.
Humans will always fight each other. That's just their nature, as the children of War.
Laito shook off his stream of contemplative thoughts as he noticed the car he was following had reached its goal.
It was a parking lot… a big one, in front of a private clinic that looked on a slightly more expensive end. Not "insanely" expensive but well-put.
Laito followed his dad, the hospital employees… and his empty body, inside.
After a quick check-in the doctor began doing their tests on soulless thirteen years old.
And so did Laito.
The orb of light approached its previous body and then sunk back into its chest.
'I think it might work… maybe even that's how it's supposed to be used.' Laito focused and tried to invoke a particular feeling.
From back then when he lacked self-awareness and was pulled into The Gate.
This time it was himself who tried to reenact that situation by "pushing" himself into his spiritless body.
And lo and behold…
It worked.
Laito's [One-in-All] is an amazing ability… its description says that he can become part of anything…
So he became part of himself again.
It took a bit of time, but after a while of circulating Essence through flesh and blood… he "connected".
Heartbeat. Breathing. Sounds, smells… and a lot of dull ache.
—
'Heh. I thought it would be worse…' He thought, while enjoying having his senses back.
The noise got louder.
"... a FLYING! FUCK!!! about…!"
Laito felt slightly annoyed at painfully loud(for him) shouting.
"Damn it dad… language… sheesh…" He attempted to get himself some quiet.
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[1,5 years left until MHA plot beginning]
[Chapter End] The story is not over yet
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