The trip back towards the city was fairly quiet. Mostly. Jarek and Dominic chatted idly the entire way, clearly the two having been on good terms in the past before Dominic retired from the position. With the seating arrangement the way it was, Rou had been lightly sandwiched between Shiela and Dominic to mostly block sight of him - and by proxy sight from him - regarding Elios.

  It was easy to write off Rou's behavior and oddities as simply a child being strange. Kids were that way at times. Sure, it was a little strange for the others in the caravan to see the kid so solemn and clinging on what was eventually shared to be a Prime Spinebear spine.

  "You killed one of those things? Just the two of you? That's… impressive." even Elios admitted that. Jarek agreed, "It really is, especially considering these two use their fists and magic, neither of which are all that useful. Mind if I ask how? We can catalogue it back at the castle for future training purposes and even spread it. Might even get you some extra pay from it."

  Dominic and Shiela thought about it before Shiela pointed at Rou beside her. "His idea."

  Everyone was quite confused, thinking she was joking, until Dominic agreed.

  "He overheard me say I can't kill it because of the spines on its head, and also heard me say we can't simply go up and over because it'd notice and chase, if we tried to avoid it. Clever little shit suggested Shiela go up and over to make it up look up and then I could punch it."

  When Dominic pointed at his throat as if to imply no spines, Jarek burst out laughing. "I'll be damned, a three year old thought up something like that."

  "So he did. I was so focused on trying to kill it alone that I thought I couldn't do it. Hadn't thought about using Shiela since she was carrying Rou. I guess it was a good idea we brought him along after all."

  That last bit caused Rou to perk up suddenly and look towards his father, having realized the fellow had relented on the idea of him coming and agreed it was a fair choice.

  The dour Rou seemed to smile at that, happy at the recognition.

  –

  Still didn't let go of the spine, however.

  –

  Eventually they returned to the village and they all were to stay the night and set out the next day. As it happened, the local hunters returned with the Prime Spinebears corpse, having made the trip with great effort and a group of six.

  Like the wheeled caravan carts, and the effort put out by the hunters to build a makeshift sled and drag the corpse of the bear, Rou was left wondering.

  Something inside him seemed to be remembered.

  "Anti-gravity magic…"

  Rou's parents looked at him curiously. They'd heard what he said, but didn't quite understand what he was talking about, especially as they hadn't really discussed magic with him. Had he overheard something? How would he even know what dark magic was… that /was/ dark magic, yes? Neither was quite sure as they discussed it with each other.

  He looked at his status screen and noticed the [Merged Memories] Status had gone up to 7%. Barely anything but it was something.

  ~Oh, so you're finally remembering all that. It made everyone so happy before. I was worried in this life you wouldn't…~

  Still unable to converse with the strange voices he heard now and then inside of him, including the one that reminded him of Affection, hearing them refer to the magic like that left him to ask his parents, "Can we try something?"

  With the three just wandering the village in the evening, they had no reason to say no.

  –

  "Rou, where did you learn all of this."

  "I don't… know. I just remembered it." He didn't try to hide anything from his parents. It wasn't that he was going out of his way to pretend to be a stupid, normal child, it's just that the reincarnated Rou's memories were such a mess right now it was easiest to simply go along with the flow. "I think you have been my parents before. …maybe a lot." It was a very, very strange thing to hear, only for both Dominic and Shiela to pause and look up before Rou looked up as well and back down, "Affection said 'Don't look at me, I don't know what he's talking about'."

  The two got a small laugh out of that before Rou added, "I learned it then."

  "When?"

  "Back home. The old lady, her husband died, she has a book on it. …it was his book." Though the two adults were quite worried hearing such things from their son, when he suddenly teared up and thanked them for being his parents again, and asked them to keep being his parents forever, tears were had all around.

  Even Dominic for a change.

  Incidentally, that smoothed things over quite well and instead they were simply a bit sad they, too, couldn't remember.

  But strangely, as Rou and his parents hugged, a voice from inside.

  ~Let's see if we can't… see how this goes.~

  –

  A warmth traveled from inside Rou, two in fact, and passed through him from his body into his parents. None of them noticed it, not being able to see such things - even Rou, his eyes not sublimated into perception as of the moment.

  But after a short while, both Dominic and Shiela seemed to perk up and were quite confused, shaking their head and looking around before back at Rou. "Wait, why do I remember that? That never happened… did it?"

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  She was remembering looking at Rou as he sat on a bed, staring at a book that surely he couldn't read. And mentioning Affection had read it to him, or at least something like that, it was all rather confusing.

  Dominic, likewise, remembered something. But what he remembered wasn't the magic. It was a frantic running through the woods, exhaustion, pain, his muscles cramping and protesting as he used magic and burned his own mana supplies and natural aether to run.

  "Outbreak… Rou, is that what you're trying to prevent? A Black Spore outbreak?"

  Shiela jerked upright and stared at the two, as if mentioning that brought back memories, and Rou looked at the two, lost. "You remember that?" Even Rou wasn't fully sure, only remembering how utterly terrified he was of everything. The strange, pervasive fear he'd felt somewhere before - seemingly from the Black Spores… likely even the Black Slime lingering on his soul as it was. "I think yes. I think that is the scary thing. The fang, he…"

  As Rou cradled his head and his parents cradled him, eventually Rou remembered properly. "Dad and I were on a trip to the capital, and I saw notices that something was trying to hurt me. Dad jumped to the treetops and looked and…"

  "I saw the Black Spore outbreak. I know where it was."

  "But that was then, dad. That wasn't… now. It hasn't started yet. It was bigger, it had spread. We don't know how long."

  "Yes, but you gave me Affection's warning. That if we went back for Shiela and the village, we wouldn't have time to make it to the capital! So if it was spreading that fast… Shiela, if I gave you a map and made some guesses, could you try and…?"

  "Yes, let's hurry! And see if you can't ask Jarek where it is you're going to. If it's the same…"

  "That might be why you couldn't find Jarek last time, Dad. He might have, Elios might have."

  A throaty growl escaped Dominic as he realized it's possible that in whatever past life that was, if his friend Jarek died because of some plot of Elios, he was going to have blood in this life.

  –

  "Where are we off to?" Jarek asked curiously.

  "That's not their concern, commander." Elios tried to correct but was waved off by Jarek. "Come now, if they're coming along with us there's no harm in letting them know now. There were some ruins discovered deep in the forest here, or at least that's the story, some heritage site. Normally we'd send some scouts to check but Elios here insisted we come out, seemed worried it might be dangerous."

  As Jarek pointed out the rough location on the map, Rou hopped down and gave his father's leg a slight pat to let him know he was alright. All of the Fangs and Claws were seated on the floor in a private room that night in the city, talking about the next day and their journey to wherever they had to go.

  "So Shiela got the spot right, then."

  Jarek seemed confused, "Pardon?"

  Elios began to say something, only to gasp in confusion as he found a spine piercing his neck from the side. The culprit? Rou. He had climbed up carefully onto a nearby chair when they were all distracted and promptly impaled the second-in-command of the Fangs straight through the soft of his neck.

  Jarek freaked out and jumped, not to hurt Rou, but to try and grab Elios. However, Dominic and Shiela were just a bit surprised that Rou was so blunt. Dominic quickly jumped to grab Rou only to ask, "Rou, why now? What happened?"

  "We didn't know if it's on him, or there. We didn't know if it was an accident, or on purpose. I'll keep you safe."

  The strange way their son was staring at them very much made them feel like… he had seen them hurt before. That he /was/ keeping them safe.

  Not that any of them remembered being hurt from this, but something in Rou felt like… there was a memory somewhere, tucked away, that was screaming at him to kill Elios now or else.

  "Shiela, heal him quickly!" Jarek tried to get their attention, but Shiela looked at the choking, gasping Elios and simply said, "I stand with my son."

  "Have you two lost your mind?!" Jarek looked caught between attacking them and trying to save Elios before Dominic said softly, "We were asked, by Affection, to prevent something happening. We weren't sure what until about half an hour ago. We don't know if Elios was the cause, or simply took advantage of an opportunity, but his actions would have lead to a Black Spore outbreak of unseen proportions. It would have spread from that spot on the map all the way past our village, and towards the capital. That's not even including how much damage would occur from it being burned and cleansed."

  Dominic held Rou on his laps, arm around the boy, and added, "Though I would have gone about it at a different pace, maybe catching Elios in action, it would seem Rou here thought it was too dangerous to let him live. I… also stand with my son."

  "HE'S THREE?! WHAT COULD HE POSSIBLY KNOW!"

  Jarek's confusion made sense before Dominic nudged Rou with a soft 'show him'.

  Status Screen 1.03

  Name: Rou Erial

  Title: [Beloved of the Gods]

  Status: [Merged Memories - 8%]

  Jarek stared in surprise, admittedly as did Rou's parents as he hadn't shown them that title before, despite the Merged Memories status making sense. But once Jarek saw it, devout as he was - and knowing the Status system was in the realm of the Gods only, he stood up and stared down at the dying Elios, who by this point had stopped moving, having bled out everywhere.

  "So it really was… damn."

  Though Rou had tried to be tough, as soon as his will wavered and he finally realized the smell of the blood, he pulled away from his parents and ran off to a refuse bin in the corner and emptied his stomach. Naturally his parents and Jarek were concerned until he said softly, "I don't like blood…"

  Which actually caused all three to laugh at the morbid irony of it all, considering he had just impaled a man with a spine through the neck, but somehow he was so weak to blood that he was now throwing up. Shiela smiled and knelt with him, hugging Rou and petting him lightly as she tried to help calm him down.

  –

  Eventually the three moved rooms and Dominic and Jarek cleaned up Elios corpse before they reconvened and Jarek looked at Rou and his parents. "So you're saying that… I went missing shortly, maybe died to the Black Spores, and… that's all so much to believe." But believe it he did, the gods wouldn't lie to them like this.

  –

  Affection up high in her domain was so confused, and a bit nervous. She didn't seek out anyone else, though. Not Aether, or Creation, or anyone. She just watched, and listened, wondering why it was that they spoke about her having told them something that she never told them.

  What she hadn't noticed as she was too distracted was that the Affection in Rou's soul had leaked a tiny bit of her own memories to go that way. Piggybacking on the connection between Rou's senses, and Affection. Leaving the Goddess to regain a few of her memories. And when Affection, of the present, suddenly remembered something she had no way of knowing, she actually began to cry a little - much to her own confusion.

  "When did he… he protected me?"

  The Affection in Rou's soul suggested softly, ~Rou, would you ask if Affection remembers?~

  Not understanding why, Rou simply did as the voice asked, 'Did you remember something, Dear?'

  Then he heard her voice respond after a bit. "I did. How did you know?"

  'Mmm, not sure. But I love you.' and then he went back to paying attention to his parents.

  ~Seems I'm going to have to step away for a bit. You going to be okay on your own?~

  ~I'll be okay. I'll miss you though. You'll be back eventually, yes?~

  ~Absolutely. But now that I know I can safely merge with myself now… I need to make some preparations. Not just for us, or Rou… but with the other gods. After all. I have my memories. I can share it with them.~

  Though Rou couldn't see it, he could feel the two inside of him somewhere, feel a soft hug from the one who reminded him of Affection, and also got the sense that the two others inside of him actually kissed rather tenderly for quite a while.

  ~Be safe Affy. I don't know how, but if you're ever in danger, come back to us. Rou will somehow keep you safe. He'd never let you get hurt.~

  A soft laugh, then another kiss before suddenly Rou's soul felt a bit emptier and he began to cry softly.

  "Ah, Rou, what's wrong?"

  When Shiela noticed him crying, he couldn't seem to put it to words outside of, "I feel colder."

  Though he did feel his soul warm up and felt the sensation of being hugged from inside. Only it was just the one someone hugging him now, Rou seeking a hug from his mother to make up for the missing warmth.

  –

  Of course, he may feel colder, it made sense because Affection had been with him for so, so long inside of his soul. But now, her eyes slowly opened in her domain and she looked around and back at her body. "Maybe this time will be the last. But how to go about it. …Aether. Or Laughter?"