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Parson recalled, then, an occasionally odd feeling whenever he and Overra had merged for pan-forma--and more recently pan-rozum. It had been a feeling like someone was present in the back of his mind, digging through him. That someone had been Overra, of course. He’d come to that conclusion rather early on, but now he was thinking on that feeling again. It hadn’t been constant. In fact, it had been rather infrequent. But he remembered it giving him a strange and uncomfortable sensation, like that of entering his home and finding a stranger there.

Overra hadn’t been a stranger, obviously, but the feeling remained the same, nonetheless.

Remembering that made him realize. She had been using their time together in hyper-states all these years for this very purpose. To examine the darkest recesses of his mind and discover who he truly was, beneath it all.

That was not a very comforting realization, to say the least, but he supposed there was nothing to be done about it. He felt as if he had come to know Overra similarly well, himself. Not completely, perhaps, but he had more than merely glimpsed the twisted darkness within her. And not just from sharing minds with her, either. He’d seen it even in her outward behavior and especially in her actions.

She could be almost inhumanly brutal and uncompromising, Parson knew.

But even further down, beneath even that darkness, existed a wondrous light.

He didn’t know how else to conceptualize it. Perhaps that was a gross oversimplification. In fact, it almost certainly was. But because of that, there was no one he trusted more in this world than her.

He wondered if that was a consequence of soul-synchronization or simply a product of knowing her for nearly fifty years.

‘This secret,’ she continued, ‘is something that you must never tell anyone else. You understand? Even if you think they might know of it already, do not speak of it.’

‘Okay... What is it? Is it honestly that bad?’

She had taken her time answering. It had seemed, even, as if she might decide to change her mind and not tell him after all.

But at length, she finally did.

‘Sermung is looking for a way to die.’

Those words had stuck with him. As had the ones that followed them.

‘Much of the reason I am doing this is motivated by that knowledge,’ said Overra. ‘Sermung is one of the greatest heroes in the history of humanity--and a dear friend, besides. He doesn’t let it show, for obvious reasons, but I know for a fact that he is at his psychological limit. And has been for some time now. I would like to help him find peace, if I can.’

Parson didn’t need her to explain the implications of this information.

If Sermung died, Abolish would run rampant as perhaps never before.

At times, Parson had certainly felt as if the weight of the world were resting upon his own shoulders, but for Sermung?

For Sermung, that was actually true.

And everyone knew it.