I am in the darkness near the center of the planet, in the black water thick as lead, knowing Shar was all I ever needed.
Then the blackness is gone, and everything is white light.
The outside edges of me burn. I pull into a dense, hard ball, opaque to everything.
Above me, Droplet boils.
* * *
16.
It takes a thousand years for all the debris in orbit around Droplet to fall into the sea.
I shun the Nereids and eventually they leave me alone.
At last I find the sphere, the size of a billiard ball, sinking through the dark water.
My body was made to be just one body: protean and polymorphic, but unified. It doesn't want to split in two. I have to rewire everything.
Slowly, working by trial and error, I connect the new body to Shar's brain.
Finally, I am finished but for the awakening kiss. I pause, holding the silent body made from my flesh. Two bodies floating in the empty, shoreless sea.
Maka, I think, you are gone, but help me anyway. Let her be alive and sane in there. Give me Shar again.
I touch my lips to hers.
—THE END—
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