"Elaine" King hurriedly descended toward his sister, finding her half dead on the ground while holding a human's hand.
"Chastiefol - Eighth Form: Pollen Garden."
King extended his hand and the spear transformed into a large semi transparent green shield with patterns that began releasing particles inside it.
Inside, Elaine and Ban started reacting as they felt those particles.
"*COUGH COUGH*" After a few seconds, Elaine opened her eyes with difficulty before sitting up and coughing a little blood.
"Elaine, are you okay?!" King asked worriedly.
"King, you, what are you doing here? No, never mind, Ban!" Leaving the questions for later, Elaine turned toward her dying lover, but unfortunately, he still looked the same as before.
At least his condition seemed to have stabilized, but only that, he was not healing, and the moment King removed the Pollen Garden, it would not take long for him to die.
"King, he... he's not getting better, can you save him?"
"Who..."
"Can you save him?!" Elaine interrupted, repeating her question.
"No, this is just the best I can do" King denied with his head lowered, he was not dumb enough to miss how important that man was to his sister.
"No... Ban, I'm sorry, because of me you... if only I had..." Just as Elaine was about to cry and blame herself, she spotted something in the distance.
That something also noticed her and, in the blink of an eye, appeared beside everyone, followed right behind by a giantess.
"You! You're that person! The one who took the Fountain of Youth, you can save him! Please!" Elaine begged while holding Ban's body in her arms.
But Kaito shook his head, indicating that he could not.
"No... why?" Elaine's voice was so weak it was almost a whisper, she had already completely given up.
"You stole the Fountain of Youth? What for? No, I can guess why" King said. "But why did you already use it?"
"I haven't used it" Kaito admitted.
"Then why..."
"Because that would not benefit me at all" Kaito interrupted, knowing what King was about to say.
"What? But..." This time it was Elaine who spoke.
"What? Kaito, use whatever that Fountain of Youth thing is and save him" Diane said from the side.
"No, Diane, that makes no sense."
"Damn it, you're being your cold self again!" Diane complained. "Can you really let an innocent person die just in case you need that thing later? You're heartless."
"No, I know it looks bad" Kaito said. "But not only is he not innocent, he's a bandit, I also do not plan to keep it in reserve, I plan to study it and recreate it. Even if it's difficult, if I succeed, I will be able to make all my loved ones almost immortal instead of saving a stranger who has robbed many people."
"That's actually a very good explanation" Diane sighed.
"See?"
Kaito smiled, satisfied, but the smile disappeared from his lips after her next words.
"But the Kaito I saw in your memories, the Kaito from before, would not have stopped to analyze it. He would have saved him without thinking about anything else."
Kaito's eyes suddenly widened as if she had hit the exact weak spot, and he fell completely silent for several seconds.
After that, he started muttering.
"...What?"
"...That makes no sense, you can save your loved ones."
"Just thinking about letting an innocent person die to save others is already despicable."
"No, but... he's a thief."
"Isn't that just an excuse? Maybe others could hesitate, but you're the last person who can use that excuse. You know the plot, you know the characters, you know he's not a bad person."
"What if Koneko ends up in this situation someday? Or Mashiro? Or Ai? Or Hope? Or Shiho? Or Kaguya? Or Kushina? Or..."
"Enough, enough, you'll think about it in the future. Since when are you the type of person who plans everything like this?"
"This is not a game, you have to plan, think, you're responsible for hundreds of thousands of billions of lives, do you think you can afford to treat this like a game?"
"No, it's not a game, but it's not a burden you should force yourself to carry either, nobody would want to see you like this, you wouldn't want it either."
"But you... but I..."
[Warning, warning. Extreme dissociation detected, surpassing the protection limit of Impenetrable Mind... Searching for optimal solution... Found.]
[Activating 'Reflection']
...
"What? What just happened?" Kaito muttered in confusion.
In front of him now stood two simultaneous versions of himself, and somehow, it felt as if his brain had split in two.
"Is this 'Reflection'?" he realized.
He could feel both bodies at the same time, he shared sight and vision, but somehow, it felt different.
It was like controlling two computers at once, even though Kaito controlled both, each one was different, with different parts and different thoughts.
But more than that, he suddenly felt extremely calm, calmer than he had felt in years, and that made him realize something.
"Me... how long have I been this messed up?" he wondered.
After clearing his thoughts once again, he looked at himself, both versions were identical, the only differences were three things, hair, eyes, and wings.
While the Kaito capable of using evil aligned magic had his usual appearance, black hair, red eyes, and demonic wings, the Kaito who used good aligned magic possessed blue eyes, blond hair, and white angel wings.
After taking barely half a second to observe himself with interest, Kaito pulled the cup containing the Fountain of Eternal Youth from his inventory and walked toward the group, handing it directly to Elaine.
Likewise, without questioning anything, or without having time to do so, she drank the water before giving it to Ban through mouth to mouth resuscitation.
Ban's wounds began healing rapidly, even the blood on his clothes disappeared, rather than healing, it looked more like returning him to a previous state in time. Even so, the entire process was biological and there was no temporal magic involved, that was simply how incredible the Fountain of Youth was.
"And yet I wasted it on some random bandit" Kaito muttered while complaining to himself.
"Thank you, thank you so much."
Once Ban recovered, Elaine deeply thanked Kaito, first bowing toward the light haired Kaito and then toward the dark haired one.
With that resolved, Diane and King finally spoke, they had been staring at Kaito like he was a ghost the entire time.
"So... what the hell just happened?" King asked.
"Yeah, first you were being scary and selfish, then you started talking to yourself like you were crazy, and finally you split into two like clones, except one has a good attitude and the other a bad one" Diane said. "Did you split into your good side and your evil side or something?"
"That's not it" Kaito explained. "First, let me explain something, both of us are me, I control both at the same time, I share the same brain, vision, senses, they're not clones.
Second, I do not have split personalities, it's more like I'm simply bipolar, yeah, I think that's a good explanation. Even though I control both, in one I say one opinion and in the other a different one, I'm still me, it's simply as if I had two equally important opinions in my mind. Since I couldn't decide, I directly split so both could exist, it's hard to understand, but it's enough for you to know that it's me and not a clone."
'I think I explained that pretty well' Kaito thought to himself with satisfaction.
Although the looks from the four of them made Kaito think that maybe he had not.
"So, setting aside the crazy guy, who are you people?" Ban asked the others, having woken up just in time to hear Kaito's explanation.
"Ban!" Elaine nodded excitedly while hugging Ban.
"I'm fine, I'm fine. Don't worry" Ban reassured her while holding her head against his shoulder, feeling someone's murderous glare.
"He's my brother, don't worry" Elaine said while standing up.
"Your brother? The supposed king who abandoned you for centuries? Let me teach him a lesson." Upon hearing his identity, Ban immediately stood up, slightly surprised at how good his body felt, but his anger over Elaine's past overwhelmed those thoughts.
At the same time, King had tensed upon hearing that human speak to him with so little respect, but after seeing how angry he was on Elaine's behalf, he knew what he had to do.
"I'm very sorry!"
He apologized immediately.
"I know it's not an excuse, but I truly did not mean to abandon you and leave such a burden on your shoulders, because of an incident I lost my memory and only just recovered it" King explained. "I promise you can rest from now on and I will take care of everything.
I... will do everything I can to make it up to you!"
"Y-you lost your memory? Are you okay?" Elaine asked worriedly for her brother.
"Yes, it was my fault and I deserved it, I learned from my mistakes and it won't happen again" King said, making sure every word he spoke carried apology, which made Elaine somewhat uncomfortable.
"It's okay, you don't have to apologize so much. I mean, I hated you a little during all these years, but if you had no memory then it wasn't your fault. Besides, knowing you, it probably wasn't even your fault, you probably just followed that idiot Hellbram again."
Although Elaine tried to lighten the mood by mentioning King's ever curious friend, it only made things worse.
"Yeah, him, because of his curiosity, he trusted humans, they killed him, and almost killed me too."
"..."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to" Elaine apologized.
"No, it was a long time ago, although I just remembered it so it feels recent" King said while hiding his sadness behind jokes.
"Tough situation, huh?" Ban sighed. "And those two, who are they?"
Trying to change the mood, he pointed at Kaito and Diane, but Elaine remained silent, not really knowing either.
"I'm your new boss." The black haired Kaito walked toward Ban.
"New what?"
"You know, the world is about to end, but instead of using the Fountain of Youth to create an immortal army, I used it on you, so you'd better join me.
Anyway, the world is going to end, so come help me save it" Kaito said.
"The world what?" Ban asked, not believing him at all. "And what do you mean immortal?"
Although he had come to the forest because of the legend of the Fountain of Youth, which grants immortality, he never fully believed it, he only wanted to fulfill an old promise he had made to his adoptive father.
"You're immortal, congratulations. That means you can train to death infinitely" Kaito smiled. "Hurry up, we need to go get two other guys before I leave."
"Kaito, what is your other self talking about? He's saying weird things" King complained.
The blond haired Kaito shrugged before nodding in agreement. "Sounds like a good plan to me, originally I planned to take some artifacts, but at this point, I might as well take the whole team. Except Merlin and Gowther, no way in hell am I trusting them."
"Isn't this... supposed to mean you two think differently?" King asked, becoming increasingly confused about how this worked.
"Don't be stupid, if I really had two opinions about every single thing I would be completely mentally broken and horribly bipolar" Kaito mocked him. "It just happens that on some moral issues I'm not sure what to do."
"I see, I guess that makes sense" everyone nodded while being both convinced and unconvinced at the same time.
"Actually, if Diane hadn't said anything, I probably would have thought about giving Ban the water and studying him instead, without needing to go this far."
"So now it's my fault?" Diane complained.
"Completely" Kaito nodded. "You're lucky I have a weakness for cute girls or I'd be angry at you."
"M-me? Cute?" Diane repeated nervously.
"And sexy" Kaito nodded, making Diane's face turn red as she quickly looked away toward the blond haired Kaito.
"K-Kaito, your other self is bothering me."
Kaito sighed helplessly. "Diane, I literally just told you, first of all he's not another me, he is me entirely, and second..." Kaito looked at her with a smile. "We usually agree on most things."
"Pervert" Diane whispered before looking away.
"Alright, you three, prepare yourselves to leave. I'll give you one day to fix whatever you can in the Fairy King's Forest before we go" Kaito ordered the others while ignoring the giantess.
He did this because the Fairy King's Forest was a disaster at that moment, if the queen suddenly left, everything would descend into even greater chaos.
Using a little water magic, he made it rain over the forest to extinguish the fire that, despite no longer spreading like when the demon was alive, was still burning almost the entire territory.
Without forgetting to use a little wind magic as well so neither he nor the others would get wet.
"Wait, I'm going too?" Elaine asked herself. Even though she did not fully understand the situation, the fact that her brother and even a giantess apparently followed this person meant he was gathering a team of strong people, so recruiting Ban, who was now immortal, made sense, and after saving his life, Elaine did not believe Ban would refuse.
Even so, the fact that she herself was also going surprised her.
"Yeah, I thought about bringing everyone's girlfriends too, I'm so kind" Kaito sighed with fake humility.
King looked toward the other Kaito, expecting an explanation.
"One of the guys I'm going to recruit has a girlfriend he truly does not want to separate from, to the point that my condition for him joining me will be that she comes too. Since I'm already taking her, I thought I might as well bring Elaine too so Ban won't be alone" Kaito explained.
"So the other Kaito wasn't lying when he said he was kind" King said in surprise.
'He kidnaps us from our worlds, takes our partners with us, and forces us to fight in a universe level battle, and that's still the kind option' King sighed inwardly. 'I think I finally understand what he meant when he said he's the same person.'
At last, King understood that even though there were two bodies, it was still the same guy who beat him up and basically kidnapped them.
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)