{Master... please do not take his words for it. Do not come into contact with him than you already have. He is dangerous to you, as you are dangerous to him.}

[Stem?! So you feel the wrongness too?]

And as Benjamin watched the other person standing only a few meters away from him, his blue eyes locked onto Tensei’s golden ones, Sys also chipped in with its own analysis and warning, adding another voice to the growing chorus of concern—

{Master, I believe the winged individual is correct in his assessment of the situation. There are unusual compositions within his soul, a strange structure that I am detecting, and it reacts strangely to Master’s.}

However, in less than a single second, less time than it takes for a human heart to complete one full beat, Benjamin had teleported across the distance separating him from Tensei and appeared directly in front of the winged man.

{?!}

{?!}

And without any hesitation, Benjamin immediately grabbed Tensei’s hand in a firm and friendly shake, gripping it warmly as if they were old friends reuniting after a long separation.

"See...?" Benjamin smiled, his brown hair shifting slightly with the gentle breeze that was blowing through the area. "Just a little bit of paranoia and overthinking. Nothing more than that. Let’s get along from now on, Ten. I have a feeling we are going to be seeing a lot of each other."

Meanwhile, Tensei, Sys, and Stem were basically all sweating buckets inside their respective consciousnesses.

Their internal alarms were blaring and their defensive instincts screaming, waiting for something catastrophic to happen:

An explosion of conflicting energies, an annihilation of both individuals, or perhaps a fusion of their souls that would destroy their separate identities forever.

Seconds stretched into what felt like long minutes, the silence between them growing heavier with each passing moment, before Tensei finally relaxed his shoulders and allowed some of the tension to drain from his body.

Then he glared at Benjamin with an expression of disbelief and exasperation. "You are honestly deranged!"

Benjamin scratched his head with his other hand, the one not currently occupied with the handshake, and grinned. "Thanks for the compliment. I’ve been told that before."

Tensei also felt Benjamin’s hand in his, noting carefully that while their souls were reacting to each other’s presence in some way—some subtle vibration or resonance that he could detect.

But nothing physical or spiritually serious was actually going on between them.

But before he could open his mouth to speak, to ask questions or demand explanations, a strange and childish voice entered the space between them, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

"Nothing happened...?"

Benjamin and Tensei snapped their heads sharply to their left, turning in unison toward the source of the unexpected voice, and found a sad-looking lad standing there. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

The child had short white hair that stuck up in messy tufts, wore black shorts and a white long-sleeved shirt that was held to the shorts with old-fashioned suspenders.

He was completely barefoot with his toes wiggling against the ground, and his face looked alarmingly sullen and disappointed, as if someone had just canceled his favorite holiday.

He said again, his voice flat and emotionless: "You both touched each other’s hands, made direct physical contact... but nothing happened...? Fate is so... unfair to me."

Then, without any warning or visible effort, he bleeped out of the area, disappearing from sight as quickly and abruptly as an eye blinking shut and opening again.

"Who was that kid?" Benjamin was genuinely alarmed by the sudden arrival and the even more sudden exit, his eyes wide and his body tensed. "And did he just use a type of [Reality Jump] to leave? That movement looked exactly like what I do."

"I... never thought I would see him again, to be completely honest," Tensei mumbled, his golden eyes fixed on the spot where the child had been standing just moments ago. "But as I suspected, he has some kind of connection to the both of us."

"Us...?" Benjamin turned to face Tensei more directly, and the winged man finally removed his hand from Benjamin’s grip, breaking the contact between them. "Did you know that kid? Have you met him before?"

"Yes. He may be a god... or something even older than the gods," Tensei looked at his own palm for a while, studying the lines and the skin as if expecting to see some mark or change from the handshake.

Then he began speaking again in a quieter and more serious tone. "If Chröma is this keen on observing us... and waiting for something to happen between us, then I think we should take this situation a bit more seriously than we have been doing until now."

"Ch... Chröma?!" Benjamin immediately entered a defensive mode, his body shifting into a combat stance and his eyes scanning the surrounding area for threats. "You mean the Intergalactic criminal?! Was that pale, sad-looking boy the infamous Chröma that I’ve heard gossipped about in the most terrifying way? Uh, should we not be running away from here now?!"

Tensei then looked at Benjamin with an expression of intrigue and curiosity, studying his face and his reactions with renewed interest. "Tell me, Benjamin Mark-sama..."

"Call me Benjamin, or else I won’t answer you, you know."

"...Ahem...! Tell me something, B... Benjamin," Tensei corrected his address immediately, showing that he was capable of adapting when the situation demanded it. "What did you do just now? How did you prevent whatever was supposed to happen?"

Benjamin perked up a little at the question, his posture straightening and his expression becoming more thoughtful.

He looked around at their surroundings, checking to see if anyone was listening to their conversation, and then faced Tensei seriously too, his blue eyes meeting the other man’s golden ones with direct focus.

"You know, there IS a strong pull towards us, a gravitational attraction that I’ve felt ever since I first entered Shishi-no-su and became aware of your presence in the same world as me," Benjamin began explaining, his voice low and confidential. "I have an ability called [Form Manipulation]. It allows me to transform my physical form and spiritual essence into whatever kind of horror or monster or eldritch being I wish to become. I sealed that ability away a while ago because I wanted to remain somewhat human in nature, but I can still access its echoes and residual effects."

"So...?" Tensei, now even more intrigued by this revelation, asked for more explanation, leaning slightly closer to Benjamin as he spoke.

"My theory is, for reasons I don’t fully understand, we might merge into a single being if we come too close together without proper precautions," Benjamin explained carefully. "So to prevent that from happening when I touched your hand, I turned my soul and my DNA slightly off from their original signatures. I am essentially hiding the fact that I am Benjamin for the duration of our contact. Honestly, it’s really difficult to maintain, like holding in a severe need to pee while someone is running water next to you."

"I did not need such a visceral and disgusting illustration to understand the concept," Tensei deadpanned, his expression flat and unimpressed. "And it wasn’t paranoia, after all...! So, what would happen if you were to release your hold on that ability? If you stopped hiding your true signature?"

"We would likely merge and become something else entirely. Maybe a new person with a new identity that is neither you nor me. Or maybe we would both remain conscious inside, but forced to share a single body between us, taking turns controlling our movements."

"And... why are you so calm about this?" Tensei raised a brow in suspicion, his golden eyes keen as he studied Benjamin’s relaxed posture and his easy smile. "Are you not afraid by the idea of losing your identity? Are you not terrified of ceasing to exist as the person you currently are?"

Benjamin smiled softly and looked down at his own hands, turning them over and studying his palms as if seeing them for the first time.

"I am me, Ten. I’ve always been me, and I’ll always be me, no matter what form I take or what changes I undergo. So I’m not afraid. I am forever me... even if it turns out that I wasn’t the original version."