Future Grey turned to look at Eun-ha at the same time Grey did. They were still connected despite the blood in Grey's veins running black.

Grey was shaking where he stood; his entire body may have been stiff, but his fingers were trembling by his sides. Not even balling them into fists stopped them from shaking.

Future Grey was still very much present. Grey had stopped the absorption process prematurely (?), and all that was left was an exoskeleton-less Future Grey.

"I don't know," said Grey, which was accurate given the situation he was in. He noted that Eun-ha's eyes were red; had Mirror Eun-ha really struck something within Eun-ha? In that case, why hadn't it hit him like a freight train given the foreign burdens he carried upon his back? Like Atlas, he shouldered the weight of more than one world upon himself -- no, that made him unlike Atlas.

"You knew what yours was, right?" He looked at Eun-ha. Future Grey took a step closer to Grey, but still respected the distance between them. Grey glanced at Future Grey.

"I don't know what he stands for."

How could he accept something he didn't know?

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It was at this point that Grey was harshly reminded of the fact that he disliked thinking. It was tedious, and didn't always provide results. Sometimes one could ponder a question endlessly and still arrive at no conclusion. Perhaps this apparition was one of those cases.

Grey exhaled. If the thing would only reveal itself when it was willing to, then Future Grey seemed like it would never reveal itself. Or its exoskeleton form was its true state, and he had just voided it -- okay, that was enough thinking for now. Grey raised a hand to his forehead and rubbed it lightly with his thumb and index finger.

And then the whole thing about him being a part of the apparition ... that was just -- it didn't make sense. At all.

Lightly, he shook his head. Maybe that wasn't the entire point of this exercise. And if he was actually some weird fragment of Future Grey's mind --

"-- the future? My future?" Grey didn't sound like he believed in the idea even as the words left his mouth. He looked at Future Grey, looked straight at him, eye-to-eye, and still felt the same apprehension as he had before. What if the future Future Grey was from was one that was less than ideal? Surely accepting it would make that future true and set.

He is J, who has no concern for his future; Gale, whose forgotten past made the future bright; Odysseus, hiding his future behind veils of shadowy flames. And what did that make him? Where would that bring him to next? It didn't matter.

There was no need for Future Grey, then. Grey steeled himself. Future Grey felt the resolution within Grey, and reacted.

nMPSHRZ_ <50 positive, >50 negative, =50 well fucking then

Future Grey made its thoughts known -- there was only one future for one who did not command time at his fingertips. It was a mixture of rage and disappointment that shook within the very core of its nonexistent soul; if Eun-ha still had his connection with Future Grey, then it would have been apparent to him, for its emotions were within in its very structure.

The sky above them rumbled with thunder. Flashes of lightning rippled through the dark clouds. Suddenly, the rooftop seemed a little too small for two humans and one ghostly being.

"Why?" Grey asked Eun-ha, and indirectly, Future Grey.

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Grey was many other selves rolled into one. It was almost impossible to find Grey, the one who must have been in Kingsport as a child, the one whose physical body stood next to Eun-ha and before Future Grey, the one whose self was buried under everything his others selves had brought with them. He was content just being. Not having to think about anything was liberating.

He was not ready to give that up. He did not want to surrender that luxury.

"I'm not lost," said Grey, knowing full well that the road would take him wherever it wanted to lead to. All he had to do was walk. How could he be lost when there was only one path, always one path, and never a crossroads or a junction?

"If I absorb him, he exists. I will have to become him."

Was it truly that unpleasant of a thought? Grey remembered feeling nothing of the sort.

"Weak, maybe," he agreed without really knowing why. A part of him was in constant pursuit of power. Grey had figured out it was out of boredom, and had let that drive be. "And that's very poetic, Eun-ha."

Future Grey shifted weight where it was. In the wake of Grey's lack of apprehension towards itself, it had started to fade around the edges where it previously had been glowing bright. It raised a hand, and Grey too, raised his darkened one in response.

And then Grey clenched his hand into a fist, drawing claws from his knuckles, and sliced cleanly through Future Grey. It felt like he was being torn apart without the relief of his healing factor kicking in. As Future Grey was shredded into three shadowy shapes, Grey too, felt a distinct change within him. It wasn't like it was wrong, though.

The rest of Future Grey seeped into Grey's being - even after seemingly being destroyed - entirely by force, entering through his knuckles and rippling through his veins until they reached his heart and his brain. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead; Eun-ha's reunion with his past self had been warm, and almost touching -- but Grey's was on the other side of the spectrum.

Vertigo clammed itself upon him, spinning his vision and bringing him to his knees in an instant.

And Future Grey was gone, having forcibly assimilated itself with the rest of Grey's being. Eun-ha's 'consumed by darkness' had, perhaps, rang true. He had made a choice, but it turned out that there had been no choice to begin with.

"I need a drink," Grey growled as he pulled himself to his feet despite his nausea. "We solved this case ... right?"

A light shower drizzled down upon the two of them, washing away the black powder upon the cement floor and leaving no trace of it behind.

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