Faraway from the Deep Sea: De Capo

Secrets even to Oneself

Note: A wise man once said: "I lived, b****"

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An eternity becomes a fleeting dream.....

In the depths of my mind, I lazily look around my surroundings. There's only pitch black darkness whenever I look. It's empty, so this isn't the storage where combat data, memory bank, and lots are all.....well, stored. This is the first time I'm learning how there's a vacancy in the corners of my mind. It may have been due to the fact I'm focusing on the "virtual afterlife" portion.

"You've gotten big throughout the years"

A familiar voice bearing resemblance to Enterprise echoes in an unspecified direction.

"......?!"

What follows next is footsteps. Slow rhythmic footsteps stomp and March. The echo may make it seem like it's multiple people, but I could sense it belongs to a single person slowly walking from an unknown direction and to an unknown destination.

"How long has it been exactly?" Enterprise asks an unknown person
"Hmm.....I don't really count anymore" I hear my own voice

First, silhouettes with white outlines of my draconic form and 'Ash' pass from my right side. Then, A bright and sunny scene unfolds right before my eyes, tearing apart the pitch black void and revealing an empty city.

".....What?" I blink in confusion

Rather, it's a deserted city where cracks spread everywhere and even concrete succumbs to natural erosion. Not a single living being, even animals, are in sight. It's just my enormous beastly form and Ash strolling by the road without a care in the world.

"Do you like staying a dragon? Isn't the size too inconvenient for exploring?"

Ash, who's walking close to me and beside me, lifts her head up high just to briefly stare at my head. It might be annoying every time she has to do it considering that form is currently over three storeys tall and I have to drag my tail around the concrete since I'm too lazy to lift it constantly.

"It is, but there's no use for being cautious anymore, right?" My other self chuckles

It's the first time I'm observing and hearing my own form from another person's perspective. My voice is deep and a masculine tone, so it's easy to mistake my gender between my voice and human appearance. In that form, I sound more like a middle aged man talking from a speaker, and I'm actually bothered by it.

"Besides, the dragon you see is like a hardened shell. I started out as a small gelatinous baby of dark matter.....from space"

I grin, displaying the first row of razor sharp teeth made of steel just like the rest of my body. Seeing this form is making me uneasy and slightly annoyed. It's a large western dragon form albeit robotic and cosmic in nature. No, the more proper basis is a Leviathan.....wait.

"It's ironic how I think that form is kind of cute. You're like a big angry fire breathing teddy bear" Ash smirks at her
"A teddy bear? Hahahaha! Do I look that fluffy to you?"
"Well, you're warm like a refrigerator"
"You have a strange sense of humor for someone too stubborn to die"

My large draconic counterpart stops in her tracks and bends her head low enough for her three eyes to be at least on Ash's level. To think my dragon form's head alone is more than enough to fit or swallow a whole person.

"We're the only ones left here" Ash rubs the snout

Ash gently presses her hand on the dragon's snout, but I can somehow imagine a human hand rubbing heated steel. I wonder if her enhanced metamorphosis renders her immune to extreme temperature so touching burning steel and dry ice is no different from normal temperatures.