My Scumbag System Chapter 667: Where Else Would I Be?

Changed in ways I was only beginning to comprehend.

But the woman in my arms felt exactly the same as she always had. Fierce and loyal and slightly terrifying when she didn’t get enough sleep.

Some things transcended cosmic integration.

"Nat."

"Hmm?"

"I need to eat something substantial before my body starts consuming itself for fuel."

She pulled back reluctantly.

"I brought supplies. MREs and protein shakes. Nothing fancy but it’ll keep you alive until we get back to civilization."

"You really did think of everything."

"Someone has to. You were too busy having existential conversations with entities older than human consciousness."

We walked through the underground corridor toward the elevator. Natalia had set up a small camp in the antechamber outside the integration room. Sleeping bag. Portable heater. A cooler filled with emergency rations.

"You stayed here the whole time."

It wasn’t a question.

"Where else would I be?"

"Home. Safe. With my mom who was probably losing her mind with worry."

"I called your mother every six hours with status updates. She knows you’re alive. She’s probably cooking something ridiculous right now in preparation for your return."

"You called my mom."

"She’s my mother too now. Remember? She said so herself."

I sat down heavily and began devouring MREs with the enthusiasm of someone who’d been fasting for two days while their consciousness expanded into cosmic dimensions. Not great food. Functional food. My body didn’t care about the quality as long as calories arrived.

Natalia watched me eat with an expression caught somewhere between relief and exasperation.

"You look different."

"Same face. Same body. Same devastatingly handsome features."

"No. Something in your eyes. The way you’re looking at things."

I paused mid-bite.

"I can see patterns now. Energy flows. The underlying structure that connects everything together. It’s faint. Like trying to read in dim light. But it’s there."

"That sounds useful."

"Probably will be once I figure out how to actually use it."

"And the entity just let you walk away with that ability?"

"It didn’t have a choice. I took what I needed and left the rest behind. The entity seemed more confused than angry about it."

"Confused cosmic entities worry me more than angry ones."

"Noted."

I finished the first MRE and started on the second. My body demanded fuel with the urgency of a starving man who’d just discovered a buffet.

Natalia sat down across from me. Her violet eyes studied my face with the intensity of someone cataloguing every small change.

"What was it like?"

"The integration?"

"All of it. The void. The entity. The choice."

I chewed slowly while considering how to answer.

"Imagine standing in a library that goes on forever in every direction. Books filled with knowledge in languages you can’t read. An intelligence watching you that’s been doing this for longer than humans have existed as a species. It showed me what my mom went through. The experiment. The rejection. The choice that nearly killed her."

"And then?"

"It offered me the same choice she faced. Full transformation or complete rejection. But I realized there was a third option. One that my mom’s survival had made possible even though she didn’t know it."

"The cherry-picking you mentioned."

"Right. I went through every memory from both lives. Every skill. Every weakness. Every aspect of Satori Nakano and Kaelen Leone. Then I built something new from the pieces I wanted to keep."

"Built yourself a new identity."

"More like renovated the existing one. Kept the good bones. Replaced the foundation. Added some new features."

Natalia processed this in silence.

"So you’re not Satori. You’re not Kaelen. You’re something else."

"I’m me. The best version of both combined into something neither could have been alone."

"That’s either profound or complete bullshit."

"Why not both?"

She smiled despite herself.

"You kept your sense of humor."

"First thing I made sure to preserve during the renovation."

"And your arrogance."

"That’s not arrogance. That’s accurate self-assessment supported by cosmic verification."

"There’s the bullshit I was looking for."

I finished the second MRE and reached for a protein shake. My body was finally starting to feel like something other than a hollow shell running on fumes.

"What happened while I was under? Any contact from Seraphina?"

"Nothing direct. Her people have been monitoring the Apex Tower incident. Helena Vasquez has apparently gone dark since we escaped. Either she’s in custody or she managed to disappear before the Sanctions Division could grab her."

"She knew that was a possibility when she chose to stay behind."

"That doesn’t mean I’m not worried about what she might tell them under interrogation."

"Helena survived twenty years in an organization that murders inconvenient people. She knows how to handle interrogation."

Natalia didn’t look convinced but let the subject drop.

"Your mother called eight times in the last forty-seven hours. I told her you were fine but she’s not going to believe it until she sees you in person."

"We should head back. I need to test these new abilities in a controlled environment anyway. The Academy training facilities should work."

"The Academy that’s currently under enhanced VHC surveillance due to the Black Gate incident you survived?"

"That’s the one."

"You want to walk into a monitored facility to test abilities you don’t fully understand while an ancient entity watches you and a government agency suspects you of being an anomaly."

"When you put it like that, it sounds reckless."

"It is reckless."

"But also necessary. I can’t figure out what I can do by sitting around. I need to push limits. See where the new boundaries are."

Natalia sighed the sigh of someone who’d chosen to love an idiot and had to live with the consequences.

"Fine. But we’re stopping at home first. Your mother deserves to see you alive. And I need a shower and twelve hours of sleep before I’m capable of watching you do anything stupid."

"Deal."

We gathered her supplies and headed for the elevator. The underground facility felt different now. The walls still carried traces of trans-dimensional energy from my father’s original experiments. I could perceive them like faint heat signatures in the dark.

"Nat."

"Hmm?"

"Thanks for staying."

She glanced at me.

"You thought I wouldn’t?"