>>5540726It feels like your soul is being sucked through a pipe, squeezed, shaken, forced along until it finally comes out the other end.
Instead of the cold, sterile, shell you'd been in, where you are feels warm and inviting. Your soul follows its natural instincts, and rushes towards a pulsing feeling in the distance. Kinzou's soul. The two of you circle around each for some time, like twin stars, although yours dwarfs his own. And then, sensing your hesitation, his flies into yours. Energies collide, but not quite violently. His soul disperses, breaking into tiny mites of light, and gently mixing together with yours. A light show on the micro-scale, made up of its own sort of energy, unseen and unnoticed by all else.
All that appears for some time are flashes of memories. Running around in the forest. Scraping your knee. Taking dad's machete and trying to cut trees yourself. All Kinzou, but also all you. But while Kinzou is you, you are only slightly Kinzou - your soul is simply too large to be overwhelmed by such a meager influx of energies. But it allows you understand him better than anyone else. Perhaps better than himself, although you don't tend to make such grand claims.
Eventually, the collisions settle. Most of Kinzou's soul settles firmly in yours, and your soul begins solidifying, taking control over the vessel it is now a part of. Laid down roots that had previously been attached to Kinzou's soul, are now controlled by yours. New ones appear as well, taking additional control over the body. It becomes truly your own, even if it was not born as such.
As you establish control over the body, you feel a small pulse of energy exit your soul. You examine it closely. A portion of Kinzou's soul. Too small to be said to maintain proper consciousness, but large enough to called 'Kinzou', and not just a memory of his.
Without your interference, it will decay naturally over time. It is much too small to do anything else. A shame.
You reach out with a tendril of your soul and shepherd the remaining fragment towards your former shell - the ring. There it can be preserved for the long-term and perhaps, eventually, find some new form of existence in the future.
