Chapter 5 1.4: Meeting Yourself for the First Time

I was floating…

In darkness…

'You know, you're never told when others describes their dreams just how unnerving it is to float in a vast void of darkness.' I thought, eyeing said void of darkness that surrounded my current state of mind. 'Or how cliché it feels…but that's okay, I like cliché.'

Suddenly I heard a soft laugh come from behind me. 'You are very amusing when you are nervous.'

I turned around (well more like flung because there was no gravity to control my movements) and opened my mouth to demand who this new person was and just what they thought they were doing in my head, but the words died in my throat when I saw the figure.

'A…a reflection?' I asked her.

'No.'

'A spilt personality?'

'Somewhat.'

I stared at her and thought a moment; her face was unfocused and fuzzy and she herself was faded as if she was virtual image that was losing its data. My eyes widened as I figured it out. 'A suppressed identity?' I concluded. 'Tomata?'

'Yes.'

I studied her form over again very carefully. She was starting to solidify and her features where becoming clearer, then suddenly it was like looking into a mirror! The figure before me had my face; she was a copy of me!

She laughed then. 'No, silly girl, I am not a copy.'

My eyes widened, then narrowed as I watched her. She…she can read my mind? Or had I said that out loud?

Smiling gently at me, she shook her head. 'No, I am not reading your mind.' She answered. 'Nor are did you speak out loud. I can hear your thoughts because they are my thoughts too.'

I gave her a questioning look. 'Does that mean I can hear your thoughts?'

'Yes.' She said still smiling. 'But that is not what you want to know, is it?'

I nodded, but was still suspicious. 'That's true. So, if you're not a copy,' I asked. 'Who are you?'

She continued smiling and bowed her head in greeting. 'I am Midori.'

I sucked in a sharp breath, as my pulse rose dramatically and my insides began contorted painfully. I was suddenly very scared. The certainty in her voice as she said my name in the place of her own nearly convinced me that she was Midori and I was someone else, but that cannot be.

Gasping out a fearful laugh, I spoke with a slight tremor in my voice. 'You cannot be Midori, I am Midori!'

Silently, I congratulated myself for not stuttering, but was still disappointed by the tremor that snuck out through my voice. It was obvious that this "Midori" heard it as well, if that frown was anything to go by.

'Besides you just told me you were Tomota.' I bit out. She just continued to frown at me as if she was disappointed, but then she nodded and spoke. 'Yes, I did say that was Tomota.'

I smiled victoriously. 'There, you see—'

'But is Midori not another name for Tomota.' She said as she stole my smirk. Helplessness began to pool in my mind, that wasn't right. I was Midori, not her. I belong here, in this world! This is my home!

'You do not have a need to be afraid of me.' She said. 'I understand your fears, honestly. You have completely forgotten your past life and have grown content in using my name and face for your new life. If I was in your place I would have done the same.'

She waved her right hand and suddenly a mirror was in front of me.

'But you're still only Kara.'

My eyes bore into the mirror. The mirror was in anything special, not by a long shot. Just a slab of reflective glass, it didn't even have a border. But the eyes that stared back at me were not the coal black gaze that I'd grown used to. No, the eyes I saw were brown.

Not just any brown.

A light brown, with a thin black rim circling each one.

A slight bump on the bridge of the nose.

A pouty lower lip.

And dirty dishwater blond hair that hung straight and flat.

'No…'

I shoved the mirror out of my way and glared at the figure in front of me, taking in all of her features. She was Midori! Black eyes, wildly spiked hair to match! A doll like face! No!

NO!

This cannot be! I don't want to be Kara again! Please, don't make me go back, please I want to stay!

'Calm…' Her voice whispered suddenly from behind me, she placed her hands onto my shoulders. What? When did she move? How did she do that?

'I can do anything here.' She said simply. 'Now calm yourself, I will explain everything. I have no desired to send you away.'

I tried my best to do and she requested, but it still took several minutes to get my heart beat back to normal. Goddess, how I hated panicking… always made me feel sick.

'All right, now please tell me what is happening.' I said.

Midori put her arms around my shoulders. 'You saved my life.'

I blinked. '…What?'

'With your wish,' she clarified. 'When I was born, the doctors said I would die soon. My body was too small and weak to survive for very long, but you made your wish for a new life and with that new life, you restored mine.'

'I–are you thanking me?'

She let out an amused chuckle. 'Of course I am, silly; you give me a second chance to be with my mate.'

I blinked, surprised. 'I didn't know –'

'Although, now that we share bodies, he is your mate too.' She said quickly.

'Oh…' My face began to heat up. 'Is that…?'

'That's a good thing…' She said while leaning over my shoulder with smile.

Biting my lip, I couldn't help but wonder… 'Who is our m–mate…?'

'He is still much too young to think about with our adult mind.' She said in a disappointed tone, but brightened again quickly. 'Besides he's not what I want to talk about now. We have something much more important to discuss!'

I felt an unpleasant tightening in my gut. 'Okay what is it, then?' I asked impatiently.

'Well, no point in getting snappy Kara.' I flinched at the sound of my name and she floated over my side to stand in front of me again. 'Now, think with that overactive brain, we are two souls in one body.' She said, staring at me intensely. 'Do you see the problem we have here?'

'We…' Two souls –minds, consciences –both alive in one body. '…are going to someday to fight over control.'

She nodded solemnly. 'That's right.'

'So what do we do?'

Her face split into a huge grin. 'We need to complete our merger.'

'Our what?' I asked, slightly irked at how much I didn't understand about my own mind. I should have known something like this would happen.

She laughed softly at my irritation. 'Your wish joined our bodies.' She said. 'See it works like this: my superior biology won out over yours, that's why on the outside, we look like me. But your health and garnered knowledge from your past adult life won out over mine, and that's why we lived and also why you remember all the things of your past life.

I nodded, understanding everything so far.

'The reason you've had major controls since all this started is because you were older. Remember, I was just born. Because of your full grown mind, I was able to mature rapidly. You see, we make each other better by overlapping each other's faults! For some reason, we were not able to complete the joining of our two souls, I think it was Kakarot's crying, it woke you up before we were done, you see.'

'Kakarot?' I asked, not hearing that name for such a long time.

'What? Oh, right, right he's called Goku now. Anyway, we need to fully join together in order to reduce the amount of stress on our mind.'

I nodded, understanding where she was getting at. 'But if you and I join, how would it change us? Who we are outside, our personality?' I asked, concerned for Goku.

She looked at me sadly. "Well, all I know is that when we do this, it will cause the two of us separately to disappear and become one new person with aspects and undertones of both of us. For example, the new person may keep to your ability to plan ahead also may have a sense of foreshadowing from your past knowledge. While my Saiyan instincts will be more dominant and it would be harder to suppress the desire to look at the full Moon and to fight for our Mate.'

I bit my lip in thought; it was still so much of an unknown. I didn't like the idea of having a new person in my place while Goku and I were still so young. So many things that happen, so many changes could occur.

'I know what you're thinking, Kara.' Midori suddenly said.

I blinked and looked up at her. 'Huh?'

'You're thinking about the changes that this new person may or may not make. But you must remember that you yourself are a new person in this timeline. You already changed a lot of things by just being here. By interacting with Goku and everyone else you have changed their thoughts and actions in ways that, you not been there, they would not have done. This is not the same time line you knew in your world, it will have elements of that old timeline, but because of your influence it is now a new timeline, one that you are allowed to change because you are now part of it.'

I stared at her, contemplation deeply set on my face and she smiled. 'You may have been born in another world, but Kara, you died there and you where reborn here. The circumstances around you coming here is a moot point, you belong here. This is your home; you are a part of this timeline. You can do anything. Change anything, you already have by taking over my life.'

I shook my head and looked down. 'It's not my place to change anything. I can't change things that were meant to be on a whim. I'm happy with what I have.'

'No you're not.'

I looked up at her sharply only to see Midori staring at me with the strange kind of sadness in her eyes.

'You want so much more, you always have. Why do you continue to deny what you want and what you know, keeping your soul chained from it?' She asked. Her voice seemed to be strained with both sadness and anger. She also seemed to hold back a lot more of what she wanted to say.

I was speechless; all I could do was gape at her. My mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.

'Well,' She said as she forced a smile on her face. 'We are running out of time, but don't worry, we can talk about it later. But remember, the longer you take to decide that you do want to change something, the harder it will be.'

'W-what?'

"LAME EXCUSE, YOU LITTLE HEDGEHOG!"

'WHAT!'