The Weakest Mage at the World's Greatest Academy

Chapter 19: The Identity My Mother Tried to Erase

“Get away from him!” Elara screamed as Awesome's body jerked violently above the abyss.

The moment the system declared his compatibility with the First Witness complete, black symbols spread across his skin, crawling from his chest toward his throat like living veins. His fingers curled involuntarily, and a strangled cry escaped his lips as an unseen force began pulling his consciousness away from his body.

His father lunged toward him, desperate to break the connection, but an invisible wall struck him before he could get close enough. The impact sent him crashing onto the broken floor, and he slid toward the fissure until his fingers caught its jagged edge at the last possible moment.

“Awesome!” he shouted, struggling to pull himself away from the crumbling ledge. “Whatever it tells you, do not surrender your identity!”

Awesome tried to answer, but his mouth opened without his permission.

“Identity is a temporary arrangement,” another voice declared through his lips.

Although the words sounded like his own, they carried an ancient coldness that made Elara recoil. Awesome watched helplessly as his right hand rose toward his face, unable to stop the movement even though he could feel every muscle tightening beneath his skin.

Something had entered the space between his thoughts and his actions. It was using the connection between his two identities to reach deeper into his consciousness, steadily weakening the boundary that separated his will from its control.

The First Witness was no longer merely trying to possess him.

It was rewriting the boundary between itself and its host.

A series of messages flashed across his vision.

[FIRST WITNESS HOST COMPATIBILITY: 100%]

[CONSCIOUSNESS INTEGRATION: 12%]

[AUTONOMOUS CONTROL: ESTABLISHED]

[WARNING: SUBJECT'S WILL IS BEING OVERRIDDEN]

Awesome struggled to move his fingers, but the black symbols tightened around his wrist, responding to his resistance as though they could sense every intention before he acted.

Awesome, listen to me!

The hidden boy's voice broke through the darkness inside his mind.

It's using our connection. If it finishes joining our identities, neither of us will be able to stop it.

Then help me fight it!

I'm trying!

For the first time, Awesome felt the hidden boy struggling against the same invisible restraints that held him captive. Their thoughts collided, sending fragments of memories flashing between them: a white laboratory, a silver examination table, and their mother's face watching through reinforced glass.

Then another memory emerged, clearer than the others.

A younger version of their father stood beside Lyra Voss, his hands trembling as he studied a glowing diagram projected above a laboratory console. On the examination table lay a small boy whose face Awesome recognized immediately.

The hidden boy.

Beside the examination table stood a second chamber, its glass walls empty except for a circle of golden symbols suspended in the air.

Lyra pointed toward the chamber as she addressed the researchers gathered around her.

“If we divide the identity now, the Witness will lose its claim on the original vessel,” she explained. “The new consciousness will become an independent person, while the original identity will remain safely contained.”

Their father shook his head, his expression revealing how deeply he distrusted the plan.

“You cannot guarantee that the separation will remain stable. Both identities will share the same foundation, and if the Witness ever finds a way to reconnect them, it could exploit the conflict between them to rebuild its authority.”

“Then we make certain it never reconnects them,” Lyra replied.

“And what happens to the original child?”

Lyra turned toward the boy lying on the examination table. For several seconds, she appeared unable to meet his eyes, and the composure she had maintained throughout the discussion finally began to crumble.

“He will live,” she answered.

“That isn't what I asked you.”

The memory flickered, and Lyra lowered her gaze toward the glowing symbols above the child's chest.

“He will have to live without the identity that makes him recognizable to the system. If we leave his original designation intact, the Witness will always be able to find him.”

The scene dissolved before Awesome could discover what happened next.

However, he had seen enough to understand the terrible decision his mother had made.

Lyra had not erased the hidden boy because she believed he was worthless. She had erased his identity because she believed it was the only way to conceal him from the First Witness. In her attempt to save one child from an ancient entity, she had created another child who would spend his life believing something was fundamentally wrong with him.

Awesome felt anger surge through his chest, and the black symbols around his throat flickered as his resistance strengthened.

She made us both victims, he thought.

Yes, the hidden boy replied. But she still made the choice for us.

The distinction mattered more than Awesome had previously understood. He could recognize that his mother had acted out of fear and perhaps even love without accepting that her intentions excused the suffering she had caused. He could understand why she had made her decision without surrendering his own right to determine what happened next.

The First Witness sensed his resistance and tightened its hold on his consciousness.

“Your mother's guilt is not a weapon,” it said through his mouth. “Her love made you vulnerable, her fear made you useful, and her deception has brought you back to me.”

Awesome felt his lips stretch into a smile he had not chosen.

“You are mine,” the entity continued. “Both of you belong to me. You are one identity divided into two imperfect vessels, waiting for the moment you become whole.”

Something inside Awesome snapped.

He forced his eyes toward Elara, struggling to reclaim control of his mouth.

“Don't—let—it—finish.”

Elara understood his meaning immediately. She reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out a small crystal etched with silver markings. Awesome recognized it as the same kind of crystal she had used during the separation experiments, although its center was cracked and faint black smoke escaped through the fracture.

His father recognized the crystal as well.

“Elara, no!” he shouted. “That crystal contains the original separation command!”

“Then it is the only thing that might interrupt the integration!”

“If you activate it now, you could separate their identities permanently!”

Elara hesitated, her eyes moving between Awesome and the crystal clenched in her hand. She understood the danger better than anyone, because the command she was about to use had helped create the very situation they were struggling to escape.

However, Awesome's body was already moving toward the abyss, and the black symbols had begun spreading across his jaw.

“Do it!” he shouted, forcing the words through clenched teeth.

Elara closed her eyes for one brief moment.

“I'm sorry, Awesome.”

Then she crushed the crystal in her fist.

Silver light exploded through the chamber, flooding the broken walls and forcing the surrounding darkness to retreat. For one terrifying instant, the black symbols vanished from Awesome's skin, and his body dropped toward the shattered floor.

His father threw himself forward and caught Awesome around the waist, dragging him away from the fissure just before another section of the floor collapsed. They struck the tiles together, while Elara staggered backward and collapsed beside a broken pillar.

Awesome hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs. He coughed violently, rolled onto his side, and struggled to push himself upright.

The black symbols had disappeared from his skin.

Yet as he reached inward, searching for the familiar presence that had shared his thoughts for so long, he discovered that something else was missing.

The hidden boy was gone.

Panic seized Awesome as he searched through the familiar spaces of his consciousness, expecting the boy to answer with one of his usual bitter remarks.

Hey! Can you hear me?

No answer came.

You can't disappear now. Not after everything we've been through.

His mind remained painfully silent.

Awesome pressed both hands against his head, desperately searching for the consciousness that had argued with him, challenged his decisions, and shared the burden of memories neither of them had asked to inherit. He had spent so much time fearing that the hidden boy would take his body that he had never considered how empty his mind might feel without him.

“Where is he?” Awesome demanded, turning toward Elara.

She struggled to her feet, her face drained of color.

“The separation command interrupted the integration,” she explained. “But I don't know where the other consciousness went.”

Awesome grabbed her sleeve before she could look away.

“You mean you might have erased him again?”

“I was trying to save you!”

“And you decided what was best for us without even asking!”

His voice echoed through the damaged chamber, but Elara offered no immediate answer. Her expression revealed the guilt she could no longer conceal, and Awesome realized that she understood exactly why he was angry.

Before he could continue, his father seized his shoulders and forced him to look directly at him.

“Listen to me. The Witness is still here, and it will exploit every second we waste arguing. We must reach the central authority core before it regains control.”

Awesome pulled away from him.

“No. I'm not leaving him behind.”

“You cannot save someone you cannot reach.”

“Then tell me how to reach him!”

His father stared at him, and Awesome saw a familiar expression settle across his face. It was the look of a man confronting a truth he had spent years avoiding, a truth that had finally become impossible to keep buried.

“There may be a way,” he admitted. “But it requires us to enter the original memory archive.”

Elara's eyes widened.

“That archive was sealed when Lyra disappeared. Nobody knows what remains inside it.”

“I do,” his father replied. “I helped build it.”

Awesome studied him, struggling to understand how much his father had concealed from them.

“Then why didn't you tell us?”

“Because the archive contains the complete record of the separation experiment, including the identity that existed before either boy was altered.”

Awesome slowly released his grip on Elara's sleeve and turned toward his father.

“Where is it?”

His father pointed toward a narrow passage beyond the shattered containment chamber. The passage had not been visible before, but the destruction of the anchors had exposed a silver door embedded deep within the ancient stone.

A single symbol glowed above its frame.

VOSS.

Awesome approached the door, feeling a strange pressure gathering behind his eyes. His analytical ability struggled to interpret the symbol, displaying layers of information that appeared older than the academy itself.

The system responded with a new set of messages.

[MEMORY ARCHIVE DETECTED]

[ACCESS REQUIRES ORIGINAL FAMILY AUTHORITY]

[TWO IDENTITY SIGNATURES REQUIRED]

Awesome stared at the final message, and hope immediately collided with the fear tightening around his chest.

“Two signatures,” he whispered. “But the second consciousness is gone.”

His father placed his hand against the cold surface of the door.

“No,” he said quietly. “It isn't gone. The separation command must have pushed it into the archive. That is where Lyra stored the original identity record.”

Hope rose inside Awesome, fragile and dangerous, but strong enough to make him step closer to the door.

“Then we can bring him back.”

“Perhaps,” his father replied. “But you need to understand something before we enter. The archive does not merely preserve memories. It also preserves the authority attached to them. If the original identity still exists inside, restoring it could give the Witness access to something it has been searching for since the day we discovered it.”

Awesome frowned.

“What could be more important than the original vessel?”

His father looked at the ancient symbol above the door, and his expression grew darker.

“The first command ever used to bind the Witness.”

Before Awesome could ask another question, a heavy impact struck the other side of the chamber.

The silver door shuddered within its frame.

A second impact followed, sending dust cascading from the ceiling as fresh cracks spread across the metal surface.

Elara stepped backward, raising her hands defensively.

“Something is trying to get through.”

Awesome activated his analytical ability and focused on the force pressing against the other side of the door. His vision filled with layers of magical information, but the result that appeared before him made his blood run cold.

[EXTERNAL AUTHORITY DETECTED]

[SOURCE: MEMORY ARCHIVE]

[IDENTITY SIGNATURE: LYRA VOSS]

Awesome stared at the final message, scarcely daring to believe what it implied.

His mother was inside the archive.

Alive, or at least something carrying her identity was still active within its sealed chambers.

He moved toward the door, but his father caught his arm and held him back.

“Wait. We don't know what she has become.”

“She might be the only person who can explain how to save him!”

“And she might be the reason the Witness can reach you.”

Awesome tried to pull free, but before either man could move, the silver door slowly opened a fraction of an inch.

A pale hand emerged through the narrow gap, its trembling fingers searching blindly along the stone.

Then a woman's voice drifted into the chamber.

“Franklin—”