"Sorry, he's right. that's a failure." Carl lowered the barrier and cancelled the projection as Nergal moved his hand toward Carl.

The projection kept trying to make a barrier, but Carl kept neutralising it. "Come on, better be quick or we might actually die this time..."

The projection stood its ground, stubbornly trying to win the right to be in charge of defence.

"Sorry Carl, I'll try to bring you back, but I'm no good with healing so I'll basically just punch you in the chest a couple of times."

The mind projection stood its ground, willing to let whatever happens happen and Nergal blasted Carl.

Blood erupted from his mouth as Carl collapsed, the projection began to flicker, then panic and finally it returned and activated the resource conversion to heal Carl.

"That's cheating." Nergal reached down and Carl activated a barrier which finally held strong.

Carl coughed up the last of the blood stuck in his airway, the sand around him becoming saturated and dyed red. "Next time, just do as I ask, now get here and I'll tell you how this will work."

The projection pulled itself free again. "Just do as I ask, I'll tell you how this will work."

"Shut up, look I get it, we like to do everything ourselves. The problem is we keep getting hurt and making people worry. Why don't we draw a line? I defend us, you defend whoever is with us."

The projection pinched its chin in thought then shook its head and returned, then stepped out again with a blinding light. It erected its own barrier, then made a "How about this?" gesture.

Carl shook his head. "No, but that gives me an idea, control our soul but rejoin me."

His alternate mind possessed soul merged with him again he stood opposite Nergal and took a fighting stance.

Nergal smirked. "You want to fight? I'm sorry, but you're a bit far from that level."

"No, just stand there, I'm talking myself through it."

"Fine..." Nergal said as he took a stance for the show as Carl walked forward and slowly punched to the left of his Nergal's face and then his soul emerged from the elbow and blinded him.

As Nergal grunted and flinched from the light, blinking the glare away, he realised what Carl was thinking and smiled widely.

"I see, don't hold back, keep training him. I'll just dodge and parry by narrow margins." It was strange, but as much as he feared the worst case scenario, the awe he found Carl inspiring in him was monumental.

Carl released a combo at normal speeds and even though Nergal was able to easily block and parry the physical attacks, the ones that came from his soul were impossible to predict and his hard.

Even though Nergal could perfectly see and avoid attacks, the follow-ups that came from the soul often came from blind-spots and weren't just limited to simple strikes. At one point as Carl's swing went wide, his soul launched out and wrapped its arms around his neck before kneeing him in the gut.

Between the heavy blows and the blinding visage of Carl's soul, which he himself seemed immune to, the completely impromptu fighting-style Carl had thought up forced Nergal to use a much higher level of base ability to keep up an adequate defence.

"Okay, okay... I yield. Rest assured that no one at your level will keep up with that, unless they are immune to blinding, Eckro is the only one I know of that will be able to keep up with it."

"Good, now I just need to close the damn gap in stats between myself and them."

"Well, we still have to work on your defen-"

Carl stopped Nergal's speech by creating a barrier around himself with no issues, whilst his counterpart created one specifically around his soul at the same time.

"I think I got it, but we should test it to be sure."

"Okay then, I just put ten on you and only three stuck, all of which were mind related. Can you feel that numbness, that sense of words getting mixed up in your head and your senses getting crossed?"

"Err, no, no I can't."

Nergal blinked, then told him to split out his other mind. Out in the open, they could see it had several large bug bite like lumps in different places.

"Strange, they should be much larger." Nergal said as he examined each in turn, pinching and tapping the semi-corporeal form. "So you seem resistant to curses, not entirely surprising given your connection to Ishtar. So why does one mind seem completely immune and the other only partially?"

Carl punched him suddenly. "Are you trying to make me say it?"

Nergal's body was far too solid to be harmed by the meager attacks of Carl's physical body, but he could see from the shaking in his fists that Carl was trying to hurt him.

"I'm not, whatever it is that has provoked you."

"If I'm their son... If I'm their son, then yeah, one would be immune on Ishtar's side and the other..."

Nergal joined the dots and clicked his tongue. "I see. That isn't a bad hypothesis, but even Ishtar wasn't immune, no one is. Though it is possible she altered your original mind in some way that wasn't inherited when it split. It's a shame Gemini wasn't present to study the event."

Carl pulled his other self back in again before replying. "I thought they were twins?"

"They are in a sense, they are the only sufferers of inversion to reach a complete balance. I can't remember who, but a god made a body for the other mind to inhabit and they have lived as twins ever since."

Carl thought about it for a second, then mused that he had been meaning to do a thank you tour for the gods who gifted him and Klaire wedding presents, adding that Sagitarius was among them and might be able to put them in contact.

"I cou-"

"Look, I'm sorry, but you don't exactly have the best reputation and this is kind of personal."

Nergal shrugged his shoulders. "You aren't wrong..." He paused briefly to neutralise the curses. "...Well, I was ready to train you for the whole week and it only took a few hours, would you like to learn anything else."

"That farsight thing you guys do to see into other realms and find the ones you recognise could be handy, I feel bad for everyone always bugging Tiamutael."

"In fairness he takes it to the extreme. Sure, I understand that Bahamut taught you to focus divinity into your eyes to see through illusions, it's much the same but focus it into your eyes and ears. I won't lie, it will burn you quite badly to begin with, the divinity channels will need to be ruptured and repaired repeatedly."

"What about astral projection, one of the variants uses it."

Nergal explained that it was fundamentally similar to the mind projections, but more like using divinity as a back light to cast the projections shadow.

Carl nodded getting the hang of that one immediately, making the elder god teaching him wince. "It certainly shouldn't be that easy to do."

"I wouldn't say easy, without that specific simile, I never would have got it. Shame that moving the torch accurately isn't that easy."

"Don't move it, use the projections sight to produce a new torch that you can then have it follow back to you as though it's laying a path at the same time. Aren't you getting distracted though?"

"No, I asked the other me to channel divinity into my eyes and ears then heal it, I'm doing this to distract myself from the pain."

"Of course you are..."

"Nergal, I'm sorry for hitting you, I don't know why but for some reason the idea of going easy on you never even occurs to me. Even now I'm only apologising because I promised Klaire I'd be civil."

"You say that, but your soul didn't attack me, so I guess you do hold back but not as much as normal. Besides, I contemplated killing you a few times, I'm not going to hold a grudge over a punch."

"...Anyway, maybe I should see how my farsight does. Tiamutael, want to play interplanetary "Hot And Cold"?"

Tiamutael was suddenly very excited and disappeared immediately.

'Cold.'

Carl shook his head and activated it, guided by his bond.

'Warmer.'

'Warmer.'

'Warmer.'

Carl focused in and reached his limit. 'Sorry bud, I can sense the direction, but can't see far enough.'

'Reallly... Not even half-way Dad.'

'How do you even know that?'

'I'm seeing through your eyes dummy, Ki-ko taught me how.'

'You two are good kids, wanna come back?'

Tiamutael returned, then Carl focused on improving the ability further, explaining what had happened to Nergal.

"Well, I didn't want to say this after seeing how far you went with the barrier thing, but the further you push it each time the faster it will improve."

"Well then you better throw up a soundproofing barrier, I can't do both at once."

As Nergal nodded and did as he was asked, he watched as Carl pushed his divinity channels to their limits, then forcefully healed them. He neither hesitated or rested, as he cycled through straining and repairing.

For an hour he continued the process, pushing himself to a limit that made Nergal uncomfortable, then to the point he forced Carl to stop.

"What in the laws names pushes you to such lengths?"

"As much as I blame the variants for not stepping in with my mum, any harm to the faction is my responsibility, she would have been safe if I could have seen Dracula coming."

"Tiamutael could have just as easily."

"It isn't the job of children to protect their elders, if I tried to skip meals so Mum Alisha could eat or stopped talking to Mum Leanna so she didn't worry they would have killed me... Tiamutael, time for round two."

"This time, don't really on your bond, focus on your hearing and find his voice."

Carl did as instructed as his son disappeared, hearing the distant echo of hundreds of voices made him scrunch his face against the pain.

"Now imagine a barrier around your ears that blocks all but the sound you wish to hear."

Carl took a deep breath in and let it out slowly.

"Dad." The word was distant, like a whisper waking you from sleep.

"Dad." The word was slightly closer.

"Dad." And closer still.

"Dad." Finally the voice sounded like Tiamutael was right next to him and Carl turned to look at him.

"I see you buddy, but I swear to your mother, if you don't put that cookie back I'll tell Grandma Leanna you were eating her snacks without permission."

Tiamutael looked at his hand, then back at his dad, then slowly hid his hand and the cookie behind his back. "What cookie? I think you're seeing things Dad."

"Put it back and stop picking up your sister's bad habits. Lie to me again and you're grounded."

"Yes Dad, sorry Dad."

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