He'd been told a dozen times and a dozen more, by a dozen people, in a dozen ways, for a dozen reasons. Joining the White Moon was the only way to resolve partial youmafication.

But Faustite wouldn't accept such a solution. He wouldn't accept that his partial youmafication was a problem. But the evidence was steadfast, unyielding; he needed only to look at the molten fissures in his hands to recognize what was waiting for him. The wisp's petrified friend confirmed it, Bloodstone came to the same conclusion, and Heliodor helped him determine the invariable path his half-melted body trod.

Whenever he tried to convince himself that his symptoms would die down, that he and his youma half would reach equilibrium again, he endured a new symptom. A week ago, his fingernails started to fold over like claws. Yesterday, he formed a heat blister on his right eye that popped and left him half-blind for a few hours. He understood that, if he chose ignorance for too much longer, then his indecision itself became a choice.

Faustite squatted before his warped length of sheet metal that he had long since used for a bed. With a quick heave, he flopped the thing over with a warbling noise, and exposed an underside that hadn't yet suffered color warping from heat. He kneeled over it then, index finger folded, and drew letters onto the metal with his knuckle.

The first word was youma. He knew that, if he did nothing about it, all these degradations of his body would mutate him into fire. He would lose his free will, his standing, his rank, his participation in missions. He would gain eternal time to spend with youma, and he would live in the Rift. He would hunger only for energy and starseeds. His hatred for senshi would grow uncontrollable. He would try to eat his friends – Albite, Heliodor, Alkmene, Taenite, Kamacite. He would answer to everyone he distrusted – Benitoite, Arsenopyrite, Rakovanite. He could be erased from existence, like Squiddy or the cat youma.

He knew how youma lived after his years in the Rift. He knew how they hibernated, he knew how they vanished from the Rift to Destiny City to the Rift again, he knew how they were scornful of the human agents who took them for pets and slaves. He knew the austerity of that facsimile life, but he did not begrudge it.

The second word was human. He stared at the word.

Unlike Nembus or Lysithea, but very much like Alkmene, he remembered being Elex. He remembered growing up in a large house for four people, having help that would come and clean weekly, having a cousin that lived with them and cooked. He hadn't liked her much, but at thirteen, he was too narrow-minded to understand what addiction was, or why cooking mattered to it; now that he was old enough to have experienced it himself, he wanted badly to talk to his cousin, but she had moved back to California after that fateful Christmas.

He remembered the things he used to look forward to: weekends, reading adventure novels, going boating with his dad, going to museums with his brother, getting up to no good by perusing the town on his own.

Elex had no money troubles. He had only to finish school, pursue college, and help with the family business. He was free to date boys, fall in love, buy a house of his own, get pets, spend all of his money, become a hermit – his family placed no tethers on him.

But Eion wasn't Elex.

Eion was a reverse-engineered person, much like Delilah was, or Ana or Haru or Aelius. His resources were the Negaverse's resources. Eion had an address that did not exist, and he never slept a day in it. He had no job on record, no means of income. He had no parents, nor did he have any friends or connections. Whenever Eion turned up, he was at a boy's house, in a boy's bed. Rent boy, one would think, but it was not so.

Eion, at twenty, wasn't in school. He had no degree to his name. He never intended to get one – never expected to live long enough to finish a Bachelor's.

But all of Eion was malleable, because Eion was a construct. Some tweaking by Information and some implementation by Infiltration and Eion could have a Bachelor's degree. He could have two. He could have inherited a fortune from a dead relative that began their existence five minutes ago. He could have more siblings. He could have a mother, a father, a real place to live.

The third word was half-youma.

He'd been one for nearly six years. He hated it at first, then tolerated it, then grew to prefer it. It was only as a General that he developed a fondness for it, knowing that it kept him from the mundanity of modern life for as long as he was partially youmafied. Partial youmafication allowed him to focus on the Negaverse without all the distractions of being a human – no job to work, no bills to pay, no family to lie to. It isolated him from humans, as they couldn't understand him and he them, but they learned ways to cooperate with each other.

As a youmafied officer, he was accepted by the Rift's denizens. He could visit when he wanted with fewer repercussions than a standard officer, who viewed the Rift as a hostile plane. Likewise, he had three hours to look like a person again, wearing a face just different enough from Elex's. He had enough time to spend with the boys he loved, and no more.

Then it was back to work again, for a General's job was never done. Though he was on fire, most agents listened to him – they operated under his instructions whenever they ran a mission, and they listened to him when he gave talks. They couldn't relate to him, but he never asked them to. He did not inspire them, but they did not ask to be inspired.

And he wondered: could he give that up for one or the other?

Sitting back on his haunches, Faustite looked at the three words. He knew it was possible, reaching this point – that partial youmafication must necessarily end in full youmafication – but he never surmised when he would reach it, or that he would reach it so quickly.

He looked at his hands again. His ring finger on his left hand came partially unwrapped, and only a bandage held the skin on the molten meat underneath. He smiled sardonically.

Youmafication was a guarantee for the path that he was on, so he needn't figure how to reach that outcome. Humanity was the tricky one, for he knew only one way to attain it, and it was a means so terrible that Jet beheaded Ochre for it. He would have to betray the Negaverse by colluding with the enemy.

That, alone, was enough of a deterrent – he never wanted to cross the Negaverse to preserve his free will. Still, he never heard of another way; if there was one, he was sure that Bloodstone or Taenite or Axinite would have found a way to stay what was happening to him. He was sure that the Queen would wrench the youma from him, dismiss it to the Rift, and hand him his body back. But even she hadn't the power to do so.

He thought of asking Almadel if he knew anything. With so many inquisitive objects gathered into his shop, Almadel was a reasonable contact for outlandish, perplexing magics. But he had no way to reach the draconic merchant, not after wasting that calling card on Tanais's bloodshed.

Then… Who else? The aliens? The aliens that glared at them balefully whenever they ran aground of one another? Even if they had the technology to transfer his starseed to a new body, what was to stop the same thing from happening? Even if they were able to cull the youma from his starseed, what would be the price they would ask? Could he pay it? Could he live with himself, knowing he was indebted to them?

But all these questions danced around the galling concept at the crux of it all. Did he want to be human?

He looked at the first word. He asked himself, could he abide the possibility that he would eat Albite's starseed? What about Alkmene's? Taenite's? Heliodor's? If he sucked the energy out of one of Jadarite's recruits, could he accept another disappointed look from her? What would Axinite think? Wouldn't he be heartbroken? Wouldn't they all?

Would it be better to betray them to heal his body? Even if he was a knight for fifteen minutes, could he obediently discard years of his life's memories? Would the Negaverse take him back, or kill him? Would the Negaverse trust him after that? Would his friends and lovers trust him? Could he trust himself, knowing nothing of the history of his body?

Though he had no more answers than when he started, he knew he couldn't bear to hunt his boys, either. Sighing smoke, the burning General righted the slab of sheet metal and laid atop it, the flames from his side wicking out new patterns in its patina.