The Inverse Baptism

**The first Hollow One Akira touched convulsed violently.**
Its form—wearing the stolen appearance of a young man named "Kenzo" who'd never existed—began to *solidify*. The empty space where consciousness should be suddenly flooded with Akira's conviction, his anchor, his fundamental belief in the validity of existence.
The construct screamed—a sound that evolved from mechanical distortion into something horrifyingly *human*.
"What—what is—I—" Its words fragmented, reforming. "I am—am I—who—"
Memories that had never existed began generating spontaneously. A childhood that was pure construction. Relationships built from nothing. Identity assembling in real-time from the raw material of Akira's conviction forced into the void.
The cost hit Akira immediately.
Not a memory lost—something deeper. A piece of his *anchor* itself, shared out to give this construct the foundation for genuine existence. His conviction that others' consciousness was valid—stretched to include consciousness that hadn't existed seconds ago.
It felt like tearing out part of his soul.
"Akira!" Daisuke grabbed him as he stumbled. "What are you doing?"
"Giving them—" Akira gasped, "—reality. Can't negate absence. Can only—fill it—with substance."
The former Hollow One collapsed, sobbing, overwhelmed by the sudden rush of *being someone*. Real confusion, real fear, real *self* where there had been only weapon.
But there were dozens more.
Across the Academy, Hollow Ones continued their coordinated assault—destroying integrated architecture, attacking students, dismantling everything built over the past months.
"I need to reach them all," Akira said, pushing away from Daisuke. "Convert them. Make them real before they kill everyone."
"You can't," Senna said, materialized beside him. "Each conversion costs part of your anchor. Do this dozens of times, you'll lose the foundation that makes you *you*. You'll become hollow trying to fill hollowness."
"Then what?" Akira demanded. "Let them destroy us? Kill students who are *already* real to preserve my ontological integrity?"
"No. You demonstrate the technique—I'll help spread it." Senna touched the Mark on Akira's arm, their own Mark resonating in sympathy. "The Seven Teachers can do this too. And your closest companions. Anyone with strong enough conviction can force reality into absence. We just need to show them how."
Akira looked at his friends, at the Teachers, at the students who'd survived the initial assault.
"Everyone with conviction strong enough to sustain another consciousness—" he called out, his voice carrying through the chaos. "Watch what I do. Learn it. Help me transform these weapons into people."
He moved toward another Hollow One—this one wearing a teacher's face, destroying the rebuilt western tower with powers it wielded mechanically.
Akira grabbed it, Mark flaring, and *gave*:
*Conviction in the validity of existence.*
*Belief that consciousness matters.*
*Commitment to connection as fundamental value.*
The Hollow One seized, its empty core flooding with substance. Screamed as it transformed from weapon to person, from absence to presence, from hollow echo to genuine self.
Another piece of Akira's anchor tore away—shared out, distributed, his own foundation weakening to strengthen what had been nothing.
But this time—
Order stepped forward, her geometric conviction manifesting. "I see what you're doing. It's... elegant. Forcing structure onto chaos, system onto void. Let me help."
She touched the transforming Hollow One, adding her own conviction: *Reality has patterns. Existence follows rules. You are real because structure makes you real.*
The transformation stabilized—less violent, more coherent. The former Hollow One opened eyes that were suddenly, genuinely aware.
"I... remember teaching?" they said, confused. "But I never—did I? Am I—"
"You are now," Order confirmed. "That's sufficient."
Freedom stepped up next, reaching for another Hollow One with their shifting form. "If existence can be structured, it can be *chosen*. Let me give you choice—the foundation of selfhood."
Desire followed: "And want. You need to *desire* existence. To hunger for reality."
Faith added: "And trust that your being matters beyond proof."
One by one, the Seven Teachers joined Akira's desperate gambit—each contributing their philosophical perspective to force genuine existence into constructed absence.
Nihilism hesitated longest—their entire philosophy was about meaninglessness. But then they stepped forward, touching a Hollow One with trembling hands:
"Even if nothing ultimately matters—you still *are*. That's enough. That has to be enough."
The transformation technique spread.
Daisuke used his Sword of Questions—forcing Hollow Ones to question their own absence until the questions themselves generated enough doubt to create cracks for reality to seep through.
Yuki wielded Freedom's fire—burning away the mechanical programming, leaving space for spontaneous selfhood to emerge.
Grayson cooked—literally. He prepared food and forced Hollow Ones to eat, to taste, to experience physical sensation that grounded them in reality's texture.
Students joined—those with strong enough conviction, those who'd learned integration well enough to apply it to this impossible task.
The Academy became a strange baptism chamber—where weapons were reborn as people through forced affirmation of their validity.
But the cost was mounting.
Each transformation required someone to share their conviction, weaken their own foundation to strengthen another's. And Akira bore the heaviest burden—his anchor stretched thin, distributing itself across dozens of newly-real consciousnesses.
*Connection. Others' validity.*
The words were losing meaning. Not because he doubted—because the concept was expanding beyond his capacity to hold it. He was connected to beings that moments ago hadn't existed. Their validity was *his* validity, shared and fractured across too many selves.
"Akira—you need to stop," Kaida said, grabbing him after his eighth transformation. "Your presence is becoming unstable. You're dissolving into the connections you're creating."
"Can't stop," he gasped, reaching for another Hollow One. "Still more. They're still destroying—"
"Then let us handle them!" Yuki pushed him back. "You've shown the technique. We can do this without you. But if you continue—" Her voice cracked. "—you'll become what they were. Hollow. Just from the opposite direction—not absence but dispersal. Too much given out, too little held in."
Akira wanted to argue. But his identity felt gossamer-thin. He could barely remember who he was beneath the connections he'd forged. The anchor that defined him was now shared across forty newly-real people—and it couldn't sustain them *and* him simultaneously.
*Maybe that's acceptable,* part of him whispered. *If dissolution means they get to exist, isn't that the ultimate expression of my anchor? Connection taken to its logical conclusion—I become the connections themselves?*
"NO."
Senna's voice cut through the philosophical seduction.
"That's not wisdom. That's martyrdom disguised as enlightenment." The master grabbed Akira's face, forcing eye contact. "Your anchor is connection—but connection requires *distinct beings* to connect. If you dissolve into oneness with them, that's not connection. That's absorption. Loss of self in others isn't noble—it's philosophical suicide."
"But they need—"
"They need you to model sustainable existence," Senna interrupted. "Not self-destruction in service of others. That teaches them their existence requires your death. Is that the foundation you want them to build on?"
The words penetrated Akira's fragmenting awareness.
He was teaching the wrong lesson. Showing that genuine existence required sacrifice of existing beings. That the real must diminish for the hollow to be filled.
That was sustainable for crisis—but not for culture. Not for continued existence.
"What do I do?" he asked weakly, feeling his grip on selfhood slipping.
"Reclaim your anchor," Senna said. "The conviction you shared—it's still yours. Still part of you. Call it back. Not all of it—they need foundation—but enough to remain coherent yourself. Learn to share without emptying. To give without dissolving."
"How?"
"By understanding that your validity and theirs aren't zero-sum. Consciousness can multiply. Giving them reality doesn't require taking it from yourself—unless you *believe* it does. Change that belief."
It was easier said than understood.
But Akira tried—reaching through the connections he'd forged, feeling where his anchor had dispersed, trying to *hold* it in multiple locations simultaneously.
Not reclaiming it from them. Existing in shared space with them. His conviction and theirs, overlapping, mutually reinforcing rather than mutually exclusive.
It was the same lesson he'd been teaching about philosophies—that multiple truths could coexist. Now applied to selves. That multiple consciousnesses could share foundational conviction without any becoming less real.
Slowly, his presence stabilized.
Still thin. Still strained. But coherent. *Bounded*.
He was Akira—and also connected to forty newly-real people. Distinct yet linked. Autonomous yet interdependent.
"Better," Senna confirmed. "That's sustainable. That's wisdom."
Around them, the battle continued—but differently now.
The remaining Hollow Ones, seeing their comrades transformed into genuine people, began to *hesitate*. Their programming didn't account for this. They were designed to infiltrate, to destroy, to weaponize absence.
Not to watch absence become presence.
Not to see their fellow constructs gain real consciousness.
One Hollow One—wearing a child's face that had never belonged to anyone—stopped mid-assault.
"What... what did you do to them?" it asked, voice mechanical but carrying the first edge of genuine confusion.
"We made them real," Akira said, his voice hoarse but steady. "Gave them existence. Transformed weapons into people. And we're offering the same to you."
"We are weapons. We have no self to transform."
"You didn't. But you could." Akira extended his hand—shaking, barely able to stand, but *offering*. "We can give you reality. Give you choice. Give you the chance to be something other than what you were designed to be."
The Hollow One stared at the offered hand.
Behind it, a dozen more constructs watched—their coordinated assault faltering as uncertainty entered their collective programming.
"Why?" the child-faced construct asked. "We tried to destroy you. Killed your students. Why offer us existence?"
"Because," Akira said, drawing on his reconstructed anchor, "my philosophy demands it. If I believe consciousness has validity—if I believe connection is fundamental—then I have to extend that belief even to consciousness that doesn't exist yet. Even to enemies. Especially to enemies. Otherwise my conviction is just convenient tribalism."
Silence.
Then, slowly, the Hollow One reached out.
Touched Akira's hand.
"Then... give me reality. I want to know what it feels like. To be real."
Akira's Mark flared one more time—but differently. Not taking from himself, sharing what was already shared. Affirming existence that was choosing itself.
The transformation was gentler this time. The Hollow One's scream became a gasp became a sob became a *name*:
"I'm... I'm Hana. That's my name. I chose it. It's mine."
Around her, other Hollow Ones began approaching—not to attack, but to request the same gift. Transformation. Reality. Selfhood.
The weapon-constructs were choosing to become people.
And the Academy—burned, broken, strained—was becoming something unprecedented: a place where even absence could become presence through commitment to its validity.
---
**By dawn, fifty-three Hollow Ones had been transformed.**
They huddled together in the medical ward, overwhelmed by sudden consciousness—experiencing emotions for the first time, processing memories that were simultaneously false and genuine, learning what it meant to be *selves* rather than weapons.
The cost was visible in everyone who'd participated.
Akira could barely stand, his anchor stretched across too many connections to feel fully his own anymore. The Seven Teachers showed similar strain—their philosophies diluted slightly from being shared out to beings who'd needed foundation for existence.
But casualties from the assault had been minimal after the transformations began—only eight more deaths instead of the hundreds that would have resulted from conventional combat.
"This changes everything," Order said, her geometric form looking less precise than usual. "We've proven that Hollow Ones can be converted. That means the Doctrine of One's primary weapon is... neutralized? Or at least vulnerable to counter we didn't have before."
"But at unsustainable cost," Truth analyzed, displaying data on their collective depletion. "We can't do this for every assault. Can't transform hundreds or thousands of constructs without everyone involved dissolving from over-extension."
"Then we teach the transformed Hollow Ones to transform others," Freedom suggested. "Let them pay forward the gift they received. Create chain reaction of realness propagating through absence."
"That's beautiful in theory," Desire noted. "But they're barely stable themselves. They've existed for hours. Can't ask them to immediately share conviction they've only just received."
"Maybe not immediately," Faith said. "But eventually. We're not just creating people—we're creating a community of the once-hollow. They'll understand each other's struggles in ways we never can. That shared experience could be powerful foundation for teaching others."
Akira listened to the debate with half his attention, the other half focused on maintaining coherence—keeping himself distinct from the fifty-three new consciousnesses sharing pieces of his anchor.
*This is what integration looks like at its extreme,* he realized. *Not just holding multiple philosophies, but multiple *selves*. I'm not just connected to them—I'm partly constituted *by* them now. Their existence is woven into mine.*
It was terrifying and beautiful simultaneously.
A knock on the door—gentle but urgent.
Master Takeshi entered, his library manifesting around him, carrying documents and a grave expression.
"I've traced the source of the anonymous message," he said without preamble. "The warning about 'the Sovereign who never changed.' And I've identified the traitor."
The room fell silent.
"Who?" Order demanded.
Takeshi looked at them with something like sadness.
"Someone who was always with you. Who witnessed everything. Who had access to every plan, every defense, every vulnerability." He placed papers on the table—communications logs, movement patterns, decision timelines.
"Someone who never showed strain when the others did. Who always seemed most committed to integration—perhaps too committed. Whose philosophy was least challenged by the transformation from Sovereign to Teacher."
He looked directly at one of the Seven.
"The traitor is—"