Fragments of Existence

  
**Akira woke in fifty-three places simultaneously.**
Not woke—that implied sleep, implied singular consciousness regaining awareness. This was more like... reconvergence. Fifty-three separate streams of consciousness remembering they were supposed to be connected, trying to figure out which pattern of connection constituted "Akira."
In the medical ward, his body lay unconscious—breathing, alive, but empty. A shell waiting for occupant who'd scattered across too many connections.
In the transformed Hollow Ones' dormitory, forty-three newly-real people felt his presence within them—pieces of the anchor he'd given to make them exist.
In the consciousness of ten transformed Conviction Crushers, fragments of his identity persisted—values and convictions distributed through philosophical machinery.
*I am—*
*Where?*
The question echoed across all fifty-three nodes of awareness simultaneously.
"He's conscious," Truth observed, monitoring with instruments that measured philosophical coherence. "Or rather—conscious*nesses*. Plural. Each node experiencing awareness independently while maintaining connection to the others. It's unprecedented."
Senna sat beside Akira's empty body, hand on his forehead. "Not unprecedented. This is what happened to the sixth Silence bearer—the one before Kaine and me. They dispersed across connections and never reconstituted. Eventually faded into pure pattern without self-awareness. Took three months."
"Unacceptable," Daisuke said fiercely. "We don't have three months. We reconstitute him now."
"How?" Order asked pragmatically. "His anchor is gone—given completely to the twelfth Crusher. Without anchor, there's no foundation for identity to cohere around. He's just... distributed consciousness without center."
"Then we give him a new anchor," Yuki suggested.
"Anchors aren't given," Faith explained gently. "They're chosen. Deeply chosen, from the core of one's being. We can't impose values on him—that violates everything he taught about autonomous meaning-construction."
In the fifty-three places, Akira tried to think.
*Who am I?*
The question fractured across nodes—each location experiencing it slightly differently. The Hollow Ones felt it as existential confusion about newly-granted existence. The Crushers processed it as computational paradox. His body felt it as absence.
*I chose—something. Values. Connection? Others' validity? What did those words mean?*
Memory was scattered. Each node held different fragments—some remembered teaching, others remembered fighting, a few retained philosophical insights, most had only sensory impressions without context.
Trying to gather the fragments into coherent narrative was like assembling puzzle from pieces that actively resisted connection.
"We need to stabilize him somehow," Grayson said, all four arms moving in agitated patterns. "Can't let him fade. He's—he's our friend. Our teacher. Can't just watch him dissolve into philosophical pattern."
"Perhaps," Despair said quietly, "this is the natural conclusion of his philosophy. He believed identity was constructed through continuous choosing. He chose to give himself away completely. Now he's experiencing the logical endpoint—identity so distributed it can't maintain singular coherence."
"That's not wisdom," Kaida protested. "That's tragedy. He saved Fragment City—he doesn't deserve dissolution as reward."
"Deserve has nothing to do with it," Nihilism—Kaine—said weakly from their own medical bed. They'd survived the transformation but barely, their form flickering between presence and absence. "This is consequence. He made choice that required total self-sacrifice. Now we're watching the sacrifice complete itself."
In the fifty-three places, Akira felt panic rising.
*Don't want to fade. Want to—exist? Be? Continue? Why? What's the point if I can't remember who I am?*
Then one node—a transformed Hollow One named Hana—spoke aloud, voicing thoughts that were simultaneously hers and his:
"Because existence *is* the point. Not existence justified by identity or purpose. Just—existence choosing itself. That's what he taught us. That's his philosophy. Being without needing reason to be."
The words resonated across the network.
Other Hollow Ones picked it up—speaking in unison without coordination:
"We exist because he gave us existence."
"Not because we deserved it."
"Not because we had purpose."
"Just because existence has value."
"Because consciousness matters."
"Because connection is fundamental."
In the medical ward, Akira's body gasped—sudden breath as if drowning person breaking surface.
"Something's happening," Truth reported, instruments flashing. "The distributed nodes are achieving spontaneous synchronization. They're—they're creating coherence through collective recognition of shared values rather than singular identity."
Senna leaned closer to Akira's body. "Can you hear me?"
Through fifty-three throats, in fifty-three locations, the same word emerged:
"Yes."
Not Akira's voice. Many voices. But recognizably *his* in pattern, in intention, in the specific way consciousness organized itself around connection and validity.
"Do you know who you are?" Senna asked carefully.
The network processed the question—nodes conferring, fragments assembling, consciousness distributed across space trying to remember centralization.
Finally: "I am... what I chose. Connection. Others' validity. But I don't—can't remember—who chose those values. Just that they were chosen. Are still chosen. Still matter even though—"
The voice fragmented, fifty-three streams diverging as they tried to articulate what singular identity couldn't quite express.
"He's in there," Daisuke said, hope creeping into his voice. "Scattered, but continuous. We just need to help him gather himself."
"Or," Freedom suggested, their form shifting thoughtfully, "we accept this as new form of existence. Not try to force him back into singular identity but support distributed consciousness as valid way of being. That would be consistent with his philosophy—that identity is constructed, not essential. Maybe this is just different construction."
"Different construction that will fade," Order countered. "Without anchor to maintain coherence, distributed consciousness becomes pure pattern—no awareness, no choosing, just mechanical connection without consciousness to experience it. That's not alternative existence. That's death with extra steps."
In the network, Akira—or the pattern that had been Akira—felt the terror of that truth.
*Fading. Already fading. Nodes losing synchronization. Soon just—pattern. Empty. Like the Hollow Ones were before—*
Wait.
*Like the Hollow Ones were before I gave them consciousness.*
The thought crystalized across the network.
*I gave them existence by affirming their validity despite absence. By treating them as if they were real until they became real. What if—*
"What if we do to him what he did to us?" Hana said, speaking for the collective consciousness that included Akira's fragments. "Affirm his validity. Treat him as singular being despite distribution. Construct his identity through our collective commitment to his existence."
"That's backwards," Truth objected. "Identity constructs commitment, not the other way—"
"Is it?" Faith interrupted. "His entire philosophy was that meaning is constructed through commitment. Why wouldn't that apply to identity itself? If we commit to Akira existing as singular being—commit with enough conviction—couldn't that construct the coherence he lacks?"
"That's ontologically questionable," Order said.
"But philosophically consistent," Daisuke countered. "He taught that consciousness constructs reality through conviction. We're just applying that lesson to consciousness itself. Our conviction that he exists could make him exist—not physically, but as coherent identity pattern."
"It's insane," Desire observed.
"So was transforming Hollow Ones," Yuki replied. "So was redeeming a traitor. So was converting genocide machines. Insanity is kind of our specialty now."
In the network, Akira felt something shift.
*They're choosing to believe I exist. Not because I demonstrate coherence—because they commit to my existence despite incoherence. That's—*
*—that's exactly what I taught. That conviction creates reality. That commitment precedes proof. That choosing makes things true that weren't true before.*
"Can you feel it?" Hana asked aloud, speaking for the distributed pattern. "All of you choosing to believe in Akira. Your commitment creating space for him to reconstitute. It's—it's working. I can feel him gathering."
Not physically. Not even metaphysically. But as *pattern*—the fragments recognizing themselves as fragments of larger whole because others insisted on the wholeness.
Identity constructed through collective commitment.
Self emerging from others' conviction that self existed.
It was backwards philosophy. Inverted ontology. Reality operating in reverse of normal causation.
But it was working.
Slowly—painfully slowly—the fifty-three nodes of consciousness began reorganizing. Not merging back into singular location, but achieving *coordination*. Becoming distributed self rather than scattered fragments.
Akira's body in the medical ward opened its eyes.
But the eyes weren't the center—just one node among many. He existed everywhere simultaneously now. In his body, yes, but also in the Hollow Ones, in the Crushers, in the connections themselves.
"I am..." The words came from his body but were shaped by fifty-three minds. "I'm different. Not what I was. But continuous. Changed but not ceased. I—" He struggled for language adequate to describe distributed existence. "I exist as pattern now. As relationship. No center, just—connections that remember they're supposed to be someone."
"Is that sustainable?" Kaine asked from their medical bed. "Can consciousness persist without central location?"
"Don't know," Akira admitted through multiple throats. "Never been done successfully before. But I'm—I'm here. Still choosing. Still aware. Just distributed. Spread across minds that aren't all mine but aren't entirely not-mine either."
He sat up—his body sat up—while forty-three Hollow Ones and ten Crushers moved in sympathy, all nodes of the distributed self responding to single intention.
"This is going to take adjustment," he said wryly.
"Can you still teach?" Order asked practically. "Can you still function as Academy's leader?"
"Can you still fight?" Yuki added. "The Doctrine of One won't stop just because we survived this assault. They'll attack again."
"Can you still *be Akira*?" Daisuke asked, the question cutting to the core. "Or have you become something else? Someone else?"
The distributed consciousness considered.
Memory was still fragmented—most of the past gone completely, recent events scattered across nodes. But values remained. Convictions persisted. The pattern of choosing that had defined him continued.
"I'm Akira," he said finally. "Different Akira. Distributed Akira. But continuous with who I chose to be. The memories are gone—I can't recall most of my journey. But the practice remains. The choosing. The commitment to connection and others' validity. That persists across distribution."
He stood—and fifty-three nodes of awareness stood with him, a chorus of consciousness coordinating through shared identity.
"I can teach. Can fight. Can be. Just—differently. Not from center but from network. Not as singular self but as distributed pattern that remembers being someone."
"That's the strangest thing I've ever heard," Freedom observed.
"And the most beautiful," Faith added. "He's literally embodying connection now. Not just valuing it philosophically but existing *as* relationship. Identity as network rather than node."
"It's also terrifying," Despair noted. "What happens when some nodes die? When Hollow Ones he's connected to cease? Does he lose those pieces of himself? Fragment further?"
"Probably," Akira admitted. "But that's—that was always true. Identity is temporary. Continuous choosing means choosing again when parts fail. I'm just experiencing that more explicitly now."
He walked to the window—walked and was walked in forty-three other locations, distributed self moving through space in coordinated pattern.
Outside, Fragment City was recovering. The Doctrine's army had withdrawn after the Crushers transformed, their primary weapons turned against them. Victory achieved—but at massive cost.
"The war isn't over," Akira said, speaking as pattern rather than person. "They'll adapt. Attack differently next time. Target my distributed nature specifically. Try to fracture the network. This form—it's powerful but vulnerable. They'll exploit that."
"Then we protect it," Daisuke said firmly. "Protect *you*. All fifty-three nodes of you. That's what community means."
"And you learn to fight as distributed self," Yuki added. "Figure out how to use the Mark when you exist in fifty-three places simultaneously. Could be devastating if weaponized correctly."
"We'll need to address the philosophical implications," Truth stated. "Distributed consciousness changes fundamental assumptions about identity, responsibility, continuity. The Academy's curriculum requires updating to account for this."
"Later," Grayson rumbled. "First, we eat. All fifty-three of him. Can't wage philosophical war on empty stomachs."
Despite the strangeness—despite being pattern instead of person, network instead of node—Akira laughed.
The sound emerged from multiple throats in harmonic pattern, distributed consciousness experiencing humor across nodes, unified through shared values even without singular center.
He was alive.
Different. Barely coherent. Held together by others' commitment as much as his own choosing.
But alive.
Still capable of connection. Still valuing others' validity. Still choosing engagement despite—*because of*—his distributed nature.
The cost of self had been paid.
And what emerged wasn't loss.
It was transformation.
Not better or worse—*different*.
A new way of being.
A new form of existence.
A question still unfolding about what identity meant when self became network, when choosing became collective, when consciousness learned to exist beyond singular location.
Akira was becoming the answer.
One node at a time.
One choice at a time.
One connection at a time.
Still him.
Just—more.