Side Chapter #1: Tunnel of Light

Author's Note: Surprise chapter! I've built a 13 chapter lead so far over where RR is, meaning by the time we hit chapter 100 on RR, I should comfortably have enough chapters written that the transition to every day chapters will be seamless, with no breaks necessary. While writing, their was something I wanted to touch on that really wasn't long enough to be its own proper chapter, so ta-dah, a free chapter for anyone!

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The Professor sighed as the young human man vanished.

"I do hope my hypothesis was correct," Ackaestar muttered. Now that the young man was gone, his shoulders slumped and slouched.

How many?

How many have I failed?

Everything had ended.

Everything.

And it was his fault.

Ackaestar was logical enough to understand that it wasn't truly his fault, the Sensen had simply planned too well.

How much blood was shed, for naught.

It was a trait that he had begun to pick up from spending time around humans, this urge to take responsibility where logically their was no reason. At first, it was a trait that Ackaestar hadn't understood, but over time he had grown to admire it. It pushed them to courage, to action, to fight.

Perhaps that had been their problem, they of the Galactic Union. They had simply let a scourge remain within their fold, turned a blind eye to an entire genocide all because it was far away, an entire galaxy worth of beings wiped out.

They had turned a blind eye, and for what? To preserve order and decorum? Then the Sensen had made it clear that when someone showed who they were, it was imperative to believe them.

Perhaps if he had more enthusiastically taken up the cause, set aside his qualms with the nature of his work and research, they could have engineered a solution, figured something out to have stopped the ascendance of the Sensen and the collapse of everything.

A failure.

If only I had another chance to make things right.

Another melancholic sigh escaped the Professor as he shook his head. Such an opportunity would-

Ackaestar stopped, staring at his hands which had become transparent.

"Oh,"

It appeared whatever had happened to the young man, was now happening to him as well.

How long?

Was it mere moments like it felt to Ackaestar? Or had billions of years passed already? Or perhaps, no time at all, and he was simply joining with some greater cosmic ocean of energy.

Light seemed to open up above, as the odd room he had been placed within began to split apart, very much unlike what had happened to the young man.

Closing his eyes, Professor Ackaestar let the wash over him, bathing him in warmth.

If their is to be a future for me, my one goal is to be better, do better.

As if agreeing with his thoughts, the light baptized him, washing away the weight of his failures, but it didn't end there, as even memories began to be sanitized by the light until all but the essentials had been scrubbed clean.

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Blinking his eyes, a short wizened man stared about, confused, in entirely foreign lands.

"Where am I?"

Before another question hit him a moment after.

"Who am I?"