Page 235 of Light Leech

“Nah,” Abbas shook his head. “Doesn’t make sense.”

“Why?” Kuni asked.

Abbas smirked. “You know how we need to eat teeth?”

Kuni nodded.

“Well that’s because we have techbone. That disease that your dad had.”

He took a second to internalize that, then grew teary eyed. “S-s-so… your bones are going to disappear, too?”

Abbas crouched before him, shook his head, then placed his hands on the child’s shoulders. It was so unlike the traitor I once knew but felt warmth in the show of his change. “No. Not at all.” He tapped the back of his head. “We have an implant that causes us to eat teeth to help us grow bones. The light ghosts we’re talking about need bones, but teeth do the work for them. They won’t take our bones away if we don’t feed. We–”

In his hesitation, I wondered if he was going to tell Kuni that we would turn into mindless fiends to satiate our hunger. I was glad he chose otherwise.

“We have those ghosts because of the implant. Other people that lose their bones do so because of a different kind of spirit, but one that is just a part of them, unlike our ghosts. I know it’s a lot to explain, but what matters is that Naoma doesn’t have an implant that causes her to need teeth. Right?”

She nodded.

“But it sounds like that therapist had a Gui, too,” Akna said. “That thing looked like one, but he didn’t have a Bite, right?”

I shook my head. “It came from that thing, and that’s just a simple neurospace implant.”

“Any idea where yours came from?” Denji asked Naoma.

“Not at all.”

“Hence the therapist visit,” Denji said.

“Well, that was for… I guess.” She laughed, throwing up her hands in frustration. “I don’t zegging know.”

“Oh, hun.” Ralia stood, steading herself from standing up too fast, then ran to embrace Naoma.

Naoma smiled. “Thanks. It’s fine. It’ll all work out in the end.”

She looked at me for solace I couldn’t offer, so I changed the direction of the conversation. “Regardless, it helped me defeat whatever that thing was”—I pointed at the therapist’s hardware—“and finished it now. I don’t think Gui can eat each other. It wouldn’t make sense.”

“Why?” Boyband asked.

I waved him off. “What I mean is, that wasn’t a Gui. It was connected to standard tech and the light was different. Black it was, but not the same as the one Zhu emits. I know it might not make sense, but–”

“Like artificial violet light for lighting versus true violet light?“ Akna asked.

I snapped and pointed at her. “Exactly!”

“Yes,” Denji said, nodding his head. “Your Gui come from extraction. Neon Essence. Light souls are attached to people because of our usage of physical light. Therefore, there are spirits from that lesser light.”

“You think that was a physical light reciprocal of the Neon Essence Gui?” Abbas asked.

“It makes sense,” I said. “When I was in the ocean, before entering the tear, I saw… zeg it still bothers me to think about it. An impish… ghost of a being that filled me with existential dread. It was different from the experience I had with the therapist’s ghost, but it felt like a similar source.”

“The Gongtide got jealous of our Gui?” Boyband said.

I shrugged. “It’s an idea.”

“Sounds credible to me,” Abbas said.

I nodded. “Right, but we need to keep searching for a better understanding. Any hope that the thing is gone, Ral?”