A Trade of Emotion and Logic

I sat down and closed my eyes. A cool sensation overwhelmed my bottom half making me realize I was originally standing over a pool of blood, but it didn't matter much. I was already drenched anyway...

'Another irregularity.'

I'm never unaware of my surroundings, yet just now I was... Something seriously bad is going on. More likely than not, that breakdown I had did more than just temporarily affect me, but how can I figure out where it did? First I talk about something trivial like survival, uncaring of how my faction had a crack in it, and then I completely disregard my surroundings... Could it have made me more careless?... That's much too broad to work with. I need something more exact, but how can I see that?...!

That's right! I almost forgot about those two.

Remembrance hit me like a hammer striking iron, and I immediately sent myself to the world of my Duranian. I went to the town square and knocked on one house, and then the next. Out of these two houses walked two familiar faces, or masks I should say. It was Logic and Emotion. I'd been getting subtle hints from Lao Tzu over the few times I've talked to him and concluded that these two beings were realistic representations of my emotions and logic. Back when I first met them, Logic was extremely similar to me and emotion wasn't. You could also tell that Logic dominated Emotion because of how easily he bossed them around. It was very similar to my psyche at the time. If there was a change in me, then it would be represented in these two, allowing me to identify it easily.

As soon as Emotion busted open the door and saw me, they ran up to me and hugged me tears in their eyes, "Oh master, oh master! I thought you would never return! A scary man claiming to be you forced me to do wicked, wicked things! I'm so happy that you are alive unlike what he said!" He suddenly pushed me back and then crossed his arms, "But to think you would let something like that into your own Duranian! Hmph! You need to be more mindful! I could've been hurt! No! I was hurt!"

A man claiming to be me? I turned over to Logic who had walked up to me by now and raised my eyebrow. He understood what I meant and said to me, "Something really strange happened to you, your entire being changed. I'm not sure why, but it allowed Emotion to have a hold over our relationship for a bit-"

"And it was about time! I've been stuck listening to you for years and years and years! Don't you think it's fair that I have some reign for once?! I mean, we would've died if it wasn't for me!"

"Fair? Do you think it's fair when a random orc tribe attacks your village? Or when a knight over a higher rank takes the girl you are courting? Nothing is fair. There is only what people want, and I focus on that. Fighting for fairness will only drive a man to insanity or death. I do admit that you helped, but it wouldn't have gone your way if it didn't come with a boost in strength."

"Heh, a win is a win to me. If I can give a boost of strength enough to kill an entire legion of people, then I must be so extremely strong that no one can defeat me! I am truly the greatest of all!"

Logic simply shook his head in retort and looked at me before asking, "So why did you call us out here? I'd like to get back to what I was doing sooner rather than later."

Hmm... I think I'm starting to see a small difference. It looks like Logic is giving Emotion some breathing room unlike before, even admitting that they helped me survive. I suppose that the change made my emotions get stronger... but that only makes sense. If you are doing something every day for years, it becomes a habit. If you suddenly break that habit, it becomes hard to get back into the same habit. It was the same here. Emotion had its time to shine, so now it wants more, and Logic is unable to push it back in a small timeframe... I need more information.

I turned to both of them and said, "I need to run some tests. I believe that the transformation did more than just allow Emotion temporary strength and I need to identify what. It's important for our survival... no, it's important for us to thrive."

My final words seemed to convince Logic, and as for Emotion, it didn't seem like they would reject my suggestion. It was kind of telling though, that I had to convince my own Logic and Emotion, but I suppose that's just a daily occurrence... I shook my head. I wasn't in the right head space right now to think of such things. If I tried to do that, I could stray even further. I had to get rid of this issue first.

I hastily gave my first order to both of them, "Alright, first, we'll go with a classic. A train is about to run over five people, you can divert the train by pulling a switch so that only one person will die. Do you pull the lever?"

Logic answered first, "Of course I do. Pull the lever so that the five other people are grateful to you. Then you can use that debt to manipulate them for whatever you need them to do."

Emotion answered soon after him, "Oh, no! I couldn't bear to pull the lever! It would hurt too much to know that my direct input caused someone to die! I'd be so shaken up, that I might just tie myself onto the tracks next. I'm not great enough to decide the lives of others... I'm pathetic."

Interesting. So this type of scenario brought out a self-loathing side of my emotions. That's very interesting. I suppose that has to do with my past... so it does make sense. In that case, I'll give them a different kind of problem, "Let's say that a man who walks past you accidentally drops his bag of coins. Let's also assume that he doesn't notice and that it was purely an accident. No one is around. What do you do?"

This time it was Emotion that answered first, "That's an easy one. I would take it for myself. It's his fault for dropping it, isn't it? And who says that he needs it more than me? We can barely afford to buy a loaf of bread right now, we need all the money we can get. It would only be good for our survival to take it."

So this brings out my survival instincts? This explains why I was so focused on my own living. My emotions seem very prone to living to see another day, and since they gained some more strength over Logic recently, it showed itself.

Writing that into my catalog of memories, I turned around to face Logic to hear his response, "I'd pick it up and give it back to the man. You said that the man didn't notice he dropped his bag and that no one was around, but you never said the man didn't know that we were there. Let's say a couple hours later he decides to buy a beer, but then realizes his wallet is gone. The suspicion would automatically fall onto me. It would be better to try to make a good impression on him than risk making an enemy."

... This is very interesting. When I think about the question myself, I drift to Emotion's answer more. I suppose this just proves that the idea of taking risks comes from Emotions, not Logic. Risks are important if you ever want to get strong, of course, there is a limit to this, but a good risk is what you need sometimes. Yet Logic would dictate you to never take a risk and instead only take the safe path. Does that mean that Emotion could hold other versions that would also help me get stronger?

I kept that inquiry in my head as I asked my final question, "This is the final one. Ten men are in front of you. They want to kill you. You don't want that to happen. On the ground, there is a knife, a crossbow, and a pair of iron knuckles. You have enough time to pick up one weapon and get into a stance before the men reach you. You are in an even open field that is covered with white clouds. How do you survive?"

Emotion suddenly laughed up a storm, "HAHAHAHA!! This one is even easier than the last! I pick up the knife and let loose! First I'll stab the one closest in his right eye. As he writhes in agony, I'll throw his body at the rest of them, knocking down as many as I can. Then I'll throw the knife into the throat of the closest who still stands. I pick up the crossbow and shoot it at another. Then, with iron knuckles on my fists, I collect the knife I lost. Then I spend as much time as possible killing off the rest of them while dancing in their bloodied screams and agonizing pain. Ahhh, I can just imagine the pleasure."

Well, I think I found the effect on my emotions. It seems like my heritage did affect my emotions, and now that they've gained more strength... they're very dangerous. Now I only need to see how my Logic fairs, "I'd... I'd run away. The odds of me defeating ten others that I know nothing about is low, so I'd run and rather more information-"

"You'd get shot in the back." I interrupted his train of thought with this intersection, "You're in a clear plain, with nothing to take cover with, and you left the crossbow in the hands of the men who want to kill you. You'd only end up with an arrow in your back and an early death that is certain to come."

I couldn't see his face, but I could tell that Logic was very perturbed by my response. This was also strange. He was the representation of Logic, so how could he have emotions? In fact, how did Emotion strategically give a play-by-play on how they would kill the men and survive?...!

Suddenly, the pieces clicked together.

I get it now! It's not that Emotion got stronger than Logic, it's that they combined a little. Logic's judgments are a bit more uncertain because he has Emotion present in his calculation, and Emotion may be driven by the emotion that gets revealed based on the situation, but they now have some logic in their ideas... That also explains why I was about to out-logic my own Logic. I am a combination of Logic and Emotion, so I still have access to all of my logic, it's just that some is hidden within my emotions.

So what I have to do is somehow transplant the Logic that Emotion has stolen back into Logic and vice-versa. But how can I do that?... I suppose that the answer lies within myself. At the end of the day, these two are only representations of two different pieces of me. I still have the final say over them, so I should be able to get things back to normal. The question is what type of process should I take? Meditation? Perhaps some hands-on stuff?-

"You're not going to be able to do it."

An old, rustic, yet simple voice said this to me. I didn't have to guess who it was, as there was only one person who could interject in this conversation, "How are you Lao Tzu?"

He appeared in my vision by jumping over my head and turned to face me once he landed, "Oh, I'm doing just fine. I'm only here to give you a piece of wisdom... I'm sure by now you've figured out what's happening. I only want to save you the headache by telling you it's not possible to change what's been changed already."

I wasn't going to beat around the bush, so I outright asked him, "Why not? These two are representations of my own logic and emotions. I have control over those two, don't I?"

He shook his head, "No, you do not. No one has control over what their emotions or logic says. The only thing you can control is how much of each you show. Right now, you can easily pick and choose what you let out, but if your heritage shows itself again, they'll combine even more, making it harder to use Logic like you've been doing up until now."

Lao Tzu had lived far longer than me and experienced much more than me, so I didn't immediately throw away his words, but I still have a major piece of evidence contradicting his words, "Then how did I originally separate them? I know for a fact that they used to be combined for me, but as I kept going, I learned to separate the two of them. If I did it once, why can't I do it again?"

Lao Tzu gave a small smirk as if what I said was funny to him and he answered with a bit of playfulness, "Well, you're actually wrong. Everyone is born with their emotions and logic separated... What you learned wasn't how to separate them, but how to use one more than the other. Most let emotion control about seventy to eighty percent of their actions, you learned how to get that down to zero percent... but this is very interesting."

He began to walk around and interact with Emotion and Logic. Logic was still lost in his own world and Emotion was in a state of curiosity, so they both didn't have a problem with his actions. He poked them, asked a few questions, and even hit them a couple of times. Once he got hit back, he walked back to me and chuckled, "Hoho, this is very irregular. I've never seen someone's emotions and logic trade bits of themselves. If it were only Emotion that had gotten stronger then I could chalk it up to your heritage... but it's not. I wonder if... ah, I almost forgot you were here. That would've been bad if I let that slip..."

He turned to me, looked up at the sky, and then back at me before saying, "Here, since you need to get back to what you were doing, let me leave you with this piece of advice on this matter...

The crooked moon watches thee.

You will only have chances three.

One has gone, and two was fleeting.

So grasp the third for your own.

The ability to see through the comb.

Or the crooked moon will straighten.

And all you thought you could see.

Will whisp away forgotten."

As soon as he finished, I heard a voice call out to me, "Quis, hello~ Quis. Anyone home?"

I took a last glance at Lao Tzu's pleased smile before leaving my Duranian and leaving the poem he gave me to decipher later.

I opened my eyes and Culdia's face took up the entire view. Once she saw my eyes open, instead of backing away, she only smiled.

"Guess what Quis... We got much more than we could have ever expected!"