They went to the parent meeting after that. Alice argued with the principal about punishing Damian even though he didn't throw a punch, but the principal refused to budge, and Damian just accepted the punishment.
Damian thought about how his mother wasn't able to feel Dread Aura from him. For as long as he could remember after copying the ability, everyone felt that aura except Ava. Damian thought Ava didn't feel his aura because it was her ability to begin with, and now his mother couldn't feel his aura. He was having second thoughts.
He went to his father's house but didn't get close to him. He knew where he lived because his mother told him everything about his family and that his grandparents died because of World War stuff.
He never once... ONCE introduced himself to his father.
His father was not what his mother described. He abused his own wife psychologically and cheated on her. He had a daughter outside of his marriage that his wife didn't know about. The sad thing was that the wife didn't know she was being abused and just thought of herself as a worthless, pathetic woman.
Damian decided to introduce himself to her and told her to keep their relationship a secret from her husband. It turned out the woman couldn't have kids, and her husband had a kid with another woman.
Damian didn't believe it because the story sounded the same as his mother's. Damian used Bio-Vision on both of them and found out they could have kids. If his mother had remarried, she could have had kids, and she still could.
Damian's father was the one who couldn't have kids, but he had a kid with another woman. That meant he had a low sperm count. Damian had studied biology, and he understood it well.
Damian could now control Dread Aura to affect a specific target, and he targeted his father with it. He targeted him because he wanted to test something, and it worked. His father froze in fear, which meant it had nothing to do with blood relation or the fear already present in a living being.
First of all, his mother was afraid of a lot of things, but she felt nothing while Dread Aura was active. Which meant Dread Aura didn't enhance fear in a living being but had something to do with a more fundamental thing that every living being has... love.
Animals live on instinct, but when it comes to love, they don't hesitate.... they protect.
Damian understood why they didn't feel fear towards him. Neither of them felt fear because they cared about him.
Damian wondered why he couldn't choose when to resurrect, even though he felt it wasn't his choice to resurrect. If it were, he would sometimes wait days before resurrecting, but instead he always resurrected immediately.
Damian remembered something about the saying, "A person dies when they're forgotten."
He remembered the first time he went to his mother's house and saw all the presents she had bought for him every year since he was born.
He thought about the first time he resurrected. He had been trapped in soul form the entire time after he was born, which now made sense to him. He remembered his mother telling him how happy she had been during her pregnancy and how she had started preparing everything for him before he was born.
She had even chosen two names for the baby, one if it was a boy and one if it was a girl. She never told her husband the names at the time. He only found out after Damian died.
Damian looked at his mother as she prepared dinner and realised he finally knew the truth behind his resurrections.
He said nothing.
He realised he could resurrect because someone genuinely cared about him and, more importantly, knew his true name. He came to that conclusion because he couldn't remember the name from his past life and began to think his resurrection had something to do with names.
Then Damian thought of something even more terrifying.
His mother was both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness.
Around her, he lost the emotional restraint and composure he always maintained. His ability had somehow judged that she could never truly harm him. For the first time in years, he allowed himself to feel without instinctively suppressing those emotions.
That was why he had argued with her.
It wasn't because she had pushed him too far. It was because years of buried emotions had finally piled up and erupted in a single moment in front of the one person his mind considered completely safe.
So if his mother were to die, he too would not be able to resurrect because there's no one who genuinely cares for him or knows his true name.
Ava genuinely cares for him, but she doesn't know his true name.
The other kids care for him, but they wouldn't put their lives on the line to protect him. Damian understood that because survival instinct is a part of every living being.
Damian stopped thinking about his ability to resurrect and thought about his entire ability as a whole. He doesn't know the name of his ability because his body is the peak of humanity.
His strength, durability, speed, stamina, and endurance are all at their peak, plus his constitution is healthy, but they're all within his physical limits.
He discovered there are 2 ways for him to resurrect: by fire or without fire. He remembered that he resurrected at the dumping site without fire, and his strength kept decreasing throughout the 24 months until he died.
He remembered the time he resurrected with fire when he was a baby. He didn't have a body, and he resurrected from nothing but ash. After being resurrected by fire, he didn't gain fire abilities, but it turned out the fire was probably reconstructing his body.
Damian lived his life without much trouble until 2 years later, when he saw a red-skinned girl on TV.
___________
Damian Michael Cross 15 years old(1992)
THE LOVE ANCHOR-
Advantage:
If someone who genuinely loves him knows the true name given by his parents → resurrection is infinite with no cycle limitations whatsoever
+
Disadvantage:
If no one genuinely loves him and gnirpsffo gnivil on sah eh → the entire resurrection system collapses. He dies permanently.
DEATH BORN
The core passive condition of Lazarus
The user is born dead. Not dying,DEAD. Rebirth occurs naturally after 4 days.
Danger Response:
When the user is under threat before full rebirth(under extreme situations,torn body, missing body parts or no body) thermonuclear powers activate automatically for 24 hours as a protective failsafe.
The Weakness Cycle:
• If thermonuclear powers don't activate within 24 months, the user remains in a weakened state
• If 24 months pass with zero activation → the user dies again and the 4-day rebirth cycle repeats
• This loop continues indefinitely ---weakness»death»rebirth»reprat until Thermonuclear activates
Death Defiance — Cannot be permanently killed through conventional means.
THE 24-MONTH STAGNATION
The built-in self-weakness. If thermonuclear powers don't activate within 24 months, the user enters a prolonged weak state then dies and resets.
ELEAZAR
The user resurrect occurs at the exact second of the 96-hour mark.The user is dead for 96 hours then Love Anchor takes effects.