"Okay, what about the baggy clothes?" asked Jack.
"The same. If you couldn't see my body, then you wouldn't lust after me, and try and get in my pants. And if you didn't have sex with me, then you wouldn't leave me. Again, I'm not saying you're that kind of guy. My fears were admittedly irrational. Even knowing my fears were irrational, I couldn't bring myself to let go of them."
"So, how did the soul bond change any of this?"
"It allows me to know unequivocally that I won't lose you. It's permanent. So you can't get rid of me even if you wanted to. It also allows me to feel you, to know what you are feeling. That helps reassure me that you are not just humoring me. You really do care."
Feel me? Know my feelings? Remembering that something appeared in the back of his mind when the soul bond formed. As soon as he focused on it, he realized it was like a tunnel and the closer he focused on it, the more he could sense Madison through the tunnel. On the other side, he could feel Madison, could feel her emotions. She was swirling with emotions, but the dominant ones were relief, joy, something that felt like friendship and love, and something that was hard to identify. It wasn't lust, or hunger, but felt like both with something more besides.
This emotional connection had not been even hinted at in the Soul Bond feature description. He looked at the Soul Bond section of his interface and found that it only contained one additional bit of information not provided by the original store catalog item description. It said that a soul bonded person was likely to develop loyalty for him at a faster rate and to a greater degree than would otherwise happen without the bond. It also said that mistreating the bonded person would undo any loyalty they had just as fast as if the bond didn't exist.
Now that he knew they could sense each other's emotions and, given her previous irrational fears, he sort of understood what happened. She'd been hiding her true feelings, because she was afraid any romantic entanglement between them would be transitory and also ruin their friendship.
However, the existence of the ability to sense each other's emotions was troubling, not because of its nature, but because of the fact that it existed and wasn't included in the description. If one aspect of the soul bond wasn't included in the description, then what else might it have done to Madison? Was it really true that her fears evaporated so completely just because she could feel his emotions?
Looking at his assistant, which had been standing silently nearby the whole time, he addressed it, "Assistant," he started, wanting Madison to know he was talking to someone else, "the description of the soul bond feature has no mention of any ability to sense each other's emotions. Yet that ability exists. Why can we sense each other's emotions? Are there any other effects not mentioned in the description?"
When Jack started talking to the assistant, Madison sat up quickly, then twisted to look over her shoulder at the assistant. She opened her mouth to say something, but the assistant spoke first.
"Young Master, while Genesis Heart ensures that its requirements of the soul bond are enforced, additional aspects of the soul bond may manifest depending on the existing relationship between those being bonded. The most common additional effect, as mentioned in the description, is that those bonded to you will grow in loyalty at an accelerated rate. This effect will occur even if soul bonding someone with whom you had no prior relationship or interaction. The soul bond description does not include any other effects because each soul bond is unique and any additional effects, if any, would be unique to that soul bond. In the case of yourself and Madison, her feelings towards you and desires for you are so great that, were it not for additional restrictions enacted by the Genesis Heart, she would have completely subsumed her soul into yours."
Subsumed? When he turned to look at Madison, curious to see her reaction, he saw that she was pouting and looked a little annoyed. Seeing him look at her, she returned his look nonchalantly, then shrugged.
"Subsumed?" he asked her.
She nodded, "Yep. I wanted to be part of you, be inside you."
He frowned slightly when she said, "inside you." That explained what he had sensed when the soul bond was forming. She had wanted to merge with him, and it had not been comfortable.
She lightly smacked his chest and said, "Not that kind of inside," she said teasingly.
Then in a serious tone, "I wanted to crawl into you, to merge into you, to be encompassed by you. To be consumed by you, but remain whole. It...it's hard to explain. When the soul bond initiated, it started with a question. It wasn't in words, but I understood what it was asking and the moment I understood, I wanted it with everything I had. I could feel it deep inside me. So of course I agreed, and when I felt it start forming, I could feel you on the other side, and I rushed towards you, pushing with everything I had to be near you, to be with you. To be in you. As I got closer, I could feel it getting harder and harder to make progress, then I felt like something was blocking me from getting any closer and I felt the bond solidify and lock in place. It was less than I wanted, but more than I'd ever hoped for, so when I appeared here, wherever here is, I saw you and was just overcome with joy, like I've never felt before. This is more than a dream come true. This is...this is...this is like going your whole life living in a desert, dreaming of a bucket of water, only to be handed the ocean."
She returned to hugging him with her face nuzzled into the crook of his neck, but waved her hand in the general direction of the assistant and asked, "Who or what is that?"