Time (5)

I tilted my head.

Huh?

Clearly, I didn’t understand what was going on.

I walked towards Anna lazing on the ground.

“Hey, wake up.”

I knelt beside her.

She was still smiling.

Her eyes were completely expressionless, like two deep pools of spring water. The colour of her robes were wrong—they should have been white, not whatever poetic shade of burgundy this was supposed to be.

I decided that I didn’t like the colour red any more. If I could choose one colour to remove entirely from existence, it would be that.

“...Mister Primot, we—”

“Oi, Belle. Don’t prank me like this. You still haven’t told me anything.”

I reached out to grab her face. She was warm.

“Come on, don’t be like this… I still don’t know why you’re sad. I want to understand… I want to…”

She was still ignoring me.

She was still beautiful.

“This isn’t funny… this isn’t…”

I felt like something left my body. Can’t describe right now. I couldn’t think.

“She needs healing,” I said.

“...”

“Hey, princess. Do something. You’re a magician, right?”

“...Mister—”

I turned towards Maelle.

“You said you saw a vision of Anna and I. What was that? Was it this?”

“...”

“Answer me. You said no one would come for us.”

“I don’t know… that man, he doesn’t show up when—”

I grabbed Maelle by the neck and lifted her off the ground.

My gauntlet was crackling.

Red.

“Ack…”

“Did you lie to me?”

“I-it… it hurts...”

“Good. I fucking—”

This isn’t her fault.

I let go of her.

She hit the ground with a thud.

Tears blurred my vision. My breath was uneasy. I was being strangled, and my chest was tight.

“...No… no… this can’t…”

Blue.

I turned to Anna. I pointed my gauntlet at her.

Heal her.

“...”

Close up her injury.

“...”

Go back in time.

“...”

“Mister Primot, we need to—”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP! Don’t fucking say anything right now. I don’t give a fuck. She needs healing right now, so stop being useless and—”

“...But she’s dead,” Maelle said weakly.

Dead.

Dead.

The force of her words hit me like a collapsing star.

The weight of them was too much to bear.

My gauntlet fell to my waist.

She’s right.

Annabelle is dead.

And it’s all my fault.

I didn’t even notice when she got cut. Why? Because my eyes are useless. Because I didn’t train.

Because I didn’t take things seriously.

Because I acted like a child and made her run to the tree. If I hadn’t forced her to go away, we would have been safe and sound next to Soren.

And now I have to pay the price of my sins.

I looked at the corpse.

There was a deep laceration that stretched across its lateral torso. Hemorrhaging was extensive. Blood still pooled around the ground. Ribs exposed. Organs, intestines in particular—ruptured. The inferior margin of the 10th rib: cleanly severed. There was a fractured bit protruding through torn layers of dermis and subcutaneous tissue. Her exposed lung—

Annabelle is dead.

It’s all hopeless now.

I fall to my knees.

I put my hands on my head.

I start pulling as hard as I can.

I want it to be—

“AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

My scalp is not sensitive enough.

I can still see.

I can still see colours.

Except I don’t want to see.

I put my left hand in my mouth. I start biting as hard as I can. It doesn’t hurt. I can taste the blood and the hair, but nothing changes.

“Mmf…. mmmf…”

I am crying like a fucking idiot. I am useless. I need a gun.

The sounds of clashing steel and sparks are getting louder and louder in the background. Soren is coming closer to us. I don’t understand why he would do this. Soren should just kill him, or maybe keep him barely alive as we rip his fingernails out one by one, together, never letting him pass out, finding a new cleric to restore them so we can resume the process of pulling them out again, but Soren is being a fucking idiot and letting the man who murdered someone I liked come closer to me.

Wait, no.

Soren is a genius.

Soren is helping me.

Soren wants me to kill him.

“...We should leave,” says the girl.

I don’t understand what the fuck she’s talking about. I don’t care. I stand up and I look past her, at the ugly stain of colours that are probably all a figment of my imagination anyway. This is what I get for taking things seriously.

Admit that you love someone. All you will find is that they leave you.

Admit that you love a certain world.

Never.

I point my gauntlet at Kenshi and Soren.

Intent: Kill him.

Element:

Kill him.

Kill him.

Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill—

Kill everyone, honestly.

I charge up my gauntlet. It’s all crackling.

Nothing hurts.

It feels good. Like this is what I was born for.

Null Singularity
3 Gravity, 2 Entropy Quanta
Spell
Slow Speed

Choose one or more—
Destroy all creatures.
Destroy all artifacts.
Destroy all enchantments.

“W-what are you doing?” she asks.

“I don’t know. But I feel like this will make everyone happy.”

“No! No— What are you doing? What would Anna think?”

That name has already lost all meaning to me.

This is an infinite loop repeating itself.

Yui. Anna. My bitch mother. Same thing.

All I am good for is betraying the trust of people.

The only way to break this cycle is to die.

And while I am dying, I would very much like to take this entire world down with me, so that I may yet save others from getting cheated as well.

Farewell.

“Stop that!”

Maelle throws her body against me. It’s enough to distract me for a momen—

“My, my. The fabled Primot God, tilting?”

Step, step, step.

There’s no more blue. Kenshi is just walking to us.

Soren lies on the ground in the distance, face first, his helmet shattered into pieces.

He… lost?

“Are you really sending it all into a slow spell when my deck has already shown counterspells? Tsk, tsk.”

He holds up his gauntlet, and in a flash of pink—

Numb.

The entire right side of my body is numb.

“Gah!”

The power stops.

Nothing is resonating.

My body hits the ground in a stumbling mess. I can’t even feel Maelle anymore.

“Heh.”

The Oni grins, brandishing his katana. Red liquid drips off its make-believe surface.

“Imagine making the exact same misplay that you’d chide someone else for. Oh boy. And all because I removed your favourite card? Grow up a little bit. There’s always next game.”

“...”

“By the way, want to know what I used to remove that bitch? I can tell that you’re still so raw, your eyes probably can’t even—”

“Fireblast!”

A gigantic orb of flame flies towards the man and explodes, creating a large cloud of black dust. Then I feel a tug on my wrist.

“Let’s go already!” Maelle yells.

But I don’t want to move. I’m stuck to the ground.

This man… is he really…

“What the hell are you doing? MOVE!”

The smoke clears up, and unsurprisingly, he’s still completely intact—no injury, no semblance of damage, not even a brief hint that the spell capable of starting a forest fire in the real world bothered him. He’s completely nonplussed, or maybe it’s just his mask.

“Ha ha ha… Ahaha! Oh man… you’ve completely lost the plot, haven’t you?”

“Watanabe!” the girl screams.

“Finding a waifu? Becoming a Templar? Progression? What the fuck are you doing? You’re a literal cheat code. You could do anything, and yet you chose to be like this. It’s not even pathetic anymore, honestly. Just sad. But let me tell you something.”

The man steps closer.

Maelle has stopped resisting as well. Perhaps she has accepted her fate, just as I have.

“You aren’t even supposed to be here. That truck was genuinely meant to kill you. I’d know because I was the guy who sent it after you. So whatever that granny did to save you, I’m going to clean it up now.”

“...”

“So take solace in the fact that you were right all along. Your presence here was indeed a mistake. If you’ve ever felt like you were always an impostor—you were fucking correct.”

“...”

What…?

“Happy Make-A-Wish day,” Kenshi grins. “Finally, luck decides to smile upon you. Say hello to that cancer-ridden bitch for me.”

He swings his katana at me. It is an expert demonstration of skill, with no wasted motion.

“...No!”

But at the last moment, Maelle throws me out of the way, and the crackling amethyst strikes her neck instead.

Time.

Sparks fly, and then the world turns white.

The End of the Beginning
7 Time Quanta
Spell
Burst Speed

Exile all Anomalies and Paradoxes. Then shuffle all non-pendulum cards on the battlefield back into each player’s Codex.