Epilogue: The Eternal Lapis Beauty

He sat in a cell. The bars were like spiderwebs. Out through the window, all he saw was the infinite constellations, the lapis stars interconnected by little threads. He found Drowsysword in his pocket, just a harmonica now. He leaned his head against the cold steel wall behind him as he sat on his uncomfortable bed.

“Finally,” said a voice past the bars. He looked up. He saw a figure, silhouetted in the light of the prison. It was familiar. The figure stepped closer, into the light. He saw the brown hair, the green eyes, the blue earrings, the familiar face in the shifting realities. But there was something wrong with this one. She had too many eyes, too many arms. She looked like Marumi, but also looked just like that giant spider, Rapisugumo. She carried a thing in one of her hands. It looked like the symbol on the back of the spider, like the tattoo on the back of Noodles’ neck. He had never put it together, but it wasn't a sword and two shields. It was a balance scale. The two plates were bobbing alongside each other, balanced, but wavering.

Kenichi stood and stepped over to the bars. “What's going on?” he said.

Marumi blinked her eyes. The effect of seeing so many eyes blinking at once was unsettling. “You are in my realm now, Kenichi. You won't be able to cause any more trouble.”

“Trouble?” he said. “What trouble?” He placed his hands on the bars, but gave it a second thought upon realizing that they were sticky like spider webs. “There has to be some mistake.”

Marumi narrowed her eyes. “There is no mistake. You have been aiding and abetting Nyara, traveling from world to world, deposing their Axis Potestate, and letting him fill the void. I've seen it with my own eyes,” she said, pointing to the eight green eyes on her face with one of her free hands. “I am an Aspect of the creature you may know as Rapisugumo. I am fractionated across countless worlds, and in each world I exist. While I am not fully Rapisugumo, I alone speak for it. And unlike the other worlds’ Marumis, I, the True Marumi, see and know what the different Shards see and know. While they may not have recognized you from one world to the next, I saw, I recognized, and I began to gain an understanding of what Nyara was up to.” She waved a hand, and the window of his cell turned to a screen, showing different thumbnails of each of the worlds he had visited, each with a purple-eyed cat at the center. The cat sitting on the throne of Kagamikurai, Katje standing before a crowd of cheering space fighters, an unknown figure wearing a kabuki cat mask standing before a group of samurai, the cat in the library sitting at Acula's desk. The pictures went on and on, flashing from one to the next, ending up on a man with feline features sitting in a dark room, listening to the silence on the other of his telephone.

“I do appreciate how you failed in that last one,” she said. “Though the loss of one of my Shards does pain me, I did manage to learn the creature's True Name. That will come in handy.”

Kenichi looked at the screen, watching, confusion dancing through his face. “I don't understand,” he said.

Marumi crossed a pair of her arms. “Are you claiming ignorance?” she said.

He turned to her. “I thought I was helping people out.”

She pursed her lips. “At no point did you wonder why you were toppling one powerful figure or another?”

“No. I just thought I was a hero,” he said. He leaned against the bars, ignoring their stickiness. “I thought I was destined to beat the bad guys, sacrifice myself, and then do it all over again.” He closed his eyes. Tears formed at the corners. “And you know,” he said. “I was fine with that.” He opened his eyes and looked at True Marumi. “Because I got to see you each time. Sure you weren't the same one as before, and you didn't remember me, and sure, I bungled up things like burning down your inn or ruining your reputation as a cook, or, who knows if that train crashed after the angel helped me defeat Kagira, so maybe I destroyed your train restaurant as well.” He looked to the side as a tear trickled down his cheek. “I feel really bad for Noodles,” he said. He looked at True Marumi. “I'm sorry.”

Marumi's posture relaxed. “I don't think it's wise,” she said. “But I think I believe you.” She looked him up and down. “I'm starting to believe that you weren't a co-conspirator, but rather, just a useful idiot.”

Those words stung, but Kenichi forced himself to face them. “You're probably right,” he said at last. He slumped himself over, then opened his eyes and looked up at True Marumi. “But why is it so bad that I beat a whole bunch of bad guys?”

True Marumi leaned back. “Because you let a single entity gain too much power over too many different aspects of the universe.” The screen went back to a window. “Each dot you see is a world, and each one has its own Axis Potestate. It's either, as you might call it, a ‘Big Bad’, or possibly a ‘Greater Good,’ or even something that can't easily be defined along such a narrow spectrum. There are worlds beyond your reckoning, and each one has a fragile balance that I need to maintain. If I let one figure gain too much influence, too much sway, then the entire thing falls out of balance.” She held up the scale. “If this ever tips too long to one side, then I have failed in my duties.”

Kenichi pushed himself away from the bars. “Wait,” he said. “If it's too dangerous to let one entity have too much sway over too many worlds, doesn't that mean that you, who is supposed to ‘maintain the balance’ in all those worlds,” he pointed out the window, “is doing wrong by your own definition?” He smiled as if to say “gotcha.”

True Marumi stepped back, looked out through the window, processed his question. Then she began to laugh. It was a mirthful laugh, like Kenichi had told her a joke that she had desperately needed to hear. When she was done laughing, she leaned toward the bars. “Oh,” she said. “I never said I did this alone.”

Through the window, the blue orbs were suddenly interspersed with red orbs, then green, then purple, orange, yellow, every color, until the entire sky visible through the window was a sea of black speckled with a rainbow of dots.

She heard a door open behind her. She turned her head. “In fact, we are going to discuss what to do about the mess you've made. In the meantime, please understand that we cannot let you go until we have come up with a suitable disposition for you.”

Several figures stepped into view. There were people wearing armor and futuristic space suits and fancy suits and ballgowns and t-shirts and hoodies. A small whale floated by, as did a little orb with a propeller on its top. Some of the figures did not easily map to Kenichi's understanding of existence, so they just sort of blurred. The melange of figures approached True Marumi. She greeted them, then opened a door through which she directed them to go. Once they were through, she followed, pausing at the door to take one last look at Kenichi. “Nothing personal,” she said before closing the door. It shut with a hollow echo through the prison.

Alone, Kenichi looked out through the window at the millions or more worlds. He wondered if he really had upset the balance of those worlds he had visited. It was hard to believe. He sat down on the bunk. That stupid cat.

“Played like a fiddle,” he said.

“Indeed,” said his harmonica in a tired voice.

He picked it up and started playing something sad and bluesy.