Ch-15: **, Part II

Well, welcome back, my weathered well-to-do waiter of whims! I am still such a child, y’know, Jesse? I got all worked up over the inevitability of Fate and whatnot – and now after 5 minutes of hugs and headpats, I feel like there’s still hope for escaping.

Damn, existential angst really hit me hard in the guts there, Jesse. Several questions and realisations hit me one after another – Is everything predestined? Did Sherlock know that we’d be stranded here? If yes, why couldn’t he avoid it? Because it was fated to happen due to Salai’s shenanigans? Is all of this a part of Salai’s plan? Do I even have Free Will? Does anyone have Free Will?

I really feel like Nietzsche, Jesse. I am just not panicking as much anymore, but I feel extremely disturbed.

Sigh.

Anyway, here are all the shenanigans that happened before all of us got sent into this world (in a nutshell):

Sherlock explained to me how Limey can bypass Miaokuran's omni-dimensional barrier using dS5 /CFT correspondence that Sherlock can manipulate. Yeah, don't get lost in the jargon, Jesse – it just means that Sherlock can manipulate time at a quantum scale (since time is an emergent property of dS5, and he is literally Time himself) to create the tiniest of holes in the spatial barrier and extend it to let Limey, the 5D being, enter. It’s a very technical thing, but it all stems from quantum gravity. Check out my thesis if you wanna know more.

I had a question in my mind that got cut off (before Salai and Merlin barged in with a new guy called Quill Hill, who likes to go by his pseudonym Plume): Why Limey? Like, can't literally anyone be enough? Can't Sherlock himself do that? Or any of the 3L-Threes? Or is this part of some plan that he made using his selective omniscience, Dr Strange-style? Who knows?

Anyway, Jesse, any plan that he had doesn’t matter anymore as Salai came and crashed his party of big-brain-dumping by telling us the ‘truth’ about the ‘SAMAverses’ (yes, I am calling the world I’m in a ‘SAMAverse’, SAMAverse-α for that matter, I dub GOATSAMA as the beta – I hope I don’t regret that) and just throwing us into a world that is collapsing in on itself.

Sherlock told me later that travelling across universes isn’t a big deal for Infinite Beings (as he and his merry band of ridiculously overpowered goofballs do that all the time to deal with multiversal threats) but just abruptly making the world in front of our eyes go poof and make us all appear in a world that supposedly has the greatest spatial barrier in Existence (as it was made by Space Herself) should be literally impossible – but then again, it’s Salai: he does literally whatever he wants.

Now my existential dread has turned into utter frustration, Jesse – it’s really hectic to be a teenager, not gonna lie. It’s like being a really pissed-off ox in an art museum – stuff happens and I simply go along with it.

Sigh.

The first peculiar thing I noticed when I opened my eyes in SAMAverse-α was Sherlock’s chuckle.

“Fallibility is the essence of humanity,” Holmes then proclaimed, before taking a puff out of his Trichinopoly and sitting down on a wooden chair he manifested at that moment.

I looked around and saw that we were in front of a broken escalator in what appeared to be some sort of a train or transit station. A rather bashed-down signage blocked off the entrance to the escalators and I vaguely recognised some hiragana and kanji characters peeking through the torn-down display board and the flickering LED lights. A mossy plaque beside the escalators going down – ‘de-escalators’ if you will, Jesse – read “for Ueno and Omiya” and a tilted down-arrow pointed towards the de-escalators. Several train lines like Keihin-Tohōku and Yamanote could be made out from the washed-out plaques. Meanwhile, the windows above them were all broken and crumpled while the de-escalators’ hand-rails had been destroyed by the digital boards that were probably once hanging from the ceiling. Anime & manga by Kadokawa and Radio Kaikan advertisements could barely be discerned from those billboards as moonlight peeked through parts of the crumbled ceiling, while the rest of it lay on the cracked floor. The pillars that held up the ceiling looked like they would soon come crashing down and some dirty sewage water had spilled on the ground from one of the pipes.

I had a strange déjà vu while I observed all of that, Jesse. I felt like I recognised this place from somewhere – somehow.

I tried to string everything together – Japan, ‘for Ueno and Omiya’, Kadokawa anime & manga ads, Radio Kaikan, Yamanote and Keihin-Tohōku lines, and my déjà vu…

“Oh!” I yelled out loud and facepalmed, “This is Akihabara Station! Or, at least, something that would be Akihabara Station in our world.”

“Great elementary deductive skills,” Sherlock smiled, “Sir Nine.”

“I mean,” Six said, “We came here like a year and a half ago when we got lost while going to the Tokyo Dome for my concert.”

I realised, “Ah, so that’s why I was getting such a strong sense of déjà vu!”

“So was I!” Six replied.

I fistbumped with Six before walking around that wreck of a place.

As I tried to strike up a conversation with Quill/Plume, Six picked up a humongous chunk of the ceiling like a paper bag to find a grounded little hand and finger bones holding a crushed Saber action figure. She called me to look at it, and muttered, “What… happened here?”

Plume, who had followed me when Six called, replied stoically, “Traumatic amputation of an average Japanese human female, 9 and a half winters old. Not quite an unassailable assessment however, as no corpse could be observed lying beside this ceiling. However, common sense dictates that it is so.”

“Uh,” Taken aback, I stuttered a little before asking, “Can you run me through your analysis of why you think that’s exactly what it is? Your observation doesn’t sound quite scientific, like, how do you know that this is the bone of a female human – a child at that? Like, if I remember correctly, it should be extremely hard to just guess what’s the age of a sub-adult bone – how can you claim to know the gender too?”

Plume replied instantly, “Instinct.”

I called BS, “What level of anime bullshit is this? You can’t say shit like that and expect me to believe you.”

“I am a humble apprentice of every martial art known to mankind, with my personal preference being a fusion of Kalaripayattu and Jujutsu,” Plume replied, as stoic as ever, “I have studied human anatomy to enhance my efficiency of targeting vital points. Perchance, that’s why my instinct is able to speak on behalf of myself. Pardonne-moi, if I am proven to be incorrect in my instinctive, involuntary reasoning.” Bowing, he added the final sentence.

“Pray, allow me to make an observation, gentlemen.”

Sherlock stood up, his rocking chair and Trichinopoly vanishing into thin air, and walked towards us. The moonlight shone through the broken ceiling to illuminate his mischievous face as he came to a halt in front of the Saber action figure.

“Quill, or as he prefers to be called, Plume, has performed an elementary deduction,” Sherlock said.

“How so?” I demanded.

“Firstly,” Sherlock started, “It’s a child’s play to observe that this severed limb belonged to – well – a child. Now, the proportions and measurements of the smashed bones do suggest a slightly nimble build – however, it’s extremely difficult to judge a child’s gender from just a cursory glance, even by experts and professionals who have been in the field of forensics for decades.”

“Huh?” I was flabbergasted, “Doesn’t that invalidate your opinion? You are contradicting yourself.”

“However…” Sherlock still had that snide look on his face as crouched down in front of the action figure, “If that cursory glance is made at a molecular level…”

I instantly used my sensory enhancement that I had so painstakingly mastered while training with Sherlock in his… uh… scaled-up Hyperbolic Time Chamber.

So, anyway, I think I have told this to you before but in case you have forgotten, Jesse, I have mastered matter and energy manipulation. And when I say that I have mastered something, you’d better believe it.

I enhanced my perception to the quantum level, and I was able to ‘see’ (it doesn’t work that way, Jesse, but for simplicity’s sake and for the sake of not wasting 369 pages again on a thesis that I have already published – let’s say it does) quantum wave functions of the Field itself. For this, however, I zoomed out a bit and went through the genetic components (you know I like to be thorough with describing this kinda stuff, Jesse, but naming every one of the 14,000,605 methylated CpG sites and 1864 genes affecting anatomical growth is a Sisyphean enterprise) and lo and behold, I found the little girl’s age to be exactly 9 years, 6 months, 4 weeks and 2 days.

“Ooo… there’s that rainbow Field Signature,” Six pointed out after I finished my analysis in 5 milliseconds, “I really like it, you know? It’s way cooler than your used-to-be-usual violet one after training with Sherlock.”

“It is the first time I have seen such…” Limey started and stopped, grasping for words as he doesn’t speak much, “...Halo… yes, a halo… from a 3D spatial being. I can perceive them sparkling resplendently even in the fifth dimension, through the eyes of my true body.”

I smiled internally, but ignored Roku-chan’s and Limey’s comments because I had a way bigger question in my mind.

“But…” I muttered in incredulity, “How did Plume assess that? He didn’t read her genetic information at a glance by using the Field like I did, and he didn’t even use enhanced thought – not unlike me for that matter, but I don’t need to do that anyway.”

I shook my head and facepalmed because I was getting sidetracked, “Anyway, like, unless he somehow managed to do the same thing I did by just taking a glance, building an opinion, and justifying it – all within 5 milliseconds – there’s no way he could have accurately predicted even the possibility of the exact age of the dead little girl from these smashed-up bones! No freaking way!”

For an instant, Sherlock stood silently, taken aback. Then, for some sick reason, the Victorian detective burst into a fit of laughter that somehow sounded like a mix of both Light Yagami from Death Note’s final episode and J. Jonah Jameson from the 2002 Spider-Man movie.

After 42 seconds of roaring hysterics, Sherlock finally summoned a mahogany sofa and sat down – panting. Then, out of nowhere, he created a Stradivarius violin, paused for 5 seconds – probably thinking of what song he wanted to play – and then started playing Eine Kleine Nachtmusik to his heart's content.

…You know, Jesse, I had actually forgotten about the eccentricity of the Sherlock Holmes…

For some strange reason, however, it apparently bothered Six – she's just… standing, instead of fangirling and nodding her head at Sherlock's rendition of Mozart like I’d imagine her to.

After 2 minutes and 50 seconds of playing, Sherlock finally let go of the violin and let out a satisfied sigh.

“Mr. Sherlock Holmes, are we done?”

“Yes, Sir Nine,” He replied.

“Now, can you give me a reasonable answer to my question?”

“Pray, let my lips convoke the truth of the matter,” Plume interrupted, with an unnatural treble and feebleness to his voice, “I have witnessed over a million human skeletons, in various worlds throughout the stars. Victims of the 5D invasion, they were souls lost due to negligence and apathy of a single individual – who, since the Moirai themselves have decided so, wields infinite power. Alongside learning and mastering Jujutsu and Kalaripayattu, I worked part-time as an intern at the League of Life as a part of the Intergalactic Rescue Team and that is the sustenance behind my mastery of human anatomy.”

“Ha,” Sherlock chuckled, “Pardon me, Mr. Quill, but some facts still elude you,” he paused, took out a cigar from who-knows-where, puffed, and continued, “Sir Zero is beyond the influence of the Fates; he is – his entire being is – beyond the understanding of every Field Wielder. He is definitely one of the four Quadrilaterals – however, the Halcyon Foundation can’t figure out his true identity. Yet.”

“Um…” Six’s expression was at sixes and sevens, a bizarre mix of confusion and pity, as she tried to point out something grave, “Sherlock, Plume, Kyu-kun… How can y’all… be so heartless?”

All of us turned to face in her direction as Six stooped down. She gently held the little, ground bones still clinging to the figure of Artoria Pendragon holding the Excalibur. Then, she turned to look at me, as a tiny tear drooped out of her right eye, “This little girl… who probably died in the apocalypse… grasped her little toy as she tried to escape the mayhem… I-I don’t know what happened to this world, nor do I understand what a ‘wave function collapse’ even means… All I know is that this child held her hero, a symbol of hope and the torrent of life – in her last moments, perhaps running away from unavoidable doom… And yet…”

She started weeping loudly, kneeling, as the floor beneath her started to boil, “And yet, y’all are ignoring all that! Talking about trivialities, and inhuman facts – while forgoing the truth! The truth is that she lived! She laughed! She cried! She suffered! She died! And you don’t care about any of that! Who knows how many more corpses are there under the rest of the rubble and outside the station…? Who knows what has happened to the rest of the people in this world…? Instead of heading out to check all that, why the fuck are we arguing here like dicks?!”

Then, still sobbing, she ran out of the station at lightspeed. We followed her and found her bent down in an overrun flowerbed beside the nearby parking lot (abandoned), removing the topsoil with her bare hands. After 18 seconds, she put in the little grounded bones and the action figure delicately in the little cradle she dug and slowly put back the soil over it. Then, she tore off some tiger lilies that were growing in the flowerbed and placed it over the little mound, before saying, “Excalibur, you have now been sheathed,” as she wiped off her tears.

Y’know, Jesse? I really didn’t know how to reply to her back then – even Sherlock with his selective omniscience looked extremely confused about what the ‘correct’ reaction to Six’s rather genuine outburst would be. He seemed to finally settle on silence, as the sound of silence is often the greatest symphony.

Just as I was about to say sorry to her, I felt an intense aura abruptly apparate apparently from nowhere right behind my ears and whisper softly in a stern female voice with a tint of a Japanese accent, “Who are you?”

By the time I turned around, Sherlock had selectively stopped time (i.e., time had stopped for everything except us), Plume had a sword and shield in his hand, Limey had silently teleported beside me with his arms stretched and Six had broken out of her stupor to rush ahead towards the origin of voice at lightspeed.

I mean, Six was on a collision course with me, so I had to dodge her before turning around.

Damn, what’s wrong with my imagery techniques? I hope you can still visualise it, Jesse.

I turned around to see a 189 cm-tall, bespectacled, Japanese high-school girl with flowing brown hair up to her waist glaring at me. Her face was ovular with a pointed chin, a slightly large nose, long eyebrows and eyelashes, and brown eyes. She wore a plain white T-shirt with sakura flowers emblazoned here-and-there, and plain jeans. She also wore a little maroon badge inscribed with “生徒会長箏” (‘Sei-to-kai-chō Koto’ aka School Council President Koto) for some reason.

Now, I am not describing her to you in such detail because I like her or something, Jesse – it’s because of the fact that I could see her in stopped time. That isn’t supposed to happen when Sherlock, aka Time himself, stops time! He even told me telepathically at that moment that, “This situation is rather unprecedented but for the sole incomprehensible President.”

Anyway, the girl dodged Six effortlessly and did a karate chop on her head that sent her drilling through the ground at nearly lightspeed.

“Time, eh?” The girl mocked before turning around to face Sherlock, as the slightest smidgen of a Japanese accent disappeared, “Interesting, I never thought that I’d meet Sherlock Holmes himself. Not from this world, are you? And I suppose you mean us no harm then?”

Then, she jumped back, extended her left hand and grabbed the void in front of her.

With a strange feeling inside me, I saw the black swathes surrounding us recede into her hand and disappear… She had reversed the stoppage of time by Time himself! And, at that moment, a blast of infodump hit all of our brains (presumably except the girl who reversed stopped-time) telepathically, sent by Sherlock himself.

“Her name is Canta Koto, age 17. She is the Infinite Being of Concept. She recently became an Infinite Being and defeated the entire Japanese pantheon – which included several Unary and Binary Infinite Beings (BOTSAMA was not present) – singlehandedly and is acting with extreme caution lest BOTSAMA seeks reprimand. She is currently the de-facto leader of Japan in this post-apocalyptic world where only recently-awakened Field Wielders remain. She maintains the conceptual barrier over Earth, protecting it from the false vacuum decay of the rest of the universe caused by the collapse of the universal wavefunction.”

“Huh?” I took a nanosecond to comprehend the information. Now, Jesse, a nanosecond is 2.6 billion trillion galactic years when a Planck time equals 1 second of perception under sensory enhancement, Jesse, it’s A LOT (though admittedly, my sensory enhancement faltered when I first got that infodump).

I replied, telepathically, “Is she a Unary, a Binary, or a Tertiary?”

“Oh?” Canta snickered, “I just became a Unary Infinite Being like two days ago, in Sherlock’s rather outdated scale.”

I spoke out loud, “What does she mean, Sherlock?”

“I’m afraid she’s referring to the Halcyon Threat Categorization of ß-tier Physical Strength, σ-tier Matter Manipulation, σ-tier Energy Manipulation, ψ-tier Mind Manipulation, beyond-Ω-tier Reality Manipulation, ψ-tier Nigh-Omniscience, and ψ-tier Nigh-Omnipotence that I instantaneously retrieved from my personal universe of information. She thinks that this grading system does nothing to classify her real threat level, as her Natura is perchance the greatest in terms of Proximi and encompasses the largest Realm I have yet encountered.”

A crimson bolt shot up from the ground and Six came back up. She ruffled her hair and proclaimed with a rather amused and bemused expression, “Damn, she can handle lightspeed. Should I go Overdrive?”

I facepalmed.

“Sis,” I snapped, “Are you even listening to what’s going on?”

“No???” She retorted, “I was on the other side of the planet ‘cause this girl did a Speed-o’-Sound Sonic on me.”

I mean, she has a point, y’know? Also, that’s a One Punch Man reference, Jesse.

“Huh?” Canta looked at Six, confused, “Was that a Saitama reference? OPM exists in the world where you come from?”

“Yes,” I replied, kinda surprised by the sudden shift in tone towards familiarity, “It’s rather popular.”

“Heh,” She chuckled, “Now I am sure that y’all have no ill-intent towards us – no one who makes a random Saitama reference in the middle of a reality-bending fight can have any ill will towards me.”

I have no idea where that trainwreck of a logical statement came from and went to, but I was glad that it did.

Six yelled, “Hey! What’s going on?! Are we friends now?!”

“Yes,” I replied.

Sherlock chuckled. Limey stood down. And Plume’s sword-and-shield vanished.

“Here’s a suggestion, Mr. Holmes,” Canta said as she walked towards us, “Instead of creating detailed yet ultimately useless grading systems, create an OPM-style ‘danger’ tier-list. Like, tier 0: ‘bruh’, tier 1: ‘average guy’, tier 2: ‘not an average guy’, tier 3: ‘kind of a nuisance not gonna lie’, tier 4: ‘finally, an infinite being’, tier 5: ‘ooo more powerful infinite being’, tier 6: ‘kinda OP infinite being’, tier 7: ‘really OP infinite being’, tier 8: ‘stronger than we can handle all combined’, tier 9: ‘the strongest’ – or something like that, y’know?”

Six and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at Sherlock’s embarrassment.

Sherlock replied rather politely, “Prithee, Miss Koto, do fill in some more suggestions about Halcyon’s methodology after this entire incident is over.”

“Hold up,” I said after managing to stop giggling, “Is she omniscient too or something like that? How does she know who you are and what you’re thinking?”

“I mean,” Canta replied, “I probably am omniscient but not in the way you’re thinking.”

“What, I didn’t know there are different ways of omniscience???”

“Heh,” Canta, who had stopped right in front of me, looked down at me.

No, Jesse, I am not talking figuratively! She’s 189-cm tall, Jesse, while I am barely 160-cm tall. Yeah, she’s 17 but my max height as determined by my genes will be reached around the same age as her – and it’s barely 169 cm… Yeah, I am a dwarf.

She continued, “Do you know about the concepts of Proximus and Realm?”

“Yeah, I know about Realms,” I replied, “But what’s Proximus?”

“Oye, oye, Canta-chan!”

I turned around to see three Japanese high-school girls walk out from three different buildings.

One looked tall and muscular, another looked as thin as a desktop calendar (I am not exaggerating), while the other looked like your average tomboyish gacha gamer with big headsets and lollipop in her mouth. The latest was the one who called out, still waving her hands with a big smile.

Canta replied, with a strangely sardonic and weary face, “Hai, neé-chan?” (“Yes, big sis?”)

Her sister replied with a loud, rather throaty and slightly-deep voice (around 186 Hz if I remember correctly),“Yakusokushita deshou, ne! Setsumei wa atashi ga tantou suru!” (You promised, no? I am supposed to be in charge of explaining!)

“Hai, hai. Wakatteiruyo,” (Yeah, yeah, I know,) She replied, “Demo, Tumble-chan, kore wa… chotto…” (But, Tumble-chan, this is… a little…)

“Chotto nani?” (A little what?) Tumble replied.

“Yappari, ii ne. Nandemo nai.” (Y’know what, never mind? It’s nothing.) Canta replied.

Tumble pouted her rather tiny but adorable face before going up to Canta, poking her shoulder, and admonishing her in a raspy, Japanese accent, “C’mon, maan!”

“Now, now, ladies,” Sherlock spoke up, “We should have some tea and biscuits and discuss your history here – as the history of this world is illegible. It’s all in bits and pieces due to Miaokuran’s influence, compounded by the collapse of reality caused by the collapse of the universal wavefunction.”

Another one of the girls turned around to look at Sherlock. It’s the tall one with the sports hoodie this time – she inquired meekly, “What’s… Tea?”

“Oh-ho,” Sherlock chuckled, “Pardon me, for I forgot that the very concept of ‘Tea’ is in shambles at this moment. Let me restore it. I ought to have restored the Proximus of Tea and Drugs long before this moment.”

Sherlock snapped his fingers – causing a typical Japanese room to spawn around all of us. There were slide doors beside walls, slide-cupboards, a bamboo figurine and a hina-doll on a table – and in the middle of the room, there was a futon with chai and biscuits on it.

“Now, let’s talk,” he said as he summoned a rocking chair.

So, Jesse, we talked.

Yeah, kinda weird that we were stopping and restarting time like seven minutes ago and now sitting under and around a futon like good ol’ friends having a meet-up after a long time. And I would have laughed in real life if I were not so angsty right now at that scare Sherlock gave me. Uh, speaking of scares…

“My omniscience, yum, is,” Canta talked with me while having some crackers, “Atemporal or let’s say, exists beyond time and space and reality itself. Also, I haven’t ‘matured’ yet.”

“Huh? What does that even mean?”

“It means – damn, why is this so tasty? – in natural circumstances,” She took another bite, “I am supposed to see all timelines and all realities – at once.”

“Because you are Concept?”

“Exactly,” She said before taking a sip of her tea, “Damn, Sherlock, why is your tea so good?”

“Pardon me, young lady,” Sherlock broke out of the conversation he was having with Calendar (the thin one) and Showerstream (the sporty one) to reply to Canta, “It’s simply a replication. Originally, it’s from a roadside tea-stall in an Indian town.”

“Heh, still though!” Canta said, “This is some good chai tea right here!”

“Ahem,” I coughed, “It’s not ‘chai tea’, ‘chai’ means tea. It’s the same as saying ‘tea tea’ which makes zero sense.”

“Heh? Okay, Pavitr Prabhakar,” She retorted with a chuckle.

“Huh?” I exclaimed, confused, “When did he say that? I remember reading the comics but-”

She raised her eyebrows, “Wait, you don’t have Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse in your timeline?”

“You mean ‘Into the Spiderverse’?”

“No, no, the sequel.”

“Oh,” I had a semi-realisation, “It’s supposed to be released in 2022-23 if I remember correctly.”

She asked, sipping her tea, “What year is it where you’re from?”

“We arrived in this world at exactly 8:19 am, Universal Coordinated Time, 7th October 2019.”

“It was 2025 August 28th when the Universal Wavefunction started to collapse in our timeline. I was very sleepy but I was finishing my summer vacation homework when I felt a strange sensation inside me. I needed to get a book but it was far away so I pulled that book towards me telekinetically in a semi-dreamy state – and that’s how I became a Field Wielder. Heh. Then-”

“Oye, oye, oye, matte, matte!” (Yo, yo, yo, stop, stop!) I yelled in Japanese (for some reason) before switching back to English, as I figured that Canta is a chatty one who wouldn't stop yapping if she starts, “You don’t need to tell me your entire backstory! Just tell me about your omniscience and why it’s different. And what does seeing everything ‘at once’ mean?”

“Heh? Trying to hide your N1-level Japanese proficiency by using just basic particles? I see, I see,” Canta said with a smirk, “Heh, so, uh, my version of omniscience isn’t bounded by spacetime or causality or stuff like that. It’s atemporal and acausal. Like, all of the events in Existence is plastered into a single mole on my chin or something.”

I tried to comprehend her thought-process but eventually looked away with a mix of resignation and concern. When I looked away, I spotted Six squibbling in a notebook, possibly her diary. Smiling, I turned back.

She continued after a brief pause, “Y'know, Nine? I don’t have better words for describing this but – I don't always stare too long into the abyss, but when I do, the abyss gets nervous and looks away! It’s hilarious, if I say so myself!”

She finished with an elegantly goofy smile that appeared to be asking me for answers.

“That’s…” I was flabbergasted by her strange simile, “Quite an unusual way to talk about me. But carry on, carry on-”

“Like nothing really matters~” She interrupted and completed my line before continuing, “So yeah, all of Existence is like a tiny ball to me. And I can just jiggle the ball in only a few ways for now, because I am just a toddler.”

Scratching my head, I replied, “Once again, quite an unusual way of describing things.”

“So yeah,” She replied, “I would probably need some practice to get used to it. For now, I can only tell stuff about what's directly in front of me. I can only tell the past and the present of what I see.”

“Want me to tell everything about you? I can.” She started yapping, “Heh. For example, I know that your primary trait is that you love learning new things, no matter what it is – you get engrossed in any novelty that you come across and make it your own. You gobble up every bit of knowledge and every byte of information that you can get hold of. You are quite self-aware about that however – you are self-aware about every little thing you do and don’t, you scrutinize everything a million times after you do it because you want to learn more. Your main trait is learning more, you are a curious fellow – and you love it. You really love your freedom too, and you really believe that ‘free will’ is real. And-

“I also know that your favourite anime is Legend of the Galactic Heroes; your favourite movie is Endgame; your favourite fictional character is Dr Doofenshmirtz; the most important person in your life is your big sis, aka the redhead over there, Agent Six; your favourite food is pizza; you write a daily journal on your diary named Jesse after waking up and going to sleep every day; your birthday is the same as Leonardo da Vinci's; you are mind-bogglingly smart, much smarter than me in fact – my IQ is 169, by the way; you love Physics; your taste in women-”

“Hey girl, that's enough, I get it!” I said with my cheeks all flushed, “No need to continue! I get it, okay? Shinjite kure, Koto-san! (Believe me please, Miss Koto!).”

“Heh, hai, hai (yes, yes), I believe you,” Canta said with her hands on the futon holding her cheeks, her head slightly tilted, looking intently at something that I can’t see, “Also, call me Canta-san or just Canta when talking with me in Japanese. I feel more comfortable that way, I don’t like sounding like someone too grand, y'know? Also, say hi to Jesse for me while we are at it.”

Canta says hi, Jesse. Do I need to get used to real people calling you out by name now? Because, if so, I am gonna crash out for real.

“No crashing out, dude.”

Huh?

“No huh-ing either.”

Couldn’t you only read the past and the present of the person you’re staring at?

“You’re an exception.”

What? Why?

“For everyone else whom I have yet encountered, I can see everything about them – including their future, it’s just a bit hard to distinguish and blurry, thus making it hard to read it. Also, everyone has a different-sized ‘canvas’ of sorts where everything about them is laid out. Your ‘canvas’, however, is humongous compared to even Sherlock – but I can see only a smidgen of that. So I zoom in on that smidgen and see everything there’s to know about you… and, to say the least, it’s quite interesting.”

“Who are you talking to?” Said I back then, when I had zero idea who she was talking to.

“Oh, just you,” She replied with a smirk, “Just you in the future, that is.”

Does… Does that mean that you know what’s going to happen in my future?

“Oh, hai, I do – up to a certain point, that is, and I am not sure if that’s due to my own lack of control over my Proximus or due to something that you’d do in the future.”

Does… does that mean my future has already been pre-determined for me…?

“For me,” Canta went on, sipping her tea as if having a conversation about destiny with the future version of a guy sitting right in front of her was an everyday phenomenon, “It doesn’t quite work like that, because my perspective is atemporal – that is, I can see stuff from beyond time. However, I guess that’s a valid interpretation.”

Am I… Am I a slave to destiny?

“Uh – I…” Canta stuttered for a bit, before sipping her tea and continuing, “Not really…? But, in a way, yes? Philosophy isn’t my forte, Nine.”

“Dare to hanashitteruyo, Canta-san?” (Who are you talking to, Canta?) I said back then, bemused.

Does… does that mean… Does that mean… I…

“In a way, yes,” She said ever so calmly and elegantly, “You have no free will.”

…

“Your future has been foretold.”

…

What’s there in my future…?

“Well,” Canta stopped for a moment, then chuckled, then blushed slightly, then went grim, then sipped the last bit of tea in her cup – and then continued, “Everything. Your future has everything, Nine. You are- Actually, never mind.”

Huh…?

“But you won’t bow down to your future, Nine,” Canta said gravely, “You must not. You must not bow down to destiny.”

What do you mean? Why is that?

“Because that is your destiny.”

What does that even mean…?

“Your destiny is not to bow down to it,” Canta said with raised eyebrows and a wrinkled forehead, “You were born to withstand everything and still persevere. You were not born to surrender. You were-”

What if I do?

“Huh?”

What if I surrender?

“Then-”

I surrender.

“Wait, what? No-” She turned her head around to look at me (the past me), “You don’t mean-”

I surrender, screw you.

“But-”

What kind of a joke is this? What level of arrogance do y’all have? What grade of ‘being a bastard’ do y’all all-powerful gods share? You tell me my destiny, then you tell me not to bow down to destiny because that’s my destiny??? This is some insane levels of ragebait, this is pure bullshit. You tell me that I have no free will and then tell me to choose not to accept that fact and not to ‘bow down’???

“But, Nine-kun, listen-”

I shall bow down. I don’t care anymore.

Jesse, I am not crashing out anymore – I am just afraid of this meaningless world. I am angsty now and I am self-aware of that, but I still am anxious nevertheless. It’s been a long day, I was supposed to write a lot but…

My palms are sweaty, my lips are dry, my hair is elevated, my eyes are watery, my hands are shaking, my mind is breaking, my feet are burning, my legs are heavy, my knees are jittery, my forehead is aching, my heart is throbbing, my thoughts are racing, my ears are fluttering, my shoulders are stretching, my fingers are slipping, my elbows are dripping, my neck is paining, my throat is dry, my stomach is convulsing, my eyebrows are fidgety, my fever is rising, my time is passing – and honestly, my will is broken.

I am filled with dread, or the closest thing possible – for this feeling is a novelty to me.

Nothing I do is something I do.

Maybe…

It was perhaps done by the first phase transition during the Big Bang, or perhaps by the first quark-gluon interaction, or perhaps when the first atom came to be, or perhaps when the first helium atom formed, or perhaps when the first dark matter coalesced, or when the first stars breathed, or when the first supernovae happened, or when the first spiral galaxy formed, or when the first life sprung in the Lemontide cluster, or when our Sun formed, or when our planet formed, or when Theia crashed into the Earth to form the moon, or when the first life on Earth sprung, or when the first eukaryotic bacteria came to be, or when the first planktons started photosynthesising, or when the first ‘animalia’ came to be, or perchance when the first ‘fish’ come to be, or maybe when the first ‘reptilia’ came to be, or maybe even when the first ‘mammalia’ come to be, or I guess it could even be when the asteroid struck the Yucatan peninsula, or maybe even the birth of the first hominids, or the first step of the first Homo Sapiens, or perhaps the first pot cooked, or perhaps the first spear thrown, or perhaps the first dog tamed, or perhaps the first crop harvested, or perhaps during the rise of Mesopotamia, or perhaps even when the first word of the Epic of Gilgamesh was etched, or perhaps when the first telling of the Ramayana was orated, or perhaps when the first Sea Peoples landed, or perhaps when Romulus killed Remus, or when the volcanoes first foretold the Olmecs’ doom, or when Alexander reached the edge of the Hydaspes, or when Hannibal massacred the Romans in Cannae, or when Qin Shi Huang took his last breath, or when Pushyamitra Sunga killed the last Mauryan emperor, or when in 69 BC Cleopatra VII cried out loud for the first time, haply even by the foundation of the Kingdom of Silla, mayhap still caused by the birth of Christ, or by Boudica's Iceni revolt, or when Ptolemy of Alexandria listed down the 48 constellations, or when Cao Pi conquered the Hans and established his way of the Wei, or when Aurelian was betrayed by his own troops and assassinated, or when Nalanda University was established by Kumargupta, or when the ruling elites were burnt down in the Great Fire of Teotihuacan, or when Muhammad migrated from Mecca to Medina, or when the Vikingar raided Lindisfarne, or may percase be when the founder of the Khmer Empire passed away, or when Otto I won the Second Battle of Lechfeld, or when the Varangian Guards were formed, or when Yaroslav the Wise was buried in Saint Sophia Cathedral, or when Harold Godwinson got an arrow stuck in his eye near Hastings, or when Temüjin killed his brother for food, or when Mansa Musa was born, or when Ibn Battuta managed to escape from the court of Muhammad bin Tughlaq, or perchance when Constantine XI died defending the Eastern Roman Empire from the Ottoman invasion, or wait, maybe when Leonardo da Vinci bequeathed his blueprints of the Dark Field Quantizer to Salai, or – or when Hernán Cortés’ conquistadors led to the Fall of Tenochtitlan, or maybe when the Majapahit Empire fell to Demak, or when Suleiman the Magnificent passed away, or even perchance when Admiral Yi won the Battle of Myeongnyang against the Japanese forces sent by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, or maybe when the historical Queen Amina died at the height of her reign and power, or perhaps when the Catholic lords somehow survived the Defenestration of Prague, or when Emperor Shizu of the Qing Dynasty captured Beijing, or when Giles Corey got crushed to death during the Salem Witch Trials, or when Ahmad Shah Abdali won the Third Battle of Panipat, or when Captain James Cook mapped New South Wales, or when Robespierre got put to the guillotine in the French Revolution, or when the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved due to Napoleon's actions, or when Shaka Zulu passed away, or when the Slavery Abolition Act got passed by the British Parliament, or when the Great Indian Rebellion ravaged the British Raj, or when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth after the end of the American Civil War, or when Emperor Meiji started reforming Japan after overthrowing the Shogunate, or maybe when Dom Pedro II was overthrown in a coup d’état, or perchance when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife got assassinated in Sarajevo, or when Lenin and Trotsky overthrew the Russian Monarchy, or when Mahatma Gandhi went on the Dandi March as a part of his Salt Satyagraha, or when the historical Hitler committed Anschluss on Austria, or when Salai… wait a minute-

When Salai returned to Earth and annihilated Mussolini's fascist government because they disrupted his search for Leonardo's lost works, when Salai hated the Nazis’ guts for proclaiming virtues that would go directly against his Leonardo's ideals and completely destroyed the core of the Nazi army in a single battle, when he singlehandedly overthrew the British government for the horrible mistreatment of Alan Turing, when he vapourised every firearm and military weapon in existence after the entire world formed a coalition against him, when he forced the great powers of the world to become a part of a unified World Government with him at its head, when Salai committed to his reality-bending reforms to create the Constitution and the Lex Simul/Instant Karma system for the entire universe, when he singlehandedly defeated the entire League of Life coalition and proclaimed himself as its President, when Salai allowed the mad scientist Erwin Liebert to create his semi-clone for ‘research’ and thus creating the first Agent of Earth, when Salai went on a mass-terraformation drive across the galaxy which led to the greatest baby boom in the history of humanity, when Agent One went on a galaxy-wide extermination and genocide rally to allow for greater human expansion before being raped and traumatised by Salai for her insults towards Leonardo, when Salai banned currency and made everything free by effectively creating infinite supply of every goods imaginable caused by the overnight mass-donation of F-3D printers, when Salai had a multiversal-scale showdown against Two who tried to overthrow him and failed, when Salai wrote his autobiography “I'm Kinda Bored”, when Salai ceased the expansion of the universe by deleting dark energy because he didn't like the concept of a heat death, when Salai banned the natural death of sentient beings, when Salai restarted the Agent Program resulting in the birth of Three and Four, when the Cult of Zero was established by people who believed Salai was God, when Five was born from Salai's genes, when the first Sauriae entered our universe and attacked the Pelican Nebula, when Six was born, when Seven and Eight were born in the same year – and finally when I was born and Salai was reported to be seen smiling for the first time…

I still have no idea what all of this even means, Jesse – but trust me when I say it – I am terrified.

Does… does all of this… does all of that mean… it was all… a part of Salai's plan? The 5D Invasions? The Halcyon Intervention? The appearance of Golly aka Death? The appearance and immediate defeat of Non-Existence? The universal wavefunction collapse of the SAMAverses? – And the misery and grief and trauma and pain and suffering of both the living and the dead…? Was that too a part of Salai's plan…? But… for what purpose…? Is it something to do with me and my ‘Evolutionary Stages’...? But…

For what purpose?

For what reason is the arguably omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and omni-flatulent entity doing all this…? What does he wish to gain…? In what horrible plan am I a pawn of his? He… He who… He who already has, had, will have, has had, and had had literally Everything…

Jesse… I am not terrified of Salai's sheer power and strength – I am terrified of the possibility that there might exist some plan that is beyond my comprehension and determines every single thought of mine, including the fact that I am writing this and the fact that you are reading this.

I…

I am afraid I can't keep writing today, Jesse. I have so much to tell you but…

I am afraid that it doesn't even matter.

Nothing even matters.

Love doesn’t matter.

Logic doesn't matter.

Feelings don't matter.

Thoughts don't matter.

Everything has probably already been decided for me, in detail. So, it doesn’t matter if I read or write or talk or think or feel or laugh or weep or learn or forget. It would happen regardless. And I… don't care.

I don’t care anymore.

I don’t want to feel anymore.

I don’t want to love anymore.

I don’t want to learn anymore.

I am tired, Jesse. Goodbye.

Next Chapter: Heaven's Falling Down