Guaranteed Outcome

What does it mean to live?

A question that many people ponder while going through their own lives, but none truly find the answer.

What parts of being alive gives this definition? Does each life matter as much as the next, or is there innate worth in the way each person lives?

All the textbooks these days will say that “to live is to be yourself, to live true to your beliefs and appreciate each day”

That’s a load of shit, the answer isn’t so easy as a sentence.

Living isn’t some given, it's a privilege.

To neglect any aspect of living would mean to not appreciate life to the fullest, right?

All the good must be taken, but to neglect the bad aspects of life would mean to pretend they don’t exist.

I think that living means to do what you want, regardless of good or bad intentions.

To live in a commendable way is a waste of time, and the true way of living isn’t spent thinking about life, it’s spent living it.

A young man, about 17 years old, rolls out of bed.

His pitch-black hair glistens in the morning sun, swaging in the stagnant air of his room.

He brushes his hair off to the side with his hand, and his blue eyes wince at the sight of the sun.

“Go away already!”

He crawls slowly over to the window, and pulls the blinds shut.

Just a bit longer…please….

He falls asleep on the floor, attempting to reclaim the sleep that was “taken from him” by the sun.

“Ayato….AYATO!” a mature male voice resonates from behind the closed door, starling the boy awake.

His eyes re-open with annoyance.

He gets dressed, putting on the uniform he’s worn many times before: a white dress shirt, black pants and who could forget the unenthusiastic smile.

Ayato heads downstairs, greeted by a twenty-something year old man, short brown hair, green eyes, and an overwhelmingly positive aura.

“You’re gonna have a good day, I know it!” the man says.

“If you say so, Kenta” Ayato half-heartedly replies, leaving after a single bite of toast.

Ayato leaves the house, with Kenta’s eyes lingering on him.

If he doesn’t show something soon…

…

Ayato heads to school, shrugging off the scenery in his vision.

My name is Ayato Yamaki, and that back there was my guardian Kenta. We’re not technically related, but he took me in after a bad accident me and my parents went through when I was young.

He found me on the verge of death, and took me in as his own. That’s a debt I can never repay, not with this life.

Another boy, high school aged, flies by Ayato, the wind blowing his black hair everywhere.

Wind magic? Man, I wish I was that lucky…

He glances over to the nearby canal to see three students whizzing by on the water’s surface.

Okay now they’re just showing off

Ayato makes it to the gate of his school, but the temperature suddenly increases.

“Look out!”

A fireball scorches the earth below it, heading straight for Ayato.

Ayato crouches down, placing both his hands on the ground.

A wall of earth grows in front of Ayato, blocking this fireball

“Sorry!” the student who launched it apologizes, Ayato brushes it off and continues about his day.

Stuff like that’s common, however much I wish it wasn’t

Class proceeds normally, with a student igniting his palm and reaching over to a shy-looking student.

The teacher notices this, flicking two of her fingers which shoots a water-bolt out, snuffing the flame.

The teacher shoots an angry look at that student, sending shivers down his spine.

…

Later in the day, Ayato receives his test marks back, getting 82/100 on a pop-quiz.

He lets a little fist bump out, excited to have done good.

“How’d you do, Yamaki-san?”

A shorter girl with long brown hair comes over to Ayato’s desk. Ayato clearly likes this girl, and so gets flustered with her approach.

“How about we talk about it on the way home, Kasumi-kun”

“Okay!”

They leave the school and get talking, Ayato is looking at her and nodding, but not able to listen to her. He’s too nervous, even if it was his idea.

Kasumi Yaguchi, someone who I’ve been friends with since, well, I can remember. She’s always been there for me, regardless of the reason.

Ayato laughs with Kasumi, then thinks back to what Kenta said this morning

You’re gonna have a good day, I know it!

It’s not fun when you’re always right, you know.

“See ya tomorrow, Yamaki-san!” Kasumi waves to Ayato, heading away.

Ayato heads inside, then into the kitchen to grab a drink.

Kenta enters the room silently, and Ayato doesn’t notice.

The quiet footsteps get closer and closer, until the vibration from the floor alerts Ayato.

“I was wondering when you’d be-”

Ayato turns around, but as he does is met with a sharp pain in his chest.

He starts coughing and falls to the floor, clutching his chest.

Kenta looms over him, looking down at the trash he’s about to dispose of.

“10 years I wasted on you…for you to be something this useless”

What? What is he talking about?

The pain in Ayato’s chest grows stronger, his heartbeat growing weaker.

“They thought you’d have a fragment of humanity…but you’re just another piece of trash, waiting to be thrown out”

The pain finally stops, but as Ayato gains his bearings Kenta stoops down to his level, holding a knife.

“The poison didn’t work, huh? You’re a bit stronger than you look. But that doesn’t matter now”

Kenta lowers the knife to Ayato’s chest, Ayato resisting with all his remaining strength

“This time…You will die”

It might’ve been the way he said that, but I felt like that outcome…was absolute.

The knife slowly gets closer, breaking the skin on Ayato’s chest.

It goes deeper, slowly plunging further into his chest. His blood starts to pour out of the wound, pushing out onto Kenta’s face and hands.

Ayato’s consciousness begins to fade, but he can hear a voice calling out to him.

The mental image of a black obelisk appears, speaking out:

Open Your Eyes, to the Unavoidable Present.

Shunned from the World, resting beyond the horizon.

An Unimaginable black follows wherever you go, inescapable.

To look away is to accept it, to close your eyes is to deny it.

Create the rift between past and present, chained by the uncertainty of time.

Change fate with your own hands, etch the world with your undeniable engraving.

Branching paths, converging into one.

Parallel futures, isolated outcomes.

Which shall come to fruition?

Ayato’s body is devoured by a black fog, to Kenta’s shock.

Ayato sinks into the floor, and disappears, along with the fog.

“I underestimated you…I guess you had what it took” Kenta speaks out, slightly angered at the fact that Ayato escaped.

Kenta picks up a phone, and dials an unknown number.

“It’s me. I was wrong about the kid…”

The voice on the phone indistinctly murmurs, then asks one important question:

“So? What fragment does the boy possess?”

“I…don’t know”

The line hangs up, and Kenta sits on the floor, questioning what just happened.

He was supposed to die…that was absolute. So how? How is he gone? How did he do that?

…

Ayato wakes up once again, wincing from the sunlight.

He rolls out of bed to shut the blinds, again.

Only this time his surroundings are unknown.

That wasn’t his room.

That’s not his bed.

That’s not his window.

“Where am I?”

Ayato is only certain of one thing.

Kenta’s attack replays in his head, seeing the lack of hesitation in his eyes.

It wasn’t a mistake. It wasn't a possession.

Those were the eyes of someone who didn’t care about him.

Those were the eyes of a person who was certain of each step he took.

Those were the eyes of someone who wanted him dead.