Aetheral Space-Chapter 444:14.18: A World of Butterflies

The elevator had seen better days. The screech of metal echoed through the building as it was lifted through the floors, the orange lights on its sides flaring across half-finished rooms and hallways. An anglerfish, slowly swimming forth to lure its prey.

The Sixth Dead tapped her foot.

It had been an excruciating few hours. It had taken a hell of a lot of Panacea to recover from the wounds those two assholes had dealt her -- and a hell of a lot of self-mutilation to make those damaged parts ’missing’ in the first place. Even venting her frustrations on the unfortunate medics she’d acquired hadn’t done much for her foul mood.

But now, at last… things were looking up.

She didn’t know exactly what had happened outside, but the aftermath was lovely. The white canopy covering Grip District had begun to crumble, feathers detaching and drifting down to the ground like white-hot snowflakes, igniting whatever they touched. This place was starting to become a sea of flames. She could see it outside already: the orange glow of a newborn inferno.

How romantic!

The Sixth Dead adjusted her rifle in the grip of half-a-dozen Redundancies. She knew that the way she acted, the way she lived life loudly, gave off the impression of recklessness. Maybe that was even the case, most of the time -- but that didn’t mean she couldn’t use that big ol’ brain of hers.

It was obvious that Atoy and his hangers-on had come here to make their escape. Most likely, they had a ship waiting in that busted building over yonder -- and now that the dome had been broken, they’d be using that ship to escape. Well, she couldn’t have that. If anyone was going to elope with Atoy, it would be her.

So, she’d come prepared! The rifle she’d acquired was, strictly speaking, meant to be mounted on a starship -- but she’d make it work. Once she reached the top of this half-completed resort expansion and plugged this baby into the power supply, one shot would be good enough to send Atoy’s ship right back down to the ground.

From there, it was just a matter of plucking him from the wreckage. The Sixth Dead blushed as she imagined it. Him, injured and bloodied, rescued from peril by a beautiful and plucky maiden. Slowly nursing him back to health… growing closer as the weeks stretched on… snapping his fingers while he was asleep, a first kiss, a wedding, a vivisection…

"Aaah! So embarrassing!"

The Sixth Dead pressed her hands against her red cheeks as she grinned giddily, overcome by fantasy.

Ding.

Shaking the sparkles from her mind, the Sixth Dead stepped forth into the building’s spherical control centre -- then stopped. The joy instantly fell from her face, leaving only the keen gaze of a predator. When she spoke, her voice was a low monotone.

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?"

A blonde-haired man was sitting cross-legged on the floor, his face utterly relaxed -- as if he’d been waiting for her. He was wearing what looked like a loose dressing gown over a plain black shirt, and beside him -- buried in the floor -- was a blade of green crystal. He smiled as their eyes met.

"The Sixth Dead, right?" he asked calmly. "You’re right on time."

AETHERAL SPACE 14.18

"A World of Butterflies"

Many Years Ago…

"What does it mean," Luna asked. "To see the future?"

For their first lesson, Luna had brought Baltay to the central chamber of the temple, a grand circular room lined with benches from which dozens of monks observed. As Luna spoke, those masked monks repeated her words -- but at exactly the same time, without even a seconds delay. The casual use of precognition made for an eerie chorus.

Baltay scratched his chin, looking up at Luna from where he sat cross-legged on the floor.

"That’s obvious," he said. "Seeing the future just means knowing what’s going to happen."

"But how?"

Baltay shrugged lightly with one shoulder. "Isn’t it your job to tell me that?"

For a moment, Luna was silent, her emotions unreadable through her spherical helmet as she stared down at Baltay. Had he insulted his new teacher? To be honest, he didn’t much care. He still wasn’t convinced that this whole thing wasn’t a trap. He kept expecting to look into the sky and see a UniteFleet ship ready to capture him.

Besides, why was he learning from some kid? If he really was an honoured guest like these monks said, why couldn’t he have someone more experienced teaching him? Nebula or not, this brat barely came up to his waist.

To her credit, though, she did answer his question eventually.

"Precognition is not opening a magic window to the future, and seeing what’s inside," she said quietly. "Precognition is analyzing the past and present… and through them, calculating the future. Tell me. If I were to point a gun at you, and pull the trigger, what would happen?"

"Is that a threat?"

"It is a scenario," Luna snapped -- with surprising severity. "What would happen?"

"The gun would fire, obviously."

"How?" Luna asked. "There are no bullets in it."

Baltay frowned. "Is that trick question meant to prove something?"

"It’s not a trick question," Luna said. "If you looked at a gun being pointed at you and a trigger being pulled, it’s only natural to predict that it would fire -- but, because you don’t have the full context of events, you have produced an inaccurate prophecy. If you were to look at the scene, and notice all the things that a normal pair of eyes cannot notice, and deduce from that the gun is empty? That is something entirely different… and something entirely true."

"Deduction doesn’t sound much like predicting the future."

"They are the same thing," Luna said. "Humans predict the future every moment of their lives. You predict that eating will alleviate your hunger and that breathing will extend your life. The only distinguishing factor is the level of detail and the accuracy. Another question: say that a cat exists unobserved and unobserving, alone in an impenetrable box. Without opening that box, how would you determine whether the cat is alive or dead?"

Swallowing his pride for a moment, Baltay considered the question… and his frown deepened. "You can’t," he finally said.

"Of course you can," Luna replied. "The box is irrelevant. You need only look at the man who put the cat inside."

Present Day…

"Sorry," Baltay said, slowly rising to his feet. "But this is as far as you go, Sixth Dead."

She cocked her head. "That’s a pretty gutsy thing to say. How’d you know I’d be coming here?"

Baltay didn’t answer. To be perfectly honest, he didn’t fully know how his eyes had predicted this. He’d handed over the responsibility of deduction to his Aether a long time ago. All he knew were the stray futures before him.

"You’re not a big talker, huh?" the Sixth Dead said. "Come on. Let’s go again from the top, okay?" Her smile thinned, and her eyes turned cold. "Who the hell are you supposed to be?"

Baltay mirrored that thin smile. "There’s no point telling you," he said calmly. "You wouldn’t be able to do anything with it."

The Sixth Dead blinked.

"Wow," she said, putting one hand on her hip and running the other down her face. "Okay. You’ve got an alright face, but your attitude kinda makes me hate you? I --"

Baltay charged forward.

A thousand fists flew forward, and not one of them hit. No matter what point of the Sixth Dead’s body Baltay struck with his punch, it wouldn’t matter. A spectral palm would simply rise out of her skin and catch his fist before it made contact. A dead-end avenue of attack. Unworthy futures.

Baltay would not entertain them.

Just before he reached the Sixth Dead -- her eyes widening in surprise -- Baltay dropped down to the ground and swept his leg, sending the young woman flying off her feet. As predicted, the spectral hands lashed out from her body -- forming a ten-armed cartwheel that the Sixth Dead used to escape Baltay’s follow-up strike.

One second had passed.

Baltay saw a dozen next seconds. The fists -- the Redundancies -- would come for him. Seven times they punctured Baltay’s chest and destroyed his heart. Two more times his lungs. If he managed to block that first killing blow, there was a good chance he’d be pummelled against the wall until his neck snapped, so he’d just need to block that one too -- and the next one, and the next one.

A spin, a duck, a slide, a jump. Each one eliminated nineteen corpses from the continuum of possibility. Five seconds had passed.

In two more, she’d bring out the scythe.

In one future, Baltay’s eyes flicked off to the side, and he confirmed that Leviathan was still there -- buried in the floor. Gretchen had designed his new Aether Armament with inspiration from the original’s poison: it introduced a decaying effect to whatever it pierced that Baltay could activate at will. Right now, it was filling the walls and floor with that quality, but Baltay didn’t intend to activate it and destroy the room. The side-effect of preparing that alteration -- near-instantly infusing the area around the weapon -- was far more valuable.

Still, that meant if he wanted to keep the Sixth Dead’s Redundancies limited to her body, he had to fight her bare-handed.

Not a single mistake could be permitted. The first he made, regardless of severity, would result in his death -- in the end of the film-reel. So he danced. He danced with his feet, and he danced with his hands, and with those hands he seized the reaper by its neck. It was coming. The scythe… the scythe, the scythe, the scythe.

The scythe.

The Sixth Dead’s scythe was an Aether Armament too. The very edge of its blade shapeshifted on a microscopic level, allowing it to slip through the defenses of infusion to a dangerous degree. Against that weapon, any target was reduced to pliable meat.

Purple Aether was about to spark.

There!

Abandoning caution, Baltay launched himself forward the instant the scythe began to manifest -- and slammed his foot directly into it. The weapon went flying from the Sixth’s Dead grip and across the room, embedding into the far wall. Then, without hesitating or even turning his head, he drove his elbow to the side and spiked it into the Sixth Dead’s jaw. Blood and spit and teeth went flying onto the floor.

With that move, the oceans of blood in the future became mere lakes.

The cocoon would come in one more second.

Baltay leapt backwards as Redundancies launched forth from every inch of the Sixth Dead’s body, wrapping around her and forming a spherical barrier. It didn’t stop there, though: the sphere began to spin, still spawning Redundancies from its outer shell, creating a hurricane of hands that swept through the room -- sending smoke and debris flying in every direction.

The Sixth Dead’s mad laughter echoed through the room, emboldened by pain and anger.

"You thought, didn’t you?!" she laughed, voice warped by her strange shield. "You thought I’d just stand there and let you beat me up?! Are you stupid?! Are you stupid?! Let’s see! Let’s see how much you can dodge!"

She’s already noticed my reaction speed -- but she probably doesn’t realize it’s precognition yet. That’s why she’s given up on direct attacks and is just destroying everything. It’s not a bad plan.

His eyes flicked over to Leviathan, still embedded in the floor, a few inches away from the rapidly expanding area of devastation. If he didn’t pull it out now and retrieve it, she’d knock it out in 1.5 seconds and he’d be left at a disadvantage for the same result. Once he pulled the sword out, he’d have 4.6 seconds before the infusion it had inflicted on the room wore off. He’d need to use that time to inflict as much damage as possible on this maniac.

Baltay plucked the sword from the floor -- and the instant he did, the future changed.

His head snapped up.

Two gargantuan Redundancies had appeared -- manifested outside this room, approaching it from behind the walls -- and were gripping the seam in the middle, slowly pulling the spherical chamber in two like a gachapon.

Creak.

Creak.

Crack.

"You’re looking at the future right now," the Sixth Dead sighed. "Aren’t you, sweetheart?"

The massive hands dug in deep…

…and ripped the chamber open.

Baltay fell, and the room fell with him. The lights, the consoles, even the furniture… all of it plunged into the massive empty space below. Four seconds to hit the ground. In those four seconds, Baltay swung his sword sixteen times, each time deflecting an attack that would have pulverized him.

He landed, and blocked two more.

"Ha!" the Sixth Dead called out. "Y’know, I think I’m starting to warm up to you, actually! You look so much better all the way down there. You’ve got the kind of bones that are fun to crush."

The assassin had emerged from her momentary cocoon, and now stood high atop the palm of a Redundancy, her scythe slung over her shoulder. The arm she was using as a platform wasn’t alone. Dozens of huge Redundancies protruded from the wall around her, the palm of each pointing directly down at Baltay. They were pressed tight against the wall, biceps bulging from the sheer compression.

Baltay took a deep breath. Oh. This was the moment he was best off saying it.

"Baltay Kojirough," he said. "Special Officer of the Supremacy."

"Who asked?" the Sixth Dead laughed. "Ah, well, you’re cute. I’m the Sixth Dead."

The killer thrust her wall of hands forward…

…and the warrior raised his emerald sword high.

Killing Arts: Oxygen Palm!

Fusion Tool: Leviathan!

Many Years Ago…

Baltay Kojirough sighed as he lay on the floor of the temple, looking up towards the great stained glass window that consumed the ceiling. He’d been looking at it for nearly an hour now while pondering Luna’s latest lesson. Before long, the scene depicted had stopped being a scene at all, instead softening into a vague collection of colours and shapes.

Still… if he focused back on it…

It seemed to be depicting the events immediately following the Thousand Revolutions. The followers of Azez the Absolute forming an eternal Supremacy atop the gravestone of their oppressors, while the weak and the cowardly flowed out to form their own petty states and kingdoms -- including the Land of Precognition, Abra-Facade. A dusty orange circle… with a smaller, blue one shining above it.

Baltay frowned. Abra-Facade didn’t have a moon -- especially not one that glittered like a sapphire. There were strange symbols between the two spheres, too. Speech? A song?

"Baltay Kojirough," said Luna. As per usual, she had appeared without Baltay noticing, even with his burgeoning future-sight.

"What is that?" muttered Baltay, pointing up at the blue dot.

She didn’t follow his line of sight -- but of course, something like her didn’t need to. "The people of Abra-Facade do not speak of that."

He glanced at her, blue eyes cold. "Do you?"

"A revelation should be reserved for a situation where it will benefit you," she replied calmly. "Don’t you think?"

Baltay stared at her for just a moment later, before slowly nodding. "I suppose," he said, rising to a sitting position. "I’ve been wondering something, by the by."

"I know," she replied. "For courtesy’s sake, it’s best that you voice the question, though."

He nodded at the monks, still lining the circumference of the chamber, still quietly echoing their words. "These guys. What are they doing? As far as I can tell, they just sit here all day… predicting? Why?"

"They seek the dream of Abra-Facade."

"And what’s that?"

Luna clasped her hands in front of her. "Temporal enlightenment."

Baltay frowned, resting a hand on his knee. "Come again?"

Luna turned her head away. It was hard to tell, what with the chunky helmet, but it seemed she was looking off at one of the mumbling monks. "You, who seek the future merely for mastery of arms, would not understand it."

"I’m not stupid," Baltay snapped. "Explain it to me and I will understand. You know how well I’ve taken to all of this."

Luna looked at him for a moment before sighing.

"Temporal enlightenment… is what the fathers and mothers of Abra-Facade dreamed of. They sought to abandon the notions of past, present and future. They sought to achieve such mastery of vision that their consciousness stretched across all of their lives simultaneously. Not just forward or backward, but also the diagonal and the parallel, the likely and the miraculous. They wanted not to sail the ocean of time in their tiny rowboats, but to become the seafloor itself. That is temporal enlightenment."

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Baltay blinked.

Nonsense.

"See?" Luna said, almost sadly. "It’s not something you’re capable of understanding yet."

And, without another word, she turned and left. Baltay watched her go silently. Even as she shrank in his vision, though, he couldn’t help but roll that last word of hers over in his mind.

Yet?

Present Day…

The future stretched its jaws even wider.

It wasn’t just that Gretchen’s new Leviathan was an improvement over the original. There was something more, something different from the first time he had used a Fusion Tool. The mania that had gripped him back then showed no signs of manifesting. This wasn’t power that he was wrestling into submission anymore.

This was power that completed him.

The appearance of the new Leviathan was far more stable, too. Smooth emerald armour covered Baltay’s body, with a visor hanging over the top half of his face -- adorned with eight circular eyes that glittered like sapphires. His hair, bleached white and extended by the transformation, billowed behind him like a war-banner.

Baltay tightened his grip. A sword still remained clutched in his hand -- that, too, was formed from smooth green crystal, connected to Baltay’s wrist by a sparkling blue chain. He opened his mouth, and a cold mist flowed forth, tempered by crackling green Aether.

He looked up -- and through the shattered lens of time, he saw himself look up hundreds more times, with different angles and timings. These futures were themselves redundant. He collapsed them into a single vision, a median prophecy to guide his hand.

Baltay Kojirough had dodged the countless Oxygen Palms that the Sixth Dead had launched. It wasn’t notable enough to be called easy. All he had done was move his body, just the slightest bit, almost imperceptibly… and each and every blow had just brushed right on by him.

He stood there, in the sole spot of the room untouched by destruction. Everything else around him had been crushed by cruel palm-prints. Chain rattling, he raised his sword and pointed it at the murderer above.

No words would benefit him here… so he didn’t bother with them.

Baltay Kojirough leapt.

Her eyes widening with alarm, the Sixth Dead sent her Redundancies to intercept him -- but that effort was itself redundant. The hands simply became Baltay’s platforms and his victims, granting him passage up the walls and falling before his sword. Leviathan’s decaying ability had been elevated by the transformation, too -- now, it took a mere touch of his blade to turn the spectral hands to dust.

They came for him, and he came for them, his efficiency increasing as his eyes adjusted to the flow of causality.

He eliminated two with each swing.

Eliminated four with each swing.

Eight with each swing.

Sixteen.

Within 4.6718 seconds, he was in the Sixth Dead’s face, his sword raised high. The temporal railway rushed through his mind, and he grabbed onto it. He predicted himself predicting the future, and he looked into that nested prediction, and saw that this blow would mean a life’s end. Whose? He glanced deeper.

He blinked.

Baltay Kojirough brought his sword down -- and the Sixth Dead chose that moment to reveal the scythe she had reclaimed. Snarling in ecstasy, she swung the weapon, and the blade bit hungrily into Baltay’s side. A screech of metal, and a screech of Aether, and the Sixth Dead pulled the scythe right through, cleanly bisecting

No. He blinked.

Baltay Kojirough flipped in the air, deflecting the scythe with another kick as the Sixth Dead brought it out of hiding. As his body twisted, though, he lost the opportunity for the killing blow -- and his opponent greedily snatched it for herself. A Redundancy launched from the Sixth Dead’s chin, planting its palm against Baltay’s face and smashing his head against the

No. He blinked.

Baltay Kojirough flipped in the air, deflecting the scythe with another kick as the Sixth Dead brought it out of hiding. A Redundancy launched from the Sixth Dead’s chin, aimed right at Baltay’s face -- and Baltay let go of his sword. As he flicked his wrist, the chain whipped the sword through the air, the blade slicing through the Redundancy’s palm and reducing it to dust. Shrieking, the Sixth Dead pulled herself back -- summoning the cocoon once again to

No. He blinked.

Shrieking, the Sixth Dead pulled herself back, Redundancies already slithering out of her form to create a protective barrier… but Baltay Kojirough would not permit this. He kicked off the purple fist aimed for his back and launched himself at the Sixth Dead once again. This cocoon would not achieve completion.

Leviathan swam.

Sixteen.

Thirty-two.

Sixty-four.

Within 3.7819 seconds, the Sixth Dead was defenseless once again. For the first time, Baltay looked into the woman’s eyes, and saw surprise metamorphosize into fear. Was this the first time for her?

If so, then I’m the best teacher you could find. I’ve been terrified all night.

Yes… perhaps even longer than that. How long had his heart trembled like this? Perhaps he’d been silently shaking for the entirety of the last two years.

Baltay Kojirough was scared. Not of this woman, not of this fight, but of the dominoes he himself had laid out. What he had done to Nigen Rush. What he had done to Atoy Muzazi.

He was scared that he would never meet that man again.

He was scared that he would never be able to apologise.

He was scared that his sin would go unatoned for all eternity.

That was why he was here, and that was why he was fighting. If he didn’t, how could he ever bear to look at himself in the mirror again? Right now, even looking at himself through the current of time sent a shudder of revulsion down his spine.

The Sixth Dead swung her scythe again, and this time Baltay blocked it with his shoulder, wrapping his arm around the shaft to keep himself aloft. With his other hand, he swung Leviathan at the Sixth Dead’s neck…

…but it was not to be.

The Sixth Dead grinned.

"Quantum King," she said.

Purple Aether radiated outwards -- and as it did, countless Redundancies manifested. These were different than the usual, though, much more faint, much more ghostly. Manifested upon thin air, they could exist only for a moment -- but each one made that moment count. They lashed out in all directions, seizing hold of whatever their path crossed and viciously pulling it in.

The rubble, the walls, the floor… even Baltay himself. All of it was dragged towards the Sixth Dead with crushing force, the endless manifesting faux-Redundancies seeking to devour everything.

Something’s wrong.

None of Baltay’s predictions had revealed this ability to him… but now that he thought about it, they surely should have. The Sixth Dead’s Redundancies had been designed as a counterpart to Atoy Muzazi’s thrusters -- where he pushed, she pulled. Why, then, was it so inconceivable that she have her own version of Quantum King?

It could only mean one thing. Even with his Fusion Tool expanding his abilities… Baltay’s precognition was failing him. Something was still misaligned.

He had only 1.4318 seconds to escape, and he used that time well. Pouring all of his Aether into his legs, he kicked off the palm of a faux-Redundancy right as it manifested, launching himself just barely out of Quantum King’s area of effect.

His limbs flapped through the air as he fell down to the bottom of the room… but still, that didn’t mean he was helpless. His sword swept through the air twice, eliminating the crowds of Redundancies that tried to deliver their own little coup de graces. As he landed on one knee, debris rained down around him -- the aftermath of the Sixth Dead releasing her ability.

Baltay glanced down at his sword. The chain that connected it to his wrist had broken, leaving him free. That was fine. So long as he didn’t lose his hold on it, he had nothing to worry about.

He looked up at his enemy. As expected, the Sixth Dead had taken advantage of the momentary distance between them. The cocoon had been erected around her -- and now, the only sign of her body within were the two glowing yellow eyes that stared down at him. Massive Redundancies waved through the air around the central mass, ready to pummel Baltay into oblivion.

"Tell me something," Baltay said quietly -- spitting out blood and a repaid tooth. "Would you?"

The two glowing lights narrowed. "What…?" the Sixth Dead asked reluctantly.

Baltay took a deep breath, rising to his feet -- and pointing his sword up at the shining purple monster. "’The future’... what does it mean to you?"

The lights blinked. "Huh?"

"It’s a simple question."

The Sixth Dead’s warped giggle echoed throughout the room. "I didn’t think I hit you in the head yet… but sure, I’ll bite. The future? Haha, that’s a load of nothing."

Baltay raised an eyebrow. "How’s that?"

"Well, the whole thing’s about happiness, right?" the Sixth Dead said -- it seemed she was genuinely considering the question. "People say you eat to live, but that’s not true, there’s more to it. People eat to live because living is fun, and dying sucks. If it was the other way around, you’d see, like, loads more suicides, right? You’d go outside and there’d be people falling like raindrops."

Baltay narrowed his eyes. "What’s your point?"

"My point is that… if you’re happy now, what does it matter what happens two seconds later? That’s the problem with you Abra-Facade types. You’re always worrying about what’s gonna happen. Lighten up, you know? Just dig the knife in…" she purred. "...and enjoy it while it lasts."

"I see. A never-ending present, then?"

"That’s a nice way to say it!" the Sixth Dead replied cheerily. "I don’t really get what it means, though."

"Right…" Baltay slowly blinked. "...it seems you really have to die, then."

"Funny!" the Sixth Dead laughed. "I was just thinking the same thing!"

Twin bolts of purple Aether lashed out from the central mass, striking two chunks of rubble before Baltay… and those chunks exploded into purple light. Baltay braced himself as two colossal shadows slowly stretched over him, raising his sword to meet the inevitable attack. Something else unseen… something else concealed by the dust in his eye.

The Sixth Dead’s words resounded through the room.

"Men at Arms."

Many Years Ago…

"It was a good fight, my friend," Nigen Rush said quietly, sheathing his sword. "You have nothing to be ashamed of."

Baltay remained where he’d fallen on the floor of the Child Garden’s arena, staring up at the stars through the skylight. Leviathan lay on the floor beside him, cleanly pulled from his grasp. Squeezing his eyes shut, Baltay clenched his fists. The eyes of the other Blades were upon him, only adding to his humiliation. At least Westmore had left before the duel’s end: Baltay didn’t think he’d have been able to bear that smug bastard’s smirk right now.

Even with the new blade that Gretchen Hail had forged for him, and the precognition he’d given his all to develop… Baltay had barely lasted two minutes in this bout.

"Baltay," Nigen Rush repeated, looking back at him, hesitating before leaving. "You have nothing to be ashamed of."

Of course, Baltay thought as the room emptied out. Of course not. Why would I be ashamed, Nigen? A weakling like me never stood a chance against someone like you. It’s only natural that I lose like this. If anything… it’s to be commended that I lasted a whole two minutes.

That’s beyond what you expected of me, isn’t it, Nigen? Isn’t it… you bastard?

Baltay turned his head to the side, and watched him go with dull blue eyes.

Nigen Rush, who he loved and hated in equal measure.

Present Day…

Baltay Kojirough had to hand it to the Sixth Dead.

Taken by itself, her Redundancies didn’t sound that amazing. The ability to make phantom limbs was hardly in the upper echelons of the Aetheral world. But she’d used it for attack, she’d used it for defense, she’d used it to recreate Quantum King, and she’d used it…

…for this.

A gargantuan humanoid figure held Baltay’s limp body against the wall. Blood oozed down his face. It was all he could do to keep hold of his sword.

The creature was composed entirely of interlinking Redundancies, countless arms spawning from a chunk of rubble and forming a humanoid shell around it. Layers upon layers of hands, burying the core deep beneath it… and no matter how many arms Baltay destroyed, how many he turned to dust, new Redundancies would immediately manifest to repair the wound.

Destroying the core was easier said than done, too. It moved around through the inside of the body at random… and Baltay’s defective precognition had failed to locate it in his visions. Even the strength of the homunculus was nothing to scoff at. Massive muscles of bound-together arms allowed Baltay no escape from their grip.

So, yes, he was impressed. What Aether-user wouldn’t be? The Sixth Dead had taken the ability to create arms, and she’d used it to create endlessly regenerating titans. Both of them stared at him with faces of twitching fingertips, their mistress watching from her cocoon high above.

The one holding him pulled its other fist back. The finishing blow. Crunching bone and spilling blood sang to Baltay from the next heartbeat.

This was it, wasn’t it? Looking ahead, he could see no victory here… but that was because he wasn’t willing to look at that dust in his eye. That was because he was still scared.

He had come here to apologize to Atoy Muzazi. He had come here to make amends. He had come here to atone. But it was time to admit it. It was time to stop being scared. Baltay plucked the dust from his eye… and finally looked at it.

I am going to die here tonight.

Time opened.

Past, present, and future vanished. Baltay Kojirough was the seafloor. His life was not a line of time, but seconds spreading out in every direction. As he swung his sword at the giant’s arm, he swung it for the first time as a child. As he dropped down to the ground, he attended his graduation from combat school. As he swung his sword once more, he lay on a deathbed doomed now never to happen.

The giant exploded.

For a fraction of a fraction of a second, the Man at Arm’s core had been in its upper thigh. Baltay Kojirough wasn’t surprised. That concept no longer existed for him.

The second Man at Arms went to stomp on Baltay. He lazily swung his sword, and it too exploded into nothingness. Strolling casually across the room, he looked up at the Sixth Dead and observed. He observed all of her, and knew her as himself.

A billion billion permutations of him would ascend this room now. There was no shortage of optimal routes to choose from. He plucked one from causality and made it his. A chunk of rubble fell from the ceiling. It was the first rung on an endless ladder.

He was the cat, and the one who had placed the cat, and the one who observed both.

"Baltay," Nigen said, as Baltay lay on the floor, and Baltay ascended the room, and Baltay practiced his swordsmanship, and Baltay celebrated his birthday, and Baltay slept. "You have nothing to be ashamed of."

"I know," Baltay had never said. "I know."

He could see it now, after all. The golden thread weaving through the gears of time, the path to victory only visible through the lens of his temporal enlightenment. Baltay smiled with all the mouths he’d ever had.

You saw this all the time, Nigen? Ha. I never stood a chance, did I?

The cocoon was composed of two-hundred and six interlocked Redundancies, covering the Sixth Dead from head to toe. A nigh-impenetrable defense. Anyone else would have to flee at this point, and await a better opportunity for victory.

Baltay Kojirough swung his sword once.

The cocoon burst, each and every arm cleanly severed by swordsmanship beyond human limits. The Sixth Dead cried out in pain -- her left arm had been cut away by the attack, too, flying away with all its fading phantom kin. Terror had returned to her eyes. She understood that she was no longer fighting something she could handle.

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"Get away from me!" she screamed. "Monster! Freak! Hand of Fate!"

No doubt she had hoped to use her final ability in a more dramatic scene. Baltay had to admit other iterations of the final clash were far more impressive. Still, it wasn’t bad.

Purple Aether poured from the Sixth Dead’s mouth -- as, unseen, tiny Redundancies manifested within her body, guiding and bolstering her movements. A long Redundancy spawned from the stump of her lost arm as well -- serving as a makeshift prosthetic, writhing through the air like an agitated snake. Twin hands burst out from the sides of her chin and clamped down, covering her fanged mouth, leaving only her shining yellow eyes visible.

"KOJIROOOUGH!" she screamed, eyes bulging.

The two of them landed, three meters between them. For a moment, the Sixth Dead’s long Redundancy spooled on the ground before her -- and then, it whipped upwards, snatching something out of the air as it fell. The blade of the scythe, all that remained of the shattered weapon. The Redundancy held it between two fingers, ready to strike it forward and pierce Baltay’s heart.

Baltay held his sword in both hands.

Thank goodness, he thought. Thank goodness he didn’t ever have to see me again.

The Sixth Dead moved…

…and Baltay did not.

He could have looked down. If he had, he would have seen Redundancies spawning from the floor and holding his ankles in place. But there was no need for him to do so. He’d seen that coming. He’d seen that coming from the moment he was born.

The Sixth Dead swung her blade twice.

The first swing sent Baltay’s sword flying from his grasp, and the second pierced Baltay’s body. The blade was buried in his chest, avoiding his heart by mere inches. Giggling madly, the Sixth Dead wrapped her arm around Baltay, pulling him in close, pushing the blade in further.

"Thanks…" she sighed, strangely deflated. "I had a lot of fun… hahaha…"

"Yeah," Baltay replied, ignoring the blood dribbling down his chin. "Me too."

Fusion Tool: Undo.

Baltay returned the Sixth Dead’s embrace, and whirled the two of them around.

When a Fusion Tool was undone, any separated parts would be absorbed back into the user’s body before the Aether Armament was restored. Baltay’s sword was no exception. It whipped out of the darkness --

-- and, like a javelin, pierced through both their bodies as one.

He closed his eyes…

"I’m… Nigen Rush, I suppose… yourself?"

"Baltay Kojirough. Nice to meet ya."

…and never opened them again.

The Sixth Dead crawled.

Not like this… not like this…

She dragged herself across the floor, leaving a trail of blood and dust behind her, slowly trying to escape the building. Baltay Kojirough’s body lay far behind her, somehow transmuted into a statue of emerald, already crumbling. The feathers had melted through the upper floors of this place already, and the flames were spreading. The heat was already such that she could barely feel the chill of approaching death.

But she couldn’t die. Not yet. Not like this. She hadn’t even been born yet. There were still so many more people she had to kill before she could exist. So many fragments of the past.

She reached a staircase. An escape from this place. Steps seemed to stretch on ad infinitum, but outside she could see, outside she could see…

… that white light.

She knew what that was, and it brought a dreamy smile to her face as she dragged herself up. That was her Atoy -- that was his Radiant Almighty. Somewhere out there, he was fighting. Somewhere out there, he was killing. Ah, she needed to be there… she needed to see it…

It wasn’t fair… she couldn’t die here… she couldn’t die without ever seeing him again…

The Sixth Dead reached her hand up to the next step… and her fingers crumbled into dust. She stared at them, dumbfounded, as cracks continued to spread down her hand. It was that man’s sword. The decaying effect… it persisted even after he died? Her infusion couldn’t stop it anymore?

No. No, no, no…

The Sixth Dead opened her mouth -- to scream, to shout, to complain to God -- but her tongue had already turned to dust. Grey grains spilled from her lips and down her throat. Her arm fell off completely, like a spent sand-sculpture. Her leg failed her as she tried to push off. Her Redundancies sputtered and died.

The Sixth Dead only gave up in the final moment, as her skin collapsed from her body and her eyes poured from her skull. She rolled over with the last of her strength, staring up at the ceiling. Even if she could see, there would be nothing there. Nothing but dark. Nothing but empty.

Not even reincarnation would be permitted. The Sixth Dead would be the final Dead. There would be no corpse to burn as a phoenix. Their story would not have an ending. To the eyes of the galaxy, they would always exist somewhere else, always on the periphery. An unseen possibility that could never be denied.

The immortal Dead, living forever in an invisible present.

The group sprinted through the hallway, even as the flames encroached. The Alyn Grace Memorial Shopping Centre was groaning as it died. If they hadn’t moved the starship inside the hangar during the repair process, Atoy Muzazi had no doubt it would have been destroyed during this chaotic battle.

"Woman," Mereloco grunted, looking down at Ruth Blaine. "Could you not have been more subtle with the finishing blow?"

Ruth looked back up at him. She was cradling the del Sed girl -- Annatrice -- in her arms. The backlash from Der Freischütz had hit her badly -- her arms were burnt and blackened up to the elbows, and she had been knocked firmly unconscious. Even Morgan’s healing had only been able to do so much.

"Hey, if you had a better way of taking that thing down," Ruth snapped. "You should have just done it."

Mereloco snorted. "Fair."

"If the two of you are done arguing," Morgan said, holding his side. "Can we hurry and get out of here?!"

Rufus was taking up the back of the pack, Aguta and the del Sed twins slung over his shoulders once more. Every now and then, he’d swing his head back, checking to make sure nobody was coming after them. Nobody was -- save for the flames. Even with Mereloco’s Untoward keeping it as intact as possible, the building was slowly but surely collapsing.

"Less talk," he panted. "Run."

As they reached the doors, Mereloco elected to spare the time it would take to open them. Pointing a finger forward, he fired off a barrage of Unworthy shots, sending the door flying off its hinges. They didn’t even break their stride as they passed over the threshold into the dark, cavernous hangar.

It was only then that Mereloco skidded to a halt, and threw an arm out to block the other’s passage.

"No further," he hissed, eyes narrowed as he glared forward.

Ruth’s eyes widened as she stared at the ship. "You," she growled.

There was a shape by the boarding ramp. A dark, lurking, smiling shape. A shape crackling with void-black Aether.

"Yes," said Niain, smiling gently. "Me."