Final Chapter (3)
How many regressions had he repeated? Shirone no longer counted.
Each cycle felt like another digit proving his own impossibility.
'I will save Amy.'
One purpose.
He repeated it mechanically, testing every method a human could imagine….
"Nane!"
He twisted history.
"Na. Mu. Gwan. Se. Eum."
With a will and effort that rivaled Yahweh's, Nane fixed the future without fail.
'I will save her!'
Shirone charged.
"Amy!"
He raged.
"You damned bastard!"
He begged.
"Please, please stop! Stop now!" To every Shirone, Nane replied with bloodshot tears in his eyes.
"Namu Gwanseum."
"Uuuuuuh?????!"
As if his spinal cord had been cut, Yahweh collapsed into numbness.
More cycles passed—perhaps as many as he had already repeated.
"Amy. Amy."
Shirone trudged toward Nane, who stood a hundred kilometers away.
"Amyyy."
Whether he flew or crawled, distance and time no longer mattered.
"Namu Gwanseum."
"Stop!"
Shirone clamped his hands over his ears.
"Namu Gwanseum."
"Stop it! I said stop already!"
Namu Gwanseum. Namu Gwanseum. Namu Gwanseum. Namu Gwanseum. Namu Gwanseum. Namu Gwanseum. Namu Gwanseum. Namu Gwanseum. Namu Gwanseum. Namu Gwanseum. Namu Gwanseum. Namu Gwanseum. Namu Gwanseum. Namu Gwanseum. Namu Gwanseum. Namu Gwanseum.
"Arghhh…!"
Memories of countless regressions knotted together until he could no longer tell present from past.
"Arghhh! Arghhh!"
Was he fighting Nane now, or running from him?
"No! Stop!"
Was Amy even alive? Or was he the one losing his mind?
* I...
The only thing he realized.
'I can't escape Nane.'
No matter how he rewrote history, he remained in the Buddha's palm.
Namu Gwanseum.
"Shut up! Shut your mouth, you bastard!"
Shirone collapsed, howling on the ground, trembling with a rage he couldn't bear.
"Why don't you try stopping this, then!"
He wrapped both hands around his throat.
"Guhhhh!"
It felt as if his death might be the tiniest revenge against Nane.
"Gurg. Gurg."
He didn't loosen his grip.
'Uh...
At the faint edge of consciousness, Shirone suddenly remembered someone.
The Vanguard's astrologer.
- A great enemy will entangle you. Then… eventually… you will strangle yourself to death.
'So it was true.'
A prophecy fulfilled still meant being under divine rule.
Shirone succumbed to a crushing sense of defeat and died.
Regression again.
"Hmm."
Sitting beneath a tree, Shirone bit into an apple and thought.
'This is a no-win game.'
Suicide hadn't cleared his head, but it had yielded one realization.
'If even my death is realized, then no method can change the future.'
What was the problem?
'We use the same tachyon. But Nane always carries it through. Why? Because the difficulty of practice differs.
'I seek to save; Nane seeks to kill. Even saving just Amy is on a different scale... The meta carries the weight of all humanity.
'The direction of thought differs. At first it doesn't matter, but as history proceeds that small difference balloons into a huge gap.'
So he lost.
'Then what? Should I create a variable by killing someone like Nane? But if I do, my thought could tilt toward Nane's side.'
Duty and love separated by a hair.
At that moment a person slipped through Shirone's mind.
'Minerva.'
He seemed to hear the voice that had told him never to save herself, no matter what.
'No.'
He couldn't.
'It's not a question of can or can't. How could she say, "Die for the world…."?
She would do it willingly, though.
Until nightfall Shirone mulled it over and came to a conclusion.
"Let's at least talk."
He had no other options, and his spirit was too exhausted to not cling to something.
'To the timeline after we made the bet.' With that conceit he shifted the scene and went to the ivory tower to find Minerva.
"Miss Minerva?"
When he opened the door, she was at the window, hurriedly wiping away tears.
"Huh? What are you doing here at this hour?"
She forced a bright smile, but sorrow still lingered in her eyes.
'I didn't know she'd been crying like that.'
It must have happened in that timeline, but Shirone was witnessing it for the first time.
"I'm from the future."
"Huh?"
"It's a long story, but you told me to come if things got hard. So I came."
At the time, before the world's secrets were revealed, Minerva was bewildered.
"Heh. Are you trying to charm me now?"
"It's a request."
Even without context, her face grew serious—this was something she'd kept inside.
"I haven't said it out loud, but I know. You told me never to save yourself, right?" Minerva pulled out a chair.
"Sit."
Through the night Shirone explained what would befall humanity.
Minerva asked a few questions, but mostly she listened in silence.
"I understand."
She exhaled.
"The perfection of the Law. To break Nane's thinking, our side needs a variable. That variable is me."
"Yes. But—! I don't actually want such a sacrifice. It's maddening..."
Minerva hugged Shirone.
"Thank you—for giving me the chance."
"Heh, don't worry. I have an idea. You'll go back into the past and meet me before Nane becomes Buddha. Deliver my words."
"What should I say…?"
"Tell her to meet Nane later. A Buddha is compassionate; she won't be able to turn away. I don't boast, but I can say with certainty I've lived one of the most miserable lives in the world."
Shirone already knew through Omega.
"Nane will come to love me, not Amy. So the one who dies in Omega's final moment will be me. History will be twisted, but it's a change even the Twelve Apostles couldn't stop—so it'll work. Besides, we can't be picky about comforts." This plan—the highest-probability strategy among his attempts—made Shirone tremble.
'No, it's more than that.'
It might actually work.
"But—"
Shirone turned his gaze.
"Minerva's life would be lost. A human life consumed like that…"
"Heh." Minerva turned his head back.
"I know you're sincere. This is for humanity. Amy must live for everyone to live. And this is the only way I can atone. No—honestly..."
To sway Shirone, she revealed the secret she hid most deeply.
"I want it to end now." The shame upon her body that would never wash away, and the things she had done in her rage.
"Let's do it. Leave it to me." Shirone let tears fall silently.
Day four of the battle.
Kurururururur.
The duel between the two beings always named in arguments over the strongest reached its climax.
A 120-kilometer radius, a three-kilometer-deep gouge in the earth formed a colosseum of its own.
"Heh heh heh."
Imir, two of his six arms broken, offered a tired laugh.
"You're really strong, aren't you?" Yuriel's holy radiance had also dimmed.
"I don't think I've faced anyone this strong before. Do angels awaken as well? No." Imir's gaze shifted to Ikael.
"Can't you fall back? You've been defending that archangel for a while, haven't you?"
Sadness shone in Ikael's eyes.
'Yuriel.'
Among the White Guard archangels, he'd always been a pillar of overwhelming force.
Yet that very might made Yuriel feel more distant than any of them.
'Yuriel, you…'
Did a heart exist before he believed angels could have one? To avoid that truth, Yuriel had desperately clung to neutrality.
Perhaps he still did.
"Come at me."
He repeated only his essence.
Judicial Wheel—Ragnarok.
A white bolt of lightning fell from the sky and wrapped Yuriel's body in the concept of destruction.
Imir tore away his broken arms and readied his remaining four to receive it.
"Kukuku! Nice."
Rumble!
A streak of light cleaved the ground in thunder.
Shirone met Minerva of the past.
Proof was simple.
"You then..."
He listed traumas only she herself could know—scars that could never be erased.
Past Minerva understood.
"What should I do?"
Time passed, there were trials and errors, and in the end Nane...
"Minerva."
She shed tears for her fate.
Of course the Law would not deliberately make someone a witch or condemn someone to misery.
But the world's logic meant someone becomes a witch, someone becomes unhappy.
'Circulating suffering. If not her, someone else would have been sacrificed.'
What angered Shirone most was the world itself.
'To understand the Dharma.' Nane learned compassion through Minerva and became Buddha again.
In that altered history.
'I can do it.'
For the first time Shirone felt certain.
'I've completely twisted history. Now Nane's fixation is on Minerva, not Amy.'
He had deceived a god.
But the price to pay was the life of one person who didn't have to die.
'Damn it!'
Shirone bit his lip.
'I have no choice! I'm doing this for Amy! The future of all humanity is at stake!'
Endless self-justification.
'Minerva wants it too. Amy can live. I finally did it! Amy! Amy!'
At Omega's final moment, Nane was clearly going to erase Minerva.
Tears welled in Shirone's eyes.
'I did it!'
Through the blur he saw Amy fighting, unaware of history's change.
She hadn't met Nane or recognized the incarnation of Flame yet, but what did that matter?
"Amy."
Diane's words returned.
- You're not going to recover a lost object. You're going to meet a living person.
- Respect what Amy thought and chose.
He wanted to ignore that.
But what of Amy's heart, altered by Minerva's sacrifice?
'I can't help it.'
If time and space only need align, where does the heart reside?
'There's no other way!' A lost object.
"Huuuuu…"
It wasn't about retrieving an object.
"Namu..."
Nane, as the incarnation of the Great Sun, was trying to erase Minerva's body.
If Shirone could hold on a few seconds more, Fermi would link the moment to the future.
"Arghhh."
Facing that irreversible forever, Shirone had to decide.
"Sorry, Amy."
Before Nane could intone the next sutra, Shirone reverted the moment into an illusion.
A space of infinity.
"Huuu. Huuuuuu."
In the loneliest dark, Shirone's sobs echoed, small and mournful.
Day five of the battle.
"Grrr!"
Ranstin, fighting at the pole, played guitar with a pale face.
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
Antisel numbers had multiplied beyond years—into tens, hundreds, thousands.
They covered the planet in gray organic matter, thickening layer by layer.
Ranstin felt it—'This is too much.' A cult that controlled a crowd and inscribed the code of death into them all.
Clearly the Selbuster's nemesis, but Ranstin remained human.
Sizzle, sizzle!
His fingers, as they strummed, had each lost a joint.
Even as nerves scraped raw, he didn't stop. Why? 'Don't mock me.'
If he gave up, he'd truly be worthless.
'I'm a guitarist!'
He felt Lin's voice, coughing blood and singing, tremble.
'Isn't this enough now?'
Having held out five days against this colossal enemy, he deserved no blame.
But there were no humans left to judge.
"Heh heh."
Was he fighting an illusion?
Perhaps more than anyone, he'd wanted to belong among people.
Lin's song broke.
'I've reached my limit.'
The antisel's astronomical mass overcame the cult and began to descend.
'Why live like this?'
People said the man had gone mad from guilt over losing his daughter.
'Daughter, when your mother left, when you—so beautiful—left me forever.'
'To be honest...
I felt a little free?'
No more responsibility; he could do art on his terms.
'Yeah, father was…'
Things the world would never understand.
"That's trash!"
With shredded fingers, Ranstin struck the steel strings hard.
"Huuuuu!"
The guitar wave pushed the antisel back. Lin, eyes fierce, began to sing again.
'Daughter. Love.'
Bloody tears flowed from Ranstin's eyes.
'I'm sorry. I abandoned you. I couldn't protect you. Still, I can't give up.
'I shouldn't have picked up this damned guitar, yet I loved it so much...
Even if life collapses.'
"I want to."
Ranstin howled with a twisted face.
"I want to play the guitar!"
Divine transcendence.
Before his blunt fingers even touched the strings, the instrument played itself.
Zzzzz! Zzzzz!
A tremendous wave pushed the antisel away and the planet's gray surface ballooned like an inflated skin.
Forty-eight hours remained until the promised seven days.
Nane, Amy, Minerva.
"Hahaha!"
Shirone teetered on the edge of madness.
Only a madman would keep repeating the impossible.
"Kill! Kill!"
Following that furious cry, the incarnation of the Great Sun formed a gentle aura and joined hands.
And caught between them was.
'Minerva.'
No—Amy.
"Heehee!"
As Nane charged obsessively again and again, Amy and Minerva remained inseparable.
Sometimes she looked like Amy, sometimes like Minerva…
"Who are you?!"
Their faces overlapped to the point of fusion.
"Huuuu."
Sadness swelled anew.
'Yes, I'm going mad. Knowing I'm going mad and still going mad is proof.'
He thought it the manifestation of desire.
If only he had sacrificed Minerva and ended it all.
'No!'
The last shred of reason rejected that.
"Shirone."
Kneeling and sobbing, Shirone lifted his head at Nane's voice.
"Let go of your obsession."
The Buddha's eyes were resolute and kind.
Day seven of the battle.
Even the altar that had served as a windbreak had turned completely to dust.
"Purge the humans! Kill! Kill!"
Demons, venting aimless rage, tightened their encirclement from every side.
"Hah. Hah."
Facing the approaching demons, Shura and Huama knelt side by side.
"Is this the end?"
Lasting seven days since Omega closed was itself a miracle.
Huama said, "I've lived long enough; dying now is irritating. How about you? Feeling relieved now that you know the world's secret?"
"The world's secret?"
Shura scoffed.
"Hmph! Who really knows until they go see?"
"Maybe so."
Huama, heavy with thought, bared shark-like teeth.
"Then shall we go?"
If an immortal's end is mere death, that too would be tragically sad.
"Heh heh."
They laughed and charged the demon horde together.
Kwaaaang!
A powerful shockwave reached the Cheolgeuk.
Bodies of countless demons who'd broken through lay strewn around.
At the center sat an old white-haired woman, easily over a hundred, slumped and exhausted.
'This is bad.'
Woorin realized time was short.
'I can't hold out much longer, Shirone. Your chance is almost gone.'
Time's tide had weakened body and mind, but she didn't feel particularly bad.
'When did I last feel old?' She had clung to youth stubbornly. Now those obsessions felt light.
"Heh heh."
A tranquil life like a plant sounded fine.
'I'm paying the price. It's the only thing I can do for this world.'
Still, one thought remained.
"Kido."
Far off, a hunched goblin walked toward them, having cleared demons away.
Wrinkled, with a white beard beneath a green chin.
"I cleared them out. They won't come for a while."
They'd grown old together.
Seeing herself through Kido's eyes made Woorin a little embarrassed.
"Don't look at me."
Kido nodded and sat a little apart; Woorin rested her head on his shoulder.
After the great explosion the battlefield quieted.
"Kido."
Woorin asked, "Am I hideous?"
Kido, expressionless, answered softly.
"...You're beautiful."
Time waves washed over them again; their bodies began to wither like corpses.
"Kido."
Woorin said, "Don't go anywhere. Stay by my side."
"All right."
They had finally found each other; now only parting remained.
'I feel like I heard these words once; the memory is hazy, but if this is the end…'
"Woorin."
She felt she had to say it now.
"I love you."
The wave of time swept over Cheolgeuk.
"Shiina!"
At last her voice burst out. Crown felt Kuan's will take over, surpassing control of mind into body.
'I see. This one…'
Because he couldn't keep Shiina safe, because such an impossible Law existed.
'He'll break the symmetry of the system.'
Seizing that breach, a power that made the impossible possible was born.
'Heart.'
The extreme of asymmetry.
A hidden code completed by sacrificing one's other half overturned the world's axis.
Kukukukuku!
When the Terrapos ship fell below the atmosphere, Kuan slammed the ground.
"Shiina."
Artificial gravity hurled Kuan upward like a catapult.
- Enemy detected. Intercept.
Terrapos fighters launched vibration-energy beams.
'Jester clown.'
The universe's symmetry cracked and a third direction, undefined by the Law, sprang into being.
- It vanished! Report!
- Back! Back!
Paaroom!
As craft collided and shredded one another, Kuan boarded the ship.
'Kuk.'
Crown was amused.
'It vanished?'
It must be unimaginable.
He stepped through a gap in the deck into a corridor of violet-sheen metal.
"Shiina..."
"Stop."
Crown seized Kuan's voice.
"Don't handle her carelessly. She's mine now. I want to watch until the end."
Kuan grimaced.
"S-shift aside…!"
After days of pursuit Crown had the upper hand.
"You've done enough."
The two faces that had been mixed now unified; Crown curled in pain.
"Ow!"
Muscles screamed and seasickness hit hard.
"You fools. Keep fighting like this and we'll die first. Rest."
Crown limped forward.
"I'll try too."
Shirone intuited the situation.
'There's no chance now.'
The thought that this might be the last moment steadied even his maddened mind.
'But there's nothing left to do.'
He'd tried everything until bitterness set in.
'Is this defeat?'
For the first time that thought crossed him.
"No."
It wasn't about winning.
"If everyone can be happy, that's what matters."
Humanity had already been given more than enough chances; now it was time to return them.
'Accept it.'
Accept the life Amy chose; accept that he was destined to fight Nane.
'Then I won't lose Yahweh's state.'
Even if he was Hecsa, even if he couldn't meet her outside that other world—
"Amy."
Shirone shed tears of joy.
"I'll come see you."
And then—
Across all regressions, Yahweh's grandest delusion spread through the cosmos.
'So everyone in this world can be happy.'
- Your sins are forgiven.
Riding illusory time, tachyon particles spread his love through the universe.
Rumble!
Yuriel's Ragnarok had already pushed Imir back to where the old temple had been.
They finally stopped….
"Impressive."
Beneath Imir—arms torn away, shoulders all that remained—Yuriel dropped to one knee.
Ikael and Ashur, arriving late, saw the archangel of destruction fallen.
"Yuriel!"
At Ikael's cry Yuriel flinched and spoke in a low voice.
"...End it."
He couldn't bear to fall before her, even if he would vanish soon after.
"That much is deserved."
Just as Imir began regenerating an arm.
Zzzzt! Zzzzt!
A heavy-metal roar heralded Satan's army rushing in.
"Graaaah!"
Satan himself stood twenty meters tall, a grotesque face and dozens of centipede-like legs writhing beneath him.
- Ouch! It hurts!
"What the hell is that?"
Imir furrowed his brow at the patchwork of monstrous traits.
"Tsk tsk."
Nane, watching from the sky, clicked his tongue.
"...Pathetic." In any case, it was human-made sin.
If the world closed, Havitz would pay a price outside, too.
Human forces followed.
'Air Press!'
Gaold, eyes rolling, slammed the air and crushed the remaining demons flat.
From the resulting blast Imir spotted someone.
"Kukuku."
"Yaaaaah!"
Rian, charging with a mechanically made arm bearing a large plan, rammed into Imir.
"Kahahaha!"
Imir's voice drifted away as he flew.
"Preaching."
Nane raised a finger.
"Mystic."
A pink blade twisted like a fish and shot toward Gaold.
'Air Press!'
Kudun! Dunun! Dunun!
The preaching dodged the atmospheric pressure attacks and aimed at Gaold's heart.
Thousand-Hand Kwan-eum—Myeoljang.
Drrrdrdrdrdr!
Countless images of Kwan-eum's two hands tapped the sword as if caressing it.
"This is annoying."
Miro and Nane exchanged glances; Imir and Rian glared at each other.
"Kahaha! You're all dead now!"
As Havitz realized his power had dispersed, he struggled to raise his massive bulk.
String—Cheonbyeonmanhwa's magic.
Thousands of Hand Spirits poured in from all directions, spitting thunder and battering him.
"Graaaah! It hurts again!"
"Phew."
A Hand Spirit whose clone had been erased exhaled steam and swung an ethereal robe to halt him.
In the agreed lull Nane calmly sorted friend from foe.
'Good. Evil. Merit.'
The child still wasn't visible.
Ikael, who'd dodged Air Press's blast, laid Yuriel down.
"Are you all right?" Could she understand? How much he'd restrained himself to avoid showing this.
"Sorry, Yuriel. Actually I—" "I still don't know."
Yuriel cut off.
"I am a concept of destruction. I thought I had to break you because that's why I was born. But I couldn't destroy you. Is that a heart?"
Love, as humans call it?
"Well, there must be a reason I didn't annihilate you. If you change something now, it will be because my will continues—my choice, not divine rule. Maybe that's why I didn't destroy you."
"That's not it."
This blunt archangel—
Tears of light ran down Ikael's cheek and plinked onto Yuriel's chest.
"Because you're kind."
Is that so?
Gazing into the air thought‑filled, Yuriel gave an awkward smile.
"Maybe."
His holy radiance dimmed.
In the fading light he held Ikael in his sight.
'Beautiful.'
Whatever it was, the most beautiful thing in the universe.
'Heh, yes.'
At the final moment he realized.
'...How could I destroy you?'
Wouldn't you, Kariel?
The archangel's holy core vanished. Ikael hastily embraced Yuriel's light-diffusing body, but he had already slipped from her arms and fluttered upward.
"Aaaah??????"
Ikael fell to her knees.
"Yuriel!"
Another archangel departed.
Nothing had changed.
Shirone's mind, running history as if unchanged, filled only with love.
'I'm going.'
He could finally see Amy.
"Nane!"
Arriving at Omega's final moment, he hurled himself at the Buddha with everything he had.
He couldn't stop Amy's death.
'If that is her choice...'
Tears at the corners of Shirone's eyes were carried backward on the wind.
'I will fight according to your will too.' The incarnation of the Great Sun, repeated through the ages, narrowed his hands and began to join them.
"I…"
There, Amy stood.
She was the incarnation of Flame.
≪ T3...w
If one loved all humanity, they would not lose Yahweh's state.
'One last time.'
He wanted to see her face.
"Shirone!"
Because the voice was so impossible, Shirone refused to look back.
But his whole consciousness turned him, and there—
"Huh?"
The incarnation of Flame—Amy—was there.
"Huh?"
Before he could process anything, Shirone saw who stood at the center of the Great Sun.
Miraculous Minerva.
"What? How?"
Was he still mad? Clinging, confusing Amy with Minerva?
To deny it, Minerva knelt in the form of a child.
The Great Sun's palm slowly closed.
"Namu."
Facing Shirone, she smiled with such lovely, laughing eyes and said,
"Gwan. Se. Eum. (I take refuge in Avalokiteshvara)."
Her hands joined.
Then she vanished.
The moment Shirone saw blood‑tears in Nane's eyes, he scanned his surroundings.
"It worked."
For some reason, an event had occurred that had never happened in his countless regressions.
He felt the vibration of space-time.
'They separate.'
Through Cheolgeuk the spatial coordinates matched, but the temporal coordinates would fall into different universes.
"Fermi! Hurry!"
Beep! Beep!
- Specific history detected! Synchronization rate 100%!
Deep within the planet, the recorder Richard's eyes flashed wildly.
'Found you!'
The event Shirone had triggered was deposited into the apocalypse, inherited by final recorder Richard.
- Transmit data.
That signal went through the information mage Chong and toward the temple.
Fermi saw.
"It's here!"
A butterfly made of light flared into a flash and traced a circle at the very top of the sky.
'I've got it!' Time‑Depreciation Trade—Time Vibration.
Swallowing the chip at the moment of realization, Fermi reached the state in an instant.
'Maximum output...'
Swoosh!
Though time's barrier is formless, Fermi heard successive explosions in his ears.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The time wall kept breaking; the past and future between them were defined as present.
"Whoa??????"
Where barren ruins had stood, grass and trees sprang up; roads, buildings, and every human structure spread anew across the world.
Among that civilization, people who'd been erased by the Earth‑Destroying Wave reappeared.
"?????? Huh?"
Dante in Delta blinked.
'What is this?'
He was clearly dead.
"Dante?"
Lilia beside him looked around, bewildered.
"What happened?"
At the window the scenery kept shifting as successive time waves rolled in.
A radiant, multicolored human world unfurled.
"...I don't know, but—"
Shirone.
Yahweh's feeling—like the first time—sat in his chest.
One second. One second. One second. One second.
A chain of time waves continued to push intermediate histories into the present.
Ned trembled all over.
"Ooooh?"
New information accumulated in real time atop existing records.
'Shirone left.'
Accumulating.
'Shirone left?'
Accumulating again.
'No, Shirone…'
Where Ned turned, a very familiar figure shimmered.
"You were at my side, weren't you?"
With spacetime coordinates fully merged, Shirone had arrived in the present.
"Shirone!"
Ned pulled him into an embrace; Iruki and Dorothy, watching from afar, high‑fived.
"Huh?"
Shirone was bewildered.
Time waves were still surging, muddling everything, but one thing was clear.
'It's returning to normal.'
Civilization, beloved people, more humanity—all were finding their places again.
"Amy?"
She wasn't visible.
For something so miraculous, unease gripped Shirone.
Had something gone wrong?
"Amy!" When Shirone met Fermi's eyes, Fermi smiled and pointed somewhere with his finger.
"Aaaah?????"
Shirone's body trembled.
At the place he had seen before, in that form, the incarnation of Flame appeared.
'She's coming.'
Like magic.
'She's coming.'
Born before Shirone's eyes after traversing repeated aeons.
"Phew."
Fermi exhaled.
"One problem solved for now." Because past and future had been integrated, the present still read Omega year 999.
'I restored it to before the end.'
Now, if they changed events, it would be a human future, not divine calculus.
"Then it's about time..."
Fermi turned away with a bitter smile.
"Shall we begin?"
Sharing the same spacetime, Shirone's power had been transferred to Fermi.
To oppose with tachyon instead of Time Vibration, Fermi had to cancel that transfer.
'Normally three months. But...' Fermi dashed forward.
'There's always a way.'
They would simply eliminate the ability called Depreciation Trade from the world.
"Fermi!"
Seriel, who had nearly absorbed the time wave, finally caught up behind him.
"That idiot!"
Why hadn't he thought of it?
"You promised! You said there would be no future where you die!"
Looking back, it was true.
"You son of a—!"
There was no future in which he died, but—
"You were the one who had to die!"
Because it was a decision made by the heart, not by the Law.
Fermi was calm.
'Mother.'
Yolga, who had left for the world's sake.
'How do I look? Did I make the right choice?'
A son who had always missed his mother carried one wish.
'To see her smiling proudly from beyond the sky.'
Now Fermi saw that face.
"Ah?…"
Tears he'd never shed streamed down his cheeks.
"I did it, Mother!"
His quivering cry released a flood of catharsis.
Depreciation Trade—annihilation.
"Preaching."
As Fermi charged, Nane said,
"Rain."
Seeing a dagger of rain hurtling at terrifying speed, Fermi cast a spell.
'Air Shield!'
TZ: I三 = = T三 = TZ | ―rn~i?r!
Countless air layers ruptured and the atmosphere detonated.
"Gah!"
"Fermi!"
Seriel twisted to follow Fermi's body as it flew like paper.
Ripped by the sharp air, his chest was soaked with blood.
"Fermi! Fermi!"
Recovery magic was cast; wounds slowly closed and bleeding eased.
"Don't fuss."
Fermi winced. "Only the skin was torn. No internal organs were damaged, so I'm fine. Anyway, the magic has been transferred."
Seriel was stunned.
"You didn't die? No, that's not it—so this was your plan from the start?"
"You told me I wouldn't die. Do you think I'd charge in without a way to survive?" Fermi winked.
"I'm not stupid like Shirone."
"Haha."
Infuriating, but lovable.
'Still...'
Seriel hugged Fermi to her chest.
"I'm so glad."
At last the time waves ended.
"Haah."
The fused record of Shirone's final past and humanity's future remained in their minds.
It had the effect of all humanity casting Time Vibration at once, but—
"Shirone."
Those who used tachyon to manipulate illusory time knew even the erased histories.
"Nane."
Yahweh and the Buddha faced one another.
"You finally came."
"Stop clinging. You've come this far at the cost of many lives. I will protect this world."
"...True."
Nane looked over the battlefield.
Humanity still fought, split by their good and by the evil they had made.
"But how many? A hundred? A thousand? Shirone, they're just sleep files to me. If they wake, they might hate you for having been fooled by a signal. Merely…."
"That doesn't matter. You're probably right, and you might close the world for that reason, but the choice is ours. If they choose to remain, they remain."
"Yes. There's no room for compromise between Law and heart."
Nane's gaze calmed.
"Now the situation is equal. Only you and me. Let us decide from a perfect state."
Shirone nodded.
Then, in the next instant, Yahweh and the Buddha slowly rose into the sky.
The final duel of merit and compassion began.
Cheolgeuk.
While everything else found its place, Cheolgeuk's space remained empty.
A desolate wind blew; only the bodies of a goblin and the woman resting on his shoulder remained.
Wong. Wong. Wong. Wong.
Like a plucked string's vibration fading from the outside, the time wave there still ticked.
Time accelerated.
Crack. Crack.
The goblin and the woman withered like mummies; their bodies twisted and entwined.
Ten years, twenty years passed….
Time sped and they shrank, sinking into the earth.
Thirty years, forty years….
A tiny sprout budded and grew as if breathing wind.
Fifty years, sixty, a hundred.
At Cheolgeuk stood a towering, lush great tree.
It wasn't speech.
- Kido.
- Hm?
Plant-world communication—microcosmic communion.
- It seems we've reincarnated as a tree. We'll be here for a while.
- Haha. Indeed.
- What's with that reaction? Don't you dislike being one with me?
- No. Something just came to mind. I'd forgotten, and it surfaced all at once.
- What is it?
- When I was a goblin long ago, I met an astrologer. You know what they said about my future? That I'd wither in love, twist and rot.
- Haha! They saw the future, did they.
-Come to think of it, that astrologer was a total fraud.
-Why? He was kind of close.
-Well... that's true, I guess.
One by one, fruits began to form on the Tree of Life.
-I'm not thirsty anymore, you see.