The Kudryavka Sequence [Ch. XXII, Nine]

Quote of the Day: “I will turn lies into wishes, apathy into altruism, agonies into ecstasies, and enmities into friendships – for, heh, I am very greedy, you see?” — Canta Koto

Hey, Alejandro, I feel like I have messed stuff up really badly.

I am really freaking out right now – we just fought gods, period’s a bitch, there's a big multiversal conference tomorrow, time across existence but this timeline is frozen, Sherlock is mad – I will go mad too if I don't write down something.

I have no idea when writing my thoughts down became my thing, but I seriously need to calm down. Really freaky stuff happened, like gods were killed, there was an immortal Russian dog which was also the embodiment of Fire, Sherlock beat up a cat, Plume died and then came back, I also died and came back and started laughing in the face of casualties and sorrow – a lot of weird stuff happened, Alejandro.

I heard from Nine that an absolutely GOATed guy literally called GOATSAMA died while nihilistically aura farming and for some reason, we can't revive him like Canta revived me and others because, to do that, we need to edit the Fate Proximus or something?

After the Halcyon Council reconvened, Shakespeare mentioned, “Why should a dog, a cat, a god have life, and him no breath at all? He’d come no more?”

Sherlock replied to him stoically, finishing the only line in King Lear that I remembered because of how simple yet cold it sounded, “Never, never, never, never, never.”

Alright, now, Alejandro, I am really out of line here, I need to start this story from the beginning.

Remember that whole speech Nine gave while holding up a light bulb and stuff that I wrote about in my last entry? Yeah, so, after that, we chilled for about 15-20 minutes in a nearby park as I wrote down that entry.

Yeah, I finally showed you to him and thought that he’d be really surprised but apparently he knew all about it from the very first entry.

“What the-?” I was gobbledygooked. “HAVE YOU BEEN SPYING ON ME?”

“Not intentionally!” Nine rose up his hands, trying to look innocent or something. “It just so happened that your diary was open when I walked into our room after the One Incident! That's all, I swear to the atheist god! I did also notice you scribbling afterwards for one month, but that's beside the point…”

I smacked him in the head as he laughed mischievously.

“I need compensation!”

“Like what?”

“Points. 100.”

No, Alejandro, the Flex War doesn't stop in an apocalypse or even if reality is crumbling to bits.

“Oh hell no, 10 at most. In fact, I believe I should have points for discovering this on my own!”

“Nuh-uh, I deserve points for actually writing down stuff! I don't write that bad either!”

“Well, that's true,” he accepted it. “719 to 369 then? Congratulations for crossing the half-way mark with pity points!”

I squeezed his cheeks tightly while saying, “You smart little piece of shit!” and went on to write the previous entry as he muttered stuff like ‘if the fifth derivative…’ and ‘so transformations from polar to linear for this Lagrangian would go like…’ to himself while staring at the moon.

Then, just as I was finishing the last line of the previous entry, something pushed me so hard and so fast that I couldn’t even comprehend what happened before it all reverted back and Sherlock appeared out of nowhere.

“The Field has made its grand return,” Sherlock looked at Nine with a strange smile. “And it would pertain to me that its architect is you.”

Nine looked like he was bafflegabbed by the kerfuffle of rigmaroling serendipity.

Don’t ask me what that means, Alejandro, I have no idea either – because that’s the entire point of the sentence!

Anyway, we headed off to Torigoe Shrine and shenanigans ensued. Literal freaking mythological gods appeared out of nowhere with really cool gates – like Hades (Cerberus was kinda cute tbh), Poseidon, Amaterasu, Izanagi, and the freaking Jade Emperor.

Ah, I now remember, that horned guy who came with the Jade Emperor was GOATSAMA!

(Don’t ask me why his name’s in all-caps, Alejandro, there’s a whole story behind it)

Then, after some weird conversations and introductions and stuff that made no sense to me, that weird bot thing from before somehow came back even though Canta said she’d deleted it. Nine told me later that it managed to embed itself into the very physics of a world without Concept… and I have no idea how that’d work so there’s that.

BOTSAMA revealed that his creator was Thena and Miaokuran (she and a sad dog named Kuttasloka also came out of nowhere) plotted with Zeus to kidnap her and completely destroy her will while simultaneously benefitting themselves by getting a program that would help them and break Canta’s will to disable her from becoming the Infinite Being of Concept as her Fate.

Unfortunately, that didn’t really work out for them since BOTSAMA escaped, Sherlock saved Thena (yeah, it’s a long story, Sherlock shared it with us like an hour ago and I will tell you later), and Canta had-

You know what, I am really getting ahead of myself, let me just tell you the events – the story will speak for itself. I am just too confused to think straight right now.

Anyway then, everyone – including me – jumped into the middle of the battlefield as everyone chose their opponents. I mean, the Jade Emperor was literally dragged away, but except for that, it was basically a free-for-all.

Kuttasloka was commanded by Miaokuran to take down Canta, so her friends and elder sister – Tumble, Shower, and Calendar – as well as Plume lunged forward to back her up. I also followed them but Izanagi and Amaterasu suddenly tried to take me down from behind, but Lady Liberty and Bishamon defended me.

Just then, a sphere appeared around me and everyone else I mentioned – and transported us to another dimension.

“Alright, everybody,” Canta’s voice rang in my mind as the strange world swirled around us in the form of various strings. “This is my Realm.”

I was weightlessly floating around an abyss of strange swirling masses of infinite, open strings. Every colour of string, no matter how similar the shades, felt completely different. They were everywhere, some even phased through me.

I was about to propel myself forward towards-

Oh right, before we start, I think I should describe everyone who was present there. I think that would help calm myself.

I am me, I have red hair – some would say scarlet or crimson (Idk my shades, Alejandro). I was wearing a thin, black woolen T-shirt and baggy, wide-legged, black faux leather trousers.

There was Plume, he had ruffled brown hair. He was wearing a buttoned black overcoat over a white shirt with a black bowtie and beige breeches over black boots. He was also wearing a cool black cape that fluttered behind him even though we were all floating. His melancholy face, added to all of that, made him look like someone straight out of the French version of the late Victorian era.

I forgot what that era was called.

“Belle Époque, Sexta.”

Hey, smelly bastard, stop talking in my head, I was just about to look that up. I could edit this out but I am gonna keep this just to keep a record of how much of a dick you are.

Anyway, then there was Tumble. She wore a maroon overcoat over a sleeveless black crop top, black ripped denim shorts, and red-black high boots. She still had her distinctive lollipop in her mouth and a wireless headset. With her hands in her pocket and a casual air in general, I could spot her pupils intently scrutinising every one.

I made eye contact with her and was about to ask her something telepathically when Amaterasu tried to speed-blitz Canta once again (she tried to do the same thing before that bot thing came back). I couldn’t comprehend the level of speed, it looked instantaneous to me.

But even before the goddess of the shining sun moved, a plucked string resonated across the Realm and shook me to my very core. It wasn’t exactly the sound, but rather the feeling of a plucked string that reverberated across every inch of the strange swirly-whirly-twirly place that we were in.

I turned around to look at Canta manifest an infinitely large string instrument that extended beyond the horizon. It rolled back from the horizon and joined back at the front of the instrument. It had endless strings all along the wooden surface floating on a swirly mass somewhat resembling an ornate wooden stand. Floral motifs and engravings repeated across the swirly wooden mass in fractals. An inch or two tall shogi pieces rose from the wooden surface as the strings settled on them, turning the former into makeshift instrumental bridges.

“Towa no Torii, The Lychgate of Eternity.”

Canta proclaimed with a devious smile as she sat down on a churning mass of floor that the instrument rested on. Her black T-shirt and burnt jeans transformed into a pink kimono with a sash made out of wisteria. Sitting in the seiza (or a vajrasana if you like yog), her hands hovered over the strings as square fingerpicks appeared attached to her right hand’s fingers.

She looked back to Amaterasu, bowed, and said “heh” as she plucked a string.

The same sound resonated throughout everything in the swirling world as we were all frozen in our places.

“Amaterasu-sama,” Canta said, raising a finger, “It seems that you have the wrong idea, so let me tell ya – you’re the challenger here.”

Is that a reference to something?

“But,” Tumble said, “we can negotiate. I am sure my Canta-chan hasn’t killed two out of you three gods because she wants to negotiate, isn’t that right, Canta-chan?”

“Uh…” I was still extremely confused. “What just happened?”

“To put it simply,” Lady Liberty’s voice said in my head. “This is Canta Koto’s Realm – a physical manifestation of her Proximus, conceptualised by her Natura. Think of it like the Universe of Forms Plato was talking about back in the day. And that infinite Japanese zither-”

“It’s called a koto actually,” Bishamon’s voice intervened in my head as she turned to look at me while petting her lion. “Towa no Torii, as she calls it, is an infinite rotating koto with each string representing a Concept. It’s absolute, instantaneous, acausal, atemporal and completely unstoppable in this Realm.”

“Even Infinite Beings,” Calendar-chan continued out loud drearily as she tucked her hands inside her leather jacket, “cannot resist Conceptual Manipulation or annihilation in this Realm. As long as your Proximus falls under Concept, you cannot resist Concept in its very own Realm, even with your Natura or Will.”

“But,” I had a genuine question I couldn’t help but say out loud (I think Nine’s curiosity has rubbed off on me, Alejandro), “aren’t Infinite Beings like… everywhere at once? Like, in every universe and timeline and whatnot? How can having their physical bodies or avatars in a Realm affect their Proximus that exists across the boundless Existence?”

“Nice question, Roku-chan!” Canta laughed as she stood up. Her attire transformed once more – this time, it changed to a white kimono-like top with a rather large chest-guard and a long, black skirt/hakama – as she bowed softly.

“Kyudo no Tencho, The Apex of Archery,” she extended her left arm as a bow over 2 metres long appeared in it. After extending her left leg. She straightened her back and flattened her shoulders as the bow came to rest on her kneecap.

“Senmetsu no Shisha, The Announcer of Annihilation,” she chanted as a long arrow appeared in her right hand, softly holding the nock above the fletching as the arrow shaft pointed downwards and rested on her hip.

“Now,” Canta paused her motion as she looked forward at Kuttasloka. “This bow & arrow can erase any Concept instantaneously, and in this Realm, it cannot be countered. And since my Realm is more vast than all of yours combined and multiplied infinitely, you cannot counter this with your own.”

“Ну ладно… (Oh well…)” Kuttasloka answered with pure Russian sass as blue fire arose from her cyan tunic and wrapped around her violet cloak.

Yes, Alejandro, Russian is the only language I know other than English – I love Tolstoy.

“So,” Kuttasloka continued in Russian. “Am I correct to presume that all of this was simply a show of force?”

“Heh,” Canta chuckled, and continued in Russian, “I am fully aware that you are not completely under my control, Inferno.”

The infinite koto spun and a single finite string appeared out of the infinitely many strings that stretched into the horizon.

“This string is you,” Canta acted like she was showing off a rare piece in an antique collection. “Since you are a Tertiary Infinite Being, you had expanded your Realm beyond Concept just before you came into our world. Same for Miaokuran. Both of you were ready to go into a war of attrition against me and Sherlock while the gods held off the rest, but it didn’t really work now, did it?”

“Hey,” I whispered, “all that talking still doesn’t answer my question…”

I tried doing my best Chitanda expression and said, “Watashi wa… kininarimasu! (I am very curious!)”

For some reason, everyone had very different reactions. Izanagi, Calendar, and Bishamon shook their heads and facepalmed in various manners – the rest laughed or chuckled.

“Seriously, Roku-chan,” Canta chuckled. “We are deciding the fates of infinite living beings across Existence and here you are curious about the mechanics – when did you become Nine?”

The bow & arrow disappeared as she tied her waist-long hair.

“I should have tied it into knots or braided it before the battle now that I think about it…” Canta said as she started tying her hair. “VP-chan, explain.”

Shower sighed and said, “Calendar-chan, you explain. You are the smartest here after Canta-chan, and I talk too much.”

“Iwanu ga hana (the flower lies in brevity),” Izanagi recited an idiom in Japanese before switching to English. “Gods do not care for this rabble, just get this over with.”

“Fine,” Calendar said in her dry voice as she appeared right in front of me and glared into my eyes. “Listen, Six. All of this that you are saying is just the physical thing conjured up to make sense of the reality-breaking stuff going on in the background.

“In your world, you would call Canta’s koto and arrow ingenia or abilities. These Infinite Beings’ avatars are, in a broader sense, also ingenia. They are ways for those god-like beings to interact with the physical plane, so enveloping them in a Realm would mean enveloping their Natura.

“One’s Will or Natura is the core of every Field Wielder’s being. For Infinite Beings, their Natura is directly connected to their Proximus and Realms are the embodiments of Naturae. So, erasing their Natura would mean erasing their Realm and Proximus – I could have explained it even briefly, but this should also be understandable.”

“Uh…” I tried processing it… and actually managed to understand it, “Understood!”

“Negotiations, huh?” said Kuttasloka. “I agreed to no such thing.”

She was really freaking sassy, that Russian bitch. No, Alejandro, I am describing her not insulting her, both figuratively and literally!

“My Prophet,” the Infinite Being of Inferno continued, “ordered me to stop you. She is currently busy fighting an infidel punching way above his weight and I gotta help her after this.”

“So…?” Canta said as she finished tying up her hair. “What do you propose? We fight and kill off infinite people across infinite timelines in collateral? We destroy universes and dimensions and realities? Like, seriously, can’t we all just chill?”

“I propose that you stop resisting your Fate,” Kuttasloka said calmly.

Tumble demanded, “What does that even mean?”

“The Sword of the Prophet means,” Izanagi replied, “that Koto Canta stops resisting her future as written in the Fate Proximus.”

“Huh?” Liberty was confused. “What’s written there?”

“Koto Canta,” Amaterasu replied, “shall die by her own hands.”

“SUICIDE?!” I screamed, “WHO DECIDED THAT?!”

“Fate is the Word of God,” Kuttasloka replied as she manifested a large, early-Soviet rocket engine. “So I would assume that it is God’s Mercy upon her broken heart that she takes her own life.”

“Bullshit!” Lady Liberty swore. “No sentient being should be forced to kill themselves and I am not accepting counterarguments!”

“It would happen regardless,” Kuttasloka replied coldly while burning that up. “You may delay it ad infinitum, but it will still happen at the end of infinity. And the more you delay it, the more it hurts you and the rest of Existence. Even the Prophet wasn’t spared from her Fate – nor was I.”

As the last remnants of the rocket burnt to ashes, my mind was racing.

“Surely, surely we can-”

Kuttasloka cut me off, “No, we can’t. Fate transcends Concept, Space, and Time.”

“How-?” I stuttered. “This makes no sense… Who is the Infinite Being of Fate anyway?! Who is God?!”

Bishamon sighed before replying to me, “The Infinite Being of Fate was killed by some unknown Infinite Being we gods still can’t figure out. We gods – Japanese, Chinese, Greek, Norse, Indian, American, Abrahamic, or Alien – are manifestations of the Infinite Being of God, the creator of all Proximi in Existence. God is beyond every known Proximus and barely interacts with the rest of Existence despite His omnipotence.”

“C-342,” Kuttasloka continued, “was chosen by God Himself to be the Prophet after He saw the little French cat suffer infinite deaths on a doomed rocket launch, trapped in Fate. Even God is unaware about the cause of C-342’s infinite death loop – or so the Prophet Miaokuran wrote in the Holy Book of Revelations.”

“What…” I stuttered, all my flabbers totally gasted, “what’s beyond… God…?”

“We don’t know,” Lady Liberty replied rather stoically, kinda out-of-character. “The Halcyon Council is currently investigating several entities, but we are still unable to completely answer this one and… The Question That Eludes God.”

“Before you ask, human,” Izanagi spoke up again, “The Question That Eludes God is exactly what you asked – What is beyond God? Is it Existence? Is it Non-Existence? Is it something else? We don’t know. We can’t know. It is beyond God, after all. Perhaps it was the cause of the Eternal Ether – or the Dark Field, as you call it – disappearing. But once again, we don’t know. ”

“Yet,” Kuttasloka spoke with the tone of a soldier, “Yet we must still persevere. We must continue this wonderful world created by God in some semblance of Order. Despite infinite Infinite Beings fighting and killing and consuming each other at this very moment, Existence still remains relatively stable due to Fate – something that everything is bound to and succumbs to eventually.

“Fate isn’t something multiversal or omniversal or outerversal – it transcends everything but God. And so, we must bring Order to God’s Creation, and Fate – as the Word of God – is the only absolute way of doing that.”

“It must be Fate that we met here, on this great battlefield,” Izanagi proclaimed with a reserved tone. “As we are gods, we must follow God’s Will or face His ire. Since He has chosen Miaokuran as His Prophet, we have no choice but to follow her. Fate is the Law – the ultimate Rule,” he gave a bombastic side eye to Bishamon as he said that, “that we must follow. All of us shall meet our Fate.”

“My Fate,” Kuttasloka looked down, “was to fake my death in Sputnik-2 due to overheating and live till the heat death of my universe. Then, I got reincarnated in a special paradise world made for just dogs and cats.

“I couldn’t care about anything in the world after living for over a googol years without any semblance of an interaction – yet, my dog’s senses were activated the moment I saw the Prophet. I didn’t know languages, so I barked – like my name Laika. The Prophet recognised me instantly and said, ‘Kudryavka… Follow me, little curly,’ and I have followed her ever since.

“My Fate was to bear the end of my universe, and it eventually freed me and led me to the Kingdom of Heaven. Canta Koto, even if your Fate sounds cruel, there must be a meaning in there – even if you don’t know what.

“Embrace your Fate, Canta Koto, kill yourself and find your Heaven.”

That was… so cruel… yet the most absurd, bizarre, confusing, and devastating string of sentences and dialogues I had ever heard in my life. For some reason, I could not find a flaw in their logic.

Canta shivered. Her legs trembled as the Realm of Concepts shook in agony. Tumble tried her best to hold up her sister as the latter wept silently.

I didn’t know much about her as we had just met a few days ago, but she was goofy and adorable and smart – and a good leader. Even though she punctuates almost every sentence with a cheeky ‘heh’, anyone who spends enough time with her could see another version of her slip through the façade.

Their adherence to Fate made sense in an absolute ethical sense of “hey, the world still exists because of Fate, we would all be screwed if it didn’t exist, let’s just follow it and not screw over everyone else, even if it screws over everyone else” and being happy in accepting your Fate isn’t exactly wrong by any stretch of the imagination.

In their minds, they are just like policemen in old mafia stories (they existed until he came along and said they’re unnecessary) who are just arresting the bad guys in the name of Law and Order. They are killing a person to save infinitely many.

It’s a really weird trolley problem that I couldn’t find a complete solution to. If one life is worth infinity, then infinite lives are also worth infinity. One has to sacrifice one infinity over the other – and the latter infinity, in a purely logical sense (Idk about mathematical sense, gotta ask Nine for that), is obviously the larger one.

So, by that logic, Canta has to sacrifice herself to save everything. That’s the lot that Fate allotted to her… and she had to accept it… selflessly.

But, Alejandro, do you know what Canta Koto, the Infinite Being of Concept, did when she was told to kill herself by gods and prophets?

She laughed.

She laughed so hard that she cried. It seemed like a funny tale to her.

“I am sorry, gods,” Canta proclaimed in her madness, her hair untying itself in furor, “I am too selfish for this world! I am a hypocrite! I- I am-

“I am greedy! I am lusty! I am hungry! I want to know everything! I want to see everything! I want to be everything! I want to know everyone! I want to help everyone! I want to see everyone! I- You-”

Her Towa no Torii rolled at infinite speeds as the Realm swirled in utter chaos.

Then she calmed down and took a deep breath.

“You,” she continued, wiping the tears in her eyes, “You who have ended billions of human lives as you set loose the foundations between two worlds, you who have tortured an innocent soul for your sick experiments, you who deem mortal lives to be inferior and beneath your notice, you who find righteousness in cultivating suffering by using the name of Fate and Destiny – heh, I shall not yield to you false ‘gods’.”

Kuttasloka asked her ominously, “Is that your final answer?”

She replied, “Yes goddamnit.”

“Well then,” Kuttasloka sighed. “Negotiations have broken down.”

“Asobi wa owari da! (Playtime is over!)”

Amaterasu lunged forward at Canta once again, but this time supported by her father’s ultimate move.

The strings around Izanagi vibrated vehemently as he uttered in Japanese (Nine translated it for me right now):

“No matter in Heaven, Earth or in Hell,

Everywhere Life does, did, and will ever dwell,

Will now end before it could even begin,

Realm Collapse: The Original Sin.”

I died.

No, Alejandro, literally.

I died.

Everyone who ever lived died because they were never **** in the first place. The Proximus of ***** had ceased to exist.

Wtf, why is it all in asterisks?

*****... Wtf, I can't write *****.

Alejandro, obviously, I am still alive that's why I am able to write this right now. But, for some reason, every time I try to refer to ***** just after the Realm Collapse, I can't do that – the hell?

Alright, I can refer to the Proximus of Birth the very moment after that when Canta restored it and the fact that I was Born before Izanagi did the Realm Collapse, but I can’t say the words **** and ***** when referring to the events that occurred when the Proximus ceased to exist.

I have no idea if that makes sense. Judge for yourselves, Alejandro. Nine-kun thinks that’s how it works, so that’s how it works.

Like, when the Proximus ceases to be, you can’t refer to it because it literally doesn’t exist – you cannot even form thoughts about it or anything related to it, because it never existed. But when it comes back, all of that stuff returns, but the previous stuff still applies to the time when the Realm Collapse killed the Proximus.

I still have no idea if that makes sense, but I am gonna continue anyway.

Back to the plot: Yeah, so, I died. Probably everyone else in Existence who wasn’t an Infinite Being also died. Yeah, Alejandro, you died too. It’s not limited to just living beings.

But then, probably not even a microsecond (or whatever the smallest unit of time is) after that, I heard fingers snap and opened my eyes.

With a ring of a string, Canta had instantly restored the Proximus of Birth.

I looked around and we were still in the same whirly mess – but unlike before, I could move! Things and people around me moved at speeds beyond comprehension as Canta played her infinite instrument.

Turning on and pushing Perception Acceleration to its highest limits, I tried my best to perceive the environment. A passionate symphony rang through every corner of the Realm as the strings of The Lychgate of Eternity were plucked in the elegant chaos of the 3rd Movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. The koto lamented and whined in catharsis as Canta got entranced on the precipice of insanity and art.

And it wasn’t for show, obviously.

As I turned around, I saw infinite strings assault Izanagi and Amaterasu as they morphed into various things and ideas – curtains, farts, the number 69, faucets, books, boobs, the Sun (kinda ironic for Amaterasu), a green-haired swordsman who keeps getting lost, ceiling fans, microphones, mosquitoes, manga, the Mona Lisa, a street sign saying “This St.”, Winston Churchill, popsicles, mirrors, ripped denim – and every Concept ever, rendering them unable to even think.

Kuttasloka, on the other hand, was swarmed by Calendar, Shower, Lady Liberty, Bishamon, and Plume as the Infinite Being of Inferno tried her best to simultaneously defend against infinite Concepts attacking it at infinite speeds.

“Agent Six,” Plume called out to me in telepathy as he charged at Kuttasloka with two swords, “impart aid to the vanguard. Uselessness suits you not.”

Kinda startled by that last sentence, my stupor broke as I charged into the fray yelling, “IMAGINARY OVERDRIVE!!!”

I discovered that I was way outta my league.

Side-talk: I was really proud of my abilities like even a couple of days ago before this whole SAMAverse nonsense. Nine could barely move up to lightspeed because he had imagination issues while I could just move as fast as I wanted to when I got into a blind rage.

Sure, he managed to develop an ability that lets him analyse and deconstruct anything and everything, but that’s beside the point.

The point is, no matter how much I tried, I was several hundred times faster than light – not many Field Wielders can do that in my universe, only some like Pelican or Grey Slime can – but this was still not anywhere near these guys.

I felt like a freaking tortoise while these guys were fighter jets. Like, thanks to Perception Acceleration and an inferior version of Nine’s ingenium, I could see these guys (not the conceptual threads, they were literally infinitely fast) move at a ‘normal’ speed. But, in my own POV, I was slower than a literal snail.

It’s almost like I got stuck in quicksand while a universal symphony raged around me as a tempest of turmoil surged like a hurricane.

“Lady,” Plume’s voice rang in my head as tried to stab Kuttasloka once again, “perchance thy haughty demeanour demeans itself in times of trouble?”

I was trying to move as fast as I could and I ended up getting really freaking frustrated, because obviously. When he said that, I really snapped, “YOU TRYING TO SAY I’M AN ARROGANT BITCH?”

“Well,” his voice replied in my head as he cut through Kuttasloka’s conceptual barrier, “perchance?”

I had no idea why or how but the confusion and the frustration and this aura-farming dick really got to me at the moment as I lunged at him. With a speed beyond my comprehension (even with Perception Acceleration pushed to the limits), I couldn’t even see anything as I literally punched through Plume’s torso and then through Kuttasloka’s head.

By the time I realised there was blood in my face, I was literally seeing red.

I turned toward the rest.

“Six-chan, calm down!” Tumble cried as I vapourised her.

“Oh, c’mon, not now-” Calendar grunted as I literally tore her apart.

“Listen-” Shower turned into a spray of blood.

"Ay-" the Statue of Liberty burst into pieces of copper and steel.

"Relax-" Bishamon and her lion sublimated into nothing.

Then I turned to look at the gods who were held by conceptual threads till now.

I turned them into a void.

Finally, I turned around to look at Koto the koto player herself as the 3rd Movement of the Moonlight Sonata reached its climax.

Let me tell you, Alejandro, I seriously don’t know how all of that happened. Like, I legit have no idea why or how I snapped so bad that I murdered friend and foe alike. I was about to kill Canta too as I raged in a frenzy so wrathful that I had forgotten what speed even meant.

“Agent of Fury.”

Canta’s voice reverberated in my head, and it was extremely freaking loud. Like, the voice transcended anything I had ever heard before, like loud doesn’t even begin to describe it. It was louder than Loudness itself.

It was infinitely loud, or at least loud enough to drown out my infinite rage that spontaneously generated out of nowhere.

The music started to head towards its end with that beautiful waterfall-like arpeggio, when I finally snapped out of it.

I was shaking with visceral horror as the Realm of Concepts was smeared with flesh and blood, of gods and humans alike. Plume’s cut-off legs, Tumble’s hair, Shower’s blood, Calendar’s dead eyes, and Lady Liberty's metal pieces floated on carapaces of threads.

As the arpeggio ascended for the last time, Plume, Calendar, Shower, and Tumble were revived back to their previous state. Plume’s torso fixed itself, Tumble appeared out of nothingness, Calendar got her hip and her torso joined, Bishamon returned from the void, and Shower turned back into a human from just blood. However, Liberty's pieces remained as it was.

"Ah shit," Canta swore, "oh well, I guess Sherlock can deal with that later."

Finishing the music, Canta sighed as she stood up in her kimono and changed back to her plain white shirt and jeans.

“Brought the ones I could bring back,” she sighed and appeared right in front of me. “You somehow actually managed to kill the gods.”

“WHAT?!” I shrieked. “HOW?!?!?!”

“Probably something to do with your heredity?” Canta surmised sheepishly. “Heh… I am genuinely not sure how you managed to kill two Infinite Beings.”

“The Infinite Being of Inferno still struggles,” Plume appeared right beside her.

I turned around to look at Kuttasloka in the distance. The infinite threads of Concept held her in place and stopped her head from regrowing. She was still trying to move, but she too was turning into various stuff ranging from butts to butlers.

I turned to Plume, crying. He looked into my eyes with his dead pupils and an emotionless expression.

“I’m so-”

“Shush, it’s okay,” Tumble interrupted my apology before popping a lollipop.

Calendar and Shower appeared beside her and nodded.

Suddenly, Plume knelt down and lowered his head before Canta.

“I am sorry, Miss Koto,” He said. “I appear to have ruined your plans.”

“As I said,” Canta replied, “it’s fine.”

“What plans?” I said as I sniffed and wiped away my tears.

“The plan,” Calendar replied, “was to isolate Izanagi and Amaterasu and barrage Kuttasloka so that none of them are able to make any moves, like expanding further into more Proximi beyond Concept.”

“‘Twas by my own volition,” Plume continued in his posh Victorian-esque French accent, “that I kindled the rage embroiling in Agent Six’s essence. I was a jackanapes, a dullard too benighted in chasing a marsh-light and catching the wrong sow by the ear-”

Canta softly hit his head with the side of her fist and said, “Oh shut up, it’s fine. Not everything goes according to plan. I didn’t want to kill the gods because then Kuttasloka would be able to expand into their Proximi and use them against us, but since she’s trapped, it’s fine. For now, I mean.”

“Sheesh,” Tumble threw in, “your Will is too strong, Roku-chan.”

“Huh?”

“Probably something to do with her lineage,” Shower joined in.

“Eh?”

“One-shotting gods because you’re pissed off is kinda OP,” Calendar replied.

“I mean-”

"Rules do not bound your rage," Bishamon complimented.

Um-

“Ha!” Canta chuckled. “It’s fine, as pseudo-clones of that entity, I am not surprised that you too can pierce through your Fate like Nine.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Canta continued. “Don’t feel bad for killing your friends or foes. Leave it all to me – disgust and disgrace has always been something I have borne.”

“Don’t say it like that-” Tumble’s laidbackness shifted to sincerity as Canta’s facial expression shifted for just a moment.

“C'mon! Don’t worry about it, ne-chan,” her face went back to normal as she continued with a strange sense of pride. “I will turn lies into wishes, apathy into altruism, agonies into ecstasies, and enmities into friendships…”

She paused, smiled, and looked at me with a singular tear in her right eye.

“…For, heh, I am very greedy, you see?”

There were so many words under the blanket of ‘greed’ that you couldn’t describe it no matter how greedy you were. Who knows how many emotions were buried under that smile and that tear? Who knows how much she has suffered to make her say that?

I can’t imagine.

And then I died again.

I got revived again.

*********… Of course, that doesn’t **** either - Now, c’mon, how is **** related to ****? Give me a minute, Alejandro, I gotta ask Nine. I could look it up, but I trust him more than google.

Alright, so, ********* is the process by which atoms lose electrons and ionize. And, apparently, **** in chemistry means ******… AH C’MON, HOW DO I DESCRIBE STUFF WITHOUT WORDS? REALM COLLAPSES ARE CRUEL TO WRITERS!!!

Alright, alright, let me retry that. **** in Physics means the product of a force moving something over a distance. Or something like that, Alejandro. Just google the definition if you don’t get what I mean.

Alright, alright, alright, all of that to say that the Top Dog rose up from the prison of threads.

The threads of Concept holding her in place ***** in blue ****** as flesh, blood, muscle, and skin restored her head.

As I shook my head to realise what had transpired, Tumble, Calendar, Shower, and Plume charged forward at her.

“Muda dayo… (It’s futile…)” Canta muttered telepathically. “You cannot stop a Realm Collapse once it’s initiated. The incantation is just a way to maintain control of your Will. Heh, oh well, as a Tertiary Infinite Being, she overcame my threads through the sheer difference in our Naturae.”

As she eviscerated her attackers with the snap of her fingers, Kuttasloka chanted in Russian:

“Desire, Chaos, Peace, and Exuberance,

Burn them all in blazing deliverance,

Rage, rage, RAGE against the dying of light,

Realm Collapse: Ignis, the Eternal Hell of Fright.”

I didn’t die this time, since Canta had changed causality to make our deaths arrive before the Realm Collapse, but that didn’t really matter since the Realm of Concept started burning.

Every thread – every concept that ever existed – started to slowly burn away as the Proximus of ******* or **** in general ceased to exist. ****, in this case, wasn’t something that gave people warmth (I have no idea how that word was censored by reality, probably because it’s related to emotions too?) in cold weather – it was the driving force behind motion itself.

I heard from Canta later that the Laika (The Barker) or Kudryavka (The Curly One) in her world died due to overheating and stress in a doomed space flight. I wondered if the trauma of that little dog trying her best to survive as she slowly asphyxiated but couldn’t die made her associate everything else to that feeling.

But at that moment, I was still slightly appalled by… y’know, killing my friends in a fit of rage for no justifiable reason whatsoever… so I was really hesitant to move.

However, Canta and Bishamon defied speed itself. In a literal instant, infinite arrows and weighing scales appeared out of nowhere as the world itself kept *******. Hundreds of thousands of millions of colours dashed in every direction as billions and trillions of, uh — let’s just say blasts since that’s one word I can still use to describe it for some reason (probably something to do with partying?) — reduced them all to nothing as they regenerated. I couldn’t see either Canta, Bishamon or Kuttasloka as they moved faster than speed itself, they had long gone past that.

Intense music, blasts of galactic proportions, infinite arrowheads, and utter chaos unfolded as a conceptual shield formed around me that protected me from the madness.

That made me realise once again that I was nowhere near their levels, and despair haunted me.

But I wasn’t alone – Tumble, Calendar, Shower and Plume also stared at them in varying degrees of dumbfoundedness and irritation.

As mere Field Wielders who have local authority over reality, we could do nothing but watch Infinite Beings who controlled a part of Existence itself in screaming silence. None of us could do anything as we watched a god, a dog and a girl duke it out in a way we couldn’t even perceive.

“Doesn’t that infuriate you?”

Plume sat down and put his face between his thighs.

“I can cut through anything, even thoughts and ideas, but that’s not good enough against something that doesn’t exist anymore.”

His swords stuck in his best rattled in rage.

“Tumble here can change anything to a lollipop, Calendar here can rewrite time, Shower can wash away anything and everything, you can punch through anything if you are pissed enough.”

He looked up. His face had his usual nonchalantness yet I felt like something was clearly different. Like something had snapped in him.

“Huh,” I said, “that’s strange, you are speaking like a normal person.”

“He’s enraged,” Shower said with a sigh.

Plume replied, stoically, yet in a voice creaking with despair:

“Humans are powerless against gods.”

Everything changes so suddenly in this world that in the span of one breath, we go from celebrating our victories to sitting in despair and helplessness.

I looked up again and spotted Canta holding her bow and arrow, half-drawn, against Kuttasloka who stood serenely.

“Please give up,” Kuttasloka said in a genuine manner, “you know you can’t win.”

“Sure,” Canta said, “I have no problem dying, heh, that’s a non-issue.”

“Oh?” Kuttasloka replied sassily, “Then kill yourself, that’s all God is asking for.”

“Fuck God,” Canta mocked her. “I will bring that bastard down from his Heaven and kill him some day. I can die happily after that.”

Bishamon, as a god herself, cringed slightly at Canta's wording but nodded regardless.

“Why do all that when you can just die happily? As far as Existence is concerned, your existence can disrupt its very foundations. If you do not kill yourself, who knows what could happen? Heaven demands your death by your own hands, and you should follow it if you truly wish for everyone’s happiness.”

“Heaven?” She said with a hearty laugh. "My will is the will that will pierce through the heavens! My words are the words that will create the heavens! And I will make sure of it, for I am very greedy."

“Tch,” Kuttasloka grimaced. “It is extremely difficult even for me to take over your Proximus, even as a Tertiary Infinite Being. I’m afraid that even if we fought for eternity in this world without time as I chipped away at your Proximus bit by bit, you could catch up to becoming a Binary or even a Tertiary Being due to the strength of your sheer Will and greed. And I haven't even considered Bishamon. If this were a betting game, the odds would be against me.”

“Heh, as you can understand, I am not the underdog here.”

“But,” Kuttasloka chuckled. “That’s not a bet I have to make.”

“What do you mean?”

“Meaning,” Kuttasloka sighed. “I genuinely don’t care.”

The burning Realm and the combusting threads were extinguished as the fire receded. Kuttasloka’s fur which burned in a dazzling blue flame went back to just being black spots again.

“What?”

Everyone uttered in unison as we just stared at Kuttasloka standing with a strange nonchalant-but-sassy smile.

“I don’t really care about the whole Heaven stuff,” Kuttasloka said. “I am just doing my job, no hard feelings. I don’t really care about anything at this point, and this was enough for me to say that I tried to hold you back so I guess I am clear.”

Even Canta was too surprised to speak, “Uh… Etto… so… like… doesn’t God see everything or something? Wouldn’t He punish you?”

"It's almost like she doesn't care about her position as the Servant to the Prophet," Bishamon pointed out.

“Correct, I don’t care to be honest,” said Kuttasloka, “I don’t mind dying. If that would mean escaping my fate of not dying, I would die. So, I know how you feel.”

“Let me get this straight,” Canta lowered her bow and arrow. “You are not gonna fight me anymore? You did all of this just for show?”

“Yes, and also because I didn’t exactly want to betray the Prophet in front of her,” Kuttasloka shrugged. “But once again, I don’t care. I always wanted to do a Realm Collapse with my Proximus of Fire/Inferno, so that was cool.”

“Uh…” I spoke up finally, “what about our friends in the SAMAverses? You are not gonna fight them or help them even if Miaokuran calls you?”

“That’s… not going to happen anymore.”

This is the first time she said something without trying to be sassy about it.

“I, Kudryavka, had planned this sequence of events for my retirement after Zeus’ death at that entity’s hands,” Kuttasloka declared. “I saw BOTSAMA taking over Realms while Miaokuran wasn’t looking and understood that that was my only hope to defeat her. But, oh well, Sherlock Holmes exists. So, that screwed me over.”

“Um…” I was still very confused, “didn’t you all fail to stop BOTSAMA from manifesting back there? How can Sherlock stop BOTSAMA?”

“He can,” Kuttasloka laughed. “He is Sherlock Holmes.”

I laughed.

I was laughing in the face of casualties and sorrow looking at a dog who had no concern for tomorrow. I couldn’t even argue against her.

Gods are more fickle than men.

Everyone stared at me with different expressions. Plume’s was the most extreme however, as I saw his façade of nonchalance break for the first time.

“Seriously,” Plume gritted his teeth as his face tried to balance disgust and ire, “then what the hell did you even fight us for?”

“Just for fun, to be honest, it’s nice to have a last rodeo,” Kuttasloka smiled. “I am not sure how Sherlock is going to defeat the Prophet, though. She had just become a Tertiary Infinite Being when Zeus died so she was not at her best mental state. Her Natura was weak as a result of that, so GOATSAMA might have given her a little trouble, but she should have prevailed anyway. But now, against the only person in Existence who managed to overturn his Fate, I am not so sure.”

Before Plume could even reply, Canta snapped her fingers with a concerned face.

The Realm of Concept collapsed and ceased to be.

Instantly, we were back in Tokyo, at Torigoe Shrine, with Sherlock aiming straight at Miaokuran – with no signs of BOTSAMA. A strange compass thing lay right beside them as Nine coughed and groveled on the ground.

It was a long day, Alejandro, but finally we have reached the clima-

Wait, I have to go right now, something’s happening to Nine-

Next Chapter: Man, Machine, and Madness