3 - Many Possibilities That Are Now Lost
3 - Many Possibilities That Are Now Lost
The days went by.
It was unclear how much time meant in the afterlife, but if you counted the seasons, it had been five years. Akuto and the girls should have gotten older, but their appearances hadn’t changed.
Akuto probably wasn’t going to age, given who he was, but the others seemed to be not maturing at all. All the students of Constant Magical Academy graduated and the school was shut down, but then it reopened as a community center. The teachers stayed on as staff, or got other jobs in public service.
The city itself grew, and there were subtle differences in people’s relationships. But nothing really changed beyond that.
Because there were no new deaths.
And no aging.
And more than anything, there was no way to flee this world.
“I’m not going to feel well tomorrow if we do this... But um, it’s not like I don’t like it.”
Junko said as Akuto got into bed. He’d lost count of how many times he’d slept with the three of them since then, but it wasn’t always fresh and surprising. The first year one of them had been in his bed every night. With three of them, each of them had two days when they slept alone. So they were always willing, but by the second year they’d calmed down enough that some nights they just lay and talked.
“Have you ever actually not felt well? ...I mean, I’m asking strictly out of curiosity. Not that I really want to do it tonight,” Akuto said.
He and Junko looked at each other.
“Well, no... No, I haven’t. I do... put on weight, though,” Junko said after a moment’s thought.
“Some people think that the person you are today and the person you are tomorrow are different people.”
“Yeah. That’s right. But what does it mean if you don’t change at all? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yeah. I know that scientifically, some percentage of my body will be new cells by tomorrow. But I don’t know if that’s how it works here. But our relationship has developed... and changed a little.”
He leaned forward and gave her a kiss. Their tongues intertwined for a moment before he moved away.
Junko narrowed her eyes and spoke.
“I said we’re not doing it today.”
“...You’ve stopped blushing. Of course, I don’t mind. But before you came here you wouldn’t even let me kiss you,” Akuto said. Junko’s expression froze.
“Don’t tell me... you’ve fallen out of love with me.”
“Sorry if I scared you. If you love someone even more, that’s still a change in your relationship. Anyway, our bodies don’t change, but our feelings do.” Akuto said with a serious look on his face. Junko nodded.
“That’s true, but... Why are you saying something like that when you know it’s going to spook me?”
“It’s been bothering me more and more, lately. The true nature of this world.”
“Stop it...” Junko said with an expression of fear on her face.
It was less a natural expression and more like something she wanted Akuto to see. Akuto knew this.
“I know, but I’m scared, too.”
“Scared?”
“My life right now is like the definition of happiness. I have a fulfilling job. People appreciate me. I have people to love, and people who love me...”
“I’m never going to stop loving you,” Junko said hurriedly, but Akuto shook his head.
“I know. That’s not what I’m saying.”
“You’re scared that it might not last?”
“That’s not it either. I’m scared that it will. We’re not going to die. We’re not going to fall out of love. Which means... we’re finished,” Akuto said, biting his lip as if he had trouble getting the words out.
“Finished?”
“We’re not going to create anything new. I’m trying to reform those thugs, but the method I’m using is an old one, and it’s almost weird how they never do anything I don’t expect them to. In other words, there’s basically nothing left for me to do.”
“But you said it was fulfilling...”
“Yeah. But to me, it’s basically grunt work. I like the work, it doesn’t bore me. But there’s nothing new to be done.”
“But what do you mean by finished? You’re actually more scared of not dying, or something?”
“It’s similar, but... Well, for example, if you had eternal life, and maybe we do, what would you do?”
Junko seemed confused by the question.
“I’ve never thought about it. But I know I’d be bored. Is that what you mean?”
“It’s like boredom. But different. I’ve been thinking this whole time, because of the way I am, you see: Would I be bored with eternal life? But that wasn’t it. What scares me is that everything’s finished, but I have to keep going. To keep talking when there’s nothing left to say. To keep writing when there’s nothing left to write. It’s the same with reforming those thugs. They’ll eventually talk the way I tell them to. But it’s just an echo of me. Love is like that. We’re going to become one. Inseparable. But that’s an ending. And even though it’s an ending, I have to keep going.”
Akuto began to ramble, like a dam had burst.
“Why do you keep going? What kind of question is that? If you just want to keep living your life, you can take it easy and relax. Or are you talking about doing something else? Akuto, you’re not making sense.”
Junko held his hand tightly, worried. Akuto looked her in the eyes.
“If we’re characters in a story, our story is over. If we want to do anything more... even just live peacefully... we have to do something. And the reason we have to do something... in other words, the truth... we have to find it.”
“So what? Why? No, for who?” Junko was almost starting to yell. But Akuto just quietly nodded.
“We have to find that out, too.”
Junko said nothing, as if she’d given up. The next morning, when he woke up, Junko was already gone. When he went to the living room, Yoshie was gone too. Only Fujiko was languidly lying on the couch
“Looks like you had a good time last night,” Fujiko said sarcastically.
“Quiet. You’re always more enthusiastic than she is...” Akuto cut her off, but Fujiko’s eyes took on a more serious intensity.
“I know. What were you fighting about?”
Akuto sat down next to her and explained. She leaned her head up against him.
“You’re still worried about saving the world?”
“To be honest, I’ve been kind of forgetting about all that. About Keena, Korone, and Hiroshi.”
He ran his fingers through her hair. Fujiko moved her head closer, like she had a thousand times before.
“It makes sense, if we’re so happy now.”
“My memories of them are fading, actually. As if we’re being trapped here in eternity.”
“Do you not like eternity?”
“I think that’s right. We’re inside eternity, and we need to find eternity’s meaning... and bring an end to the end.”
“It’s a little hard to understand, but I guess you’re right. So, why don’t we get started?”
“What?”
“Why don’t we start by touching each other, to figure out if this is a dream or real?”
Fujiko wrapped her hand around Akuto’s waist.
“Maybe doing that is what’s making us forget...”
Akuto stood up and went to leave. Fujiko was confused, but followed him, as he went up to the roof of their condo. From here, you could see the whole town.
“Is there some reason we’re looking at the town?” Fujiko asked. Akuto just shook his head.
“Nope. But I wanted to look off into the distance. As far as I could, you see,” Akuto said, and called up a mana screen.
It showed exactly what he was seeing.
“Your magical power is as strong as ever.”
“That’s one thing I don’t want to lose. Anyway, as long as there’s mana around, I can see forever.”
“But when we were alive, mana only existed inside imperial territory. And since the Earth was round, you couldn’t see beyond the horizon, or any further into space than a normal person.”
Akuto nodded and pointed into the distance.
“But here, the world is filled with mana. The whole world, not just the Empire.”
Akuto extended his view into the horizon, the same way you might zoom in a camera. What he saw was displayed on the screen so that Fujiko could see it too.
“Huh? This is pretty amazing.” Fujiko’s eyes went wide. The zoomed footage passed through the town, all the way to the horizon and beyond. It went beyond the horizon, in other words, into the sky. The sky filled the screen, turned into a pure blue. It turned white for a moment as it went through the clouds, and then got darker and darker. His vision passed into space before finally disappearing.
“It disappeared?” Fujiko whispered. But in the next moment, the footage showed darkness again. This time, she saw what she’d seen before, but in reverse. The earth came into view and grew in size, and then...
“Our backs?!”
Just as she said, the screen was showing Akuto and Fujiko’s backs. If it was showing what Akuto was seeing, then...
“This is us, right now, isn’t it?”
Fujiko waved her right hand. She could see her arm move in the video as well.
“Yup. You’re seeing what I’m seeing right now. I noticed this a while ago.” Akuto moved his left arm.
“What does this mean?”
“If the world we lived on in life was fictional, so is this one. So I was thinking, what’s the difference?” he said. ”And the difference is whether there’s a wall between us and the outside. When we were alive, we lived in a world with a wall. And now, there’s no wall here. No matter what direction you go in three dimensional space, you come back to where you started. You can go forever, but it’s finite.”
“I understand that. But what does that mean?” Fujiko asked.
“I don’t know,” Akuto said, shaking his head. “But what I can say right now is that even if this is fictional, there are fictions with an outside and fictions with only an inside. And the latter has a main character, and background characters. Whatever we do will succeed, as long as we do it here.” He winked at her.
Fujiko blushed, and raised the corner of her lips into a smile.
“You noticed, didn’t you? That I’m still planning on conquering the world.”
“You and I are a better pair than other people think. Even if the other two don’t know what you’re thinking, I do. And you’re very close to creating a political structure with me at its center, aren’t you?”
“That’s correct. So, what will you do? Sit on a throne, or live a life of luxury forever? Do whatever pleases you.”
“And you know that I’m not going to do anything. I was just being silly. The most fun thing you can do with money is completely waste it.” Akuto laughed.
“Oh my. I’m happy that you understand me so well, but it frustrates me that you’ve already thought so far ahead.” Fujiko laughed, as well.
“I’ll do something even bigger, then. Why don’t I crush the entire world in the palm of my hand?”
“Huh?”
Akuto spoke in a completely calm voice. Fujiko wasn’t sure if he was joking.
“This finite world is filled with mana. That’s how it’s set up. Which means...”
Akuto casually reached out a hand, and began to clench it into a fist.
The world began to shake.
“Aaah!” Fujiko let out a gasp of surprise. The whole city was shaking. The air vibrated and roared from the pressure. The earth was shaking, as well. There wasn’t supposed to be any mana in the ground, but if this whole world was filled with mana, it would be present there as well. The whole of space itself was practically within the palm of Akuto’s hand.
Fujiko realized that he was about to crush the planet.
“Akuto...” She called his name softly, fearfully.
This was suicide. If you destroyed space itself in a world where you couldn’t die, would everything turn to nothing? The look on Akuto’s face seemed to say to her that he was ready to find out. He was just quietly and calmly closing his fist.
Fujiko grabbed his open hand. The ground swelled up like it was being sucked up into the air. The seas surged into the city like a tidal wave. Buildings shattered and people began to float up to the sky. The whole Earth was under tremendous pressure, like it had suddenly been submerged miles below the sea. It was an end to the world that no one had ever anticipated.
Fujiko clung to Akuto, and just as he pulled her close, there was static on the mana screen. The buzz of a TV tuned to static. And then words followed.
“Nope! I’m not lettin’ you end the world like that!”
The voice had a strange accent. It was a voice she recognized. She looked down at the mana screen. It was Keana, the girl with blonde hair.
“Keana,” Akuto whispered.
She was the other Keena, the one who had appeared when the Law of Identity had reset the world. Akuto and his friends had called her Keana, and spent a lot of time trying to erase her from existence. She wasn’t even supposed to exist.
“Why?”
Akuto stopped what he was doing, surprised at this turn of events.
“I won’t let you end the world like this!” Keana said again. “I disappeared because I was satisfied! But you guys aren’t really satisfied!”
Akuto stopped moving entirely. He moved to answer Keana. But then the mana screen disappeared.
“A hallucination? No, that’s impossible...” Fujiko said. When she saw Akuto’s reaction, she knew it was no hallucination. He’d relaxed his hand. The world stopped shaking, and began to return to normal. No one around them seemed to have noticed the astonishing thing that had just happened. They were all walking about the city, as if the worldwide destruction had never happened.
“We’re not really satisfied...?” Fujiko looked at Akuto. He glanced back at her, and then looked down.
“I guess so. We knew that from the start. But we’d thought that maybe, just maybe, we were wrong, and you were satisfied.”
Fujiko gave him a kiss, and left the rooftop and headed down the stairs. He looked into the sky, before heading to the door. As he did, Yoshie came up, and looked at him with disappointed eyes.
“I’m a girl too, you know. It’s frustrating. I detected what you were doing and came to see, and then I found this.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Apologizing just... I don’t know. Makes it worse. But there’s something you want me to think about, right?” She sighed and shrugged.
“Yeah. I want you to think of a way for us to get out.” Akuto looked straight into her eyes.
“It’s going to take time. Let’s go to my room and talk.” She motioned for him to come back inside.
○
Brave was utterly defeated.
Up until the 25th time, he’d been counting. But after the 25th time he killed Akuto, he stopped. Nothing had changed.
Nothing had changed.
At some point, Boichiro had stopped trying to hide his pity. Brave could tell he was sympathizing with the boy who was doing the same thing he’d once done.
“You should give it up. You understand now, right?”
“I definitely understand that somebody is trying to stop history from changing.”
Brave had totally lost his composure by now.
“That’s right. For some reason, they refuse to allow the flow of history to change.”
“But I’m part of history, too, aren’t I?”
“Yeah. I guess your role in the historical record is to struggle, and to fail,” Boichiro said with a sigh. “I realized after I died, that my death had been decided from the start.”
“Then am I going to keep suffering? Just like you? Am I going to keep doing this until I just break? Am I just going to keep murdering, for nothing?”
Brave already knew the answer. Boichiro nodded.
“That’s your role, yes.”
“MY role? Then am I playing a part in someone else’s script? Why?”
“In this world... No, that’s not the right way to say it. In any world, free will is an illusion. You’re doing what you’re doing because you have a result that you want to achieve. But that’s because you’re thinking along the lines of a story. If you want happiness, all you need is a full stomach and a member of the opposite sex by your side. Even if they die, your sense of loss won’t last too long. There’s no need you have that someone else can’t fulfill. If they’re hungry, even the most discriminating diner will eat what’s in front of them. There’s no difference between biological satisfaction and happiness. Or at least there wouldn’t be, if it weren’t for stories. Love. Bloodlines. Success. Life paths. All values of these are religions in their own right, distinct from biological value. Stories are what make sentience possible. But they also infect it. Like a virus.”
“But we were able to resist! We realized that, and we’re already trying to destroy natural stories. We know that the history that lead us here is an unnatural one. The fact that the characters in the story know it’s a story is destabilizing it!”
Brave’s eyes were shining with this new discovery. But Boichiro’s expression remained unchanged.
“That’s the kind of story this was.”
“What?”
“A story that’s revealed to be a story. The deus ex machina that appears at just the right moment isn’t there for the sake of catharsis. It has appeared to tell us what it is that we were thinking is a story, and tell us that is fictional. What that god tells us is the pleasure of a story, and its limits. And now, we’ve become the deus ex machina. We ourselves have become the god.” Boichiro pointed to himself, and then back to Brave.
“We ourselves are the deus ex machina?”
“Changing history can fix any problem. Even the most horrible deaths, or the biggest failures.”
“In other words, deus ex machina aren’t forbidden. They just fail?”
“That’s right. Which leads to only one answer.”
“I get it. We’re not the main characters.” The last light of hope faded from Brave’s eyes.
“That’s right.” Boichiro kicked the ground, annoyed. “And your role isn’t over yet, either. You can tell because your name is now just ‘Brave’. And you haven’t lost the title of Brave, either. All you’re going to be allowed to do now, probably, is display the courage that exists after all is lost.”
“And even then, I’m still just a side character. So who’s the main character?” Brave asked, even though he knew the answer.
“Of course, the man who’s revealed that the story is nothing but layer upon layer of fiction will be the one to end the story about stories. The Demon King destroys the world, right? Whenever there’s a story that won’t let the prince marry the princess and live happily ever after... It always ends with the end of the world.”
○
“So I’m important, then?” Akuto asked. He still couldn’t believe it.
“I think so, at least,” Yoshie said with a serious expression.
“You’re going to end the world. That’s how this works. As for what exactly that means... it’s complicated.”
“But I’m the one who has to end it?” Akuto asked. Yoshie nodded.
“Keana disappeared because she was satisfied. You need to be satisfied, too.”
“I understand that. But what would satisfy me?”
“You hated fiction, while living inside a fiction. You had a fetish for revealing that which was fictional, and kept doing it again and again. You would destroy what seemed to be a closed system, only to activate the system that lay beyond it. A multilayered fiction. An infinite regression. It’s a hell that continues forever. Which makes this... difficult.”
She’d sat Akuto down in a chair, and was leaning forward against his back.
“By the way...”
“What? We’re talking about something important.”
“It is important. That’s why I’m asking. Why are you pressing up against me like that?”
“I’m enjoying my reward for being a side character, for playing the role of one of the three goddesses.”
“We’re not talking about anything romantic or sexy at all.”
“Doesn’t it seem like something a villain would do? Stroking a girl while having a normal conversation.”
“Am I still a villain?” He tickled her cheek with his finger, and she smiled happily.
“Hehe... If you’re not going to be a villain during what comes next, what are you going to be?”
“But what, exactly, am I going to do? Satisfy myself?”
“You’re going to end the world... But like I said, that’s complicated. First, I need to explain what this world is. The afterlife acts as if it was made just for us. It responds to our will, or your will, mostly. Which means that this world can take any form you want it to.”
“That, I understand.”
“No, you don’t, really. You don’t know what that really means. There’s a concept called ‘possible worlds’.”
“Possible worlds?” Akuto “remembered” a word that he’d never known by scanning the data loaded into his mind.
“I see. A thought experiment that says in a world where anything can happen, given enough time, any given thing will happen.”
“Correct. Anything that can be put into writing can happen here. Which means that nothing will happen that can’t be expressed in words.”
Yoshie began to explain the concept of possible worlds, which was difficult to understand just from the database.
For example, “An elephant flies” or “Hitler appears in Paris in the year 2000” are both physically impossible, but perfectly grammatical sentences. If an elephant had wings, or if Hitler was still alive, they could quite easily happen. If you accept that these worlds are possible, you realize that the world is filled with endless possibilities, which can be thought of as simultaneously existing parallel worlds.
“You’re going to make every possible theoretical world,” Yoshie said, as if ordering him.
“Every one of them, huh?”
It was a staggering concept to think about.
“Whatever is left at the end is what you want. View every possible world, and then choose the one you want.”
“You’re right... In a world where I can do anything I want... I can look for a possibility that will save the world. It may be the only way out of here.”
“I think you should get to work right away, then.” Yoshie pulled up a mana screen and displayed the entirety of history so far as a model.
“The data you have access to is a copy of the world at the moment of its destruction. As long as that copy exists, you can use it to go back and calculate out any possibility you like.”
“But it feels like a world which was created that way would be pretty sloppy and inaccurate,” Akuto complained.
“That’s fine. Even a sloppy and inaccurate possibility is still a possibility,” Yoshie replied.
And so Akuto resolved to find the possibilities within himself.
○
The world was howling.
Only a few noticed it, but of course, that few included Brave and Boichiro.
“What’s going on?” Brave asked. But he instinctively knew the answer: the world itself was losing its shape.
“This is the moment the world is reconstructed. Each time you changed the past, I was able to sense a smaller version of this. I don’t think anyone else did, though,” Boichiro explained.
“Which means the change...”
“Of course. It was caused by the Demon King. Boot up your suit. We’re leaving.”
“Leaving?” Brave asked, but as he did, he activated the suit’s time travel device. He adjusted the settings so that when he jumped, Boichiro would jump with him.
“We’re going to disappear from this space. In this moment, the Demon King is in complete control of the afterlife. We’re going to make it so we’re not a part of that.”
“You can tell me the details later.” Brave jumped to a time he’d never gone to before.
He wanted to avoid any human contact, so he’d chosen the summit of a high mountain in a time where there was no magical, or even electrical civilization.
“I figured you wouldn’t want to go anywhere cold, so I chose a place 2000 meters above sea level, in the middle of summer.”
They were surrounded by rocky mountaintops, with a forest below and nothing else for miles. Snow could be seen on the peaks above them, but the sun was shining here, and it was actually hot.
“Thanks. The weather might be better than the afterlife here. The chill from this wind is actually rather pleasant.” Boichiro sat down on a nearby rock.
“So, the Demon King changed the whole afterlife?” Brave asked, putting a hand on his hip.
“It’s always getting changed. This time, however, he erased it.”
“Erased it? You mean he reset it and did it over?”
“That’s right. The afterlife is completely within his control. One of the people around him must have told him that,” Boichiro said, looking a little troubled.
“Completely? I thought that was a place where everyone’s wishes came true, and the Demon King just had the strongest will of all of them.”
Brave frowned. There must have been dead people there before the Demon King arrived.
“No. There’s a chance that even the memories of the dead within the afterlife were only created after the Demon King arrived. Not that there’s any way for them to realize that.”
Brave nodded at this explanation, but his expression remained unchanged.
“You’re talking about that thought experiment that says that even if the world was created five minutes ago, if your memories were created then too, you could never tell. I’ve heard of that. But if that’s true... no, was always true, I guess... then what are we?”
“The obvious question. But answering it is difficult. We’re on the inside of whatever’s going on, after all. But if I were to venture a guess anyway, if the whole universe was created by the Law of Identity, then everyone, including us and the Demon King, are fictional.”
Boichiro began to choose his words carefully.
“That’s what you were saying before.”
“The afterlife is within the boundaries of her creation as well. And we can assume that it’s within the domain of the Demon King, too.”
Brave nodded again.
“I see. Everyone died and was reborn... But at the hands of the Demon King.”
“Correct. The entire world was reconstructed in digital form. Just like the computer gods once tried to do.”
“So why delete it and start over? He’s practically a god. How is he not satisfied with the world he created?”
“We can guess at that from the statements he made. Because it was a world that had ended, but would continue for eternity,” Boichiro said. “I know the feeling.”
“I don’t,” Brave complained. The frown was still on his face.
“He realized that there’s no story to him fulfilling his desires.”
“I figured that out first. Otherwise I would’ve lived here in this world with my girlfriend.”
“We can’t do that. Just because of who we are,” Boichiro said. For the first time Brave’s expression changed.
“Who we are? That’s what you were explaining, wasn’t it?”
“If the people in the afterlife are fictional characters, we’re real people. We, the Demon King, and nobody else.”
“Just us and the Demon King?” Brave asked, startled.
“We may have been chosen by the Law of Identity. Of course, we’re side characters. But we still have an important role to play.”
Boichiro’s face seemed strangely relaxed.
“Sure, I feel something here that you might call fate. We weren’t caught up in what the Demon King just did, after all.”
“The Demon King is going to start the story over and over again, and see what he can learn. Using the people who went to the afterlife as characters.” There was no doubt in Boichiro’s voice.
Brave agreed.
“But it won’t work.”
“That’s right. Something that didn’t work the first time won’t work the second, unless someone else is there to help.”
“And that’s our job?” Brave continued. There was a hint of exasperation in his voice.
Boichiro nodded.
“You’ve already made your choice, right? It’s always the hero that saves the world.”
“How?”
“There is a way. We go back inside the Demon King’s world. No, we go inside, but we interfere with it without being caught up in it. We
can move upon the line of history drawn by the Law of Identity. Of course, there will be sacrifices, though.”
“Sacrifices?”
“We’re the ones who intervene in the Demon King’s world. Not our individual personalities.”
Boichiro spoke with a strange sort of resolve. There was something in his voice that made Brave uneasy.
“What do you mean by ‘sacrifices’?”
“Neither the Demon King nor the Law of Identity treat people as complete personalities. They each have their own inner world... but in the face of the story, people’s inner personalities are meaningless. That’s going to be true even after the world is reconstructed.”
“I see...” Brave said, and sighed.
“We’ll be treated as a personality that has been reconstructed to serve as the hero.”
“That’s right. Probably because that’s how the Law of Identity wants it. That’s what it means to be a character.”
“I don’t want that to happen to me,” Brave said. But Boichiro was no longer in front of him. He could feel memories, a mind, and knowledge flooding into him, and he closed his eyes to examine each in turn. He kept breathing softly, and then looked up at the sky.
“I understand. We need to show something to the Law of Identity.”