218. An unwavering bastard.
218. An unwavering bastard.
To give the result first.
The fight between Rhea and Chrono.
"........."
"........"
It never reached a conclusion.
"Fuuuuu—!"
It was Chrono's attack.
He used 'Time' to determine the 'future'.
The future to be fixed was 'Rhea being cut down by his blade'.
"Ugh...."
A 'Time' that was already fixed, a 'future' that was determined, could not be changed.
That was the unwritten law of 'Time'.
A coercive force imposed upon the world.
Thus, the 'result' that she would be cut down by Chrono's blade did not change──
─Seugak!
"....You're doing something quite cheeky."
"Swiiiiish."
She was cut by Chrono's blade.
But the depth of the cut was truly thinner than a single layer of skin.
Cut so shallow that not even blood came out, she lightly knelt to the ground.
A result quite different from the 'future' Chrono had determined.
However, from the 'world's' perspective, this matched the 'future' Chrono had fixed.
Rhea was cut by Chrono's blade,
and even if only for a fleeting instant, she brought her knee to the dirt.
Rhea fell to Chrono's attack. Though it lasted only a brief moment, that fact was certain.
"This time it's yeoui turn."
".....Hup!"
The future Rhea determined.
It was none other than 'getting hit in the nose by her own fist, bursting with a nosebleed, falling to the ground unconscious, losing sight of Rhea, and eventually returning home to embrace a woman.'──That was way too damn long!
"You son of a--cough?!"
"Slowly, start lending an ear to yeoui words!"
He couldn't avoid it.
From the start, it was a determined future.
A future where he dodged did not exist.
Rhea's spicy loli punch set off a double nosebleed with a blaze.
Just as he collapsed to the floor and lost his senses for a moment, Rhea swiftly spun her body and departed.
"──Where do you think you're running."
"....Tch."
No, she was about to depart.
But before even a fleeting moment could pass, Chrono rewound 'the time of his body', stopped the double nosebleed, and recovered his reason.
Within a fleeting, fleeting, fleeting instant, he did lose sight of her, but there was no statement that he could not seize her again.
'Why?'
The vague future I determined was far less precise and accurate than the future Rhea determined.
So, describing a future where she escapes from me should also be impossible── yet it was.
"...No way."
It could be impossible.
There was no basis for it. But having no basis became the basis in itself.
"Using 'Time' to determine the 'future'."
This was clearly a miraculous, cheat-like ability.
But that was only an ability to determine the 'future'── to choose and 'fix' one among the tens of thousands of branching 'futures'.
"So you can't 'determine' a 'future that cannot be realized', can you?"
"...Even so, nothing changes."
"What do you mean nothing changes."
Right now, the 'future' where I devour you whole is a 'future that can be realized'.
"───Kuuk...!"
Seugak, tang! Tadadadang!
A succession of attacks. Gunshots, gunpowder, explosions scattered across the air.
Rhea gradually started to be pushed back, and it seemed that a terminal point was being stamped onto this long fight, onto this arduous and exhausting regression.
"You're getting duller, aren't you? Ah, come to think of it, have you run out of 'Time' by now?"
"...Yes. You are right."
Just as Chrono said.
Since Rhea could not create 'Time' herself, she had now consumed almost all the 'Time' she possessed.
A situation where she could no longer dodge, nor flee.
Truly a dead-end. It was clear that no matter what move she made, she could not overturn it.
"However───you know one thing, but are ignorant of the other."
"What does that mean again......Ddut?!!"
Loli punch.
A direct hit right in the middle of his philtrum.
Just like before, a double nosebleed trickled down and the strength drained from his legs.
'It's okay.'
It was a pain he had already experienced once.
All he had to do was get up, regain his senses, and resist......but....
'.....What the.'
It was slow.
His vision had slowed.
No, it wasn't just his vision.
'What is this....th...kg...!'
His vision, his body, all the movements of his whole body had slowed.
Had Rhea pulled another prank using 'Time'?
Chrono also drew on 'Time' and attempted to return the 'Time' occurring inside himself to normal.
'....Fuck.'
But still, just like before, he couldn't move.
'Time' had been completely distorted.
In a view where everything was extremely slowed, only Rhea approached Chrono as if nothing was wrong.
"You determined yeoui defeat. An arrogant act, but I will praise you. An apostle directly chosen by the one who brought down the sky should at least have the spirit to topple a goddess."
He had determined Rhea's defeat.
The result of Chrono and Rhea's fight had been determined as 'Rhea's defeat'.
This was an eternal, immutable truth. A coercive force that could not be changed no matter what resistance was offered.
"However, you are still far off. Exactly as far as a 'moment'."
'.......!'
"It seems you've realized?"
As far as a 'moment'.
As far as a single instant.
A concept not far at all.
Yet what had just occurred to himself was a matter of just a 'moment'.
"For the duration of a moment, you will lose consciousness. This is a 'determined' 'future', so you cannot avoid it."
Thus, I fell after being hit by Rhea's loli punch.
For a fleeting instant. I lost consciousness and fell.
And Rhea took that 'moment'...
"A 'moment', to yeo, is like 'eternity'. If you look at it from the concept of 'Time', that is."
She stretched the time of a 'moment' into 'eternity'.
That's why the time of a 'moment' also feels like 'eternity', she said.
'That's just total cheating.'
The power to determine the future.
The power to adjust time.
Both of these were powers derived from the concept of 'Time'.
And Rhea had mixed these two concepts into one action.
"I originally did not intend to go this far."
Rhea slowly approached Chrono.
She placed her hand on the cheek of Chrono, who was trapped in a 'moment' and had collapsed.
"However── no matter what, a god and a human coupling is physiologically unreasonable."
Unless you were to ascend to the Divine Throne, perhaps.
At least for now, she had no mind for it.
"Therefore, you fool."
Rhea lightly slapped Chrono's cheek.
"Since you keep throwing a fit and saying no, only this method remained."
Fortunately in misfortune, the 'future' yeo desires certainly exists.
"You only need to sweetly accept the gift yeo has handed over."
"────Ah."
A time that was both a 'moment' and 'eternity'.
Once again, a loli punch, a loli kick, directed straight at Chrono.
After being beaten evenly all over his entire body, his vision gradually started to blur.
'No... I can't, but...'
Thud──at some point, his consciousness was severed.
Soon, deep darkness dyed his vision.
Like that, by the time he regained his senses again...
"Just a moment, it'll be over in just a moment...."
"........."
".....Huh?"
"Hiiiiik!!"
He was getting jumped on by Theia?
*******************
After a short time passed.
I looked in the mirror and checked my condition.
'At least my body didn't get younger again.'
Was it because my vessel had already been expanded?
Without becoming a shota or turning into a woman like before, I maintained my original appearance as is.
Aside from feeling a bit tired, my physical state was largely unproblematic.
"The biggest problem is.... that, I guess."
The 'future' that had already been determined.
I slowly examined the future with the 'Eye of Cronus'.
".....Tch."
Futures that should have branched out into tens of thousands of paths were connected to only one road.
What could be seen at the end of that road was none other── Theia, smiling brightly while rubbing her belly, and me, looking at her apologetically, or so it seemed.
'....Ultimately, it's that?'
No.
I absolutely could not allow that.
After coming all this way, I could not bring myself to say, 'In the end I could do nothing and got taken advantage of just like that!'
Something, I had to find some other way.
"First.... a determined future cannot be changed."
This was a grand thesis and a prerequisite.
Even if I wanted to change it to another future, those branches no longer existed.
So, whatever happened, I had to do that sort of thing with Theia.... or so it meant.
'Do you think the world will go your way that easily?'
I already knew.
That Rhea's power, Rhea's 'Time', had already been exhausted long ago.
So probably, if I just left things alone until all the 'Time' was used up, at least I would be able to escape from 'here'.
As for what came after that.... I would think about that later.
"For now, this will do."
This was the result of doing my best in my own way.
It wasn't satisfying, but it was a result that wasn't too shabby.
Anyway, I had cleared the biggest objective, 'escaping from this place', after all.
I nodded lightly and stepped out of the room.
"!, Chrono!"
"I'm okay."
Theia approached me in surprise.
I moved around and appealed that I was okay, but she still seemed anxious and didn't know what to do.
"I'm really okay. You don't have to worry so much."
"Still.... you were bleeding all over your body...."
"Huh?"
Bleeding all over?
Wondering what she meant, I asked Theia again.
"I was really bleeding from my body?"
"Yeah... like you were cut by a knife. All over, here and there..."
".........."
An ominous feeling.
I felt a strange ominousness.
A feeling as if something that shouldn't have happened, something that shouldn't have occurred, had occurred.
'Getting stabbed wounds from being hit by fists and kicks?'
It didn't make sense.
But what if that nonsensical thing had occurred?
"At that time, the thing I could use as a blade was...."
Ah.
No way.
Ah, no way, could it be again?
I slowly took a deep breath, stretched out my hand, and shouted.
"Agape."
Sareureureuk, something between wind and water seeped out from my body and coalesced upon my hand.
I nodded as I watched it soon take the form of the dagger I had envisioned.
'Agape is here.'
I stretched out my other hand.
And slowly, imbuing my heart with a desperate plea, I whispered.
"Squite."
A voice that rang out softly.
".....Ha."
An empty hand.
"You really are a consistent bastard."
Squite.
He backstabbed me again.