Chapter 17 "The True Timeline"
Chapter 17
The True Timeline
The Kejinto siblings rush off, heading for each other. They are about to throw their fists at each other.
Before their fists get connected to each other, they suddenly get grabbed by a third person's hand. They then get tossed all the way across the street crashing into two more standing buildings.
“President Kejinto!” One of the bodyguards cries in panic.
“W-what?” Siko blinks in confusion, still looking at Katuo who is struggling to get up from the rubble of debris. What he did see was that the Kejinto siblings were thrown into the air by some kind of invisible entity. “What happened?”
“Well, well… we can’t allow that fight to get out of control, correct?” A cheerful figure is standing in the middle of the road between Siko and Perra’s bodyguards.
“Hikyou-sama?” Siko asks softly, recognizing him right away. Black hair and sharp green eyes. White loose pants with black sash along with black combat shoes. Golden halo hovering above his head. A pair of wings with black and white feathers.
“Double God!” The bodyguards quickly drop down to their knees.
“Hiya, Siko!” Hikyou waves his hand cheerfully. “It must be so good to see you again, eh?”
“I thought you could not leave the dimension at all?” Siko asks.
Hikyou gives a lighthearted laugh. “So much stuff happened in the last fifty years!” He winks at him with a grin on his face and continues. “You ended up here by accident, right? Well, I’m here to send you back to your correct timeline before you mess it up any further. Especially when…”
He glances at Katuo and Perra stumbling out of the rubble. “If there were no Dark and Light Gods in the past… then there wouldn’t be any in the future either.”
“You’re right!” Siko gasps in horror.
“Hikyou-sama?” Perra wipes her white buttoned shirt with her own hands, but some of black stains still remain. “What are you doing here?”
“Hi, Perra! I’m here to bring them back.” Hikyou jerks his thumb at Katuo. “They are not supposed to be here.”
“What?” Perra raises an eyebrow in confusion. She scowls and asks, “But what about the Volesmashians? They wiped out some of the major cities all over the world! Hong Kong, Tokyo, London, Madrid, and even Washington D.C.! We kept calling you for help, but you never came!”
“What the hell is going on? The cities were destroyed?” Katuo asks.
Hikyou’s smile fades away from his face, as he makes a sharp stare at Perra. “It’s none of our business. You are the President - you are supposed to protect the Earth.”
“Earth is the Heart of the Fifth Universe! Your universe would be completely destroyed if we did not stop the Volesmashians!”
“That’s why we had faith in you.” Hikyou gives her a half-smirk. “We trust you. After all… you are the daughter of Tezuka Kejinto, yes?”
Perra scoffs at him. “Whatever. He would be pissed off at you if he were still here.”
“Wait, are you saying that Tezuka is dead?” Katuo asks.
“Duh!” Perra rolls her blue eyes. “He had a stroke, but he never showed any sign of it. He either hid the pain or he did not notice it at all. It was so… sudden.”
“When did he die?”
Just before Perra answers the question, Hikyou interrupts her as he creates a new portal out of nothingness. “Sorry, Perra! We will come back when we are finished.”
He turns to the new Gods, ignoring Perra’s protests. “We should go right now. Follow me, Katuo and Siko.”
~*~
“That was amazing! I wish I could see my family, you know?” Siko exclaims in excitement before he realizes that Katuo is still scowling. “Um, I’m sorry. You wanted to spend a little more with your sister, right?”
Katuo scoffs. “Her? Who the hell would want to spend time with a brat like her? I mean… it’s just that… I’m glad to see her being still alive and doing well in the future, you know? But it’s my father… that I’m more concerned about. He couldn’t have died of stupid thing like a stroke. It’s bullshit!”
“He did. He’s just a human, you know?” Hikyou turns to Katuo and Siko after stopping walking in the middle of the street with heavy dense mist. “The Timeline Protector will take you back to 2065. Just… Please do not do anything to risk our timeline.”
“What would happen if we wanted to change something? Like saving my father?” Katuo asks.
Hikyou gives a lighthearted chuckle. “Don’t you hate him?”
“I do, but who cares? He’s my father.” Katuo crosses his arms with an annoyed look on his face.
“Well, then! I’m leaving right now,” Hikyou says cheerfully. “Good luck! See you soon!”
“H-hey! You never answered my question --” Katuo stops when the future Double God winks and then leaps backward into another portal, which then shuts close and disappears in an instant. “Why that bastard!”
“So, where are we?” Siko glances around, trying to find someone - at this point, just anyone - in the dense fog. “I wonder if Hikyou-sama forgot to introduce us to the Timeline Protector?”
“He always does.” A familiar voice gives a light chuckle.
Katuo and Siko almost jump out of their skin. They keep looking until they find quite a familiar person. “Jikan?!” They shout as they quickly get into the fighting poses.
Jikan giggles at them. “It’s ok. I don’t want to fight you.”
“Why did you come to the past to kill us?!” Katuo yells angrily.
“I did?” Jikan looks up at the sky. She gasps lightly as if a bell has rung for her. “Ah, that’s right. That was a very long time ago.” She bows her head a little. “I’m sorry about that. What I did to you… to your fathers… as well as to your families… I’m really sorry.”
The new Gods look at each other in confusion. Siko starts, “You’re sorry now? It’s not too long ago that you wanted to get rid of us.”
“Didn’t Hikyou-sama tell you that he was taking you to the Timeline Protector? Because I’m the one.” Jikan raises an eyebrow.
“You’re the Timeline Protector?” Katuo stares at her in disbelief. “Since when?”
“Since the beginning.” Jikan smiles at them. “I’ve been watching you guys for a long time… in several parallel timelines. There are millions of them at this moment, but sooner or later, there will be only one true timeline at the end.”
She waves her long wand around, creating a large amount of sparkling gold dust. It quickly dissipates the heavy fog, revealing a completely different kind of atmosphere.
They are standing in the middle of the field full of the flowers this time. Jikan hums cheerfully before she says, “Right now, we are inside the Soul of the Fifth Universe. The knowledge of all timelines… Only the Fifth and I have it, but only… the people of this universe have the power to change the timeline. Including you.”
She waves her wand one more time before millions of screens appear in the air. “There are thousands of possibilities --”
“Katuo! Look!” Siko cries, as he points his finger at one of multiple thin screens floating in the air. Katuo immediately follows after him.
As soon as the Dark God takes a look at the screen, he freezes at the sight. It is his own father… Only a younger version of him. “Is that my father…?”
~*~
YEAR 2046
“No,” Tezuka said with a scowl on his young face. “We might have started off a little very slow back then… but even with the countless numbers of our ideas and values, we have our own rights as human beings! Every country should be able to govern itself. I believe that Earth is trapped in chains because of our ignorance. Yes, we declared war on the enemy without ever finding out who attacked us and how they did so. But that’s the reason why we needed to protect ourselves from another terrible attack. The west coast was already wiped out, so how in the hell would you know anyway?”
“You punks!” The orange-haired man laughed loudly, as he pulled his hands with fireballs back. “Either way, you die!”
~*~
The screen ends so fast that Katuo gets startled by a sudden blackout. He glances at a bright red flashing arrow next to the black screen pointing at hundreds of the screens. “Is… Are those different timelines?”
“Is someone trying to change the past or something?” Siko asks worriedly. He glances back at one of the screens and gasps lightly at the sight of Katuo’s father yelling in pain along with possible third-degree burns on his skin.
But that screen disappears immediately, leaving both Siko and Katuo confused even further.
“But the others are still here… So that means… That one never happened?” Katuo pouts at himself. “So, that means… My father never got burned. Never saw any burn scar on him.”
“You’re right.” Jikan nods her head in agreement. She sighs lightly, “That’s a relief. This one really struck around for a long, long time.”
“Hey, who is this?” Katuo points his finger at one of the screens where Tezuka and Ryu are already down with their souls hovering outside their bodies, linked by the chains.
~*~
JANUARY 1, 2049
Ryu's real body suddenly threw up a large amount of blood onto the ground, convulsing violently.
Tezuka kept trying to get himself out of the chains, but they kept getting tighter and tighter every second. The chains firmly wrapped around his body, completely trapping his arms underneath.
A grinning gray-haired old man burst into a loud laughter at their useless and pointless struggles. He was holding tightly his own chains, which were wrapped around Ryu’s and Tezuka’s real bodies.
~*~
The screen stops playing suddenly, startling the Gods.
“Ah,” Jikan says worriedly, “This is it. The next true timeline will be chosen… but there are hundreds of them.”
The Gods are watching hundreds of the screens suddenly shattering into tiny pieces. Within a mere second, they are reduced to only one screen, which begins to play.
~*~
A blonde-haired man suddenly appeared out of nothingness only to fall onto his face.
“Ow, ow!” He cried as he rubbed his throbbing face. He took a brief look at his nearly invisible hands, which were completely covered by a bright white aura. “Wh-what is this?”
He froze when he heard Ryu screaming in pain. “Oh crap! They are dying!”
He tried to run only to realize that he had already run past his friends. He quickly stopped himself and then turned back to return to Ryu and Tezuka as fast as possible.
“Break,” He said after he hurriedly placed his hand on Ryu’s real body. His bright yellow energy was glowing and then shattering the evil old man’s chains into pieces. Within an instant second, Ryu’s soul was back in his real body.
“W-what?!” The old man cried in surprise when Ryu’s soul disappeared from his hand suddenly.
Tezuka, still in his soul mode, glanced at Ryu only to have his eyes widening in shock. "S-Sky?"
Sky gracefully walked past Ryu towards Tezuka's body and placed his hand on the lavender-haired man’s back.
"Tezuka..." He said softly. He then smiled sadly. "I'm sorry that this had to end this way. I'm so happy that we became friends. I'm really grateful that... You accepted the way I am."
Tezuka clenched soil into his fist and tried to open his mouth but no words came out.
"Aren't you supposed to be dead --" The old man froze as soon as he found Sky's corpse a few yards away. He glanced back at the blonde-haired man who looked exactly like Sky. "Who are y-you?"
Sky flashed a big grin on his face. "I'm your worst nightmare!”
~*~
“Sky,” Katuo says softly. “Tezuka never mentioned him.”
Siko shakes his head. “My father did not say anything about him either. I wonder why?”
“They probably didn’t want to talk about it.” Jikan plays a little with her wand. “Sky died for them. It was painful for your fathers back then. That was my fault, so I hope to apologize to them someday… that’s if Hikyou-sama lets me travel through time one more time.”
“If you want to change the timeline…” Siko pauses briefly before he continues, “why can’t you do it?”
“I had already caused enough damage.” Jikan turns away from them. She begins to walk past several screens, followed by the Dark and Light Gods. “Now, all I can do is to watch and protect the timeline.”
“Whoa,” Siko says in awe. “This one has so many timelines compared to others.”
“2098 is the year when so many possibilities open up,” Jikan says, as she waves her long wand around in the air, making millions of screens appear in the air. She pauses briefly and then gives a thoughtful sigh. “It’s also the year when I was born. I always come back here because I’ve always been so afraid that… the past version of myself would have done something to change the timeline. The thing is… If I did not get the power of time traveling, then you would never have existed.”
“We were not supposed to exist?” Siko asks.
Jikan gives them a sad smile. “Originally no. Without you guys… Without the Dark and Light Gods, the universe would have ended in 2098...”
“When Hikyou ran out of dark and light energies to feed the universe in order to keep it alive,” Katuo finishes for her. When Jikan nods in response, he scoffs lightly, “Can you show us… the original timeline without…”
He glances at the screens one more time. “Without the Kejinto and Mitsukai?”
Jikan waves her wand one more time before the whole atmosphere changes once again.
~*~
August 7, 1049
“Dammit!” Hikyou screamed tearfully. He slammed his fists into the ground, instantly creating a new large crater. “Damn it all to hell!!”
“Hikyou-sama!” A male stranger cried in concern. “Please, Hikyou-sama! Calm down!”
“They fucking died, Tenshu!” Hikyou turned to him fast with fresh tears streaming down his face. “They sent me back here… and went off to die like that!”
“Hikyou.”
The rest of other people, including Tenshu, turned to a tiny voice only to find a child with blackish-white hair walking toward Hikyou.
“Fifth Universe?” Tenshu asked softly, making other people gasp in surprise.
“I want Katuo Kejinto and Siko Mitsukai,” the child demanded.
Hikyou scowled even deeper at the Fifth Universe’s demand. He got up so fast that it almost made him dizzy. “What about Keiran and Jalen?! They did everything to save you from Kira’s destruction!”
The child’s silent treatment only made the Double God even angrier.
“You know what? Fuck Kejinto and Mitsukai! I don’t care if you die!” Hikyou turned around only to create a new portal out of the air and ran through it, disappearing completely.
~*~
“After that, he went to Dios’s First Universe.” Jikan shakes her head sadly. “It’s always been so hard to watch him like that… He was always so happy… with the previous Dark and Light Gods… the fifth Gods before you guys. He really did love them.”
Millions of screens linked to the previous screen suddenly made loud cracking sounds before they broke into tiny pieces. “That would have happened if Hikyou-sama came back too late... the early deaths of your great-grandfathers, Kowareta Kejinto and Gotsu Mitsukai… Earth would have been intruded by the Volesmashians if it were not for your grandfathers, Starke Kejinto and Tokuso Kejinto. Without them, Tezuka Kejinto and Ryu Mitsukai would never exist. Without you guys… the Fifth Universe would have been completely annihilated.”
“So, what changed the timeline?” Katuo asks, “Or rather… how did it change if… especially, you as the Timeline Protector, were born in 2098? What changed Hikyou-sama’s mind or did someone convince him?”
Jikan smiles brightly at them. “I am not the right person to answer. That’s up to Hikyou-sama to answer your question. Speaking of which, he asked me to send you to 1049 when he was still in Dios's universe.”
“1049, eh?” Siko raises an eyebrow. “Why don’t we go to the time period where we can save our great-grandfathers from early deaths?”
Jikan shrugs her shoulders. “I asked him the same question right before he sent me back to the beginning of the universe. He never answered and just said that it was an order. So I had been waiting for you for a long time.”
“All right, then. Take us to 1049,” Katuo says.
The Timeline Protector smiles once again. “Take your time. When you’re done, please call out Time Portal. It will take you back to your time period. Please close your eyes.”
The Gods do as she told them to.
~*~
FIRST UNIVERSE
YEAR 1049
Hikyou resists the urge to sigh, trying not to disrupt the sleeping red-winged man in his bed, as he hastily places his pants on before he carefully leaves the room and closes the door lightly.
He glances around and takes a deep breath of brand new fresh air. He sighs lightly as if he is relieved. In his own universe, the air almost always reeks of death.
He takes a long, long walk, as if he is trying to get away from the temple…
No. Away from everything. Even his red-winged lover.
It has been a few months since the death of Keiran and Jalen. Hikyou does not know if he could ever go back to the Fifth Universe. He knows that the universe would be ok… for now.
But it will not last like this forever. Sooner or later, he will have to go back.
He looks up at the bright blue sky, frowning as if it is mocking him for his unhappiness. He is getting lost in his own memories of Keiran and Jalen. Keiran always scowled every time Hikyou made fun of him while Jalen laughed at them. Jalen was the best cook out of all the previous Gods. Keiran had more sympathy for the Fifth Universe compared to all other previous Gods.
He does not even notice that his fresh tears are now sliding down his face. At this point, he did not care. He is numb.
His thoughts are interrupted when two bright orbs instantly appear in his sight. He blinks in both surprise and confusion.
The orbs suddenly shoot a few bright beams of light before they turn into the figures of two humans.
“Wow!” Siko exclaims. “Is this the First Uni--?”
“Shhh.” Katuo places his hand on the Light God’s shoulder and whispers into his ear, “He’s right there.”
Hikyou is staring at them in disbelief. The strangers definitely have the wings of the Fifth Universe - one with white feathers and another one with black feathers. He finally says, “I must be dreaming… It can’t be… Keiran? Jalen? No… It… You both feel completely different. Who are you exactly?”
Siko softens his light green eyes and then flashes a big grin. He glances at Katuo and gives him a knowing nod. He turns back to Hikyou and begins, “Hope of Earth will bring us peace.”
“Faith of Heaven and Hell will end all of suffering and torture,” Katuo says.
“Bravery of Angels will protect the people of the universe.”
“Love of Light and Darkness will bring you back,” They finish together.
Hikyou frowns in confusion. He repeats the words by himself, “Hope of Earth will bring us peace. Faith of Heaven and Hell will end all of suffering and torture. Bravery of Angels will protect the people of the universe. Love of Light and Darkness will bring me back.”
“What the hell does it mean --” He stops when he realizes that the strangers are completely gone. He closes his mouth and decides just to stand there for a few more minutes. He can feel the light breeze on his bare skin.
He wipes his tears with his bare hands and then turns to return to the temple just in time his red-winged lover is waking up.