As he floated in a seemingly endless void in a prone position, Yukiteru Amano wrapped his forefinger around a lock of his overgrown waist-length hair, then pulled it towards his feet. Releasing the strand of hair, he watched it recoil and float back upwards.

Booooooooooriiiiiiiiiiing, he thought to himself.

"How long has it been, Murmur?" Yukiteru Amano asked in a monotone. He scratched the back of his head idly.

"Uhhh," Murmur began nervously, "Well, don't pitch a fit or anything, boss, but we're coming close to it being like... 10,000 years so far."

"WHAT?!" Yuki yelled, suddenly jolting his body upright. Granted, he was still floating in place, but he was now floating while upright. "10,000 friggin' years?! Are you fucking with me?!"

Murmur just shrugged. "Come on, didn't you ever read the Bible back in your Earthly days?"

Yuki looked momentarily thrown by the question. "Ahh, which one?" he asked.

Murmur smiled and gave him an amused look. "You know, that first one? The first book they called a bible? Actually, I read it when they called it the Torah first before other peeps started expanding it and renaming it and it got all mainstream." She floated herself upwards, hovering in front of Yuki before she conspiratorially added, "Incidentally, the Torah version was the best version. Just like, wall-to-wall sex and violence in that thing. It was SO FUN!" she yelled, arms outspread. Then, she sighed. "They got really preachy with the sequels by adding that Jesus guy and whatnot. Total Mary Sue character, amirite?

Realization dawned on Yuki's face. "Oh yeah, the Jesus book," he said, nodding. "I know that one."

Murmur shook her head, clearly unimpressed. "Too late. Already recorded your answer as a hard no." Yuki scowled at the imp.

"So anyways," she continued, "That book says crazy stuff in it about how long people live, right? Especially in the really old parts. If you read that thing, you'd see that people were living for hundreds of years, sometimes even a freakin' millennium! Which is especially stupid because back then, nobody lived past a maximum of 40 years. So what gives, right? Are they all just a buncha liars, or did these holy people all live for centuries?"

Yuki, still floating, assumed a seated position. He rested his chin upon his hand and shrugged, feeling uninvolved in... whatever this was.

Murmur, for her part, did not care that Yuki was apathetic about her ramblings. "It's a pretty easy answer," she continued. "It was god, or 'the gods' if ya like, who influenced the creation of that book. Gods don't count years the way humans do, because you guys on Earth would always count your years by how many times the Earth revolved around the sun... or you did when there was still an Earth, anyways. Earth only exists because of gods, so obviously they had to have their own way to count the time before humans were around, right?"

Yuki closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sure, whatever," he groaned.

"Thanks for payin' attention," Murmur replied, although it was unclear if she was being sarcastic or sincere. "So like, did Moses live to be 140 years old? Did Methusalucius Malfoy or whatever live to be 969 years old?"

Yuki's brow furrowed. "I think you just mixed up your Bible or Torah with a totally different book at the end there," he noted.

Murmur steamrolled ahead, unphased. "The point is HELL NO they didn't!" she yelped. "That's just stupid. People have never even come close to 969 years of living! The numbers were all big because the authors were influenced BY their god to count those ages in god-time."

Yuki's eyes finally widened from their glazed-over stare as he started to catch on. "Uh-huh," he muttered. "So... you're saying I haven't really been stuck here for 10,000 Earth-based human years?"

"Pffft, NO!" Murmur scoffed with a grin. "That'd just be ridiculous. Ohmygod, can you even imagine? My manga collection wouldn't just be rotten and crusty, it would've completely dissolved! Paper doesn't last that long. Not even in a void."

"So, fine, then how long have I really been here?" Yuki asked again, scratching his arm idly. "In Earth years, please."

"That's where it gets complicated," Murmur said. She whipped out a pair of glasses and a calculator from seemingly nowhere, putting the glasses on her tiny face. Yuki had seen her pull so many random objects from nothingness that this was standard procedure by now; he merely yawned.

"The duration of a soul within a corporeal body has a maximum value of 3.3, and you get a lifespan by taking a given soul/body combination's base value and multiplying to the fourth power... " Murmur droned while she banged on the calculator's keyboard. "As a god, your base value is 10, so that means... mmm-hmmm, mmm-hmmm."

Yuki rolled his eyes. "Cut to the chase already!"

Murmur held up her calculator triumphantly, announcing "About 150 Earth years!"

"Ugh!" Yuki groaned. He hung his led low and complained, "That's still too damned long!"

"Sorry?" Murmur said insincerely, shrugging. She rolled over in midair, floating into a position where she appeared to be laying on her stomach with her head resting in her hands. "What's the big deal, anyway?"

Yuki didn't lift his head to meet her gaze. "I just... wanted to believe that Yuno is still alive. Somewhere. I wanted to believe that in the Third World right now, maybe she's ok. Maybe she's happy. Not... dead of old age while I sit here, forever."

"OH," Murmur said, her eyes widening. "Well first of all, she probably is alive-"

"-how do you figure that?" Yuki interrupted.

Murmur did not stop to answer. "And secondly, you're such a lovesick dumbass that it's actually getting kind of cute. You've really worn my old cynical heart down!"

"Gee thanks," Yuki deadpanned. "Can we get back to the part where Yuno is alive somehow?!" He scoffed. "She'd be like 162!"

"No, she wouldn't, my lord idiot," Murmur replied, narrowing her eyes. "Because time passes more slowly based upon the number of souls occupying a universe!"

Yuki squinted right back at the imp and grimaced. "You make less sense the more you talk, you know that? And I thought the isolation was getting to me."

"Oh please," Murmur sniffed. She folded her arms defiantly. "I was trapped in a friggin' bubble universe for like ages, I know more about isolation than you've ever comprehended in your 150 holy years of boring godhood. Just know that the more souls in a single universe, the slower time goes. It's easy-peasy! We have like... two souls here, and so we've had almost 150 god-years, but in the Third World, it's... well, uhhh, lemme check."

Mumur pulled the calculator out again. Yuki grabbed at the sides of his head in disbelief. "The calculation schtick again?!" he whined. "Sweet Mary Sue Jesus, just tell me how old she is over there already!"

Murmur stood up — or came as close one could when there's no ground to touch — and raised both arms triumphantly as she crowed, "The current incarnation of Miss Gasai is almost 15 years old!"

Yuki's eyes bulged out. "You're doing it again," he sputtered. He sounded both irritated and afraid as he continued, "You're just screwing with me here. You're telling me that after 150 god-years here in world number two, it's been less than three actual Earth years in the Third World? You're bullshitting me! You've been bullshitting me since this whole thing started!"

"I'm 100% for realsies, boss!" Mumur insisted. "Why would I lie to my platonic lifemate and only friend?"

"Why would you lie?" Yuki responded with bitter laugh. "You lied to me about resurrecting the dead! You've lied to lots of people, and I believe you said it was 'for the lulz'!"

Murmur gritted her teeth and growled. "Listen up Salon Selectives, that wasn't even me that promised you could raise the dead, that was Murmur 1! I'm number 2, and I have no idea how you could forget that fact since it's plastered onto my friggin' forehead!"

"You're still the one who lies for lulz," Yuki said under his breath.

"Okay yeah that's legit," Murmur acknowledged quickly. "But I will swear to you on a stack of copies of myself that I am 10,000% honest about this timey-wimey crap you're so worried about. Remember what I said about the paper? I still have manga to read, which proves that we haven't been here for multiple centuries! Although it's pretty ratty-looking and it's gotten totally boring now that I've read it all a zillion times."

Yuki looked thoughtful at that point. "Huh. I mean... that part does check out, I suppose."

"See?!" Murmur pressed. "It's all good in the hood. Feel better yet?"

"Kind of," Yuki said, nodding slightly. "It helps to think that Yuno's still living her life somewhere... "

"Does it feel good enough for you to finally get off your ass and build something already?" Murmur inquired hopefully.

"Mmmm," Yuki considered. "...nah."

"God DAMMIT!" Murmur cried in frustration.

"Don't take me in vain," Yuki replied firmly.

The dumbest thing in The Future Diary/Mirai Nikki is the fact that 10,000 years somehow pass for Yuki in-between the last two scenes of the final series episode. You've just experienced 1,500 words worth of me fanwanking my way out of that stupidity. I appreciate you... uh, enduring it.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to share any thoughts you like.

Yunoteru forever!