The stage has been set for quite some time now. Sagara had just finished burying Roshuo. Even if he wasn't of their kind, Sagara still admired human customs enough to try them. Sagara just needed a few more pieces off the board: three overbearing adults and two naïve kids. Then the final battle would begin.
"Hello, old friend." Sagara could recognize the cheery voice of a long time friend. He turned around and saw a cat-bunny alien swishing its tail.
"Heeeeellllooooooooo, Incubator!" Sagara couldn't resist breaking out his DJ voice one last time. "What brings you to my domain?" Sagara asked.
"I think you know why. For a long time, we've been searching for a way to help fill our quota on entropy. If we sustain enough of it, we could delay the heat death by millions of years! By that point, we might find other ways to continue delaying it." Kyubey said.
"Old habits die hard though." Sagara looked at the buried plot behind him. "Suppose you find a new alternative… will you ditch your old system?" Sagara asked.
"Only if they're more efficient. But… I figured that this might be the most efficient option of all." Kyubey said. Sagara kept a bit of a poker face.
"Go on…" Sagara said.
"Your games involve a Woman of the Beginning. However, they weren't of an ideal age for us to use for our own schemes." Kyubey said.
"So you decide to wait until there's someone more emotionally fragile…" Sagara kept a cocky grin, but Kyubey could notice that subtle shift in his eyes.
"That's… basically the term. Our targets for our system are a little younger than the one we seek. But we're willing to make an exception. If she makes a contract with us and becomes a magical girl, she could save billions!" Kyubey said.
That was it. That was all Sagara needed to hear.
"I'll give it a think over." Sagara smiled and faded away.
"We'll await your response." Kyubey said.
Sagara knew what to do next. He hated to accelerate the game, but at least he'll do it in a way most amusing to him.
And with one simple chat with the professor and his understudy, two pieces have been removed from the board and now he had a cheat sheet of who would have potential to be the Man of the Beginning. Not that he needed it. He looked at the crying Mitsuzane from afar, on the rooftop near the abandoned laboratory. It was there that he also saw Ryoma's defeat at the hands of Kaito and his… well, exit was a nice term to put it. Messy, but nice.
"You…" He could hear Kyubey behind him.
"Sorry, it was too late. She already had the Forbidden Fruit inside her. The endgame was nigh, after all." Sagara said.
"We needed just her soul. She could have kept the rest of her body and she possibly could have lived." Kyubey said.
"And I needed her to die so that she can transcend that soul into the Woman of the Beginning." Sagara said.
"Would it have been so hard to pick another Woman of the Beginning?" Kyubey asked.
"Would it have been so hard to pick on someone else?" Sagara turned around. "Do you even know who you're talking to?" Sagara asked.
"A selfish snake that only cares about himself and his silly games." Kyubey said. "We may be the same in how we manipulate this inconsequential race, especially in how we helped them evolve, but there's one thing that separates us from you: We're saving lives. All your games do is destroy worlds." Sagara took a moment before he laughed.
"I like you, kid…" Sagara smiled, though his eyes looked right into Kyubey's red eyes. "I agree. All I do is destroy worlds. But I do so to help pave the future, much like your kind. And speaking of, this game on Earth's gonna end soon, and I'm gonna need another place to put a Golden Fruit at and start this cycle all over again." Sagara's eyes began to change from simple human eyes to full on snake eyes.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't pick your home planet." Sagara said. Although Sagara knew of the Incubator's inability to emote, he could just feel Kyubey losing his cool just from his voice alone.
"Because… Because we're adjusted with the old system we got. We don't need any… women of the beginning to help adjust the system. We'll just rely on our contracts. Sure, not as efficient, but it gets the job done. In fact, one of us in another world had just received word about there being an even better system. An old system involving the corruption of the Soul Gems that we forgot. We just need to manipulate our system enough to bring it back. And soon, we'll increase production tenfold. You won't be seeing us for a long time." Kyubey said.
"Good. Best go on your way now… Oh, and by the way." Sagara turned around and pointed across. Kyubey could see Kaito standing on the rooftop talking to Yoko. "That boy over there is one of the two people fighting to be the Man of the Beginning. A real 'might makes right' kind of person… Though something tells me, he believes something else: intolerance towards those who use their might to abuse the rights of those weaker than them. If I were you, I pray to that pink Goddess you keep talking about and hope he doesn't win and I don't feel petty enough to merge his world with yours. Because something tells me that would be a fun game to see unfold." Sagara said.
"Understood…" And with that, Kyubey vanished. Sagara sighed and smiled.
Well, that's one way to get those aliens off my back. He thought.
{Author's note: And this is my second favorite.}
