Chapter 28 — Que Sera Sera / Choose Your Fate
Yuri looked out the passenger seat window. The yellow-gold sunlight reached over Yomotsu and Mercy as they approached the door. He was wearing a ridiculous pair of aviator sunglasses, a faded tie-dye t-shirt, baggy shorts, and sandals. Mercy, who was brushing away the hair from her face after a strong gust, wore a black My Chemical Romance shirt, a red skirt, and what looked like combat boots. Her arms and legs were almost glowing white, with the way her skin reacted to the sun.
It was April 1st, the day the three of them were called over unexpectedly to help an elderly neighbor with some sort of important job. They did not mind; they had just been driving around town and visiting shops together. It was a bit unusual, though, especially how Yomotsu described her voice as sounding "rushed" and "layered."
Yuri stepped out of his vehicle. He was wearing a dark green suit and the pink tie with the skull design Mercy thought would look really "cute" on him. She even bought it for him, so he felt like he had to wear it. He returned the favor by buying her that shirt—only, really, he had ordered the shirt in advance and had already intended on giving it to her.
While stepping onto soft grass along the curb, Yuri saw Olivia open the door to them. She was wearing a white dress and silver slippers. He could see the distinct dot on her forehead, her believer's bindi, her share in Albert Maverick's blood. She was wearing large, horn-rimmed glasses, the ones she usually wore, the ones that made her seem even smaller.
Mercy was a few inches taller, and she was rather short. Yuri watched Mercy, as she listened to Olivia talk—he could see the interest on her face, the same interest he first noticed the first time he saw them interact. Her eyes, Mercy's eyes, would get big like huge sunny-side up eggs when she listened to Olivia. Mercy would often, hours or sometimes days after spending some time talking with Olivia, go on and on about how cool she is. "A fangirl," is how she described herself.
Yuri sighed. He saw Mercy place her hand on Yomotsu's arm.
They started hanging out together at 9 in the morning. Yuri picked up Mercy at her place, and something seemed different about her. She was even lighter than usual, more lively in some way. Yuri kept his suspicions to himself for the most part, until he heard her giggling in some certain way at something Yomotsu was saying, from the back of the car. Neither of them took the passenger seat; they sat together in the back.
"Something seems different about you… Are you alright?"
Mercy said quickly, after laughing, "I'm fine, haha. I'm fine. We'll explain later." And she said it in a certain way, like a trickster, like someone who knows a funny secret.
They went to eat at a café, the Que Sera Sera. The way this café functioned is that they would order their food right away, find a place to sit, and then be called when the food is ready to eat. Not many places Yuri had been to were like that, so there was a certain novelty with the situation. When their food was done, Yomotsu rose and offered to grab all of their stuff for them. When they objected, he said he would "find a way" to carry the three dishes without causing a scene.
While watching Yomotsu approach the counter to grab their food, Yuri saw Mercy reach over across the table. She tapped his arm. He looked at her—she was leaning over, smiling, and she paused. Her eyes were moving a lot within their sockets, just little movements, little emotional flitting about, but her look was constantly in Yuri's direction.
"Yomotsu and I are dating."
Yuri opened his mouth slightly.
"Last night, we were talking, and—and we kinda confessed our feelings to each other, and we, well, I don't know how much you want to know, but, we kissed…"
Yuri closed his mouth.
Mercy leaned back in her seat. Yomotsu came back, somehow juggling the three plates. He set Yuri's plate down first. Yuri looked at the Belgium waffles, sprinkled with sugar, topped with whipped cream. He looked up and watched him set Mercy's plate of French toast in front of her. Then he sat down and went to work on his stack of pancakes. Yuri was the last to pick up his fork, and he chewed slowly, looking often at Mercy, at Yomotsu, and at Mercy and Yomotsu, and at Yomotsu and Mercy…
"What you said earlier…"
"Yeah?"
"I thought about it, and I think I have concluded: you were trying to fool me."
"Oh?"
"It's an April Fool's joke."
"What part?"
"The whole thing, that you kissed Yomotsu and now you two are dating."
"Well, actually, he kissed me."
"I told you, I already know it's a joke. And now you're trying to keep up the act. I can be terribly naïve, and I hope you know I won't be tricked easily."
"Then, don't be tricked."
"I don't intend on it. I have gone many years now without being on the receiving end of someone's April Fool's joke."
"Well… Don't you think we should go in now?"
Yuri looked at the doorway. He could hear Olivia talking with Yomotsu, but he could not hear the specific words. He nodded, and she followed him inside. She closed the door behind her, and now they could hear Olivia clearly.
"Seems to me that I can't wait anymore for life to happen. I have to keep going and find that place where my heart feels most at home. Time is not a luxury for me anymore, so I have to choose wisely where I occupy myself. The wind calls for me and adventure follows, so I choose to set my sails for foreign lands and tongues. Where it will lead I can't assume to know, for a wanderer has no destination."
Yomotsu was looking down. "But—!"
"Yomo, with you all here, I have now seen those I was meant to see, and our goodbyes, although this time harder to swallow, are for the best... I appreciate and love all of my friends, and I do hope for nothing but the best in all of your futures. I wish I could do more, but alas…" She paused and then brightened up again. "Que sera, sera: whatever will be, will be. And I will be wiser . The stars and galaxy pass, and I… I enter not knowing. Safety, love, and peace… I only know the feeling, all the love of people, and God above. All trials and worries are set free, not ever again to bother me…~"
Yuri looked over at Mercy. She was silent, and he decided not to say anything either. Yomotsu noticed them there.
"Dear, I suppose you both have heard me? I was hoping to make each goodbye personal…"
Mercy was looking down now, too. Yuri kept his eyes level. "Where are you going?" He asked.
She smiled. "I am going to go where I need to go, so I can fulfill my promises to you."
They looked at her curiously. Mercy was especially unsure.
Olivia tilted her head back and closed her eyes, "It is our light, not our darkness, that keeps us petrified… That sliver of humanity that says 'I am capable of truly great things because I have greatness within me.' This potential terrifies us, like a weight on our chests. It makes it hard to breathe in the skins we wear, but if only, if only we would work with it, with our light, we would finally see it has been keeping us level this whole time, tethered to a solid foundation. Otherwise, we'd just float in space… In each great man/woman (I don't want to support the patriarchy ) there exists the same ingredients that made you as well: the only difference is movement. Will you make a move when fate comes beckoning another champion? Our fears are not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure."
Olivia opened her eyes and continued, in a quieter voice, "I am not going off to fade away, lest that fear is on your minds. I still have promises to keep, to you—and to him, as well."
She pointed toward two people located near her garden, just outside the window, the one whose back Yuri and Yomotsu and Mercy had saw earlier, for their own types of blindness and distracted mentalities, failed to notice. The three now glanced out the window and saw (or, in Yomotsu's case, immediately apprehended the identity of, piecing together the mumbling conversation the person was having with himself) Meilag Spooky.
In the sun, Meilag's pallor was beyond compare, whiter than ivory. It was a new planting season. Spring was fast approaching, and rain was in the forecast for tomorrow and much of the week. Meilag, with his spade, was planting the season's flowers and vegetables and whatever else Olivia intended to have in her garden while away from her home.
"W-what?" Any of them could have asked it, but the question came from Mercy.
Olivia just smiled, knowingly.
"The sky stretches over all continents. Once, they were together, Pangea, but they split… The sky never split, you see. The sky is still one, even if it has to nurture the parted continents, hoping someday they might choose to mend their disagreements and bridge the distances… But, they hardly know anymore what is keeping them apart."
Yuri looked at Mercy and Yomotsu. Nothing was keeping them apart; they were dating now. They had kissed.
He turned to look back at the window, and Meilag was staring at them—although it felt like he was staring just at him—with a cunning smirk.
Yuri turned his head, to look at Olivia, and he saw a purple mass, a sort of spiraling gateway, open up behind her.
"Olivia…!"
Then the mass swallowed her up.
Yuri held his hand out to Yomotsu, who seemed puzzled, no longer hearing Olivia. Mercy grabbed hold of his arm again, but not like before, not because this was the man she had kissed the night before, but because half his body had been swallowed.
Then it gained momentum, and it ate Yomotsu, and it ate Mercy, screaming, and it grew violently in all directions, edging toward the window while going after Yuri. Yuri turned for the door, and the door would not open, and he was swallowed up.
Darkness—all of Yomotsu's life, there had been only darkness. One day, something weird happened in Olivia's kitchen, and he was faced with the piercing opposite, but nothing was formed in particular. Just the solid shade, the continuum of nothing. He heard everything, but you can hardly hear the face of the woman you just shared a kiss with.
"Wh-where are we!?"
"Yomotsu! Mercy! Are you both alright? Olivia?"
"Oh, oh my…Yes, I am quite unharmed, just a little rattled… And this…"
"WOAHHHH!"
"No, no, it can't be… Is this truly…?"
"It's time."
Everyone who had been on Olivia's property was now elsewhere, and Yomotsu was trying to piece where when a voice boomed forth:
"Attention! I know you are all wondering why I have summoned you here, and I will make everything clear before your anxieties consume you."
Yomotsu gasped. He knew the voice, the voice of—
"I am Deus ex Machina, Lord of Space-Time, overseer of your world and causality itself."
Yomotsu heard gasps and awestruck whispering from Mercy, Yuri, and Olivia.
"I have brought you all here to play a role in the selection of a new heir to the ultimate throne. I am soon going to wither away, and if I delay any further, this world will collapse in a few days without a replacement. I have brought forward three people with strong senses of justice, and I have also brought three who will judge them and participate as members of an audience."
He counted himself and Yuri and Mercy and Olivia and Meilag… And that was only 5.
Yomotsu heard Deus ex Machina stretch out one hand. Three of them were teleported to his left, where they stood in front of ornate chairs.
"These three will decide the new god of this world."
As if Yomotsu already did not already realize it, Yuri whispered, "Olivia, Mercy, and Meilag…"
"And the three of you remaining…"
He stretched out his right hand, and they were sent to stand on this other platform. "Have the chance to choose your fate, to bring a new era of justice, or let victory be claimed by another."
A voice spoke up, but it was certainly not the voice of a candidate. "And now that Deus is done with his spiel, we're about ready to begin!"
It was Muru Muru, Deus' servant, the pink imp. She was the one who gave Yomotsu his Diary, saying he'd need it later "for something." Now it was time "for something," he presumed.
"All you need to do is say the simple sentence, so everything is by-the-books: 'I, so-and-so, want to become god of the new world.' It's just so everything is official. Not like I'm asking you to sell your soul away or anything! If you lose, you go back to your everyday life."
Yomotsu was lost for words and even air. It was not the altitude—they were, as he imagined, probably on a platform elevated among the clouds. But neither he nor Yuri said a word either way, never before imagining what it would be like to be in a situation such as this.
Then, after a few more seconds…
"I, Light Yagami, want to become god of the new world."
Yomotsu swallowed hard. "I, Yomotsu Hirasaka, want to become god of the new world."
"I, Yuri Petrov, want to become god of the new world."
Muru Muru, who could be heard rubbing her hands together, announced before them and the panel of judges, "Then, let the games begin! May true justice prevail!"
