Chapter Eleven: All at Once

"Flynn!" Yuri threw the door open. "It's time to get up!"

Flynn rolled over in bed and didn't open his eyes to mumble, "Go to bed, Yuri."

Yuri dashed to the window and tugged the curtain open. Dawn sunlight pierced through Flynn, who pulled a pillow over his face. "But look! There's flags and banners and everything outside!"

"M-hm…."

"I heard music, too. We should go check it out!"

Flynn's voice could barely be heard through his pillow. "They're rehearsing for the parade today. What time is it?"

"I dunno, like six or something."

Flynn groaned. "Go to bed."

Yuri ran to the bed and lept. He bounced on the soft mattress and then crawled the rest of the way to Flynn's side. "Come oooooon." He shook Flynn's shoulder. "Get up, get up, get up."

Flynn rolled on his side and continued ignoring him.

Yuri grabbed Flynn's arm and tugged. "Come on, Flynn, please? Wake up."

After a long groan, Flynn dragged the pillow from his face and pried his eyes open. "Why is it so important to you that I get up?"

Satisfied with himself, Yuri sat back on his heels. "Because cool stuff is happening outside and I promised I wouldn't go out there on my own."

"So… you're actually waiting for me to take you out?"

Yuri folded his arms. "I promised, didn't I?" And besides… even though he'd like to deny it, the terrifying events of two nights ago still weighed heavily enough on his mind to discourage him from wandering on his own. The night they'd come home, he'd even slept in Flynn's bed again.

Flynn grimaced. "Yuri… I don't have work today. Can I please just sleep until at least eight? Please? Then we'll go out. I promise."

Yuri heaved a sigh. "But I'm hungry now."

Flynn closed his eyes and rolled over. "So go make yourself some toast."

It was clear Yuri was not going to be able to wake Flynn. Sulking, Yuri crawled off the bed. He missed the old days when Flynn was free to play with him all day and wasn't busy working all the time or recovering from work.

He didn't know how to use Flynn's oven so instead he got a bowl of cereal. That done, he left the apartment to wander the castle. Today, the day of Estellise's one year jubilee, there was finally some activity to entertain him. He lurked around the kitchens watching elaborate desserts get put together until someone shooed him out and then he sat in the shade at the training grounds to watch knights. This regiment was marching in the parade today, and they were busy practicing some fancy salute that had to be done in sync.

It wasn't even ten in the morning yet and it was already uncomfortably warm. Yuri felt bad for anyone who had to wear a uniform today; they were definitely going to die. He leaned against the wall and watched the bright morning sun glisten off a sea of freshly-polished helmets. At the front, their captain was shouting commands. He didn't seem happy with their coordination. There was assorted grumbling as the soldiers went back to their starting positions. The captain shouted a command. A hundred mechanically moved to the hilts of a hundred sword. There was another shout, and then a hundred swords swung into the air to point at the clouds.

Yuri watched the knights with envy, imagining the day he, too, got to wield a sword. When he grew up, he'd join the knights and be the best swordsman they'd ever had. He'd work right beside Flynn and help him lead the Empire and everything would be perfect.

Yuri watched the knights rehearse a few more times before that got boring and he wandered back inside. He was getting used to roaming the castle, and the other residents were getting used to him, too. By now the word had spread that Commandant Flynn had adopted a child, and instead of questioning looks he got asked, "Oh, you're the commandant's boy, aren't you?" He wasn't keen on looking like he belonged in the castle, but he did feel a little flutter of pride at confirming his sorta-dad was the commandant.

In his wanderings, he found his way to Rita's lab. He poked his head in and wasn't surprised to see her at her desk the morning of a celebration. He was, however, surprised to see her silently staring at a rock.

"Hey, what's up?"

Rita pulled her head up. "What do you want?"

Yuri slipped inside and shut the door. "Cool rock."

"Are you just here to bother me or do you need something?"

Yuri strolled toward her desk. "I was just going to say hello, gosh. Hey, did you ever find anything in that library trip?"

"Huh?" She was still distracted by her rock. "Oh, right, it looks like my hypothesis was correct. I was just formulating a theory this morning that you could lock onto whether patterns to choose the date. I was overthinking the mechanism for going backward in time, too. It's based on a natural system, so it's actually a pretty simple reversal of the formula."

"Uh…. sure. So what's with the rock?"

Rita frowned. "Well… just as I was writing out my new hypothesis for how to make traveling backward in time work, it fell on my desk with a note tied to it. Here." She pushed a scrap of paper across the desk. He recognized the handwriting as being the same that covered all the pages on the desk. It said, 'you've got it.'

"You wrote this yourself?"

"A me did."

Yuri grabbed the rock from the table. "So you're saying this rock came from the future?!"

"Give that back." She snatched the rock back. "Yeah, it looks like a me from the future sent this message back to tell me my hypothesis is correct. So, conceivably I could send something back in time right now."

"Whoa… let's try it!" Yuri looked around the room for something to send back.

"Not so fast. I'm not sure if I want to try."

"Huh?" His eyes landed back on her. "Why not?"

"Because there was a timeline where I didn't get the rock sent back. There had to be a starting point, right? I had thought maybe it would work as a loop, but I don't think it will. I have no idea when the future me sent this back, or what prompted her… me… to do it. So, I won't be continuing a loop. There was a future where I sent a message back in time to myself, but now we are not on track to reach that future. In fact, since I now know for sure that my hypothesis is correct, I'll have it working by the end of the day instead of however long it took the other me. The future this rock came from can no longer exist."

"Oh...kay…." Yuri had no idea what she was talking about. "But, why can't the time just sort of split?" He held his hands up in a V shape. "So, there's one line where you did send the rock back and one where you didn't."

"But then there would be two rocks. When we fought the Outbreaker in the Sands of Kogorh, it pushed us forward and backward in time but there was always only one copy of us. I don't think this works by actually jumping through time but sort of… pushing through it." She waved her hands as if her vague gestures would help Yuri understand quantum mechanics. "I think there's only one timeline, and you can get moved forward or backward through it but there's always only one of you at any given time. If you go back and change something, the future gets re-written to accommodate it. That's why when we killed the Outbreaker, it didn't create a paradox of how did we get back to the normal time if the monster that sent us back was killed hours earlier. Or in your case, I wouldn't have invented time travel if you hadn't shown up now, so there would be no way for you to have gone back."

Yuri struggled to break this down. It didn't help that Rita seemed to be talking more to herself than to him, and didn't put any effort into limiting her vocabulary to words he knew. "Ok… so… what you're saying is that if you send me back in time, everything that happened in the past thirteen years goes poof and we redo it with me there?"

"Maybe." There was desperation in her voice. "Or maybe things just get subtly rewritten. All I know is that the me that I am now - the me that met you for the first time as an eight year old last week - can't possibly exist in a universe where you grew up with Flynn. So if I send you back, I would cease to exist and there would be a slightly different me that met you last year, probably."

"But that means when future you sent the rock back, she was killing a whole universe of people!"

"I don't think it's like that!" Rita waved her hands. "Everyone else just got reset a bit, and anything not directly connected to the change would just happen again. Everyone would be exactly the same. It's only that version of me that irrevocably disappeared."

Yuri frowned. It wasn't really hurting people, he guessed. The same people did the same things, but no one remembered they'd already done it. It was like looking through a flipbook and then going back and flipping through it again. The same animated pictures just replayed the same scene none the wiser that they'd done it before. But still… "They're still vanishing and coming back earlier. How can a whole world vanish just like that? There's so much of it."

Rita shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe it's more fragile than we thought."

This was making his head hurt. "I bet Flynn's up by now. I'm going to go see if he's busy."

It was rare that Flynn had a whole day off, and Yuri was determined to enjoy every minute of it. Flynn didn't crawl out of bed until almost nine, but once he had gotten dressed and eaten breakfast, Yuri wasted no time in dragging him out to practice sword fighting.

Despite Yuri's begging, Flynn insisted on practicing with wooden swords. They started with basic drills, but Yuri quickly grew bored with that and they ended up having a mock fight. It mostly revolved around Yuri attacking Flynn, who easily knocked away most of his attacks, but Yuri did successfully land a few blows on Flynn's shins.

"Ow!" Flynn cried the first time that happened. He stood on one foot and massaged his shin.

"Ha!" Yuri jumped up and pumped his fist in the air. "I got you!"

Flynn had to laugh. "Good one. I'm not used to fighting people so low to the ground."

Yuri crossed his arms. "Are you calling me short?"

Flynn lowered his arm and rested it on top of Yuri's head. "Just pointing out that your head is at perfect armrest level."

Yuri jerked away and slapped Flynn's arm. "Is not!"

"Is too."

Yuri swung his sword at Flynn again, but Flynn was too fast this time and blocked it with his own.

"You can't just attack at random, Yuri. You need to consider what your opponent is expecting."

"I bet I'd learn faster with a real sword."

Flynn smiled mildly. "Well, that's a sacrifice we're going to have to make. Anyway," he sheathed his sword, "the parade is in a few hours. I need to stand at attention during it, but we can go out now and wander around for a bit if you like."

"Oh, yeah!" Thoughts of sparring fled from Yuri's mind. "Let's go check it out."

Flynn made him get changed before they went out. They were hot and sweaty from sparring outside and since they were going straight to the parade after this, he had to get dressed in his nice clothes. Yuri still found it a marvel to have his very own room with his very own closet filled with clothes tailored just for him.

Flynn was wearing his dress uniform when they met up in the main room and then set off for the streets. All the roads around the royal quarter were packed today. Even citizens from the lower quarter were welcomed to stroll along the boulevards. There were street performers showing off their juggling or magic prowess, puppet shows to lure in excited children, and so many carts selling snack food Yuri's mouth constantly watered. Flynn was obviously in a good mood, because despite the no-dessert punishment still standing after dinner, he bought Yuri cotton candy without even being begged.

"You know that's just pure sugar, right?" Flynn said as they watched a juggler throw daggers in the air.

They were too far at the back of the crowd for Yuri to have had any hope of seeing, so he clung to Flynn's back and happily ate his fluffy blue treat. "Yeah. That's why it's delicious." He licked sugar crystals from around his lips and then ripped off a piece. "Here, try it." He shoved it in Flynn's face.

Flynn turned his head away. "No, thank you." The juggler's daggers flashed as they sliced through the air.

Yuri shrugged. "More for me."

They had hot dogs for lunch, bought from a cart and eaten on the side of the road. Yuri thought Flynn looked a bit funny sitting on a curb in his full regalia as he struggled to catch dripping ketchup with a napkin. Despite his efforts, a splash of red landed on his chest. He hastily wiped it off.

"You don't see anything, right?" He pulled his shirt out and showed Yuri.

"Nah, you're fine."

Yuri had just finished his lunch when the castle bells rang. "Oh." Flynn looked up and then rose to his feet. "The parade will start in fifteen minutes. I need to oversee it from the royal platform; we should get going."

"Where should I watch it from?"

Flynn gave him a hand up. "With me, of course."

"Up on the stage with Estelle? I thought that was only for royal people and officials and stuff."

"Right, plus their immediate family. That's you."

"Oh." Somehow it still kept coming as a shock to him when he remembered that he and Flynn were officially family now. Just over a week ago, he'd never been positive when his next meal would come. Now he was standing between the commandant and the empress. He missed a lot of things about his old life, but there were enough good parts of his new one that he didn't mind staying here.

When the parade began, Yuri sat on the edge of the stage. It was a simple wooden platform erected on the side of the road with a cloth canopy to protect from the sun. There was a large cushioned chair in the middle for Estellise. Flynn, as well as a handful of other high-ranking officials, stood nearby and watched the parade with stiff, professional faces. If any of them objected to Yuri being there, they didn't say a word with Flynn around.

It was one of the most elaborate parades Yuri had ever seen. Every civil service across the Empire had representation, with banners depicting far off lands Yuri had only heard about. There were three separate marching bands and moving platforms with huge monsters made of paper and wood.

Once everyone had gone by to pay their respects to Estellise, Yuri had been told, she and Flynn would get into a carriage themselves and ride through the streets waving at people. Most incredibly of all, he would be invited into the carriage. He, Yuri Lowell, the orphan from the lower quarter who'd been passed over and abandoned his entire life, would get to ride in an ornate carriage and wave at people.

The final group before that exciting carriage ride marched into sight now. Row upon row of knights marched down the street in perfect clanking unison. Flags waved and helmets gleamed. They had to have amazing discipline to be so professional even though the heat must be smothering them.

When they drew level with the stage, they swiveled to face the onlookers. The captain leading the regiment shouted a command and a hundred hands reached for their swords. Another shout, and the swords sliced into the sky.

Yuri didn't see the archer. No one did. Yuri only registered the fact that an archer existed in some back corner of his brain that was still able to think about cause and effect. For the rest of his brain, the idea that someone must exist to have fired the arrow was inconsequential to the fact that there was now an arrow lodged in Flynn's throat.

It happened so fast. Flynn had already hit the ground by the time the first person screamed. Yuri found himself at Flynn's side, but the intervening seconds were erased from memory.

"Flynn!" His whole neck was covered in blood. There was just so much of it. The arrow had pierced his throat all the way through. Flynn writhed on the ground, coughing and choking as blood splattered his lips.

Yuri was vaguely aware that everything was going to chaos around him. People were screaming, knights were running, orders were being shouted. None of that mattered. For a second, Flynn's wide, panicked eyes met Yuri's and he seemed to try to say something, but it quickly turned into a moan and a gurgle that made Yuri's chest turn to lead. "F-flynn…."

He stopped moving.

"Flynn!" Yuri grabbed his arm and shook.

Estellise dropped to her knees on Flynn's other side. It had taken her this long to get here? Or had it really been so few seconds?

"Come on… come on, Flynn, Estelle's here." His face shot up. "What are you waiting for?! Heal him!"

"I…" Estellise stared at him with glassy eyes. Her hands hovered over the wound but nothing happened. "It… it's too late."

"No it's not! Hurry up!"

Her head dropped and her hands landed on Flynn's chest. "Even if I restarted," she closed her eyes and spoke in a whisper, "He would just die again immediately and suffer even more."

"No!" He hated the way his voice squeaked. Why was he so small and powerless? "He's not…. Flynn!" Yuri shook him and Flynn's head flopped to the side. Still-warm blood oozed between Yuri's fingers. "Wake up, Flynn. Stop it! Stop this right now! Get up!"

"Yuri…." Someone's hand was on his shoulder. It didn't matter whose.

Yuri's breaths came so hard and fast he struggled to breathe. Part of him noticed that every word escaped his mouth as a sob, while another part furiously declared there was no reason for this to be so because Flynn could not be dead. He gasped for air as tears dripped off his chin. "Come on, Flynn. Please wake up."

"Yuri, it's time to go." The hands returned again, around his waist this time. They pulled and he finally looked back to see that it was Judith. When had she gotten here? It didn't matter.

"No!" He flailed to fight her off as she pulled him into a crushing hug. "Somebody just heal him already!"

Rita had arrived, too, and kneeled next to Estellise with her arms around her. Estellise took a few deep breaths and mumbled, "I can't, Yuri. I… I can't. It was too fast. I couldn't…."

"But he promised!" Yuri shrieked, still fighting to get away from Judith. "He promised he wouldn't leave! He promised!" He kicked and broke away from Judith. Before she could stop him, he fell back at Flynn's side and clutched the front of Flynn's shirt. "You have to get up, Flynn. You h-have to. Please get up… please…."

It was later. Yuri sat cross-legged on the cold marble floor. He was the only person in the audience chamber. Well… the only living person.

Flynn lay on a marble slab beneath the vaulted ceiling. Someone had dressed him in a non-bloodstained uniform and pulled the collar up to cover the puncture wound in his throat. His hands lay on his chest, clutching his sword. He could have been sleeping.

The afternoon had dragged like molasses. There had been a general consensus among Flynn's friends that Yuri shouldn't be left alone, but none of them quite knew what to do with him, so he ended up spending it sitting in his room with Karol in the living room. Considering how much of his afternoon had been spent curled up in bed, clutching his stuffed wolf, and sobbing until he felt empty and drained, he was glad Karol had given him some privacy.

He was only faintly aware of what else had happened that afternoon. The assassin had been caught, he'd heard. He was some radical supporter of Alexei who thought Flynn had taken the commandant position by force. Yuri couldn't bring himself to care. Catching the guy responsible didn't make any of this better. He hadn't seen Estellise since Judith dragged him away from the parade, but Karol said she was holding it together well and was busy maintaining order.

Flynn would be lying in state for the rest of tomorrow, they said. There were a lot of people who wanted to show their respects and say goodbye. Yuri didn't care about any of that, though. The chamber wasn't open to the public yet, but no one had stopped him from wandering in here as the sun yet.

None of this made sense. Last week, he and Flynn had been children together. This morning, Flynn had been his beloved father. And now, Flynn was a body on a slab. How could so much happen so fast? There had been no warning. One second everything was perfect, and the next nothing was. Yuri was still half-convinced this was all a nightmare and any moment he'd wake up.

Please let him wake up. Please let him squeeze his eyes tight and then wake up in a dark room with the sound of Flynn snoring next door. The whole scenario played out in his head with vivid colour. He'd run to Flynn's room and crawl into his bed, where he'd curl up next to him. Flynn would pry his eyes open and mumble a question about whether Yuri was ok, because he was exhausted from his busy job but still putting as much effort as he could into making sure Yuri was ok, because that was the kind of person Flynn was.

Only, Flynn wasn't like that anymore because he wasn't here at all. And he'd never sleepily make room on his bed so Yuri could feel safe, and he'd never let Yuri sleep huddled against him even on broiling nights, and he'd never order cinnamon rolls for breakfast when he knew Yuri'd had a rough night. He would never sit on the floor to play knights with him, or teach him how to fight with a sword, or argue about silly things, or tell him about the world, or any of the thousands of things they were supposed to do together now that they were family.

And the weight of everything Yuri had wanted to do with Flynn rose up from his heart to bring a fresh wave of tears to his eyes. He wanted this to be a dream so badly it hurt and every couple minutes the gutwrenching realization that Flynn really was gone for good hit him anew.

This bust of tears didn't last long. He'd already cried so much today his stomach hurt, so there wasn't much left. He pulled the collar of his shirt up to rub his face, not even caring about smearing snot on the expensive shirt. He was glad he'd pulled himself together when he had, because he had just let the shirt fall when a door opened and footsteps approached him.

Yuri didn't bother looking up, but a moment later Estellise sank to the floor beside him. Her skirt pooled around her feet and he heard the faintest of wavering breaths, which he recognized from his own ventures of halting tears when he looked at the body on the slab. She must be better at controlling herself, though, because when she wrapped her arm around his shoulders, it was steady.

"They told me you were in here."

Yuri grunted.

"Um… are you… doing ok?"

Yuri finally looked at her. He didn't need to say anything to get across how very much not ok he was, and she didn't have to say anything either to show him that she was barely holding it together.

She nodded slowly. "Me, too."

Yuri looked back to Flynn. He almost wished the blood was still there so it would be easier to believe he wouldn't wake up any second now. He could handle an obviously dead body, he thought, but this illusion of peaceful sleeping was cruel. "It's just… where did he go?"

"Hm?"

He'd been thinking about this all day, when he could. His thoughts were a jumbled mess that kept bouncing between crushing grief and indignant confusion. Maybe he could deal with this if they made sense, but they didn't. "There's just… just so much in a person. They're thoughts and dreams and pasts and futures and hopes and fears and love and - and they're just so many things." He scrubbed his eyes again, just in case. "It's like there's a whole world inside every person, and it's so big and complicated. There's a whole life in there. And now… Flynn's gone. Everything he was is just… just poof. But it has to go somewhere, right? All of that can't just vanish!" He slapped his knees. "So where did it all go?! Where is Flynn now?! He has to be somewhere! Everything that Fynn is - or, or was - can't just disappear like a candle. He has to go somewhere." His voice rose to practically a screech. "So where is he?!"

Estellise's breath wavered and her grip around his shoulders tightened. "I don't know, Yuri. Nobody does. Some people think they go to a better place."

"And why did he have to go in the first place?!" Yuri scrubbed his eyes of the tears that had suddenly welled up again. "What was the point? Everything was perfect and now he's gone. What was the point in him dying?"

"Well, there… there isn't one. Sometimes these things just happen."

"But that's stupid! People can die just like that? Who set up the universe like this!?"

"I don't know, Yuri."

"Why don't you?!" He didn't want to scream at Estellise. He wasn't mad at her, but all this emotion had to get out of him somehow and Estellise was the unlucky target. "You're a grown-up. You're supposed to know things. I b-bet Flynn would know."

If she was hurt by his angry words, she didn't show it. Instead, she scooted around so she could pull him close to her chest and hold him tightly.

"I just don't get it." He'd thought he had used up all the tears his body held, but fresh ones managed to squeeze out now. "Flynn was so much. This morning he taught me about swords and he bought me cotton candy and he whined about getting up too early. He was smart and brave and kind and funny and strong, but now he's none of that. He's just a body in a room and he's never going to do any of those things again and it doesn't make sense that so much life can disappear in a second."

Estellise squeezed him tight. "I know…. I know."

"Because he can't really be gone. It wouldn't make sense. Because Flynn always keeps his word and he promised he would always be here for me, but now he's gone and I-" he sniffled and rubbed his eyes, "I'm alone again."

Estellise's hands rubbed circles on his back. "You're not. You can stay with me. You'll always have a home in the castle - I promise."

Yuri leaned into her hug. "But what good is a promise if even Flynn broke his?"

It was later still. Estellise had walked him back to Flynn's apartment. Well… the commandant's apartment. She said he would have to move in with her now, because a new commandant would be appointed and need the space. Yuri didn't want to leave the first room he'd ever had for himself, and even Estellise had been unable to leave. She was sleeping in Flynn's bed tonight.

Yuri couldn't sleep. Rather, he didn't even want to try. Today was a day that had included a living Flynn, and tomorrow would be the first of a future of days without him. Yuri would much rather stay here, in a day where he could at least think that he hugged Flynn this morning, than in those scary empty days of tomorrow. The clock ticked toward midnight as he slipped out of the apartment. Repede looked up as he left, but the dog had been lying in grieving silence all day and didn't make a sound to stop him.

The castle had never felt so empty. In fact, the whole world had never been this desolate. There had been a handful of people he had considered essential to his life, and one by one, they dropped away. All of the Scifos were dead now. Wasn't that just his luck? The one family that embraced him and gave him a home all died early deaths.

What did he have left in this world? Estellise? Flynn's friends? He barely knew them. He knew Estellise wouldn't kick him out, and she was very nice, but he'd only known her for a week and she had so many responsibilities running the Empire that he knew better than to expect her to step in as a mom. Was he going to spend the rest of his life known as the Empress' orphan ward? This future was so different from the place he'd left behind and without Flynn, he didn't have a home in it.

Yuri didn't have a destination in mind, but when he arrived at Rita's lab, he knew it was where he had meant to go. It didn't surprise him to see a light beneath the door and he wordlessly entered.

Rita's sullen face rose when he arrived. "Oh. Hey."

"I can't sleep," he said in way of an explanation.

She shrugged. "Yeah, me neither." She pushed a stool toward him with her foot. "I won't tell Estellise you're up this late."

He climbed onto the stool and folded his arms on the metal work table. "I hate this."

Rita heaved a sigh. "Yeah. It's so…." She growled in frustration and then punched her desk. "Why wasn't he more careful? He told me he'd gotten death threats. He should have paid them more attention. I should have paid them more attention."

"I don't think it's your fault."

"Well, I certainly didn't help. Ugh! And now Estellise is devastated. I mean, Flynn was my friend, but I didn't know him nearly as well as she did. He meant the world to her and now she's heartbroken and I'll never get a chance to get to know him as well and… ugh."

"Estelle says I can stay here." He rested his chin in his folded arms. "But like… everywhere I go I'm just going to think about him. And how he's not here. But I don't have anywhere else to go either. I just…." He buried his face in his arms and mumbled "I just want him back."

"I want to see Estellise smile again. If we could only change…." She trailed off and met Yuri's eyes as he pulled them from his arms.

At the same time, the idea that had bubbled in the background all afternoon and finally led him here took form. "We have to bring him back."

"We need him. Estellise needs him. The Empire needs him."

"I want to go home. Send me back."

Rita got to her feet. "But, I don't think I can. There's already a you that exists this morning. If I send you back… I have no idea how that will work and it might be dangerous."

"That's ok. I don't want to go back to this morning. I want to go home."

"All the way back?"

"If I'm going back anyway, let's do this right. How can I protect Flynn now? I'm just… I'm just a little kid." An image of how easily Cumore had overpowered him came to mind. "How can I protect Flynn if I can't even protect myself? I need to get stronger."

Rita nodded slowly. "You know… I think you're the only person I'd feel at all comfortable with sending backward. You're the only one who has a hole in the past to fit into."

"Yeah." Because he didn't belong here. He was meant to live thirteen years ago, with Flynn, and maybe if the timeline was corrected, this horrible day would never happen.

It didn't take long for her to set up the device. She already had most of the pieces sitting out from earlier. Yuri watched in hopeful silence as the prospect of fixing this awful present filled him. Finally, he had a way to wake up from this nightmare.

"Are you sure?" Rita said when the blastia were buzzing with energy.

The crackling light sent a tremor through his stomach as he recalled the last two times he'd seen it. Both times he'd been terrified and trying to escape before being shoved through it. This time, running into the light was his chance to escape. He nodded. "I have to try. I have to fix this."

"Ok. Then, here." She handed him a package wrapped in paper and bound with string. "These are all my research notes and a letter for myself. When you go back, all this stuff I studied is going to get wiped out. And, if I meet you in normal time, I probably won't ever start studying it. So, hold onto this for me. Give it to me when you think it's a good time."

"What if I don't meet you this time?"

"You're going back about thirteen years. So just remember, in twelve years, in mid-spring, Estellise is going to sneak out of the castle and try to find Flynn. See if you can find her and go with her. You'll be an adult by then; I bet she could use your help."

"Got it." Yuri took the bundle and held it tightly.

"Yuri… you have to make this right. By sending you back, I'm sort of… well, it's like killing this version of myself. There's going to be a slightly different me from now on. And I'm ok with that if it means saving Flynn and making Estellise happy again. I'm trusting you on this, ok?"

He nodded once. "I won't let you down. I'm going to protect Flynn."

"Good. Then…" she held her hand toward the light. "Everything is set up. Good luck."

"Thanks, Rita. See you in twelve years." Yuri steeled himself, clutched the package to his chest, and ran into the light.