Fragment/4

Precise motions were no longer possible. The data was sound yet at the same time the data was also horribly disfigured and inaccurate. It was a strange occurrence, one that proved to be more of a challenge than any perceived limit or restriction encountered before.

Often times that limit or restriction posed by certain malefactors or points of origin can be deterred by means that would either promote scenarios and paths around said voids in data as the adaptation slowly aligns with what the desired outcome requires. A workaround in this case was the much more apt term to describe those instances of difficulty…

Yet even then they still allowed for a perceived path to function and reach its desired state and result at the end. They were merely hindrances to the tool and calculus born out of sheer mathematical supremacy the origin species had and whatever simulations or scenarios cast by its true brilliance were only overshadowed partially by what obstacle blocked its path to victory.

It always reached a desired result under cold, hard logic that alluded to its true evolutionary advantage over meager species that existed in flesh and bone. It was a system and tool that brokered no such issues when looked at a first glance and it brought true, absolute results with each scenario crafted by a thousand different possibilities being calculated all at once.

What data did not exist was also its forte. For it quickly ran hypothesis after hypothesis to quickly gauge what necessary judgment or decision needed to be created…

And with how long and hard those small and large victories were, it was a necessity that allowed a certain few to crutch on. Not as a tool of devastation, nor for cruelty, nor even for domination…

But as a tool created for the sole purpose of the human race's survival and longevity.

A sole tool among a few imperfect and unreliable ones that allowed the possibility of such a dream.

Of such a reality.

It was an absolute order and function that carved steps into that web of actions that arrived at a very convoluted but reliable certainty of victory at the end.

It was a prospect that allowed such a large degree of trust within the group that nearly no one dared to argue or complain about it. Certainly, when an existential crisis lay over their heads, the one assurance they had was the only thing that they latched all of their hearts and souls to.

Even ones that wished to keep their morality intact had to sacrifice it all in order to place their bets onto a platform and instrument that showed them a feasible path forward.

The young woman who wielded that instrument understood it all deep inside.

They were more machine now than man, but the goal was never changed, nor had it turned in any specific circumstance for her. She was ultimately a tool given form and substance in the most complex of ways and any human portion underneath the skin and mind was just the most minimal there ever was.

Any emotion was dulled to the point of near non-existence.

It was like a living, breathing mathematical and logical formula that was brought to life in order to solve a specific, complex, and ultimately important problem.

Said problem is the equivalent of a mortal man instead of Zeus instigating the Titanomachy.

Or a feeble and bereft child challenging the Aesir to a premeditated Ragnarök.

It was asking for the impossible, in this case slaying a being that was the equivalent of a divine, unfiltered existence in a universe of harsh realities.

Fortuna knew the stakes. She knew her role deeply ingrained within her soul.

For the web of complex pathways demanded it of her.

And now…

Said instrument and tool could not even account for the simple existence of a very large existential threat that rivaled even that of the final enemy. A threat that ultimately led all passengers to a blind, macro-level state.

Her colleagues expected her to be on the same level as she was before.

It was frustrating and tiring.

An emotion that ultimately governed her entire headspace ever since the anomaly first showed its true intentions barely two hours ago. Fatigue was never much of an issue before, but it proved to be a horrible reality when considering the sheer uselessness of her current state.

She was blind like many that had eyes on Earth Bet.

Even more so when that blindness extended on all the possible paths and left them…

…Strangely where they used to be. Yet no new data was collected, nor any new paths that took into account the variables that emerged from nowhere. The entire selection still existed but the ability to adapt, understand, and factor the changes around the crumbling world ultimately proved to be the most dangerous prospect that the anomaly had taken away from them entirely.

BWOOSH!

The powerful waves smashed along the rocks as she thought about those frustrations as licks and droplets of those angry waters hit her face in very minute clusters. She blinked again as she looked at the horizon, which was a large portion of the Pacific being pelted by rain and incessant weather.

Clairvoyant and Doormaker had gotten the destination incorrect again.

And from the looks of it, this was not Earth Bet as well, but another Earth down the local selection that never left the Carboniferous Period of Earth's Palaeogeological history.

A frown formed on her face as she called yet another Door to manifest.

It was starting to dawn on her and her comrades that the mode of transportation and ease into traversing the fabric between realities were slipping, hard.

Worse, the conjecture and frequency of such issues had grown with each growing minute as the Anomaly curtails the fates of Earth Bet and humanity across all the worlds.

It had delayed what functioning, simple requests, and paths her passenger was following through a relatively safe term of events. The variability and danger of the Enemy and the Anomaly were too big of a risk to follow uncertain, very precise paths that were already wobbly in terms of feasibility.

Even then, the path to simply unite, ascertain, and inform relevant parties into one meeting in order to consolidate everybody's forces had proven difficult.

More so when she and the rest of the world were clueless as to what time they had left before the total collapse of everything. Not just in Earth Bet but through all the worlds latched onto by the Enemy.

As she stepped into her destination, one that was hopefully correct this time…

She found herself stopping as soon as she placed both feet on the ground.

She was correct in her destination this time, albeit off by quite a lot in terms of specificity, but what she arrived at was a sight that she did not expect whatsoever.

"Ah… thou had arrived just in time." The familiar voice said as she watched the Faerie Queen hold the very much deceased remains of a certain String Theory in her right hand. A figure manifested beside the infamous woman as it took a small box-like device out of String Theory's pocket.

The apparition then placed the device in the Faerie Queen's hands as she placed it into her own pockets. The parahuman then faced her as a small smile appeared on her face before she did a curtsy.

"Fear not of the sight that lay before thee. T'was simply a calling of the dear Fae that wish to be beholden underneath my arms. Thou need not to worry of their fates for I believe they would have all perished underfoot by the stranger from the beyond." The infamous parahuman stated as they looked at her.

Fortuna remained silent, what existing paths in her head almost accepting or understanding this current outcome. Yet even that certainty was masked with a degree of outliers and doubts in its final, acceptable outcome.

The Faerie Queen, sensing this disturbance merely hummed in understanding.

"Ah… I see. Much as my own Fae, thou calls- nay, thou conspires for the objective that nearly all wish to achieve?"

Fortuna nodded as the path would deem, and the Faerie Queen smiled. She called for another door to manifest just between the two of them as the lights in the Birdcage slowly grew dim. The brightness of the Door allowed the degree of existing tension between the two to be pacified as the Faerie Queen walked toward the new opening with a graceful stride.

Before she stepped further, she looked at her for one last time.

"Know this, for it is the decree of my own will that I approach the stranger under my own intentions. I shall not get in the way of thine own machinations nor does the Faerie Queen become beholden to thou fellows' path to victory."

Fortuna this time nodded with words, assumed to be true even within her own remaining emotional self, "I understand…"

"Fear not dear culver hosting such benevolent Fae, even if thou life and world perishes, t'was an interesting cycle nonetheless…" the woman finally said as she stepped forward and disappeared with the pathway that was presented to her.

Leaving Fortuna with a sentence so cryptic that she even found her own passenger being confused and wary in the sense of it creating new paths to continue her preparations, but in a more hastened way.

Or at least as hastened as it could possibly consider.

She did not even consider where the Door had taken the woman or what specifically the infamous parahuman intended to do to the "stranger", but time was still ticking down and she needed to continue what remaining steps there were in order to report back to her colleagues as they waited for Legend's return. She motioned for another door to open for her current path still required her to do numerous steps in order to do something for what was to come.

The simple motions of redirecting things akin to dominoes became much, much harder as more and more important people and events were already being lost as each second ticked by. It no longer became as transparent or reliable as it was before.

Adding the fact that with every successful attempt at locating and relocating certain individuals to either convince or wring out their existing favors, many unsuccessful close calls resulted in the very problematic nature of the blindness in Earth Bet's current state.

Doormaker and Clairvoyant's tendencies were starting to become erratic.

To the point that she started to question the possibility of herself without her passenger, or of there being any sort of victory in any perceivable scale. Perhaps Legend will be lost in the many worlds down the line due to the issues surrounding their current method of transportation…

Or perhaps the one known parahuman girl that had led the man to an apparent goose chase was every much of a threat as the current yielding anomaly that threatened their existence.

Her own passenger could not properly undertake such a desired answer or even a simple query on such thoughts or theories. She was not even sure if such thoughts were the product of her own mortality and limitations as a human coming back to her, or simply the influence of her passenger bleeding their own insecurities and fear within her mind.

Perhaps it was both.

Stepping forward once more after intercepting Accord, she found herself being in another error of location again. One which prompted her to look almost in awe at her surroundings…

For it was the very first time she would see the Anomaly's Wyrm up close enough.

She was in a dilapidated 'church' of sorts. There in the middle of the aisle just close enough to the altar she stood as the roof of the entire building was nearly gone. The entire church had been hollowed out not because of the influence of the large, looming disaster on the horizon that swallowed the land wholly in darkness with its shadow, but because of something else entirely…

Something early on, perhaps barely an hour ago in passing left the church and the entire community surrounding it into a bloodied mess of bodies and religious iconography that to a simple man or woman would provoke great shock and horror.

Even as innards and literal blood trickled around her, Fortuna merely watched in awe and slight trepidation over the sight of the one, literal thing that she and many others could not see. One that was ultimately absent from her senses entirely, and one that had caused such a problem in literal gargantuan proportions.

It was haunting… more so than her own human mind or even her own passenger could interpret or understand. Not even the smell of putrid dead flesh of women, children, and men deterred her from watching as she felt the winds and the slight changes in gravity manifest slowly.

"P-Please… h-help me." a voice muttered out as Fortuna turned her head towards her right, wherein one of the broken pew chairs was a man bereft of his legs which were now bleeding stumps crawling towards her as he dragged a bloodied, but less injured bare woman by his arms.

They were so insignificant to her sensibilities that she did not even notice them at first.

Fully thinking that everybody had died in this sad, forsaken excuse of a sermon for these Fallen.

"P-Please… j-just s-save her… I didn't want any of this." The man confessed as he started crying, begging even as his body, broken and bloodied as it was yearned for her assistance. Fortuna watched as the man reached her feet and started to touch her leg, painting it with his blood by his fingertips.

"I b-beg of you. S-she's what I have left. I-I want her to live." He begged as Fortuna moved her gaze to the unconscious, bare, and bloodied woman. She was nine months pregnant…

Fortuna looked around and saw the rest of the church and understood the many, violently eviscerated similarly pregnant females strewn across the church, the fields, and the once-green grass of tranquility. She no longer needs to describe nor think about the offspring for they already joined their mothers with how they fared in death.

"T-They told us a lot of things… I-I only wished to be saved… t-to be saved. Me and my wife… o-our child." He said as he sobbed as his skin started to pale and his legs still oozing blood.

The woman, untouched beside him he clutched with his other hand, tightly with all the emotion he could muster for how much the woman meant to him. "P-Please… don't make them suffer for my mistakes." He begged with enough clarity in his words as his eyes bore deep into Fortuna's.

Fortuna merely stared with nary an emotion strewn on her face.

Not even intrigue or curiosity.

Yet… deep down there was a part of her left that tried to deliberately understand the weight of the entire scene before her. Not just of the Wyrm that was about to engorge this entire place, but of what remaining people that were left as tragedies in the untold number that perished under that maw.

She would not notice it yet, but it would be the first time Fortuna would make a decision with no such interference from her passenger nor from her comrades. She looked at the man one last time and took a heavy sigh.

BLAM!

"NOOO! AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGHHH… WHY?WHY?" the man screamed into the whistling silence of their surroundings…

A small wisp of smoke that was barely seen by the human eye exited the barrel of her gun.

The man screamed below her as he mourned for his wife. For his unborn child.

He continued to scream and cry as he looked at her, even with the shock and anger coursing through his veins the only emotion that prevailed upon his features as he clutched his wife into his arms was regret, and ultimately guilt.

"Why? W-why… why did I… why did I do it all? Why… why did this all happen?" he sobbed quietly as his wails continued to echo into the nearly dilapidated church. Fortuna once again took another breath and aimed her weapon.

BLAM!

It was silence once more as she lowered her weapon.

She then moved her eyes back to the Wyrm looming over her.

It was a simple act.

She had done worse.

Far, far worse…

Yet for the first time, ever in her entire life… there was a certain weight in her recent action. A heavy, almost tempered weight that seemed to drag her heart down despite her mind being completely calm with that sole decision.

Yet that nagging feeling of something lost, something buried and nearly extinct from her conscience still seemed to linger like an earthworm.

Fortuna would never have realized it at all in the end, but the moment she stood there and stepped into the church, she was in full clarity with her actions. There was no passenger that callously guided her, there was no urge nor need to follow a certain act or path, there was only Fortuna…

A woman who at her base, was a warped, imperfect doll that danced under the strings and tune of another greater than who she was.

The blindness of the Wyrm had inherently freed her, even for a moment…

Yet the road was already set on her path.

The dye had already been cast.

Far gone was already an understatement…

For she looked around her and assessed with what little she understood without anything guiding her, that it was the most logical, and optimal decision in the face of adversity.

It was… mercy. Yes, mercy in some form.

There was no point in saving those people. There was no point in trying to save everyone.

Tis only a fool's hope based on irrationality.

What justification remained in her head was that there still remained a great number of many that would need to survive. Humanity as a whole, not the individual souls that were lost like lambs bereft of the herd. Nature had its due course, like wolves the only mercy possible was to let them rest.

Suffering was no longer something they would dwindle on for they were already saved in a sense.

Morals were not a thing she was used to.

The path did not require it.

Ethics nor even compassion with what was there was wholly diminished…

For the path did not require it.

Perhaps the passenger had the grounds to influence such cold hard calculus and logic, but deep-down Fortuna was merely an eccentric individual totally absent from the world and civilization around her.

The act in itself may have been redundant or unnecessary in the grand scheme of things…

But in that small moment of clarity, Fortuna only did what she knew how to do

With nobody to guide her, to understand her…

… or even teach her, she did what her body and mind had been used to doing these past decades.

"…"

Gravity eventually started to change as Fortuna looked around her. She called for a door again as she made one last stare at the church and the looming Wyrm beyond it as a small sigh, a humane sigh of exhaustion and a deep sense of futility grew within her.

The image, the act for the first time now being burned in her head like a memory out of the only instance of clarity she had in her existence. It was a potent image.

One that wrought contemplation within her head even as she stepped into a new doorway.

Even as the familiar calculus returned to her head once more, those contemplations and thoughts lingered. She then noticed once more that Doormaker and Clairvoyant had once again made a mistake.

It looked like a meadow…

A far removed, peaceful meadow next to a closed tea shop as the unblemished air and sky shined down on her. It was as if nothing was wrong in the cosmos.

It was as if nothing had changed the world into the darkness it was now cast in.

She then saw a family playing by the nearby villages. A drabble of children happily played under the grass and trees as flowers flew by their heads. A pregnant mother smiling as a father comes and kisses them all in bliss and tranquility.

Fortuna often remembers that what little remained of her childhood was her dancing in the same fields of grass, perhaps reeds, even flowers…

It was beautiful.

"You'd be surprised to know that your local issue is merely a small speck in infinity. Though yes, everything you see, breathe, and experience is real. There are no interferences from the great beyond existing in this world. No gods, no aberrant hosts from the stars… no threats that would make mankind question their worth in the cosmos."

Fortuna turned towards the sudden voice in intrigue and surprise.

What she saw was a man clothed in an elegant manner sitting by a table just next to her as he sipped his coffee. Said gentleman eyed her with a respectful nod as he set his cup down.

"Greetings Contessa. I believe this the first in terms of you and I meeting face to face in some way or form."

Fortuna blinked as the mundane man was talking to her in a way that even her passenger tried its best to incorporate and understand the new stranger she encountered.

"Do not be alarmed. I come not as foe nor as an ally but as a traveler wishing to speak to another similar to him in some capacity." He said as he gestured his hand towards the seat overlooking him.

"Please… do sit. We will not take long, nor do I intend to waste more time on your behalf. There are just some matters that broker discussion, or perhaps in this case, a curiosity that I intend to scratch to relieve the itch in my mind." He said with a small smile, barely noticeable due to the formality.

Fortuna allowed herself to sit, though in a manner that would allow her some leeway in terms of how the entire meeting would be set up or made. She had no idea nor did her passenger yet on who this man was and his intentions…

But deep down she was curious herself. Especially with the implications of the knowledge he possessed from those few sentences alone.

"Do you wish to start first? I know for sure that you have questions, especially with your current status. I don't want to come off as cryptic as many others describe me." he said with a small jest as she merely blinked at his words. Still, she would take his offer, nonetheless.

"Who are you? What are your intentions?"

"The first I cannot answer with full clarity. You would not understand the context even if we were to talk the whole day and I know for sure that you don't have the time for such a thing." He then pulled out a smoking pipe from his vest and lit it as he puffed smoke between their conversation. "The second, however, I merely wish to ask a simple question, an offer on my terms."

Fortuna looked at the elegant man and with how much he was hiding with that silver tongue of his, she already perceived him to be someone who had orchestrated this circumstantial meeting and was very much experienced in matters pertaining to keeping things close to the chest.

It felt like a chess match between two peers. Fortuna in this instance moved her piece.

"An offer. You are aware of my current situation?"

The small way how his eyes shifted against the peaceful background made her twitch. Very little micro expressions existed on his face as he looked at her. It brokered little to no anecdotes and clues about his thoughts and feelings.

"I have an understanding of the events surrounding yours. More importantly, it's a rather common occurrence, not just in your world, but of many."

The man moved his piece in a manner that felt neutral, but inner motives were completely hidden to her eyes. Mechanically speaking, her gaze never left the man, but it only offered more questions than answers.

"Oh, I don't consider your issue a trivial one, nor is it a simple matter that can be fixed with a simple solution, but when you gaze into the abyss far enough against a plethora of different variations, one's perceptions can turn rather skewed."

"You understand the Enemy… or encountered… many of them? How… how is that possible?" Fortuna said, intrigued, confused, and ultimately, flabbergasted at the proclamation as the man merely cast a small smirk in her direction. Even her own passenger, confused as it was started to incur faulty data into her assessment of the man.

It was like a masterstroke within just two or three turns on the board. One that would make even a simple player surrender just from the implications.

"How indeed? Though I must correct you my dear… one's sight can only go far… and this old man you are talking to is neither omniscient nor omnipotent. Yet as someone who has watched many from afar, I can only infer to you that certain players and entities do in fact exist in similarity to yours. Even if different in origin, mind, or intention. Yours on the other hand is quite novel and different yet bears the hallmarks of a great one far beyond the mortal perception of man."

"What is the nature of your offer then? Will it be on the basis of assistance?"

The man chuckled, nearly laughing as he coughed some of the smoke he had huffed earlier. He then straightened himself out and looked at her with all the seriousness needed. "No, I'm afraid not. Even if I were inclined, I would never do so… for every problem can either be solved by the parties involved or simply fail. That's the basic truth about it, a fundamental aspect in the nature of reality, even in worlds that meet their own dead ends. Think of it as evolution, fate in this instance keeps what works and discards what doesn't, someone like me interfering in the greater patchwork will be akin to a small rock stopping the roaring stream of a river single-handedly."

He then rubs his chin as he stares into her eyes. "It's either your world thrives or doesn't and I haven't looked far enough ahead to care on which side of the spectrum it falls on." The sentence was so absolute that Fortuna blinked at its intensity.

"But… if you know so much, do you not understand the stakes? The danger to humanity?" she said with a hint of emotion coming up in her voice. It was not because of the context itself, but she was ultimately baffled at the way the man dismissed the danger as if it was so minor in the grand scheme of things.

"Danger to humanity? That is strange coming from you." He said with a small smile. "What exactly is your stake in humanity? What exactly prompts Contessa to aid humanity in the first place?"

Fortuna suddenly felt the world stop.

Her eyes shifted towards the meadows again. The falling leaves from the newly christened autumn made the landscape feel different as the colors of the dead leaves danced within her muted mind.

She looked at the man again and ascertained the question, only to find herself lacking.

"Perhaps I phrased the question wrong… it's not like I have any moral grounds with the accusations I've laid out. I'm as much as an eccentric person as you and many others are… because with the things we've seen, morality and oftentimes ethics is an irrational mindset even in the noblest or vilest of heads."

The man then raised his finger. "Cruelty however, strictly in the most extreme cases is not something I enjoy but that's the human part in me simmering towards the surface. Selfishness, greed… and perhaps, care only for those that matter to our willful souls is also a flaw I am vulnerable of."

He then locks eyes with her again, focused this time, as if looking at her like a novel discovery of science that needed disseminating. "Perhaps the correct question is what does Contessa still see in humanity that needs saving?"

"Because it is necessary. You talk of greed, selfishness, and care… Contessa wishes to save humanity because she deems it necessary. She deems it… acceptable and worth the benefit." She stated, inwardly moving her piece on the board defensively, yet the cracks remained.

"To what end exactly? To stave the fears of your own mortality? To belay the destruction of what you held dear? Or to find meaning in the darkness of mere being? You possess all the tools necessary to assuage or even solve those many possible questions with the power you wield. I brought up selfishness because well, it intrigues me that you go so far on something that in the end, ultimately does not benefit you, personally as a human being. You wield the possibilities to make what you wish a reality, yet you throw all of that focus and time on something so large and complex that selfishness or greed I'm afraid no longer exists within you."

"Saving humanity is a boon not just for the species, but for the understanding of the enemy." She replied as the man rubbed his chin and puffed another round of smoke into the air.

"You say that as if humanity was important. Think about it… these things have reached a level of existence up the food chain that everything below them is merely ants in comparison. I would then ask you what worth ants have to someone so superior as a human being when they barely affect you at all in the great scheme of things? Then I ask you again, what makes humanity special compared to the many, many species out there in the stars that have perished in a similar way to what your enemy is about to do to your world?"

"I… I don't know." She honestly replies. Her own passenger, was strangely absent from it as well.

"Even if the enemy succeeds, humanity will still live on with worlds such as the one we are standing on currently. Unaffected, unstated, and ignorant to the rest out there." The moment he said that she perks up, surprised and shocked at her proclamation, almost disbelieving the claim, yet… here they were.

"Your situation is not so unique I'm afraid… and out there, there is also a boy or a girl that wishes to fight for the right of his or her humanity to exist against an enemy greater than themselves."

Fortuna looked at him as the man placed his pipe on the table.

"They too have suffered so much, more so in some areas than one… wrought with many hard debilitating choices that some would surrender or give up handily. It went to the point that they also had to single-handedly end worlds, commit genocide, or simply even rob the futures of admittedly flawed, and dead-end tomorrows. Yet they continue on, like yourself trying to accomplish the dream of saving their humanity. Their right to existence."

He then leans in towards her with a frown. "Yet what separates them, and you are the fact that they never ultimately let go of their connection to the most fundamental concept of humanity…"

He then leans back to his chair and moves his gaze towards the family that is still playing in the background against the meadows. "The boy or girl I mentioned are hypocrites in the most complex of situations, yet even as they bellow pragmatism over morality, they still feel the weight of their choices… the impacts of their decisions."

He sighs deeply as Fortuna also watches the family in silence. "I cannot say I truly understand or even support such complex beliefs and aspirations, for morality was never my strongest suit… but I can definitely ask why the little girl that drank the contaminated waters of her village why she chose to fixate on saving humanity when she can effectively live and prosper without them?"

Fortuna froze as she sharply turned at the man.

Memories of her younger self returned to her at full mast. How her village was turned into monsters and how she was left alone standing in the middle of it all, unchanged but given new context.

Then she turned back to the family that was having fun on the meadows…

… and that's where it all clicked.

That family… that little girl playing the grass…

It was…

It was… he-

"What do you ultimately see as the end of your journey? What happens after, outside of the intruder in your world, what do you do when the only sole purpose you have yearned for all of your life is finally fulfilled?" the man asked.

Fortuna looked at the man and towards the familiar child, noticing now that she was standing up.

"There's nothing after. Nothing at all." She admitted, her emotionless voice with a tint of defeat.

The young girl was laughing and playing with her parents as Fortuna felt the sheer, emptiness in her heart and mind. The chessboard, now merely an admission of defeat.

This was her village.

Untainted.

The little girl over there, living a normal, fruitful life outside of everything.

A life and purpose that she would never have.

"This is where my offer comes in, I simply ask if you would like a second chance. To grow, to be a person, to be human, and become something beyond the one whole consistent purpose and dedication that you have strived so far to achieve."

She looked at him.

"This… this world is safe?" she asked innocently, for the first time in her life.

"Yes. Far from everything. This is a world untainted as I stated earlier."

"Why… why go so far for me? Knowing what I am. Knowing what I have done."

The man crossed his arms.

"A curiosity, a new novel path just for my leisure." He admitted with a smile. "You are not special Contessa. Nor am I… but it would be interesting to see a tool grow out into its own, becoming something else entirely."

"This is not an act of pity or of kindness for my part." She realized.

"No… bloody hell no. It was just an idea I wished to entertain." He said with a laugh.

"I see." She said as she watched the child running around her mother, who was carrying a familiar water bottle that had changed Fortuna's own life in the past was as mundane as it could possibly be.

"So… what do you say?" the man asked.

Fortuna looked at him and a great amount of contemplation from her addled mind was started.

But in the end…

Her answer was clear.

Even if the human part in her, unearthed from its grave, had lamented with pure dissonance to the core concept of her being.

"I will not take… the offer." She said slowly. The man looked at her and frowned with a sigh.

"That is… disappointing. But may I ask why?"

"I am imperfect. I am inhuman in a sense. Yet that one conviction within me is something I wish to finish, even if I do not know what comes next. I… I cannot explain why exactly even with the contradictions and foolishness existing within my actions, but… that is simply the only sole purpose that I have left."

She then pulls out her gun and places it on the table slowly. "It's what makes Fortuna… as Contessa."

"I see." The man said as he nodded before standing up. "Forgive me if I find your answer confusing, but I guess it's just something I've heard of before."

He then took out a cane almost out of nowhere and walked to her, offering her a hand.

"It is a pleasure meeting you. I'm not here, fully, but this dialogue of ours was… most interesting."

Fortuna took his hand and nodded.

"Now, I believe you still have something important to do."

Before she could say anything else, she was bathed in kaleidoscopic colors before appearing almost normally in the meeting sight where she ferried all of the necessary parties for the final, most important meeting.

The dark skies were present above as well as the air of death as the looming presence of the anomaly was felt.

She then saw a Door manifest in front of her and out of it came Legend…

His form was now wrapped in a different, strange aura of light as he looked at her, an object being held in his right hand.

"Call them. I need to show them something before we inform the rest."

She nodded and a minute later, she saw Doctor Mother and Eidolon conversing in the Cauldron main meeting hall. The two were surprised by her rather exhausted and troubled state as she thought about her village…

And asked herself what really mattered to her now in this very moment.

"Legend and all necessary parties have arrived… he awaits us with news."

-49:36


AN: Aww yeah… Legend and Eidolon chapters coming next! I hope you enjoyed this extended Fragment chapter because haha… this was quite fun to do. But wow.

We're at the end. Or at least on the precipice of it. I did not expect that and with the amount of pressure in my veins right now, I do wholly wish that I can make the end as good as it could possibly be.