Chapter 8: Duration of Finite and Infinite
Reimu Hakurei P.O.V
I am currently falling through the very earth. Digging through it like a drilling machine, but the only thing that is different is the fact that there is no resistance.
As I'm digging through rocks, dirt, gravel, and whatever that is underground, I begin to think, 'When am I gonna stop falling? At this rate, I will be in the underworld that I had heard about. No, the better question would be, will I ever stop falling?' Thinking of that, even if my face didn't show it due to it being frozen for some reason, I am quite alarmed and annoyed at my current situation.
Which is a given because I can't do anything right now, not even twitch my muscles, blink, hell even breath. I don't know how my lungs didn't suffer from lack of air, but now it's not the time to ponder. I need to figure out a way to stop myself from falling. Previously, I tried to use fantasy nature to float out of this situation, but that didn't work, so you can say that I'm in quite a tough spot.
It seems that every function of my body, even the use of my ability, stops working entirely. This troublesome aspect of that white hair guy ability leads me to think that he has some kind of ability to make something unchangeable. Making anything become an 'unchangeable object', that is what I'll call it. A fearsome ability that makes anything stay the same from the very moment it gets affected by the ability to the time when they get out of it effect, and that might be why I can't use my ability since using it means affecting my body. However, it is strange… if I indeed am the 'unchangeable object' shouldn't I be incapable of thought? Or, maybe the white hair guy, Regulus, was it? Were able to choose what can be changed and what cannot? Is this guy so sadistic that he chose me to be able to do nothing but think?
As I'm thinking that, I reach the underworld, which now I can see a big palace in the distance. Anyway, what do I do now? Where is Yukari when I need her? My intuition is telling me that she is planning something…
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Meanwhile, on the surface.
Regulus Corneas P.O.V
"Ugh, at last that bitch is gone! Seriously! I can't stand her incessant presence that didn't know her place! She was just so Irritating! Simply frustrating!" Shouting that, I stomped my feet on the ground a couple of times to vent out my frustration, and then continued on my cursing, "Seriously, not only did that bitch keep dodging her punishment again and again and again, she also attacked me and verbally assaulted me! ME! The nerve, the nerve of her, it's right that she disappears! It is deserving of her to get thrown straight to the ground by me! Truly, I did not make the same mistake twice! The last time when I threw someone to the otherside of the sky, that bastard managed to come back, so this time, I threw them to the ground. This way, I know that that bitch, that shit, is gone for good! Taste what it's like to die pathetically all while clinging on to life." Having said that, I huffed and turned my head around to take my leave from this claustrophobic inducing place, but what greets me after I turn my head are the barriers that still encompass me.
Upon seeing the barrier, I clicked my tongue, and began my rant again, "Tck, looking at this just makes me wish to kill that bitch all over again! Just how dare she… she… she the ballet dance practitioner, putting up this barrier all while violating me with her restless dodging at the same time?! The disrespect! This is definitely an explicit way of looking down on me! Does that bitch really think that this flimsy looking barrier will hold me? The arrogance of her! What rights does she have to do this to me!?" After I yell that, I begin to take heavy steps toward the barrier, and upon going closer to the somewhat transparent barrier I can make out 3 people outside.
Huh? Oh right. That red white bitch brought friends too didn't she. How annoying. Even after death, that bitch is still violating my right to be at peace! Regardless, her friends have to pay too! Given the circumstances, it's only fair that everyone in that red-white bitch group should also be held accountable for her actions. It's only reasonable, after all, if the king should be held accountable for their subject action, the opposite should also be true! My logic is perfect as always!
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Sakuya Izayoi P.O.V
This might be the first time I think that the barrier is being a nuisance instead of it being beneficial.
From the outside perspective, the duplex barrier is like two see-through mirror stacked inside one another, but in the added effect of having the inside of it look kind of distorted, and so it's only natural that the people who are outside, which include but not limited to me, Marisa, and Keine were able to see what happen between Reimu and the Anomaly.
Let's just say that seeing Reimu getting slammed through the ground was not pleasing to see in the slightest. Marisa seems to be in the same opinion as I can hear her gritting her teeth, clenching her fist, and mutters, "Bastard," over and over which is only natural since Reimu is Marisa's rival and friend, and so because of that, having seen Reimu being defeated like that—no, that is not the right term, perhaps, getting 'removed from the battlefield' is more fitting— was just hard to watch.
Regardless of that, currently, the Anomaly is walking up to the barrier. When he was about to cross it, I didn't doubt that he would be able to cross the barrier. However, I at least thought that there will be some resistance when he crosses them, but contrary to my expectations, the Anomaly seem to be able to get out of it with ease, casual even, it's as if the duplex barrier— which should be impossible to get out due to the difference in time flow— didn't bother him in the slightest. And so I show some hint of surprise on my face. However, that surprise didn't last long as immediately after, I narrowed my eyes and made the knives I threw earlier to move again with just a thought, and with those knives were over the sky aiming at the Anomaly, I accelerated its time to make it go at a supersonic speed. This caused many sonic booms to be created.
*Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom*...
With an uncountable number of explosions of the kinetic energy of my knives hitting the place where the Anomaly is at, debris rises. And for the briefest moment, while the debris rising up blocking my vision of the Anomaly, I can sense the new curvature of space, not the Anomaly, but something else, forming and coming toward me, and so without a moment of hesitation, I began to accelerate my thought process by about a hundred times.
With my perception slowed, I can hear the howling sound of the wind coming toward me at a very fast speed even with my thought acceleration. I might not see the invisible wind, however, I can see it dispersing the very debris in the air. Seeing such, I accelerate my body in conjunction with my accelerated thought and dodge the not-so invisible wind.
Afterward, I stop the acceleration of my body and mind, however, I am ever so ready to do that again the moment the Anomaly makes another move.
As the debris began to fully disperse with the help of the invisible anomaly of the wind, the picture of the Anomaly who didn't sustain any injury came to the forefront of my attention. And then, the Anomaly began to speak not so calmly, "Hey now, what the fuck!? Do you think it's okay to attack someone when they are simply walking, minding their own business? What kind of justifiable reasoning do you concocted in your head to do such a thing to me out of the blue? This is simply unacceptable behavior! This can be said to be a violation to my right to my safety! You should be ashamed of yourself for expliciting this kind of behavior!"
Having heard that remark on my ethnicity, I snarked back with, "Indeed, please forgive my shameful conduct then. However, it is equally a shame that you, too, have skillfully overlooked your esteemed reflection."
…
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Even a longer silence.
And then Regulus exploded, "YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU! Did you just mock me?! You are mocking me, aren't you?! Aren't you?! How dare you mock me? Who teaches you to do such things to someone who you just met? Not only have we just met, I also did you a favor and tried to correct your inexcusable behavior, no? But but but this is what you award me?! Sure, I might not need anything, but isn't it wrong to not give out your appreciation to someone who is doing you a favor? But yet you didn't do that, and insulted me! ME! Is it hard to just act civilized and have a normal conversation without throwing rude remarks? Is it hard to not say something sensitive right in front of someone's face? I believed not! It is not hard at all! So why did you throw insults at me? Can't you act properly? Can't you appreciate me for what I have done for you? I'm going out of my way to correct your behavior, you know? I can simply walk away and not correct your behavior, but I didn't, didn't I? But what did you do to me? Insult me! How dare you—"
Having heard enough, I cut him off with a bit of irritation, "Would you like me to wash your mouth for you? It's quite intolerable, I'll say."
Hearing such, Regulus' starts gaping his mouth like a fish on land, it is as if I'm the first ever person to insult him like that. A moment later, his expression changed, switching into one of anger, "Bitch! This is enough! Intentionally breaking my heart over and over, I will not tolerate this any further." And so without saying anything more, he then began to undergo a motion of kicking the very ground itself toward me like a kid throwing a tantrum. With that action of his, the earth rose, coming toward me at an incredibly slow speed.
So slow…
With my thought acceleration, the world seemingly moves at slow motions, as if the world is coming to a halt. The piece of earth that might seem to move incredibly fast in others eyes, in mine however, it is practically slow to a crawl.
And as well as my thoughts being accelerated even more than the previous time, I began to accelerate my entire body, and began to step sideways. In everyone's eyes, I might as well be teleporting.
As the piece of the ground that Anomaly dug out with his feet passed by me with a fwoosh, I stopped the accelerations, and then the voice of the Anomaly rang out once more, "Tck, dodging again like that red-white, huh? Keep dodging and see where it will get you!" After saying such a threat, he then began to raise his arm up. Knowing what he is trying to do — since I had watched him doing it a couple of times when he fought against Reimu — I began to accelerate my thought time again, after doing such, before even the Anomaly can even throw his arm up, I moved to a different place altogether with my accelerated body time, effectively removing myself from harm.
And in this moment of eternity of a second, I begin to think of everything I know about the Anomaly so that I can figure out a way to incapacitate him since I have infinite time on my hands.
Hmmm… from what I know of the Anomaly, he has no time, but yet he still is able to move despite his lack of body time. I might not have tested that hypothesis, however, I knew that that is true since I can't detect him in space and only detect a curvature of space at his location, which means that he didn't exist in space. And since he didn't exist in space he shouldn't exist in time as well since both are relative from one another. And that is the weird part, from a scientific standpoint, it should not be possible to exist yet not exist… but since this is Gensokyo, the land of fantasy, there isn't really much point thinking about how things happen or occur, and so I shouldn't dwell too much on that. The question I should be dwelling on is, 'where is the Anomaly?'
…
Humming to myself, I begin to think about it for a couple of minutes in this eternity of a second. That is when an idea comes to me; If I consider the fact that he had cut himself off from time, then wouldn't it mean that 'where' he is shouldn't matter? Since what matters should be 'when' he was disconnected in time? Let's say, if he cut himself off from time around an hour prior, wouldn't that mean that he would exist at that exact second independently from the world flow of time, essentially making him stuck in the past, and so isn't that what matters here? The 'when'? And so, wouldn't that mean that if I can make him 'present' again from 'when' ever he is in the past, I then will be able to injure him?
Thinking of that, I have an idea.
Why not try to compress all the space-time in one single point? This way, I can force him to be in the present no matter 'when' in the past he was.
With that idea being established in my mind, I stop my acceleration of time and initiate the plan. First, to increase my focus, I hold my hand out to the general area where the Anomaly is. Afterward, I begin to compress all the time around the Anomaly general area into the present.
However…
Nothing happened.
"Huh? Where had you disappeared to!? Is it too hard to understand that I'm losing my patience? But yet you you you still try to test my patience further by disappearing from my sight!" Saying that the Anomaly began to look around for me. When his eyes landed on me, who sported a rather bewildered expression, he began to say, "So that is where you are! Huh? What is that look on your face? Did you finally realize the hopelessness of your action? Hahhhh? Why are you pointing your hand toward me? Are… are you doing an equivalence to pointing fingers perhaps? If so! Are you trying to mock me by taking that gesture of 'pointing finger' further and point your whole fucking arm at me?! HOW RUDE! THE SHEER DISRESPECT—"
As he continued to ramble on and on and on, his voices were soon being drowned out by my thoughts.
How?
Just how is this possible?
Even if he has no time now and the majority of the past, there should be, without a doubt, a time when he has one.
What does it mean when even after all his time being condensed into one, there is no time to be seen?
What does it mean to not exist in the past, present, and the future, but stand right here in front of me?
What does it mean for his existence to not exist in the world memory?
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A/N: Sakuya is getting onto the fact that Regulus is from a different Universe XD. Well, it's not like she knows what a 'universe' is, anyway. Ah, I'll also let you guys know that during the 'Sakuya's point of view', things happen in only the span of one minute… and so because of that, she just seems to be the only one who took action in this chapter XD.