"It's good to finally meet you, Wyatt Williams."

The woman wears an odd business-casual, clad in loose jeans and a sharp blazer over a low-hung top. Her brown, loose locks flow freely behind her and her eyes pierce right through my soul.

"Do I know you?"

"No, but I've been watching you very closely. You've done a great job to get this far, and now we capitalize!"

"You sound awfully excited over the idea of killing a person… What exactly is your relationship to the boss?"

"We were friends, once." She huffs. "That hasn't been the case for a while, though.. If she knew I were here, she'd hop out of the sim right now and kill me!"

The notion gives her a laugh, but only vexes me more. Who is this woman…?

Beating around the bush will get me nowhere. "So, what's your plan?"

"I'm not quite sure, yet… We can't turn the sim off entirely, since there's an active protocol that will reverse the flow of time if it is destroyed. We will need to deal with the problem individually, which means killing the perpetrator both in the sim and when she comes out. The cryotank has its own measures that will prevent us from killing her while she's in there, though, so we'll have to do things one by one."

Reversing the flow of time… Could that explain the age discrepancy between Tsunami and Xavier? "If time resets, though, Quandary will come back to life and we can repeat our actions until we figure out a way for everyone to stay alive… Right?"

"Not quite. You won't remember any of this after time resets, so your actions wouldn't differ. And regardless, people like Quandary usually don't come back to life because of a reset in time."

"Wait, so other people would? Why not Quandary?"

"Quandary is a fartime, as her master is. The fartime can exist in all moments, but with their death they cease to exist in any. The matter that made her up was created at birth, and is destroyed in death."

"How is that possible? Matter can't do either of those things, I thought…"

"It's impossible to know, this is just the way things are. The fartime have been and always will be the sovereigns of reality as we know it. Even when one regime is destroyed, another is sure to replace them. Ad infinitum."

Okay, now I have no clue what she's talking about. Something to chew on for later if I get out of this, surely. "So how do we kill Tsunami in the sim?"

"Usually I would just assign someone administrative privileges," The woman continues, "But this rendition of the sim does not allow anyone within the sim to change things internally, unlike the last one. It's made to be a closed environment. But… there's luckily one loophole to this."

I can't help but interrupt her. "Before you tell me… If that's the case, how can Monika still command control over the sim? Make things unwatchable, and all that?"

"Through this loophole exactly, as a matter of fact. She had help." She moves to the computer keyboard and starts fiddling with it. "While you can't apply code from the inside, or remotely, there is an in-between point where code can be inserted. The bullet system used to get people into the sim makes this necessary, since their brain information needs to be converted to AI."

"That makes sense… So you're using a bullet, then?"

"That's right. Listen closely, as I'll need you to do exactly what I say."

…

"Tyler. There is no reason for you to oppose me." Tsunami stands with her legs spread, ready to unleash her weapon at any moment.

The man standing across from her does not move, stoic in his stance. "I have every reason to. Not just for me, but for Elizabeth and everyone else that he's hurt."

I can't believe what I'm seeing… I'd thought that as much as Tyler hates me now, he wouldn't want to kill me in cold blood.

"I never took you to be this kind of guy…" I chuckle, still coughing blood with every word.

Without even looking my way, Tyler retorts. "I never took you to be the man you are, either. You should know better than anyone that people change… Xavier."

The way he says my name rolls off his tongue like acid. Somehow, it stings more than anything else he's told me today.

Not to step out of her commanding role for long, Tsunami pipes up again. "McEnroe hurt me more than you could ever know, Tyler. I have been preparing for this moment for millennia. There is nothing I want more than to see the light leave his eyes."

"That's odd, because I was friends with him for years and I don't even know who the hell you are," Tyler says mockingly. "All I've ever done was try to stick in his corner and help him, and he killed me for it. I'd be six feet under if time had been any less flexible with me!"

Tsunami clenches her fist around her scythe. "McEnroe took the most important person in my life from me… And all he did from there was play me for a fool. He used me for his own manipulative purposes, and discarded me when I was no longer needed. He is a pathetic excuse of a man who only cares for himself."

It's hard to think straight with adrenaline pumping through my body, but I rack my head regardless of who this person could possibly be.

For the grudge she has against me, I feel like I would need to have recognized her…

"Could it be…?"

The outside thought stuns me for a moment. PG? What is it?

I hear some rustling in the back of my mind, but before she can answer I hear a loud clanging sound from the two people right in front of me. My head snaps over to see Tsunami's scythe-blade in full swing, having hit the ground after a narrow dodge from Tyler.

"For these millennia you said you trained for, you sure don't have too much to show for it." The man, much taller and stronger than his opponent, locks her into a stranglehold while throwing point-blank punches at her. "I saw what you did to that other lady… She followed you, and you betrayed the trust she had in you! Don't pretend that you deserve any better a fate than Xavier does!"

"My cause is just…" Between punches and sputters for air, Tsunami stands her ground. "I do all of this… For the person I care most about in the world." She motions to the figure in the center of the shadowless void, that schoolboy…

That schoolboy…

Someone I took away from her…?

I look back to her scar-ridden face. Her faint gray hair, sharpened down to a buzzcut. Her pale skin and her one piercing ocean-blue eye.

Somehow, it all looks so familiar.

Suddenly, she yelps. Tyler's grip loosens ever-so-slightly, just enough for her to yank her rope in between her legs. Seemingly defying gravity, its momentum continues up Tyler's back, and before long seems to float above his head in midair for an eternity.

"Xavier McEnroe… I will avenge the boy who came before you, my closest friend, whom you heartlessly replaced on that day…"

Tyler grunts, having now captured himself in his own grip that he quickly scrambles to be let loose of. "What the hell are you…?"

"...I will also avenge myself, whom you did nothing but take advantage of until I was no longer useful and replaced! This is your fault!"

I can hardly comprehend her words as she yanks her weapon back down onto my former best friend's helpless body. "TYLER, NO!"

"It was only in that dive off the school bridge that I was truly able to achieve freedom."

As if in slow-motion, I watch in horror as the woman's cleaver cuts straight through skin and bone, slicing the man I had come here to save clean in two.

"You thought you fixed me, McEnroe, but an imitation will never carry my will!"

I understand now. It's hard to believe, but only one thing makes sense. There's only one person that she, this heartless murderer, could be.

In shock, all I can do is mutter her name to myself.

"...Sayori."