YGO's cosmology is so weird.
I don't think I'll ever be able to unravel the world as presented in this story.
But that doesn't take any of the fun out of trying.
.
Sometimes, Noa liked to watch the stars. He would climb up onto the roof of Kaiba Manor, lay his back against the shingles, and stare up at the vastness above him. Eventually, Ryo started to join him; he liked to point out constellations, but he also spent a fair amount of time inventing new ones. Sometimes he would show these to Noa; often, he would admire them in silence.
"I sometimes think," Noa murmured one evening, as they lay up there staring at everything and nothing, "about the fact that . . . like, depending on your perspective, we're hanging onto nothing. We think of ourselves as standing, or laying, on the firm earth. Or, well, roof. But it wouldn't matter if the earth flipped all the way around right now; we wouldn't move. Not in any way that matters to any of us. We could go from laying on the ground, staring up at space, to being pressed against the ceiling, staring down at it, and there wouldn't be anything to tell us either way."
"Both are happening at the same time," Ryo said. "It doesn't matter. Not really. There is no up or down. There's only space and the things floating in it. We just so happen to live on one of those floating things. Just one in an infinitude. That's what gets me. Just . . . how much there is in the universe, and we're such a small part of it. Just a sliver. But everything that happens is still so meaningful."
"We are a twinkling in the imagination of the smallest star," Noa said dreamily. "There is no truth hanging over existence. No grand designer. Or, I guess, maybe there is. Amun or Ra or Atem or . . . whatever. But whatever they are, they don't think like we do. Not in any meaningful way. How could any grand creator lower itself to us? It would be like asking us to think like a grain of sand. It's barely a thought experiment. That's why gods mean . . . so little to me. Aniki says they exist, and if he says it, then I see no reason not to believe him. He never looks happy to admit it. I'm sure I'll see one of them someday, or maybe I won't. I don't know. How am I supposed to understand a god? What does that even mean? A tree is a living thing, just like us, isn't it? Can a tree understand economics? Can a blade of grass write poetry? Could you explain live theater to a starfish? Does any of this matter? I don't think it does. Whether the grass can use words or not, there's poetry in what it is. A tree might not understand economics, but it has worth. A starfish can't watch a play, but it's still an actor on the world stage. All the same, I don't think it's possible to lower such ideas to a level that grass could understand me, and I don't think a god could do the same thing for me. Any god who could isn't thinking on a high enough level to be called a god in the first place. That's what I think."
Ryo frowned thoughtfully; his brow furrowed. Then he said: "If you do meet a god someday, what do you think you'll say?"
"I guess it would depend on what kind of god it was. But I guess if I had to ask one question no matter what god I met . . . I guess I'd ask: how did I do?"