KAGACHI;

[crashout]

Comments

[crashout]

[The barrier begins to break down and Junpei's giving Kagachi a semi-bewildered look. It's not that he doesn't understand (except he sort of doesn't) and for a moment he's stewing over his options.]

...that wasn't the only timeline, was it?

[preceptive]

[ha... ha...]

Well, I don't necessarily understand all of it, but no, it wasn't.

[crashout]

So you got a do-over at least? Who...was that?

[preceptive]

I'm not sure I'd call it a do-over, but I did prevent that future from happening, yes.

Who was who? The woman?

[crashout]

Yeah, the woman. I was a little distracted. [By Kagachi working on stabbing himself! He guesses!] What was that all about?

[preceptive]

[hm.]

... That was my sister.

[crashout]

Tense family dynamics then. [Yikes.] ...when you told me you worked with souls, I don't think I really thought yours would be split like that.

[preceptive]

... That definitely isn't normal.

[crashout]

[Well neither are multiple timelines but it's fine.]

Am I allowed to ask about it, or do you wanna skip it and go back to me trying not to stab myself?

[preceptive]

I've told you about reincarnation, right?

[maybe?? he's lost track of who he's mentioned it to.]

The gist of it is that my past self had a... complicated life, and his internal conflict caused his soul to split into two after his death. I was born as half a soul.

[crashout]

You did, yeah. [But that...] Seems complicated. And you, as yourself, had to find the other half of your soul and weren't having much luck, I'm guessing? I didn't know souls could split like that.

[preceptive]

Not exactly. I didn't know I was incomplete until shortly before that fight.

All in all, it never affected me. It was a different story for the Night Devil, though.

[crashout]

The Night Devil. [Like. Just repeating because that title is. Hm.]

...kind of puts you in a shitty situation either way.

[preceptive]

My duty was to protect the people and to ensure that souls pass on. Two birds in one stone.

[crashout]

Even at the expense of yourself. [...first of all, yikes, but second of all there's...kind of a quiet sort of respect there.]

I don't remember if I've asked, but did you ever really get a choice?

[preceptive]

A choice for what?

[crashout]

Taking on that responsibility. I know you said it was, like, inherited from the guy who raised you but was it still your choice to make or did someone just decide you were bound to do it?

[preceptive]

... Well, in a way, you could say it might've been my fate from the beginning.

But to me, it was a decision I chose to make.

[crashout]

[Fate is something that's a pain in the ass, but his face seems to relax upon hearing Kagachi made a choice.]

Not that it doesn't suck still, but that's better than being forced into it the whole way.

[preceptive]

Mm. I don't have any regrets about what I did.

[crashout]

Then you're better than others I can think of. [But he's looking at the knife again.] So what exactly is happening for you as soon as we get out of this place and go back?

[preceptive]

[...

well, that's complicated.]

The thing is that I changed the future—but I did it from far into the past. As in, I hadn't been born yet. My soul was transported into the body of my past life, since he'd been about to die, as it was.

[crashout]

So does that mean then, technically, you as you are now doesn't fully exist and won't because you're in that other body?

[preceptive]

Probably. Because of me, he didn't die when he originally did, so I wouldn't be surprised if that means "Kagachi" is never born.

[which he sounds remarkably neutral over.]

[crashout]

Except without Kagachi being born, keeping the other guy alive wouldn't have happened at all because there would then be no one to change that future. [...] Pretty sure they call that a bootstrap paradox. You can't really determine what the starting point of a chain of cause and effect was.

Let me guess. There's no other way to do it?