Gospel of the Future

4\ 4\

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Now, let us see his last story.

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August 3rd, 1998, 11:32 A.M.

At the large department store slightly removed from the Fumine JR station, Ryougi Shiki stepped onto the third floor of the multi-storey parking lot.

The future has already been determined.

Once she had pursued him all the way here, her death cannot be overruled.

The route she moved by was different from the result he saw, but,

then again, the family that on a whim decided to go home early, wasn’t there either.

One minute from now.

Ryougi Shiki will turn her attention towards the two parents and their child carrying their shopping appearing at the mouth of the elevator, be caught in the scattering cloud of 1,500 corundums launched from three separate directions, and become scattered chunks of meat.

In the shadow of the wagon twenty metres away, he was clearly seeing it.

The parking lot was devoid of people.

The air here was several times more relaxed than the outside world.

From here, even the bombing at the bridge was a story on the Other Shore.

The calls of ambulances; the sirens of patrol cars; no attention was directed at these things.

Unfolding far and wide with no distinction. Everything can happen without existing as long as it is here.

“Hey. I’ve caught up, bomber.”

The girl talked into the cell phone, and removed her finger.

The cellphone dropped to the concrete floor.

From the sash on her back, the girl drew a knife.

The two eyes,

/ carrying a blue light, /

glared at her surroundings, the result it held.

The parking lot was devoid of sound.

The summer sunlight formed thick shadows like the darkness.

Knife in hand, Ryougi Shiki headed towards the unseen bomber.

Along the way, the family appeared at the mouth of the elevator on her right side.

Within an instant.

He pressed the button on the remote control.

At nearly the same time. As though cleaving the air, Ryougi Shiki’s knife flashed.

One second later.

Ryougi Shiki, her body taking the full force of the 2mm corundum shrapnel, yet still retaining her human form, was, at her wit’s end, instantly killed.

One second later.

Kuramitsu Merca’s sight of the future, as though his eye was directly bisected in a diagonal line, was split in two and extinguished.

“Ah – ?!”

He held down on his right eye in agony.

Ryougi Shiki continued at her own pace without a hurry, walking towards the large wagon.

“Wha, w-why – ?!”

A sudden blackout. Unreasonably intense pain. A mysterious phenomenon. Bewildered, the bomber clicked the switch on his remote control again and again as though his life depended on it.

But the explosives did not respond. Was there a problem with the signal? A mismatch? Or did the remote malfunction? No, that was all impossible. He weighed together reality to make sure those things did not occur. Not a single thing changed in the future prepared by the bomber. However – ignoring all of this, the gunpowder coincidentally refused to detonate.

“That, can’t, be – !”

Horror raced across his mind. For the first time in a long while, the bomber himself shook with the fear of the unknown.

Unable to bear the pain of the right eye that had lost its light, Kuramitsu Merca curled up into a fetus.

“Touko said it a lot of times too. ‘Perceive too much, and you blind yourself’. You listening to me? You’re not seeing anything with that eye anyway, so you don’t need it.”

He can hear a voice. The bomber, with his remaining left eye, expanded his vision, trying to look for a way to escape. But of course, it was obvious that he couldn’t see even a fragment of ‘a future where escape is possible’.

“You really could have killed me if that had been just a prediction. Doesn’t even need to be said. In your case, what you see is too clear.”

“It, hurts…!”

The footsteps were close. Probably less than five metres away. He understood that, as soon as they circled around to the back of the wagon, he will be killed. This certain result could be imagined even without precognition.

“Why, why – ?!”

It wasn’t the horror of being killed. This future was just too doubtful. He had always lived believing in the outcome – bound by it. This absolute faith, this inescapable curse – why did it choose to break down now?

“Why did the future change?!”

“It didn’t change. There wasn’t a future all along. You can’t reach out to something that isn’t there.”

So the magus had said.

The difference between prediction and calculation; the difference between seeing a possibility of a future which may occur, and determining an outcome which will occur.

Calculation of the future, determining the outcome from your own will, was an abnormal ability exceeding prediction of the future.

However –

“The future is uncertain, that’s why it’s invincible. But. If it has a form, then obviously it will break.”

A vision that has been determined is no longer the unknown.

The concept of death applies to things with form.

For Ryougi Shiki, this was clearer a ‘killable’ target than those twisting spirals.

“You can’t reach out to a coincidence, but you can reach out to a certainty. See you, bomber. Your future was a dead end from the moment your result took a clear form.”

The footsteps, echoed very close to him. Ryougi Shiki raised her knife, feeling that she was about to receive her natural reward, and faced her prey in the shadow of the wagon,

” – What’s with you?”

having not predicted this ending.

Acting like a girl her age, she was dumbfounded for a few seconds, and saw for herself the last moan of the bomber.

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August 3rd, 1998, 11:50 A.M.

The multi-storey parking lot bombing, became reality five minutes late.

The scattered corundum cruelly tore apart the parked cars and the concrete walls and columns, but miraculously there were no deaths.

The father covering his family was lightly wounded, and a child of nearly fourteen years suffered a heavy injury, but they were safely taken under the protection of the ambulance that had rushed over, and the case was resolved.

Hereafter, there were no records of the the appearance of the bomber called Kurametsu Merca, of the girl in the kimono at the scene of the incident.

– After that.

With the affairs with the bomber cleanly and completely wiped from her memory, a pleased Ryougi Shiki immediately began looking for the next seed of displeasure.

She did not enter the meeting place, and firmly loitered under the blazing sun; the reason for this is something that others, those who cannot become Gods, will not be entrusted to know.