There was nothingness, and yet I still existed. I wasn't sure why that was. Was I a disembodied spirit again? I wondered if my failure would affect the kind of afterlife I had earned. Hadn't I been told that chaosization destroyed the soul completely? Maybe I wasn't getting an afterlife. Maybe only oblivion awaited me. But then why was I still conscious?
The darkness was interrupted by the sudden appearance of the White Rabbit in front of me. Her face was somber. There was none of her usual "Ta-dah!" entrance or her sunny nature. She looked on the verge of tears.
"The world is gone, Luka," White Rabbit said solemnly. "Soon this will fade into nothingness as well. You'll be gone as if you never existed. I don't blame you, Luka. But I am disappointed. Other Lukas made it much further than this. I thought that with your power and your knowledge, that you'd get farther, but it doesn't really matter. The other Lukas failed just the same."
"Other Lukas?" I asked.
"Even nothingness doesn't last forever. Reality moves in cycles. Eventually, nothing becomes something again."
A single dot of light appeared in the distance. The dot of light exploded, filling the nothingness with stars and galaxies.
"On your home world, they call it the Big Bang," White Rabbit explained. "Something came from nothing, and your universe was formed. Most universes start this way. For millions of years, these universes stay separate, unable to interact. But eventually some beings evolve the ability to manipulate time. That causes paradoxes, which in turn allows the universes to interact. And multiply."
The universe that was just created zoomed outward, appearing as a sphere containing billions upon billions of galaxies. The sphere split, forming an identical universe. That sphere in turn split, and more and more were created. But eventually there were too many. I didn't know the science, but the way it was represented in White Rabbit's demonstration, the space the multiverse existed in was finite. The universes began colliding and annihilating each other.
"It's a self correcting system," White Rabbit lectured. "But it's not the only one. It's a complex system, with many mechanisms built in to protect it. One of those mechanisms is you, Luka."
"Me?" I asked. "I don't understand."
"You always want to save everyone, Luka. And no matter the world, you always develop the strength to make that possible. In most worlds, Luka is the son of Lucifina, an angel. That gives him angelic powers. But your world had a vastly different evolution. You have seen the Angel World, where the angels defeated the Dark God and eradicated the monsters. You also know of Monster World, Makai, where the monsters were victorious. On most worlds, neither side wins decisively. But there was one world, your world, where the war destroyed both the monsters and the angels."
"Earth, my world, once has monsters and angels?! That's impossible! Evidence would be found of that! And what happened to all the magic?"
"The humans of Earth, equally fed up with domination by the Goddess Ilias and being preyed on by monsters, discovered a substance that absorbed magic. Angels and monsters are very powerful, but humans dwarf both of them in sheer numbers. The discovery of this anti-magic substance enabled the humans to wipe out almost all of the magic in your home universe. Deprived of their true power, and unwilling to put aside their differences to deal with the human threat, the angels and monsters were wiped out. Even without their magic, they were not without power. Most monsters and angels are physically stronger than humans. The three way battle ended human civilization for thousands of years. But it completely wiped out the monsters and angels, leaving a world with only humans and almost no magic. That in turn led to much faster technological development once humans began forming civilizations again. It's not that evidence of angels and monsters doesn't exist on Earth. It's that the evidence found is misinterpreted. When civilization is destroyed, all records of civilization go with it. Those records are fragile, usually written on paper, which can't survive a break in human development of that nature. So when researchers come across fossilized bones of a tiger girl, they believe it's something else."
"So Earth was… Human world!"
"Yes. But in every world, a Luka must be born. It's part of the defense mechanism of the multiverse to always create a Luka in every universe. Since you couldn't be descended from angels, your universe had to find a way to give you great power of a different nature. That power would have been granted to you by someone like me. I'm a concept, but I take conscious form when necessary. The concept that is responsible for making sure Lukas exist had to get very creative with you."
"But of all the Lukas, why was I chosen to save this world? This world already has a Luka, and he would have access to angel powers."
"I can't answer that question with certainty," White Rabbit shrugged. "We concepts don't talk to each other. When we choose to take conscious forms, we only do so to guide living beings or perform specific jobs."
"So a concept brought me here?" I asked. "Not a person, or god, or anything like that?"
"Probably. If it had been a person, I'd be aware of it. Due to the paradox, your soul would have merged with another Luka regardless. The fact that you merged with the Luka on the Singularity World could have been luck, or it could have been the intervention of an unknown higher power."
"Like Justin?"
"Way above someone like Justin. The kind of higher power even Justin or I aren't aware of. We call that power the Creator. But no one knows if the Creator exists, or ever existed. The multiverse can be completely explained by science. There's no need for a creator. And yet… magic exists, and sometimes things happen that can't be explained by mere chance. All of the previous Lukas were like the one of this world. Completely unaware of the existence of the multiverse and their central place in it. But you were different. You not only had foreknowledge of many important events, but you had power. And despite all that, you did worse than the ignorant, weak Lukas. I don't blame you. All Lukas want to save everyone. It's what you're created to do. But in the end, you always fail, because it's never possible to save everyone. It's the ultimate paradox. You exist to save everyone, but it's impossible to save everyone. And as a result, you save no one."
"You're being awfully explanatory here," I said. "I thought you only liked to show those you guide, not tell?"
"What's to show?" White Rabbit shrugged. "Existence is ending. I can make some more cute representations in the time we have left if you want."
"Why tell me any of this, though? Am I not about to cease to exist completely?"
"This is my version of an evaluation," White Rabbit sighed. "I have it with every Luka. I don't really know why I do it. It's not as if a Luka can normally act on what I've told him. But you're different. I really believed that maybe things would go differently this time. This nothingness, this is always how it ends. I hate this ending. That's why you're going to get something no Luka has ever gotten before: another chance."
"Another chance!?" I asked, ecstatic. "So are you going to rewind time, give me a chance to do things differently?! Please, give me that chance! I'll do what needs to be done!"
"Are you really capable of killing Alice's mother in front of her?" White Rabbit asked.
"If you'd asked me any other time, I'd say no way in hell. But if I have to kill one person to give everyone else a chance…. I guess I have to."
"A very mature perspective. But also a practical one. As it stands now, Alice's mother is already dead. Worse, she, like all the others, has ceased to exist. At least if she died by your hand, she would go to her eternal reward."
I sighed heavily. This was not who I was. To kill Alice's mother, in cold blood, right in front of her. I'd save the world and lose Alice. However rational Alice was about my choice, she would never be able to love the one who murdered her mother.
"Fine," I said with resignation. "Send me back and I'll do it."
"Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way," White Rabbit said.
"Are you speaking in riddles again?!" I asked angrily. "This is an evaluation, right?! Just like Ilias, you're telling me how to get past this obstacle. So rewind time, send me back to the point of my huge mistake, and let me correct it!"
"You assume too much. I'm not Ilias. I don't rewind time. Rewinding time is very bad. I can stop it or slow it down, but I can't rewind it. That violates causation, which results in chaos. I plucked you out of time in order to speak with you. All has not ended yet. If I send you back, it will be at the moment you left. You'll have only a second to act. I'm not helping you undo a mistake, but helping you avoid a mistake in the first place."
"Okay, a second's enough time, right? Her mother was already right next to me, as was Alice! We were taking shelter under her mother's shield! I can just grab her, and push my power into her! If I don't hold back, it should kill her instantly!"
"It's too late for that, Luka," White Rabbit said sadly.
"Now you're definitely speaking in riddles!" I yelled, losing my patience. "If her survival causes the end of the world, killing her saves it! Where am I getting this wrong?!"
"In the true history, The Monster Lord, Alipheese the Fifteenth, was killed by an adventuring party led by Marcellus. If you kill her, it's not the true history."
"So what do I do, then? She can't live, she can't die at my hands, you can't rewind time to when Marcellus attacked her so that I can choose not to intervene! Tell me what to do!"
"I think you know what you have to do, Luka," White Rabbit said, producing a sword from her robe and handing it to me.
I recognized the horrible weapon immediately. It was an ordinary iron sword. It was of good quality, but there was nothing special about it. Alice had chosen it for me after my original poor quality sword was broken by Granberia in Iliasburg. I'd objected at the time. We didn't have much money left, and I already had a sword, Angel Halo. Of what use was an ordinary iron sword to me? I found out when I reached her castle. Alice wanted me to kill her, and I wouldn't have been able to do it with Angel Halo. Angel Halo was capable of killing, but like Granberia's sword Aries, only if the wielder was committed to killing. An ordinary iron sword didn't care about intentions. If it hit something vital, the opponent died.
"No. No, no no no," I stammered, tears in my eyes. "This is not the true history! I never killed Alice! I can't believe that the original Luka did so either!"
"He didn't," White Rabbit conceded. "Just like you, he defeated Alice but wouldn't finish her off. But you've seen other worlds where he made a different choice, haven't you, Luka?"
I remembered. It was the first alternate world I'd been sent to by Alipheese. I'd been in the castle. I'd witnessed Luka and Alice's battle. Alice had put up a strong barrier than I couldn't penetrate, even with my power. I probably would be able to get through it now, but back then there was no way. As on my world, Luka defeated Alice. She urged him to finish the job, as she had with me. Unlike me, he did it. Maybe that was his idea of doing the right thing.
"But that was an alternate world!" I protested. "Not the true history! I don't have to kill Alice! I just need to… almost kill her!"
"Following the true history is always best," the White Rabbit conceded. "But when that is impossible, the next best thing is a possible outcome from the true history. You had no doubts when faced with that situation. You were deeply in love with Alice, and due to your upbringing in a more sophisticated, complex world, you were less susceptible to being completely under Alice's thumb. In the true history, Alice's life hung in the balance as Luka was faced with an impossible choice. He could do what every instinct in him screamed to do, not kill. Or he could give Alice what she so desperately wanted. Alice thought that her death would bring about coexistence. Luka wanted coexistence as badly as she did, and trusted in her judgment more than his own. He was considering doing it. He almost did. Therefore, her death was a possibility. The chaos will be appeased by her sacrifice."
I took the sword that was offered. I knew that if Alice were here, she'd tell me to do it, without hesitation. It was settled. She was dead either way. At least this way, she'd be somewhere, rather than nowhere. Wait a minute….
"White Rabbit, she wouldn't really die, would she?!" I asked. "Her mother just explained it to me! Her soul will migrate! Probably to her counterpart on Makai!"
"Does that mean you've decided?" White Rabbit asked pointedly, not answering my question.
"I have," I said firmly. "I'll do it. I'm going to hate myself. I never wanted to use this sword again. I promised myself I'd never use it again. But to save everyone… Even Alice herself…."
"Then it's settled," White Rabbit said decisively. "I'll send you back. But Luka… Whatever happens, I'm guiding you now. I guided the Monster Lord to this point, but now the focus shifts to you. Maybe together we can give this story a different ending. I don't want you to fail the same way the others did. Watching nothingness for eons is depressing. Do not hesitate. If you do, you won't see me again. You'll see nothing, ever again."
"I understand. Do it."
It only took a moment, but it felt like an eternity in my mind. I was back in the throne room, standing right next to Alice and her mother, huddled under her makeshift crystal shield that her mother had conjured in a futile attempt to protect us from what was coming.
Alice never saw the iron sword in my hand. Why should she have? It wasn't there a second ago, from her point of view. Her first awareness of it was when it plunged into her breast. Even though I knew she wouldn't really die, I felt like the worst person in the world.
The second the sword penetrated her heart, the shaking and the distortion of reality halted. I had struck true. Alice was already dead, mercifully. I had been spared any look of shock or betrayal that she might have given me in her last moments. A possible true history had been fulfilled.
"Alice!" the Monster Lord cried, not believing what she was seeing. "My little pumpkin! Why?!"
Her mother bent down and cradled the lifeless form in her arms, rocking it gently and singing to it. It was too much for me. Could I have done that, knowing that she would really die, even to save all of existence? I doubted it. The promise that she would still be alive, probably on Monster World, was the only reason I could carry out such a horrible act.
"You!!!" her mother growled, turning her attention to me. "Why her?! It was supposed to be me! Why didn't you kill me?!"
Her tail wrapped around me, squeezing hard enough to make my eyes bulge.
"I couldn't!" I wheezed. "The true history! There is no possible…. History… where I kill you!"
"And there are possible histories where you betray her?! I would swallow you right now, except I want this to hurt!"
The Monster Lord tightened her coils. As big and strong as she was, I knew that she could squeeze me into hamburger, and that was probably her intent. I also knew that all I had to do was release my power into her and there would be two bodies in the throne room. And that's when Granberia would show up, in all likelihood. I was surprised Granberia wasn't in the throne room already. Spider Princess must be fighting way over her head.
"Makai!" I barely squeezed out.
The Monster Lord's coils loosened slightly. She looked perplexed and confused. Then the realization hit her.
"Makai, yes!" Alice's mother cried, beginning to think quickly. "She has a counterpart on Makai! She's on Makai! The chaos! The world was ending because I was still alive! But you killed her, and thus held back the chaos!"
Just as I thought I might be off the hook, her coils tightened again.
"Ack…!" I elucidated.
"Now you listen to me very carefully, Monster Lord Slayer," she said threateningly. "The Tartarus rift for Makai is only a half a day's travel from here. You will journey there, you will go to Makai, and you will find my daughter! You will bring her back here alive and well, and then you will be interrogated to find out why killing my daughter fulfills this true history of yours! Then she and I will decide your fate together."
"I think I got it!" I croaked when her coils loosened enough to let me speak. It's not as if she was forcing me to do something I didn't want to do. Finding Alice was the first thing on my mind as well.
I fell to the ground when the Monster Lord released me, convinced I had at least one broken rib if not two. I'd have to see Ilias about that the first chance I got. I had only ever been able to heal minor wounds on my own body. Internal injuries were beyond me.
"Your majesty!" I heard Granberia shout, bursting into the throne room.
I turned to face Granberia. Granberia was staring at Alice's body on the ground. Uh oh. I was in for it now. To my surprise, however, Granberia simply turned her attention to the Monster Lord. "Your majesty! I'm… confused, but…. Your daughter is here!"
"Who else would I be?" I heard Alice's voice say. "Is everyone around here an idiot?"
"Alice?!" the Monster Lord cried. Alice entered the throne room.
She was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. I was surprised to see how different she looked compared to the form I'd created for her from memory. I couldn't believe that she was standing there in front of me. But how? Alice's mother wanted to know the same thing.
"How?" her mother cried, scarcely believing her own eyes by the looks of it. "How could you get here all the way from Makai so quickly? I thought that only your hero friend had the ability to do it easily."
"I was never on Makai," Alice answered, seeming a little flat for someone who had just been through the process of dying. "I was with you one second, Luka had stabbed me the next, and then I was somewhere else in the castle. In my true body."
"Alice, I'm so sorry!" I cried. "The White Rabbit told me it was the only way to save everyone!"
"You have nothing to apologize for," Alice responded. "It's not as if I haven't done worse to you."
"When did you ever do worse than stabbing? Granted, you've been a little snappy on this quest, but you're under a lot of stress, and…."
"Oh yeah, you never told me. That's why you're confused. No, of course I haven't done anything terrible to you on this quest. But there was a time…. I didn't understand you. I thought you were weak. I was trying to motivate you, so…. I threatened to eat you. And even began to do it."
"Alice, who told you about that?" I asked, utterly gobsmacked. "I never told anyone about that. Not you, not Ilias. Is it a false memory? Did Granberia just tell you?"
"What is all this gibberish?!" Granberia demanded to know. "False memories, Alice alive here and dead there! Heroes hidden in monsters' stomachs! Did someone slip something into my food today?! And what happened just before I came in here? It seemed like the world was ending!"
"Oh, so you're not an idiot, you've just been told as little as possible, just like my mother," Alice said. "Luka, no one told me, and it's not a false memory. It's MY memory."
"Alice, what are you saying?" I asked, wondering if I was dreaming or if some cruel trick was being played on me.
"Remember the first time we were alone? I told you that this might be completely different from what you'd experienced before? Now I know for certain. I remember everything, Luka. Our vacations to your world. All that incredible, amazing food. How you brought modern technology to my world and made so many people's lives better, human, monster, and angel alike."
Alice was moving closer to me as she spoke. I was reeling at her revelation.
"I remember when I thought I'd lost you forever, when you banished the Dark God to your world, banishing yourself in the process. I even remember the alternate timeline now, when you returned after thirty years. It's me, Luka."
"I don't understand," I said, tears flowing out of my eyes. "Did you just get her memories? How can you be her? Even if I assume that you died and simply merged with another version of yourself, the odds of you being here with me, on the same world…."
"Ta-dah!" White Rabbit appeared, looking a lot more jaunty, thanks to existence not having ended yet. "Since I'm feeling generous today, I'll provide some explanations."
"Yes," Alice agreed. "I've already figured out everything, but my head hurts. I've had a rough day. Please do the explaining, you annoying rabbit."
"No problem!" White Rabbit said happily. "So here's the deal! I've gotten real tired of the whole existence ending thing. I'm not supposed to intervene directly, but losing gets old, you know? So I concocted a brilliant plan!"
"A plan?" Alice's mother asked. "I thought you and I planned this. You would seal my daughter so that she would not be responsible for the things that had to be done."
"That's what you wanted, and it did coincide with my own agenda. I had three purposes in mind when I sealed her. The first was to get her attention and force her to follow me around so that I could show her what she needed to see. She's a very difficult person who only does things when she wants to do them. By pissing her off and making her need me to change her back, I got her to follow me wherever I wanted!"
"Was there ever a chance you would change me back yourself, you irritant?" Alice asked.
"One way or another, you had reached the end of my guidance. You were getting your body back today regardless of what transpired here in the throne room. I'm sure you wish it had been easier, but hey! Your mom's alive! That's never happened before!"
"I barely felt a thing anyway," Alice said. "And I am truly grateful that I don't have to see my mother's corpse yet again. Sorry if I don't sound as grateful as I should, but there's a lot going on in my head right now. I'll flip out if I don't make an effort to stay calm. Please continue, rabbit."
"The second purpose for sealing her was to give her an expendable body in case that possible history had to be played out," White Rabbit continued. "Since I'd hidden your body in a room nobody ever uses, it was just waiting for your soul to migrate back to it!"
"Why not just let me go to Makai?" Alice asked.
"I'm sure you can guess."
"Ah, my gift," Alice sighed.
"Gift?" Alice's mother asked. "My daughter has a gift?"
"She does indeed!" White Rabbit replied. "Helping her adjust to that gift was the third and final purpose of sealing her. You see, Alice is a Singular Individual."
"Singular Individual?" I asked. "Like this world, a Singularity world?"
"Totally different terms! A Singular Individual is a version of a person who possesses that part of the soul that truly makes a person unique! As you know, all of your souls, except for you, Alipheese the Fifteenth, since all your counterparts are dead or not yet born, are split between countless alternate versions of yourself! But in a very few people, there is still a part of the soul that is indivisible and is the true identity of that individual."
"True identity? True history?" Granberia asked. "This is so confusing!"
"Your friends will have to brief you on everything they've learned up till now," White Rabbit responded. "I don't like to explain things twice, so I'm only sticking to the new stuff. Anyway, as a Singular Individual, this version of Alice is a magnet, drawing in all the souls of other Alices from around the multiverse."
"All of them?" I asked. "So she's…. every Alice that ever existed?"
"Not all of them," White Rabbit answered. "Only the ones who have died."
"That's why I was becoming irrational," Alice explained. "I couldn't sort through all of the competing memories. More and more were added as time went on. My condition worsened and the healers could find no treatment. I didn't even know my own name anymore. Most of the time I was Alice, but sometimes I was Aurora, or Amy, or Alluria, or Betty oddly enough…or…. Ariana."
Alice looked at me meaningfully as she spoke that name.
"And of course I'm the Alice that has been traveling with you these past months," she continued.
"Sealing her reduced her brain's size and thus her ability to hold onto memory, much as it did Ilias, even though Ilias' diminishment had a different cause," White Rabbit said. "Her mind prioritized the memories from the life she was born with, leaving the ones from all of the other Alices dormant in her inert body that was left in this castle."
"You needed me to understand in order to be cured, didn't you?" Alice asked. "Having no knowledge of soul migration , or alternate worlds, I had no basis with which to understand what was happening to me. But now that it makes sense, I can reorder my mind, deal with all of the competing memories and personalities. How does Erubetie deal with all this?"
"Not very well, I assure you," Granberia muttered.
"So brilliant plan, huh!?" White Rabbit said joyfully.
Alice extended her hand, delivering a fireball that incinerated White Rabbit on the spot.
"Wah! Why do people keep doing this to me!?" she cried as she disintegrated into ash.
"Because you're annoying," Alice replied, still in that flat tone. "And I haven't felt my true power in quite some time, thanks to you."
I wanted to embrace Alice, but her mother beat me to it, wrapping her tail around her daughter as well as her arms, and clutching her tightly to her bosom.
"Pumpkin!" the Monster Lord cried. "I'm so sorry you had to endure all this! I'm so sorry I left you when you were so young! I wish things could have been different in so many ways!"
"You did what you had to do, mother," Alice replied. "We all did. What matters now is that we're all on the same page."
"And what page is that?" Granberia asked. "I have understood nothing of this!"
"Here is what you need to understand, Heavenly Knight," Alice's mother said, sounding very official in her tone. "My daughter is now the true Monster Lord. We will all obey her, and in alliance with the hero Luka and his… other friends, we shall overcome this grave threat to all the worlds! Luka saved me when I have learned that I was thought impossible to save! If he believes that all the worlds can be saved, then I can do no less but to join him on his quest!"
"No, mother," Alice said firmly. "Your place is here. Mine is with Luka, and I can't believe I'm saying this, with Ilias. Oh my goodness, part of me just wanted to say 'Ilias be praised!' This is going to be an adjustment. We do need to use this castle as a home base. The Pocket Castle can continue to be our mobile base. It's been more useful in that respect than I suspect its inventor ever envisioned. Please give the appropriate orders to your forces to stand down, mother. And prepare the monsters who live in this castle for the presence of humans and even angels here."
"You speak of adjustments," Alice's mother laughed. "That will be the greatest adjustment of all. Angels in the Monster Lord's castle? Humans who are not slaves? Even I never imagined anything like that!"
"So are there any crises I need to know about, mother?" Alice asked.
Alice's mother shook her head. "For now, the end seems to have been averted. I will give the orders to end the war at once. Fortunately, my main forces haven't attacked yet. I simply have to inform any monster tribes that are still planning attacks to cease. Assuming they are not still waging war for Black Alice's sake."
"Then I need some time," Alice said. "It's hard to think with all of these disparate thoughts and memories in my head. Luka, please come with me. We have some catching up to do. Tomorrow, we're having… a meeting."
I was still a little disturbed at how unemotional Alice sounded, but understood. I was simply grateful that she was alive and well. I'd known intellectually that she really wouldn't die. She had counterparts everywhere. I'd never seen a world without an Alice. But I didn't really trust Makai's technology enough to be certain that she'd end up where I could find her. I was prepared for the possibility that I might lose her. Yes, we did have some catching up to do. Alice showed her first small sigh of tenderness as she gently took my hand and gave a small smile. She led me down the hall. I spotted Spider Princess moaning on the ground.
"Ohhhhh….. It better have been worth it," Spider Princess groaned. "All of my limbs hurt and I think my spleen is crushed."
"Mother, could you please send messengers to a location I give you?" Alice called back. "I have some angel healers there. They need to know that Spider Princess needs them!"
"I could teleport back," I offered. "I remember the location."
"No, no," Spider Princess insisted. "it's nothing. I heard everything you said in the throne room. The pain of my dreams being shattered is far worse than anything Granberia did to me! But I am so happy for you! Go, be with your true love!"
"Thanks, Princess," Alice replied. "I owe you one. Luka, you owe her one."
"Owe her one what?" I asked.
"Boy, you're slow. Come on."
Alice led me by the hand to a royal suite and closed the door behind us.