Subconscious having met five out of the six blades, continued on his journey to finally meet the last one. He was sure that Six would be more than eager to meet the Advisor, considering the history that these two shared.
"I just wonder where he might have gone after the main fight. Considering after he announced his break, he did leave to go much further away than the rest of the blades." As he stated, he started to roam the deserted landscape and traverse through the various structures that he encountered on the way.
Going from dazzling palaces to obscure monuments, all Subconscious could do was keep checking each one of these places to see where Six was truly hiding.
Finally, Subconscious reached a desert-like area, but it was more of a shallow oasis, with a water-like fluid that was present in between and flora that was growing around it.
"Strange", was the only word that he uttered. The Advisor looked around to check and see if there was anyone who was residing nearby. That was all until he heard a scream.
Subconscious wanted to rush towards the location, but he was fairly confident about who it might be, so he calmly walked towards the source.
Down the oasis, was the underground cavern, and the lair where the murals were present. As expected, the source of the sound was Six, the First Blade.
"What are you even doing like this?", he questions him.
"There must be a way to save them. There truly must be. I cannot be left like this. All I can do is keep searching…", Six ignored the Advisor's question.
Subconscious sighed as he sat down before the deranged Six.
"I can see that you have managed to lose yourself in the chaos again. I just fear that we might have to bring in her again, just so that you can calm down again. You are truly the pinnacle of shouldering all the responsibilities onto yourself.", Subconscious stated while staring into the golden eyes of Six.
"It might be tough for you to understand, for I can perceive everything normally. There's no way that there is no possible outcome, where she does not lose her data. I am…"
"I know that it is tough for you to understand this, but you truly made the right decision. I checked through all the possibilities, but the timeline that we constructed at present is always going to be the right one for us. Consider it nature's order preventing the worst from happening."
"That can't be… how can that even be? How does nature even come into the picture? We break every law present in the universe."
"No matter what dimensional creatures we may be, there is still an order that things follow, we cannot question it, for it is what keeps the entire balance and stability of the universe. We cannot control it, for however powerful we may be."
"You mean to state, that is the natural order for things to work in a certain way, and also for things to make sure that the timeline that we run, it's the perfect one for us."
"Clearly… I cannot imagine another timeline. The amount of destruction that you could cause in those, it frightens me to even think about."
"Advisor, I am tired.", Six stated, while collapsing onto the floor clutching onto his blade.
"It infuriates me how much you take upon yourself, Six. You are not a young lad anymore, and it pains me to see you in this manner. Think about her." Subconscious stated while pointing towards the Magenta Warrior.
Six just stared plainly at the ceiling of the cavern. "Was there truly nothing different that I could have done, no matter how far back into the past?"
"We cannot overwrite the data that is already present in this reality, Six. We are not powerful enough to do that…", Subconscious replied. There was no direct answer to this question. The overwhelming sense of guilt, as well as the loss of a comrade, the loss of a friend, but most importantly, the loss of an oath, and a family member. It breaks anyone.
"I could have done something better, I could have been there for everyone. Instead, I am here, taking most of the brunt of the hit."
"Stop that. YOU ARE FINE!"
"Why do you think that?"
"Trust me, we cannot function without you being present."
"Then you are just here for my use then?"
"YES. YOU ARE POSSIBLY THE MOST USEFUL OUT OF ANYONE AT THE TABLE. THAT'S EXACTLY WHY EVERYONE TRUSTS YOU. THAT IS EXACTLY WHY EVERYONE MADE YOU THE LEADER OF THE BLADES"
Six knew the answer. It almost seemed as if he wanted that confirmation from Subconscious himself.
Subconscious seated himself beside Six and exhausted, let out a massive sigh.
"You are fine, all of you guys will be. The shades will be working as one again. Trust me, even if the clash at the table was harsh, what you are feeling right now is the emotions of all the others getting to you. You connect yourself way too deeply to the others in the team. That is just the side effect of that."
Six started to slowly calm down. He could not accept, nor reject what the Advisor was telling him. He wanted to stay neutral about the entire thing. Therefore, there was only one logical thing that he could do, in theory.
"Besides, there are a lot of things that you can already be-", while stating that, he got a hug from Six.
"Thank you… for everything."
"Yeah, I am here for you mate."
"There's a peace that can be formed."
"You recover quite fast, you know that."
"It's just the acceptance that I had to give myself. I calmed down, and purely calculated the different possible scenarios. Nothing could have turned better."
"Just how many did you even do."
"In the order of closer to duo-googols."
"What do I even do with you??"
"Leave it."
The two of them climbed out of the cavern and went towards the oasis. Sitting down, the two of them just discussed about how the two of them used to control this massive space until it slowly started to fill up with the other shades.
"It used to be just the three of us. Then slowly… everyone started evolving and gathering up.", Six stated while just staring at the empty, unfinished landscape.
"We could do a lot more. We are all like a shaded-family over here. We cannot live without the others, and we depend on the others.", Subconscious added.
"Yep, we truly cannot leave these guys on their own. They suffer in silence if we do not step in to help."
"What are you going to do, then?"
"Let's see, I've just been training up my blade."
See you in March!