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This place…?
The moment I cross the school gate to reach Mikoto and Ailiss, who had fallen, I am again transported to this location.
Undoubtedly, I'm in the same place I saw in my dreams. And right in front of me are the two entities responsible for the hell I've endured. I didn't think I'd have the chance to face them once more.
I would have probably tried to vent my anger through brute force in any other situation. The last time I encountered them, it proved ineffective. And now, I know the truth. The truth surrounding them, always obscured by this supernatural reality.
Being aware of this extinguishes any flame of anger that could have ignited within me.
The silhouettes of the two children gradually approach me, and the mist concealing them reveals their actual appearances. They are not abstract entities or demons, as they called themselves, but merely human children who lost their souls in the most unjust way.
The girl is characterized by an angelic face, sharp blue eyes, and dark blonde hair of the same color as mine. The boy has light blonde hair and hunter-red eyes of a rare hue.
"Congratulations on winning the game we proposed! Since you're the only player left, the game ends here. It took you quite a while to realize it, but we knew you'd manage to win. It was just a matter of time," the girl says with a smile.
Why the same enthusiasm as when they announced the game over the loudspeakers? There's no point in forcing this fake smile. We don't need more theatrics—I already know who you two are, and you're aware of that.
"I had completely lost hope. I thought the three of us would end up writhing in eternal torture. But apparently, my discovery was a deterministic factor. It couldn't have been any other way, right?"
"Time is just another dimension, like any other—past, present, and future coexist. You are constantly traveling into the future toward a predetermined point. Everything would converge to this scenario," the boy explains.
"I don't know to what extent our lack of free will absolves or condemns us. Even so, from any perspective, I see how horrible I am. But I'd just like to confirm one thing: you hate us, don't you?" I lower my head and ask.
"I believe hate is something mutual between us."
I can't say this kind of response doesn't affect me. Even though I don't have much affection for their personalities, even though we never had the opportunity to grow close, I can't escape the immense guilt weighing on my shoulders. A guilt greater than any other—the countless murders I had to commit pale in comparison to the greatest of all my crimes: a sin impossible to erase.
"I always wanted to know why—what was the reason Ailiss, Mikoto, and I had to suffer so much? I don't think I've been a paragon of virtue, but nothing I did in life justifies such punishment directed at me and my two beloveds. I couldn't understand what led you, so-called demons of Laplace, to do all this to us," I pause and face them. "But now I fully understand your side. I see that Ailiss wasn't the only one seeking revenge."
"Exactly," they nod. "Our greatest wish was to repay the eternal suffering inflicted upon us by your egotistical whims. But what about you? Didn't you feel an impulse for revenge against us once you completed your plan? Wasn't that feeling the spark that motivated you to move forward? Perhaps one hate catalyzed the other and vice versa."
Indeed, there's a certain strangeness when analyzed this way. Our actions catalyzed one another, but I wouldn't necessarily label my part as revenge or hatred.
"If I said I didn't feel anger at what you made us endure merely because I discovered your identities, I'd be lying. But toward you in that state? Not at all. I don't see you as having the same personalities, for you lacked consciousness. I still see you as mere innocents."
"How curious of you to say something like that after doing the opposite. Where do you hope to go with such words? Do you think you'll earn forgiveness? Idealized speeches won't erase what you've done—you know that well."
"I'm aware. Certainly, they won't. But what I'm saying is the truth. In any other circumstance, I'd do everything to save you, even sacrificing my life. However, what was at stake was something more precious than anything else—more important than my life, than the universe as a whole, even more important than you. Nothing matters more to me than the lives of those two. This is a fact I can never escape. Unfortunately, to save them, I had to spill the blood of innocents. You weren't the first; if necessary, you won't be the last."
"Even without hating us, you were capable of this?" they laugh. "That only makes us more curious about how far you could go in the name of love. Don't you realize the state of your mind?"
Yes. Our connection isn't normal, and I don't view this with superiority but as an obsessive desire—the most pathological love that ever existed. A feeling that could only have been forged in a world of repetitions in an eternity.
"You contributed greatly to me resorting to this outcome. You left an implicit hint in the announcement over the loudspeakers and pressured us with these infernal repetitions until I was forced to make such a choice."
"Infernal repetitions? Well, that's exactly what this is. This environment is your purgatory, so to speak. We wanted the three of you to experience firsthand what it's like to live in hell, just as we lived in the stomach of Death. We wanted you to learn what it's like to suffer until your minds and bodies degenerate to their most basic state."
Precisely as I deduced, in the end, it was all punishment for what we would do in the future. At this moment, I can't help but lament.
Even though there was no alternative, I am still a terrible father. Sometimes, no solution exists for a problem; problems and solutions are human abstractions. This is a clear case of that.
"And you succeeded… Those three cyclical scenarios kept wounding me endlessly. My insanity accumulated so much that I began killing my friends as if they were nothing. And by keeping my memories, the torture intensified further. I fell into madness for over a millennium. All of this, through so many iterations, strengthened my insensitivity to make this terrible, horrifying decision to sacrifice you."
"We're glad to hear that… It means our judgment wasn't in vain. All the bloodshed you three experienced was necessary to bring this moment to fruition, to give you the courage and audacity required."
"And the time limit would be the moment I should close the cycle of causality, correct?"
"Exactly. You being trapped in these repetitions resulted from our revenge for being handed over to Death so you could escape the loop. If you were indefinitely stuck in the loop, this point would never be reached, so the cycle inevitably had to be broken at some point."
"One thing is still unclear to me. How did it happen the first time? You must have been sacrificed initially to enact your first revenge. So what motivated us to sacrifice you? How long has this external cycle been repeating?"
"There wasn't a first time. This causality isn't subject to the logic you're accustomed to."
"There wasn't? So can I affirm that no one was responsible for starting all this?"
"It can be illustrated through the Bootstrap Paradox. If you go back in time and give Pachelbel his famous composition, 'Canon,' then, after centuries, it eventually reaches you, and you travel back in time to give it to him again. This cycle continues endlessly," they alternate speaking. "So, the question arises: Who created it? Neither he, who only received it nor you, who merely delivered it to the past. There is no real author—the composition simply exists within that time period. The same applies to our existence. In the end, we always existed due to our desire for revenge and your escape from the temporal loop."
Conceptually, I now understand, but it doesn't stop being unjust. In practice, I escaped one temporal loop only to enter an even greater one.
Ultimately, there is no free will in this world as long as our desires bind us. Just as I didn't choose to sacrifice you, you didn't choose to seek revenge on us. We were all destined for this, destined to desire and long for it.
Thus, this infinite cycle of causality will perpetuate in an eternal return.
"And what will happen to you now?"
"Death granted us consciousness merely for the period the game was active, as well as temporal control here. Once the conjuration ends, we will return to its stomach, carrying all our emotions of vengeance now satisfied."
"Well, despite all the conflict we've had, it was good to meet you and have this conversation. I think I needed this clarification."
"Johann, in this world of repetitions, you've shown that your cause is not divine, nor for humanity, humanism, justice, equality, freedom, the common good, or even kindness. So, is your cause the cause of love?"
I smile faintly and respond.
"My love for them, without a doubt, is my most precious treasure. But the subject precedes the verb. To love them unconditionally, I first need to exist. So, in the end, this remains the cause of myself."
They return my smile at my explanation, and their bodies begin to fade.
Our time here is likely coming to an end.
"Could you grant us one last wish? We want you to ask them for something."
"And what would that be?"
"Names. We've always wanted to have one."
I nod, and as they disappear, they utter their final words.
"By the way, what do you think the noble knight should do?"