Note:
A short chapter I thought I could finish quickly, the title is saying part 1 but I'm not sure.
I might add other parts or just change the title.
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"Should I go left, where nothing is right?
Or should I go right, where nothing is left?"
That was the question that stood before Cepheus Gusteko at the single most decisive moment of his life.
In the end, he chose to do what was right.
And in doing so...
He lost everything.
How painfully ironic, that one righteous decision became the final deed he would ever perform for the sake of others. It was also the very thing that made him despise himself more than anything else.
Only two beings in existence truly understood his story.
A story with a beginning.
A middle.
And an end.
He abandoned it all, his kingdom, his people, his name.
Even the last remnants of his humanity.
Time became meaningless as he drifted through the ages. He walked neither with malice nor compassion. Hatred had long since burned itself away, and kindness had withered into memory. Joy no longer reached him, and grief had exhausted itself centuries ago.
Questions no longer existed.
There was only a single objective, one final duty he must fulfill.
Everything else was merely the road leading toward it.
To Cepheus, the value of life had become almost nonexistent.
Be it Humans, spirits, elves, dragons or even Witches.
They were all equal.
An infant taking its first breath and an old man drawing his last held no difference in his eyes. Their births carried no miracle, and their deaths held no tragedy.
A life extinguished was no more remarkable than a tree falling in a forest or a starving beast collapsing beneath the weight of hunger.
It was simply the natural order.
After all, every living being shared the same inevitable destination.
Death.
Everyone reached it, everyone except him.
He alone had been denied that privilege, not until his duty was fulfilled.
Whether he welcomed that fate or hated it no longer mattered.
Nothing mattered.
Nothing angered him.
Nothing saddened him.
Nothing delighted him.
His heart had become so still that even loneliness could no longer disturb its surface.
And yet...
Somewhere in the middle of that endless journey...
He met a familiar face.
She was a young woman with long golden hair tied into a loose, untidy ponytail. Her sky-blue eyes, so clear they seemed almost transparent, still carried the same confrontational expression, like a dog without a bite.
For a long moment, he simply looked at her.
Then, as though searching through ruins buried beneath countless centuries...
He remembered.
At one point, they were considered to be friends.
Minerva who was consistently sexually harassed by Reid Astrea and Cepheus getting dragged into that mess, ending up having to fight with Reid with his life on the line to subdue him.
No, Reid couldn't be subdued, he was like a dog with rabies. He was surprisingly capable of standing toe to toe and their fights would not end until the geography had changed or if Volcanica or Farsale stepped in to break the fight.
She looked at him with trembling eyes.
"Do you really think she'd be happy... seeing you like this?"
Of course she wouldn't.
She would grieve and cry.
She would condemn and complain the path he had taken.
But...
Did that truly matter anymore?
She, too, had died.
Just like everyone else.
Seeing that the man she once knew had long perished, the tears gathering in Minerva's eyes...
The disappointment she could no longer hide, her dejected expression and her trembling lips indicated that the road Cepheus had chosen was one she could never accept.
Despite this warped perception of life, Cepheus did not consider himself above others.
No...
That wasn't entirely true.
There were three individuals he looked down upon.
Natsuki Subaru.
Aldebaran.
And above all...
Kazuki Tanaka.
Because they all shared the same cursed fate he did.
Among the countless lies he had woven across the ages, among the unforgivable acts he had committed in pursuit of his final objective, there remained one truth he had never once attempted to conceal.
Summoning Kazuki Tanaka...
Had never been intentional, It was an accident.
A catastrophic one that could cause damage reality to an unprecedented scale.
Natsuki Subaru alone had already fractured the flow of history countless times, causing numerous branches in the timeline to form.
Aldebaran was another anomaly, though a far more restrained one. After becoming entangled with the Witch of Greed, he retained memories others should never possess. Unlike Subaru, he understood the danger of his own existence. Because of that knowledge, he deliberately minimized his interference, choosing inaction whenever possible to prevent further divergence.
Kazuki Tanaka, his arrival was never meant to occur.
Let alone the fact that he appeared and got involved with Natsuki Subaru, two unpredictable variables interacting with individuals that play a essential role in defining reality, would without a doubt, cause irreversible consequences.
That was why he had reached a single conclusion, Kazuki Tanaka had to disappear.
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Unfortunately...
After violating the world's laws, Cepheus himself could no longer interfere freely.
Thus, after countless centuries of isolation. He sought another's assistance.
Odglass.
To his surprise, she accepted without hesitation.
It was unexpected.
After all, she was one of the people he had abandoned. One of the countless lives he had sacrificed upon the altar of his objective.
Yet she never questioned his request.
Together, they guided the variable known as Kazuki Tanaka.
They carved a path for him that gives him no choice but to choose the option that would stabilize reality with the least amount of damage.
The first obstacle had been overcome, but that alone wasn't enough.
Eventually...
He had to be removed from the board altogether.
Above all else...
Under no circumstances, Kazuki Tanaka must ever be allowed to set foot into the Sanctuary.
That's why he orchestrated it, after defeating the white whale, Cepheus was aware of that the witch cult was going to attack them. He did nothing to prevent it. No, in fact he did everything to make sure it can't be prevented, shortening the reset all the down to a minute.
Whether they kill him or torture him countless times to the point of him losing his mind. It didn't matter, he just needed him out of the picture.
Yet again, another unexpected change in the timeline manifested, he had no way to predict that the Witch of Vainglory would reveal herself in such a place.
Despite the fact that the situation was no longer under his control, the final outcome of that confrontation ended up in his favor.
Kazuki Tanaka was out of the picture and the current reality didn't branch off.
For the entire year where Kazuki Tanaka was held captive in a cell inside a mansion where the Sin Archbishop Of Greed.
But what had transpired later on was once again something he couldn't possibly anticipate.
The Sin Archbishop Of Lust arriving at his prison cell, pouring her cursed blood into him to modify his body composition was another hurdle, if she were to turn him into a frog or into a leech. Cepheus himself would have no issue protecting his consciousness and sanity. But then he wouldn't be able to monitor the changes to the world.
Such drastic change might prompt him to unwillingly undo the curse by himself but that would also lead to undesired consequences that would not serve his interests.
But again, as he observed, the course of events once again left him in confusion.
Capella Emerada Lugunica transformed him into Stride Vollachia.
He would have understood if she transformed him into a bug or into a chimera, given her deranged personality.
What in the world would be the reason for her to take such an action.
It wouldn't even make sense for Pandora to issue such an order, which only meant that Capella acted on her own accord.
Nevertheless, he seized the opportunity.
His current state now leaves him no choice but to flee away from the city, flee away from the Emilia camp without interfering with the chain of events they have to follow.
Despite him having a hand on a multitude of events that had transpired, he was not the sole instigator and all knowing about the events that are about to occur.
On the contrary, there were countless shifts in this timeline that could not be explained.
Aldebaran approaching Kazuki Tanaka in the capital, he lied through his teeth about everything as expected, but he still comforted Tanaka and guided him into taking the right decision despite Odglass's interference.
The Sin Archbishop of Lust being deranged and using her blood on him was seen coming, but transforming him into Stride Vollachia was probably what caused him the biggest confusion.
Despite those unpredictable variables, Cepheus made use of them and set Kazuki Tanaka's path again to Kararagi.
And encountering other unexpected variables, finding out that Abaris was the one who was causing the night weeping and things taking an uncontrollable turn that in the case of failure, would lead to disastrous consequences.
However once again, things ended up with results better than he had ever anticipated or imagined it was possible.
People taking actions that would not align with their nature nor goals, it almost seems whimsical.
He wasn't in control and that made him feel uneasy...
"Could it be that person's doing?"
An individual came to mind who might be the one causing these changes.