The cameras hum softly, almost imperceptibly, a faint electric breath drawn through still air.
They hide where glass meets marble, where shadows lie too evenly to be natural. Tiny red eyes that never blink, watching without hurry, waiting without end.
The villa is bright and mercilessly clean. White stone floors stretch toward glass walls that frame the gardens like a painting. Every leaf is in place, every petal angled to catch the light.
The rows of trees outside are too precise for nature, their symmetry shaped by unseen hands. Flowers spill in perfect asymmetry, arranged to seem careless yet balanced to the millimeter.
Even the breeze smells constructed, air strained through filters until even its flaws have been erased.
Somewhere above, a lens pivots with a whisper too faint for most to notice. I notice.
Matsuo moves through this place as if he has always belonged to its silence. But this time, he said something.
"I look exactly my age."
I see. So, he has finally come to terms with it.
Butler Matsuo was sixty years old and still working for his son, Eichiro. Unfortunately, he had Eichiro late in life, around forty-eight or fifty, when his son was born.
Sixty is the age when most people retire and live comfortably. But for Matsuo, ensuring his son would never fall short meant working without pause.
He stood before the mirror, studying his face, especially the wrinkles.
A sad smile crept across his lips before he turned to me.
"Kiyotaka, what do you think the afterlife is like?"
Normally, I could answer questions within seconds. But this question... it might be one of the very few I could not answer.
I looked at Matsuo, searching for words in my mind.
He must believe in God to ask such a question. If so, I would have to find the answer using the same method.
Since ancient times, there has been a debate, a debate about God.
Does He exist?
Unironically, this debate is most often carried by those who argue for a living or by the unemployed.
It usually goes like this.
The believer begins by praising God.
God is merciful yet vengeful. He made this world to test His creation, granting them free will to choose the path worthy of heaven or hell. Everything is done by His will.
This is where the debate begins.
The non-believer counters.
If God is so merciful, why doesn't He make the world good for everyone? Why create sadness, crime, and grief? If everything is by His will, could He not make a world free from suffering?
The believer replies.
It is to test us. God gave free will and challenges to measure the strength of our faith. He will reward us in time. The world runs freely because God willed it so. If He controlled every action, it would not be freedom but a cage so vast we might mistake it for liberty.
The non-believer presses further.
So to God, circumstances are nothing but trials? Most crime is born from circumstance. The one who starves steals food, not out of malice but desperation. People take justice into their own hands because authorities are corrupt. Families beg God to save their loved ones suffering in hospitals, yet it was the same God who gave them that fate. Is this truly the free world He envisioned?
And so the debate continues endlessly, without ever reaching a definitive conclusion.
Ironically, those who argue with such certainty rely only on theories, words without substance. None of it holds factual value if it is spoken without proof.
All they do is debate theory against theory. No one looks at logic. If I look at it this way, nothing truly adds up from both side.
And currently my task is not to find the correct answer using logic and science... My task is to find a answer that can satisfy Matsuo.
If every argument relies on theories, does that not mean I must also build my answer from them?
So...
Let me look through this world, and find an answer that will satisfy Matsuo.
***
If according to Matsuo, God exists, and in these debates the world is said to be controlled by human will, then does it not mean that our good is the world's bad?
Think about it.
The same way energy cannot be created from nothing, good cannot exist without bad.
There must be darkness in a room for light to brighten it.
A candle has no meaning under the sun, yet becomes precious when surrounded by shadow.
You can help others only because incompetence exists. Kindness has value only because cruelty is possible. Justice is worshiped only because injustice prevails. What is called virtue is simply the act of standing against the vices that already infest the world.
Every smile is sharpened by the memory of tears. Every triumph carries the shadow of someone else's defeat.
If everyone could succeed, success itself would mean nothing. If everyone was safe, bravery would not exist.
And it does not end with ideas.
Humans are no different.
To give to one person is to take from another. A mother's love binds her child to warmth, but in that same embrace she withholds herself from the rest of the world.
A soldier defends his homeland, but to do so he must destroy another's. One man's protection becomes another's loss.
Even emotions carry this exchange.
To trust someone means you risk betrayal. To forgive means someone else had to wound you. We call love pure, but love is sharp it makes us guard one person at the cost of neglecting another. It gives meaning to one bond while leaving countless others in silence.
And then there is what we take from the earth.
We tear down forests to build homes, so that some may rest warm while countless creatures lose theirs forever.
We empty the oceans to feed the hungry, yet leave them poisoned and barren for those yet to come.
Medicine heals the sick, but leaves scars on rivers and skies. Every comfort carved by human hands is written into the ruin of something else.
So perhaps the design of this world was never to be good or bad, but to hold both in balance. A scale that tips and sways, never still, because it must give weight to both sides for either to matter.
And if that is true, then this world is not the conclusion, but only the stage. A place where meaning is forged by opposition. Where the soul is tempered not in comfort, but in conflict. Where every bond, every act, every joy and every wound, is nothing more than a fragment of something larger, something unfinished.
If so, then what we call life is only half of the story.
The afterlife... must be the other half.
The place where what was tested is revealed. Where the weight of every action, every shadow and every spark of light, is measured not by how it felt in this world, but by what it built in the soul.
***
But then another problem arises.
If the afterlife is the other half, then it cannot stand on its own. It can only exist in relation to what came before. Its meaning would not be absolute but comparative.
Heaven is not Heaven unless Hell stands beside it. It derives its value from being its opposite. A paradise without suffering would be indistinguishable from ordinary existence, nothing more than an endless continuation of comfort stripped of contrast.
Hell too depends on Heaven. Eternal pain has no shape unless it is compared against the possibility of relief. If there is no good to measure it against, then torment is simply the only state of being, and therefore ceases to be torment at all.
And Purgatory rests upon both. It is neither reward nor punishment but a middle ground, a bridge with meaning only if there are two shores it connects. Without Heaven and Hell, the bridge leads nowhere.
Remove one, and the others collapse. They are not truths, but structures leaning against each other, standing only because of their dependence. When they fall together, what remains is nothing.
But... Now I would like to propose an interesting question.
Does nothing really exist?
Again, think about it.
If I were to ask you about nothing, what would you say? You might call it the absence of everything. You might think of nothing and say it such. But even that is false. You only call it nothing because you recognized its state. The moment you give it recognition, it becomes something.
If you see it, recognise it in your brain and has a dedicated word for it, how is it nothing?
Nothing is not emptiness. It is not silence. It is not void. Those are all descriptions, and descriptions already give form. True nothing cannot be seen, cannot be named, cannot even be thought. Yet the instant we attempt to deny it, it enters existence in the mind.
So in reality, even nothing is something.
Even... Nothing... Is something.
So... That's what it was all this time?
[He sighed out loud]
Everything folded into the same pattern. The divisions I had used to name meaning revealed themselves as mirrors reflecting one another.
Good existed because there was evil to define it.
Mercy held value only because cruelty was possible.
Honor was visible only when shame was feared.
Every category of thought was chained to its opposite. To declare one was to summon the other.
Even cause and consequence, the scaffolding I trusted for prediction, betrayed me.
Every choice carried with it unseen outcomes, each act creating both relief and harm.
A kindness lifted one person yet overshadowed another.
Punishment corrected one life but distorted another.
Balance was never absolute, only shifting.
Every truth I reached leaned on a contradiction.
Even memory, the tool I relied on to track the past, reshaped itself into stories convenient for the present. What I believed to be truth was compromise, altered by perception, bent by necessity.
And the world around me confirmed it. This villa with its perfect symmetry was only meaningful because disorder existed elsewhere.
The order of the garden, the hum of the cameras, the illusion of control each mattered only because their opposites lurked beyond the glass.
Even this sanctuary of precision was proof of the chaos it tried to exclude.
In the end, everything was bound in dependency. Life. Death. The afterlife itself. They could not exist alone. Strip them down and what remains is the same circle that refuses to break.
This... this is all nothing but a paradox.
For the first time in a long time, there was nowhere else for reason to go if I wanted to find the answer using theories.
Matsuo must have noticed. He stepped closer, laying a hand on my shoulder. His grip was steady, his warmth unshaken by my silence.
"You do not have to know everything now, Some truths only arrive when you live them."
And in that moment, I understood something about myself.
I did not want to be taken by violence. I did not want to disappear into sudden silence.
If I must die, then let it be by old age, at the end of a long line of mornings. If anything else were to try and claim me, I would resist it with all my strength. Not because I fear death, but because my life should be finished by time itself, not stolen before its shape is complete.
I wish to die of old age, or die struggling.
What I discovered about the world...
Let's call it theory of balance.
***
Ayanokouji was almost dead as he wrapped his body around the Vowalker, falling deep into the depths of the lake. He closed his eyes, as even movement itself had become too much of a burden.
They both fell down the deep abyss, each meter growing darker until only darkness remained, obscuring even the trail of blood drifting up toward the surface.
Minutes began to pass.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Three minutes.
...
Ten minutes.
Ayanokouji had not realized it, but time around him had stopped. In fact, he did not realize it because he himself was frozen.
He was not sinking because of the weight of the Vowalker, but was instead being pulled down into the abyss.
In the darkness right beside him, two mountains of pure stone appeared, emitting a faint light.
If he went down when time was frozen, then time shouldn't be frozen. If he was moving downward, that meant he was moving through time.
But time had indeed been frozen.
Ayanokouji's descent finally stopped when he hit the void. He was frozen, neither falling further nor dying.
In his mind, there was just one phrase being repeated.
'So this is how it ends?'
And again.
'So this is how it ends?'
His nightmare-corrupted mind could not recognize the loop. Each thought returned as if it were new, yet he could not remember the one before.
'So this is how it ends?'
'So this is how it ends?'
'So this is how it ends?'
'So this is how it ends?'
Time passed, yet it did not. In this lake, there was no concept of time.
'So this is how it ends?'
'So this is how it ends?'
'So this is how it ends?'
'So this is how it ends?'
Time only stayed, locked in place.
'So this is how it ends?'
'So this is how it ends?'
'So this is how it ends?'
'So this is how it ends?'
In his new world, there was no concept of anything else.
"So this is how it ends?"
"So this is how it ends?"
"So relaxed is how it ends?"
"So this is how it ends?"
And it kept repeating, again and again, without measure, without end.
Some time passed. No, not time. There was no time here to pass.
The mountains beside him flickered with light and a sound emerged. Yet, nothing came from it, but the moment nothing was mentioned, it became something.
"҉⟦⟡⟧⟦⟡⟧⟦⟡⟧ ǁ Ϟ͟͟͟ϟ Ѫ҂҈⟊⟁ 𐍈𐌗𐍊 ☉⟁⟁⟁ ✦҉⧫҉⟊ ǁ ҈҈҈ 𒌐𒐫𒌐 ⟦⟡⟧҉"
A voice spoke with a wisdom that could only be gathered over centuries.
It said something, yet nothing. No voice could be heard, yet everything could be.
The voice was inaudible at first.
"҉⟦⟡⟧⟦⟡⟧⟦⟡⟧ ǁ Ϟ͟͟͟ϟ Ѫ҂҈⟊⟁ 𐍈𐌗𐍊 ☉⟁⟁⟁ ✦҉⧫҉⟊ ǁ ҈҈҈ 𒌐𒐫𒌐 ⟦⟡⟧҉"
Now the voice looped in Ayanokouji's mind.
'҉⟦⟡⟧⟦⟡⟧⟦⟡⟧ ǁ Ϟ͟͟͟ϟ Ѫ҂҈⟊⟁ 𐍈𐌗𐍊 ☉⟁⟁⟁ ✦҉⧫҉⟊ ǁ ҈҈҈ 𒌐𒐫𒌐 ⟦⟡⟧҉'
'҉⟦⟡⟧⟦⟡⟧⟦⟡⟧ ǁ Ϟ͟͟͟ϟ Ѫ҂҈⟊⟁ 𐍈𐌗𐍊 ☉⟁⟁⟁ ✦҉⧫҉⟊ ǁ ҈҈҈ 𒌐𒐫𒌐 ⟦⟡⟧҉'
Without a concept of time, no one knew how long this repeated. Suddenly, a few words became audible.
Those words now carried the same vocal tones as Ayanokouji, as if he were the one speaking them.
'҉⟦⟡⟧𒌐𒐫𒌐Ϟ͟͟͟ϟ⟊⟁⟊҉✦҉⧫҉𐍈␌⟗𐍊 ... descend ... ҉҉҉⟦⟡⟧𐍈␌⟗𐍊 ... judgment ...'
Now the words began to loop, sounding like this,
'҉⟦⟡⟧𒌐𒐫𒌐Ϟ͟͟͟ϟ⟊⟁⟊҉✦҉⧫҉𐍈␌⟗𐍊 ... descend ... ҉҉҉⟦⟡⟧𐍈␌⟗𐍊 ... judgment ...'
'҉⟦⟡⟧𒌐𒐫𒌐Ϟ͟͟͟ϟ⟊⟁⟊҉✦҉⧫҉𐍈␌⟗𐍊 ... descend ... ҉҉҉⟦⟡⟧𐍈␌⟗𐍊 ... judgment ...'
Nothing, yet something, just stood there, or maybe it didn't. No one knew.
'҉⟦⟡⟧𒌐Ϟ͟ϟ⟊⟁⟊҉✦҉⧫҉ ... descend ... 你 ... ⟦⟡⟧ ... giudiz'
Suddenly, Ayanokouji's eyes snapped open. Darkness surrounded him, but something in the looped voices shifted.
Disoriented by the unending repetition, he tried to push against the still water, testing the boundaries of this strange place.
A flicker of awareness returned to his mind. The horror of the endless repetition remained, but he could confront it now rather than being trapped within it. His thoughts raced, dissecting the incomprehensible loops, separating the layers of language and meaning.
Gradually, he felt a strange calm descend. His motions slowed, his mind cleared, and for the first time in what felt like eternity, he sensed his own agency.
Ayanokouji, having mastered multiple languages, realized the words 'Nothing, yet something' were trying to take shape in a form he could comprehend.
Eventually, each word shifted into a language Ayanokouji knew.
After a moment, Ayanokouji flinched.
Now, the words finally had their own language, each one distinct, sounding like this,
Tu steh jako unico qui ha descendu إلى este profundità. Avant te sunt misurato, du debes antworten. Dic... in omni tua wandering, in tout ton lucha, habes tu realmente beheld ce monde et rendu tuo giudizio?
Only Ayanokouji's mind could process this loop at that speed. His eyes roamed, and he soon calmed.
He analyzed the structure, mapping each fragment to its origin,
Tu (French), steh (German), jako (Polish), unico (Italian), qui (Latin), ha (Spanish), descendu (French), إلى (Arabic), este (Spanish), profundità (Italian). Avant (French), te (Latin), sunt (Latin), misurato (Italian), du (German), debes (Spanish), antworten (German). Dic (Latin)... in (English), omni (Latin), tua (Italian), wandering (English), in (French), tout (French), ton (French), lucha (Spanish), habes (Latin), tu (Latin), realmente (Italian), beheld (English), ce (French), monde (French), et (Latin), rendu (French), tuo (Italian), giudizio (Italian)?
The light coming from the mountains flickered in acknowledgment.
'Even when Perla said something, the lips formed the words in Latin, yet what came out was English.'
Ayanokouji dissected everything into English, cracking the final test,
'You stand as the only one who has descended to this depth. Before you are measured, you must answer. Tell me... in all your wandering, in all your struggle, have you truly beheld this world and rendered it your judgment?'
Ayanokouji broke free from the nightmare's influence on his mind.
A faint light escaped the mountains, entering Ayanokouji's eyes before spreading through his entire body. Immediately, his form began to move, emitting a blue radiance as it did, yet it was not Ayanokouji who controlled the motion.
In a world without time, the body moved through the stillness, passing into the mountain through an open space, yet no water rushed inside.
Within the mountain lay a hollow space, an ordinary cave with a skeleton sitting by the rocks.
The light escaped from Ayanokouji and crawled toward the skeleton, which began to emit a faint blue glow, though it remained entirely still.
The bones were rotting and broken.
Ayanokouji lay on the ground, finally granted control of his body again, but he did not try to move. He actually could not move, as he was simply that exhausted.
The dirt inside the cave levitated, shining with a blue light as it slowly covered Ayanokouji's injuries, stopping the bleeding.
For some time, Ayanokouji did not engage, simply letting his body recover. Once his breathing grew a little easier, he decided to speak.
'I am ready for the conversation.'
The moment Ayanokouji spoke, the jaw of the skeleton began to vibrate, moving up and down in a laughing motion, though in reality, it was just the sound of bone hitting bone.
"KEKEKEKEKEKE."
Ayanokouji's eyes wandered toward the skeleton, then toward the rest of the cave. The sound emerged from everywhere, rather than from one specific direction.
'May I ask who this great one is?'
Slowly, the laughter faded and an answer came. This time, it was Ayanokouji's own voice that replied, though he was not the one speaking.
"I am nothing, yet something in the eyes of those who shall not be named, and the ones who can be named do not know of my existence. I once sought knowledge and clung to neutrality, hoping to understand the world and my place within it. Those I served cast me aside without thought. Alone, I unearthed the secret of immortality. What once appeared to be a gift has decayed into a curse. Time does not flow, it suffocates. The world slips further and further away, and I remain, unseen, forgotten, condemned to carry the weight of what I lost, what I will never touch, and the bitter truth that I was never meant to endure what I now cannot escape."
The voice slowly stopped, and Ayanokouji felt countless eyes watching him, yet he continued nonetheless.
"I was called dry water by my colleagues."
The voice sounded exactly like Ayanokouji, but there was a hint of disbelief hidden within it.
The entity could no longer hear Ayanokouji's thoughts, as he had stopped forming them using his mind.
'So, Dry Water, what do you need from me?'
Ayanokouji's eyes glanced outside the cave, looking at his own blood frozen in the water.
"You have come far, but far is meaningless. Depth does not grant insight. Those who linger in silence often mistake endurance for understanding. I have dwelled where worlds collapse, where time is nothing and everything at once. I have seen ambition crumble, wisdom falter, and yet they persist, chasing a meaning that cannot be held."
For some unknown reason, Dry Water did not stop.
"To endure is not to see. To witness is not to grasp. You believe that by following the loops, the echoes, and the fragments of thought you uncovered, you arrive at truth. But truth is not a thing to arrive at, it is the shape left behind when all else has decayed."
Something unimaginable finally began to happen. Ayanokouji Kiyotaka, who had always stayed silent when others revealed things about themselves, interfered.
Ayanokouji was a person who would never interrupt an enemy when they were making a mistake, but this time he did, and he did so in a way that was entirely unlike him.
'I have followed every echo. I have measured every shadow, every turn, and every fragment of thought you assumed would hide you.'
The voice let Ayanokouji finish before replying.
"You presume too much. Even now, you have seen only the edges. The heart remains untouched. You cannot fathom the weight of timelessness."
Ayanokouji replied,
'You are infinite in your circling, but finite in what you can conceal. Your centuries do not grant omniscience, they grant repetition. Every step you moved me, every trial you orchestrated, and every layer you folded into this nightmare, I have seen it all.'
He continued,
'You believed I would not notice the strings wrapping around my mind. You are not here to help me, nor are you here to kill me and take this body, not because you do not want to, but because you cannot.'
He did not stop.
'You once must have despised people like me, and now the one you hate most is yourself for never becoming like me. Everything you said only proves one thing. You spoke of things like the Nameless, the Named, and a pain that never ends, but it all comes down to this, you could never give your all to those who made you, and you were never useful enough not to be discarded. Your entire existence is really nothing but something.'
Finally, Dry Water replied, a hint of amusement coloring his voice, which Ayanokouji found interesting to note.
"Tell me how you figured me out."
***
Rewritten, Actually barely had to do anything mostly just copy paste from the old one.