章 76: A Glimpse of The Future
In a spacious yard of the Temple of Kamar Taj in the middle of a town in Kathmandu, a female monk, wearing a white robe and garments, was waiting for her guest while meditating. No one knew her real name nor her real age. For her students, she was the current Sorceress Supreme, and for most, she was The Ancient One.
A moment later, an oval portal that looked like fireworks appeared in front of her as a boy and a man walked side by side from the other side of the portal. One was a white-haired man, with a red trench coat, and the other was just a toddler half the man's size.
The Ancient One opened her eyes and stood to greet them, "Welcome to Kamar Taj, Edward. I have been waiting for you."
Edward was too captivated by the experience of passing through the portal that he was a bit delayed in answering.
"Thank you for inviting me," replied Edward, before continuing, "though, haven't I already refused your offer to be your student?"
Realizing that Edward was misunderstanding her intention, she corrected him. She said, "Ah... I'm not inviting you here to ask you about that. Although, I won't mind if you give it some more thought."
Edward just laughed awkwardly, not knowing either she was joking or being serious, but from her determined and unchangeable expression, it might be the latter.
"Ahem... so, what is it that you required from me, even inviting me by sending Dante?" asked Edward.
"Right to the point as always, aren't you. Then please, follow me." replied The Ancient One.
She turned her back and strode through the hallway, into a garden behind the temple. While following her, Edward sent a glance toward Dante, inquiring on what was the reason he was invited for, but then he just shrugged, telling Edward to see it himself.
Soon, they arrived in a lush garden with a pond in the middle and a big tree that was surrounded by small and thin bamboos. A girl was sitting under the tree, meditating while being watched by two of The Ancient One's students, Kaecilius and Wong. The girl was so deep in meditation that she didn't realize that The Ancient One had arrived with her guest.
From faraway, Edward was looking at the muscular Kaecilius, the soon-to-be villain who would kill his teacher and fought Doctor Strange in the future. Edward had a lingering thought inside his mind, if he killed him now, shouldn't the future quest would be easy?
But a thought would just be a thought. If he did it, he might make the whole Kamar Taj be his enemy. Not only that, but Dante also seemed to have a bit of attachment to this place. Wait... if The Ancient One could see the future, couldn't she also see Kaecilius's betrayal?
Shaking off his wandering thought, Edward finally faced the girl under the tree. Edward muttered, "Huh? This girl..."
He recognized it immediately since he was the one that asked Dante to protect her and her friends after the accident at the Theme Park months ago.
"Wendy Christensen, the girl who cheated deaths." said The Ancient One. Both Kaecilius and Wong bowed to, before leaving the garden together. Now there were only four of them in this garden.
"Where are the others?" asked Edward. There were supposed to be around twelve of them that Dante picked up, but ever since he arrived, there was no sign of the survivors anywhere, it was only the girl in front of him.
"They all died, all in an odd manner." interrupted Dante. "Two girls were burned alive in their sleep after an aromatic candle fell on their bed. One died when he was playing with a real sword, slipped, and then impaled his own neck with a sword. There's more, you wanna hear it?"
"That's enough, I get it," replied Edward, imagining the poor ends for those teenagers. He then asked, "Then, is she the last one?"
"Sadly, yes. We did as we could to protect them all, but Death was relentless, there's no way to evade it." said The Ancient One, lamenting in her helplessness as their caretaker. " But then, I was reminded by you."
"Why me?"
The Ancient One smiled and with a single wave of her hand moved the nearby table and chair toward them. Inviting Edward to sit with her. After everyone took a chair, she asked, "Do you know that I could glimpse into the future, Edward?"
"Yeah, I think Dante mentioned it once before," answered Edward, unsure that he could answer it safely or not.
Dante mumbled, "Wait... I did? When?"
Realizing that he made a mistake, Edward asked again, "Anyway, what about it?"
Thankfully, the Ancient One didn't seem to notice it. She was too focused on delivering her sentences. "Ever since I have this power, I could see almost everything that would happen in the future. Both the good and the bad one, however, it was not without limit."
"Was? Then you could now," replied Edward.
"Not exactly, but now I could see more of them." replied The Ancient One. She still couldn't see past her Death, but since her life was extended, he could see far away in the future. "And all of that was because of you."
"Me?"
"Yes. For 8 years, I had searched high and low for the reason why my life got extended, and then, I found you. Just by you existing alone, the future trembled, splitting into more than a hundred of thousands of possibilities, maybe millions. " Explained The Ancient One. Edward couldn't understand what she was saying.
Suddenly the wind blew past them, shaking the leaves on the trees. At the same time, the girl opened her eyes. Her face was pale and her body was shaking, recalling the vision she got during her meditation. She muttered, "It's... here..."
"It seems giving an example would be a proper explanation." said The Ancient One, moving away from the girl's direction. "Edward, could you please save her from what is to come?"
Edward knew about the rules in Final Destination. In that Universe, although it could be cheated, Death couldn't be bartered or avoided for long. However, did the same rule applied in this Universe as well? Although Edward knew that Death still wanted to make things right by taking these students as well, what would change if he was the one to make the move?
Edward shut his eyes off, activating his Radar Sense. Everything that moved would produce sounds no matter what it is. Even snails did, it was just that normal people couldn't hear it. With the high stats he had, Edward normally already had an enhanced hearing sense, now with Radar Sense being active, he could use even the smallest sound to scan his surrounding like a pulse.
The first thing he heard was the abnormal sounds of the wind which constantly getting louder and stronger. It blows toward them at a high speed, he even wondered if a storm was coming. The strong wind cracked a thick branch on the tree behind the girl. Edward saw the sound, his observation could predict what would happen next. Still, with closed eyes, he dashed to her just as the branch snapped.
The girl panicked, not knowing what was happening, she stood right on the path where the branch was flying to. In less than a second, It moved to pierce through her eyes, but Edward was faster. The moment when it almost reached Wendy's eye, he kicked the thick branch away. However, it didn't end yet, more branches as if controlled, flew toward the girl, causing Edward to protect him some more.
Slowly, Edward lost his patience. He shouted, "Firaga!"
Three small fireballs flew toward the tree blowing it smithereens which increased his workload even more as the explosion conjured a small tornado that contains smaller pieces of wood 'knives'.
"Oh fuck!"
[Your word, Sir, ] uttered Regina, abruptly.
10 minutes later, everything finally ended, and the girl's life could be saved. Edward was out of breath, not from being tired, but from frustration and anger toward the relentless effort from Death. He then heard clapping sounds coming toward him, Dante and The Ancient One was approaching them.
"Impressive, you handled it much better than I thought. Although you could have just moved her into a safe place rather than fighting it," said Dante, holding his laugh.
"Damn it! Why I couldn't think of that?" said Edward, even more angry. He tried to attack Dante out of embarrassment, but the latter skillfully dodged all of his attacks.
The Ancient One was busy observing the aura that was leaking from the girl. She didn't care what the two were doing behind her. Through her observation, she found something changing in the girl. Surprisingly, the aura of Death that was lingering on her all this time vanished completely. Not even she could do it as Edward did. She started thinking and make a conjecture of the hidden ability that Edward has.
"Edward." called The Ancient One. Edward who was locking Dante in an armbar position released Dante and faced her.
"Do you have the power to... no, that's not it, he didn't even seem to know." muttered The Ancient One before cutting her own words. "Let me rephrase my question. Do you have someone in your family that could manipulate F—"
Suddenly, inside Edward's head, an ear-piercing sound exploded.
<Warning! An intrusion on the system program has been made. Personal Assistant: Regina, you are not allowed to access the User's mind!>
<Warning! An intrusion on the system program has been detected. Personal Assistant: Regina, you are not allowed to access the User's mind!>
Edward couldn't see the warning notification in front of him as he shut his eyes out of pain, nor could he listen to what The Ancient One was saying through the loud ringing noise inside his head. He dropped on his knee, trying to cover his ears, but the sound was inside his mind, so he couldn't do anything about it.
"Stop it!" shouted Edward.
Along with all of those notifications, the sound vanished, and the calm and quiet atmosphere returned once again. Dante who was worried strode to his side.
"Edward, are you okay?" asked Dante. He then moved his face toward The Ancient One. "Did you do something to him?"
She complained, "Not this again, Dante, I didn't even move a finger. Okay well, I did, but I was just scratching my wrist."
"I'm... fine... you can ask your question again," said Edward while shaking off the dizziness inside his head.
The Ancient One was deep in thought before saying, "my question, let's save it for later times since I might not get what I want to hear from you."
Edward was confused, did the ringing inside his head had something to do with it? Did something or someone didn't want him to hear or answer the question she was about to ask?
"But, let me warn you, Edward. Fate had its own course. It was something that shouldn't be changed, only straightened. Don't get too involved with what was meant to happen." said The Ancient One, with a trace of an oppressive aura inside her words.
"Funny to hear it coming from you," muttered Edward.
"What?" The Ancient One was too surprised by his answer that she unconsciously said it.
"Fate this and Fate that. You always said that no one could mess with Fate, but you are the one that always did it. What a fucking hypocrite. Just because you can see everything that would happen in the future, doesn't give you the right to fuck with someone else's presents and past!" yelled Edward.
"Be careful in choosing your words, Edward. I'm warning you." said The Ancient One.
"Do you think that I wouldn't know? Of that night in Paris!? I merely turned a blind eye to it, knowing that it might have something to do with your plan. But now, all I see is a hypocrite woman with baseless conjecture thinking high about the fate of others when the one in front of her was suffering from her messing with this so-called Fate."
"All I did was straightening the course of Fate. You, Edward, are the key to this world's future. Everything that would happen in the future would be on your shoulder to carry."
"I'm sorry, if you are looking for a hero, I'm not the one you're looking for. Someone I knew once said, 'With great power, comes great responsibility.' Well, fuck that! Captain America died fighting because he thought it was his responsibility. Now? He was just a record of the past, only remembered through texts. No one even knows how he really looked like."
Dante led the girl to the hallway, leaving Edward and The Ancient One to speak alone. On his way, he met the eavesdropping Wong and Kaecilius. Dante shook his head and led them away as well.
The Ancient One sighed and finally gave up. She muttered, "Fine. If that's what you want."
She spread her arms and slowly moved them toward the middle. Edward, thinking that she wanted to fight took out all of his equipment.
"Calm down, I'm not going to fight you, I'll just show you something." slowly, a pendant in the shape of an eye moved forward to him. It glows in green as green runic-circles formed on both of her hands. "Touched it, Edward, if you want to see what I saw. What led me to do everything to prevent it."
Edward put away all of his equipment and walked toward her. He was a bit hesitant but eventually pushed himself to touch the Eye of Agamotto. The moment his skin made contact with the cold metal, the world started speeding. He could only saw blurry lines moving so fast, even the day and night cycle just flickered at this moment.
When it stopped, Edward felt a piercing headache invading his mind. As he looked around, he found that The Ancient One wasn't there with him. Instead, he found a mountain of human corpses in the middle of a ruined city. He didn't know where it was, but he was sure that he was still on Earth. It was then that Edward heard someone's voice.
"She's not here as well."
The voice came from the top of the mountain. Edward slowly moved his eyes to look at the owner of the voice, but then he flinched. What he saw was a man in a black suit, wearing a purple necktie. The man then moved his hands to fix his hair, wiping the messy strands of hair backward. Although it was a bit blurry, Edward saw the face of that man. Even if the man was much older now, how could Edward not know his own face?
The man then took out a locker from inside his pocket, as he opened it, Edward saw a feature of a woman. He couldn't see the face of the woman, but he saw a short-haired blonde woman inside.
The man then spoke, "Where are you?"
The moment he said so, Edward's body was pulled back into the present, back to the garden of Kamar Taj. And the same headache hit him again.
"Did you see him? Your future self?" asked The Ancient One who now stood in front of him.
"That's not me!" said Edward, denying her.
"That was only a snippet of the future I saw. Wherever he walks, only destructions found his way. This is why I've been doing it. Nothing could stop the future you from wrecking the world."
Edward couldn't say anything. Even though he didn't plan to be a hero, he didn't want to be a villain either. He didn't only saw himself in that future, but the fate of the woman inside the locket. Even though he couldn't see it properly, that woman might be Sherry. And from his future self behavior, he was looking for her. Something must have happened to her.
"Fuck!!"
Boom!
Edward punched smashed the floor, forming a small crater that shook the whole Kamar Taj. The Ancient One was surprised by the power that Edward held. He thought it was his raw power, not knowing that it was actually the effect from one of his abilities, Durability Negation, that allowed him to crush anything.
Thinking that they were attacked, both Kaecilius and Wong dashed to protect their master. Dante followed after, but he just walks his way up. Other students who were resting elsewhere also came, making the garden even more lively. The Ancient One held one of her arms up, telling them that it was okay.
She asked, "So? What's your choice, Edward?"
"I... don't know..." replied Edward, softly.
Knowing that Edward was still in a state of shock, The Ancient One glanced at Dante. The latter knew what she meant and strode toward Edward, helping him to stand.
"Let's go, mate. I'll walk you home."
Dante conjured a portal and used it to return. The night sky greeted them on the other side of the portal.
"Damn it, it's a little bit far from your house," muttered Dante.
"It's okay, I'll walk alone," said Edward.
"No, no, no, I'm the one that brought you there. I'll take you home just in a moment."
"It's fine, Dante. I just want to breathe fresh air for a moment. I can't show myself in front of my family, not like this." said Edward, refusing Dante's offer.
"Alright then, if you say so," replied Dante, helplessly.
Edward started to walk alone. His destination was his home, but somehow the weight on his shoulder keeps holding him back. He chuckled. He didn't want to be a hero, but he was still burdened by the future.
He muttered toward himself, "What a fucking hypocrite you are, Edward."
クリエイターの想い 
NightHowl
NightHowl Merry Christmas, everyone. Sorry for the late update, I was too busy yesterday and the day before that, causing me to forget uploading the next chapter which should have been done yesterday.
Anyway, here's the chapter for today.
See you tomorrow!!
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