บท 2: Chapter 1 - Immutable
All he had to do was blink and the whole world disappeared.
He found himself facing a carved obsidian door so high that it was lost in the clouds, so wide that one would have thought the horizon only made of it.
He brushed it with the fat of his thumb and found himself on the other side.
The other side was a dark place, a place of infinite space where everything was black. There was no sky, no earth, nothing in between : everything was black, black, black.
He thought he was alone until one of the things moved.
They were creatures as dark as the scenery, so dark that the stillness made them invisible. They moved along the ground like shadows, their steps as light as the caress of the wind in the night. They had neither eyes nor ears: it was as if a black sheet had been placed on their foreheads and covered each of their excavations, giving them the silhouettes of men even though they were not.
But he couldn't bring himself to be afraid, because he knew he was one of them.
Murmurs grew from the crowd of mouthless creatures.
He entered a circle of the closest shadows. They made room for him without paying him the slightest attention.
"... the choice of the world is paramount", breathed the shadow facing him.
To his left the shadow made a sharp noise, the same noise that a tongue slammed against a palate would make.
"You think we didn't get it ? But you saw the size of that damn wheel, it's bigger than the Eiffel Tower. No matter how many hours of talking and planning we do, it's more likely that we'll fall somewhere we never heard of"
The shadow on the right clasped his fingerless hands together, quivering.
" Do you think they can be bribed ? With enough money..."
The shadow on the left laughed, and it was a laugh as dry as it was contemptuous. Since the shadow had no mouth, it looked strange : it was as if the shadow was wracked with spasms.
"You're one of those, huh? You must have been pretty loaded in the Before to think you could buy those demons"
The shadow on the right looked nervously around him.
"Don't call them that-"
"Why ? They do nothing but call us, anyway"
The third shadow, the one next to both, silenced them with a word :
"They can be bribed. I've seen it"
His voice must have carried in a moment of collective silence because everyone in their direct proximity fell silent.
Even shadows from other groups had turned their heads toward them. Some of them swelled the ranks of their little circle, gathering feverishly to hear what would happen next.
The first shadow - the one who had the attention of all the others - cleared his throat.
"You can bribe them, yes, but not with money"
There were murmurs.
"I saw a shadow ask them what he would have to pay to be able to choose his After"
The speaker was silent for a few seconds: the newcomer interpreted this as a pause to find his words.
"He told them he would give them anything they wanted. He told them they had only to name it : diamond mines or a mountain of gold... their price was his"
The shadow on the left clutched his arms to his chest. His shoulders were wobbling.
"What's next?"
"One of them spoke. She said they wanted her soul"
Again, a stunned silence.
"It's not... how...?"
"You're lying"
The storyteller ignored them.
"And then the shadow exploded"
The newcomer imagined one of the creatures exploding like a bomb.
He saw the black skin split like a broken mirror before scattering in the air, imagined a white light coming out of the stomach. He saw The Other Side illuminated for a fraction of a second by a blindingly white sun ; he felt its warmth, saw its light, envisioned its horror.
Like a dying supernova.
And then everything disappeared, reduced in the infinite nothingness of this in-between.
"You're lying !"
The shadows elbowed each other, anger seeping out of them. The newcomer had heard enough : he left to avoid being caught in the fray.
He moved through the darkness, eavesdropped to bits of conversation here and there.
"... is to be an Uzumaki"
"Are you kidding me? The probability of being the new Jinchuriki is crazy as fuck"
"And then the Akatsuki will inevitably come after you"
One of them responded smugly.
"Not if I get strong enough"
The other shadows looked exasperated.
"Where do you think you are? You're not the protagonist, you won't have any plot armor. If the world is a tiny bit realistic, you'll have more chances to be killed by a Genin with a butter knife than to be able to fight Itachi one on one"
The new shadow continued to walk, moving without a sound between the discussion circles.
"... chronicle... find the stone..."
"Fairy Tail...? ...telekinesis..."
They talked, talked, and talked. There was nothing else to do but talk, so why not talk?
He overheard a conversation that piqued his interest.
"... the technique is to catch the wheel and throw it with a slight angle of the wrist."
One of the shadows demonstrated, bending his wrist twenty degrees.
The new shadow stopped, watching him curiously. The other creatures laughed.
"You know very well that it's all about Karma", hissed one. "Your cheap tricks won't change anything"
The shadow who had demonstrated the throw straightened up, his chin raised. His voice sounded indifferent to the mockery :
"I've been here longer than you"
She patted her chest where the number 411 glowed in white.
" And ? We've been here for a while too, and we've all seen what the wheels look like. It's just a matter of chance. And Karma"
Each of the other torsos showed numbers ranging from eleven thousand to thirty thousand.
The new shadow looked down at his own chest and discovered the seventy-seven thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven.
Every ten seconds the last number changed to a lower value.
"Hey, are you new ?"
The shadow accused of charlatanism approached him. She put his arm around his shoulders.
"How does it feel to be dead ?"
The other shadows she was talking to whispered and then scattered.
"I thought we were all going to go crazy but they did something to us in there", She tapped his head with his finger, "and now nobody is afraid"
She looked around, and the new shadow imagined that he would have seen affection in her eyes, if there were eyes.
"There's something familiar about this place, isn't it ? I feel like I'm home"
The new shadow pushed the arm off his shoulders.
"Where are we?"
"The In-Between, the Beyond, the Bridge, whatever you want to call it"
"What do they expect from us ?"
The new shadow didn't even know who he meant when he said 'they'. Perhaps they were the 'demons' he had heard about ? Maybe something else, some ageless, nameless creatures with infinitely superior abilities ?
"They don't expect anything from us. The only thing we have to do is turn the wheels"
The wheels. Everyone had been talking about the wheels since he arrived.
"What is-"
Projectors lit up.
A scene made of smoke appeared in the middle of the crowd of shadows. Everyone fell silent. The creatures lined up in tight rows, eagerly awaiting the show.
"Shut up and look, newbie"
A sudden wave of steam - as if someone had just turned over a pot full of smoke - poured out of the scene before drowning in the darkness.
A wheel as big as the Empire State Building appeared from the white mist.
The shadow looked up but it was as if it had no end.
The crowd split open to let one of the faceless creatures through: the number 1 shone on her chest.
She went up on the stage amidst the whispers.
Her head turned to the crowd as if she were looking at them all.
Another wheel appeared between the shadow and the other behemoth. This one, however, was human-sized.
Smoke billowed from the small wheel. Two almost equal boxes were fighting for space: 'Yes' and 'No'.
The charlatan whistled, admiringly.
"This guy must have pretty good Karma to make his Yes almost equal to the No."
The shadow threw the first wheel.
It was spinning at full speed while the thrower on the left nervously fiddled with his hands.
"What is the purpose of this wheel?"
It was not the charlatan who answered him but the shadow on his right.
"It's the one that determines whether he will be able to remember his last life in the next one"
The new shadow was surprised.
This wheel was the smallest one but it was by far the more dangerous of the two.
Memories and experiences shaped our being. To no longer have them was tantamount to the death of who we had been.
The arrow stopped on a slot.
The crowd stirred.
"Tss, lucky"
On stage, the shadow was screaming and crying of happiness.
The newcomer understood the reason of her joy, but she seemed rather pathetic to make a spectacle of herself like that.
The charlatan leaned toward him.
"She did well for the first one and if she falls on a relatively correct world after..."
The overexcited shadow had already launched the giant wheel. The charlatan shook his head.
"She should have thrown the wheel by tilting her wrist..."
The arrow stopped on a new slot. No one made a sound. It was one of the smallest slots, one of those as thin as hair.
"Proving that even with a good Karma..."
"What's written on the slot ? I can't see from here"
"Shingeki No Kyojin"
The new shadow looked around. Everyone looked very solemn.
"Is it bad ?"
"Well, let's say that if she falls on the Mahr slot afterwards, we can only hope for her that she will have access to a loaded gun as soon as she arrives"
Smoke exploded from both wheels. Their slots metamorphosed into others.
On the first one, 'Transmigration' and 'Other' shared the space more or less equally. On the second, there was a whole bunch of names arranged randomly.
The first wheel fell on 'Other'. This could mean anything and everything.
A new explosion of smoke surrounded the second wheel. There were no more names but a list of objects and things that made little sense to the new shadow.
The arrow turned.
'Artifact', 'Death Note', 'Kuzanagi's sword'...
The rest was too small for him to read.
Shadow number one was shaking like a leaf. She looked desperate.
The arrow stopped on a square so big that everyone, no matter how far away, could read what was written there.
"Ope-ope no mi", whispered someone.
The shadow cried tears of joy.
No one gave him time to recover from his emotions when a third wheel appeared.
"This is where you see human nature at its best," said the charlatan, "I've seen guys with great Karma get cursed for three generations just because they wanted more"
She elbowed the new guy.
"Listen to me carefully. If I can give you one piece of advice, it's to don't touch that damn last wheel, no matter how bad the rest of what you pulled is", she shook his head,"The sin of greed, nothing worse for us humans"
The newcomer wondered if anyone had warned the number one about the dangers, because he went to pull the wheel anyway.
On this one, the red and black slots were exactly proportional: Karma did not seem to influence it.
The arrow spun much faster than on any other wheel. The colors of the squares blended together until they became blurred lines of light.
Shadow number one stood motionless, her long arms wrapped around her body like claws. If she had skin, she would have been covered in sweat.
The arrow stopped on a square.
A black square.
The slot was a good size, but it was one of those slots that had a lot of things written in very small print.
'Like the clauses of a contract with the devil' thought the new guy.
On stage, the shadow fell to her knees.
The shadow on his right asked aloud :
"What was it? What was that? What did she fell on?"
No one answered him.
The remnants of white smoke that floated around the floor coiled like snakes around number one. When they dispersed, number one was gone.
After that the atmosphere became rather tense.
None of those who passed afterwards opted for the fifth wheel.
Everyone avoided it, even those who had drawn very bad squares.
The numbers passed on stage without the new shadow being able to distinguish one from the other. Some cried, many got angry... out of the seventeen thousand who passed before him, only eight would keep their memories.
Of these, seven had good Karma. The eighth was the charlatan. He took longer to throw the wheels than anyone else before him.
He didn't even breathed in the vicinity of the last wheel.
The numbers on the new guy's chest were dropping faster than he would have thought. He took part in conversations, heard without listening to the recommendations of others, speculated on where the arrow would land as if he were back in the south of France to discuss when and how the bullfight would end.
Finally, it was his turn.
The crowd of shadows opened like the sea to let him pass.
He went to the scene with a quiet step, refusing to let terror or anguish overtake him. He was already dead, what was the worst that could happen to him?
A cloud of smoke surrounded the first wheel.
The shadow looked around, trying to get an overview of the In-Between. As far as his gaze could see he saw other spots of light fading and re-lighting at intervals. From a certain distance, even though he knew there were shadows, he was no longer able to distinguish them. It was as if they were one with this strange place.
His head turned to the back of the stage, where the other shadows never went.
He stopped and looked at the abyss - then the abyss looked at him.
His blood ran cold. He looked away, pretending he had not seen anything.
He shook his hands to calm the tremors that agitated them. He had to concentrate on his throw: putting the wrist at twenty degrees...
The first wheel emerged from the smoke screen. The audience was stunned.
"Dude, you've been killing babies in your spare time or what ?"
The 'No' was eating the entire wheel, leaving only a space as thin as a needle for the 'Yes'. He licked his dry lips. Twenty degrees...
The wheel spun wildly. He looked at it until his eyes could no longer distinguish one slot from another.
He closed his eyes, taking a long breath to relax. Missing his shot meant he would die a second time.
He didn't want to die.
He heard the wheel slow down. And then the wind stopped whistling.
"It's a joke, right ?"
He waited for another reaction from the audience so he could gauge his situation, but no one said anything else. So he opened one eye and looked. His breath caught in his throat.
The golden arrow was on the perfect edge of 'Yes' and 'No', shaking madly as if it couldn't decide which side to point to.
It was unreal, as if she was fighting to fall into the 'No' but something strong and intangible was always pushing her back to the 'Yes'.
An icy breath rose from the dark side of the stage. The shadow's hair stood up.
It was as if Death itself was clutching him in its claws.
The golden arrow stopped on the 'Yes'.
Everyone was stunned.
The shadow itself froze, blinking. And then he pulled himself together: something strange had just happened, but it was to his advantage. It was not anytime soon that he would start refusing privileges.
He approached the second wheel where slots as thin as safety pins stood next to others as wide as books. He breathed in and put his hand on the wheel's handle.
If whatever this thing was could still be with him...
He checked that his wrist was well inclined of twenty degrees. Then he spun the wheel sharply.
The wheel made a few turns before losing speed. He recognized a few names on the wheel, but the likelihood of him running into one of them was less than being struck by lightning. The shadow held his hands together, refusing to show any more nervousness.
The arrow slowed down. It stopped on one of the largest slots, one of the black squares.
Comics MC-
Again the icy breath. The arrow moved an inch to the right.
Boku No Hero Academia.
Relief flooded the shadow. This was one of the only worlds he knew. The audience stirred.
"Hey, are you kidding us ?"
"What the fuck is this !"
The shadow ignored them and moved on to the next wheel. This time he didn't even take the time to bend his wrist.
He drew 'Transmigration' then 'Shoto Todoroki'.
The arrow cheated on the first one but naturally stopped on the second.
For his fourth wheel, the shadow decided to throw the wheel with his right hand - his weaker hand.
Again, there was this cold breath from the abyss.
Immutability of gifts
The crowd was on the verge of hysteria. One of the shadows clutched the stage, banging on it to get his attention.
"How do you do that, huh? Tell me and I promise you that in my next life-"
Another of the creatures pushed him aside.
'It's really unfair that only you benefit so please-"
A crowd of creatures stuck to the scene, hailing him here and there.
The shadow ignored them, his attention focused on the fifth and final wheel, the wheel that should not be thrown.
He hesitated. The smoke, at his feet, waited patiently for him to make his choice before taking him away.
The charlatan had said that he had seen lucky people lose everything when they threw the last wheel. The sin of greed, he said.
Fortunately, he had always been a greedy man.
He grabbed the wheel and threw it before changing his mind. He felt the cold breath caress his skin and wrap around the spinning wheel.
He closed his eyes, half-excited and half-worried. Would his gamble pay off, or would he lose everything?
He took a long breath to calm his nerves. He opened his eyes apprehensively. Chakra
This time he was sure, someone had cheated for him. He dared to look into the abyss.
A huge eye, almost as big as the second wheel, looked back at him. It was an intense blue eye, fluorescent, as cold as ice but shining with... affection. As if he knew him.
The shadow, amazed, lost himself in the contemplation of the eye. A myriad of emotions danced there. Sadness, suffering... love.
He didn't even notice the vindictive shadows on stage.
The white smoke wrapped around him in an affectionate, almost paternal embrace. The anger of the audience grew. There was shouting now, and the stage was shaking.
The shadow disappeared at the same time that the hands of the other creatures closed on him.
The eye closed, as if in mourning.
When he opened his eyes again, this time everyone could see him. A bright light burst from his eyes, sweeping away all other shadows in its path.
*
Alternative title of the story : Shoto Todoroki, Modern-Day Terrorist
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Nar_cisse
Nar_cisse I am so freaking excited that I *finally* get to publish this !
I've been working on it for so long I sometimes thought I would never really publish it one day, lol.
Don't forget to review/comment/give me some power stones - at 100 I'll instantly publish the next chapter.
Otherwise y'all can read up to 50 chapters in advance on my P@treon, Nar_cisseENG
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