I wandered aimlessly through the streets of the city I used to feel home to. Now I felt like an outcast. I peered into the sky overhead for any indication of Seris' surveillance. But to my surprise, I saw nothing.
She's really being discreet with it, isn't she?
My guess was that she wasn't meant to be a distraction for my current objective. She was just there as insurance, as she always has been in the past.
Now that I think about it, Seris has always been there, watching, since the start.
The shock value in that idea was long gone by now. I'd accepted my fate at this point that had been twisted maliciously by Ian's puppeteer hands. It was still unbelievable that everything had been curated since the Invidan War, but that was a revelation that no longer mattered.
There were higher stakes on the line now.
I sighed, checking the time on my phone after walking for what had felt like hours. The time read 11:37 AM.
It's only been 20 minutes…?
I was baffled. I swore so much time had passed since I parted ways with Ian. I felt like I'd crossed more than half the city by now in hours. But reality said that not even an hour had elapsed.
Weird.
With all the burdens on my shoulders, my perception of time must have skewed horribly. This has been, undoubtedly, the most stress I've ever endured in all of my life. My walk by now was nearly a limp. I looked down at my feet as I walked, which I practically dragged across the floor with every step. But something odd suddenly occurred to me. A peculiar feeling arose from within. A spike of uncertainty punched its way through my stomach, igniting something in my brain immediately.
Flow State.
From behind me to my left, an unprecedented shadow loomed towards me. I immediately dashed aside in a dodge, feeling a brush of wind swipe by me.
A near miss—!?
I recovered my footing and turned around to see my perpetrator. From the shadows of the buildings, he stumbled forward into the sunlight revealing himself. It was a young man dawning loose maroon robes. His eyebrows were already furrowed.
"Do it already, Vick!" He yelled, irritatedly.
My instincts rung loudly as I turned around, surprised to find another man in the same maroon robes with his hands raised towards me. His fingers were shaped like a picture frame with me in the center of it.
"Say cheese."
In that moment, my body froze. I was shocked that I'd gotten caught in whatever Fractal had taken effect. I'd even moved out of the way and dodged using Flow State, but I don't think I'd dodged far enough.
What Fractal is this?
The man supposedly named 'Vick' chuckled to himself. "I know of your unreal dodging capabilities, Klyson. I made sure to use Landscape Mode to guarantee you got caught in it."
He knows my name...?
I quickly realized the situation I found myself in. I couldn't think of anyone else who'd actively seek me out after my public exposure, all except for—
"Chrono," I said. Although I was frozen in frame, I could still speak.
Vick and the other man took on an expression of surprise, but it immediately subsided. That was before the other man suddenly lashed out.
"How the fuck did you know!?"
"Settle down, Rai," Vick told him. "He's already gone through Zion and Draz. I'm sure those were surprising enough."
Those memories flooded my head, and I could only feel pain at the thought of what Draz had meant to me before all of that revelation.
"Tsk… Are you both here to continue what they failed to do?"
Rai's face flushed red with anger. He was ready to clap-back with a immediate statement of his own. "You're talking a lot for someone stuck in Vick's Fractal!"
I tried to move my body, but it was to no avail. My limbs were frozen in the state of the moment when Vick had said 'cheese.' I quickly registered what his Fractal must have been connected to.
"Photography?" I asked.
"Polaroid." Vick grinned. "Just like a film camera, whatever's caught in my finger frames the moment I 'take a photo' will be stuck in that frame. You just so happened to be at the focal point."
"And how long am I going to be stuck in this for?"
"For as long as she wants you to be," Vick said. "Which won't be long considering you'll soon be purged."
"Purged?"
The man named Rai stepped forward and showed me his hands, which had been hidden under his long sleeves. The tips of his fingers were black.
"Once I place all ten of these fingers on you, you're going to experience your end. And finally, we'll be one step closer to the Shattering."
I see how it is. They must still think that I haven't inherited the Null, and they're here to kill me for the same reason Zion and Draz had tried—to ensure that I didn't receive it.
"It's too late," I said. "I've already inherited the Null. Killing me would bear no weight."
Life quickly drained from both the eyes of Vick and Rai. They looked at each other, then at me without a clue of what to do. It looked like the prophecy they'd fantasized for so long had just crumbled in their minds—which it had.
"You have the Null already?" Vick looked out of breath. "How…?"
"Since when!?" Rai shouted. "We've been keeping tabs on you! All except for the… last day…"
I nodded. "In the last day."
"Shit, no… What do we do?" Vick had worry written all over his face. "Doesn't this ruin our plan? Vex was supposed to get it!"
Rai shook his head with disarray. "What do we tell her? Won't she be mad?"
The two frantically discussed what would happen next now that I'd foiled their plan by already having the Null. And as they did that, I could only think of one thing.
I need to shed their blood. The moment I'm released from this Fractal, I need to erase their Fractals. It starts with them.
"How are we going to bring about the Shattering?" Vick asked.
Rai grunted with frustration, a growing rage. "You—! Klyson! You and Heathen fucking ruined everything!!"
To my surprise, the short-tempered man lunged towards me with all of his black fingers raised.
'Purged'...
Apparently I'd cease to exist the moment he planted all of his fingers on me. So although Flow State rung harder than ever, my instincts would do nothing to get me out of my frozen state from Vick's 'Polaroid' Fractal. I could only watch as my impending doom arrived.
Now's the time to step in, Seris.
I continued to watch as Rai soared through the air towards me with his arms raised. I observed every detail of his leap, his height, his form, and his motion. For some reason, time moved so slowly in these final moments that I could notice every slight detail of the instance. What should have felt like an instantaneous death of seconds at most, felt like prolonged minutes of a slow-motion scene in a movie.
What's happening?
As I could see on Rai's face, he too seemed confused at how long time passed in this single action, until his expression was wiped with realization followed by immediate regret.
"Stop."
A new voice spoke aloud from down the road. Just as Rai was about to plant his fingers on me, he retracted quickly instead.
"Step aside."
Both Rai and Vick quickly fell back towards the sidelines, making way for what seemed to be a new-approaching figure.
"A shocking revelation, yet expected simultaneously."
The voice revealed itself to be a woman who walked towards me. She wore loose maroon robes that draped all over her body, except this color was brighter than the clothing of the other two. It was borderline red.
"You claim to have the Null already, Klyson?" She asked. "Was Ian in such a rush following your public exposure through Draz's passing?"
"Who are you?" I now asked.
"Delfina. Delfina Knockingwood. Since we are in times that exceed prolonged introductions, let me be poignant—I lead this blessed group that is Chrono."
I furrowed my eyebrows. "So you're the one responsible for all the kill-sights on my head."
She smiled. "Only because you stood as the boulder in the way of the Shattering. I'm sure Draz had made that very clear to you. There are dozens among us who are hoping for that event, and I couldn't have you ruin it for them."
I pushed the memories out of my head. Those final moments with Draz were not ones I wanted to remember.
"Well the boulder has become insurmountable, Delfina. I already have the Null, so killing me won't do anything to contribute to your endgame anymore."
"I've understood that very quickly by now. Hence, my efforts to prevent your death by Rai's hands."
"Prevent?"
"Yes, that was me." She wore a wide grin. "Chronostasis."
The next few seconds suddenly felt like excruciatingly long minutes in which Delfina and I kept an uncomfortable gaze. When the moment finally subsided, I blinked rapidly trying to register what had just happened.
"What the hell was that…?"
"Only five seconds," she said. "Although, it felt like five minutes, didn't it?"
Was this why it felt like hours had already passed while I was walking through the city? Was she watching me all this time?
I still couldn't comprehend. "Your Fractal…"
"Chronostasis. When I am present, time is no longer a construct. I can warp people's perception of time, and there is no way to counter it. Maybe except for the Null?" She chuckled, taking one step closer to me. "This makes me beg the question: why haven't you used it yet if you already have it, Klyson? You wouldn't have been caught in Vick's Polaroid nor nearly killed by Rai's Purgency if you'd used it on them by now. Unless, you don't actually have it, do you?"
I sighed with frustration.
She's baiting me. I know she is. I don't know what for though.
"I do actually have it, and I can even prove it to you."
She stood right in front of me, face to face. "Show me then. Nullify my Fractal."
Tsk…
"You're going to have to let me out of this 'Polaroid' Fractal first."
"As expected," she immediately said. "The Null isn't so simple that it can be used while you are restricted physically? It requires your own free efforts."
I didn't respond, as I didn't want to clarify it any further.
"You know, Klyson, you're right that killing you is now pointless. But as long as you continue to strive in the opposite direction of MONA, you shouldn't consider your life worth living."
"Excuse me?"
"According to Ian, MONA supposedly wants the world rid of Fractals, right? But how could anyone but him validate that? Why would MONA want her own blessings to be erased from this world? How do we know Ian isn't just saying that to benefit himself in the long-run? After all, he wants everyone's Fractals but his own erased. Isn't it clear what his intentions are? That old man wants to become the next God of this world himself. He is trying to surpass MONA."
"You're telling me things I already know."
Delfina's expression nearly snapped. "Then why in the world are you continuing to support him?"
I looked at her with disgust. "Because the Shattering is an outcome far worse."
"Blasphemy!" Rai yelled from aside. "He's just taunting us, Delfina! He deserves no mercy, even if he has the Null!"
"Yeah! Clearly he's going to use the Null for Heathen's sake, which goes directly against our dogma! Shouldn't we kill him now to prevent Ian's success?" Vick asked.
"Shh." Delfina put a finger to her lip, silencing them. "Those thoughts of yours have already passed through my mind once. I need not for them to run through it again. I've already concluded that we should not kill Klyson, yet at least."
The other two looked confused on what she intended, but they backed down on their opinions. Delfina turned to me and stared at me with peculiar intent.
"Where is the Null located, Klyson? Where inside your body?"
I knew now what she was trying to accomplish. I remembered the fact that Chrono had a Fractless of their own waiting to receive the Null. I couldn't let that happen, so I chose to play dumb.
"I don't know."
Delfina smiled, and I could see the patience on her face slowly starting to simmer out. "What do you mean you don't know?"
"I was put under before Ian gave me the Null. When I woke up, I was just told that I had it, and how to use it."
"You can't tell a difference in any particular part of your body where the Null could possibly be?"
"Even if I did, why should I tell you?"
She omitted a stressful laugh. "You're making it very difficult to consider keeping you alive right now, Klyson. I'm only giving you a chance because you have the key to unlocking the Shattering."
I already understood that. "So that you could give it to your own Fractless and reverse the effect."
"How great of you to be educated. But it stands short against someone with your shoes who has grown under our dogma. We do not need an ex-Heathen-Executioner to do our own bidding. We already have someone for that."
"What if I told you that the Null couldn't be removed, nor displaced? Now that it's been inserted into me, it can only be used by me." I was bluffing. But at the same time, that actually could have been the case. I truly didn't know.
"And how can I trust the validity in that?"
"Can you risk going against it and losing the Null altogether?"
Delfina smiled, staring at me blankly.
"Then why don't you use the Null for us, Klyson?"
My eye grew wide.
"If you're not going to give us the key for our endgame, then why don't you become the key yourself?"
"But—Deflina! What about Vex?" Vick said.
"It's no use. The Null is in Klyson, and so it stays in Klyson. There's no other way, apparently. Klyson shall now represent the Null itself for us to use. Vex can no longer fulfill that."
This 'Vex' person must be Chrono's Fractless who was supposed to inherit the Null…
"Who's to say I would use the Null for your and Chrono's sake?"
"You aren't willing?" Delfina asked, a latent sinister smile forming.
"Why the hell would I?"
"Then I guess time will tell."
She raised her arms, enveloping my sights with her presence. Everything around me began to slow to a halt.
"Chronostasis: TimePrison."