Bombay greeted Adrian with heat.
The moment he stepped off the train, the difference between London and India struck him like a physical blow. The air was warmer, heavier, filled with unfamiliar scents, voices, and the constant movement of people.
After his encounter with Sersi aboard the ship, Adrian had deliberately kept his distance from her. Whatever his Clown intuition had sensed, he had no intention of testing it.
One beautiful woman taking an interest in him was enough trouble.
He didn't need to find out what happened if he encouraged it.
Fortunately, the first stage of his journey had gone relatively smoothly. Bombay was still part of British India, and Adrian's English made communication considerably easier. He could ask for directions, purchase necessities, and arrange his next leg of the journey without too much difficulty.
Unfortunately, that advantage wouldn't last.
His next destinations were China and then Japan.
Adrian stood outside the station, looking at the map he had purchased in London.
"Right."
He followed the route with his finger.
"India."
Then China.
Then Japan.
He sighed.
"I know absolutely nothing about either language."
He had never imagined that language would become a serious problem.
He knew a few Japanese words.
Very few.
In fact, his entire Japanese vocabulary consisted almost entirely of something he had heard countless times in anime.
"Oni-chan."
Adrian stared at the map.
"...That's not going to be useful."
He folded it and put it away.
There was no point worrying about it yet.
He had three days before his next train.
Three days to waste.
And Adrian had never been particularly good at wasting an opportunity to explore somewhere new.
So he decided to see Bombay.
The city was fascinating.
Adrian spent the next two days wandering through its streets, observing the people and architecture. He visited markets, sampled unfamiliar food, watched merchants conduct business, and simply allowed himself to experience a place that he had previously known only as a name on a map.
For the first time since leaving London, he felt almost normal.
Almost.
He still carried the pistol beneath his coat.
The paper for his Paper Daggers was carefully hidden away.
And his spiritual senses never completely relaxed.
But compared with the chaos of London, Bombay felt peaceful.
Adrian knew very little about Indian history.
He knew there had been political unrest.
He knew Britain controlled the country.
He knew there were tensions between the colonial government and the local population.
Beyond that?
His knowledge was embarrassingly shallow.
He had never been particularly interested in history.
Now he regretted it.
"Maybe I should have paid more attention in school."
He continued walking.
Eventually, his wandering took him toward an area near a salt mine.
The sun was high overhead, beating down mercilessly.
Adrian wiped sweat from his forehead.
Then he heard shouting.
He turned.
A group of British soldiers stood near the roadside.
At first, Adrian assumed they were simply arguing with someone.
Then he saw the boy.
He couldn't have been more than ten years old.
The child stood against the wall, frightened and confused, while one of the soldiers grabbed him roughly by the arm.
Adrian stopped.
His first instinct was immediate.
Help him.
He took one step forward.
Then—
His Clown intuition screamed.
Adrian froze.
The sensation was unlike anything he had experienced before.
His entire body seemed to reject the action.
Every instinct he possessed shouted the same message.
Don't.
Adrian frowned.
He looked toward the soldiers.
Is it them?
Perhaps they were more dangerous than they appeared.
Perhaps they were supernatural.
Perhaps one of them was carrying some artifact.
He couldn't tell.
Adrian took another step.
The warning intensified.
A little stronger.
He stopped.
That's strange.
He had experienced danger before.
Bishop.
Nova Roma.
The supernatural incidents surrounding his life.
Even the demon summoning he had once encountered hadn't produced anything like this.
This wasn't merely a warning that he might get hurt.
It felt as though the entire world was screaming at him not to interfere.
Adrian slowly moved closer.
The sensation became overwhelming.
His heart began pounding.
His spirituality reacted instinctively.
Something was wrong.
Not with the soldiers.
Not with the boy.
With the action itself.
If he interfered—
Something would happen.
Something terrible.
Adrian stared at the child.
The boy looked terrified.
Every moral instinct inside Adrian told him to help.
He could probably handle the soldiers.
He was stronger now.
Faster.
More balanced.
He had a pistol.
Paper Daggers.
Spiritual abilities.
These men weren't Bishop.
They weren't Nova Roma.
They were ordinary soldiers.
He could save the child.
So why—
Why was his intuition screaming louder than it had when Bishop had been shooting at him?
Adrian clenched his fists.
For a moment, he considered ignoring it.
Then he remembered the feeling.
The certainty.
The overwhelming sense that if he crossed a certain invisible line, something would change.
He took another step.
His Clown intuition erupted.
Adrian stopped immediately.
His face went pale.
"No."
He slowly backed away.
The boy stared at him.
Their eyes met for a brief moment.
Adrian wanted to apologize.
Instead, he lowered his gaze and walked past.
The soldiers didn't even bother stopping him.
To them, Adrian was simply another British man passing by.
He kept walking.
He didn't look back.
Not once.
By the time Adrian returned to his room, his hands were shaking.
He shut the door.
Locked it.
Then locked it again.
He stood with his back against the wood.
"What the hell was that?"
He couldn't explain it.
He had felt danger before.
But this wasn't danger.
It was something deeper.
A boundary.
A point beyond which reality itself seemed unwilling to let him pass.
Adrian sat down.
He closed his eyes.
Then reached for the connection he had tried so desperately to avoid.
The world disappeared.
Gray fog surrounded him.
Adrian sat upon the familiar throne within Sefirah Castle.
The silence was absolute.
He stared into the endless mist.
Then slowly raised his hand.
He began the prayer.
"Great Fool..."
His voice echoed through the Castle.
"Dominator of Fate..."
He paused.
"Master of Sefirah Castle..."
His expression hardened.
"Keeper of Mysteries..."
The fog stirred.
Adrian focused on the question that had been tormenting him.
Why did my intuition react so strongly when I tried to save that boy?
He performed the divination.
The answer came.
Simple.
Terrifying.
A fixed point.
Adrian's expression changed.
He sat completely still.
"A fixed point..."
He understood what that meant.
That moment was supposed to happen.
The boy being harassed.
The soldiers being there.
Adrian walking past them.
All of it was part of history.
A moment that had already been written into the structure of events.
A fixed point.
Normally, it couldn't be changed.
Adrian leaned back against the throne.
For several seconds, he simply stared into the fog.
Then a strange thought entered his mind.
But I'm not normal.
His eyes narrowed.
He remembered what he had become.
A Clown.
A Sequence that existed on the path of the Fool.
The Fool wasn't simply about predicting fate.
It was about deception.
Misleading.
Fooling.
Even fooling the world itself.
Adrian's breathing slowed.
"If fixed points cannot be changed..."
He looked at his hands.
"...then why did my intuition tell me I could change this one?"
The question lingered.
Perhaps it wasn't saying he shouldn't change it.
Perhaps it was warning him about the price.
Adrian's eyes widened slightly.
Could he fool a fixed point?
Not destroy it.
Not erase it.
But deceive fate itself into accepting another outcome?
The possibility was absurd.
Dangerous.
Almost impossible.
And yet...
He was connected to Sefirah Castle.
He was walking the Fool pathway.
He was already experiencing abilities that shouldn't exist.
Maybe the very nature of his pathway allowed him to do something that ordinary beings couldn't.
Maybe a fixed point wasn't truly unchangeable.
Maybe it was simply extremely expensive to change.
Adrian slowly smiled.
It wasn't a happy smile.
It was the smile of someone who had just discovered a forbidden possibility.
"If that's true..."
His eyes turned toward the endless fog.
"...then I might be able to fool history."
The thought sent a chill through him.
For the first time since becoming a Clown, Adrian understood the true meaning behind the path he had chosen.
The Fool didn't merely walk through fate.
The Fool could deceive it.
But Adrian didn't know what the cost would be.
And that uncertainty frightened him more than the fixed point itself.
He slowly stood from the throne.
"Not yet."
He wasn't going to rush into it.
Not while he was still too weak to understand the consequences.
But now he had something else to investigate.
Something far more dangerous than Selene.
Something far more fundamental.
Could he truly fool a fixed point?
And if he could...
How much would fate demand in return?