Aoi stood on the sidewalk, his breath catching in his throat. This was New Eidon City, but it felt like a distortion of a memory. The air smelled sterile, metallic.
He rushed toward his house. Or at least, the building that occupied the space where his house should have been. The architecture was sharper, colder. Desperate to prove this was just a hallucination, he hammered his fist against the front door.
Please be Mom. Please be Dad.
The door swung open. Aoi prepared to apologize, but the words died on his lips. It wasn't his mother. It was a woman in her twenties with sharp features and short, jet-black hair. She looked at him with zero recognition.
"What the—?!" Aoi stammered, stepping back. "Who are you? What are you doing in my parents' house?"
He looked past her. The hallway was wrong. The furniture was sleek and unfamiliar. The cozy warmth of his childhood home was gone.
The woman scowled, her eyes narrowing into an irritated glare. "You cannot be serious. Look, I am not in the mood for pranks or solicitors. I am going to ask you to leave my property immediately."
She didn't wait for a response. She slammed the door, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the quiet street.
Aoi didn't back down. Panic was starting to override his logic. He pounded on the wood again. "You can't just kick me out! This is my house!"
Doors from neighboring houses opened. People stepped out onto their porches, casting wary, confused glances at the screaming teenager.
Suddenly, a hand clamped down on Aoi's shoulder. It was heavy and forceful. A man in his thirties yanked him away from the doorstep.
"That is enough, kid," the neighbor grunted. "That woman has lived in that house for twenty years. Before that, the place sat empty. There has never been a family that looks like you living here. You are wasting your time."
Aoi shook the man's hand off. "You don't understand. I know this house. I can recite the address. I can tell you where the fuse box is. There is no way I am wrong."
But as he looked at the neighbor's hard expression, the reality hit him. There was no record of Akira or Hiro Takamura here. Whatever happened when he put on that watch, it hadn't just moved him in space. It had moved him somewhere else entirely.
Aoi retreated. He walked aimlessly for blocks, his mind reeling.
He turned a corner and froze.
The street was blocked. Sleek, armored vehicles screeched to a halt around him, boxing him in. These weren't normal police cars. They were matte black, displaying a logo he didn't recognize.
Men in tactical gear swarmed out of the vehicles. They moved with military precision, weapons raised.
"Variation found," one of the agents said into his comms.
Before Aoi could raise his hands, they were on him. Rough hands grabbed his arms, twisting them behind his back.
"What is happening?" Aoi yelled, struggling against the grip. "Why am I being restrained? I haven't done anything! I just woke up here!"
They ignored him. They shoved him into the back of a transport vehicle. Through the reinforced window, Aoi saw the destination. It was a skyscraper that pierced the clouds, dominating the skyline.
Glowing letters at the very top read: A.T.
Aoi Takamura.
Aoi stared in disbelief. "That is my name," he whispered.
They dragged him into the building, into a glass elevator that shot up to the penthouse floor. The doors slid open to reveal a massive, opulent office. Behind a desk sat a man in a sleek black suit.
The man swiveled his chair around.
Aoi stopped breathing. The man was him. He was older, perhaps, or just harder, but the face was identical. Same eyes, same hair, same build.
"You," Aoi muttered, his resistance fading into pure shock. "You look like me."
The man in the suit stood up. He offered a slight, arrogant grin. "You know, I always get an alert when a variation enters my timeline."
"What are you on about?" Aoi asked, his voice rising in frustration. "Timelines? Variations? That stuff is science fiction. It doesn't exist."
"It doesn't?" The man walked around the desk, his movements fluid and predatory. "And yet, here you are. You just traveled to my timeline. Are you a new variant?"
The man spoke as if Aoi were a lab rat, an interesting specimen rather than a human being.
"I didn't travel anywhere on purpose," Aoi snapped, trying to pull away from the guards. "And what did I do in this timeline to have a S.W.A.T. team hunt me down?"
The man chuckled. It was a cold sound. "Correction. We don't have a use for S.W.A.T. here. These are the TRA. The Time Reconciliation Authority. My personal army. They can travel through time just as easily as they can drive a car, provided I allow it."
"This is insane," Aoi said, stepping closer to his double. "Everything you are saying is a lie."
"Please, save your breath-" the man interrupted, waving a hand dismissively. "I am going to break it down for you. I am you. You are me. There are multiple versions of Aoi Takamura across infinite timelines. And we are the only people capable of manipulating time."
The man sat back on the edge of his desk. "It is because of that watch. You still have it on your wrist."
He pointed to the yellow and blue device Aoi had taken from his father's cabinet.
"It is from my father," Aoi argued. "It has nothing to do with—"
"It has everything to do with this," the man sighed, looking bored. "That is a Chrono-Watch. With it, you can rewrite history. You can jump between worlds. Honestly, I shouldn't be wasting my breath. After all, I am Prime Aoi Takamura. The best version. The perfect version."
Prime Aoi raised his left hand. On his wrist was a Chrono-Watch, but it was evolved. It looked like a gauntlet, armored and humming with terrifying power.
"A Prime version of me?" Aoi looked from his own clunky watch to the gauntlet.
"With this," Prime Aoi continued, admiring his gauntlet, "I can control any other Chrono-Watch in existence. I can turn them on. I can force them to teleport their users wherever I please. And right now? You are being annoying. You are wasting my time."
Prime Aoi's grin widened. "Goodbye, Aoi Takamura. Or should I say, goodbye to myself?"
He tapped a sequence on his gauntlet.
Immediately, Aoi's wrist began to burn. The yellow and blue watch flickered, then surged with energy. A robotic voice emanated from Aoi's wrist.
"Preparing travel to Timeline 10045."
"NO!" Aoi shouted. He clawed at the watch, trying to rip it off. "I need answers!"
"Answers are for those who survive," Prime Aoi said.
Aoi looked at his hands. They were beginning to disintegrate into pixels of light again. The office dissolved. The last thing he saw was the cruel, satisfied smile on his own face.
Blackness.
Time passed. Or maybe it didn't.
Aoi gasped, his lungs filling with hot, dry air. He scrambled to his feet. He was no longer in an office. He was standing in the middle of a vast, scorching desert.
He shielded his eyes against the sun. A figure was approaching him.
It was a woman. She looked to be in her twenties, with short black hair. Aoi blinked. It was the same woman who had slammed the door in his face back in the city. But her clothes were different here. They were rugged, worn, made for survival.
Aoi's mind raced. Why was she in Prime Aoi's timeline, and now in this wasteland too?
Before he could speak, the woman stopped in front of him, looking him up and down.
"You're finally awake," she said.