Rating: MA15+Mature themes including graphic emotional trauma, blood and gore, and psychological horror
PART ONE: The Journey Through Memory
The decision is made not through courage but through the absence of alternatives—when every path leads to destruction, you walk the one that might hurt less, or at least hurt fewer people.
They leave at what might be dawn, though the sky has stopped pretending to follow rules. It cycles through configurations like a broken music box—sunrise bleeding into sunset bleeding into starless void bleeding back into a wash of sickly light that could be morning or could be reality giving up on the concept of time entirely.
Mildern and the child travel with The Council Members and The Non Council Members deemed necessary: Kael, because his crimson-black corruption magic might slow the Loop Bringer. Jerry, because his temporal sight might see it coming. Sera, the young archivist with ink-stained fingers and eyes that carry the weight of forbidden knowledge she can never unlearn. She's an extra gaurd per-say.
The journey takes three days, or maybe three hours, or maybe three weeks—time has stopped being reliable enough to measure.
The landscape they pass through looks diseased. Trees bloom and wither simultaneously, spring blossoms and autumn decay on the same branches. A river flows backward while also flowing forward, the water splitting into streams that move in opposite directions before rejoining in configurations that make Mildern's brain ache trying to process them.
The child walks close, hand clamped in Mildern's with enough force to leave marks. He hasn't spoken much since they left. Just walks, eyes fixed on the ground, processing horror his young mind was never meant to carry.
On the second day—if days still mean anything—Kael walks beside them, and for once his aristocratic mask has cracked enough to show something almost vulnerable beneath.
"I'm dying," he says quietly, matter-of-fact, like announcing the weather. He holds up his hand, and the crimson-black veins are visible now, spreading like roots beneath pale skin. "The corruption is winning. Every day I feel less. Emotions fading. Empathy disappearing. Everything that made me human being consumed by the magic that makes me powerful."
He looks at Mildern with eyes that might hold regret if there was enough humanity left in him to feel it properly. "I used to think you were weak. Running from your kingdom instead of dying for it. But maybe..." His corrupted hand trembles. "Maybe you were just smart enough to know that some prices aren't worth paying. That keeping your humanity matters more than keeping your throne."
Mildern doesn't know what to say to that, so he says nothing. Just walks, holding the child's hand, and lets Kael's confession hang in the air between them.
That night they camp in the ruins of a village that exists in three different temporal states—intact, burning, and long-abandoned, all layered over each other like photographs stacked wrong. The child has a nightmare so violent he wakes up screaming, and Mildern holds him while he sobs about closets and knives and his mother's face.
Jerry sits nearby, staring at timelines only he can see, and whispers: "I can see her. The child's mother. In the moments before. She knew what was coming. She was trying to reach her phone to call for help. She fought him. She didn't just... she fought so hard."
The child's sobbing intensifies, and Mildern shoots Jerry a look that could kill. "Sorry," Jerry mutters, but he doesn't sound sorry. Just haunted. "I see too much. Can't turn it off anymore."
By the third day—or what they're calling the third day—they reach the border of what used to be the Yazukaze territory. The land remembers violence in ways that make Mildern physically ill.
Fields where crops once grew are covered in flowers that bloom and die in accelerated cycles, entire lifespans compressed into seconds. A village they pass exists in overlapping states—intact and burned and rebuilt and ruined again, all versions visible simultaneously, all of them equally real and equally impossible.
Jerry collapses without warning, hands pressed to his temples, blood trickling from his nose. "Too many," he gasps. "Too many timelines converging. I can see the kingdom falling in thirty-seven different ways. I can see the child's mother dying over and over. I can see us succeeding and failing and never arriving and—"
Kael catches him before he hits the ground. "Focus on one timeline. Just this one. The one we're walking."
"They're all real! All because my magical ability is that I can read minds and see reality distortions. Which really pisses me off!" Jerry's eyes have gone completely black, pupils swallowed by temporal sight showing him too much at once. "All happening simultaneously! Your master has corrupted causality so thoroughly that reality here doesn't know which version of events to believe anymore!"
They rest for hours while Jerry recovers, though recovery is relative when your brain is trying to process thirty-seven timelines at once. The child sits beside him, small hand resting on Jerry's arm, and something about the innocent gesture makes the mage's breathing steady slightly.
"You're kind, little one," Jerry whispers. "Kinder than you have any right to be, considering what's been done to you." The child doesn't answer. Just sits there offering wordless comfort because sometimes that's all you can do.
PART TWO: The Fallen Kingdom
They reach the ruins as the sky attempts something resembling sunset—light gone rust-red like old blood, painting everything in shades of endings and grief.
Mildern stops at the crest of the final hill and his legs nearly give out.
The ruins spread before him like a corpse left to rot for eight years. Buildings stand at angles that defy gravity, shadows falling in directions that match no light source. The palace—his home, his childhood, every memory of safety he ever had—is simultaneously collapsed and pristine, existing in multiple states of destruction and preservation that flicker between moments.
"This was your home?" the child asks quietly. "Yes." The word comes out broken. "It's beautiful. Even broken, it's beautiful."
And it is. In the way scars can be beautiful when they prove you survived. The ruins catch the dying light and glow copper and gold, and Mildern's heart breaks all over again because he can still see it as it was—whole, alive, full of people who trusted him to protect them.
They descend into the valley. Walking through streets Mildern once knew feels like moving through a museum of his own failures. The marketplace where he'd sneak away from tutors—still standing, frozen mid-transaction with phantom vendors and customers who don't know they're dead. The garden where his mother walked—overgrown with plants existing in all growth stages at once.
The child stops suddenly, staring at a building flickering between states. "I can see people. Inside. Are they ghosts?"
"Temporal echoes," Jerry explains, voice heavy. "Moments from the past preserved by so much concentrated trauma that they won't fade. They're not aware of us. Just... recordings. Playing on loop forever."
One of the echoes is a child the same age as the child beside Mildern. A little kid with dark curls, laughing, running with a kite made of paper and string. Then the echo shifts—the same child screaming, clothes on fire, trying to reach her mother who's also burning. Then back to laughing with the kite. Then screaming. Then laughing. The two moments trapped in a cycle that refuses to let either be the final truth.
The child presses his face against Mildern's side and won't look anymore.
They reach the palace as something resembling evening settles. The entrance is partially collapsed, but the doorway stands open like a mouth waiting to swallow them.
Kael's flames flare brighter. "I can feel it. Wrongness. Concentrated temporal distortion. This is where the weapon was forged." "This is where I was destroyed," Mildern whispers.
They descend.
PART THREE: The Laboratory
Ninety-seven steps down through darkness that refuses proper illumination. The child counts them all, voice barely audible: "Ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven..."
The corridor at the bottom is pristine despite eight years of abandonment—preserved by temporal stasis, frozen exactly as it was left. Doors line both sides, each marked with symbols that make Sera gasp.
"Forbidden magic," she breathes. "Research outlawed for centuries. Dimensional barriers. Causality manipulation. Time as a weapon." Her hands shake as she traces glyphs without touching them. "Your master wasn't experimenting. He was trying to break fundamental laws of reality itself."
The laboratory door is at the end. When they open it, wrongness hits like a wall.
The room is circular, walls covered floor to ceiling with notes and diagrams and equations that hurt to read because they describe mathematics reality was never meant to follow. Workbenches hold jars containing crystallized moments—time itself preserved like biological specimens. Fragments of other worlds sealed in containers that hum with barely-contained power.
And in the center: a massive ritual circle carved into the floor, filled with dried blood that's somehow still wet, still fresh, still pulsing faintly with power drawn from suffering that refuses to fade.
Sera begins reading notes aloud, voice shaking worse with each word:
"Subject M—Mildern Yazukaze. Initial assessment: promising magical aptitude but fundamentally unsuitable for the Great Work. Emotional attachment to family and kingdom renders him incapable of necessary ruthlessness."
Mildern's breath stops.
"Alternative approach implemented: controlled destruction of support structures. Hypothesis: a broken prince is more malleable than a functional one. Predictable. Desperate for a purpose I can provide."
Kael's flames burn hotter. "He minapulated you. From the beginning. Everything he taught you—"
"Kingdom destroyed per schedule. Subject M's psyche fractured as predicted. Eight years of isolation has rendered him exactly as needed: powerful enough to be useful, broken enough to be controlled, guilty enough to never question directives framed as redemption."
Mildern sinks to his knees on cold stone, and the child immediately wraps his small arms around him. Sera finds another section, hands trembling: "About the child."
The child stiffens but doesn't pull away. He needs to hear it. Needs to know.
"Successfully detected rupture in Earth-Adjacent-3 during barrier monitoring. Source: extreme heavy trauma. Mother murdered by father, child witnessing. Trauma sufficient to tear hole in reality itself."
The child's breath hitches.
"Opportunity recognized immediately. Widened breach. Pulled subject through. Psychological damage extensive—perfect. Sealed return pathway to prevent escape."
"He could have sent me back," the child whispers. "After pulling me through, he could have opened the path again and he didn't."
"Subject now exists as permanent causality violation. Being who shouldn't exist here. Temporal signature unstable, radiating paradox energy sufficient to power indefinite manipulation."
Sera's tears fall onto pages that have survived eight years untouched. "Note: Subject must be maintained in unresolved grief. Any healing will collapse paradox and destabilize anchor. Recommend isolation from therapeutic intervention. Child must never process trauma. Must never achieve peace. Must never forgive himself for surviving when mother died. Guilt must remain fresh, bleeding, eternally renewable."
The clinical cruelty is staggering. The child makes a sound like something breaking inside him.
Note: Jerry alone truly understood the incident. The explanation existed only as fragmented evidence within the child's mind—pieces buried so deeply that even the child could not consciously recognize them. Jerry was able to perceive these fragments and assemble them into a coherent truth, though even he did not fully understand why he alone could do this. This rare form of ability is what earned him his reputation as a genius of mind-reading magic.
Jerry had practiced mind-reading magic since the age of three, and his talent never faded. Over time, his understanding of the world—and of reality itself—grew sharper and more complete. This reached its peak when he awakened Reality Reader, an ability that allowed him to perceive thoughts not as some vague impressions, but as patterns embedded directly into reality. He did not simply read minds; he interpreted them at a structural level.
As long as Jerry maintained a clear and accurate understanding of reality, he could continue using this power. However, the cost was unavoidable. Each use slowly consumed his life, the price paid for magic that pushed beyond the natural limits of reality. The universe always demands balance, and reality-altering spells are no exception. To change reality is to offer oneself in return.
Reality Reader also allows Jerry to transfer what he understands to others he trusts, placing thoughts, explanations, or necessary context directly into their minds. This ability was not part of Reality Reader's original design. Jerry forced it into existence himself, breaking the rules of fate and further disturbing the natural order—an act that increased the cost he would eventually have to pay. And is why he woud die in a year or so now.
This same ability is what lets Jerry uncover hidden layers within memories that should normally be inaccessible. He can locate meaning even when memories are incomplete, suppressed, or poorly formed, and he can do so almost instantly—even within the mind of an animal. Reality Reader does not simply show memories; it reveals why they exist.
Through this, Jerry can see motives, intentions, and plans that ordinary mind-reading users would never reveal. He can understand events that have not yet fully taken shape in thought, such as long-term schemes or future actions. This is how he was able to perceive the true intentions of the The World Leaper and the paths they intended to take.
Because of this mastery—because he could perceive truth where others saw only fragments—Jerry was granted a seat on the Council, a position reserved for the most elite magic users in existence.
"Loop Bringer requires dual fuel source. Subject M provides historical anchor—failed prince whose shame radiates backward through time. Subject C provides paradox fuel—child whose existence violates causality. Combined, their unresolved suffering generates infinite power."
Sera sets down the papers. "There's more. Activation instructions. Timeline manipulation protocols. He's been planning this for forty years. Since before Mildern was born."
Jerry's voice is hollow: "You were never his student. You were a component. Raw material for a machine."
Kael reads final notes, corrupted voice making words sound obscene: "When Loop Bringer completes its work, this reality will be cleansed of all failures, weaknesses, messy human emotions. I will step into a new world—pure, logical, perfect. If billions must be erased to achieve that perfection, so be it. They would have died eventually anyway. I'm simply expediting the inevitable."
Silence falls except for the child crying and Mildern's ragged breathing. His entire life orchestrated. Every moment of suffering calculated. Every choice guided by invisible hands.
And the child—pulled from his world while his mother's blood was still fresh. Used as a battery. Pain weaponized. And the person who did it had smiled and offered tea while ensuring he never healed because healing would ruin the weapon.
PART FOUR: The Master Appears
Reality tears. Not gradually—violently, like fabric ripping. The ritual circle blazes with light, and something emerges. The Loop Bringer.
It manifests as concept given form, refusing to settle on a single shape. Humanoid made of clock hands and shattered mirrors. Abstract spiral of temporal distortion. Child's silhouette flickering like damaged film. Something else the mind can't process.
Voices layer, same words at different times: "You... are... the mistake... The flaw... So I... erase you... make you... never-been..."
Kael attacks immediately, crimson-black flames erupting. The Loop Bringer rewinds locally—suddenly the attack hasn't happened yet, and by the time it happens again the entity has moved to a different moment.
Jerry tries predicting movements, eyes going black. Blood trickles from his nose. "It's everywhere! I can't track something outside sequential time!" The Loop Bringer turns to the child, form stabilizing into something resembling the child himself.
"Join... with me... become fuel... your pain... has purpose..." The child screams—raw, primal—and the sound makes the entity flicker, destabilize. "It's vulnerable to him!" Sera shouts.
But the Loop Bringer adapts, begins pulling the child toward it. The kids feet slide across the floor despite resistance, small hands reaching desperately. "Mi-der! Don't let it—"
Mildern throws himself between them, wrapping arms around the child. "NO! You don't get him! You don't get to use his pain anymore!" Then, from the doorway, a voice—calm, gentle, horrifyingly familiar:
"Hello, Mildern. It's been a long time." The World Leaper stands there, looking exactly as Mildern remembers. Silver eyes. Kind face. Traveler's robes.
The being who taught him magic. The being who destroyed his kingdom. The being who weaponized a persons grief. His mentor. His betrayer.
"I wondered when you'd arrive," the World Leaper says, stepping inside like he owns the space. "Impressive you survived this long. The Loop Bringer should have erased you weeks ago. But you keep... persisting. Like an error refusing correction."
His gaze shifts to the child. "And you, little one. Such a perfect fuel source. Your grief is so pure, so renewable. Every time you remember your mother, every nightmare, every moment of guilt—it feeds the Loop Bringer. You're the best weapon I've ever created. The same aplys to this fantastic entity."
The child trembles but doesn't hide. "You let my mama die."
"I did more than let her die, child." His voice remains gentle, which makes it worse. "I ensured she would die. Your father's descent into violence was... encouraged. The triggers that pushed him over the edge were carefully placed. I needed you traumatized enough to tear reality but not so broken you'd be non-functional. Delicate work, really. I'm quite proud of the results."
Kael's flames burn white-hot. "You're a monster."
"I am a pragmatist. This reality is dying. I have seen the timelines—every one of them collapses into entropy. There is nothing left here worth preserving. I will escape to a world that can still be saved. If that requires the sacrifice of broken pieces along the way, then so be it. Even the student I once grew to care for is not exempt. I did care for Mildern. For a time. But that care curdled into contempt when he abandoned pride for isolation. Watching him retreat, choosing solitude over resolve, stripped away my doubts and hardened them into ambition. All because I saw this as a chance to improve my plans. That ambition changed everything. My plans did not merely accelerate—they crystallized. What once felt necessary became undeniable. No longer just a means of survival, my goal became something worth pursuing above all else. Because the plans I wanted to make happen, actually worked out as planned. The process is rather simple if you ask me."
He looks at Mildern with something that might be genuine sadness if it weren't wrapped in manipulation. "I did care for you. In my way. You were promising. But you clung to your little kingdom, your emotions. You couldn't see the bigger picture. So I had to break you down to rebuild you into something useful."
"Useful," Mildern repeats, voice hollow. "That's all I was. A tool."
"We're all tools, Mildern. The question is whether we serve a worthy purpose." He smiles. "Your failure, your shame—it creates beautiful temporal distortion. You're the anchor making the Loop Bringer stable. Without you, it collapses. Amazing... isn't it."
He turns to leave. "The entity will finish erasing you soon. Then I'll find a reality that isn't so... disappointing." But Mildern's voice stops him: "No." The World Leaper pauses.
"No," Mildern repeats, stronger. "You don't get to walk away. We're not mistakes. We're not tools. We're people who survived what you did to us. And we're still here. Here to shove your face into the ground."
The child adds, voice shaking: "And I'm going to remember Mama. Even if it hurts. Even if the hurt powers your weapon. Because forgetting her would be worse."
For the first time, uncertainty flickers across the World Leaper's face. Because they're not responding the way broken tools should. They're choosing to be human instead. And that was never part of his calculations.
END OF ACT THREE