After One Thousand Years
Source: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/93663971
Diary 1337---Entry 1001 Take Off and Fly
“Is that it then? You think this place will be the one?” I ask of her, poking my head above the railing of the bridge we were walking across. The view, drop dead gorgeous, a city in the sky. Peeking down below, greeted by white, gentle, fluffy clouds that honestly look like massive pillows. Would that I had the time to jump into them, just for the sensation. Oh well…next time…after everything is fixed up!
“It is the one...probably...I think. This building…it’s where the backup records of everything get stored. Nothing gets past the system...even if I may have said otherwise in the past...” She says nonchalantly, like all of this wasn’t her fault. But…that’s what makes her…her right?
“You think it can or you know it can Kronii? I’d like a little more confidence in your answer.” I fire my question directly at her. I’d like to know if what we are going to do will make a difference this time. For years now we’ve tried working time back and forth, to no avail. Everything is sealed in stone and I’m at my wits end. If Kronii deigned to enter this place for so long, it must be significant. In what way I’m not sure but, if there’s a chance to fix things, to cleanse her sin, I’ll take that chance.
“If I knew Ame, we would have come here first. This place is…” Quietly, uncharacteristically, she trails off into silence. I stare at her as she takes her steps forward. Even after everything, she’s always picture perfect. Anything less and she wouldn’t be Ouro Kronii right? Heh…still thinking about her like this…after all this time. Something is truly remarkable about Kronii.
I follow her into the depths of the city, met by nothing more than the gales of the sky. How serene. Incredible really. What secrets hid away from me, from all of us?
“This place is…” I rise in tone, hoping to find out more.
“It’s like my…our reality marble. It’s outside of time. I’ve really only been here once before. A long, long time ago.” After clearing her throat Kronii turns towards a building on the right side of the bridge. The place looks like every other building here. Big white cylinders encompass and surround it. The building the selfsame material and look, utterly unremarkable. Everything looks the same…
“A reality marble? Who’s marble? What’s it called? Are we not actually in the sky?” I ask question upon question, seeking to satiate the thirst of my curiosity.
“To be more precise, we’re only in a small section of the marble. I don’t know exactly who owns it…but I know who runs it.”
“Who runs it? Like…keeping day to day things and actions operating.” I walk towards her; she’s stopped just before the entrance waiting for me.
“Yeah…a couple of other Holo members.”
“Other…Holo members? Like the dragon?”
“Yeah. The deity of the moon herself. And of course, how does one get around the moon without running into a rabbit?” I can hear the smile on her face.
“So what’s it called?” She didn’t answer several questions…but I’ll let them slide for just this one. I can bug her later; we are on important business after all.
“This is the Serial Phantasm. The perfect fortress…or perhaps the perfect cage… otherwise known as SE.RA.PH.” A hand sliding behind her body, gripping a sword from her back. Whatever Kronii expects in here might require force, I too, reach for my weapon.
Down my skirt, strapped onto my left thigh, I pull my M1911 up and out of the holster. An officer’s model at that, it does what I need it too. Plus it looks cool enough. Not to mention, I've made a personal modification of my gun. I changed the frame mechanism to allow the slide to remain forward after each shot. This way, instead of the gun self-loading after every shot, I manually work the slide and chamber, putting a new cartridge in myself. It keeps the gun a bit quieter and doesn’t add to the stress of the frame. I only shoot when I need to. Plus it can resume it’s automatic role, I just need to disengage the mod. The biggest difference really has to be the firing delay, this isn’t a combat gun, it’s for concealed use. If I need to fire…it’ll be when I need to fire. I hold my hands down by my waist, carrying the gun in them. I feel like I’m some sort of legendary hero…
Anyways, I follow Kronii inside the building. Unsurprisingly, it’s empty. Hollow. This place exists outside of time so it’s not unreasonable to think that we won’t have visitors, but Kronii took caution so…
“Ame. Keep quiet. Keep calm. We may be lucky on our trip and not run into anything. But if anything, and I mean anything is waiting for us up ahead, wear this.” She hands me a ribbon, oh wait, this is her ribbon, she took hers off. Oh….OH! It’s…it’s bloody! Kronii what the…did she cut herself? Her sword, it's securely nested once more on her back.
“That will identify you as Ouro Kronii. Without it, you’re an unidentified life form, you’ll be terminated on sight. But since I gave you a part of myself, you’ll be fine. Wrap it around like I do. And…Just to be extra safe…don’t say anything. Don’t touch anything. Just…be. You’re basically hiding in plain sight. Oh, and put that thing away. You certainly aren’t a real match for whatever is here.” She looks down at my gun and I feel my face get hot. How…am I embarrassed in this situation…Can’t look uncool in a situation like this…
“W-well I beat you didn’t I? Maybe you should recognize me a bit more!” My quip fires back and she stays silent. I think I got her!
Kronii adjusts her top and buttons it up as far as it will go…did the ribbon actually…does she use it to hide ahaha…that’s kinda cute…Her silence speaks magnitudes as she continues forward. I stare once again at her backside as her silhouette shrinks. I suppose I should listen to her anyways, if she emphasized something like this so much, I should follow her rules.
Wrapping the bloodied ribbon around my chest, I can’t help but think what bizarre…things…might be waiting for us ahead. I turn my head to the right and happen upon a monitor, something on it shows up.
Where the “Powers of the Depths” join One shall guide through the investigation And all are invited to witness the Myth The time is close
The message ends and the monitor fades to black. A few moments later a single word shows up. Plated in gold and silver, a backdrop of what most likely is the city in the sky we’re in.
Zeal
“Kronii...the TV what is...”
“Shhhhh! What did I just tell you man? No. Talking. Sigh” Kronii rolls her eyes and starts walking ahead of me. Ugh whatever...fine…I’ll be a good Ame.
Walking past the curious monitor, I follow Kronii into the dark and hollow halls. It looks…like a TV station, without all the people of course but…that message…that name…I’m too curious for my own good Kronii you know this! Empty rooms full of electronic equipment sit dormant, untouched for who knows how long. I can only imagine the manpower it takes to run such a place. And this is just a single building, every building in the place could look just like this, full of information and data that spans generations, centuries, civilizations and the stars themselves…
“We’re nearing the area we want Ame, into the basement. Down there hopefully we’ll find the record.” Kronii says facing me, before turning back around and heading towards a sign indicating where the staircase is.
“But..how will we know when we find it?” I whisper in my most quiet whisper, only the most sensitive of ears could pick up on that!
“sigh Each council member is assigned to a specific corner here. As powerful and enigmatic as we are, we’re but footnotes in the span on the universe. Even Sana, a representation of space, has a small section. There is a lot that goes on here, try not to comprehend the incomprehensible, it exists outside of your line of thought.” Begrudgingly, I agree. I bet I could understand it Kronii…I understood you after all…
“How does someone who ended the universe, not get sectioned off somewhere…I don’t know…a bit more secret or locked up.” My whispers cling to the dull, stale air of the staircase as we descend.
“There’s a lot…Ame…Just…look for a square box. A blue square box…kinda small. I mean…it’s a cube…no…it’s a cube made of cubes…it’s a tesseract. A four-dimensional object, try not to stare at it, you literally can’t comprehend it. Not that you could, the third and fourth dimensions can’t interact.” Kronii reaches the bottom and stops, either waiting for me or anticipating something ahead. What an incredibly interesting device...box...thing? Like I wouldn't take this chance to study something that incredible?
“A blue…cube made of cubes…ok…what’s it called again?” I peek my head around as I reach the bottom of the staircase. The hall opens up to another room and in that room are…five distinct rooms…all lit up in different colors. They must represent each council member.
“If you can’t tell, my room is the blue. It’s only blue on the outside however.” Kronii looks around at the other rooms, pausing for a few moments on each member of the council. I…still don’t know what became of their relationships…even my own…how are all the other girls doing…
“So a blue cube…what’s it called? Does it have a name? Like a real name?” I keep my voice still quiet, hoping to disturb the air as little as possible. I don’t really sense any other form of life, hear anything other than Kronii and I. There's nothing to indicate as much. In fact, there’s only been evidence to support the lack of life here but…if Kronii says so…
“A Mooncell…or rather a Mooncell Automaton. It’s a recording device. It’s the ultimate recording device…a divine automatic recording device. All the data stored there is basically…life itself. It connects to the marble and supplies it with data. This place is really just a giant computer. Everything is either generated, destroyed, maintained and monitored by the computer here. It's a quantum computer. I’ll give you the rest of the story later, I really don’t want to run into the boss of this place so lets get looking. Go into my room, I’ll be in the others.” Kronii starts moving the room immediately to our right, it’s green so I can only guess that’s Fauna’s. Across from that is the color brown, Mumei’s I guess. Oh…down the hall…it’s bright red. I guess that’s Bae’s…
Next to Mumei’s is blue so…Kronii I guess and across from Kronii is Sana, where some bright orange is shining out. Well…Kronii’s room it is. I’ll be looking for this…box…full of data that I can’t comprehend or whatever.
Entering the door to her room, I’m greeted by a familiar sight. It’s Kronii’s room. Or well…the room we…I mean I…her…ugh…her room… I look around and see the kitchen to my left, bathroom hallway door on my right, the desk to the right, her bed to the left and the door to the balcony in front of me. Yeah…wait…so does this mean her room is a recreation of this room? Or is this room the original and Kronii’s is the copy? In fact…I’ve open up the possibility of many things. Kronii’s origin. How Kronii knows about this place? Does the rest of the council know? Why was Kronii so apprehensive coming here? Why is she so secretive in here? I don’t understand…and I’ll have to wait for my answers…
Box…right…need to find the box. I slap my cheeks, returning my focus to the task I had been given. If I were a fourth dimensional object in a realty marble at the end of time…where would I hide. I walk towards her bed and stare at it, really does look like the real thing. This place is pretty cool…would that I have the time to investigate…Well if it’s her room…then…maybe its in her desk? Reaching for the lower cabinet, Kronii’s words quickly echo through my head. “Don’t touch anything.” Well how the heck am I supposed to look for this thing if I can’t touch anything. Does it count if my feet touch the floor? Kronii I did NOT receive enough information about this! Ok, lets reason this out, if I do touch something and in turn, something comes out looking for me, I’m currently Ouro Kronii. I’m not sure how…I’ll be recognized as her but I can be Kronii. Just need to adopt her signature look of superiority. I mean…in reality we are…well, I’ll be fine. I’m sure of it. Kronii was pretty nonchalant about her actions…despite the heavy nature of them, I guess there’s a lot worse in the universe. Even if she…ended all universes…After that day…Kronii and I…
Before I had realized it, I was pressing my hands on the desk, leaning onto it. The monitor on her desk turns itself on, the display reminds me of the one I had come across earlier. It’s a black void, I assume the computer has also started up, I hear the faint sound of fans running. In a place as silent as this…I’ll catch any and all sounds. I look to the front door, wondering if something will enter. What could show up? What manner of creature…or…I hear a ding noise and my sights immediately shoot towards the monitor. I stare at it, bewildered at what showed up.
Floating Back:
Entry 1002