***Eternity***

***Angrod***

“Who the fuck are you!?” I point at the man who is standing on the other side of my barrier. His features are plain, aside from his long flaming-red hair which is kept at shoulder-length.

He only raises an inquisitive eyebrow in reply as his gaze sweeps the small room which was saved from the effects of my annihilation spell. From his position at the entrance to the vault, he can see everything inside well enough. Tentatively, almost hesitatingly, he raises a finger and presses it against the barrier where the doorway should be, tapping it several times.

Finally, he clears his throat to speak. “You may call me the Immortal, the Phoenix, or Moonray if you must put a name to my existence. Not that any of those names have any meaning to the current you. I know you well enough to know that at least.”

I frown, trying to puzzle out how someone could have survived on the other side of my barrier.

There is a long minute of silence before the stranger rolls his eyes, running a hand through his flaming-red hair. “Look, I am tired, so I am going to make this easy for you. I am what you would call the Calamity’s original. It is blatantly obvious that your current self doesn't know anything about the true nature of this whole affair.”

I bite my lower lip and glance at Celes, but my wife remains unnaturally silent. Something is going on and I am out of the loop. All my careful planning, all the agonizing about the repercussions of my actions was apparently for naught.

When there is no simple answer forthcoming, I return my attention to the stranger who just claimed to be the enemy who I sought to destroy. “What do you mean? How can you even be here? I destroyed the fucking multiverse! You shouldn’t even exist out there!”

Moonray shakes his head, groaning. “He doesn’t get it, but then again, he seldom does. To be defeated by an imbecile whose only true skill is magic.”

The man tilts his head, thinking. “I am the first person who had the idea to fuse with a spirit, a soul fragment if you will. I am the Calamity’s origin, so to speak.” He looks around, raising his hands at the emptiness surrounding him, a white plane of nothingness. “Although I absorbed souls in order to gain power, I underestimated the effects on my mind. Soon after practising the technique of fusing with others, I tend to lose my rationality, overwhelmed by the sea of thoughts that belong to those I consumed. Once that happens, the Calamity is born, a creature of barely much more than instinct and hunger with little rationality. A being of extraordinary powers, a force of nature to be reckoned with, but one with little to no originality. This place and point in time is one of the few moments when I get to be myself again. That, and the few precious centuries which I get to have before I lose control.”

“Then why do it at all? Why start this again and again?” I ask. There is no point in power if you don’t get to live. “You could end everything by not creating the Calamity in the first place!”

“Ah, that’s the question.” He grins. “The answer could be hubris, or the firm belief that I will succeed in perfecting the technique one day. Can you imagine what it would be like to be in control of that much power!? I would be a true GOD!”

Moonray points at me and his expression sours. “If it weren’t for you! Each time I am about to succeed, you destroy the multiverse, then you recreate it. Then you destroy it. Then you create it.” He throws up his arms, frustrated. “It's an endless self-repeating cycle which was set in motion by your first incarnation. Everything just to destroy me.”

He starts pacing back and forth on his side of the barrier. “It's just here, in this almost starved state that I am sane enough to talk and we hold this very same conversation again and again, oh Bright One.”

My mind goes blank. He called me the Bright One. Nobody would do that, except… “You are one of the ascended, the first ones? It is too bad that I have no memories of that time.”

But it would be more important to know how he manages to transfer his memories from one iteration to the next. Is he managing to survive by using his absorbed souls as some sort of shield?

“Yes. I am one of the first and I wish for true eternity.” He gestures at himself. “And look what I ended up with. You complain about your lack of memories, but that’s what keeps you from going insane! Your spell is truly devious, Bright One. I wish I could understand how you did it! You aren't even aware of it, but you created this whole situation. Just to punish me! I don't need to be here you know? I could be out there in the nothingness. I could hide and you would recreate the multiverse. Then I would give in to my hunger once more and eat until you destroy the multiverse again. And so on and so forth. I lost count of it…”

I stay silent, trying to make sense of his insane ranting, hoping to glean some vital information from it. My mind spins as I try to sort out the various puzzle pieces to this unexpected situation and to put everything together. At the moment, the situation still eludes my grasp, but I have a feeling that my wife might have some vital answers. Slowly, I turn and look towards her, but she shakes her head, indicating that I shouldn't draw Moonray’s attention towards her.

Moonray suddenly stops in his tracks. “And the funny part is this. You aren't even aware of any of it! How do you always remember to stop me again and again without fail? You can't even go insane because you don't remember all those iterations. A truly marvellous spell! A spell that can end something like me who is meant to be eternal. Or maybe it wasn't you? Maybe you are just the multiverse’s tool to achieve balance? Maybe someone like me isn't meant to be?”

I frown. “You are an idiot. Even if you succeed, what would you do all alone with yourself? It would be boring as hell!” I gesture at the emptiness behind him. “Even you perfected your techniques, you would still end up in a place like this one. There would be no difference, only that there might not be a restart that time around. You would be the creator of your own eternal hell.”

He turns around, studying the empty plane. A moment passes, and then he shrugs. “Maybe. And maybe not? Who knows? Are you going to tell me that you know me well enough to tell what I want?”

“And if everything you say is true, there is still a fundamental mistake to your story. You had spies among my people, so you should have heard about my conclusion regarding the multiverse,” I point out.

Moonray turns his attention back to me. “You got it mostly right. So what? You somehow changed the multiverse into something that’s an antithesis to my goal and then erased any knowledge of it. That doesn’t change my desires. I will still continue to grasp for the light that you are denying me.”

“From my theory, I shouldn't be able to restart the multiverse as long as you still exist. You are an observer too.” I squint my eyes while I think about the motivations of the insane monster facing me.

He snorts. “I am here because I want to finally end it. One last time, that’s what I told myself at the beginning of this iteration. Your theory is missing a vital little detail, and that is that I don't count as an observer… since a long time ago. In order to attain eternity, I disconnected my soul from the multiverse. Yet, I can't run. Even if I run, I end up here! I can't escape! And while I am alone and conscious, I can't deal with this endless white eternity! And you will go on to bring me here. I am going mad!” The insane fool beats the barrier with a fist and rattles on.

“It doesn't matter if your next reincarnation is an angel. A dwarf. Male or female! Big, fat, muscular, thin, young, old. You just appear here every time to mock me with your limited knowledge, a poor copy of those who came before you! You show me all the different lives you’ve led in order to punish me for what I tried to give up! And you don't even know why. You just stand there and watch, taunting me in your incomprehension. Ohhh. What I would give to meet your first iteration again and ask him how he did it!”

He raises his hands, shaking them at me. “So! Come out of there and let's have a last fight to the death! Just you and me!”

I frown again and smirk, scratching my cheek. “Why should I? Now that I know of you? I guess you used the other souls as a shield... somehow. I just have to invoke the wave-front a few more times until the multiverse is completely wiped. You are like an accidental artefact that survived the first wipe. Maybe the multiverse keeps resetting itself because of your continued existence. Palace, invoke the wave-front again as soon as you are ready.”

The Calamity lets his hands fall. “Yeah, well. I expected that it wouldn't work to taunt you. Maybe I would have won?”

“Who knows?”

The other side of the barrier turns black again and after a few seconds, Palace returns us back to the previous state. This time around there is no Moonray outside, but I don't trust the peace. “Palace, repeat the process until your energy reserves are depleted.”

Dutifully and unquestioningly, Palace proceeds and starts wiping the multiverse with me watching the process until the outside returns to the white plane.

“~Done,~” the AI announces.

“Okay, then let’s proceed to recreate the multiv-”

Something smacks me on the back of my head.

“Ow...” I slowly turn to my wife, admittedly, having forgotten about her in the heat of my triumph. “That’s right. We have to do something about the two of-”

She smacks me again on the side of my head, only hard enough to rattle my brain this time. “Don’t be an idiot!”

I slowly raise my hands to avoid agitating her any further, nursing my head. “What did I do?”

“Do you really think you won just like that!” She steps up, getting right in my face. “We are dealing with a monster. Rule number one when fighting monsters: They aren’t dead until you have their cold, bloodless corpse, preferably in several pieces.”

I harrumph and gesture towards the door and the infinity beyond. “What? Do you really think that he survived that? Come on.”

“He did it once!” she points out, taking a stance in front of me with her arms crossed.

“So, what do you suggest?” I gesture for her to go on, remembering that she owes me an explanation of the situation. “You are obviously better prepared for this situation than I am.”

Celes smiles, revealing her sharp canines before pointing towards the door. “We go out there and find the bastard… and then we make him regret his very existence.”

“Out there?” I gape. “But that would mean that we have to disable the barrier! Who knows what might happen if I do that? The plane out there is an undefined dimension. Who knows what rules it might have?”

She shakes her head. “Don’t you get it? Only more reason to check it out ourselves. Your fantastical spell might have no effect on that place.” She points outside, giving me pause. “That’s what you have done every iteration so far. That is why the Calamity keeps reappearing. I am here to shake things up!” Celes knocks on the barrier. “That, and to make sure that you don’t fuck up the multiverse ‘yet again’. This time, I am going to help to recreate it.”

“But… but…” I wave my hands, feeling stupid. “Haven’t you paid any attention when I tried to explain the law of observation? We need a single observer for my theory to work!”

Celes rolls her eyes. “Well, it’s all good and well then that both of us count as one observer, according to Seria. At least she was very clear on that point.”

“What!?” I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to regain my calm. “I feel like I am owed an explanation before we do anything else.”

“That might be impossible,” Celes admits and bites her lower lip while trying to sum up what to say in her mind. “Seria apparently had memories of the past iteration all along. All her actions were aimed to bring us to this point in time. To ensure that we are here, together-”

“That little Minx!” I roar as some of the pieces to the puzzle fall into place, deeply resenting to be played like a figure in some grand game of chess. “But, that still doesn’t explain…”

“-and if you allowed me to explain without interruption I would get to that point. According to Seria, the three of us are linked. Our souls are bonded, although Seria only shares a minor link with the two of us,” Celes nods while frowning at herself. “I think I got that right. You and I are the important part. That is why you and I have to be together, and why fate forces us to meet again and again. We are Chaos and Order, two sides of the same coin.”

“The fuck!?” I exclaim. “When did we get soul-bonded? How, and do you know how dangerous that is?” I gesture towards the outside. “We could have easily ended up like him! But… that’s not right. What about Isabella! That’s not how soul-bonds work!” I shouldn’t have gotten together with Isabella if Myrm and I were meant for each other. The same counts for the other way around.

Celes sighs. “Think about it. It’s a logical conclusion once you think about it. Isabella and Myrm were originally one soul.” She interlocks her fingers, miming two halves being one. “At some point in time, my soul was split in two, allowing for a Myrm and an Isabella to exist. Seria only re-established the order when she placed both souls inside one body, allowing them to merge again. You were all so worried about the two souls becoming one that you never questioned whether they were meant to be apart in the first place.”

“Ah…” I try to follow, but only an intelligible sound escapes my lips. This would explain so much and it would solve my problem regarding Isabella and Myrm quite beautifully. If they were always meant to be one person…

“Look, is it really that hard to believe? Your theory practically requires that souls are unaffected by the multiverse, so why should anything that affects them change because of a new iteration? It doesn’t matter at which point in time our souls were bonded. For us, it’s only important to know that it happened.”

She points at the emptiness beyond the barrier.

“And now we go out there and find that bastard. What do you think?”