"Sit," he added, and another chair materialized next to him. "We have much to talk about."
Eliot remained standing, simply staring at the young man.
"Sit," the other repeated. Still, Eliot made no move.
"If you want me to answer any questions you have, then you have to do what I say. SIT. DOWN," the young man stressed.
Eliot stared at the chair for a moment, then slowly sat.
"See? It wasn't that hard, was it?" The second Eliot chuckled, taking a casual sip of his juice.
"Where is this place? Who are you?" Eliot fired his questions the moment he was seated.
"This place? I already answered that. It's the Aether Stream—or, in simpler terms, a subconscious world shared by all iterations of a single individual, irrespective of time."
"That makes no sense," Eliot retorted, his tone sharp with annoyance. The young man before him was acting far too calm and familiar for the situation. Eliot needed to know one thing: was he dead or not?
"Sigh... You see, there's no simple way to explain what this place is, or what I am, to you. It would sound more or less like quantum physics, so I won't mess up your mind with that. You are alive. That's all you need to know for now."
"Alright... So, this whole place is what? If I'm alive, why am I here?"
"Did you not hear what I just said?"
"I did, but that doesn't mean I won't try to find out where the heck this is. If it's too complex, then break it down to a level I'll understand."
"...Alright, let's start with me. From my appearance, you must have guessed who I am."
"No. For all I know, you're some thing that got a hold of my memory, masquerading as me."
"Eh... That, actually... makes sense." The other Eliot rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
Eliot was not at all disturbed by the presence of this... other him. From the display the young man had just carried out—manipulating reality at will—it was clear this being, whatever it was, was far beyond his level. No amount of planning could save him if it wanted him dead. Since it hadn't acted, that only meant it wasn't after his life.
"...But that is far from reality. I am not some thing masquerading as you; I am you. In fact, I am the reason you are alive at this moment."
Hearing this, Eliot frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Exactly what it sounds like. Yes, I am the reason you didn't die at the hands of Annabelle that night."
Suddenly, the scene before them morphed. Now they were in a stone room, still seated as before, but the ocean was gone. Instead, two young girls were chained to the stone wall of what looked like a cave chamber.
One was... "Anna."
The other was... "She's the girl from Jenica's group," Eliot thought in confusion. He knew that girl. How could he forget? She was the one who landed the killing blow. Yes, the one who...
"Hold on, you said I'm not dead, right? But how is that possible? Didn't she kill me?" Eliot asked, recalling everything that led to this moment in full clarity. "She sent a sword right through my chest; it must have touched my heart from how much blood I remember losing. I should have died." He turned to the other Eliot for answers.
"You're correct. You should have died... a very careless and stupid death, by the way. Do you know what it took me to ensure you, out of all the various other iterations I had to watch die, survived? And you decided to waste your life in some senseless showdown you could have avoided by simply killing Jenica from the start."
The young man argued, "It was a miscalculation. The preceding variables were not something I could predict."
The other Eliot scoffed. "Preceding variables, my ass. You simply let her fool you. The enforcers she pointed to weren't even possible. You should have known that from the moment you saw them. There is no way people below the ranks of nobles would be in the castle, and if at all, by some chance, they really were there, they would have stopped you from attacking Lungris from the very moment you mana-spiked. But no, they simply let it happen and waited for Jenica to leave before they could apprehend you."
The other Eliot clapped mockingly.
"She got into my head! She made me see them," Eliot realized.
"Wow, such quick thinking! I just wonder why you didn't realize this until you almost died and had to hear it directly from the smarter version of yourself," the other Eliot added sarcastically. "From the moment your eyes met, she got into your head. If I hadn't interfered, she would have heard everything you were thinking, genius. However, she did pick up on her name you knew, and the mention of her sister's, so in other words, she wanted to extract information directly from your mouth since I blocked out access from your mind, meaning suggestive interrogation wouldn't work."
"...." Eliot could not say anything, 'shocked' by how little he thought compared to the immense scale of the situation.
"You are supposed to be smarter than any emotionally driven individual out there, given how dampened your emotions are. This means most of your decisions are based on logic, most probable possibilities in respect to actions, simple laws of nature: an action produces a reaction. However, what you fail to understand is that variables are a part of every situation. If there's one thing life is good at, it's at being unpredictable. There will always be an unexpected situation—in other words, variables. You can never predict the outcome of a situation if you cannot account for even the variables unseen.
"What you should have done in that situation with Jenica was simply... think. What could possibly stop her from reading your mind when she had all the freedom and access to? Nothing. Of course, you don't know I stopped her abilities since you're only coming to know of my existence now. So the best possible action to take, before she could even react, was to kill her. Simple. Do the same with her as with Lungris. You would have splendidly taken care of a problem... but no, you chose to gamble with a double-pointing gun, knowing fully well she was worse than her sister, Angelica."
"Heh," Eliot suddenly smiled, which made the other frown.
"What's so funny?"
"The fact that you called yourself the smarter version and got fooled as well."
"What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I said. All the thoughts Jenica heard before you 'stopped' her? It was all surface-level thought, something I devised to get her attention and make her believe I didn't suspect she could read my mind when I very well mentioned her ability. That way, she would conclude I was underestimating her and try to understand what I really was. From all you've said, it seems you got fooled by it as well."
The other Eliot frowned. "You didn't really think I was that stupid, did you? From the moment she manipulated my sense of direction, I knew she was in my head. So I found a way to keep my mind running with external, instructional thoughts, but behind all that, my original plan was to isolate and enslave her."
The other Eliot could not believe what he was hearing.
"...What?"