Chapter 25:The Steins Game..
His blonde hair fluttered from the windy dust. His blue eyes gazed with curiosity at the harrowed expanse of turbulent red deserts and charred ground spiderwebbed with cracks from which red sulphur and lava floated in golden hot vials. The burning skies, probably made of floating matter colliding in a dreary cycle of creation and destruction. A crimson firmament.
Was that how time was calibrated in this realm? What had his previous self, Steins, come here for? It was obviously the Artifacts, but why? Who was he anyway? What was he?
He could've delved deeper into his thoughts if not for...
The great maws of the huge giant behind went shut with a silent thud—a finality to his mission here. His form shadowed by one of those huge pillars, whose size from his gaze stretched as far as he could see. How could something be this huge?
It was moving, in an orbit, but its size made it seem stationary. And the great chains, red hot, emitting from it, anchoring in an obsidian fissure with the skin of the petrified giant.
Instinctively, his eyes withdrew from the obsidian mirror. His psyche traced echoes of enticing whispers.
"Do not peer into the reflection of a god, William, fallen or not." Entity Frankenstein loomed within his mind as his blue eyes traced a set of stairs—no railings, just emerging in a dusty succession, leading downwards.
Like a message ingrained within him, he took a step into it. The next one forming with the intrusion of the other foot. His eyes brightened at an interesting mechanism, the only beacon of intelligence in this barren, scary world.
"As ordered by the previous entity 'Steins', I shall now release the seal on your memories. The dark fog clouding the entirety of it." The entity within him boomed. "It was nice talking to you... new persona."
He smiled. His blue eyes leaving a sad glimmer—not that he was sad; it would still be him, still be William, but those memories would change his mannerisms, his actions, his goals.
Whoever he was, the main persona Steins would emerge.
It was just this freedom, this innocence... the peaceful touch of the wind, the gentle tick of his pocket clock.
He would probably be too lost in his goals to savor them.
Yet still, he smiled.
That was reality. Innocence and freedom were just concordant steps to greatness.
"Just call me... William," Entity Frankenstein. He slicked his hair back. "The least I can do is name myself."
"This is goodbye... William."
And within the depths of his subconsciousness, in his memory tunnel, the dark fog shrouding the entirety of it dragged down as if devoured by some great suction force recurring from the fourth strata.
Steins had stored the memory seal within his darker days—as a nightmare, perhaps.
And when the last of it finally was devoured, the memories surfaced, came streaming at him in high ultra speed—flashes before his eyes, but that was enough his brain could process them all.
With one last smile stretched across his pale features, his hair parted by the violent gale of the wind.
"It's up to you now, Steins..."
And when the smile finally receded abruptly, the shiny sapphire gleam in his eyes died, replaced by a less dim, calculative vestige.
Entity William... was gone.
His eyes wandered to his pocket clock, then to his hands which now drew two perfect cumulative cubes, weightless and ethereal, from his overcoat's pocket.
It seemed he was successful... guess the new persona he had created was competent enough.
His figure descended more down the stairs. He was already toward the torso, away from the negating field of those city-large pillars. He could feel the turbulence on his Astrality decreasing.
"You have my thanks, Entity Frankenstein..."
But what was within, after a drastic moment of silence...
"He was better than you, Steins. It was the perfect representation of the dream you had. I called him... William." Then, with another pause, he added, "The you before this. The true 'Steins'."
As if recognizing the weight of the words, his steps halted temporarily before resuming, a sad smile spewing across his features.
"Well... is it probably because I'm not all sentimental? Knew you had a knack for my emotional personas."
His eyes darted to the dark silhouette of the Herald. He was sitting in the red sand. He could make out the visage of the doomsday clock.
[They are memories, Steins. You're creating versions of yourself by blowing a hole in your memories. A void. When the day certainly comes when you finally cease becoming "you," only then would you truly become... "you."]
His form descended further. The stairs reforming with each of his steps. He was already near the ground.
"Then you'll be waiting a long time, Frankenstein. Probably even after Andromeda descends." Then, with a low voice, he added, "Innocence and freedom are just concordant steps to greatness."
And after a few more minutes, his feet finally kissed the dust. The red sands contrasted with the scarlet glow of the burning skies. His form minute before the feet of the titan, not even measuring up to its bronze toe.
His eyes darted not to the Herald, whose purple monocled eyes were now fixed on him, scanning him to his overcoat's pocket, to the doomsday clock—the dark sand already run out, filling the other compartment.
"You failed, Steins. The time ran out. You expended... five more," the Herald muttered, gesturing to the doomsday clock.
He sighed.
It wasn't perhaps Persona William's fault. It was bound to happen, for in that desperate moment to escape the self-destroying passageway, he had perceived time in a hurried sense, wishing it was slower enough so he could escape—a natural reaction from a being not used much to the laws governing itself. Thus, the bowel of the titan reacted with a reciprocal, making time move faster in this realm, hence the extra hours.
Guess he couldn't beat his record this time. So Valen was now five minutes into the apocalypse.
It was up to Lyra and Lancelot to stall... and perhaps they had done a good job.
"I wish to bring it to your knowing that a quarter of Valen is gone, one third of the population dead and maimed. Lancelot and Lyra still battling the Horned Enigma and his monstrosity." The Herald's eyes glimmered. "Valen has been painted in a picturesque of destruction, Steins."
He heaved.
It was all pointless—the destruction, the life lost. They were all nice sacrifices... necessary ones. May they rest well in the afterlife.
He handed the Herald one of the perfect dark humming cubes, his eyes locking on the purple-eyed figure.
"The Sands of Time. You know what to do with it."
The Herald's purple eyes masked the confusion, but his features couldn't.
"You wish to stay? I don't get it..."
Yet still, obedient as it was, his hands framed the cube into his grasp.
"Tell me, Herald." Steins slicked his hair back. His blue eyes, serrated and crucified, stilled the sandstone creeping toward them, making it a frozen picturesque. "What use do you think will the Eye of Wonder be if the Sands of Time could send the invaders down the course of history?"
The Herald struggled as if trying to grasp the nature of his question, and when his eyes finally glimmered, like he had grasped it...
"There wouldn't be..." it muttered more to himself, then wandered back to Steins. "Then why order the breakdown of the laws governing the Eye of Wonder? Why waste so much effort if it was pointless?" Yet within his mind was the darker question: how was he able to fool his premonition of the future, a future he had predicted most of the citizens were blipped by the Divine Relic?
His gaze held a bit of apprehension... and a slight tinge of awe.
"It was the perfect bait,The Evacuation,The publicizing of the Eye of Wonder..,after all, His eyes danced to the features of the giant,Then to his Crucifix,The Iris of The eye of Wonder"The Horned Enigma—it desires not the destruction of Valen. What it desires perhaps is..." His foot tapped the ground, completing his statement.
"And what other way is there possible for a rogue to access Anubis other than the Eye of Wonder?"
"But wouldn't he be also trapped by the Sands of Time?"
His serrated blue eyes traced downward toward the Herald.
"No, he won't. That entity, the Dream as it deems himself..." His hands retreated to his pockets. "It's probably calculated this far ahead. It won't be easily entrapped by the Sands of Time."
"So..." The Herald stroked his chin. "The Sands of Time was only for the monstrosity. Isn't this too much faith for a mere hypothesis?"
"It's a law. The most logical of the countless Threads of fate, Herald..." His eyes darted toward his palms. "Go, Herald. Entrust the Sands of Time to Lyra. She's Expecting it..."
The law of time governing this realm had changed; it was now moving faster relative to the real world. There was no telling how much time had passed.
He had to minimize the odds.
The Herald took a step back, then with a submissive bow,his form birthed a terrifying shockwave. It lunged with a great speed so great that with a flash, he was gone, tearing with another ring of golden force through the crimson skies.
His eyes traced the movements before finally, with a satisfied heave, dropped down.
"Send my greetings to Ian."
His visage turned toward the toe of the great huge titan, his hands... the wind around making the rims of his overcoat flail in a rhythmic dance. His hands reached into the pockets of it.
Encasing the second cube within his hands. His serrated eyes locked on it.
The Sacred Tomb of Nephythys.
"Could've been my checkmate." The artifact emitting an iridescent whiplash, like it was about to erupt. "Tell me, Dream—what is yours?"