Saw devil girl's Panda, and followed it home. I waited for her to show up, but she didn't. Instead I was defeated by a strong, handsome young man. He will make a good airen, I am sure.
That would happen a few days from now. The best part of a week, and she'd meet her airen. The next page had the following.
Must eliminate local nuisance. She is protecting the red haired girl, and interfering in my pursuit of my airen.
But the only problem was, she didn't have any names. Well, that was fine. Her new employer would surely help her identify the locals. That would make it much easier to identify the potential source of interference, and remove it before it became a problem. Returning home with a strong husband on one arm, and the head of the devil girl in the other. It would be a good day. Especially for the look on Mousse's face when he realised what had happened. She'd be free from his annoying advances at long last!
"Shampoo! Could you come downstairs for a moment please?"
But in the meantime, she'd do her job. She'd keep her eyes open and her ears close to the ground. And when the time came, heads would roll.
Meanwhile, another diary holder was pacing her room, thinking about her own diary. She'd been performing experiments with it, to determine exactly how it worked. The more that she knew about how it worked, the better the position she'd be in when she inevitably encountered other diary holders. Nabiki had been an unwilling, unknowing participant in these experiments. While preventing her from finding out about the diary, and keeping her from selling pictures to Kuno, a few small details had become apparent. So far, she'd noticed that the diary entries only ever changed when an action was taken that influenced the contents of the entry. Just reading the entries alone didn't change anything. And neither did merely planning what to do with the information make any difference. Only direct actions taken as a consequence of reading the entries could change their content. Her diary also appeared to be reacting to changes the other diary holders were making as well, since the further into the future the diary entries went, the less stable they seemed. She'd look away for a few minutes, check back, and something completely different would wind up happening. She picked up the diary, and it flipped open to today's entry in her hand.
Kasumi asked me to take back a book she borrowed from Doctor Tofu. When I got there, I ran into...
She stopped reading there, as another thought dawned on her. The book was closed, and slowly place back on the desk. Akane stared at it for a moment, then picked the book up and randomly opened it. She raised an eyebrow at that.
"But why would it always open at the right page? I've never had to search through it to find the place I was looking for..."
"The diaries have a variety of spells on them, Number 1. This one is to make it easier for the competitors to quickly find the correct section while under pressure."
Akane froze in her chair. She knew that voice. It had the quality of something that was, at one point, every bit as human as she. But somewhere along the line, the voice had forgotten exactly what it meant to be human, and was trying desperately to regain what it had once lost. She slowly turned around, and looked around her room. Sitting in the middle of the room was a figure twice the size of her house, staring down at her in what could only be described as detached amusement. Taking her eyes off the monstrosity and looking at the walls, and had to steady herself. It looked as though each of them was being pulled into a different black hole, each stretching and pulling the walls, floor and ceiling out to the horizon.
"But... how did you?"
"I am Deus Ex Machina, God of space and time. This effect is unimportant. Your room will be returned to normal when I leave."
The self proclaimed God resumed looking down at Akane in silence, as she began to fidget. She was planning on going to the dojo at some point later today, and the door to the room was currently occupying different laws of reality to her. Her annoyance at being trapped in her room with the God was fighting her fear of him... and eventually won out.
"So... When were you planning on leaving, then?"
To her great relief, Deus leaned back in his bizarre chair, and said "That is up to you. You asked a question related to the rules of the game, and it would be remiss of me to leave them unanswered. All participants may ask any relevant question... so long as it doesn't involve information about each other. That wouldn't be fair after all."
"Wait, are you telling me I didn't have to go through any of those experiments? I could've just asked and you would've answered at any time? Why didn't you say anything?"
Deus smiled down at her, and Akane went pale and took a step back... or she thought she did, it was hard to tell with the twisted dimensions and all. "Yes, yes, and you didn't ask. Anything else?"
This was too good an opportunity to miss. She had a good few questions for him. But which to start with? Probably the big one would be best. It might reveal other things she needed to know.
"So if we win this thing, you grant us our heart's desire, right? So what's in it for you? What do you get out of this?"
Deus frowned, and for a moment Akane believed she'd probably asked the wrong question. "That is a good question, Number One. And a difficult one for me to answer. You see, although I may be God of Time and Space, the sad truth is that even my time does not last forever. I estimate about two decades of your time shall pass, and I shall cease to be."
"You... You're dying?"
"... Indeed. Closer to the time, I intend to select my replacement using a game very similar to this one. Consider this a test run. The selection process, the rules of the game, the limitations imposed upon the players, all are being tested in this and other games like it. Various permutations are being tested throughout the world, in secret. The results are promising. Twenty years from now the real game will be played, for much higher stakes than a single wish. But enough of that depressing truth. Do you have any other questions?"
"Al-Alright. Just one other thing." She took in a deep breath. That had been a lot to digest. But she had to know this... "What about those that lose the game? I mean, what's to stop them from interfering in the game afterwards?"
"That is another spell I have placed upon each diary, Number One. Each diary represents your future, and through it you can change your future. However, the future and the past are intertwined, and so if your diary, which represents your future is destroyed..." Deus leaned forward to finish his answer. "... Then all memories involving the diary will be removed. Those that lose the game will be unaware that they have even lost. Their minds will fill in the gaps in a variety of creative ways. Humans are good at rationalising things to suit their perspectives."
Akane shuddered at that, feeling like several eyes she couldn't see had narrowed at her with Deus' last sentence. And then, she found herself back in her own room, sitting at her desk like she had never even left. "I wish he wouldn't do that..." she grumbled, as there was a knock at her door. "Uh, come in," she said.
It was Kasumi, holding a book. "Akane, are you busy just now? If not, could you return this book to Doctor Tofu? I was just over there, but forgot to bring it to him."
Akane remembered the diary entry from earlier, and took the book from Kasumi with a smile. She needed some time to think about this new development, maybe think up some new questions for Deus to answer for her. She patted the diary, tucked under her shirt, and went to Doctor Tofu's.
This time, Nabiki decided that she wouldn't confront her with the information. Instead, she would gather evidence secretly, and then make a decision on what to do once she knew what was going on. To that end, she'd planted a tape recorder in Akane's room. If she was lucky, she'd have found some sort of lead. Something that would let her past Akane's newfound prescience. Hopefully, she hadn't noticed it yet.
"Ah, hello Akane! I've not seen you for a while." This was true enough, Akane mused. She had been trying to get over her crush on him lately, and the diary had been able to warn her about particularly nasty injuries, making it easier to avoid them. "What brings you here today?" Tofu asked, while setting Betty back up. Oh yes, Kasumi had obviously just been here. The office was a mess, with paper strewn about the floor and desk... and it looked like there were footprints on some of the papers on the desk as well.
"Oh, I'm fine Doctor. Ka- I mean, My sister wanted me to return this book she borrowed." That had been close. She'd almost set him off again.
Doctor Tofu took the book away from her, and then seemed to have a thought about something. "Oh yes, that's right. I have this new assistant. She's far away from home and doesn't speak the language. I think it would be really beneficial to her if she had a friend about her own age. Could you look out for her, maybe show her around?"
For the first time in weeks, Akane was caught off guard. Doctor Tofu had an assistant? That didn't make any sense. He shouldn't have an assistant yet... Tofu called upstairs in some foreign language. Shortly thereafter, a young girl with purple hair, wearing a Chinese dress bounced down the stairs. Tofu said something to the strange girl in that same language, then turned back to Akane. "Akane, this is my new assistant Shampoo. I've just told her that you'll be showing her the area at some point... Oh dear, are you sure you're feeling alright? You look rather pale all of a sudden."
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(Posted Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:03)
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