~Weep not for roads untraveled

Weep not for paths left lone

'Cause beyond every bend is a long blinding end

It's the ***** **** ** **** *** *****~

The distant words got garbled over the wind. I'm sure they were swimming in my own head but I lost track. It was as if they'd just glitched out of place so I could no longer hear anything but static.

"Lubbock fawns over every woman, Deli. I hope you aren't getting fooled by him", I was the one that had said this a long time ago, seeing how kind Deli could be with Lubbock.

She laughed.

"That kid doesn't have a clue on how to fool a woman. I'm way beyond his league."

That was indeed true. She was barely in anyone's league.

"He's never tried anything with June though. I wonder why that is", I said, while idly looking at June typing away her perpetual records.

Deli laughed again.

"That's cause June hates him. Everyone knows that."

"She hates him? Why?"

"She sure does. And she can get vocal about it too. 'What would a machine like you know?', is what she once said very scornfully to Lubbock. Apparently, he isn't human enough for her. But who knows what more there is to it. I'm sure she's a lot more complex than that."

That's right. That was a memory I needed to weave into reality, just as it had been before. I needed to remember everything if I aimed to create a perfect reality someday.

~It's the ***** **** ** **** *** *****~

That again. And the static too. But an image came to my head this time. The image of Lady, in blood, broken...

The image was just a flash.

"Oi Seraph!"

That voice...

Some bright world flooded into vision as I roused myself from some deep dark ocean.

Yeah, that's right. I was underwater.

"We're already the last ones, get yer damned legs movin'!"

I was standing on the path that lead to Valhalla. It was quite bright, morning perhaps. The distant voice of wind playing with the leaves, the shade of tall trees along the path, and the chirping of birds all came into my consciousness.

"Oi!"

I was spacing out.

"Yeah, Chopper-san!", I answered before hurrying over to his side.

"𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦'𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬. 𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘸𝘦 𝘣𝘦 𝘱𝘶𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘢 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘰 𝘧𝘢𝘳 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯? 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘴, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘦𝘦, 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘬𝘪𝘥𝘴. 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘴 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮. 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘶𝘴. 𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘴. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵."

Another memory. Prophet said that to me once when we were still in hell.

"Oi, kid", Chopper looked at me, "Ya didn't hit your head or somethin', did ya?"

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I must have looked too monotonous to him. Truly, I couldn't muster a single expression on my face. I was barren, inside and out.

We walked side by side and I knew Chopper was as real as the wind muffling my hair. But I was too scared to look up at the sky. Still, as we entered through the enormous gate of Valhalla, I had a feeling that it was a bright blue.

"You're so late. What took you so long?", Deli said, before hitting both our heads.

"Why are ya hittin' us?", Chopper retorted, "Hold it!"

Chopper and Deli went on bickering. It must have been time for food. Deli hated waiting.

She was real too. The same Deli I'd always known.

"Oh, boy!", Sight caught sight of me, "Come on over here, I saved you a seat."

"I'm sitting here, Sight you blind old man!", Lubbock was indeed sitting in the seat Sight had supposedly saved for me.

I kept staring without moving a bit. Lubbock was whole, even though his back was turned to me. Sight too...they were all right there.

June's typewriter went on providing the same background music it always did to Valhalla.

"Get up, you dead ass god of death!", Deli was kicking Grim now, who was nodding off in one corner, "You're gonna be the death of all of us!"

"Ehh....what's with the accusation, Deli? I wouldn't dream of it, you know. Whatever did I do to deserve such rude awakenings?"

"Shut up and come eat! We're rationing now!"

Food wasn't something to be extravagant about. That was one of the rules Lady created. Our rations came directly from the military and she could easily get much more. But she refused anything that was unnecessarily luxurious. So when it was time to eat, we were given equal portions after careful measurement. Everyone needed to be present before rationing began.

I had never before taken such note of the rationing. Food was always there on time. And I never went hungry. That was all that seemed to matter, so I never granted it more attention than what was necessary.

"Seraph!", Chopper called out to me again.

He was asking me to get inside. I was still standing at the door.

As I walked inside and my mind adapted to my surroundings a little, the little worktable in front of the altar came into sight.

And with that, so too did the familiar figure clad in her signature fur coat, leaning back in her chair, with her legs crossed on the table.

She noticed me too. And she looked my way. I guess my empty stare must have stood out too much. She smirked at me. And I felt all of my energy leave my body.

That image came back to mind, without the static this time. The image of Lady, in blood, broken, and saying something. But there was no sound. What did she say? I had to remember.

What did her face look like? Her moving lips...I had to make out what she said. But the image was just a flash. It was gone as soon as it came.

"Yo, Seraph", Lady said, getting out of her chair.

I was frozen in my place, without a single feeling in any of my muscles.

"Oi oi, get it together already. What's up with ya, kid?", Chopper patted my shoulder.

I looked at him and hung my head low.

They were all here. They were all the same. And they were all alive.

But...

"You look like you've seen a ghost, Seraph", Lady said cheekily as I looked up, "Hungry?"

Of course that's it, I thought to myself. They were the same but at the same time, they weren't. The Lady that stood before me right now didn't know the pain of having swallowed a void. The Grim that was teasing Deli right now hadn't tried to destroy this world. The Lubbock of right now didn't know the feeling of being turned to a bloody mush after losing his humanity. The eyes of this Sight hadn't been revealed to the world.

And Chopper hadn't died protecting me.

This world was one whole and perfect in its own right. But it was missing something. So many pieces, in fact, that I couldn't even begin to count.

Ah, but there had been a red sky in this reality too. And we had dispelled the danger in this world too. But it wasn't caused by Grim. Whatever brought it on was already gone. We had all just returned safely. And there was peace again.

As to what it was that tried to destroy the world in this reality, I don't know myself. This ability is broken in places so that even I don't understand it yet. But surely, I had created this current reality.

"~It's the ***** **** ** **** *** *****~"

The more I looked at Lady's face, the more that image flashed in my head.

"No...I'm not really hungry", I mumbled.

It must have looked odd. There was no reason for me to be looking like this when a threat had just been dispelled. I'm sure that's what everyone was thinking. But I didn't know what to think anymore. I withdrew from the hall and headed over to the mound where Prophet was.

I sat in front of his grave with my head hanging low, replaying everything in my head again. I needed it to be etched into my memory, so I won't lose sight of what I was supposed to do. I had to keep my promise to Lady no matter what.

And when I reached the end of that line of thought, a sharp pang rose in my chest. And the image flashed again. I could hear it now. I finally remembered it.

~Weep not for roads untraveled

Weep not for paths left lone

'Cause beyond every bend is a long blinding end...~

"It's the worst kind of pain I've known", I murmured, while the image played out in my head with Lady mouthing those exact words as she laid there in a pool of her blood.

And so reliving that same memory over and over again, there I stayed till night engulfed that sky again.