A Space Oddity

by J. J. Pavlov

  Asoko's eyes widen at his wording. She has been agonizing over her place in this world. Knowing herself, Chaos would have shared the throne with her, but the truth is that she's the clone. Ultimately, her other half is the original whose identity is unquestionable.

  "As for the purpose of your existence, I cannot tell you." Lifting his arms to shoulder level, Mithra tilts his head slightly to emphasize that it's not up for negotiation. "All you need to know is that I am on your side, Chaos."

  This statement holds a much deeper meaning than it does on the surface, and Asoko is fully aware of that. He should know her name but still called her by the name two people with the same origin occupy in this world. With this, he's suggesting that sending her other half to space was also to help her.

  "What is your aim?" Hestia suddenly steps out of her corner and bristles her feathers menacingly. Her red eyes seem to be glowing in the relatively dim room.

  "Know that if your identity is exposed, you put both your lives in danger." As if ignoring the angel girl, Mithra addresses Asoko once more. "Your mother is prepared to eat either one of you who does not agree with her - or both - and then try again with her next child."

  At those words, Daica and Hestia exchange a confused and uncomfortable glance. It seems that they both can see the demon queen do something like that to her own children. But Asoko can tell that it's the truth.

  After all, Chaos told her that all their siblings either died during their journeys or turned rebellious. The latter were then eaten by Pelomyx as a matter of course, only for her to try again. That used to be an idea so out there for Asoko that she didn't even believe them although they came from her other half. However, she finally got confirmation.

  "I am willing to keep your secret." Mithra's tone doesn't suggest any malice, but that's all she can hear in it. "So, what will you do?"

  Chapter 89 - Woman In The Moon

  We're on approach to the moon.

  I don't know how long it has been since I've been launched, as neither Aurelia nor I have a proper internal clock. Still, it's most likely been about two weeks since my battle at the academy. It's hard to tell how fast one is going when there are no reference points. We passed the debris belt surrounding the planet a long time ago, after all.

  Though I say approach, it's been looming closer and closer without us ever seeming to reach it. That's a celestial body, and while it's much smaller than Mundia, it's still so big that a human-sized speck like me can't understand its sheer size. After all, the only way to judge an object's size for humans is to compare it to something else that they know well. Which is generally only one's own height or length of one's limbs.

  In all this time, Aurelia and I thought of various ways to return, but none were achievable with the methods at our disposal. We even considered using the monomolecular whips in the weapon called Vanadia's Will. Still, while it's incredibly long when each strand is bound together, it would barely reach a few kilometers in length.

  We were grasping at straws.

  I can cast magic inside my body due to being able to speak incantations in the atmosphere I'm keeping here. But I know no spells that could induce motion without using any matter that isn't already present. Water and earth magic are both useless when there's nothing to move, and fire and wind don't work in the vacuum of space.

  Aurelia doesn't have enough gold to replicate the funerary boat she used to fly through space. When I asked her why she can't make her own body fly, she admitted that for all the fine control over gold that she has, she's unable to do it with her own body. Mine can't be turned to gold through her abilities, or I would have taken off some mass to let her make a new boat out of it.

  Ultimately, we could only resign ourselves to heading for the moon. Maybe Mithra's gravity spell will lose its effect once we're there. Then I could try to propel myself back by physically launching myself off the ground. That's why we had plenty of time to talk about various things, and I asked her all kinds of questions.

  I learned that she initially went to the Dragon Mountains in the north of the Kingdom of Terminus. She wanted to settle down in a place nobody would ever step foot in for her self-imposed exile. However, once there, she realized that the true dragons didn't like company and attacked her. Not wanting to fight these majestic beings, she headed for the pharaonic nation of Ammenhotep instead, to hide away in the vast desert.

  Along the way, Fatas came to communicate the will of the false gods to her - Kael's first and foremost. He asked her to return to the throne of the kingdom and forget about the war. Orthum would even be able to create a new Vanadia for her.

  Aurelia would have killed the angels even though they only repeated what they had been told, but was able to hold herself back. She let her rage smolder at the mention of Vanadia's name, but would do as a volcano; bide her time and either cool into extinction or burst out in devastating fury.

  Finally, instead of sending more messengers, Kael sent Kiamedras to act as her watchdog and accompany her into exile. He was the oldest dragon in the world, but even as such, he was only a plaything of the false gods and unable to refuse their orders. If Aurelia ever showed signs of wanting to start another rebellion, he would act as a reminder that the false gods are watching.

  They ultimately settled down in the abandoned Castra Legionis. It had become obsolete now that it was located too far beyond the Mineva Republic's borders and fallen into disuse. There, she took to the catacombs and extended them, then gilded the very bedrock of the cliffs so that she would keep her mind honed and focused lest her new prison collapsed on itself. That way, her powers would never waste away from disuse.

  So Kiamedras was an underling of Kael's. I was worried that he, before his death, sent the Lord of the Sky information about Asoko and me. But Aurelia alleviated that fear by telling me that the elder dragon had decided to oppose his master as well. Knowing that he would only face death when doing so, he still chose to side with the Golden Queen should she ever rise to action again.

  "I'm sorry." I apologize once again when the topic reaches Kiamedras, as Aurelia tells me of the stories they shared and the games they played when many seasons passed without a single visitor.

  "He gave you no choice, and I did not either." The golden girl looks at me with a magnanimous expression despite the sadness in her gaze. Nothing will change about the fact that I killed the one being who was her only friend since Vanadia and the sole companion who had been with her for centuries. But if I hadn't fought then, I wouldn't be here now.

  "People should talk to each other more." With a sigh, I look at Aurelia across from me. Through talking, we've learned that we have no reason to be enemies. In truth, she only fought me as part of her trial to see whether or not I'm worthy to light her spark again. It was a hope she thought she had long since buried under the reality that the world is hopelessly within the grasp of the false gods.

  But I'm not from this world. Not only is my body foreign to this planet, but my mind is likely from another dimension entirely. And according to Aurelia, that's not because she knew about my grandma. Kiamedras was the one who spoke of a past age in which a star of extinction fell from the heavens carrying a living black mass.

  The creature spread across the lands and swallowed all living things, threatening to destroy humanity despite its technological advances. The false gods hail from that era, the last survivors from that terror they couldn't overcome even with their godlike powers.

  Kiamedras had fled far from where it spread, so he never witnessed how it was finally vanquished. But in his mind, there had been no doubts about its death because the world still existed. The slight discomfort felt by those with keener senses than humans - even when my body takes the complete genetic makeup of something else - tipped him off to my connection with that creature. They had called it Crawling Chaos.

  In other words, my grandma was the second coming of the terror, and my mother and I are remnants of it. I'm surprised that Mithra dealt with my grandma rather
than any of the false gods, and that Maou-mama was allowed to live for thirty years. Maybe they don't know what we are yet, and once they find out, they'll come for us with all they got.

  I also learned that Adano is only the latest in a long line of dark elves, all members of the Nomads of Ogin, who became her acolytes in exile. Kael and the others have total control over the high elves who live in a vast forest within the empire, so they forced them into silence about Aurelia's existence. However, they can't influence their nomadic counterparts through reeducation and falsification of records; after all, they have neither.

  But few dark elves ever care about the goings-on in the human realms, so they were left to their own devices. In Adano and his forerunners' cases, they were led to believe - by the Golden Queen herself - that they were providing her with entertainment. In reality, she was looking for somebody to either end her existence or give it a new meaning.

  "And he succeeded." Aurelia looks me in the eyes, her gaze filled with so many suggestions that I can't tell what exactly she's implying.

  "But for his deception, he paid with his life." I reply with a merciless verdict. "If he had told me about you, I would have arrived before you prepared."

  "For battle?" Tilting her head, the Golden Queen asks with a sardonic smile on her lips.

  "To speak with you." Not falling for her hook, I stand up and lean over her, causing her to look up with a questioning frown. Putting my hands on the armrests of her chair, which she created from her own incredibly long golden hair, I bring my face close to hers. "To help you."

  Aurelia's eyes widen in surprise as she regards me, her mouth flapping open and closed before she blinks once. Then she looks away, her cheeks reddening when she realizes her unbecoming expression. Finally, her gaze returns to meet mine after gathering her thoughts.

  "In what way?" Her eyes narrow ever so slightly, but it doesn't escape my notice. "Become a replacement for Vanadia?"

  "No." Nobody could ever replace the demon girl so dear to her, and I'm well aware of that. "Become an ally."

  "For what reason?" Aurelia doesn't hide her disappointment at my reply, undoubtedly thinking that I'm only saying what she wants to hear. Even though we've been able to see eye to eye in many things by talking them over, she's still wary. Her heart has been encased in gold, and she won't open it up so easily again.

  "For selfish reasons of my own." I put a finger under her chin and grin at her.

  "Fool." She turns her head away and doesn't deign to look at me further.

  I straighten my back and shrug with a wry smile, then walk back to the tentacle chair I sit my avatar down on. It's been a while since I last checked outside to see how close to the moon we are, so this is as good a time as any.

  Turning my mind to the body on the outside, I look around to find that I've entered a new debris field. However, this time, I'm not traveling inside a tunnel created by the gravity from Mithra's spell. In fact, the continent visible on Mundia is no longer Blereath, so I can't be moving in a direct line from it anymore.

  Just as I realize that, I find myself on a collision course with the wreckage of what appears to be a fighter jet. Unable to change my direction or slow my still considerable speed, I cover myself in dragon armor in the last second before slamming right into the machine. Instead of bouncing off, I crash through it, snapping its remains in half.

  It throws me into a spin, giving me a glimpse of the cockpit that has been smashed open due to the collision. From within, a person in a spacesuit emerges, the reflective visor sparing me a look of their face. That must be one of those who fought in the final confrontation near the moon.

  The remains of the battle were left here, maybe out of laziness, or as a reminder for Aurelia should she ever rise again. Or even as a sign for future rebels to realize the futility of their cause.

  Rapidly reforming my body to match my spin just like I did in that last battle in the academy, I regain my bearings. That's when I find that doing this has slowed down my momentum. Is this a way for me to move through space then?

  Pulling my mass through one extended arm, I move like the ameba I once observed under the microscope in biology class. I have no idea how physics in space works, but the fact that I could travel a distance this way reminds me of a nonsensical story where a man hoisted himself out of a swamp by pulling on his own collar.

  This can't be right.

  Taking my Crawling Chaos form, I unwind my tentacles and turn into a wiggling mass that seems to be connected everywhere and nowhere. I'm more liquid than solid, and when I will myself in one direction, everything flows toward it without a care for momentum.

  Does this mean I can move without a propellant? It would make sense considering my species comes from space. But Kiamedras talked about a star of extinction, which I assume is a meteorite on which the Primordial Crawling Chaos arrived on Mundia in ancient times. That suggests that it can only move by clinging to other things.

  Before I can think about it any further, I realize that I'm approaching the wreckage of a giant space ship. That should be one of those on Orthum's side, and it has quite the familiar shape, though I can't recall where I might have seen something similar before. In either case, with my newfound mobility, I can get past this.

  Actually, I can just get back to Mundia this way. There's no need to land on the moon first.

  "A visitor... here?" A female voice suddenly echoes in my head, causing me to snap to a halt - which works as intended. The eerily echoing reverb masks the tone quite a bit, but I can tell that it's not coming from Aurelia inside me. The words also imply that they only just now spotted me out here in space.

  I look around but only find debris as far as the eyes can see. Could somebody have survived the battle and lived here in space for the past several centuries? Maybe it's the ghost of a fallen since it's able to speak directly into my mind.

  "Oh, you are..." The voice speaks again, coming from everywhere and nowhere. Spinning around myself, I look through nonexistent eyes to try and spot anything that could be the owner of this voice. The fighter jet and the corpse of the pilot that emerged from it are hidden beyond other debris, but I doubt that's the source anyway.

  Then I somehow feel a presence near me and turn my body to look in the direction. Before me floats an upside-down woman wearing an oversized witch hat and flowing red robes. Her fanned-out straight long hair would have been invisible in the darkness of space if the moon were not right behind her. The inside appears to be a window into another galaxy, with distant but bright stars dotting the vista.

  When she comes closer, I see that her eyes are just like her hair, the view in both moving as she does as if they really are portals. Consolidating myself into a human shape, I tilt my head to find that they all give a glimpse into the same space.

  "Crawling Chaos." The woman speaks without moving her lips and approaches me with no visible means of propulsion. She knows my actual species name, unlike Aurelia and Kiamedras, so I'm instantly on edge.

  But judging by where we are, this can't be anybody but Fimbria, the Witch of the End. After all, as a remnant of the ancient advanced civilization, she would know about the Primordial Crawling Chaos.

  "What brings you to this graveyard of dreams?" She proceeds to ask, apparently not at all concerned that I'm from the same species as the creature that wiped out most of the old human race. Is that nihilism the reason she's the Witch of the End?

  I open my mouth but close it without speaking. Senka's telepathy should have prepared me for something like this, but I still subconsciously tried to talk physically.

  "I didn't come here because I wanted to." Shrugging, I look up at the galactic witch. "Are you Fimbria?"

  "Now that is a name I have not heard in a long time." She replies mysteriously, her blank expression unchanging. It doesn't look like she's putting on an act, so this is how she always speaks. "But call me Karina."

  "So, you don't deny that you're Fimbria." I scrutinize her face, which has the
distinct features of women from the kingdom. She reminds me of Ingrid, the guild master of Hovsgaerden. However, unlike the latter, who's a commoner, Fimbria - or Karina - looks like she would fit well into the backdrop of a royal banquet.

  "And what brings you here, Crawling Chaos?" She asks, her eerie voice turning unexpectedly pleasant. I know that she was on Aurelia's side during her rebellion, so she can't be a bad person, even if those eyes don't make her look very trustworthy.

  "My name is Chaos." I introduce myself with the name Maou-mama has given me in this world. After all, she's my mother from my previous life as well - the one who also named me Makoto. "And as to why I'm here... it's a long story."

  "It is a long way from Mundia." Karina replies without any sarcasm in her voice, but I can't hear it as anything other than that.

  "Before that, I got somebody here you might want to meet." With these words, I let my chest area bloom open into tentacles before pulling out Aurelia into the vacuum of space. It takes me a bit more effort to do that with her than with most other things I've brought back out before as she has hair that's longer than her own body. I put my arms around her waist from behind to prevent her from floating off into space. Then I direct her eyes up toward the Witch of the End.

  "Aurelia." The latter's eyes widen, and her mouth opens, revealing that it, too, is a portal to the same galaxy behind her eyes and hair. It's like she's the gate to another dimension, which is both fascinating and terrifying to imagine.

  "Fimbria." It seems that the Golden Queen already understands to use telepathy, as she doesn't even open her mouth to try and speak. I expected a more heartfelt reunion between two people who fought side by side before, but something feels off. "Where have you been all this time?"

  That's when I understand that Aurelia may have been waiting for Karina all along. She never knew what happened to the Witch of the End after their failed rebellion, but most likely didn't believe that she was killed for her treason.