Chapter — True Chaos
Kaosu's lesson began with a pebble.
He was insulted immediately.
Aoikishi held the tiny stone between two fingers.
Kaosu stared at it. "You're joking."
Aoikishi replied flatly, "No."
"I can destroy mountains."
"I know."
"I've punched people through moons."
"I know."
Kaosu pointed angrily at the pebble. "Then why am I looking at gravel?"
Aoikishi dropped it.
"Because you're wasting Chaos."
Kaosu's expression changed.
Raiyo quietly took another sip of coffee.
Kaosu stepped closer. "Say that again."
Aoikishi obliged him.
"You're wasting Chaos."
Nyxus whispered to Yamiya, "He's going to explode."
Yamiya opened her notebook. "Probably."
Kaosu's aura began crawling across the ground.
"I am the son of the God of Chaos."
"And you're still inefficient."
Raiyo coughed into his fist.
Kaosu snapped toward him. "You got something to say?"
Raiyo replied, "Nothing worth being killed over."
Aoikishi tapped the pebble with his shoe.
"You're creating accidents. Random failures. Bad luck. Collisions. You're treating Chaos like reality having a seizure."
Kaosu frowned. "It's Chaos. What exactly do you expect?"
Aoikishi looked directly at him.
"Precision."
That shut him up.
Aoikishi continued, "True Chaos isn't random. Randomness is ignorance with good publicity."
Nyxus nodded thoughtfully. "That sounded intelligent."
Raiyo glanced at him. "Don't hurt yourself."
Aoikishi ignored them.
"Passion creates intent. Intent creates consequence. Chaos is what happens when consequence refuses to remain proportional."
Kaosu looked down at the pebble.
Aoikishi said, "Stop creating accidents."
"Then what am I supposed to create?"
"Create one."
Kaosu looked back up.
Aoikishi smiled faintly.
"Then make it reproduce."
Kaosu touched the pebble with a thread of red energy.
It rolled.
The pebble struck another stone.
That stone entered a crack.
The crack widened.
A pillar shifted.
The pillar caught a cable.
The cable snapped.
A training drone changed course to avoid it.
The drone struck a support beam.
The support collapsed onto a water pipe.
The pipe burst.
Water sprayed across the field—
straight onto Nyxus's sandwich.
Nyxus stopped chewing.
Everyone looked at him.
Nyxus slowly lowered the sandwich.
"Kaosu."
Kaosu grinned. "Yeah?"
Nyxus stared at the soaked bread.
"I am going to kill you."
Aoikishi ignored the impending murder.
"Better."
Kaosu turned toward him.
Aoikishi gestured toward the destruction.
"You didn't select an outcome from multiple possibilities. You created one legitimate consequence and infected everything following it."
Yamiya understood first.
"The accident becomes the cause of another accident."
"Then another," Aoikishi said.
"And another," Yamiya finished.
Aoikishi nodded.
"Calamity Recursion."
Kaosu looked over the destroyed training equipment.
Then he smiled.
"I like it."
Raiyo sighed. "Of course you do."
Kaosu looked back toward Aoikishi.
Something was bothering him now.
"You talk about Chaos like you've used it."
Aoikishi said nothing.
Kaosu's eyes narrowed.
"My father doesn't even describe Chaotic Energy like this."
Aoikishi picked up another pebble.
"Your father isn't here."
That wasn't an answer.
Kaosu knew it.
And judging by Yamiya's expression, she knew it too.