Chapter — Request Not Found
Aoikishi detected the Flick spike three hours before the sky broke.
He stared at the reading.
Then checked it again.
Yamiya Miekō noticed.
She lowered her notebook. "You checked twice."
Aoikishi looked toward her.
Yamiya continued, "You never check twice."
Kaosu stopped leaning against the wall. "What's wrong?"
Aoikishi closed the display. "I don't know."
Raiyo immediately looked up from his coffee.
Nyxus continued chewing.
Then Nyxus noticed everyone else's expressions.
He swallowed. "What?"
Raiyo said, "He doesn't know."
Nyxus shrugged. "Neither do I. Constantly."
"That's normal for you."
"Oh."
Nyxus thought about it.
Then his eyes widened.
"Oh."
Aoikishi opened a spatial divide beside himself.
Kaosu stepped forward. "I'm coming."
"No."
"You don't even know what it is."
"Exactly."
Kaosu frowned.
Aoikishi stepped halfway through the divide before Yamiya called after him.
"How long?"
Aoikishi glanced back.
"Not long."
The divide closed.
He didn't come back.
Three hours later, the sky disappeared.
At first, Kaosu thought it was an eclipse.
Then he realized eclipses generally didn't make galaxies move.
Every display inside ACT Headquarters ignited simultaneously.
Red warnings flooded the walls.
Yamiya ran toward the central terminal.
"What happened?"
Raiyo stared through the observation window. "Something arrived."
"That's not very specific."
"Look."
Yamiya did.
Then stopped.
Something incomprehensibly large was passing into their universe.
The terminal struggled to identify it.
Finally, one designation appeared.
CCMS FINAL AUTHORITY
Nyxus walked into the room carrying a honeybun.
"What's CCMS?"
Yamiya didn't look away from the screen.
"Continuum Concord Martial Service."
Nyxus looked outside.
"Oh."
The display changed.
LOCATION:
A-17-M-63-U-963
FOREIGN STRUCTURE DETECTED
IDENTIFICATION:CCMS FINAL AUTHORITY
CLASSIFICATION:PARTIAL STRUCTURAL FRAGMENT
COLLISION TRAJECTORY:CONFIRMED
Kaosu stared at one particular word.
"Fragment?"
Raiyo's expression hardened. "Apparently."
What approached them wasn't Final Authority.
It was a piece of it.
And that distinction somehow made everything worse.
The fragment's exposed span was approaching universal scale.
Its mass had stopped behaving like mass long ago. Space itself compressed ahead of it, entire galactic regions stretching around the approaching structure because ordinary geometry couldn't accommodate what was entering.
Stars moved without being touched.
Galaxies elongated.
Gravity began changing direction.
The universe wasn't being struck yet.
It was already suffering from having to make room.
Yamiya whispered, "Where's Aoikishi?"
Nobody answered.
Kaosu cracked his knuckles.
Raiyo looked at him. "Don't."
Kaosu's red aura ignited.
"You have something better?"
"No."
"Then shut up."
Kaosu disappeared.
The atmosphere detonated behind him.
He crossed the distance in a crimson streak, chaotic energy compressing around his right arm until space itself began stuttering.
Aoikishi's lesson echoed through his head.
True Chaos is precision.
Kaosu didn't spread the calamity.
He concentrated it.
One fist.
One consequence.
One impossible collision.
Kaosu screamed as he struck Final Authority.
The universe flashed red.
For an instant, countless possible outcomes collapsed toward the one Kaosu demanded.
BREAK.
The fragment moved.
Barely.
But it moved.
Kaosu's eyes widened.
Then every bone in his fist shattered.
The recoil tore through his wrist.
His radius fractured.
His elbow dislocated.
Kaosu was thrown backward, spinning through space before Raiyo cut the distance between them and caught him.
Kaosu looked down at his ruined hand.
Blood floated from his fingertips.
He smiled weakly.
"I moved it."
Raiyo stared at the approaching structure.
"Congratulations."
Kaosu coughed.
"Sounded sarcastic."
"It was."
Raiyo handed Kaosu toward Nyxus.
Then drew his sword.
Kaosu immediately protested, "What are you doing?"
"Better."
Raiyo vanished.
His blade appeared against the fragment.
"Microcut."
Space separated.
Distance separated.
Momentum separated.
Raiyo cut the relationship between the fragment and its destination.
For one glorious second—
the collision trajectory changed.
Raiyo smiled.
Then his sword screamed.
A fracture appeared near the guard.
His expression changed.
"No."
The crack raced upward.
"This blade doesn't—"
CRACK.
The sword shattered.
Raiyo stared at the empty hilt.
Kaosu, despite the bones sticking incorrectly beneath the skin of his hand, managed a laugh.
"Toothpick."
Raiyo turned.
"I will beat you to death with the hilt."
Yamiya walked past both of them.
"Move."
Raiyo looked at her.
Yamiya's eyes were fixed on Final Authority.
She raised one hand.
"Reduction."
Nothing happened.
Yamiya frowned.
She tried again.
"Reduction."
The universe flickered.
And suddenly—
she saw it.
Yamiya stopped breathing.
The fragment wasn't merely large.
It was complicated.
Spatial compression nested inside dimensional reinforcement.
Binary structures supported by causal redundancies.
Defensive systems validating other defensive systems which existed across mutually exclusive states.
Millions became billions.
Billions became numbers Yamiya couldn't comfortably conceptualize.
And beneath those were more.
She could simplify it.
She knew she could.
Yamiya clenched her fist.
Countless structures collapsed.
Her nose began bleeding.
Kaosu noticed.
"Yamiya."
She ignored him.
Billions of relationships became millions.
Her left eye filled red.
Raiyo stepped toward her. "Stop."
"Not yet."
Millions became thousands.
Blood slipped from the corner of her other eye.
The complexity fought back.
Not consciously.
It simply possessed so much information that reducing it was like trying to compress a universe through the eye of a needle.
Yamiya screamed.
Thousands became hundreds.
Blood filled her mouth.
She spat red onto the floor.
Nyxus stopped eating.
"Yamiya?"
She couldn't hear him anymore.
Her knees shook.
Hundreds.
Seventy-eight.
Thirty-one.
Twelve.
Her vision went black around the edges.
"Come on..."
Seven.
Yamiya collapsed onto one knee.
Four.
The fragment shuddered.
Kaosu's eyes widened.
"She's actually doing it."
Three.
Yamiya smiled through bloody teeth.
"Almost..."
Then she saw what remained beneath those three.
Another layer.
Then another.
Then another.
Her smile disappeared.
The apparent complexity she'd reduced hadn't been the structure.
It had been the structure's outer architecture.
Yamiya whispered, "Oh."
Reduction snapped.
Everything came back at once.
Yamiya vomited blood.
She hit the ground.
Nyxus caught her head before it struck the floor.
"Yamiya!"
Her eyes barely remained open.
She looked toward the approaching fragment.
"Too..."
She coughed.
"...complicated."
Then her eyes closed.
Kaosu looked at his destroyed hand.
Raiyo looked at his broken sword.
Yamiya lay unconscious between them.
Final Authority continued approaching.
The terminal screamed.
LOCATION:A-17-M-63-U-963
COLLISION:IMMINENT
ESTIMATED SURVIVAL:0%
Kaosu looked toward the empty place Aoikishi had disappeared from.
"Where the hell are you?"
Nothing answered.
For once, there was no blue flash.
No smug explanation.
No rod tapping against the floor.
Aoikishi wasn't coming.
Raiyo slowly sat beside Yamiya.
Kaosu sank against the wall.
Nobody had another attack.
Nyxus looked between them.
"Are we dying?"
Raiyo didn't bother lying.
"Yes."
Nyxus looked down at Yamiya.
Then Kaosu's hand.
Then Raiyo's broken sword.
Finally, he looked at his honeybun.
He took one last bite.
Kaosu stared at him.
"Seriously?"
Nyxus chewed.
"I paid for it."
The universe began collapsing.
Nyxus looked up.
And saw the request.
LOCATION:A-17-M-63-U-963
REQUEST:FINAL_AUTHORITY_FRAGMENT -> INTERACT WITH U-963
INTERACTIONS:SPATIAL_OCCUPATIONGRAVITATIONAL_DISPLACEMENTSTRUCTURAL_COLLISIONCAUSAL_OVERRIDECONTINUITY_DEFORMATION
SURVIVAL PROJECTION:0%
STATUS:AUTHORIZED
Nyxus stared at it.
Authorized.
That word again.
His eyes narrowed.
"No."
Raiyo looked toward him.
"What?"
Nyxus stood.
The code expanded.
And for the first time, something new appeared beneath it.
DENIAL CAPACITY AVAILABLE
CURRENT STABLE OUTPUT:10%
REQUIRED DENIAL THRESHOLD:8.73%
Nyxus blinked.
"Oh."
Kaosu looked over.
"'Oh' what?"
Nyxus smiled.
"I can do it."
Raiyo stared at him.
"Do what?"
Nyxus raised one hand toward something large enough to deform a universe merely by arriving.
His hoodie fluttered in the gravitational distortion.
The fragment filled everything.
Nyxus spoke.
"Access Denied."
ACCESS DENIED: 10%
REQUEST:FINAL_AUTHORITY_FRAGMENT -> INTERACT WITH U-963
STATUS:DENIED
LOGICAL VALIDITY:FALSE
SYSTEM RESPONSE:
REQUEST NOT FOUND
Final Authority struck the universe.
And nothing happened.
Not because Nyxus stopped it.
He hadn't.
Not because he'd destroyed it.
He couldn't.
The fragment continued moving at exactly the same speed.
It simply became logically impossible for it to interact with Universe 963.
Gravity attempted to transfer.
Denied.
Matter attempted collision.
Denied.
Space attempted displacement.
Denied.
Causality attempted to acknowledge that two structures occupied incompatible positions.
Denied.
Final Authority passed directly through them.
Kaosu watched an object of incomprehensible scale occupy the same apparent space as his own body without touching a single atom.
Raiyo slowly lowered his broken sword.
For several seconds, the universe existed inside Final Authority.
Then the fragment passed.
Stars returned.
Gravity stabilized.
Space unfolded.
Silence.
Nyxus lowered his hand.
Kaosu stared at him.
"What..."
Nyxus picked up the rest of his honeybun.
"...was that?"
Nyxus shrugged.
"Ten percent."
Raiyo's face went blank.
"Ten?"
Nyxus took another bite.
"Apparently."
Far beyond A-17-M-63-U-963, Aoikishi stopped walking.
He turned.
For the first time since leaving ACT Headquarters, the Flick reading he'd been following became completely irrelevant.
He had felt something else.
Something he had been waiting a very long time to feel.
Aoikishi smiled.
"So, it's waking up."