Tales From The Kronos

"Have you ever wondered where we are?" The man with short black hair asked his friend, looking at the space beyond the window of the spaceship with his brown eyes. His friend, significantly shorter, stared at him with uncertainty.

"What do you mean? We're on board of the Kronos." The short man looked in the same direction as his friend, but all he could see was the space and the reflection of his feminine face on the glass.

"Not the ship, I know that. I mean, what's beyond? We're just orbiting around the sun, drifting forever, aimlessly."

The man and his friend stayed silent for a while, looking at the vastness of space. It wasn't unusual for him to ask these questions, but his friend never knew what to answer. A long moment took place before the short man received a message on his phone. He recognized the name instantly and showed the message to the man without losing a second.

"You'll think about time and space later Kairo, Leader is calling us."

"Again... It's happening more often lately..." The man stood up, annoyed to leave his peaceful break.

The ship was pretty large, so it always took a few minutes to get anywhere. Eventually, the two of them made it to their leader's office. She was never actually there, the only thing here was a screen on the wall where she would show herself, always with a mask on her face. No one knew why she was so secretive, but nobody ever had any problems with it and trusted her nonetheless. It took a few minutes before the screen turned on by itself, revealing the leader with her white mask.

"Kairo, Neige. If I called you here, it's because something terrible happened. It is of the utmost importance that you investigate what happened."

"Wait." Interrupted Neige, the short man "Silva isn't here, we can't go without her!"

"Do not worry." Assured their leader. "She has some... Unfinished business. I sent her a text with all the details, she'll come when she ready." The leader took a short pause to take a deep breath and continued with a serious tone "As you know, there have been multiple instances of perturbation in the universe. We identified someone traveling through space and time, but I checked, and it's not one of our members."

"Someone else? But I thought only us could travel through dimensions." Said Kairo, worried by the words of his leader.

"I thought so too, but this person is an anomaly, they were never supposed to exist. Thankfully, we managed to find her homeworld."

The screen that was showing the leader was now displaying a weird sequel of characters. -11081999x- It was the system they used to identify and travel through worlds. It always was a sequence of eight numbers, but it was the first time that a letter was added.

"There are Xs too now? It was already hard enough when we put letters in math! I already barely remember any of the Universe's name." Complained Neige at the sight of the numbers on the screen. After his short little tantrum, the leader continued.

"There is a reason behind the added X, and it's actually why this is urgent. As you know, among those parallel universes exist also other versions of you. Other Neiges, Other Kairos."

"Yes we know, you already taught us before... Can't you be direct?" The moment Kairo said those words, Neige gave him a hit with his elbow, gesturing him to be silent.

"Admittedly, but this time it's important. It seems that one of the Neiges lived in this universe. While he was supposed to survive, an unknown event caused his demise. It created two 11081999, one where he lived, and one where he died. It's the first time something like that actually happened."

"I suppose that this person traveling through dimensions is from the world where Neige died." Added the man, thinking about the strange situation. Neige on the other hand was feeling a bit weirded out to learn about the death of one of his other self.

"Indeed." Confirmed the leader. "I want you to investigate there, there is no need to blend in with the inhabitants of this world since there is none left. I will ask you to depart as soon as possible."

"Yes, Leader!"

"Yes, Leader!"

The two spoke in unison while saluting their leader before leaving to prepare themselves.

The two men both put on their uniforms, weapons, and tools and prepared to 'jump' into the other world as they called it. But after seeing the hesitation on his friend's face, Kairo decided to talk to him before jumping to their destination.

"Neige, are you okay? Is it because you learned about the death of one of your other selves? You know it happens often."

"It's not that." Neige looked at the watch they use to jump into other worlds "She said that the anomaly traveled through time. Do you think we could use it to change the worlds? We could end tragedy before they even happened!"

"Don't say that, our duty is to make sure the timeline is stable. No more, no less."

"I wonder if it's the right thing. Anyway, let's end it quickly, there are things I want to do with my day."

Their conversation over, the two friends set the world as their destination on their watches and traveled in it without losing more time.

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"C-C-Cold..." Observed Neige, desperately trying to warm himself.

They arrived at what appeared to be a small town, with snow everywhere. The town wasn't big, a few houses, a church, and that was pretty much it. But something else bothered Kairo, it wasn't the cold, it was the snowflakes. They were staying in the air like gravity was no more. Not only that, but this place seemed to be devoid of life, there was no inhabitant, but also no wildlife, nor wind. Kairo looked around while Neige desperately tried to warm himself. The man quickly noticed the state of his friend and tried to find a place to stay warm with him.

"Neige, let's go to the church."

"O-O-Okay..."

They made their way inside, it wasn't in a good state. The candles were broken, the windows fissured, and the walls burnt by something. Whoever this God was, his followers weren't focused on taking care of his church.

Neige was more focused on warming himself while Kairo looked around the church. He didn't find much more than some papers with drawings on it. He assumed it was from children since it was very poorly drawn. It featured a nun with long yellow hair and a girl with short white hair.

It didn't mean much, aside from the fact that people were here before. Next to the drawing was a book, inside were even more badly drawn characters, but also some writings. It looked like the owner of the diary was learning to write but the alphabet was different from the one the man used, making it impossible to read. The last page had a lot of words, all written badly in different alphabets. The only word he could read on it was 'Neige'.

Kairo took the diary, and went back to his friend, still freezing cold.

"You know, you need to get better with cold weather." Said Kairo jokingly to his friend, who answered by giving him a cold stare. But even though he was giving him the cold shoulder, Neige quickly noticed the drawing and the diary in Kairo's hand.

"What's that?"

"Oh, that. I found it in the hallways of the church. Looks, there's your name on it. Looks like whoever it belonged had a crush on you. I don't know what the other words around it are though." Kairo handed the diary to Neige. He knew more about languages than Kairo did, he just loved to learn about the culture in different worlds, and because of that, he was able to read the other words.

"So, you can read them?"

"Yes... But I don't understand, they all mean Neige. And all of these languages are from different worlds, so only someone that could go in other dimensions could write that."

"So... That means that the one that wrote this diary is the one we're searching for?" Kairo still couldn't believe that someone else could go through time and space. The writings and drawings were childish, making it even more difficult for him to believe in it.

"Yes, most likely." Confirmed Neige before looking at the drawing and pointing at the girl with white hair "I think it's the Neige from this world."

Kairo looked closer, trying to determine whether it was Neige's other self.

"Really? I mean you both look similar, and you look feminine, but not that feminine."

"Well I don't really think it matters, it's just-" Neige stopped suddenly after looking at the stained glass of the church. He pointed at it, making Kairo look at it too, and they both saw it. The snow was falling, like time continued its course. They were about to speak but got cut off by a voice resounding in the church.

~Neige? Is that you?~ Said an eerie, feminine voice in a calm tone.

Neige and Kairo both took their firearm in their hands and stood back to back, searching for the origin of the voice.

"Where are you? Show yourself!" Despite Kairo's order, the voice didn't obey. Instead, a sort of dark, slimy matter entered through the cracks of the window.

"We have to leave, we already have enough!"

Neige agreed with Kairo's words. They both tried to use their watches to get back to the ship, but a tentacle completely made of that dark matter came out of the ground and prevented Kairo from inputting the necessary numbers.

~Where are you going?~ Asked kindly the voice ~Can't you stay a little bit longer?~

"Neige! Run away, it must be the anomaly! We can't negotiate with it!" Kairo yelled at Neige, who stood there looking at him. There was no way for him to leave Kairo alone.

"Maybe she's not a bad person. Hey! We don't want you any harm, can you let us go for now?"

The voice and the dark matter stopped for a moment, leaving the two friends with hope before she continued talking

~Sorry, I've let you go too many times Neige. Today is the day when we're finally reunited, and nothing can stop us!~

The kind and soft voice suddenly became more aggressive while the tentacle wrapped harder around Kairo's arm. As a desperate measure, Neige tried shooting the dark tentacle, in vain.

"Neige, you have to leave!"

Saddened, Neige listened to his friend and started to input his destination into his watch. He knew he wouldn't be able to do anything by himself and needed to tell what happened to his leader.

~Are you really leaving!?~ Almost screamed the voice ~I thought you were heroic, that you would do everything for your friends!~

Those words were enough to make Neige stop to think. Was he really about to leave his friend to an uncertain fate? He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't notice that the dark matter was about to attack from behind.

"Neige! Behind you!" Thanks to this warning, Neige barely dodged the hit. But the voice wasn't from Kairo, it was from another person that he knew very well.

"Silva?" Asked Neige incredulity while looking at a girl with short red hair, who happened to be the third member of their group.

"I hope I didn't arrive too late!"